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Chapter Four.
A wise woman once said...
Twenty minutes isn't really long enough for what she needs to do, but Lanie can work with it. Of course she can, she's gotten them this far with barely more than anger, frustration and a plan she will readily admit was mostly fuelled by wine and some pure personal determination to see her friends happy.
Before she lost what was left of her patience and killed one of them.
Between the three of them they have already managed to get Kate to drink one and a half of the lethal looking green things Martha has concocted. Lanie knows her friend can hold her alcohol, but she's already swaying just a bit.
Lanie makes a grab for Alexis as the girl exits the kitchen "Little Castle what the hellis in those drinks?"
"I have no idea," Alexis states eyeing her Grandmother and wrinkling her nose. "But I can smell Grams from here."
"I said I wanted to loosen her up," Lanie growls "I meant tipsy not catatonic."
Her phone beeps again, and Alexis peers over her shoulder. "Dad on his way?" She asks in a hushed whisper that makes Lanie smile as she nods her confirmation that he is indeed headed towards the loft. Hopefully riled up enough that his conscience and his heart will over ride his pride and set him back on track.
The man has been a confrontational and distant ass of late, hurt or not his behaviour is driving Lanie crazy.
"Boys coming back?" Alexis asks with a teasing tone and leading smile that are just so very Castle, the fun good natured version, that Lanie barks out a shocked laugh.
"No," She shrugs, shaking her head "the cowards decided to make their escape for the night."
"Ahh so are they scared of...?" Alexis tips her head towards Kate in the kitchen. "Or..." Alexis lets her eyes dart to Lanie before she can stop herself, her cheeks flushing pink as her meaning is made clear.
"Yeah, lets breeze past that shall we." Lanie laughs pulling the girl close and turning them both back towards the kitchen "We need to get cracking on the deluded Detective over there."
The two make their way back to the kitchen, to Martha and Kate who are chatting at the counter. Lanie pulls herself up straight, she's going to need her full height, the full force of her ability to crack through her friend's crap and make her see sense.
"So Kate." Lanie says shuffling into the stool and levelling her with the full force of her wide-eyed stare "What's up with you and writer boy?"
Kate shakes her head looking at Lanie with her eyes wide "I don't think that this is the tim..."
"Writer boy?" Martha laughs before turning her attention to the pink flushed face of the Detective opposite her, "What a…delightful nickname." She snickers sarcastically before reaching across the counter to both pat Kate's hand and refill her glass. "What is up?" Martha looks to Lanie for confirmation she has gotten the phrasing correct before she proceeds "With you and my son?"
"Dad's been...off." Alexis states, her eyes narrow and they all wait in awkward silence for Kate to speak.
Lanie prods her friend, waiting until he catches her eye before tilting her head "You said he's been pulling away right? Maybe if we talk about it, we can work out what's..."
Kate lifts her head and stares at Lanie, understanding and suspicion washing across her face. Despite behaviour to the contrary, especially where a certain writer is concerned, Lanie knows her friend isn't stupid. Lanie watches her eyes narrow before she sighs and her gaze drop back down to her drink.
"It's my fault." Kate says swirling the green liquid in front of her, and much to Lanie's relief not putting it anywhere near her mouth. She doesn't want the woman on the floor before Castle gets here.
What happens afterthe two of them talk however...
"You're right Lanie, I waited too long."
"For what?" Martha asks winking at Lanie.
"To tell him." Kate says swirling the drink again, still refusing to meet his mother's eye.
"To tell him what?" Lanie queries, really trying not to bite the woman's head off as she leads her through her internal revelations as quickly as she can. Lanie huffs out a breath because it's really hard not to draw attention to the need for speedy responses and the fact she is on somewhat of a deadline.
"That I heard him say he loves me." Kate shakes her head "God I'm an idiotLanie."
"Preaching to the choir sweetie." Lanie states, smiling angelically and ignoring Kate's eye roll.
Martha and Alexis work to catch Lanie's eye when Kate stares back down at her drink again, losing herself in the luminescent liquid.
Lanie nods her head at Alexis, her eyes opening wide with a flash of meaning before she nods back to Kate.
They need to tag team, keep up the flow and keep her talking. They need to not let her think too much about her responses. They really need her to just start blurting things out.
"So why didn't you tell him?" Alexis asks quietly, gently, as Lanie smiles. There is a softness behind her eyes, when Kate looks up, so kind and familiar that it draws her in and she starts to talk.
"I wasn't ready." She says simply "I would have screwed it up."
Lanie bites her lip, forcing herself not to comment on how ironic that statement actually is.
"But you're ready now?" Martha asks leaning forwards, a hopeful but cautious smile greeting the younger woman who finally lifts her head to meet Martha's gaze.
Kate nods "The day of the bombing I… I was going to tell him but...we kept getting interrupted." She grumbles over the last word, her annoyance clear.
Lanie and Martha's eyes meet then, as realisation dawns on them all.
"That was the day he started pulling away..." Lanie leads, asking and telling, informing and waiting all at once.
"Yeah." Kate agrees, scrunching her lips to one side as she thinks. The day of the bombing should have been a defining day for them in an entirely different way. She shakes her head "And I still can't figure out...unless..." Kate feels her mouth fall open and her head snaps to Martha opposite her "oh god..."
Kate looks quickly between the three women, her eyes darting rapidly. They were fine before she interviewed the suspect, he had left the building with a warm smile and a promise to return with coffee. But when she emerged from the interrogation room he was distant, pained even...
"He heard." She whispers quietly.
Martha nods slowly, her hand reaching across the counter top to cover Kate's as her face blanches in shock.
"When I was in the interrogation room..." She scrunches her eyes "It just slipped out." She explains, to herself more than anyone else. The charged atmosphere of the situation, the bombing and the pressure from Gates had forced her to push the suspect. And then the pushing had become too easy as she picked apart his lies, using the truth of her own life, her own experiences to prove him wrong.
Whilst Castle stood outside and listened to her blurt out something she should have been able to confess to him in private.
Martha nods again tapping gently at Kate's hand once more before she pulls away.
"And that's why?..."
This time Lanie nods, but watching Kate's face she doesn't think she's listening anymore. She's absorbed in memories or possibilities, maybe missed chances. Though Lanie wants to rush her, help her through, she knows the woman well enough to let her have the moment.
But she better be damn quick about it.
"And all this time he didn't know that I was..." Kate trails off quietly as her mind is flooded with eight months worth of therapy sessions, talking and working through everything. Moving forward. All to be better, to be more.
The other women look confused as Kate rubs at her eyes, but they stay quiet, leaving her alone to work through whatever epiphany she seems to be having.
"And now he thinks what?" She asks turning towards Martha "That I don't care? That I lied to him for months, for nothing? That I don't feel the same? That I don't love him back?"
Lanie watches Kate quietly, her eyes flicking over Kate's head before she smiles softly and asks "Do you feel the same? Doyou love him?"
Kate closes her eyes and shakes her head. Her hand drops to cover her mouth before she sucks in a shuddering breath, and speaks with a soft smile "Of course I do Lanie."
"Perfect timing Castle." Lanie says grinning over Kate's shoulder, forcing down the part of her that wants to yell in triumph and hug the man who stands motionless and shocked in his doorway.
He arrives, as she hoped he would, breathless, worried and anxious. His coat thrown over his arm and his keys dangling from the tips of his fingers, frozen by the confession he has just heard. The one he has waited almost a year to hear.
"Lanie that's not funny..." Kate growls as she spins on the stool, hearing the door click shut even as she moves. Her eyes find Castle's across the room as she mumbles under her breath "oh god."