Someday
Chapter 3
I take your hand, and the city is slowly vanishing.
There's no crowd anymore, no cars, no signals.
But in the middle of the road, a purple and mellow shape is floating.
The shape of our mutual dream.
Stay calm, hold me tight, give it a chance to take us away.
We will live, we will dream on the shadow of our world.
-"OK Pal," M83
Castle startles when her body presses against his back. Her mouth on his shoulder blade, hands sliding around his ribs, and it's Kate warm and strong behind him. He captures those hands and put his lips on them.
"I like it," she murmurs into his back, then tilts her head and lays her cheek against him.
"Yeah?"
"Did you see what I marked?"
"You marked a lot of it," he chuckles, wanting to turn around but wanting more the drape of her on his back, the vibration of her voice against him.
"One of those suggestions has today's date," she says, now sliding around his body to stand between him and the whiteboard, looking both coy and eager at the same time.
He wriggles his eyebrows at her, and she laughs, her thumb darting up to brush along the sweep of his eyebrow, as if to touch his amusement.
When he looks past her to the white board, both their timelines dotted in red and green and blue and black, he scans it quickly, tries to see-
Kate nudges him, nods her head, and he sees she's written today's date under hold your hand in Central Park.
"Yeah?"
She laughs again and lifts up on her toes even though she's already so tall; she can reach him easily and, honestly, he would bend down the rest of the way if she wanted him closer. He would walk with a hunched back if he thought she had something to say. Anything she had to say.
"We already did, Castle."
They already did? "Today?"
"The cut-through as we-"
"Oh, that doesn't count," he huffs, wrapping both arms around her now and squeezing. "You grabbed my hand for two seconds so I wouldn't get run over by a biker."
"I still don't know how you couldn't see the guy approaching-"
"I was too busy watching you," he mutters.
She laughs again (again, again is a beautiful word), and then she presses her mouth to his jaw, hums before she says, "Well, that's too bad. You missed our first holding hands."
"Not the first," he says backs, lifitng his hand from her waist to take hers, the same grasp as a hundred other times, mimicking an afternoon at a bank or a late night beside a pool.
She twists her hand and snags his fingers with hers, kissing his knuckles, then his wrist, then the inside of his wrist. She presses her mouth to his palm and seals the spot together with their clapsed hands. She brings their hands against her chest, breathing slowly.
"Again?" she asks.
He doesn't hesitate. "I love you, Kate."
Her face breaks with joy, spilling it out everywhere so that he can't help but be caught in it too.
"I'm ready for Central Park, Castle," she says, tugging on his hand and stepping back, pulling him towards the door.
He notices she's in jeans now, and sneakers; her hair is loose where it was scraped back all day today. She's wearing a hooded, zipped sweatshirt and a grey shirt; she's taking him with her.
"Okay," he says finally, shaking his head at her, bemused. He tries to expect nothing, but he's expecting everything.
"Not just Central Park. I'm ready for the break room," she adds, giving him an arch look as she opens her door.
"You are not," he says back, eyes narrowing.
"I am too."
"Are not. There's no way."
"With the blinds down and the door shut."
"Wimp."
"Definitely." But she's still smiling at him, amused at herself. She tugs him over the threshold and locks her door behind them, stuffs her keys into her pocket. "And if tomorrow goes like I'm afraid it will-"
"Oh?"
She brushes it aside with a flick of her hand, but it's both their hands now, together, and she laughs, bites her lip.
"Have to get used to this," she says.
"The case isn't-"
"It'll be drudge work. Ryan's got video surveillance and Esposito will have to dig through some trash. They'll be in foul moods."
"You're making it sound so glamorous. Again, why am I coming in?"
"Because I'll be there," she adds, sounding convinced. As she should be.
He wants to say it again, but that's not the deal. He wants to say it more than she can stand, all the time, forever. The words want out in her hallway so badly that he has to grab her tightly and squeeze, just to relieve the ache in his chest.
She hugs him back, their hands still clutched together between them, her mouth on his cheekbone, the ridge of his eyebrow, the dark shadow beside his nose. He feels her feathering kisses until she meets his lips, lingers.
She is giving him time to calm down, time for this to be enough. It is enough. It can be. Ask me, he thinks, ask me-
She breaks for a moment, her forehead against him. "Say it. You can say it."
"Hush."
Kate breathes out a frustrated sigh. "I can see it all over your face, Castle. Say it."
But she hasn't said her safe word. She hasn't given him permission, and he waits. He will wait.
"No rush, Kate. It's in everything else." He manages to get at her mouth again, takes what she has left, takes more, feels her knees against his, the pulse of her heart in her lips.
When they draw back, she is watching him, her eyes serious. "Let's make Central Park official. Then tomorrow the break room-"
"Leave tomorrow alone," he says. He brushes his hands over her hair, sleek and soft, drags his thumbs down her jaw and then up along the lines at her mouth, tugging her lips into a smile of his own making.
She rolls her eyes but laughs again, an escape of air, stepping away so they can make it down the stairs to her building's front door. Her hand in his, leading him down. At the bottom, she eyes him, studies him, their hands linked.
"Say it again, Castle. Say it because you want to."
It rushes over him like it did in the hallway, a ripe tide that drags him out. He kisses her first, hard, his mouth breaking hers open, starfish to a clam, seeking pearls. She clutches at him, rides the wave of his need until he's left trembling at the shoreline.
"Kate, I love you. Stay with me, stay with me," he murmurs, because she is alive. She is. And still, she could leave.
"I'm here. Come with me to Central Park. We'll hold hands the whole way, Castle. This I can do."
She offers him a sweet taste of her mouth, fingers brushing his neck, and then opens the front door of her building.
Because their fingers are still laced together, he gets pulled out after her, a kite on her string.