Chapter 8

The Ride

When he woke up, he was convinced that he was still dreaming, because a dream was the only thing that made sense. Only in a dream could he have woken up here, in her apartment, in her bed, feeling the warmth of her body against his own. Only in a dream could he be lying beside her, watching the subtle movements of her eyelids as she slept, carefully regulating his breathing, his every small movement, for fear of waking her.

Only in a dream could her eyes open, and immediately meet his. "You're still here," he couldn't have heard her whisper, a barely coherent murmur.

He patted the mattress beside him. Felt solid. Pinched his arm. It hurt. Gently laid his hand on her shoulder. She smiled. All signs pointed to awake, but he still had one more test to perform. He touched his lips to hers. She kissed him softly, and it was clear: he was not asleep. His imagination, active though it might be, could never create anything this good, not without help from reality.

"Of course I'm still here," he said softly when his lips finally parted with hers. "Where else would I be?"

"So… last night," she began, pulling herself into a seated position.

"Last night," he repeated with a grin. "I can't imagine a more successful evening."

She groaned. "Come on." She started to get out of bed, and nodded for him to follow.

But just as he began to move, he remembered something. He wasn't wearing any clothes. "Where are we going?" he asked.

She rolled her eyes. "Kitchen. If we're gonna talk, I need coffee."

"Understood." He gestured to the sheet that was covering him pointedly. "I'll meet you there."

She blushed and pulled the comforter with her as she got up. "Right. Meet you there."

As he sat at the coffee table in his rumpled clothes from the day before, across from Kate in a red silk bathrobe, sipping coffee, it became abundantly clear that the plan they'd made the night before for him to ride with her to work hadn't been thought through. "I… should probably go home," he told her. "Change. Shower. I'll meet you at the precinct." He nodded. "Okay?"

"Yeah." She gulped her own coffee, although it was rather hot. "Good. See you there."

"See you there," he repeated.

"Castle?" she said, stopping him before he could take another sip.

He made eye contact. "Yeah?"

"Nothing to the boys. Or anyone at work. Got it?"

He nodded. "Got it."

"Look who's finally home," Martha greeted her son at the door with a smile that was loaded with something besides happiness.

"I don't want to hear it, mother," Rick shot back, although he couldn't quite keep the smile from his face. "Not from you."

"Oh." Martha waved him off. "I'm just happy for you, darling. It's about time."

"Yeah." He realized he'd have to wipe the dreamy look off his face before he got to the precinct, but he didn't see any point in returning to reality too soon. At least not until he saw the look on his mother's face, the look that told him she was about to start asking questions that he was positive he would not be answering. "Okay, conversation over," he said, before it had really begun. "I have to get ready for work. Alexis at school?"

Martha nodded. "She went in early today. Some kind of history project she was finalizing."

"Oh right, that was today." It was probably just as well that he only had to do his walk of shame in front of one family member, especially because he was sure that he was in for a long day of pretending that nothing at all had happened when he got to the precinct. Maintaining the level of subtlety that Kate insisted on was becoming exhausting, but hopefully that would all be over soon. Now that they'd taken their relationship to the next level, he thought she might be a bit less reluctant about making the first level public. "Good. Okay, I'm gonna go change and then hit the precinct."

"Beckett all night, Beckett all day… aren't you worried she's going to get sick of you?" Martha called as he walked away.

He turned around to face his mother once again. "You know I always appreciate the love, but I really have to go."

If Rick had ever really believed that today would be the day that Kate would finally loosen up and make their budding relationship public, he'd been sorely mistaken. But if he'd believed that he and Kate would be in for yet another painful day of trying to hide the smiles they each kept tossing in the other's direction, he would also have been mistaken.

Every time he tried to slip under her radar, to sneak her a loaded glance that no one else would see, even just to playfully flirt with her a little, she ignored him. She didn't blush, she didn't scold, didn't smile or frown… in fact, she didn't react at all. It felt a little like he was invisible, and it wasn't a feeling he relished. Richard Castle was used to being noticed.

When they were talking about the case they were working on, or the other detectives, or anything that related directly to the here and now, it was fine. Normal. Exactly the way it had always been. She talked and joked with him just as she did every other day. But any time he tried to go beyond that, to even toe the invisible line between "friend" and "more," he became invisible. Castle was nothing if not persistent, but by lunchtime he'd stopped trying.

When finally, after more than a couple of tries, he managed to get her alone in the break room, he thought maybe she'd relax a little. Maybe she'd become a little more like the woman he'd been with the night before, or at least acknowledge that she'd seen him the night before. To the contrary, nothing changed. She looked at him with the same courteous judgment that she always had. He was left wondering, again, if last night had been nothing more than an extremely vivid dream.

"So," he began, trying to test the waters, "do you still want us to come over again? For ice cream?"

"Oh." Now she blushed, which was a bit of a relief. If nothing else it was a confirmation that she was still, indeed, human. She looked around, triple checking that they were the only two in the room. When she'd confirmed this, she nodded. "Yeah. I do."

He smiled. "How's tonight? Too soon?"

"I can't tonight," she said quickly.

His heart immediately sank. Had he done something wrong? His mother's words, which he'd ignored earlier, played in his head. "Aren't you worried she's going to get sick of you?" Had she already?

But he was trying not to be paranoid, and it occurred to him that it was possible she did actually have plans. Maybe with Lanie, or her dad. After all, he wasn't the only person in her life. So he asked. Maybe he shouldn't have, maybe he was prying, but he asked. "Previous plans?"

She made a little noncommittal shrug.

"No?"

She shrugged again.

He smiled a little, trying, still, to loosen her. "You're not tired of me already, are you?"

She must've caught the anxiety that he'd tried to disguise with humor, because she did soften. "No." She smiled. It could just barely have qualified as a smile, but that was what it was. "I'm not." He must not have looked convinced, because she rolled her eyes and insisted, "I promise."

"Well then, why don't you want to see me?"

"Am I not with you right now?"

"No."

She frowned.

"No," he repeated. "Not really. You've been distant with me all day. Haven't you? Am I just imagining that?"

Again, she shrugged. Was she suddenly incapable of yes or no answers?

"Kate." He met her eyes, stern, because she was driving him crazy. "Am I?"

"I just… don't want the others to know yet." She nodded toward the bullpen.

"We had sex," he said, bluntly. "I mean, we did, didn't we? I'm not imagining that, am I?"

She laughed. "No, you're not." Finally, a real answer.

"Good. Because, you know, it wouldn't be the first time."

"Castle," she admonished, still laughing.

But he sobered then, because he wanted to talk about this now. He needed to talk about this now. "Don't you think it's time? Couldn't we at least tell our friends?"

"Lanie—" she began, but he stopped her.

"I know Lanie knows, but what about them?" He nodded toward Ryan and Esposito, who they could see together at Ryan's desk through the glass. "What about the captain? Your dad? All of these people, they deserve to know. And we deserve not to have to hide it from them. Because I don't know about you, but I'm tired of hiding."

"Soon," she promised, earnestness in her eyes. "We'll tell them soon. Just not yet. Okay?"

"Are you… waiting for something?" He wasn't trying to push, not really, he was just trying to understand. What was the holdup? Why did their relationship have to be a secret when what he wanted more than anything was to shout it from the rooftops?

"No, I'm just… I'm not ready yet."

"Ready for what? To be in this relationship? Because I'm all in here, Kate. And I want you to feel the same way, but if you don't… If you're rethinking…"

"No," she interrupted him. "I'm not rethinking anything." Her face was earnest, and just a little pained. "I want this, I'm just not ready to go public yet."

"Are you sure?"

She nodded. "Positive. And I'm sorry, but tonight just isn't a good night. Now, I really need to get back to work. She met his eyes and smiled with the first trace of flirtation she'd given him all day. "You okay?"

He nodded. "Yeah. I'm okay." He was confused, but he was okay.

The next day wasn't much different, except that in the morning, when he brought Kate her coffee, she smiled and casually told him that she had something to show him later. He spent the rest of the day trying in vain to concentrate on the case as he also thought about what she could possibly have to show him and when "later" would come.

He thought it might be "later" when he was alone in the car with her, on the way to interview a suspect, but apparently he was wrong. It was the same as always: polite conversation, the occasional quip about a song on the radio, but that was all. At one point he even asked, "You said you had something to show me?" But she simply responded, "No, later," and changed the subject to the irritating nature of the construction on the road.

It wasn't until after the interview, when they were sitting in the car outside the building where the suspect (whose alibi had checked out) worked, that she began rummaging in her purse.

"Looking for something?" he asked.

"Yeah, I know I put it in here… yes." She pulled out the familiar leather bound notebook triumphantly. "Go to the bookmark," she said, handing it to him. "I did it last night."

He frowned. "Last night? I thought you had plans last night."

"I didn't say I had plans, I said I couldn't do anything with you."

He couldn't help being somewhat offended by this. "So you just didn't want to see me?"

She seemed to melt a little. "Don't take it like that," she pleaded. "Please. It's just… I'm not the kind of person who can be with anyone twenty-four seven. I need a little space, you know? I need a night to myself sometimes."

He nodded. He did know this about her. But that didn't mean he wasn't going to try to change her perspective, even if only a little at a time. "Okay. Just, if I do something to upset you, promise you'll tell me what it is. I don't want to mess this up without knowing why."

She smiled, leaned over to the passenger side of the car and gave him a very surprising peck on the cheek. "You won't," she promised. Back on her side of the car, she started the engine. "Now read."

I was fourteen. I was just getting home from my first real date, and I remember I felt like I was floating. We'd just gone to a movie, but it was really the first time I'd been out with a boy by myself, and I was excited. I floated all the way to my room and just sat down on my bed, trying to replay in my head what had felt like the definition of a perfect evening.

Within a few minutes, my mo knocked on my door and came in, sitting down in my desk chair. "How was your date?" she asked.

"Good," I'd said simply. That didn't begin to sum it up, but I hadn't felt the need to fill her in on every detail.

But she'd always been able to see through my facades, and she smiled. "You really like Brian, don't you?"

I nodded.

"Did you kiss him?" she asked, not prying exactly, just curious.

I shrugged, but I couldn't stop smiling, and had to give in. "He kissed me," I told her. "In the movie."

She had a way of looking at me with this "I-know-something-you-don't-know" expression, one part fond and one part patronizing, and that was how she smiled at me then. "Just be careful, Katie," she said.

I knew what she meant, I knew exactly what she meant, but I wasn't going to let on. "What, kissing him? He doesn't have braces or anything."

But it was impossible to slip anything past my mom. It always had been. It was, occasionally, very annoying. "No," she said, shutting me down quickly. "I know you know what I'm talking about. Take it slow, okay? Chances are you're not going to be with your first boyfriend forever. Just remember that."

"I'm not thinking about breaking up just yet," I told her, irritated.

"That's not what I'm saying, and you know it's not," she told me sternly, doing that annoying mother thing again. "I want you to be happy. That's all I want. And if this Brian kid makes you happy, that's great. And who am I to say? Maybe he will turn out to be the love of your life, and maybe someday, someday in the far, far distant future, you'll marry him."

I rolled my eyes. "Mom."

But she held up her hand. "Just let me finish. This could happen, but chances are it won't, and I just need you to remember that you're young, and if he turns out not to be the guy for you, don't let it break your heart. Because someday, you will find the guy that is for you, and you'll love and support each other, and you'll be done. You'll be done with heartbreak, and then, and only then, you'll be all grown up. But until then, enjoy the ride. It can be a good one. Just don't let it get away from you." She nodded. "Okay. I'm done now."

I nodded, pretending that I'd been only half-listening, because, at fourteen, it just wasn't cool to hang on your mother's every word, especially not when she was talking about boys and dating. I was supposed to be able to figure that stuff out for myself. But when she left, some of her words were still resonating in my head. That was the first, but not the last, time we had a conversation similar to that, and to this day I still remember her advice.

If you follow my mom's logic, I guess I'm still not quite grown up yet, but I am getting there.

A/N: A little on the short side, maybe, and definitely a long time coming, but hopefully it was worth the wait! Hope you liked the chapter, and I hope you review! I haven't gotten any reviews in awhile, which I realize is entirely my fault because I haven't updated anything in awhile... but I legitimately miss reading them. :)

Oh, and for the record, if you're confused about why Beckett's torturing Castle as much as she is... remember the next chapter will be her POV, so it should clear a few things up. :) This one's purposely a little ambiguous.