Chapter 5: carry you with me
In Knockout, the bullet Beckett takes hits her spine instead of her heart, paralyzing her from the waist down. This chapter is an insert set between chapters one and two - Beckett's first Christmas not only living with her new condition, but also Castle.
She doesn't belong in his loft for Christmas.
Despite Castle's persistent reassurances, she can feel the waves of bitterness born of broken traditions and her unwanted presence crashing over her. It has her hiding away in his bedroom on Christmas Eve, wishing for the millionth time that her stupid legs worked and could carry her to the front door unnoticed.
Kinda hard to escape without being heard when your only way of getting around is a clunky wheelchair.
Kate glares at the thing, waiting for her to suck it up and heave her body into the expensive cushioned seat Castle customized it with. She hates him for putting so much money into it, trying to make the experience of being stuck in a chair for the rest of her life a little less miserable.
He was always doing that for her, trying to make it better.
"Hey, what're you doing in here?"
Kate glances up from the edge of his bed, the bed he shares with her. It's been a few months and he never had any obligations to her, no reasons to go out of his way to help her, but it didn't stop him from changing his entire life for her, opening his home to her, his heart.
She took it all, whether she wanted to or not. She found a home in the loft, in him, and now, her selfish heart doesn't want to leave, even though she should. She should really just find a place of her own, stop depending on him so much, burdening his family.
He left her mere minutes ago to join his mother and daughter for Christmas dinner, but he can never abandon her for long. She promised to follow, to transfer from the bed to her chair without assistance - she's got the hang of it now, hasn't fallen in months - but she has yet to will herself to move.
"Kate?" he murmurs, but even as her name leaves his lips like a question, the knowledge is already filling his gaze. Nothing new. He's always able to do that now, not that he wasn't already skilled in figuring her out before, back when they were just friends, a writer and muse, partners. But now, he doesn't even have to try, practically reading her mind with a single glance.
She sighs, lowers her gaze to the sweater he helped her into this morning, laughing at her as he pulled the cashmere past her head, curtaining her face in hair. She huffed, but swept the strands back from her eyes and caught him by the shirt collar. She smiled while she kissed him.
Smiling and kissing him on a holiday she's always hated, as if she isn't broken in every way possible.
It's Christmas Eve, the first one she's spending paralyzed from the waist down due to the bullet a sniper lodged into her spine at Montgomery's funeral, the first year she's been forced to sacrifice her own Christmas tradition of keeping watch over the city in favor of being stuck in a wheelchair.
So of course he insisted that she spend the holiday with him and his family, as if she or they have a choice. Where else would she go?
Castle took her in after she was released from the hospital, the physical rehab center she knows he paid for but refuses to admit to. By no means did she intend for the time in his loft to be permanent, but she was never necessarily in the right condition to hunt for a wheelchair friendly apartment and Castle was never very eager to help her look, to encourage her to leave. Especially after she confessed to hearing his words in the cemetery within only a month of living with him.
Especially after she said them back.
Staying with the man who loved her before the physical damage matched the internal, who loves her now despite it all, isn't so bad. He makes her life easier, makes her feel normal, almost makes her forget.
The change didn't bother Martha, his mother all too welcoming, fussing and fawning over Kate whenever given the chance, but his daughter never wanted her here. Not after Castle nearly took the bullet meant for Kate, not when he was so willing to risk his life, die for her all over again.
Alexis has softened to her over the last six months, no longer glaring when she thought Kate wasn't looking, no longer arguing with Castle behind closed doors and open bookshelves, no longer hating her so openly. It was progress, but it doesn't mean Alexis suddenly wants her intruding on their Christmas.
"I think I'm just going to stay with my dad for Christmas, Rick," she lies, picking at the knee of her jeans. He helped her slide into those too. Lying her down on the bed, lips scaling her useless legs along the way, and traveling higher until her cells sizzled with sensation and her skin shivered beneath his mouth, until she could feel his touch like fire. Until he was the only thing she felt.
"He's driving down from the cabin to pick you up?" Castle challenges and Kate's gaze automatically snaps back to him.
He isn't supposed to know that.
"I hate that you guys talk," she mutters, squaring her jaw as he circles the foot of the bed to sit down beside her.
"I like him," Castle muses. "I invited him over for dinner tonight, but he was already out of town. He does plan to join us for New Year's, though."
"Join you," she corrects quietly, too cowardly to look at him, but catching the crease of his brow from the corner of her eye. "Not us. This is your home, your family, Castle. Not mine."
"What are you talking about?" The confusion prevails in his voice, but it's the hint of hurt that forces her to meet his eyes again, witness the damage her words have done. "You've been living here since you were able to be released. Look, I know I've been dragging my feet about apartment searching, but if it's what you want, I can-"
"No," she sighs, sucking in a slow breath. "It's not that."
"Then what, Kate? You come home with me after work at the precinct, you have dinner with my daughter and help her with her homework afterwards, you sleep in this bed with me every night," he lists adamantly. "Of course this is your home and those two women waiting for us in the dining room look at you like family."
She bites her bottom lip, her head shaking without her permission. "Rick."
"Is this about Alexis?" he murmurs a little quieter. "Because I really thought you guys were starting to hit it off-"
"No, it's not her," she murmurs, a half truth, but it's not. Not completely. "It's - it's me. As always. Castle, these are your family traditions. You, Alexis, Martha - your lives have been turned upside down this past year because of me and it's not fair for me to take Christmas from you - from them - too."
"Kate, you aren't upsetting any traditions by being here," he argues, vehement and moving from beside her to crouch in front of her. Allowing her the rare opportunity to be at the head of their height difference, knowing how tired she grows of having to look up to meet everyone else's gaze. "Did Alexis or my mother seem upset when you helped us decorate a few weeks ago? Because that's one of our greatest traditions and you all seemed to enjoy it as much as I did. Or what about while you were helping prepare Christmas dinner last night, this morning? Another tradition I didn't see anyone complaining about you participating in."
"Castle."
But he isn't done.
"They definitely aren't upset right now. I told them they could start eating, but they wanted to wait. For you, for us all to be together, because you're family, Kate. You're my family and this may not be the way any of us wanted it to happen, with you shot and in a wheelchair, but I'd never not want you here."
She fists her hands atop her thighs before unfurling her fingers and splaying them across her unfeeling knees.
"I'm not trying to pressure you, if you really don't want to go out there, you don't have to. I'll build you a nest in here, set you up with a plethora of Christmas movies, and bring you a plate." His lips quirk and he props one of his hands atop her knees, squeezing. She so badly wishes she could feel it. "Then I'll come be a recluse with you for Christmas."
"I'm not letting you do that," she huffs, reaching for his hand and drawing his knuckles to her lips, sealing her kiss to his skin with the press of her cheek.
"If it's what you want, then you won't have a choice," he shrugs, so damn stubborn. She never would have fathomed that Castle could compete with her on that front, but any time she puts up a fight against him, he rarely folds as she once would have expected him to.
"You love me too much," she rasps, swallowing hard to stop the tears in her throat from climbing to prick her eyes.
"Not possible," he scoffs, softer, stretching his thumb to graze the underside of her jaw. "But I do love you, Kate, and I just want you to be happy. To know you belong."
Every time he says it, his voice gentle and sure, it aids in ridding her mind of the devastated memory of the words escaping with his tears that day in the cemetery, while she laid dying beneath him.
Kate exhales the breath she didn't realize she was holding and reaches for his shirt collar, choking on a watery shred of laughter caught in her throat as he shuffles forward on his knees to fit between hers. Castle's arms wrap tight and warm around her torso and she buries her face in his shoulder, cinches her arms around his neck in return.
"You make me happy," she confesses, biting back the urge to say any more, to say that the one thing she's certain of is that she belongs wherever he is. It's far too soon for that, isn't it? Too soon for her to even be thinking about him with such finality.
Her spine stiffens at the tentative knock on their bedroom door, but Castle smoothes his hand down her back, eases from between her legs.
"We're coming," he answers, glancing back to Kate for confirmation.
She unfurls her arms from around his neck, takes a deep breath for strength, and maneuvers herself into the chair beside the bed.
"Kate?" Alexis pokes her head in anyway, her eyes flicking to Beckett with a strange hint of… is that guilt in her gaze? "Is everything okay?"
"Yeah, I just - I was having trouble getting into my chair," she fibs, flexing her fingers around the wheels, but Alexis hardly looks convinced.
"Eavesdropping, Pumpkin?" Castle coaxes with an arch of his brow. The flood of color to Alexis's cheeks confirms the suspicion.
"I wasn't, I just - wanted to make sure you guys were still coming before the food got cold and I - I overheard some of your conversation. "
Kate's insides twist with dread, expecting all of her suspicions to be confirmed, for Alexis to tell her father that she just can't stand it anymore, that Kate should make good on her own idea and find somewhere else to spend Christmas.
Alexis won't meet either of their gazes, though, lowering hers to the floor.
"Kate, I hated it when Dad first brought you here." Castle makes a strangled noise of disapproval in his throat, but Kate quiets him with a hand to his thigh, lets his daughter continue with her confession. No matter how brutal. "I hated you for things you weren't responsible for, couldn't control, and I made sure you felt it. I made sure you felt like you weren't welcome here."
Kate purses her lips, her instinct to deny it, offer the girl some comforting words, but Alexis has had enough coddling. And at least now Kate knows she hasn't been imagining the loathing she's caused.
"We've been getting along better, though, and I've enjoyed that, I really have, but I know I wasn't exactly showing you much of the Christmas spirit this year," his daughter mumbles, twisting her hands in front of her. "It hasn't been fair to you. I haven't been fair. And I - I knew how I was acting was wrong, but it wasn't until I heard you talking to Dad just now, about wanting to leave, to realize how… horrible I've been."
"Alexis," she sighs, but his daughter finally lifts her gaze, bright blue eyes like her father's wet and threatening tears.
"I always liked you, that never changed, I was just - I was angry. Mad at my dad for jumping in front of that bullet, mad at the person who shot you, for causing all of this," she rambles, wiping away the first tear that treads her cheek with a quick swipe of her fingers. "But none of it was your fault. None of it was fair and I only added to that by treating you like - like an inconvenience. You're welcome here, Kate. You - I never thought I'd say this, but you belong with my dad, with us."
Kate's relieved that she's been forced to sit for this, because Alexis's words definitely would have knocked her on her ass otherwise.
"Rick," she murmurs without looking at him, feeling his attention fall to her with reluctance. "Can you lift me up?"
Castle doesn't hesitate, hooking his hands beneath her underarms in a practiced move and hauling her to her feet, keeping her steady.
With Castle supporting her, she holds out an arm to Alexis, watching his daughter's chest shudder with a breath as she covers the few steps of distance between Kate and the doorway. Alexis folds her arms around Beckett, pressing her cheek to her shoulder.
"We're all good, bud," Kate murmurs, brushing a hand up and down Alexis's back, feeling Castle's thumb mimicking the soothing motion along her waist as he holds to her hips. "I understood-"
He pinches her.
Kate shoots him a glare, but Alexis is lifting her head, blinking away the last of the moisture from her eyes.
"No," she murmurs, mustering a smile, a genuine one for a change. "Dad's right, you're family. Have been for a while and I promise to start treating you like it."
"Even family fights sometimes," Kate shrugs, easing the lengthy strands of Alexis's hair back from her shoulders. "But thank you, Alexis."
"This is all very sweet," Martha calls from the other room and she swears that both hers and Alexis's cheeks simultaneously catch fire. "But I'm starving, darlings. So please move this Hallmark moment to the dining room."
Castle chokes on a laugh and leans in to press a kiss to Alexis's head, something along the lines of 'good girl' being murmured into her hair, before he pulls back, drawing Kate into his chest.
"Mother's right. No reason to starve her on Christmas," Castle chuckles, banding his arms around Kate's stomach. "Meet you out there, Pumpkin."
Alexis steps back, her shoulders rising and falling with a deep breath. She leaves the room looking lighter than she has since Kate was shot.
"Castle," she hums as he presses his cheek to hers. Kate covers the forearms wrapped around her abdomen and tilts her head, nose to his cheekbone. "I'm hungry too."
He huffs, but her stomach growls beneath his arms in warning, tugging the smile wider across his lips.
"Okay, okay," he murmurs, turning to steal a kiss from her mouth. She hums, thoroughly appreciating the warmth of his lips, the sneaking stroke of his tongue, and taking her time in letting him pull away. Her chest is light, butterflies inside her sternum, by the time he eases her back down to the chair. "Thank you, by the way. For being so good with her."
Kate shakes her head, shifting in the wheelchair until she's comfortable. "Like I said, I knew where she was coming from, Castle."
"Still not right, how she was acting, but I knew she'd come around," he muses, taking the back of her chair in his hands. She lets him this time, normally preferring to do all the work herself, but she relaxes tonight, allows Castle to wheel her towards the door. "You're pretty loveable."
Her instinct is to argue, but in that moment, despite the wheelchair, the loss of her legs, the overwhelming prospect of Christmas Eve with his family - the fact that Richard Castle loves her is all she needs for Christmas.
"Love you too, Castle."
After dessert and the Castle Christmas tradition of changing into Christmas themed pajamas and opening a single present each for Christmas Eve, Castle carries her to the couch. He set up the projector screen in the living room, put on Alexis's favorite Christmas movie, and settled between her and his daughter on the sofa for the rest of the evening. Before she lived her, got to know him and his family so intimately, she would have expected Christmases at the loft to be doused in extravagance, but while the decorations were grand and the traditions plentiful, she's learned that if anything, Christmases here were only about one thing.
All that mattered tonight was family and she was a part of that now.
It's just past midnight and his mother and daughter have retired to their rooms, soft smiles still on their faces, and Kate feels more content than she has in months, spooning with him on the couch while another movie plays on.
"Thank you again, Rick," she murmurs, stroking her thumb over the bracelet he got her, leather bound and strung with gold skulls. She has no idea how he caught onto her style of jewelry so quickly, how he knew better than to get her diamonds or expensive karats, how he knows what she wants better than any other man ever has.
His lips brush the back of her neck and she swears it sends a shiver down her spine that reaches even the paralyzed parts of her. "It's just a bracelet, love."
"No, it's not," she argues, curling her arm to her chest. "It's beautiful. Normal."
"Normal?" he echoes, curious and amused.
"I was kinda worried that any gifts for me might revolve around my - disability," she admits, feeling his arm tighten around her waist.
"Didn't even cross my mind, Kate. You're more than what happened to you, more than your paralysis, your limits." He shifts at her back, his lips caressing her uncovered shoulder.
He and Alexis both changed into matching pajamas earlier, a red and green flannel set that he bought for her as well. Martha opted out of the tradition, sticking with her silk robes and vibrant shades, but Kate let him help her into the plaid bottoms. She's already shrugged out of the button up top in favor of a camisole, though, grateful for the decision now as the warmth of Castle's mouth touches her bare skin.
"That'll never define you," he adds, the promise in his voice wrapping around her heart. "Not to me."
Kate sighs and finds one of his hands at her ribs, drawing it up to her lips and nuzzling his knuckles.
"I want to sleep out here tonight," she mumbles, twisting on her side to face him, nudging him with her hips.
He takes the hint, slides one of his knees between hers, reaches down to hook her leg a little higher at his thigh.
"On the couch?" he chuckles, but his arms are twining around her, fitting her impossibly deeper into the cove of his body and turning her back on the projector screen.
But she's barely been paying attention to the film in the first place, drifting in the cocoon of his arms and the sinfully soft throw blanket he draped over them both.
She never imagined what Christmas would be like with him before, never would have thought they would actually spend one together before her shooting. But she imagines this is what it would have been like no matter the circumstances that brought them here, it's how she imagines Christmases with him in the future.
"By the tree," she murmurs, snaking a hand between them to trace the sparkle of lights illuminating the side of his face, twinkling and golden. "I don't want to go to bed-"
"Beckett, please refrain from using such terrifying phrases."
Kate rolls her eyes and flicks his ear. "I don't want the night to end," she clarifies, stroking her thumb to his chin, below his bottom lip. "This is the first time I've enjoyed an actual Christmas since my mom died." The confession has the amusement slipping from his features, reverence rushing to replace it. "She would have loved how you guys do Christmas."
"She would have liked me?" Castle asks, but he isn't teasing, the Christmas lights reflecting the intrigue in his eyes. The hope.
"She would have loved you," she says with certainty, trailing her fingers down to his chest, over his heart. Oh, her mom would have adored him, would have badgered Kate into getting with him long before a bullet finally brought them together. "I love you too."
"I know," he murmurs, slipping his hand beneath her shirt and dragging his palm up her damaged spine. "Always love you, Kate."
She tucks her head below his chin, presses her nose to the warm hollow of his throat, and closes her eyes. She believes him.