A Fragment Of A Second Of Sense

Chapter Three

Richard Castle sipped quickly on his glass of red wine that he poured himself swiftly after opening the bottle. He didn't have one open, he'd just told Kate that, so his invitation would seem more casual. Now he of course had to at least drink one glass before she would arrive so he didn't seem phony. He'd just finished it with one large slurp when his doorbell announced the arrival of his favorite homicide detective in the world. He smiled at the thought that he would have such a thing as a favorite homicide detective.

Happier than he should've been, he half-danced to the salsa music playing towards the door and opened with a wide swing, revealing an amused looking Kate Beckett.

"Nice music", she stated stepping inside and carefully unbuttoning her coat, hanging it on the rack.

"D'you wanna dance?", Castle asked a little too much hope swinging along in his silky voice for the fact that he already knew she was going to shake her head and say 'no', though she made it sound more like 'hell no'.

"So where's that wine?", she asked him instead of twirling around the room with him to the summery rhythm that flooded Castles modern furnished living room, "I could use some of that now"

Castle nodded with a wide grin and went back to the kitchen to pick up his now empty and her still empty glass, bringing both back with the wine, asking Kate to sit down on the couch.

As he took seat beside her, he already noticed her blank stare and vacated expression, she was thinking again. He carefully poured wine into the glasses, putting his on the table and holding the other one out for Kate to take but she didn't, so he put it on the table before her.

"Cheers", he said, but she still showed no sign of awareness and after a few heartbeats, he clunked his against her glass. The delicate 'Bing' seemed to waken her off her trance where Castle's voice couldn't and still wordlessly she took the glass, raised it as if to say a toast, a silent 'cheers' to Castle and gulped the whole thing down at once.

"Easy there", Richard half-laughed...he was was doing a lot of half-things when she was around, half-dancing, half-smiling, half-telling the truth, half-heartedly attempting not to like her so much.

"Oh believe me, Castle, I can take it", she huffed, rolling her eyes at him. He wondered if one day her eyes would just stay in the wholes because she rolled them at him too forcefully.

"Sometimes I hate my job", she said coldly, her face displaying the same kind of anger mixed with grief she'd worn the whole day, "I still can't believe how this motherfucker reacted when we showed him the watertight evidence...how he'd just shrugged and said, he couldn't help himself"

Castle said nothing, mainly because of his clenched teeth, remembering this smug son of a bitch, sitting there, complacent and disgusting, feeling no need to apologize or even regret, telling them he just couldn't help to rape and strangle his six-year-old step-daughter. Now as then he just felt the raging desire to smack his head in. And yet this was the first time he actually witnessed such a case, with such a young girl, normally the cases they got involving rape and murder, revolved around women or older girls. Sure the ones around Alexis' age were the toughest ones to deal with but this one...the girl had been so young. He understood how Kate was still upset.

"I always wanted children", she said out of the blue and Castle hesitated a moment, not sure what to make of it, "but seeing these things happen over and over and over again...ugh...I don't know"

"I see", he did, "I am always on the verge of breaking when Alexis is just half an hour late, even if she called to inform me about it,you never stop worrying, especially in a city like this"

"Yeah...and it doesn't matter anyway", Kate replied with a hint of bitterness in her voice, "It's not like I have a chance of even having a child coming around anywhere in the near future...and the clock is ticking"

Castle held his breath, was she really just confiding in him? It surely seemed so. Did she really just tell him of her ticking biological clock? And first and foremost, how long would he be able to bite his sharp tongue before he would say something really really really inappropriate.

"I wouldn't have a child anyway", she said thankfully and Castle released the air he held inside his lungs, glad that the moment of saying something disastrous for the course of the night had passed. "I wouldn't have. A child. Anyway."

She'd repeated it, she'd made each word a sentence. She wasn't telling him, he realized, he wasn't trying to convince him of anything, she was telling herself. Funny. Funny that Kate Beckett of all people wanted a baby. She'd never struck him as the motherly-type. Course she was good with kids but...Kate and a massive pregnant-belly... as much as the image appealed to him, as much as it made him smile absent-mindlessly...the much he'd always supposed it would repulse her. And again it turned out, he knew so much less about her than he wanted to. She'd gone off into her own world, after gulping down the second glass of wine. He wasn't done with his yet when she drank the third.

"Before my mother died I wanted to be a cook, I wanted to make people happy and full and satisfied and now the most I can hope for is to give them closure. Not happiness. Not even solace", her voice was only ever so slightly lulled when she spoke again, it seemed like Kate Beckett had decided to not give a damn tonight, sharing yet another glimpse into her soul that Castle sucked in like a parching man sucked in water, he could say he wanted the Nikki Heat-background but if he was honest, he just cared about the Kate Beckett-background.

And he couldn't help but notice that she was unusually sad. More sad than normally after a case like that, which of course was a nasty one, but the Kate he knew was strong, stronger than this. But then again, maybe it was just the winelancholy that kicked in. Like so many times before, he tried to read her face. Her eyes still looked through the walls, somewhere distant that he supposed to be more blankness than anything, her mouth was twitched and she went from nibbling on her upper lip to nibbling on her bottom lip, wrinkling her forehead ever now and then.

"Kate", he tried to gain her attention, he needed a closer look at her eyes and she granted him the favor, turning to face him, showing those green perfect eyes of hers, they looked sad, sunk in some thought or the other she had, or maybe hadn't shared yet, "what's wrong? This is not about that case, is it?"

"It's about everything", she said finally, after eying him, seeing if he was worthy of the truth, "it feels like I'm not doing anything right. I joined the force to help people but if feels like I'm only cleaning up after the bad guys. And now half of my life is over and what do I have to show for...a big whole pile of nothing. As for my mother, I had my revenge but I'll never figure out the reason they had her killed and my private life...well, let's not even talk about that"

She was genuinely sad, smacked, depressed. It must have been one hell of a wine to make her tongue so loose or maybe...maybe she'd just been eating this stuff for so long it just had to come out eventually. He was scared to comment, he was afraid she would take his words and turn them into something offending, man, he was cared he'd make his words offensive. He didn't want to. He didn't mean to, but he wanted to say something so bad, he couldn't hold back. But he hesitated, forcing himself to take advantage of this gift of his, of his talent to form words, sentences and elevate them, make them something Kate Beckett in that vulnerable wino-state couldn't find in any way or interpretation hurtful or mocking.

"Kate, I am a hundred percent serious right now, okay, I'm not kidding and I don't want you to think I am, do you understand?", he started, weighing of the feel of the words leaving his mouth.

"Yes, you're damn serious", she said, a sad smile pulling on the corners of her auburn lips.

"Okay", now he didn't like her mockery tone, "so I'm gonna say it, don't shoot me"

"Go ahead", she nodded faintly, now a bit curious.

"Tis might sound a bit unconventional", he still wondered how he was going to make that suggestion.

"Oh come on, Castle, I've known you long enough to not be surprised at unconventional ideas you have", she said with purpose.

"Well, I might just say it then", he couldn't say it – she looked at him, was she getting annoyed? That wasn't good..., "I...I think"...go ahead, Rick, he told himself, "I think you need a hug"

And then she bursted. All the pain and desperation automatically left her expression, she looked completely jolly, laughing full-heartedly at his remark. He didn't like that, either.

He let her laugh. A minute, two minutes and then he had enough. He cleared his throat, she looked at him and pulled herself together, but when she answered, it still sounded like she had to hold back from blurting out.

"Why do you think I need a hug?", she almost laughed, "And why do you think I need one from you?" - Now that was just mean. So he could be, too.

"I think that you lead a hell of an empty life and I think that you're too proud to admit that you're lonely, too, that you need a shoulder, too sometimes. I think you are so obsessed with making everyone think you're the tough girl, you've given every person in the world the impression you didn't need any help ever. I think that even though Lanie is your best friend, even she has never felt inclined to come by in the middle of the night because she knew you'd be needing a friend, I believe that, though she loves you, she thinks you can handle everything on your own.

Because you're so strong. I think that, all your life people turned to you for help and you had no one to turn to, I believe that when your father was binging, he came to you to come clean and you helped him through, listening to all his problem, supporting him every step of the way while you had nothing and no one who helped you with a drug-abusive father. I think that you've acted like that unbreakable, unaffected person that you have forgotten how to let go, how to release all this pain, all the fears, all the shit you keep taking and eating it up and I think that, when the night comes, you lie in your bed and there's nothing but this hollow place inside your chest and that nagging question; who is there for me? Who listens to me when I'm sad? Who takes me home when I'm lost? Who will hold my hair when I'm throwing up outside the Bar? Who cares about me?", his words hung in the air, thickened the atmosphere between them as her lips practically disappeared and her eyes went from icy to concrete, to stone until..

She took a deep breath, and another one while he held every muscle in his face tight to not fall apart, to not become a wincing puppy, begging her for forgiveness of such audacity. He didn't want to apologize, he'd meant it and he knew it was the truth, he wanted to sit that one out, even if that mean taking the piss from her. He wanted to know what she had to say to that. Then her face changed, first subtle, then visible, suddenly she seemed tired, exhausted and...sort of...resigned.

"Castle", her voice was soft, so soft, it let the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, she exed another glass of wine, "I'm a woman and I'm human. And although I might feel all these things you said I feel, what do you think would happen to me if I let it show? It's a tough world, it's unfair, it's dirty and no one looks out for no one. I learned that the hard way, again and again until I realized that I'm alone. As much as you are. You die alone, you stand alone"

He didn't think she'd ever been so blunt with him ever before. He also didn't think she'd ever been so wrong before.

"That's bullshit, Kate", he said firmly, "It's complete bull and you know it, you're not alone and if you ever went and tried to show that you're only human, as you said you'd notice that it isn't all that bad, that maybe showing a bit of weakness wouldn't kill you"

"Let it go", she said, equally as firm. Like hell he was.

"No, or are you scared, Beckett, give it a try...come on, come on over here, if you dare", he said challenging, opening his arms up widely.

"Nice try", she huffed out.

"So, you're really scared", he made big eyes and played shocked, "You're scared to touch me"

"I'm not scared to touch you, Castle, I just don't want to", she said, he waited for foam to drip from her angry lips and fangs to rip him in two while he still held out his arms.

"Try it, I dare you", this was his last shot, a last attempt to get her by betting, schoolyard-style.

"Fine", she almost spit at him, more spiteful than she'd ever been, "I hate you, Castle"

"Show me how much", he talked back, rocking his body towards her and then it happened.

She literally threw herself on top of his chest, one hand pressed to her side the other one wrapping around his upper body but not without elbowing him. Hard. And then she lay half on top of him and let him put his arm around her back, holding her tightly and with the other stroking up and down her arm.

First he felt her ragged, raged breath, her chest going up and down violently against his own ribcage until it all slowed down, her breathing deepened and he felt her face sink down on his shoulder.

Kate Beckett hated Richard Castle. With a passion. At least in the very second she threw herself on top of him out of sheer anger. She didn't want to hug him, she didn't want to be anywhere near him. But he needed to shut up and she didn't see any other way. That she could've just gotten up and left was an option she didn't consider for reasons she didn't even wanted to vaguely think about now. These reasons where more displaced and yet more acute than ever before. It was emotional overkill. And it had started when he told her all the things to her face she would never admit to herself.

That she did woke up at night, silent tears going down her reluctant cheek, asking herself ragingly why she was so alone, why no one could see that she wasn't so strong, that she was nothing more than another lost girl, a big and bitter girl that no one seemed to see worthy for protection. How did he know? Was she that obvious? Or had he just finally managed to get into her head? If anything, she wanted him out of there, he was invading, he needed to get out, he needed to shut up.

And then he wrapped his arms around her, so tightly, every muscle a strain, so strongly holding her she couldn't get away. And she'd wanted to scream,instead she panted.

And she'd wanted to hit him, instead she moved closer, resting her head on his strong shoulder.

And she'd wanted to tell him to leave her the fuck alone, instead she swallowed hard when he started to caress her arms, and when his fingers painted invisible patterns on her skin the worst thing happened.

It felt good.

It was actually annoyingly nice. She felt...she was disgusted by herself...she felt...it was beyond words...she actually felt...she couldn't think it...safe. She felt safe. And protected. And warm. And...which was the scariest thought of all...complete. She wanted to throw up. Her whole body acted beside herself, she didn't want this to feel so...right, damn, she wanted to be reluctant, repulsed, she wanted the urge to move away, to go and never come back but it wasn't there, her body wanted to stay and she felt the wine flow through her veins and her thoughts getting all dulled up, all fuzzy and foggy and she felt his strong arms holding her in place, his even breath making his wide chest go up and down and she felt his heartbeat through his shirt and she got so irritatedly calm, it was too much for her exhausted brain to process. The sounds around her muffled, the same went for the blurring shapes she saw.

Oh, lord, no. No, no, no. She was falling asleep.

"I hate you, Richard Castle", she said again, but her voice wasn't firm and angry as she'd intended, it was quiet and babbling, brittle and low, "If you tell anyone about this, I will...I'll" - a yawn escaped her throat before she could help it, "I will kill you"

The fog was getting closer, taking the better part of her body and mind, she felt so warm, so secure, it was revolting. She needed to be closer to him, she needed him to hold her tighter. God, she needed to put a bullet through her twisted brain.

That was he last thing she thought before she fell asleep. Cuddled up at the side of Richard Castle.

What do you think? I hope this was at least half in character...I know it's a weird situation but somehow I could see it happening. How do guys you feel about it?