Let me just start by saying how impressed I am by how many of you got my Gilmore Girls reference. You are all officially awesome. Considering that Gilmore Girls and Castle have almost nothing in common besides really well-written dialogue and a strong female main character with a coffee addiction, it's cool that so many people apparently really like both of them.
So this chapter almost didn't happen. Which would've been really stupid because it was already written... but I briefly lost all confidence in this story as a whole and I really just didn't want to work on it anymore. But after reading a few really amazing reviews, (Reggie, you're awesome. Just so you know. Actually you're awesome twice, since I know the Gilmore Girls thing applies to you also. :P) and then re-reading this chapter and realizing it didn't suck nearly as much as I thought it did, (I actually really like parts of it. I won't say which parts because one, this note is at the beginning of the chapter and I don't want to give anything away, and two, I'm curious to see if you guys like the same parts as I do without influencing you) the confidence is back. To everyone who reviewed, thank you! Annnd I hope you continue to do so (hint, hint?). And now without further ado... chapter four. Hope you like it!
Although she hadn't exactly expected for him to show up at her doorstep, part of her wasn't surprised when he did. When she'd called Montgomery early this morning, giving him her feeble excuse, there had been the shadow of a voice in a back corner of her mind telling her that Castle would wonder. And when Castle wondered, he investigated. And when Castle investigated, he got answers.
This week had been unusually tough, between the miserable cold rain, the string of difficult cases, her breakup with Josh on Sunday, and the fact that in an effort to avoid talking about it, she'd been holding herself more distant than usual from everyone in her life.
The truth was, she was embarrassed. She'd really thought she and Josh had something good. She loved being with him, and she'd thought he felt the same way. But then after their date on Sunday night, he'd politely ended it, giving no reason other than that he "just didn't think it was working." She didn't want her colleagues to know she'd been so caught off guard, that, frankly, she was as upset by this as she was. She didn't want Lanie to know she'd had yet another failed relationship. She didn't want Castle to know that she was now single when he was not. And the way things tended to work at the precinct, if one person knew, everyone would find out.
So every day this week, she'd buried herself in the casework that part of her was glad just kept coming, studiously returning Castle's quips and trying to act like everything was perfectly normal. On some level she knew that she couldn't keep her secret forever, but she was going to try for as long as she could. She hoped that maybe, by the time anyone figured out what had happened, it wouldn't be such a big deal to her anymore.
She'd been caught up in her routine: bury herself in work, get home, order in, and relax a little while still thinking about the case, and then fall asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow. So much so, in fact, that until this morning the date seemed of very little significance. But when she'd seen the date this morning, the one that had stuck in her mind, haunting her for so many years, her heart had sunk to a whole new low, and for more reasons than any other year. She wouldn't, couldn't go to work today. Part of her wanted to, but she knew she wouldn't be able to avoid being distracted, which, in her line of work, was bad on a number of levels. For one, cases couldn't be solved if she wasn't fully concentrated. For another, on the wrong day, distraction could be deadly.
She found that on this day that she specifically reserved as one that she spent alone with her grief and her mother's memory, she had very little interest in being alone. She didn't want the quiet stillness that she basked in every other year. It would give her too much opportunity to think, something she'd been carefully avoiding all week.
But this day wasn't supposed to be pleasant. It was supposed to be sad. If it was anything else, she'd feel like she was disrespecting her mother's memory, and that was the last thing she ever wanted to do. So even if being alone was uncomfortable, it was necessary. If someone was there with her to dispel the quiet, even take the edge off of her pain… wouldn't that be disrespectful?
Even if she could manage to justify not being alone, she could think of no one she actually wanted to be with. Until she heard his voice coming through her door.
At first, she had frozen. She knew that today she was a complete mess in so many different ways, and she didn't want for him to see this side of her, though it was a side that never emerged more than once a year. Her instinct was to remain silent, hoping he would think she wasn't home. When she found that her plan wasn't going to work, and she began having visions of him sitting outside of her door all night long, she knew that she had to answer it. And once she answered it, she knew she had to explain everything. At least, some version of everything.
But now that she had, he was still there, not making eye contact, in fact not even looking at her besides the occasional stolen glance. At first she'd thought that he was repulsed by the sight of her this way, with her swollen face and lack of any makeup or a decent-looking outfit, hair knotted and sticking out in a million directions. Usually he was the one studying her, and it was odd that now the tables were turned. He was averting his eyes while she studied him, watching every tiny contraction of the individual muscles in his face, the way the skin just above his eyelids formed a little extra fold, and his eyebrows were knitted, deep creases between them. She'd known him for long enough that she could distinguish the meanings of most of his expressions, and this one was not disgust. It was pain.
This felt wrong on so many different levels, especially after a good five minutes passed and he didn't say a thing; in fact, he barely moved. "Castle, what's wrong?" she finally asked him after she couldn't take it any longer. She was aware of how strange the question sounded coming from her, her voice still thick with tears that wouldn't stop coming, a physical reaction to the emotion of the day. It was like her body responded on its own, without even communicating with her brain. Her internal calendar knew what today was and what significance it held.
His gaze came up and met her eyes again, and he didn't say anything for another long moment. When he finally did there was force behind it, and it surprised her so much that she jumped a little. "You're kidding, right?"
"What?" She couldn't have been the thing that was causing that face—could she?
"You," he responded, directly answering the question she hadn't voiced.
She sighed. "Castle, it's one day. I'm okay."
"No you're not," he said, getting angry, of all things. "You're absolutely not. I work with you every damn day, Detective Beckett, and this? This is not okay."
She wasn't really thinking clearly today to begin with, and now he was confusing her. Why, in what should've been a very informal situation, had he called her "Detective Beckett"? Why was he so upset? And what, now, was making him angry? "What do you want me to do?" she finally asked.
"Let me do something. Anything. Tell me to leave. Tell me to stay. Tell me to bring you something, or drive you someplace. I don't care. Let me at least feel like I'm doing something to help, even if I'm not. I can't just sit here watching you suffer for much longer. I can't handle it. I can't."
She didn't know how to respond to this side of Castle. She had certainly never seen it before. But his plea was so desperate, so real, and so touching that she had to grant it in some way. And she couldn't find it within herself to tell him to leave. She didn't want to be alone, but she didn't want to talk. She didn't want him to talk. She didn't want anything material that he could get her. But she also didn't want his face to be so twisted and contorted, for him to look so broken.
She slid toward him ever so slightly, giving him the smallest invitation. His hand started to move toward her, and just as he looked like he was about to stop it, she gave a little nod, granting him permission. His arm gained a little speed, reached above her head, finally coming down to rest, softly, gently, on her opposite shoulder.
The feeling of his hand, strong and warm, on her shoulder was comforting, but not in a way that seemed at all disrespectful to her mother's memory, as she'd feared it would. It neither stopped her tears nor increased them. It merely made her feel less alone.
And that was exactly how she wanted to feel.