It's only a few pages later that it catches her by the throat. The case picks up and Castle's hand is still on her knee, but her concentration is on the book. Nikki gets reamed by Montrose and turns her face upward into the sleet and closed her eyes, feeling the hundred little stings of the falling sky.
Kate blows out a breath and teeters on the edge, very close to breaking, only she doesn't want to do that in front of him. No one else would fall into a pit of grief at the end of this chapter; it's only because she's lived that scene, lived that desolation. Still. Neither does she want to ignore the fact that Castle manages to get everything exactly right; somehow, she's got to explain what that means to her. If she can't acknowledge his feelings, she can at least acknowledge this.
"How do you know this stuff? All this. . .these things that happen and I-" She shakes her head and puts her finger in the book to mark the page. She's never told him these things. And still, he knows.
His hand around her knee squeezes, and suddenly she has to move, has to get some distance. She jumps up and takes the book with her.
"Want something to drink?" she calls, keeping her eyes on her kitchen, the fridge, the metal table that serves as a stovetop, and perhaps a boundary line.
She opens the stainless steel fridge, pleased by the cool air that wafts down. It makes her skin tighten, and the scar protests. A reminder is good. She puts the book on the counter.
"I'll take water," he says, entirely too close. When did he get up from the couch?
She pulls out the filtered water pitcher and sets it on the counter. Castle is already getting two glasses down and handing them to her, his side brushing hers.
"Kate."
She glances over at him almost against her will; hesitation and doubt are written into every line of his face.
"About 15 more pages. . .I don't think you're going to want me here for that."
She reaches for the book, opens it to skim ahead, but he presses his hand over the pages and catches her eyes.
"Kate. I don't know that *I* can be here for that."
He couldn't know, could he? He couldn't know that she knows what he said that day. But their conversation on the swings wasn't exactly subtle of her, was it? So he has to have an idea that she. . .
She isn't ready.
"I won't make you stay."
He nods and turns back to the foyer, headed for the door. Her chest aches, like a scalpel shoved between her ribs.
"Castle-"
He pauses; she sees the war with his common sense, his better nature, but he turns around. "Yeah?"
"Will you. . .stick close though?"
She's glad now, that he warned her. Castle gave in and crashed on the bed in her guest room, saying they've had a long day and he'll read something or rest his eyes. She'll go get him when she has a new question. Or when she's finally finished.
He's right, of course. It's almost exactly fifteen pages later that it gets uncomfortable, if only because she longs for it, for the way Nikki can walk into Rook's hug at the end of the day and smell his neck, rest there, safe. And then their little twenty questions game turns into a revealing and intimate look at two characters who aren't her and Castle. . .they really aren't. Those wouldn't be her answers to their game of questions, and she knows they wouldn't be his either.
Except, how can she be so certain of that? Despite the intimacy of hearing what Castle thinks might be Kate's personal landmines, spoken in Nikki's blunt voice, these things she's never talked about, it's strangely reassuring to discover that he's wrong. There are things he doesn't know. There are pieces he's making up.
So if Castle is making up these things, then the rest of it. . .
It doesn't have to mean as much.
Right?
On page 99, Nikki realizes she's been playing politics, that she's gotten caught up in the game and has forgotten that she serves the victims and their families.
It's enough. For Nikki. Who has no conspiracy entangling her every movement forward.
But it's not enough for Kate. When she walks home from the subway stop and lets herself into her cold apartment, serving the victims and their families isn't enough. The victories are made hollow by the emptiness, the echo down the hallway. A hot bath and a book aren't substitutes for finally, finally having the answers. Knowing why.
Why her mother? Why has her whole life been twisted into this malformed thing? This crippled shadow? What might have been still haunts her.
At least Nikki has Jameson Rook. Kate has darkness, and a wall, and no way of seeing through either.
He's right. She wishes she hadn't asked him to stay. She's not sure she wants him here for this either.
Only a few pages later, this quick build-up of tension on the novel's case sucks her in despite knowing that there are worse things to come. Kate's read spoilers on his fan site but she didn't have a clear picture of all the details. She knows someone died, and she knows the end is painful.
She just didn't know those two things aren't the same event. When Montrose tries to reign in Nikki on page 108, Kate can hear echoes of her conversation with Montgomery, his resignation that she'll always do what she wants when it comes to her mother's case.
Is this how she sounds to everyone else? To Castle? Is this how she sounded to Captain Montgomery in his last moments? Petulant and stubborn, unable to look away, not even to save her own life. He told her he just wanted redemption, and Kate wanted vengeance. The two weren't compatible.
By chapter 7, the book is so intense that her heart is pounding and her palms are leaving damp impressions on the paper. Kate gets up and heads for the guest bedroom, the book still in her hands, her eyes still reading, heading for Castle, needing company as she reads this.
He's lying on his back in a small pool of light from the bedside lamp, reading one of her Russian novels. He puts the paperback down - Tolstoy's The Resurrection - and gives her a long look.
"You're killing me," she says with a grin, waving his book at him. Even though she has to force the grin out, it already makes her feel better, easier, safer, just looking at him.
"What chapter?"
"Seven."
She watches him think back and then he sits up and grins as well. Kate moves to the side of the bed and crawls in next to him, then sits down cross-legged beside him, book in her lap. Her heart is still thudding out of control, and the impression of fighting for her life hasn't left her. Nikki. Fighting for Nikki's life.
"This is. . .holy crap, Castle. How does she get out of this?"
He grins wider and leans back against the wall. "Just gonna have to read and find out, Detective."
She glares at him, but he just laughs, pats her leg. "All right, stay here. I'll get you through this part, and then I'll get back to Tolstoy. I like watching your face when you get to the good parts."
She moves to the head of the bed and settles next to him. "You're just gonna watch me read it?"
"I could read it over your shoulder but-"
She scoots closer and shares the book, putting her back against his side, letting her head hit his shoulder. She seems to have stunned him both speechless and immobile. She looks at him over her shoulder. "Fast reader?"
"Can be." He shifts against the wall at the head of the bed and slides his arm around her waist, settling in.
She asked for it, didn't she? Was it stupid to to climb into the guest bed with him?
"I'm not slowing down for you. So try and keep up, Castle."
"I forgot," he says softly, and turns his head from the book, loosens his arm.
Nikki is running for her life in Central Park, seeking sanctuary, seeking help; gunmen are after her, methodical and thorough, hunting her down. She's trapped. Kate must be further behind than him; they've just flipped the page. And then she comes to it, the part he forgot:
Heat envisioned a map of the park, and one word popped into her mind:
Castle.
Kate jumped, book tumbling from her lap, her heart pounding with the imagined adrenaline of Nikki Heat.
"I forgot," he apologizes and lets go of her, sliding away, putting his feet down on the floor. Castle picks up the book, finds page 120 again for her, and leaves it open on the bed.
And then he disappears from the guest room.
Kate reaches for the book.
Castle.
When the gunmen are incapacitated, when Nikki is safe, but Kate feels most certainly that she herself is not, she reads this:
Still clutching her weapon, Heat leaned back against the wall, looking upward at the castle that had been her salvation.
She can't do this. Can she? Pretend she's never read it, pretend that she doesn't understand exactly what Castle means when he has Nikki run to Belvedere Castle in Central Park for salvation. Castle. Salvation. Sanctuary.
Kate's heart is pounding, but she's not sure if it's the life or death action scene or if it's seeing his name on the page, but not his name, reading all manner of secret messages into his writing.
Is this what he thinks? That he can save her. That he's her shelter in the midst of a life or death-
She shivers and stands up, prowling restlessly in the room, unable to unhook her mind from the book, but wishing it's still the escapism it used to be.
Kate sobs when they find Montrose dead. The tears are yanked out from her like she's been choking on them, and his words, his book, have finally provided the swift blow to her back that she needed to cough them up. It is messy and loud, and she has to press her hands into her eyes to keep them back, the book caught against her chest by her drawn up knees.
At some point, she realizes that Castle haunts the doorway, watches her curled up on herself, trying to be quiet and failing. He comes into the room and takes the book out of her lap and puts his arms around her. She squeezes her eyes shut and tries to breathe over the ragged ache of her chest but her grief is so strong that she only gasps. She hasn't cried for Roy yet, hasn't had time, and then time was past and she still hadn't managed any tears-
Castle sinks to the bed and sighs into her hair. She turns into him and slides her arms around his waist, hating it but not able to stop.
He rubs her back and murmurs things she can't hear over her weeping. It's only after awhile that she realizes his cheeks are wet too, though he is silent in it.