Lifeboats

Rick feels like crap.

And not even in the good way, in the last night was so much fun sort of way. Oh no, he should be so lucky.

Instead, his body lags as the slow and apologetic death of his cells takes with it everything he has to give. And the doctor (smarmy, patronising asshole) keeps telling him to rest, that trying to struggle through will only make it worse.

But he can't. He has his baby girl to take care of. And now also the precinct. Being with Kate is worth it, worth the thick and unmoving suction of sleep as soon as he gets home. Sometimes he doesn't even make it to bed, waking in terror on the couch to his daughter's face, a pale moon limned with the rose-gold of dawn.

He scrubs his hands over his cheek and into his eyes like that can help battle back the grit there. His skin is too dry, feels coarse under his fingertips. He can't afford more than a moment to dwell on it, because Beckett's watching him; he can feel the concern in her gaze even over here in the chair she arranged at the end of her desk for him.

She still doesn't know. And he has absolutely no intention of telling her. She'd kick him out, of the precinct and her life both.

And it's not even that he could blame her. She'd be right to spare herself from him, save herself from becoming mired in the sucking quicksand of his cancer.

"You okay, Castle? The paperwork a little too much for you?" She raises an eyebrow at him, smoothing two fingers down the page before she slides it back into the file. He's fascinated by her handwriting, the smooth glide of the ink (always black, never blue) and the careful way she marks out each letter.

She still holds the pen the same way she did when she was nine.

He sends her a glare, sitting back in his chair and steepling his fingers. Beckett's mouth stitches into a line even with amusement dancing at the corners, entrenched in fissured lines next to her eyes as well. "I'm fine. Just tired."

"Why don't you go home, get some rest."

There's too much concern there, beneath the veneer of gentle teasing. It only reinforces his determination to be okay. He never wants to see Kate Beckett grieve for him. "No, no. I want to be here. You're not getting rid of me that easily."

"Alright, suit yourself." Kate shakes her head at him, turning back to the reams of paper in front of her. Really, it's ridiculous how many times she has to fill out the same damn information. And he's not allowed to help, either.

"You don't want me here, Beckett?"

She raises an eyebrow at him, a deadly arch if ever he's seen one, and he swallows hard. It hurts, but it's no longer a surprise. One on the long list of side effects he has tacked onto the bathroom mirror. And it's fine, he doesn't mind really.

Rather this than his voice change, all his hair fall out. However much radiotherapy might suck, and yes, it really does, it is endlessly better than chemo.

"I don't really have a choice, do I?" She huffs, signing her name at the bottom of the last sheet of paper and sliding it inside the file. Sitting back in her chair, she regards him carefully.

He grins at her, lifting his shoulder in a half-shrug. "If you really want me gone, say the word. But I don't think you do."

"Well, apparently you need me to help you do your job now, huh?" She smirks at him, the touch of her tongue between her teeth entirely unfair.

Unless you want to share, keep your tongue to yourself, Kate.

"I wouldn't say I need you." He huffs, folding his arms to forge a barrier between them. His self-control is unravelling, hand over hand at gossamer thread to try and keep it pieced together.

Because of course he needs her. That has never been a question. The single, unutterable fact around which his entire consciousness orbits.

"Oh really?"

"Okay." He grins, sliding his foot along the floor until his toes clash against hers. Even through both of their shoes it sends a jolt down his spine, the contact delicious in its intoxication. "Maybe I need you a little."

"Thought so." She smirks, the arc of her mouth softening as he cracks open on a yawn. "Castle, you're exhausted. Go home, be with your kid. I'll see you tomorrow?"

He remembers when he'd walk her home in the evenings and she'd say night and he'd tell her see you tomorrow. More optimistic that way, he always felt. The promise of seeing her again. Until the day he didn't.

Even so, seeing that it has stuck with her infuses him with joy, such purity to it that he wants to kiss her, worship at the altar of her body.

"Yeah. Tomorrow."

Kate opens the door to the loft – and why, why did she let him give her a key? It'll only give him ideas about them, about this. . .partnership, that she cannot possibly hope to entertain. Only he said for emergencies, and the way he sounded on the phone-

He begged her to come. Didn't even try to hide the sweep of panic through his bloodstream, his words arrhythmic and fractured in her ear. And her stupid, hopeful heart had soared, delighted beyond reason at the fact that he called for her. That he needs her.

"Castle?" Beckett calls out, stepping through his living room and towards the office. "Castle, you here?"

He stands up from his desk when she appears in the doorway, striding towards her and crushing her in his grip. Kate sucks in a breath that seems to lag, too much time elapsing between the action and the much-needed flood of oxygen. The cove of his arms is soft and welcoming, the smell of him coming up to curl around her.

Too soon, he lets her go and takes a stumbling step back until he comes up against the edge of his desk. "Kate. You're here."

"You said you need me." Beckett shrugs, stepping over until the toes of her shoes are little more than a whisper away from his own.

He stares up at her, the endless summer of his eyes wide in panic. She sees now the line of tension in his jaw, where he grits his teeth so as not to tremble with it. "I always need you."

"What's going on, Castle?"

His hand scrubs down the cliff face of his jaw, strangely bare where he used to have that delicious sprinkling of stubble, and he reaches for her hand. She lets him have it, curl his fingers around hers so tight she has to bite at her lip.

"Alexis is missing." He grits out, eyes closed tight against it.

A part of her – a huge part – floods with terror, the too-sweet taste of it surging against the back of her throat. But right now, first and foremost, she has to be a cop. Not the woman who has always, always loved him.

"Talk me through it. What happened?"

Kate watches the work of his throat as he swallows, how it seems to pain him. It's seemed that way a lot, lately, she keeps meaning to ask him if he's got some kind of infection and could he please take it away from her precinct.

Not that it matters right now. Inconsequential.

"The car service was supposed to pick her up from school. But Patrick called and said she wasn't there." He says, and Beckett is startled by the sudden flooding of his eyes, the break and desperate dive to his jaw of a single tear.

She brushes it aside with her thumb, squeezing her fingers around his until hers crack wide, their knuckles clashing. "Have you called the cops?"

"I called you."

One side of his mouth lifts in a half-smile, a desperately painful thing, and suddenly she can't help herself. Kate moves in, wrapping her free arm around his neck and aligning their bodies. His nose nudges at the thud of her pulse, his hand clutching at the starch-thick cotton of her button down where it skims the curve of her spine.

"You tried her school?"

"Yeah. No one in the office is picking up." He grunts, letting her go like he needs the space to think. Kate raises a hand to her mouth, her fingers pressed there to keep back the tsunami of emotion. "I should. . .let her mom know."

"Yeah, okay. I'll call the precinct."

Castle snags her fingers again and draws her in close. "Will you sit with me while I call Meredith? I don't know how to break this sort of news. And I've seen you do it before."

"Okay. I'll stay." Kate passes him his phone where it lies like collateral damage on his desk and sits next to him; their legs flush from hip to knee. It shouldn't make her pulse jump, shouldn't make her skin sing with yearning, but it does.

It does, and the sooner she accepts it the better.

He scrolls through his contacts to find his ex-wife and relief bursts quiet and beautiful, her cheeks flushing with it. She's not on his speed dial, not a big enough part of his life for that. Castle shoots her a desperate look, his thumb hovering over the name, and she manages a fragile smile for him.

It rings once, twice, three times, and then there's a click as the call is put through. On speaker, so Kate hears the tinny falsehood of this woman as sure as Rick does.

"Richard, darling, what a surprise." Meredith trills, something saccharine about it that sets Beckett immediately on edge. Okay, fine-

So this woman sounds totally delighted to have Castle calling her. That's fine. Because he didn't want to, he had to set his hand in a vice grip at Kate's knee to even thumb her contact. He opens his mouth to break the news, a tide of grief spilling soundlessly past his lips, and Kate drops her hand to cover his.

Before he can even begin to get the awful words out, Meredith continues. "Alexis, sweetheart, I have Daddy on the phone."

There's a muffled exchange, in the space of which Castle's whole world comes crashing at their feet and then spools violently back together, all of it playing over his face. And then the sweetest, most blessed sound Kate has ever heard. "Daddy? Hi."

"Alexis, oh thank God. You're okay." He grits out, his voice trembling with it. A little lower than normal, it has been all day and the roll of it in her gut is entirely distracting.

There's a giggle on the other end of the line and Kate's grin spreads, slow but sure. She's really okay.

"Yeah Daddy. I'm fine. Mommy and I are having an adventure."

Castle glances at Kate, his face slack with relief as he meets her eyes. "Where are you, pumpkin?"

"Paris."

"Pa- what?" Castle splutters, his free hand coming up in a fist to settle at his thigh. "Alexis, could I please speak to Mommy again?"

There's a clattering as the phone is passed over, and Kate stands. She doesn't need to be here for this part. From the burning waves of anger rolling off of him she sees it's not going to be pretty. And really, she doesn't want to hear him hashing out the details of his relationship with Meredith.

"All good?" Beckett asks, glancing up to meet his eyes as he strides towards her. She's curled up on his couch, her knees up against her chest and her chin pillowed there. It seems almost like fear, not the fierce little girl who always tried things first, tugging him in the riptide of her adventurous streak.

Rick sinks down at her side, carefully not touching her. "Yes. Meredith took her for lunch, apparently. In Paris. And forgot to tell me about it. They'll be home by lunchtime tomorrow."

"That's great."

The cuff of Kate's button down is tugged past her wrist, fingers curled around it, and there's something so childlike in the gesture that he breaks, the careful distance between them gushing onto the hardwood.

His arm slides easily around her shoulders and he tugs her into his side, the slender line of her body folding against him. "You okay?"

"Yeah, just. . .you called me."

Rick dusts his mouth to her temple in supplication, the caesura of her words rippling all through her as if she's unfinished, a shadowed attempt at where she wants to be. "I needed you."

"But why. Why me?"

"You're my best friend, Kate." He offers, wanting so badly to sip from her mouth and show her how very much more than that she is. How she's fast becoming his constant, a lodestone.

She grits her teeth, the shockwave of it against his shoulder and the hum of tension in her body make his guts thick, like wading through molasses. "Castle, you've only been shadowing me a couple of months. How can I be-"

"It's just the same." It spills out of him before he can even get a chance to work it through in his mind, the words never even coming into contact with his brain. "It's the same as it always was between us."

"I'm a different person now, Rick. I'm damaged goods."

He lets her go, lets her sit back from him because he knows her. He knows it makes her crazy to have people touching her when she's talking like this, that she finds it suffocating. "So what? Aren't we all, to some degree? It only makes you more extraordinary, Kate."

"Castle." She murmurs, catching her lower lip in her teeth. "I don't know how to do this."

"Be my friend? You're already doing it."

He tries desperately to ignore the steady drip of time passing without use, how much he might be wasting. He's going to beat it, the radiotherapy will work and he'll have years and years to persuade Kate that they would be great together.

She manages a trickling laugh for him, shaking her head as her lashes dust like shadows. "I know you want me to be more than your friend."

"I'm happy to have you back in my life. I missed you. Anything else, that's up to you." Rick shrugs, feels his face cracking open in that lopsided grin she seems to like. She gives it back at any rate, her toes sneaking their way underneath his thigh.

"Do you ever worry that you're wasting time?" Kate says, barely more than a whisper. She scrubs a hand through the fall of her curls, catching them in a knot at her nape and securing it with a hair tie from around her wrist.

She always wears one. He's noticed.

"How do you mean?"

Kate folds her legs and sets her palms at her knees, almost a lotus position. He knows she does yoga, showed up once at her apartment with a bottle of wine to find her breathless and sweaty. So yeah, perhaps she meditates too.

Add it to the list. Things Richard Castle wishes he knew about Kate Beckett.

"Just that. . .we lost twenty years."

"Okay. So you feel like we should be making up for lost time, then?" Rick says, battling to keep the fervent rush of hope from cracking in his voice. How desperately he wants her in his arms again, forever.

She catches her lip between her teeth, the trip and fall of her lashes seems like dusk. The amniotic black of nightfall wrapping around them both. "I don't know. I'm not good at this. Letting people know me."

"I already know you. I've always known you." Always loved her, and oh what he wouldn't give to say that too. To have her know that his whole world narrows down to her and his daughter, the two of them everything he needs.

"I'm different now."

He takes her hand, cradling it in both of his and smoothing his thumb over her heartline. "I've had a couple of months to fill in the gaps. People fall in love a lot quicker than this."

Her eyebrows migrate someplace close to her hairline and her jaw goes slack in shock, her hand in his trembling suddenly. Too late, he realises what he's said, but Kate is already gathering herself again, her eyes like flint.

"Are you. . .in love with me?"

"Oh Kate." Rick shakes his head, lacing his fingers through hers and drawing them up to his mouth so he can dust kisses over the sentry row of her knuckles. "I've always been in love with you."

"Castle." She grits out, her cheeks flushed and entirely appealing.

"You don't have to do anything about it. I'm good."

She nods, an ephemeral moment in which he watches the slow trip from panic to acceptance, flitting across her face like ticker tape. "And what if I did want to do something about it."

"Well then, Kate." Rick cradles her cheek in his palm, feels the nudge of her cheekbone underneath the sheet of gossamer skin. So beautiful.

She hums, leaning in to his touch as a hesitant, gorgeous smile blooms. "Yes?"

"I'm afraid I'd have to kiss you."

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