Insecure

Okay, um. Still waiting.

Kate pushes her hair back over her ear and chews at her lower lip, then checks her phone again. No new notification, but she checks the messages anyway and-

No.

Hmm. Okay. Well.

She can wait at home too. Get out of the precinct. It still kinda reeks of the undead. (Prosthetics, stage makeup, fake blood.)

Kate gathers her phone, slides it into her jacket pocket. Then she finally turns off her monitor; it's been logged out for an hour now. She doesn't want to get caught by Gates and have paperwork added onto her already teetering inbox.

Kate has work to catch up on, but she doesn't want to do it. Lots of zombie interview statements. But she only wants one zombie and-

But he hasn't texted her yet so. . .

So yeah. She can wait at home just as easily.

Kate grabs her bag finally, swings it over her shoulder, and heads slowly for the elevator. Her place is - after all - closer to his. If they - if he even wants her to - well. Just.

Go home, Kate.

Okay. Still waiting?

Yeah.

Because this could be a test, maybe? And she doesn't deserve that, but maybe he needs it after all this confusion. Yeah, actually, it could be he's testing to see if she really will wait for him like he's done for her and if she does, then it affirms that he heard her right and he's not missing the point. And.

Okay, so she's still waiting.

Kate sighs and debates her closet. She's itchy - stage make-up irritating her skin - and she wants to change out of her work clothes, get into something more comfortable-

Oh. Oh not like-

Shit.

Okay. Slow down, Kate. This is just-

Ah. This is just Castle. And dinner. If he ever calls.

Maybe he forgot?

Oh, yeah. He's - what did he say? Playing laser tag with Alexis, and of course, he got totally sucked into it and they could be - who knows? - up all night and laughing and having fun doing whatever it is they do when two adults are playing laser tag and-

It sounds fun. And now she's standing in her shirt and underwear in her closet and all wistful about acting like a child in laser tag gear but-

Oh, it does sound-

Happy.

But she's here in her closet and she needs to make a decision.

Kate grabs jeans and a tshirt, then changes her mind and throws the tshirt back. Purple shirt instead and now black leggings. Just in case he - well, she's got to stop getting her hopes up for things that she's put too much emphasis on without telling him because it's just killing her when he-

Yeah.

Kate sheds the rest of her clothes and pulls on something comfortable, choosing at the last minute to go with yoga pants which she can still wear out if it's just Remy's or his loft even and she won't have to change out of her pajamas really.

Straddling the line this way.

She stretches her arms over her head, yawns, tries to relax.

No such thing as zombies. Fact. And she somehow told Castle what he apparently needed to hear even without her having to - to really get into it too deep. So. Everything is right in her world again.

But he still hasn't called.

Kate slides into her bed and picks up her phone from the bedside table. It's nearly eleven, and she's tired, but also not tired, and she wants to just get this over with.

Maybe he meant, yeah, in the future sometime, someday, he's there. But right now, he's - he's doing fun and uncomplicated? Like laser tag and stewardesses.

Oh.

Yeah, that could be true.

She's not very - she's a mess of complications. And that would make sense - everything these last few weeks and just - the way he's stepped back and protected himself. Isn't that what her therapist called it? Yeah.

Honestly, it might be better for him if he did. Keep him from getting hurt by her. She hurts him and doesn't even know it, apparently, so-

Her phone jumps in her hands and she gasps, heart pounding, scrambling to answer it.

"Kate."

"Kate?" he laughs. "Since when do you answer your phone like that?"

She tries to gather her wits and draws her knees up to her chest, pressing her forehead against her knees. "Since it's nearly eleven and no one from work better be calling me about a body."

"You saw my ID, didn't you?"

She doesn't say that she answered it before she could even look because that would be really pathetic, wouldn't it?

"Kate?"

"Yeah," she breathes through it, moves on. "You win epic laser tag?"

"Yessss," he draws out. "So won. But uh - we started a new game. She's choosing Columbia, and I promised to try to give her space. Oh, and it's nearly eleven. You said that. I lost track of time."

"That's okay-" Columbia?

"You already ate, didn't you? Damn. That's okay. I'll just - we can talk-"

"I haven't eaten," she says quickly, then winces at her eagerness. And oh no, she just basically told him she spent all night waiting. Didn't she?

"You waited for me," he murmurs.

Yeah. She did.

"And now I'm starving, Castle," she says, trying to get back on even ground.

"What are you wearing?"

What. What is she. What is she wearing?

"It's too late to go most places, but if you're - oh."

She laughs a little breathlessly as he finally gets it.

"Oh. Well. Yeah. Um, Kate? Anytime you wanna speak up and either tell me or tell me off, that would be good."

"Yoga pants and a purple shirt," she says, still on a laugh, something fluttering in her chest.

"Ah. Yoga pants are not acceptable dinner attire."

"Why not?" she says, indignant, lifting her head from her knees.

He huffs. "I meant - out. Or well, you can wear whatever you want out. But since you're already - okay, screw it. I was just gonna use that as an excuse to either have you come over here or let me come over there. For dinner, I mean. At home."

She can't keep the slow smile from spreading across her face. "Yeah." At home.

"Yeah?"

"Where, Castle?"

"Are you too comfortable to move?"

"I can move."

"Come over here, then," he says, so softly that her skin erupts in goosebumps.

"Castle?"

"Will you?"

"Yeah. But you better feed me well."

What is she doing?

This can't be a date. They can't do dates. She can't do dates. Not with him. It's too much. Too important and she is going to - this is going to mess up if it's now, if it's while everything isn't clear and the grass is still so green in that cemetery and her mother's blood so fresh in that alley and crying out to Kate from the ground-

"Kate," he says.

The door is open; he's standing on the other side and smiling at her. And happy.

She gets pulled inside by the magnetism of that happiness, held out like a beacon and welcoming.

And warm.

"What did you make me?" she asks, letting him take her jacket. He just kinda tosses it to the couch, and she wonders if that's a sign that she shouldn't stay long. Or maybe that she should be so at home that she makes herself comfortable?

"I - I didn't," he says, turning wide eyes to her. "Was I supposed to? I just ordered in."

"From where?"

"That Chinese place-"

"Oh, no. That's perfect," she says, presses her hand to her stomach to dampen the growling.

Castle smirks at her and nudges her towards the kitchen island where he's set everything up.

Take out Chinese sitting on the bar stools at his counter isn't a date. Not in yoga pants. Not with his hair sticking up straight off his forehead like he's been all sweaty and running around, playing laser tag and generally making a wreck of things.

It's still okay. They're okay.

"So next time I suggest an otherworldly explanation for our killer, you are going to-"

"Not going to happen," she says quickly, loading her plate with lo mein and orange chicken and snap peas. "No such thing as zombies or ghosts or mermaids, Castle."

"Who do you think saved your life in the Hudson River if not a mermaid?"

She turns her head to him, chest caught by the feeling that blooms in her. "You."

"I'm no mermaid."

"But you did save my life."

He must hear it in her voice because he pauses, his eyes roam her face, and then gives her that little pleased smile, like it means something more now than it did then. It doesn't. There's no way it could because she's been here doing this with him the whole time.

"Still. I predict mermaids are next," he says, and even though his voice is quiet, it's rich and tenored too, so that it fills up all the spaces in her.

"Sure, Castle. Right. And after that, vampires?"

"We already had vampires."

"Oh, true. Yes-"

He gasps, making her startle, but the comedy on his face only has her laughing at him, shaking her head.

"No. I wasn't agreeing with you that they were vampires. You know it was just that sun allergy disease and people filing their teeth. And plain old murder."

"I know," he says, but oh, he sounds so pleased with himself. So smug. It shoots through her like arousal, and she can't help but crowd close to him at the container of fried rice, hold her plate out for some as he digs the spoon in.

He sighs dramatically at her but dishes out a serving right next to her orange chicken. She grins and grabs a fork from the counter, then sits down, waits on him to get done and sit beside her.

The stool isn't that close, but he manages to maneuver it in right against her. Their knees are together, thighs warm against each other, and his elbow keeps poking over into her space as he eats.

It's all an invitation. Everything. From the actual invitation to come over for dinner at his loft, to the press of his leg against hers, it's an invitation.

She longs to curl her body at his side, her chest pressed flat to his back, her cheek at the top of his shoulder and just accept it. She craves it.

But she can't do it.

There's just - still too much left undone, too much left unsaid, and if she can't even say it, say the things that need to be said and also be able to promise him a life when her mother's case isn't even close to over, then it's not fair to drape herself against him like some kind of fun and uncomplicated stewardess.

Not when she's complicated and dismal and still walking the fine edge between put together and falling apart.

She's got no faith in herself in this. And she needs to at least be certain of her own stupid self - because, be honest, it's not like she can truly trust him to be good at this either. Two divorces and his first instinct when he's hurt is to act petulant and closed off and flaunt fun and uncomplicated in her face in the forms of Slaughter and Stewardess?

"Hey, Kate. You're thinking too hard."

She lifts her head from the plate and stares at him, mouth opening but nothing coming out.

He looks like he wants to say more too, but he doesn't. Instead, he places his fork down on his plate carefully and reaches across the infinitesimal space between them and curls his hand over the one in her lap.

"Not doing this alone," he says quietly.

And he could mean anything. Any of it. Her mother's case, the wall, the therapy, their dinner, the job, life, and the thing is, she knows exactly what he means.

He means the wondering.

The doubts.

The hesitations and half-steps and turn arounds and the figuring stuff out.

And so she leans in and presses her flushed cheek to the cotton of his shirt, just over the wing of his shoulder blade, and she rests there against him.

His hand over hers flexes and then his fingers are trailing down the inside of her thigh to her knee and somehow, somehow drawing her ever closer.

When Kate finally opens her eyes, her gaze is drawn up along the line of the stairs to the girl standing there quietly, watching them from above.

Alexis doesn't wave, but their eyes meet and the girl gives Kate the faintest mere flicker of her mouth, before turning slowly and disappearing down the hall.

Kate closes her eyes again, tilts her forehead into his shoulder, tries to keep it from breaking her wide open.

And even still, even now.

She can't say the things that need to be said.

To anyone.