Thanks to all for the reviews, and for those nudging for updates to Paris or Mornings, those will eventually get finished - I just can't promise when. Right now I have this in my head, which just wants OUT, so...peace offering? Beckett-type apology (I'm sorry, I'm so sorry)? Unbeta'ed, unedited, which is why the chapters are coming so fast. I don't normally write and post immediately, so hopefully I won't write myself into a blind alley, but I'm pretty sure I know where it's going, just not how it's going to get there. Hopefully, it'll be as much of an adventure to read as to write.
Dedicated to my usual betas, who are probably gritting their teeth right about now...
He tries not to watch them too closely over dinner, his daughter and his...his Kate. Any other designation seems too strange right now. It's odd and awkward, although not in an unpleasant sense, not in any way that isn't subject to change. The polite tone of the conversation, the genuine desire to connect, the fear each of them seems to have of overwhelming the other - surely that will disappear, will lessen as they get used to these new roles they all inhabit now?
It's a little dizzying for him as well, to be honest, how quickly things have changed between them. The traits he used to admire in her as a cop - her singlemindedness, her complete absorption in her work - he's on the receiving end of those now. As if this is something she's relentlessly committed to seeing through, even as her hesitancy telegraphs that she still sees herself as some kind of intruder. An extra, unexpected (although not unwelcome) guest at what was supposed to be Alexis' family graduation dinner. It's in her body language, the slightly distant, slightly formal way she's always been around his family, still unchanged. Thank god for his mother, already more than a little drunk on champagne, happily holding forth on his daughter's valedictory speech.
Kate's smile is warm, if reserved. 'I wish I could have seen that,' she says, and he remembers what she was actually doing while Alexis was graduating. For a moment, it's like ice water hits his veins, thinking of what yesterday might have been, and how unbearable he would have found today.
He struggles away from that abyss in time to catch his mother saying, 'Don't worry, darling, you'll be there for the next one,' and making a grand gesture of patting Kate's arm across the table. 'Maybe even with a little one in tow.'
He sees Kate choke slightly on her own breath and shoots a dark glare at his mother. 'What?' Martha asks, all mock innocence and delight. 'I'm only saying it's possible.'
'I think maybe...one day at a time?' Kate is saying but he catches the quick glance she throws at Alexis, whose face is carefully neutral.
'Well, of course, my dear, but just remember, those days pass so much faster than you realise,' Martha answers, raising her glass to Alexis. 'Look how quickly this one's grown.'
'To Alexis,' Castle says quickly, defusing the moment. 'This family's first bona fide grown-up.' And they laugh and toast and the moment that was teetering on the brink of falling over finds its balance and carries on.
They're alone now; his mother has taken Alexis back to the loft. Or, considering how much champagne Martha put away, it may well be the other way around. Not that he wanted them gone, but now that they are, he can't help but savour the the fact that there's nothing between him and Kate but a deliciously sinful chocolate mousse. A mousse which she's savouring in a most indecent fashion, turning the spoon against her tongue, eyes closing around a soft, appreciative purr. He has no idea if she's doing it on purpose, or if this is just how Kate Beckett eats a superb chocolate mousse, with her lips and tongue and back and soul, but if she doesn't stop it he might have to throw her on the table right here, right now, and lick every morsel of chocolate from the inside of her mouth.
'Kate,' he says, although it comes out a bit more like a tortured moan. She opens eyes flecked amber in the dim, atmospheric light of the restaurant, ringed with a soft smudge of pencil instead of the heavy liner and multiple layers of mascara she usually wears. He likes the way it makes her look, less dramatic, yet somehow more intensely there. Her expression is innocent, of course, too damned innocent, and he takes the spoon out of her mouth, leans forward and steals a sweet, chocolatey kiss. If there are paparazzi lurking around he's probably just given a few of them a money shot, but he can't bring himself to care. 'Come home with me,' he whispers. 'Please. Now?'
She's softened since the other two went home, her back a little less straight, her smile a little wider and more frequent. But there's still a flash of regret in her eyes that tells him he's not going to like what he's about to hear.
'Castle, would it...' She stutters off, takes a breath and lifts her gaze from where it's drifted to his lips. 'Would it be okay if I didn't? I just...the last couple of days have been a lot to take in. I really need some time to process.'
His phone trills in his pocket, receiving a text, most likely Alexis telling him they're home safe and sound. Yes, he's that kind of worrywort dad. This time he ignores it, focusses on Kate, looking for tells, trying to hide the way his own heart is plummetting somewhere down around his toes. He should think of this as a good sign, really, that she feels safe enough to ask him for the space she needs, instead of letting him slobber all over her like a happy pup. But he just can't. The idea of letting her out of his sight so soon after the long afternoon apart (which he enjoyed, of course, spending time with Alexis isn't something he takes for granted) just fills him with despair. How can she bear to spend their second night together apart? Surely she can't be sick of him yet?
'One more night,' he hears himself blurt. 'Please? You asked for a day and I gave you a day. Please just give me one more night.'
'Oh, Castle. Castle...' She sounds like she did when she apologised, full of anguish and regret, and he hates himself for making her feel like she has to apologise again. She slides a hand around the back of his neck, pulls him closer, so that her lips can find his forehead. 'I won't run away again, I promise. I'm just exhausted, that's all.' She pulls away a little so he can see her smile, a tiny smirk still tinged with an incongruent sadness. 'We didn't exactly get much sleep last night.'
'I can let you sleep,' he answers, making his eyes big and wide, going for goofball to hide the roil of desperation inside his head. She rolls her own eyes in answer to that suggestion, but her smile is widening, getting more real.
'Alexis? And your mother, Castle.'
'We'll be vewwy qwiet. And then I'll let you sleep. Or we can go to yours, if you'd rather.'
'Alexis is expecting you home,' she says quickly, a brief shadow crossing her face. Reluctance to have him in her space, he hopes, not reluctance to be with him. He can deal with Kate needing her own separate space. Actually, he'd be surprised if she didn't, someplace that's still completely her own, where he hasn't invaded. Because he's very very happy to have her invade his space all she wants, he's used to sharing, and the thought of her calling his loft even very slightly home - her shampoo in the shower, her toothbrush next to his - takes away the flutter of panic that at any given second he could say the wrong thing, make the wrong gesture, and she'll walk away, never to return.
He's got to get over that, he knows, but it needs...it will need time. They need time. Together.
She strokes his nose with hers, that gentle caress that is so very her, that tells him more than words that she wants him, loves him, or she would never allow him to get this close. All the roil of emotion suddenly calms, made nothing by the smell of her hair, the brush of her lashes against his cheek. 'All right,' she whispers. 'But you'll need to make me pancakes in the morning. And absolutely not before ten.'
'Absolutely,' he says, nuzzling her back, since he's grinning far too widely to shape his lips into a kiss.
It's later that he remembers the message, and once he does, he has to get out of bed to make sure it really was Alexis. Paula is out on the West Coast, drumming up interest in Heat Wave, which has finally finished post-production; he's actually been waiting all week for her to text him a firm date for the premiere.
Kate is asleep against his chest again, her mouth slightly open, her limbs flung over him like she's claiming possession. Which, of course, she has. As he claimed possession of her earlier, slow, gentle possession, savouring the whisper of her skin against his, the languid motion of her hands caressing his back as he stroked her from the inside out, their first night's inferno compacting into hot embers, now carefully banked until they're more energetic. Or they're alone in the house.
He holds back the laugh at his own joke, not wanting to disturb her, but the itch to know is getting overwhelming and the slightly damp patch on his chest suggests that nothing is going to wake Kate Beckett right now. He gently turns her onto her back, waiting while she mumbles something incoherent and curls up on her other side, almost immediately going still again. Then he sets about to find the jeans he was wearing amongst the clothes strewn across the floor.
He finds a pair of jeans and a soft cotton shirt, both hers, folds them while trying to see more clearly in the dim light. It hits him then, what he's doing, folding Kate's clothes, laying them over the back of a chair so they don't wrinkle. He's taking care of her. She's letting him take care of her. Okay, not letting exactly, because she's sound asleep while he's doing this, but he can imagine himself doing this a year from now, or ten. Washing her clothes, drawing them warm from the dryer and folding them in neat piles, the way he does for Alexis or she for him. Sharing in the day-to-day, the mundane, the little things that bind a family together. Binding Kate into his family, making his life truly theirs.
He smiles, finding his jeans at last, draws his phone out and thumbs it on.
One text, three words, and it all comes crumbling down in a flash of white horror. The message is from Smith. It says: get her run.