Castle didn't touch her when he showed up. But he sits on her couch and casts his eyes around the room like he can't bear to watch her read.
When Rook shows up at Nikki's apartment with an apology, Kate shoots Castle a look and flips the book around to show him where she's at. He grins from his side of the couch and scoots a little closer to peer at the page. His thigh is warm next to hers; she likes the way their shoulders brush.
"Yeah, that's the good part." The way he says it - the *good* part - gives her an idea of what's coming next.
She flips the book back around, scans ahead, and blushes. "No. I meant, that apology he gives her. For not calling-"
He laughs. "Hey, I've learned. And then, when you did it to me this summer, I figured maybe I deserved it."
She swallows hard and shakes her head. "I wasn't trying to punish you." But maybe she was, punishing him for saying what he said while she was dying on the grass, for not saying it earlier, for saying it at all and making her deal with the mental anguish even while she had to deal with the physical anguish.
"I don't think I meant for the book to be my apology, but if it's working, I'll take it."
She smiles at him despite herself and shoves his knee with the book. "It's working."
He raises his eyebrows and lifts his arm to the back of the couch; she can feel the heat of his arm. "Wanna let me in on why it's working?"
She shrugs and rereads the last part of it, sifting through the stuff in her head and trying not to say the wrong thing. "It shows that you understand why." Kate leans back against the arm of the couch, putting some distance between herself and his body.
"Why? Why it was supremely stupid not to call you all summer? Why it was hurtful? Why you deserve a little more respect than that?" The edge in his voice warns her. She glances up and can see he's still angry with her. For not calling. She deserves that. But she can't exactly tell him why she needed that time.
Sorry, Castle, I had to figure out if I could live with you loving me.
"Yes," she answers instead. It was hurtful. But she needed to know, without him, what he was to her. What he is. What could be, if she would just be given the space and closure to be herself and not Detective Beckett. But she doesn't know how to do that yet, be that.
She swallows and bends her head back to the book, but it's harder to get lost in the rhythm of it when he's watching her, when he knows exactly what she's reading, and what Rook and Nikki are doing. And of course, the brief description leaves her wanting; it leaves entirely too much to the imagination when what she wants are details, a glimpse into Castle's fantasies, verbal mast-
His fingers squeeze her ankle for her attention. Her heart is pounding and now his hand is on her leg. The arm along the back of the couch lets his other hand lay very close to her cheek; his fingers lift and brush her skin. She lifts her eyes from the page. "I really did learn my lesson, Kate."
She bites her lower lip. "Rook sure did."
"He's not me but. . .the words are mine."
She nods. His fingers brush her cheek again.
"And I had hoped. . ." He shakes his head and she wonders, desperately, what he hoped. But she's afraid to ask. That's a past tense kind of hope, a hope he no longer has. Did he hope, once, that he meant more to her, enough to her, that she would call, that she couldn't do without him for three months?
If only he knew. . .
She sighs and goes back to the book, shoving that out of her mind.
When she reads Nikki's conversation with the woman administrator, ice water runs through her veins. These words Castle put in Nikki's mouth about her mother's murder, about what it means-
Now it's not so much revenge as justice. Or maybe closure.
And then the woman's response to that, the woman who lost a daughter but gained justice:
But let me tell you what I've learned. . .There is justice. But there is no such thing as closure.
Does he write these things knowing she'll read them? From the first novel, she's felt like he's hidden messages to her in every chapter, as if there are things he can't say to her face, but he can say in story.
She's read them all, stored them inside herself, behind the wall. Words are power; his words especially, and especially over her. And now all those words are unfurling, reaching for the light.
"Is this real?" She pushes herself down the couch so that they sit side by side; she puts the book in his lap. She points to the page.
But there is no such thing as closure.
"It's real." His fingers splay over the page, as if trying to keep her from reading more. His hands are so broad, such long fingers, and she has a flash of those fingers wrapping around the back of her neck and dragging her close.
She presses her hand to her side, tries to ease the flaring ache of her scar. "Who said it?"
"A woman from a support group I went to."
She studies at him, her head angled to see his face. "A support group?"
"Couple years ago. When I first met you. And had the character in mind. I asked if I could sit in with them for background information on what it means to be a survivor, and a victim. To have someone in your family murdered." His face is in too many shadows for her to see clearly.
"A support group," she repeats, using her fingertips to touch the skin that stretches tightly at the scar.
He bobs his head, takes a quick glance to check the progress of her fingers. He's been paying entirely too close attention. "A woman there told me that. I asked her if I could use her line, and she said she hoped it helped someone someday."
And he's chosen this novel to pull it out, to use against her. Against her walled-in heart.
"Kate. It's about to get really good after this," he says, wriggling his eyebrows at her to dispel some of the tension. "So unless you wanna want to stay up all night reading-"
"All night? For this?" She knows she's purposefully goading him, but she can't help slipping into it, the familiarity of their banter. It fits like a well-worn shirt, loose and soft. She wants to curl up in it and sleep. Safe.
"Hey, I know you're a fan," he smirks. "Message boards? Oh I know. You're Nook4ever!"
"Nook for what?"
His grin widens. "Yeah. Don't act like you haven't heard that one. You know, Brangelina. Bennifer. Nook."
She ignores that. "Stop changing the subject. You're just trying to get out of this." She smirks back, recognizing just how close she is, how much of her toe she keeps putting over the line. Unable to help herself.
"You're gonna keep me locked up with you until you finish it, aren't you?"
Oh, that's so tempting an image. She makes a great effort to keep her eyes on his face, to not let it show how much that appeals to her. A great effort. Which ultimately fails.
His eyebrow creeps up the longer she fails, the longer it stays on her face.
"You're no Stephen King," she says, but gently, as if she's apologetic.
He laughs and some of the terrible, revealing tension fizzles out. "Thank goodness for small favors, right?"
"In that case, yeah, I think so. You are much more attractive than Stephen King." She winks at him, pulls the book out from under his hand and presses it against her chest.
He grins back at her.
So not good. What is she doing? Why does she keep doing this? Is she really such a bitch? Toying with him, teasing his emotions, playing with him.
Kate glances down at his book. She's taken the dust jacket off because it was slippery and she likes the hard edge of the black cloth against her fingers. Her ribs ache today, that phantom pain of forceps and scalpel inside her guts, rib spreader still cracking her open. It makes it difficult to take a deep breath.
It's not because he's so close. It's because of the scar.
She winces but ignores the flicker of concern on his face. "Let me be the judge of how good it gets, all right? But you, Castle, are not going anywhere."
He laughs softly and shrugs his shoulders as if to say he's warned her.
She opens back up his book, still a little unnerved by having Richard-freaking-Castle in her apartment, his hand on her knee as she reads his book.
Wait. His hand is on her knee.
When did that happen?
And now, what in the hell is she going to do about it?