A/N: I would like to apologize ahead of time for any medical inaccuracies that may arise in this story. I made my best attempt to research as much as I could, but, in my opinion, some things can only be learned through experience. With that being said, I truly hope the potential mistakes that may appear in this fic do not ruin the story for anyone.
And to biblioclaire, thank you for pointing out that not all seeing eye dogs are necessarily the same.
She had a date with Richard Castle and she was nervous. She can't remember the last time she was nervous for a date and it's ridiculous, because the last time she was with him, he made her feel so at ease.
Kate huffs and ceases her pacing, tossing the two sweaters back on the bed. It's just dinner at his place with him and the likely appearance of his family. He had told her enough about his daughter that she already feels like she knows the girl, already likes her, and his mother sounds nice too, as well as entertaining. She doubts Rick would care what outfit she wore or how she chose to style her hair, she doubts his family will either, but the out of place anxiety still crawls along her spine.
It's likely due to the fact that she hasn't dated in so long, choosing to focus solely on her work. There was Will all those years ago, and Tom, the detective from robbery, even a blind date here and there thanks to Lanie, but none of those men felt important. Not like Castle does after only one meeting and a week's worth of late night phone calls and daylong strings of text messages.
He already feels too important.
Kate shakes her head and grabs the royal purple sweater, tugging it over her head. She's been looking forward to seeing him again for the last week and a half, she's not going to cancel on him due to spur of the moment doubts and insecurity.
She takes the subway to his loft in SoHo, exiting the train a stop early to walk the rest of the way and clear her head. By the time she's greeting the doorman she met the last time she was here and riding the elevator up to his floor, she's calmer, her excitement swallowing up her irrational nerves.
Benny's bark resounds through the apartment when she knocks on the door and Kate grins, listening to the quick footsteps and the accompanying click of nails on hardwood.
"Oh, you must be Kate!" A teenage girl with fiery red hair greets her and this must be Castle's daughter. She can see it in the eyes alone, the bright blue irises sharper than Castle's, but definitely similar. "I'm Alexis. Dad is just finishing up dinner."
"He cooks?" She bites her lip the moment the words are out, horrified by how it must sound, but his daughter only nods eagerly while she escorts Kate inside.
"Yeah, he used to cook all the time, but after the accident it was obviously more challenging, so he took a special class for it," Alexis explains, taking Kate's coat for her and hanging it in the nearby closet. "I hope you're good with Italian."
Kate grins, patting Benny's head when he nudges against the back of her knee. "Sounds perfect."
She follows Alexis through the foyer, forcing her jaw to remain shut as she silently marvels over the beauty of his home, and feels herself smiling when she spots Rick in the fantastic kitchen, brow furrowed in concentration as he stirs something that steams and sends the delicious aroma of something rich and garlic through the air.
His head lifts before she can greet him and she watches in a mixture of amusement and fascination as he turns towards her and Alexis, the smile already splitting his face wide open.
"Hey, you made it," he beams, abandoning his cooking to stride towards her.
Alexis offers her a wink before stepping away, disappearing towards the dining room table, leaving Kate alone with her father.
Kate chuckles when he reaches her, accepting the embrace he engulfs her in with a smile she hides against his shoulder.
"Of course I did," she hums, huddling into the warmth of his chest.
He smells like coffee and tomato sauce, a hint of cologne exuding from the skin of his neck, and his arms tighten around her when her nose just barely brushes the throbbing pulse beneath his jaw. She knows she should let go, that this is bordering the line of more than she's ready for, and she sighs in quiet regret, pulls away.
"You okay?" he asks, startling her with a hand at her face, but he only traces the crease of her eyebrow with his thumb, the frown lines of her lips, seeing her expression through touch.
"Yeah, it's just… been a long week," she murmurs, which isn't a lie. The rate of homicide always increases the closer they grow to the holidays, and after working back to back murders in the last 36 hours, she's spent.
"You didn't have to come, you know," Castle teases, his thumb still trailing along her cheek, studying.
"I wanted to and your sauce is going to burn."
He startles and spins on his heel, returning to the steaming pot with surprising grace for a man who has no sight.
Benny nudges her knee once more and Kate sighs, her eyes still on Rick as she bends to stroke the dog's head.
"Darling," she hears the exclamation from the top of the nearby stairs and turns her head to see an older woman sashaying down them in a dress sparkling with a sea of sequins. "Whatever you're cooking smells absolutely wonderful. It almost has me wishing I was staying in for the evening."
Castle smirks and turns off the burner. "I could always whip up an extra plate, Mother."
"Oh no, dear. You know I can't," his mother sighs, just as dramatic as Castle described her, but the woman brightens when her eyes land on Kate. "But you must introduce me to this beautiful creature before I depart."
Kate blushes under his mother's appraisal as she comes sweeping into the room, sharing a thumbs up with Alexis who watches in amusement from the couch. Castle wipes one of his hands on a dishtowel and comes up behind her, his hand hesitates at his side for a moment before he places it to the small of Kate's back.
"Mother, this is Detective Kate Beckett. Kate, this is Martha Rodgers."
Martha takes her hand, holding it between both sets of her decorated fingers as she gives it a firm shake.
"It's such a pleasure to meet you, dear. Richard has talked nonstop about you since-"
"Mother, aren't you going to be late?" Castle cuts in, the hand at her back clenching just slightly, and Kate doesn't even try to conceal her grin, allowing the woman in front of her to see it.
"So bashful," Martha huffs, waving him off as she flitters away to hug Alexis goodbye and blow a kiss to the dog.
"Sorry about that," Castle mumbles, his cheeks turning a subtle but adorable shade of pink, and Kate uses the advantage of her heels to simply lean sideways, brush her smile to one of those inflamed cheeks.
His eyes widen every time she does that, flaring with surprise and delight, giving her the courage to linger a moment longer tonight.
"Don't be. So far, I'm liking your family, Castle," she murmurs against the stubble stained skin of his cheek that she thinks just got even warmer.
Rick finds one of her hands dangling between them and leads her towards the dining room. Martha calls one last goodbye and Alexis rises from the sofa to join them, occupying Beckett's attention while Castle returns to the kitchen.
"So Dad told me Benny is responsible for your meeting," Alexis muses, a sly grin flirting along her lips while she slips into one of the comfortable looking chairs.
Kate follows suit, sitting down across from her and taking Alexis' subtle headshake as a sign against trying to help Castle serve the meal. She's beginning to learn how stubborn his disability can make him, how independent, and she's not yet sure whether she admires it or feels concern because of it.
"Yeah, I was getting in line to order my drink and then your dad was smacking into me," she chuckles.
"I did not smack," he informs her, sauntering towards the table with a large dish steaming with heat and a delicious scent. "I gracefully bumped."
Kate scoffs and stands from her seat after he's places the chicken parmigiana on the table. She goes to grab the bowl of pasta and cooked vegetables despite his brief protest while he serves. Minutes later, she's moaning quietly over the amazing taste, the rich burst of flavors on her tongue.
"Castle, this is fantastic," she compliments, watching him beam, preening like a peacock as he chews smugly around a forkful of angel hair pasta.
"Told you I'd gotten better since the last time," he shoots towards Alexis, who rolls her eyes in return.
"Last time, Dad put in the wrong ingredients in," Alexis explains, twirling her fork around her plate, sneaking a piece of leftover chicken from the edge of the dish, slipping it beneath the table to the dog Kate can feel sitting between the two of them. "We had to order pizza that night."
"It is not my fault that someone left the vinegar where the olive oil should be," he says, giving his daughter a pointed look from his seat at the head of the table and Alexis ducks her head from his stare.
"I'm glad you didn't tell me this before I started eating," Kate murmurs, earning an affronted look from the man beside her.
"My cooking skills are completely trustworthy. As long as no one moves the organized ingredients."
"I don't know, Castle. You may have to keep cooking for me to prove it," she muses, watching the corners of his mouth curl upwards.
"I could do that," he shrugs, directing his eyes back to his plate, but the forming smile doesn't leave his lips.
It doesn't leave his daughter's either and maybe she's diving into this all too soon, but for once, the panic doesn't drown her. Instead, she floats above the surface, giddy with butterflies for the first time in years.
"Kate, you're a guest," he reminds her, but she still takes the rinsed plate from his hand, sticks it in the dishwasher.
"And?"
He huffs, begins rinsing another dish under the stream from the faucet. Alexis had gone upstairs to study for an exam she had in the morning, promising to return to say goodbye before Kate left, and though she's enjoyed the girl's company, she's also relieved to have some time with Castle. Even if he doesn't want her helping clean his dishes.
"Can I ask you something?" she murmurs, taking the wine glass he hands her and arranging it neatly on the rack below.
"Sure," he replies, but apprehension hides in the higher pitch of his voice, and she hopes this isn't crossing any lines, but she wants to know, the detective in her needing to hear the truth that will cause it all to make sense.
"It's about the accident," she starts and he nods, seeming to have already guessed it. "I just wanted to know if I could hear your side of it."
He pauses momentarily at that, the plate in his hands still halfway smeared with tomato sauce.
"My side of it?"
"I only know what was in the papers," she explains, watching the flex of his forearms as he resumes the task of cleaning the dish. He looks good with his sleeves rolled up. "I was always kind of curious about what really happened."
Rick swallows and for a second, she fears she's pushed too far too soon, but then he starts to speak.
"I had taken Mother to the bank so she could apply for a loan. It was taking forever, I remember being so bored, playing Angry Birds on my phone, and then I noticed these people," he murmurs, furrowing his brow as he scrubs at the white surface of the dish. "They were dressed in scrubs, jackets that hid the guns. After that, it all happened pretty fast. They sealed the doors, took control of the place in minutes, and there was nothing anyone could do. For a while, the leader of the group was just going back and forth with negotiators, but they'd never planned to make a deal."
Kate notices his fingers go slack around the plate, allowing it to slip into the sudsy sea of the sink. His eyes stare straight ahead, remembering, seeing his final day with sight play out like a film in his mind, and she closes the dishwasher, steps in closer to him.
"All I remember after that is seeing the C4, telling my mother I loved her… the explosion went off and I can still feel it, the way it threw me back into the wall. But then it's just… black. And it stayed that way."
His hands clench around the edge of the sink and Kate covers one of the ivory colored sets of knuckles with her palm, curling her fingers around his.
"They said the impact of the blast slammed me into a wall, that I hit my head so hard it caused severe trauma," he explains, reaching to the back of his neck, rubbing at his nape before sliding his fingers over the back of his skull. "At first, the doctors thought the blindness would be temporary, that I'd only suffered a cerebral contusion that would cause some swelling and bleeding that would eventually diminish and allow my vision to return." Rick sighs, propping his elbows on the edge of the sink, keeping a firm hold of her hand. "But after a week, when they checked again, they realized my occipital lobe had been damaged, far more severely than they thought, and that's when they told me the blindness was likely permanent."
Kate leans into his side, resting her cheek to his shoulder. The media had portrayed him as an ass all those years ago, before the infamous bank explosion that killed seven of the fifteen trapped inside. She had believed his jackass, playboy persona after involuntarily catching snippets of an interview of him in the break room when they were working late and Ryan wanted to watch the talk show appearance. But that man she had once frowned at on the television was not the same one standing next to her.
"Saying I'm sorry sounds inadequate," she murmurs and he exhales a breath of hollow amusement.
"I don't need you to be sorry," he says softly, stroking his thumb along the bone of hers. "I'm still learning, but I'm doing better at living with it."
She hums. "Was Martha okay?"
"Thankfully," he nods. "She walked away with a broken leg, but for a long time she dealt with the guilt of being the reason we were there that day. It's better now, though. Much better."
Kate studies the knot of their hands, the tangle of their fingers, and she leans a little heavier into his side.
Much better.