Just as it's getting harder to find places they can go and be anonymous, it's also getting harder to keep up the pretense in general.
It gets harder the more Beckett gets to know Castle, the more she sees of the real person behind the obnoxious exterior. She has known all along, at the back of her mind, that he's learning her personality just as he's been learning her body, soaking up every detail like a sponge; but she slowly realizes that she's learning him too.
It gets harder when she learns that Castle has turned down an offer to write James Bond, signing a contract instead for three more Nikki Heat novels. The influence that Bond had on Derrick Storm is impossible to miss, so she can only imagine how excited Castle must have felt about getting the offer - yet, according to Beckett's inside source, he barely batted an eye before refusing.
It gets harder when Castle's former girlfriend turns up as the bride in the case of a murdered bridesmaid, and Beckett is shocked by her own reaction. Not just that she's jealous - yes, that, but not just that - she also sees how rattled Castle is by seeing his ex again, and Beckett finds, uncomfortably, that his evident pain affects her too. She hurts for him, and that realization spooks her badly.
It gets harder still when what initially seemed like just another murder unexpectedly brings Beckett's mother's case back into the spotlight, and Castle unhesitatingly lays out a hundred grand of his own money to try to catch the killer. When Dick Coonan jams his gun into Castle's ribs, Beckett thinks she might split in two. Despair overwhelms her and doesn't let go: not when Montgomery steps out with his gun held up; not when she's crouched over Coonan's body, her hands drenched in his blood, desperately willing him to live.
He doesn't. And Castle comes back later, more solemn than she has ever seen him, and apologizes, and says he's going to stop shadowing her. Guilt and pain suffuse his face, and her gut twists with dismay; she only barely manages to keep herself from reaching out to grab his hand. They don't do that. They don't touch, at the precinct.
So she doesn't reach for him, but she does tell him, quietly and firmly, that she still wants him around. She knows he's hearing the subtext loud and clear. The very idea that he might step out of her life - both parts of her life - over this, of all things, is inconceivable. She can't bear it, even though she still can't admit to why.
They go home separately after eating at her desk. They don't meet up that night, or the next night. Emotions are too raw. Beckett goes home both nights and drinks just enough vodka to bring her deep, dreamless, unsatisfying sleep.
But her attempts to keep up the pretense - to keep the strangers game separate in her mind from their daytime roles - go from difficult to almost absurd when a newspaper refers to her and Castle as "rumored to be romantically involved." After that case is wrapped up, after her disastrous farce of a date with a firefighter, she finds herself at Remy's with Castle for what she belatedly realizes would be considered a date under most normal circumstances. She nearly panics when that thought hits her; she clings determinedly to the charade that they're just coworkers, nothing more. She keeps the conversation on casework, and, when that peters out, on Alexis; and when even that fails, she chokes out a hasty "Gotta go. Night, Castle," and once again flees.
The next day is a paperwork day. Castle shows up in the morning as usual, hangs around fidgeting and complaining of boredom until even Ryan is telling him to shut up, and then leaves. But not before casually dropping a business card on Beckett's desk while no one else is looking. She whisks it out of sight. It shows the address and logo of another seedy little bar, this one way off on the Upper East Side. She doesn't know the place, but she's sure that Castle has already scouted out the area and found some kind of hotel nearby.
She's twitchy the rest of the day, like a junkie awaiting a fix. When end of shift arrives, she can hardly move fast enough, shutting down her computer and rapping out a quick goodbye to the boys before she's out the door.
When Castle - no, Rick - slides into her body a short while later, she feels a sickening mix of relief, shame, and apprehension. But the pure delicious pleasure he gives her overcomes it all and she moves with him eagerly, avidly until they both find their release.
They manage to maintain the act for a few more weeks. Beckett is queasy with anxiety as it becomes harder and harder to ignore how the pretense is crumbling out from under them. She sees the looks Castle gives her while they're working, the way he keeps opening his mouth as if to speak but then quickly stopping himself. She sees it all and knows that this can't go on forever - sooner or later something will have to give - but she still just can't face it.
And then there's a serial killer calling the precinct, asking for Detective Heat, taunting Beckett. The FBI is involved and Castle is grim-faced with guilt, while Beckett is tense with fury because she is not Nikki Heat, damn it. How dare he? She has got to catch this asshole before he kills anyone else in her name that isn't her name.
She channels her anger, again, into cool hard efficiency, so that when Agent Shaw asks "So how long have you two been sleeping together?" her immediate response is entirely believable. She denies, and Castle corroborates, and Shaw buys it. Incredible.
That evening Castle shows up at her door - at her home - and her heart leaps into her throat. Letting him into her apartment feels like the most dangerous thing she has ever done.
There are rules to the game - she keeps reminding herself of the rules - she needs the rules - but he doesn't seem to be here to break them. He brings her wine; he nudges her into the familiar, comfortable banter that they've always hidden behind. When he declares that he isn't going to leave her alone, she feels faint with nervousness, but she covers it up with bravado.
"If I see that doorknob turn, I will have you know, Mr. Castle, that I sleep with a gun."
He smiles softly. "Understood." And he's kicking off his shoes, lifting his legs onto the sofa as she retreats.
She goes into her bedroom, changes into pajamas, and sits in bed, tense, listening, wondering. What will he do? What does she want him to do?
The silence drags on so long that her eyelids grow heavy, and at last she slides down under the covers and falls asleep.
She wakes up in the morning feeling refreshed, but unsettled. She doesn't like how she feels about the fact that Castle respected the rules of the game - that he never turned her doorknob. She thinks he probably left sometime in the night, and she should feel relieved, not disappointed.
But when she emerges cautiously from her room, to her amazement, there he is, cooking pancakes.
Then he opens the door and finds the corpse they've been looking for, and Beckett is ashamed to realize that her very first thought is not Oh no, the poor woman, nor even Oh good, a break in the case, but rather Oh shit, everyone will know that Castle slept over.
And of course they do, but she gets through it. She has just enough time to throw on some clothes and brush her hair, so at least she doesn't have to worry about the entire FBI and NYPD seeing her in pajamas. Not much can be done about Castle's rumpled slept-in-my-clothes appearance, though.
Shaw, of course, is too professional to ask, and when Ryan and Esposito realize that needling Beckett is a dangerous proposition, they turn to Castle instead. She overhears him saying "There's nothing going on with Beckett and me, no more than there was yesterday," and she purses her lips to hold back a flare of amusement, because technically it's the absolute truth. Castle is a writer, after all, and he chose his words carefully.
So the boys are thrown off the trail, the Feds don't care, and the murder investigation can continue. The day flies by.
Now Beckett is lying bruised and battered in her bathtub, with the smell of smoke in her nose and the explosion's aftereffects leaving her disoriented and half-deaf. Dimly, above the ringing in her ears and the crackling of the fire, she hears Castle calling her name. Her first name; in the midst of this madness, she can't help focusing in on that. He's calling "Kate!" and his voice is cracking with desperation, with anguish.
She tries to call his name back, but drawing in the breath sends her into a coughing fit. It works equally well to alert him to her location, though. She drags her head above the rim of the tub just in time to see him stumble through the wreckage and find her.
"Kate! You're alive." He rushes over, shoving rubble out of the way. "Whoa, and you're naked."
"Castle, turn around," she snaps. He huffs in disbelief.
"Really?" he demands, and she feels her heart flutter painfully in her chest, because it's the closest either of them has ever come to acknowledging ... the thing ... and she isn't sure if she's maybe going to freak out about that later.
But he's right; this is no time for modesty; he has seen her naked dozens of times. She pulls herself upright, gripping the edge of the tub, and carefully stands.
"Hand me a towel."
"Towels are on fire," he reports, quickly shrugging out of his jacket. "Here, take this."
He wraps his jacket around her and helps her out of the tub, so gently, so sweetly. It would tear at her heart, if she were allowing herself to think about it, but she focuses on walking instead. The floor is strewn with rubble and she's barefoot. It could almost be a metaphor, if it weren't the literal ruins of her home.
Luckily, a pair of boots that she left beside the front door is somehow intact, and she shoves her feet into them before Castle urges her onward, anxious.
"The building could collapse," he frets, and hustles her out the front door just as the fire trucks come screaming around the corner.
Beckett knows, dimly, that she's spiraling out of control. Agent Shaw kicks her off the case, and a cold knot is weighing down her belly, because she knows that the moment she lets herself stop moving, the moment she doesn't have the case to focus on, she's going to have to think about the fact that almost everything she owned in life is gone.
Montgomery tells her to go home, and she almost snaps; she reminds him that she doesn't have a home. The voice from behind her is warm, deep, offering her comfort if only she would take it. If only she could.
"It's the safest place in the city," says Castle, and the lump in her stomach twists painfully; she can hardly even look at him. But he and Montgomery insist, and she knows she's only putting up a token resistance anyway.
She goes with Castle. She goes. She goes to his loft, and accepts hugs and words of welcome from his mother and daughter, and sits with them over hot cocoa.
Martha and Alexis eventually head off to bed, and Beckett is left alone with Castle. For the second time in days they'll be sleeping under the same roof, and again it feels very dangerous. Talking with him, she feels like she's swimming at the surface of a deep, shark-infested ocean.
He's being careful of her now. He isn't giving her those intent looks that have been on his face more and more lately. He teases gently, and she can roll her eyes, and it's almost the same as it always has been between them. Almost.
She puts her mug down and bids him goodnight.
She goes upstairs to the guest room, washes up, and gets into the bed; she sits up against the headboard, opening a book that she borrowed from Castle's extensive collection. But her mind is too full of buzzing thoughts, both the ones she needs to consider and the ones she's trying to ignore. She can't concentrate on the book at all. After rereading the same paragraph several times without any success, she gives up, puts the book down, turns off the light. She lies down on the unfamiliar bed and closes her eyes.
Sleep won't come. Her mind is still too busy; the strain of avoiding thinking about her destroyed home and everything else is too great. She tosses and turns for a while before sitting up again, turning the light back on. Huffing in frustration, she gets out of bed. Maybe a cup of tea will help.
The loft is mostly in darkness, but the kitchen light is on. She hesitates halfway down the stairs, almost ready to turn around and go back; but she tells herself that it could be one of the redheads. She knows, now, that she's lying to herself. She lets herself do it. She goes down the stairs.
Castle is standing in the kitchen, staring at nothing. A bottle of vodka and a single empty glass sit on the countertop in front of him. He looks up at her approach.
She slides onto a stool, biting her lip.
He says nothing, just reaches for another glass, pours a small measure of liquid into it, pushes it across the kitchen island.
She picks it up and takes a sip. The alcohol burns pleasantly on the way down and the phrase 'liquid courage' floats through her mind.
She looks up at Castle, and he smiles slightly, his eyes hooded. She can't read his expression.
"Come here often?" he says softly, his tone deliberately light.
She feels the corners of her mouth twitch a little bit with amusement as she realizes slowly that of all the corny pickup lines there are, this is one he never used in all their many rounds of the strangers game.
Besides, as so often happens with Castle, there's a deeper meaning hidden behind the joke. She sees that now, more clearly than ever.
She takes another sip of the vodka, puts the glass down. She slides off the stool and moves around the island. Castle watches her with surprise blooming in his eyes.
She walks up to him and doesn't pause. She reaches up and pulls his head down, brings his mouth to hers.
It's completely against the rules, but she can't find the energy to care.
He wraps his arms around her and kisses her fiercely, passionately. Her whole body is pressed against his but it's still not enough, not enough. She pushes him backward and across the room, toward the door that leads to his bedroom. She's sucking on his tongue and he's running his hands up and down her back, down farther and suddenly he grabs her ass and hauls her up, her legs coming up automatically to wrap around his waist, and he staggers quickly to the bedroom, carrying her, their mouths still fused together.
The curtains are drawn and all the lights are off in Castle's bedroom, so Beckett can barely see him in the dark, but she doesn't need to. She knows the contours of his body by heart, as he knows hers. They strip each other's clothes off and fall onto the bed, touching, kissing. The stubble on his chin rasps against her chest and she shudders, clutching his head as he takes one nipple into his mouth.
Her hands wander voraciously across his body, and suddenly he rolls away. She hears the sound of a drawer opening and the crinkle of the condom wrapper. She reaches for him, finds his fingers, takes the condom from him. Blindly in the dark she pushes him onto his back and straddles his hips.
As they rock together he caresses her body so gently, more tenderly than he has ever done before, and in the darkness she sees the gleam of his eyes full of emotion. It makes her gasp aloud and she leans down, her mouth seeking in the dark, finding his jaw, tracking a trail up to his mouth and sealing her lips against his before any dangerous words can find their way out.
He goes on stroking her slowly, sweetly, as she moves over him, and her climax rolls over her in irresistible waves, slow and powerful.
Afterward she rolls away, turning her back to him, staring into the darkness as the sweat cools on her skin.
But he moves toward her, she feels the heat of his body behind hers, and his voice slips into her ear, full of feeling.
"You almost died," he gets out, anguished, and she freezes. It's against the rules. Breaking character, blending the game with reality.
Fear surges through her, like she's falling off a cliff. Her lungs feel like lead; she struggles to take in a breath. She squeezes her eyes shut in the dark and feels a couple of hot tears leak out.
He shifts even closer, and his arm slides around her waist, pulling her back against him. The broad solidity of his chest is shockingly reassuring. "You almost died," he repeats, his voice trembling.
"Castle," she whispers, and that's against the rules too, but she's cracking inside.
She turns in his arms and burrows her face into his chest. He presses her close and she knows he can feel her tears dampening his skin.
"Don't go," he implores quietly. She doesn't know how to answer that. She doesn't know what to do. She lies there breathing him in, her body quivering as the tears flow.
They break another rule. They fall asleep together.
Beckett wakes some indeterminate time later and finds herself still snuggled up with Castle, now curled against his side, his arm around her shoulders. It's still dark, so she can't have been asleep for too long.
Carefully, she lifts up onto an elbow. Her eyes have adjusted to the dark enough that she can make out the outline of Castle's profile, relaxed in sleep. A flop of hair over his forehead tempts her fingers, but she leaves it alone.
She tries to slide smoothly out from his embrace, but he wakes anyway and stares fuzzily at her. Her chest tightens and she gets up too quickly; she almost topples over when her achy legs take her weight. She catches herself and heads for the bathroom.
A small nightlight guides her to the right door, and provides enough illumination once she's inside that she doesn't have to turn on the overhead light. She uses the toilet, washes her hands, splashes water on her face, and dries off with a small hand-towel hanging beside the sink. When she brings it up to her face, the towel smells like Castle and her breath stops briefly, a painful chill of apprehension running through her whole body.
She steps back out of the bathroom and hesitates, seeing him sitting up on the bed, waiting for her.
When she moves to pick up her clothes from the floor, he reaches over, his broad hand closing around her upper arm, gently, but insistently. "Don't go," he whispers again, as if no time had passed at all.
Goosebumps rise across her arms and shoulders. He pulls her back onto the bed; he lies down and brings her with him. She goes along - she doesn't know why; she still feels the urge to pull away, but somehow she can't make herself act on it.
He gathers her in against him, running his hands over her body, and even though they're both still naked, it isn't a sexual touch. It's reassurance, like he needs to convince himself again and again and again that she's really here. That she's okay.
She should resist - she thinks she wants to resist - get up, pull away from this dangerous, rule-breaking touch - but she doesn't. She rests her hand on his chest, her head on the pillow beside his, and lets him pet her, comfort himself.
"Your family," she protests weakly, after a few minutes. She's almost too wrung out to find the words for what she means, but she trusts Castle to understand. She means, if she stays here all night with him, then Martha and Alexis will find out in the morning.
"I don't care," he says firmly. He presses her onto her back and looms over her in the dim room, kisses her mouth gently, deliberately. "I don't care." Another kiss. Another, and she turns her head away, the tears starting up again.
"Kate," he whispers, not attempting to make her turn back and face him. "I know I can't tell you what to do - you can go back to the guest room if you want - but ... aren't you tired of pretending?"
She gasps, shivers, sucks in another painful breath. The honesty hurts. It's breaking down her walls, destroying her ability to compartmentalize.
"Because I am," he goes on, and she knows that he wants to bring those barriers down, no matter how much it hurts. "I'm tired of pretending that I'm not in love with you."
Her whole body goes still. Her stomach feels like it has dropped through the center of the earth. Her mouth is dry, her breathing shallow.
She turns her face back to him, hesitantly. His eyes are shadowed in the dim light of the room, but she can see the sincerity in his face.
"I love you, Kate," he says again. "I don't want to hide it any more, not after I almost lost you yesterday."
A few more tears seep out, and she has to push words past her trembling lips. "Castle, I'm such a mess," she whispers bleakly.
But he just smiles, a little sadly, and brushes his lips across hers again. "You're the most extraordinary mess I've ever known," he answers quietly.
Her breath catches again and she realizes in a flash that of all people, Castle is in the best position to know just exactly how screwed up she is. And yet ... he loves her.
The walls of her home have come down; how can there be any more barriers, any more pretense, when they've broken almost all of the rules tonight? Except the one about never leaving the room together, she thinks irrelevantly. If she stays, like he wants her to, they could break that rule in the morning.
She closes her eyes and shudders briefly, imagining that she can hear and feel the rest of it toppling, crumbling to dust around her. All of her careful safeguards, her emotional protection: all shattering.
Slowly she reopens her eyes and finally allows herself to see the truth in Castle's face, his gentle smile.
"I love you too," she whispers through dry, unsteady lips. Her heart lifts at the way the words spread joy across his face like the rising of the sun.
He leans down and this time she meets his kiss, whimpering softly at the earnest touch of his tongue. She lifts her arms around his neck and pulls him over her, and, for the second time tonight - the second time ever - they make love.
"Why did you go along with it for so long?" Beckett finally gets up the courage to ask, a few days later - after they've caught the killer, endured extensive ribbing from the team over their newfound relationship ("About damn time" was all Montgomery said, but Ryan, Esposito, and Lanie were more loquacious), and been given several days off to recuperate from all the trauma. They're lying in Castle's bed again, relaxing; she can feel another argument about where she should live brewing, but she can't hold this question back any more. "Why did you keep pretending?"
"Mmm," he hums thoughtfully, his fingertips drawing little patterns on her bare shoulder. "At first I thought it was just for fun, but at some point I realized that we were building trust."
"Oh," she breathes, surprised, because it's true and she never saw it that way.
"Then I fucked it all up and broke your trust," he goes on, his arm tightening reflexively around her, "and when you took me back I knew I had to do whatever it took to earn it again."
She shifts in closer, dropping a tiny kiss on the closest bit of his chest. "And then?"
Without even looking, she knows he's smiling against the top of her head. "And then I was just in so deep there was no way out. I knew you weren't ready, so if I stopped pretending, I'd lose you. And that wasn't an option."
A pleasant shiver runs through her. She lifts her head to look into his eyes again.
"Thank you for waiting for me," she murmurs, nearly a whisper. She kisses his chest again and then shifts upward to find his mouth.
"Always," he breathes against her lips.
A few years later, shortly after they've gotten back from their honeymoon, Castle has to go off on a week-long book tour. The day before he leaves, Beckett looks over his itinerary and smiles to herself.
The fifth day of the trip is a Saturday, and she's not on call. So on Friday evening as soon as she finishes her shift, she rushes back to the loft, changes her clothes, grabs the small travel bag that she has already packed, and heads to the airport.
She lands in Denver just past dinnertime, takes a taxi to the hotel, goes directly to the bar. She orders vodka with a twist, making sure to sit where she's visible to anyone walking through the lobby on the way to the elevators.
She's taking a gamble - what if he's already in the room for the night? what if he doesn't look toward the bar? - but, as she suspected, it pays off. He strolls past about ten minutes later, pauses, does a double-take, then backtracks and saunters on into the bar.
He takes a stool a few down from her, and signals the bartender.
"Another one for the lady, and I'll have the same."
"Thanks," she murmurs, giving him a sideways smile, flexing her fingers around her glass so that her wedding ring is easily visible.
"My pleasure," he grins back, all cool composure and charm. "You in for the publishing conference? Great keynote speech yesterday."
"No, just passing through," she replies, angling her body toward him, crossing her legs slowly. "Got a flight to L.A. first thing in the morning. Client meetings."
"Ah," he nods. "Meetings make the world go 'round, or so they'd like us to believe."
She chuckles softly, nodding at the dumb joke. "So publishing, eh? What are you, some kind of big-shot writer?"
"I do okay," he shrugs negligently, and they drink in silence for a few moments.
"Denver sure is pretty this time of year, isn't it?" he puts in at last.
"It really is," she agrees. "The mountains are just lovely."
"Good skiing too," he nods. "Didn't get a chance to hit the slopes this time around. Maybe next time."
"There's always so much to do," she says, smiling.
He leans toward her. "Listen," he says more seriously, his smile dropping away, "I feel like I need to be honest with you."
"Oh?" She straightens her spine and raises her eyebrows. "How so?"
"Well, you seem really nice and everything," he goes on, "but I have to tell you, I'm completely loyal to my wife."
"Ahh," she breathes, her chest fluttering with delight even as she keeps playing her role. "That's pretty sweet, actually." Now she leans in a little bit also. "Tell me," she says softly, "if your wife were here right now, what would you say to her?"
His eyes light up at the words, and she sees him fighting to contain his smile. "Oh, I wish she were. I'd tell her how much I've missed her, even though it's only been a few days. I'd tell her how much I love her." He lets a smirk twist his lips and adds, "But mostly I'd just have to say, let's get the hell out of here and get up to the room before I do something indecent right here in this bar."
She laughs out loud at that, genuine and joyful, and he surges forward to claim her mouth, wrapping her in his arms, the sweetness of her laughter mixing with the vodka on their tongues while the bartender blinks in surprise.
A/N: Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed this little piece. As always, please feel free to use the comment box and tell me what you think.