Disclaimer: Still wishing, but that don't make it so.
Improbable Cause
Chapter 6 – Dawning Realization
When she wakes the next morning and rolls over in his bed, she's sore…in lots of places. Her body protests the over-stretch to the tendons at the top inside of her thigh where Castle hoisted her leg up into that acrobatic pose worthy of the Kama Sutra; there's the bruised soft-tissue between her legs of course, and when she touches the bite mark on her clavicle, not only does it smart, but her wrists feel tender too from where Castle held on too tightly when he pinned her arms above her head.
Kate gets out of bed, gingerly, gives her sleeping partner a glance as she makes her way to the en suite to brush her teeth and use the bathroom. It hurts to pee, but she tries to ignore the sting in favor of focusing on the task at hand this morning - getting her boyfriend off a murder rap.
When she returns to the bedroom, she turns off the alarm on her phone. It's only 5.45am and still dark outside, so she crawls back under the covers to savor another fifteen minutes of warmth in Castle's bed before they have to face the day.
She lies on her side, lets her mind wander as she watches him sleep. His hair is adorably rumpled, his eyes are puffy, and his facial muscles are slack; lines erased, jaw shadowed with scruffy, dark stubble. She watches his chest rise and fall with every even breath, his large hands resting on his stomach, the smooth, perfect skin of his shoulders and arms laid bare on top of the sheets. God, how she loves him. The years they've wasted, the opportunities missed; they pain her every time she has a chance to look at him like this – unaware and unguarded. And the hurt she inflicted on him that summer after she was shot…
Kate closes her eyes to the uncomfortable memories. How will she ever make that up to him?
"Hey. You're awake," he mumbles, one eye cracking open to peer blearily at her.
His voice is rough with sleep, and he squints at the shaft of light coming from the bathroom, the light she left on to keep her company while she watched over him.
"You sleep okay?" Kate asks, leaning in to press a kiss to his forehead, smoothing his sleep-dampened hair back with her fingers.
"Mmm," he hums, palming the back of her head and stretching to kiss the side of her mouth as his eyes droop closed again.
Kate flinches as his hand lowers, fingers latching onto her shoulder, and his thumb accidentally presses down on the bite mark on her collarbone.
Castle feels her tensing up and pulling away from him, and his eyes pop open in confusion.
Kate looks guilty when his gaze roams her face, searching for an explanation for the hiss of pain she let out. When he sees the livid purple and red half-moon of teeth marks, he blinks in horror, does a double take, and then shakes his head at her, his brain in complete denial at first.
When Kate's hand comes up to cover the bruising, her eyes slowly rising to meet his, he sits up abruptly in bed, holding onto his head when a rush of blood catches him off-guard, a thumping headache blooming between his temples.
"Before you freak out," she says, "it looks worse than it is. I mean it's nothing really."
Castle has a hand over his mouth, and if she's not mistaken, he looks like he might be about to vomit.
"Do you feel okay?" asks Kate, kneeling in front of him, tenderly pressing a cool hand to his forehead.
"Do I…?" he splutters, pulling away from her touch, grasping her wrist as he does so, and his eyes widen in horror as he spots the bruising on the inside of her arm. "Kate, you have a bite mark on your collarbone and bruising on your wrists. Did I…? Did I do this?" he hisses, his eyes widening in dawning astonishment.
His voice is barely a whisper when he finishes his last question.
Kate nods slowly in response, but then she grabs his hand as he rears back away from her in disgust at his own actions.
"Rick. Rick, listen to me," she says, holding his face between both of her hands, looking into his eyes to get him to focus on the information she needs him to absorb. "You were a little out of it last night. A little stressed, I think. But nothing…I mean, nothing happened," she says firmly, trying to reassure him of the things he clearly can't remember.
"Nothing happened? How can you say nothing happened? Just look at you, Kate…"
"Castle, I gave you a hickey worse than this when we first…uh…"
"You have an impression of my teeth in your shoulder, Kate. I broke the skin. You probably need a…a tetanus shot," he stutters.
"You're not a canine, Castle," says Kate dryly, rolling her eyes at his dramatics.
"Eh, those are my canine's if I'm not mistaken," he replies, tentatively touching the skin near the wound site, apologizing profusely once again when she shrinks away from his touch. "Kate, I am so sorry. I don't know what came over me. I'm…"
He puts his head in his hands, closing his eyes in mortification.
"I feel like I'm living in the middle of a nightmare, and the only bright spot was finally having you on my side, believing in me. But then I wake up this morning and…this," he says, gesturing at her shoulder again before letting his hand drop heavily onto the bed.
"Castle, you've been under a lot of stress these last few days," Kate reminds him, lying back down in bed and patting the space beside her for him to join her.
He reluctantly gives in, laying down next her, and she quickly moves closer to rest her head on his shoulder, her hand pressed against his bare stomach. She kisses the warm place over his heart, trying to lavish him with love to take away some of the hurt and worry and guilt he's experiencing.
"You and I both know it's procedure, Castle. But having that intrusion into your home…not fun. And then top that off with the arrest…" she says, smoothing her hand up and down his arm to comfort him. "But we're going to fix all of that today."
"Kate, I'm not so sure…"
"We don't have a choice, Rick. And anyway, it's time. We have nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, quite the opposite. We've supported each other through a lot over the last four years…"
"But we have everything to lose by coming clean," he argues.
"No. No, not everything," says Kate, shaking her head so that her hair brushes back and forth across his naked shoulder. "So, worse case scenario, Gates forces you to leave the Precinct. We are about way more than murder cases and a close working partnership, Rick. This, what we have, it exists outside of the oxygen of homicide investigations and dead bodies now. We're building something here. At least, I hope we are?" she says, shifting her position against his chest until she can see his face.
"There's nothing I want more, Kate. You know that. But…"
"If this is about what happened last night, Castle, I will kick your butt."
"I assaulted you, Kate, and I can barely remember any of it."
"First of all, if you had assaulted me, you'd have come off looking a lot worse than I do. And second of all, the sex was a little rougher than normal, sure, but believe me, we both enjoyed ourselves. So can we just please focus on today; on what we're going to tell Gates and the boys to get you off this murder charge?"
Castle stays silent for a few moments. Somewhere during their back-and-forth he'd gathered her closer to him, his arms cradling her securely against his still sleep-warm body. Finally Kate feels him shift, and he presses his lips against the top of her skull in a silent, tender kiss.
"You know I would never hurt you, don't you?" he asks, carding his fingers through her hair. "Kate I love you so goddamn much it hurts to look at you some days. When I think about how I could have lost you or…or how we came so close to never knowing any of this…"
"I trust you, Castle. And we do have each other now. So…please try to put all of that out of your mind. I know it's hard. Look at me with my mother all these years later. But let's focus on what we do have, instead of what we almost missed out on, hmm?"
Kate feels Castle nod against the top of her head, and then he lets out a long, slow breath through his nose.
"Make breakfast with me?" he asks, a hopeful lilt to his voice.
"Only if you promise to clean out the juicer after," says Kate, rolling onto her stomach to kiss him gratefully for the effort she can hear him making. "I had orange pulp under my nails for the rest of day last time," she mock-complains, as they crawl out of bed together to start their day on a more hopeful note than the one before.
A/N: This was going to get way long if I carried on into the Precinct. So I promise that'll happen in the next chapter. I hope you enjoyed their early morning chat. Liv