She reaches into the microwave but jerks her hand back when the bag is much hotter than she expected. She forgot. She hasn't done this in a while. She blows cool air on her fingertips, about to cautiously try again, when there's an excited knocking at the door. She briefly wonders how exactly a mere knock can be classified as excited before remembering who's on the other side of that door. If there's anyone who could manage it, it'd be him.
"Hey, I made popcorn." She opens the door, moving aside as he makes his way in. She tries to peek into the plastic bag filled with what she thinks are DVDs but he seems to know exactly what she's planning, transferring it to his other side. Damn.
"Trying to sneak a peek at the selection for tonight?" Yeah, she's been caught. But she can't really bring herself to care, her curiosity winning in the end.
"Just trying to prepare myself for the inevitable suffering." She quirks her lips up in a teasing smirk, knowing that her eyes will tell him that she doesn't actually mean it. They always do, revealing more than she wants to say. Castle has been rubbing off on her in that way.
"Hey now, do not knock my tastes in fil – wait, you made popcorn?" A bark of laughter escapes her upturned lips as she makes her way into the kitchen, holding a hand out toward the microwave as if to tell him that he should see for himself. "Finally admitting that a movie night without popcorn is a sin, Detective?"
"More like I'm trying to spare my ears of listening to your whining all night. It's hardly a sin, Castle." She folds her arms over her chest, raising an eyebrow at him as he reaches in and takes the bag out of the microwave, holding it by the tip. She should've known that trick.
"It's the eleventh commandment, Beckett." He's making his way around her kitchen, pulling a bowl from a cabinet and dumping the popcorn in even as he pulls glasses from their own place. It strikes her exactly how much she likes this sight – him comfortably mulling about in her kitchen like he spends his days and nights here. That's not too far off, actually. "Thou shalt not have a movie night without popcorn. Just accept it."
"Never." He turns to her with narrowed eyes and she thinks he's going to throw their customary banter right back at her but instead he just holds out the glass of water he must have poured for her when she wasn't looking. When she was too busy daydreaming about seeing him making her breakfast in the morning before work, watching him scrambling around by the counter with his coffee sloshing out of his cup as he desperately searches for his keys. "Thanks, so what have you picked out for tonight?"
"I have two classic choices and I can't make up my mind so I've decided that even though it's my turn to pick I'll let you have the final decision. See how nice I am?" They've made their way to her living room, her carrying their glasses as he carries the popcorn and their movie choices.
He still won't let her see them. Damn him and his love of surprises, particularly surprising her. She thinks that he just likes torturing her, playing with her until she can't take it anymore. But then her mind goes in an entirely different direction that has nothing to do with popcorn and movies so she likes to stay away from that particular thought.
"If I'm going to decide then you're gonna have to show me the choices at some point." She makes another grab for the bag after setting down their waters but he just pulls it out of her reach yet again.
"Patience, young padawan."
"Geek."
"You like it." She does. It's adorable. But she's not going to tell him that.
"I believe you have that backwards. You love it when I bring up comic books and spaceships." Raising an eyebrow, she gives up on trying to see what he's decided that their choices are and plops down on the couch. He sets the bag down on the ground, rooting through it for the movies.
"That's true. It's sexy as hell." She rolls her eyes even though he's not facing her, holding in the laugh that wants to be let out. "Okay, so these are the choices for tonight." He turns back to her and holds up the movies. This time she can't help but let that laugh loose.
"You really couldn't decide between the two, Castle? Casablanca and Elf?" She raises a hand to cover the smile she can feel forming as he pouts at her, looking positively affronted.
"I'll have you know that these are both classics." Shaking her head at him, she takes the DVDs from his hands and examines them.
"I cannot believe you're putting Elf in the same league as Casablanca. That is a sin." She feels the couch dip as he sits down, shuffling around and getting comfortable because he's Castle and he's absolutely incapable of sitting still. She smirks when she hears him start moving pillows around.
"Just stop teasing me and decide." She looks up at that, eyebrows rising.
"Oh, and now you're ordering me around?" She narrows her eyes at him and by the way his face pales slightly she's pulling off a stern look nicely.
"Please stop teasing me and decide?" It comes out as a question as he braces for a smack to his chest or a twist of his ear. She doesn't do either of those things, instead choosing to pat his knee as a sign that he did well and finally put him out of his misery.
"We're watching Casablanca." He grins as he hops up before she can, snatching the disc from her grasp and setting it up.
[][][]
She glances over at him again, noticing that his gaze hasn't returned to the screen. He seems to have stopped watching the movie a while ago, instead choosing to stare at the wall. Huh. If he didn't want to watch the movie then why the hell did he pick it? He knows not to waste his turns to pick.
Turning back to the movie, she decides to let him continue to study the wall if he really wants to. She's not going to push him. If something is bothering him, he'll come to her eventually. When he's ready. She's willing to respect that distance and wait given the amount of waiting he's done for her.
He's been waiting for her for years. Waiting for her to man up and gather the courage to give into what she wants. Waiting for her to realize that locking herself away from the world and throwing away the key isn't the solution. Waiting for her to repair her heart.
Yeah, she's willing to wait. It seems tiny and insignificant but it's just another way to thank him for not giving up on her, for not moving on. She knows it must be hard on him, standing there resolutely as she slowly struggles to catch up. So this is just another small way of subtly repaying him, of showing him that if he's willing to do it then so is she.
She hears him shift next to her. She noticed a while ago that when something is bothering him it makes it even harder for him to stay still and when she glances at him out of the corner of her eye she finds that he's staring at her now, seemingly studying her face.
She feels a fluttering in her stomach even as heat travels to her cheeks. Goddamn, she's blushing. She's gone from finding it creepy when he stares at her to loving the way his eyes seem to trace the line of her jaw and memorize the way her lashes brush her cheeks when she blinks. Goddamn it.
"Kate?" She feels her blush deepen at the sound of her first name passing his lips. That's a much more common occurrence recently but she's not used to the hesitant yet reverent way he's just said it in the quiet darkness of her living room, the only other sound the soothing notes of a piano and a man's voice singing about time passing by. Yeah, this is not a setting where he's used her first name before.
"Yeah?" She turns her head to look at him, finding an expression that perfectly matches his voice – hesitant yet reverent.
"Your mother's murder board." Oh. Oh. He always was too observant for his own good.
"What about it?" Play dumb. Prolong the inevitable.
"Stuff is missing." She looks away from him, instead setting her gaze on her fidgeting hands as they rest in her lap. Her bottom lip finds its way between her teeth as she worries it.
"Yeah." She doesn't want to have to explain this to him. Not now. The only one who knows about it is Dr. Burke and that's only because it was partly his idea. She thought she'd have more time, but did she think that he wouldn't notice it when it's sitting there completely open for him to see? She just can't bring herself to close it. Not yet.
"Why?" She doesn't answer him, at least not with words. She turns her head back to him, lets her eyes tell the story. She knows that's answer enough. She knows he'll understand. She doesn't know how, but he always does. "You're taking it down." His eyes widen as the weight of that statement hits him, his body staggering back a bit as if something actually collided with him.
"Yeah." She has to stop it with these one-word answers that don't give anything away. He deserves more from her. Hell, he deserves more than her but for some reason he refuses to see that. He deserves to be let in. "I'm trying to let go of it." She didn't think it was possible but his eyes widen further.
"Kate," she studies him as he tries to gather his thoughts, "she's your mother."
"No, I'm not letting go of her, Castle. I'm letting go of the case." She knows that's a tough distinction to make for him because it was just as hard for her. Her mother had turned into that case, a harmful juxtaposition that had kept her from living for far too long. No more. That case is not her mother. Her mom is much more than a few files and an ache in her heart.
"Why?" She knows he's not trying to stop her, he just can't figure out why she'd do let go of the one thing that has defined her entire life since that night. Her heart breaks at the confusion in his voice, the furrow of his brow that she just wants to smooth with her fingers. He knows that this case is a huge part of the wall keeping them apart, and yet he still doesn't understand why she wants to stop letting it control her. He puts her before himself. God, this man. This stubborn, infuriating, all too wonderful man. She doesn't deserve him.
"Because I need to. I need to get out from under it, stop letting it run my life. I've let it drive me. I've let it define my life. But I refuse to let it keep me from living. Not anymore." She reaches out and rests her hand on his knee, willing him to understand. She wants him to understand. She doesn't quite understand why, but she needs him to know.
"So you're letting it go." His eyebrows are still knit together, but he seems to be getting it. "You're letting your mom's case go." He says it again, testing the words on his tongue as if he can't quite believe them but he's trying. She can tell he's trying.
"I'm trying to be different, more than what I am. I'm trying to be whole." Because only giving you half my heart isn't fair. He reaches out and rests his hand on top of the one she's placed on his knee, squeezing as he sends a tentative smile her way. He understands. He gets it. For some reason, that thought lets loose a megawatt grin that she can't even begin to try and suppress.
"I'm gonna be whole." I'm gonna give you all of me.
As some of you may have guessed from some of the lines in this chapter, this story was partly inspired by the song All of Me by Matt Hammitt (I may have resolutely ignored the fact that he wrote it about his son). If you wanna check it out, I'll put the song up on my Tumblr (link in my profile) so that anyone who wants to listen to it can do so.
Review? Please?