After her grief has mellowed into merely a deep ache, Castle murmurs something about his writing being so bad it's made her cry, which of course, makes her laugh. She pulls back and swipes at her cheeks, giving him the shadow of a smile.
"Hey," he says, his hand at her back. "If the book does this. . .Kate, you can stop, you know."
"It's not bad. It's. . .what I need." She drops her gaze to the black edge of the cover. "It's always been what I need."
She's said too much. But. He deserves to know. He ought to know.
"Kate."
She nods, lifts her eyes to his. "I'm good."
He waits for it, but she can't explain her confession, can't explore that right now, how his books saved her. She's trying to keep her mother's death out of this, as much as possible.
"So read then," he says finally. "Not much left now."
She nods, the bed bouncing a little under her, and Castle leans back, like he's going to leave. Kate slides over, silently offering him space next to her.
He studies her face for a long moment, then settles down beside her, their shoulders touching. For a second, there is that awkward moment where she doesn't know what to do, where to go, and then his arm is sliding around her waist and she's falling back against him. Back into their old position.
He lifts the book from the bed, opens it up on her knees.
Why is she doing this to him? To herself?
But she can't make herself stop.
After that, it's a parade of phrases and scenes that are too much and not enough. So close to what she wants, longs for, and at the same time, everything she thought she had hidden away.
Castle goes back to Tolstoy, sitting on the bed with her, holding the thin paperback in his left hand, his right palm flat against her stomach. His thumb makes occasional circles along her shirt, around her belly button, constantly nudging her consciousness.
When she looks over at him, he's absorbed in the book, but her heart rate is all over the place and she rests her hand on top of his, hoping to still his fingers, but it only increases the intimacy of his hold. To make it worse, she doesn't seem to be able to move her hand.
Kate has taken a pad of post-it notes, and she tags her book with yellow flags, all testaments to her cowardice. The things she should ask him but can't.
Not when she slowly strokes the back of his hand, and still says nothing.
Maybe she'll just give him the book wordlessly, let him leaf through the pages she's marked up. A way of telling him she gets it, she understands. But she just can't say it. Can't be for him what he needs, not like she is. He deserves better.
Nikki did what she had done so often on this job. She put on her armor. There was a switch inside her, the one that sealed off her vulnerability, like triggering a fire door in the Met.
The wall inside. That he somehow knew about even before she told him. How could he see her so clearly and still expect so much from her?
It was Rook. . .It must have been his tenth call. And for the tenth time, Nikki didn't pick it up, because if she did, she'd have to talk about it. And once she did that, it became real. And once it became real, it was all over.
Pushing through to get Lockwood, to put him back behind bars. Hell or high water. Pushing through to that night in the hangar, knowing that all of it would unravel the moment Castle touched her.
If she didn't put an airtight lock on her emotional doors, the beasts pounding on the steel plates to get out would eat her alive. . .She never imagined this tragedy cutting short the story Nikki thought she was telling.
Montgomery, Roy, her Captain, dying alone on the cold concrete, murderers bleeding out around him. Her Captain taking his last stand in some terrible, misguided attempt at redemption.
He opened his arms, and Nikki grabbed him desperately, clinging to him, shaking, sobbing, as she had not in ten years.
Castle carrying her out of the hangar, cocooning her against the side of the car, holding her as she broke.
A pocket of warmth grew inside her as she reflected on how fortunate she was to have a man like him in her life, who always sought ways to escape to brightness amid the dark.
If only she were whole enough, right enough to not only admit it, but do something about it.
Nikki Heat can. But Kate cannot.
Kate cannot.
But Castle stays at her side, his head against the wall, reading Tolstoy like he has no idea what's going on.
He must know. He has to know. But he pretends it's just another book, any old book, that when her breath catches, it's not because of him.
She's thankful for that. From time to time, she feels his eyes on her, watching her response, but she's warm under his gaze, able to let him stare without it making her self conscious.
Her fingers, when not pulling off a post-it note, are threaded through his against her stomach; she's not sure when that happened, only that it's a necessary anchor.
Sometime in the middle of a sentence about Nikki's methodical approach to the case, Castle's lips feather against her temple in a thoughtless kiss.
Her heart stops, her eyes blink, but he's still reading. Just reading.
And she doesn't know what to do.
What is she doing?
Parts of the book she knows had to be written after Gates arrived (he didn't conceal her identity very well, despite making her a man), and the conflicting tensions build within the fictional precinct as well.
He's so good at this. So good at this. He captures all the politics of the station; he manages to to make her feel, all over again, the way this feels - to have no one on her side, to not know where to look, to be lost.
But it's safe like this. It's safer in words on a page, in a world that doesn't exist. It lets her feel without feeling too much.
She begins to read again for the thrill of the mystery, letting herself be surprised by the little details Castle has thrown in that remind her of their cases. Pizza parlors and jokes she made; the boys' banter, strange suspects, Rook and Nikki working a murder board together. Things that soothe her rather than put her on edge, things that make this just a story.
A good book, a good detective novel.
When Nikki walks out on Rook, when Nikki doesn't trust him, Kate knows better. Kate feels more mature, wiser, than her fictional counterpart. And she celebrates that, leaning against Castle's side, her head now propped against his shoulder.
She's held together by stronger stuff.
Chillingly, Montrose leaves behind a clue for Nikki, something for her to follow to find the truth.
And it makes Kate wonder.
Did Montgomery do the same? Is this a piece of real life that Castle cannibalized? She hasn't seen anything like that, but it would be something her Captain would do. Has Castle gotten some additional information, some clue that she hasn't?
She was gone for three months; Castle and the boys worked on this alone. It's possible.
Has he kept it from her?
And then she dismisses that because here she is, proclaiming herself more mature and wiser, and doing the same as Nikki.
Ridiculous.
She knows this man. Just as Nikki ought to know better. Castle would never keep something like this from her.
She has maybe 30 pages left when a word ripples across the page.
Sea change.
Castle has used this word a lot in the book. For a man who argues over grammar rules and finds fault with her imprecise word choice, for him to use the same word over and over is strange.
Sea change.
Broad transformation. Becoming someone different from what you were before.
This is a message. To her.
Sea change.
Transformation is possible.
But Rook didn't answer. . .That's when she realized it was Rook's blood on her fingers.
Kate's hands tremble.
She flips the page back, rereads that section. The gunshot, Rook falling over Nikki. Rook not answering.
Rook doesn't answer.
It's Rook's blood. He's been shot.
That's the end? Rook in ICU; Nikki at his bedside, cold and alone and lonely?
That's how it ends?
Kate breathes deeply and presses her forehead against the open book, struggling to keep her composure. She will not cry over Jameson Rook; she will not cry for a character.
Her heart pounds in her throat; she can taste her own blood, like that day in the cemetery, coming up in her mouth, drowning her.
It's possible though, that she might cry for Richard Castle. Who had to wait. Cold and alone and lonely. Because she was a coward.
Kate turns her head, her eyes seeking him.
He's asleep. Tolstoy is open, his left hand heavy over the pages. She shouldn't wake him up.
Rook. Castle.
ICU. Alone.
What has she done?
What has she done to him?