Prompt: "Please put me down it's just a sprained ankle"
Pre-couple. Set between 4x16 & 4x17. Beckett twists her ankle and Castle carries her home.
"Castle please put me down, it's just a sprained ankle!" Kate exclaimed for the hundredth time that morning.
However Castle wasn't listening and insisted on carrying her up the stairs to her apartment, cursing the fact that the elevator was broken and she lived on the third floor.
Their day had gone from bad to worse when they had been chasing a suspect down a back alley when her heel had become caught and Kate went crashing down onto the concrete, twisting her ankle in the process. She had said she was fine, claiming that it was simply a fall, however when she tried to walk again she instantly knew something was wrong.
With their suspect long gone Beckett phoned Espo and Ryan and told them to put an APB out for him whilst she tried to hobble back towards her cruiser. However after only two steps Castle knew that something was wrong. He'd told her to sit down whilst he looked it over, even offered to call her an ambulance out of fear that it might be broken but she had refused, claiming that it was just badly sprained. After limping back to her car Castle helped her into the passenger seat then climbed into the driver's side; something she wasn't happy about, but didn't have much choice in the matter, there was no way she could drive with an ankle that was slowly growing in size.
When they had arrived back at her apartment he had instantly picked her up as soon as she was out of the car; another thing which she didn't appreciate, even after her persistently telling him that she was fine and that she could manage the stairs on her own. He didn't listen and instead had carried her bridal style up three flights of stairs, even though she was light he wasn't as young as he used to be and his back still ached from being crammed into a trunk on their last case.
"Beckett would you just let me do this, if I let you attempt to walk up these stairs it would be next week by the time we got there, now stop wriggling and just shush, we're nearly there now" he exclaimed, unable to hide the strain in his voice. He knew she was stubborn and he was working on that, but right now she was just being ridiculous.
She did as she was told. She knew deep down that her ankle was bad and putting any kind of pressure on it only send agonizing pain through her bones, but she didn't want anyone knowing it was a point of weakness, especially Castle.
Once inside her apartment he sat her down on her couch and propped her still booted ankle up on some cushions before moving to the kitchen in search of some ice. When he returned she hadn't made any attempt to remove her boots and was looking at him with a typical questioning glare.
"We need to get your boots off and put some ice on this, otherwise it will swell" he said kneeling down and reaching for the zip of her boots.
He went slowly, gently pulling down the zip, being careful as he reached her ankle. He could tell it was already swollen and knew the pain would be excruciating. He gripped the heel of her boot; murmuring something about how he still cannot believe she wears these to work, and began to slowly pull it from her foot.
"Argh Castle be careful please" she hissed and her fingers tensed into a ball.
He looked up at her, their eyes connecting, his pupils swimming with an apology because he knew this would hurt but there was nothing else he could do. He cautiously continued pulling the boot from her leg as she whimpered in pain and forced her body to remain still. Once her ankle was free he carefully pulled the boot away, making sure not to jostle her foot too much. He then pulled her sock off, once again being as gentle as possible before resting her foot back on the cushions and picking up the ice again.
"This will probably be a bit cold" he informs her and braces himself for some smart comeback, but instead she is quiet.
He pressed the ice gently to her inflamed ankle, making sure to keep the pressure light, he knows how painful a sprained ankle can be and hers looked pretty bad.
"How's that?" he asked breaking the unnerving silence.
"Cold, but its helping. Thank you Castle you really didn't need to"
"Come on Beckett I couldn't exactly leave you to hop around your apartment on your own now could I?"
She huffed a laugh before her face turned soft again, watching as this man that claimed he loved her took such gentle care in tending to her swollen ankle. She wondered what he would say if he knew she had heard him, if he would play it off as one of those last dying confessions because he thought he would lose her forever, or would he be serious about it, he had sounded serious enough when he had first told her. She wondered if she was ready, if she would ever be ready. A few weeks ago she came so close to losing him, on multiple occasions. She had wanted to tell him when they were drowning, trapped in her cruiser as the water rose, but she hadn't. Nor had she when they had been locked in a trunk, shot at in the apartment or almost executed by Sophia Turner. She couldn't do it any of those times, which only made her question why she thought now would be a good time.
"Castle I…" she paused, not exactly knowing how she was going to put this.
He looked up at her and she knew she couldn't do it, she wanted to, she wanted to tell him, but the implications of what that meant were too great and she forced the words back down her throat, telling herself that if he had truly meant it he would have told her it again by now. Believing that she had left it too long, that he had moved on and no longer had those feelings for her anymore.
"Well just, thank you." she said softly.
He smiled at her, a smile that told her he cared and that one day; hopefully soon, she would be ready to let him in.
"Always"
