Chapter Thirty-Nine
Kate had spent the past two days feeling completely off kilter. She'd taken time off work to stay with Castle. She knew he had Alexis and Martha, but after hearing the kind of care he would need when he got home, she'd offered. To her surprise, both women had happily agreed that they could use the extra muscle.
Practically living in Castle's house with Martha and Alexis hadn't been as awkward as she would have imagined. With Castle spending most of his time sleeping, she'd had a lot of time to get to know them and even more time alone with her thoughts.
The time she'd spent with Castle had been both amusing and frustrating. It was an exercise in self-control. In the state he was in most of the time, he would have answered any question she had and probably not remembered a thing about it. She had to talk herself out of interrogating him several times and was proud of herself for the restraint.
As much as she'd wanted to have a conversation with him, she pushed the topic away, even when he brought it up. It wasn't that she was worried about what might come up, she was fairly certain they were on the same page for once. However, she wanted to look in his eyes and see what he was feeling, not the blank glassy-eyed look he'd been giving her and everything else for two days.
He was almost lucid as the time rolled around for another dose of his medication, but by then it was more important to relieve his pain then to have any kind of serious conversation with him. So, it was delayed. She put him off, sometimes having to resort to leaving the room in order to avoid him. He had become increasingly insistent, but his eyes were still wrong. Not his, more a clouded version of them that didn't speak to her in the same way.
That's why she was surprised when she opened her eyes to the orange hues of sunset streaking through the slats of Castle's blinds and saw him. His eyes. Clear, deep blue, serious and intent, looking at her far more focused than they'd been in days. It almost felt out of place. It almost felt like she was still asleep and dreaming instead of lying in his bed, hugging his arm to her chest with his hand still grasping hers.
There had to be something wrong, because after what had seemed like an eternity of not being able to look at him and really see him, he was there again. She had seen the victim, the injured man, the mask of humor and outlandish thoughts that the medication induced. She hadn't actually seen him and it felt like a homecoming to look at him and be able to recognize the man by the look in his eyes.
She wondered how long he had been awake and staring at her like that, but brushed off the urge to make a comment about how it was creepy. She didn't actually think that it was and telling him that when there were already so many things between them that were half-truths and poor interpretations, felt wrong. It felt like it would cheapen what they had already done a pretty damn good job of screwing up.
Instead she gave him a shy smile and felt the clench in her stomach when he returned it with a little flicker of real true emotion in his eyes. She hadn't seen it in almost three days and despite her obvious knowledge that she had missed that aspect of him, she was surprised to realize exactly how much she had.
The smile faded quickly, but it wasn't replaced with a frown, more of a contemplative expression that was almost passive in its intent. He held her gaze, steady and serious, and she knew this was it. It was time for them to swallow their pride, take a leap and make some very overdue apologies.
Feeling unusually insecure about what was coming; Kate made a conscious decision to wait him out. She knew it was the coward's way out, but she didn't know if she could start into a conversation with him just then. She hadn't slept well in days, resorting to catnaps in a chair in the corner of his room so that when the nightmares came, and they always did, she could see him when she finally woke.
She knew it was ridiculous. She knew he was fine and that she could probably talk herself down when she did wake up wondering if the dream was reality and she would really never see him again. She knew all of that, but it was just easier to look across the room and watch his chest rise and fall with the breaths he took.
Kate Beckett was capable of anything she put her mind to and she'd be capable of kicking the lasting effects of her blood soaked hand holding his while he begged her to take care of his daughter when he died. She knew she could, but it didn't make the transition any easier. It didn't make the nights any shorter and it sure as hell didn't help her get to sleep. Exhaustion had to force her into submission, usually while reading, but its hold only lasted as long as it took for her to fall deep enough into the dream that the emotions tore her back into consciousness.
It was just easier.
Like sleeping, she had thought waiting for him to speak would be the easier way out, but she felt the strangle hold that every minute had on her emotions. She was falling into those eyes that had pulled her out of so many dark days. Those eyes that had spoken so many things without the man possessing them even uttering a word. Those eyes that she had somehow ignored over the past couple of weeks as her own insecurities and self-doubts built up inside to a fever pitch. Deep blue, soothing, comforting. How she had ever thought the owner of eyes that looked on her the way these did could be so cold and cruel, was suddenly a mystery to her.
She felt like the biggest fool in the world to have ever doubted this man, and somewhere in her, the guilt of that point had begun to eat away at her very soul. It wasn't easy for her to admit when she was wrong. She knew that was a trait she likely shared with almost every other person on the planet, but in this instance, she was willing to admit how wrong she was, even if only to herself. He still didn't know she understood that point.
The silence had become oppressive as she lost herself in contemplation and retrospection. She could feel the lack of sound as if it were a physical and tangible third person in the room. More than any elephant, that silence took up all the space they were not occupying and bore down on her where she lay.
She couldn't take the pressure of it anymore and finally broke the silence. "I'm sorry." Her tone was a quiet as his as he spoke the same words at the moment she had chosen to. They shared a soft smile at the fact that, even with all that was going on, they still seemed to think alike in some aspects.
She wasn't naïve enough to think that they didn't have a long and treacherous road ahead of them with fences that couldn't be mended and would probably need to be reconstructed entirely. She did, however, recognize that with that simple phrase, they were headed towards mutual understanding. They were, for once, headed in the same direction.
The silence that followed their mutual apologies was more comfortable than that which came before. Castle still wore a serious expression, but his eyes were softer, he seemed to have some of the light back that had been missing, not just the past two days, but since that day he'd found the ring in her drawer.
Beneath that, she could tell there was something else, something he wanted to say or something he needed to hear. She squeezed his hand, still twined with her own, as she considered the possibility that his new expression had nothing to do with 'them' and was actually a result of something peripheral. "Are you in pain?" she asked, taking a shot on the other point that might cause that expression.
He nodded, but didn't speak. There was a subtle shift in the color of his eyes and a tightening around them that would have given him away if his nod had not.
She released his hand in an attempt to pull away, "I'll get you something." she informed him.
Rick didn't release her hand, if anything, his grip squeezed more firmly. "Not that kind of pain." he responded and she froze mid-motion in her attempt to roll away and get out of the bed as the words sank in.
Her eyes searched his for an answer. Searched for reassurance or some kind of indication that he was, or perhaps less frightening would be that he wasn't, saying what she had thought those words meant. She couldn't speak, lest she tip her hand and reveal herself as incapable of following his train of logic. Instead, she raised an eyebrow to him in silent question.
"It's just, I feel so. . ." he trailed off as he squeezed his eyes tightly closed. The crease in his forehead prominent and she didn't stop herself from bringing one of her hands up to brush across it. His forehead relaxed under her gentle touch and after a moment his eyes came open to meet hers again. "I feel like everything is wrong." he finally spoke again, and her hand dropped away as she wondered if her touch was included in 'everything'. "I look back on everything that's happened and I can't believe that it was even me that did this or said that. I don't recognize myself at all."
Beckett nodded; there was no other reaction she could have. She had been right there every step of the way and the more she thought about it, the more she had felt the same exact way. She watched his expression soften from the frustration he obviously had with himself to an understanding. She hoped that he was interpreting her silence as it was intended, as an agreement, but she knew that silence had been a bitter enemy to them both. She didn't really see any other option for herself just then.
It wasn't that she didn't want to say anything. It wasn't that she wanted to keep it from him or didn't want him to know she understood him completely because she had been experiencing the exact same things. It was more that she knew what she was capable of. She knew that her words had the power to heal or destroy and her track record for saying or doing the right thing in any given moment was far from the best.
She wanted nothing more than to be able to just open her mouth and all of her most important thoughts come out clearly and concisely. Kate would have given anything to be able to just open up and tell him everything that had been going through her mind over the past couple of weeks, even the changes in her over their entire time together, unfortunately, she couldn't.
On one hand, she had already opened herself to him, fully, emotionally, and with devastating repercussion. Shock waves from that were still reverberating in her despite the realization that she had the whole thing wrong. Despite knowing that her silence had been the catalyst that had driven him to do what he did. She knew that she was a strong woman and she should be able to just tell him again. This time with eyes wide open, but there was still that something inside her that held her back. there was still a certain level of fear that even now she was reading this the wrong way, that he was looking for fun, not interested in being tied down or things being too serious.
She almost laughed at herself, because from what little they had been able to actually say to each other, she should have felt pretty confident that her excuses for silence were nothing but a load of crap. It was unfortunate that logic didn't seem to have any control over her fear. She was tired of losing the people she cared about. She was tired of driving away those who meant the most to her. She was tired of her inability to effectively communicate and sick of worrying over the intentions of the one person that she should have complete confidence in.
This man had proved himself to her so many times that she was stupid if she didn't see that she meant more to him than a good time. She was an idiot if she could even entertain the idea that he would throw away what they had for a roll in the hay. She was probably crazy if she thought he could look at her in a way no man had ever looked at her before and have her mind somehow interpret it as a passing fancy. All those realization flew by and still her lips remained closed. No signs of movement or speech and she was suddenly aware of the fact that she was a stupid crazy idiot.
"I love you." his breathy confession seemed to slip from his mouth into the space around them. It was quiet, but sincere, almost reverent.
Her tone was far different from his, louder, but still subdued. The realization that she wasn't taking a risk at all in telling him what she had held back even from herself, as she said the same words at the same time as him.
They shared a smile again, this one brighter and more hopeful than the first time they had spoken together a few minutes earlier. They weren't just on the same page; they were on the same chapter and verse.
She was both relieved and excited to find that even on this side of some very scary words, they were still them.
"Jinx." Castle said, his smile turned to a smirk as his eyes glittered at her, happy and mischievous.
Yes, they were still them, but with one change that she could see working to her advantage. Kate leaned forward and kissed the smirk off his face.
x.x.x
A/N: Wait a second? Did that really just happen? Is this story over? I'm so confused. It seems like it is, feels like it is, but that snuck up on me so fast it can't be right… what the heck? I'm going to leave this in 'not complete' for now, because there has to at least be one more chapter where we find out where that kiss goes and perhaps an epilogue or something. Stupid not mapping out stories! I'm so sad.
Let me know if that feels as much like the end to you guys as it does to me reading it back, because I wouldn't want to keep it moving if it's going to just be dragging things out unnecessarily when this feels so organic as it is.
Review that made my day: FanficwriterGHC, for enjoying the dictated pages from a drug addled brain. That was actually all stolen from when I went to the ER a while back and found out I had kidney stones. While I was there I was given something that made me very happy and not entirely intelligent. I had some 'Really GREAT ideas' while there and typed them into my notebook app on my Android phone. I found them there a few days later and scratched my head going, 'WTF?' I just figured Castle would probably have a similar experience if he lives and breathes writing the way I do.
Thanks to everyone for reading.