Author's note: I really appreciate the response to the last chapter. I'm glad the technique of mirroring the initial countdown to Beckett's accidental revelation created the sense of tension I hoped it would.
I write these stories for myself – as everyone should – but it's so affirming and encouraging to hear from a reader that some of my words resonated. Whether it's book reviews on Amazon or comments here, it matters. Everyone needs validation, particularly on the tougher days.
By the time she'd registered what he said, Castle had turned away, crossed to the other door leading directly out to the loft's main area, and left the bedroom.
I remember every second of it.
The words were familiar. Recent. In her already agitated state, her mind scrambled to recall. She moved across his bedroom to the second door that now sat open, and saw him go straight towards the loft's entranceway.
By the time she realised she'd said the words herself, he was at the front door, with his jacket clutched under one arm. Alexis called over to him from the kitchen area, and he said something in response, but Beckett didn't process what it was.
He didn't turn to look at her before grabbing the door handle.
Images flashed across her mind.
The bombing case last week. The interrogation room.
You don't get to use that excuse.
Bobby Lopez, the pickpocket. He claimed to be suffering from traumatic amnesia.
The hell you don't remember!
The coffee sitting cooling on her desk after she'd finished with Lopez. Castle told Esposito he had somewhere to be. That's when everything changed.
Do you want to know trauma?
Her whole body broke out in goosebumps.
I was shot in the chest–
"No." Her voice was only a whisper, not loud enough to even escape the bedroom.
–and I remember every second of it.
The loft's front door slammed closed behind him.
Her legs felt like they were going to collapse beneath her. She swayed on her feet, grabbing the door frame for support. There was absolute silence. The same three words echoed over and over in her mind.
Not like this.
She fumbled for her phone in her coat pocket, her thoughts fuzzy around the edges with shock, and she finally managed to place a call to him.
She flinched when the ringtone suddenly sounded from behind her in his office, punctuated with a buzz as the discarded device vibrated across the wooden surface of his desk.
Beckett hurried from the loft only a minute or two later, but he was already gone.
She'd deflected Alexis and Martha's worried enquiries, and the girl had told her that Castle had simply said not to wait up for him.
She checked The Old Haunt first, even waiting there for twenty minutes in case he was slow to arrive, but he never appeared.
She checked the Library, and Remy's, and their coffee shop. She checked the park, and the swings. She checked the Haunt a second time, drawing an odd look from the bartender on duty.
She dropped by the precinct on the pretence of retrieving something from her desk drawer, and then she called Alexis to see if he'd by any chance been in touch. He hadn't.
At last, almost two hours later, she went back to her apartment in defeat. She closed the door behind her, looked around the silent space, then sank to her knees and began to sob.
The hotel room was comfortable but generic, all warm and calm colours, and sparse, tasteful decor. It was barely fifteen minutes' drive from the loft, but that didn't matter. He wouldn't be going back there tonight.
Castle sat on the carpeted floor at the foot of the bed, his blazer and jacket draped on a chair nearby, and his shoes abandoned not far inside the door. A picked-clean room service meal tray sat outside the room door, and he'd hung the Do Not Disturb sign on the outer door-handle.
Now she knew that he'd heard her. She knew that her secret was out. He hadn't even waited to see her reaction before he left.
He hadn't planned to tell her at all, but she'd pushed. Came into his bedroom and asked what she'd done. She said they'd been getting somewhere.
You stopped waiting!
He flinched at the memory of her face when she said it. Dark eyes, wide and liquid and accusing.
And she was right, he supposed. He'd stopped waiting – but only as a side-effect. What he was really doing was protecting himself.
Her next words swam up from his memory unbidden.
You said you'd wait. We talked. On the swings. You can't tell me you don't know what I mean.
He frowned. He remembered that day vividly. She'd talked about not being able to have the kind of relationship she wanted until the wall came down. He'd analysed her words endlessly ever since.
They were so carefully vague. She'd been talking about Josh, and then her mother's death, and then the wall. There was no mention of who the hypothetical relationship would be with; no reason to think she was talking about anything but the abstract.
But her words tonight didn't quite fit that narrative, did they?
You said you'd wait.
He hadn't actually said that, really. Not in so many words. But she'd correctly inferred it anyway.
He sighed. Always subtext, implication and inference, and plausible deniability. It was exhausting at the best of times, and this was by no means the best of times.
Tonight had been different.
Then a vivid image flashed into his mind, making his heart lurch. She'd been telling him that she thought they'd been getting somewhere, and he'd scoffed or something, and then she'd paled.
But you… you don't want… that. Anymore.
And then the tears he'd seen rolling down her cheeks.
The silence of the hotel room whined in his ears. He struggled to make the narrative fit.
So maybe… maybe she…
But it didn't matter, when you got right down to it. It was more subtext and supposition, and things had changed now.
Four years was a long time. It was one thing to be waiting for her, but quite another to know she'd been lying to him – repeatedly – for months on end.
She had a pretty bad scare tonight, he thought. She realised what she'd… lost.
And that's probably all it was. Well, she'd underestimated him – the work was more important than that. No matter what else had happened, they made a great team, and he wasn't going to walk away from that.
He wasn't ready to face her again yet. It was her own obvious distress that made it most dangerous. He was still too vulnerable with her; he'd be too quick to reach out, and to forgive. But in a day or two, when things had calmed down… maybe then he could get things back on track.
He imagined returning to the precinct. Would she push to talk about all this, or would she sweep it under the carpet, as usual? He hoped it would be the latter.
"Because I'm done with the doubts and the guessing," he murmured. "Done with the hope."
He would have to return to the loft tomorrow and check in with Alexis, and no doubt there would be questions, but he'd deal with that when it came.
For now, the anger that had made such a welcome reappearance was fading, and the numbness was creeping in again.
It was time to sleep.
Beckett hadn't seen or heard from him since the confrontation on Tuesday night. It was now Friday morning, and the panic had become a low-level, constant thing.
Every time the elevator pinged and the doors slid open, she'd tense and look up, hoping to see him. She knew that Ryan and Esposito had noticed, but thankfully they were avoiding the subject as much as she was. As far as they were concerned, Castle was catching up on his writing.
She had tried texting and calling him on Wednesday morning, but with no response. Then she texted Alexis, and the girl had taken a couple of hours to reply, saying that he'd come home around 11AM, and gone straight to work in his office. She just said that it'd be best to give him some time, without elaborating.
Beckett had reluctantly complied, sending him one last text message: When you're ready, please talk to me. That was two days ago.
She'd seen Dr. Burke on Wednesday afternoon, with an emergency appointment. The man had listened quietly as she explained everything that had happened, but his only advice was that Castle's daughter was right: he should be allowed the time he needed to come to terms with the way that his vision of her had changed.
The words had chilled her, because she knew they were so accurate. An image he'd held, and idolised, now shattered.
Burke also pointed out that whatever Castle's feelings were, his reaction was valid. He'd told her the same thing about her own response to everything that had happened last Summer.
Time, she thought. Give him some time.
A couple of days? A week?
Three months? Four years?
She took a deep breath to push the panic away again, for another few minutes at least.
He needed time; she knew that. It had only been a week since she'd unwittingly revealed her secret to him. He needed some time to process whatever he was feeling.
She'd gone over it again and again, trying to work out what he must be thinking now. There would be a sense of betrayal, certainly, at the repeated lies. Hurt, too, at her brushing away and ignoring his declaration. Then anger at how she'd kept him hanging on for all these months, never bringing the subject up.
As if I was embarrassed.
The thought came from nowwhere, and it shot through her like an electric current, making her visibly flinch at her desk. His repeated questions on Tuesday night took on a different light now.
What don't I want anymore, Beckett?
Where exactly were we going?
Waiting for what?
"That's what he thinks," she whispered. That she was embarrassed by his words – those beautiful words that she'd clung to every day in her father's cabin, when the pain wouldn't stop and she didn't know if she'd ever be able to recover.
He couldn't be more wrong.
The elevator pinged again. She already hated the agonisingly cheerful, normal sound. She reached for her coffee cup, surreptitiously swiping at the corner of her eye at the same time. The cup was empty.
She took a wavering breath, and she genuinely thought she might have to escape to the ladies' room to avoid breaking down in the middle of the bullpen, but then she heard the familiar tone of expensive leather loafers striking the linoleum flooring of the hallway leading away from the elevator.
Her heart seemed to skip a beat, and she set the cup down with unsteady hands before looking up.
Castle nodded briefly towards Ryan and Esposito, who were looking at him with identical wary expressions, before walking over towards her desk. He stopped beside the guest chair, his eyes flicking down to the open case file that sat on top of her computer keyboard.
"Hey," he said.
His voice was neutral, and she couldn't see any anger in his expression. His posture was relaxed, with one hand stuffed casually into his trouser pocket. But there was no smile – not that she was expecting one. It took her a few moments to respond.
"Castle," she said, and it came out as a single breath.
He glanced up at her, but there was no question on his face. No accusation. No raised eyebrow. He simply waited for her to gather herself.
"Hi," she said at last. "I… didn't know if… you'd be coming in today."
He tilted his head to the side slightly, but she wasn't sure what the gesture meant.
"Got a case?" he asked, his eyes again going to the file on her desk, but her own gaze remained fixed on him.
"Oh, it's… no. We closed it yesterday. It's just paperwork."
He nodded, looking around for a moment before noticing the empty cup near her keyboard.
"I guess you'll need some more coffee," he said, then he reached down and picked the cup up from the desk. Her pulse accelerated, but he didn't make eye contact during the whole movement.
He turned to head towards the break room, and she abruptly pushed herself up out of her chair, reaching out to grasp his forearm.
"Castle, can we… I mean, …" she began, then he took a discreet quarter-step backwards, breaking the contact.
"Let's focus on the work," he said quietly. His voice was calm and firm, and he looked her in the eye as he said it.
Oh, she thought, and she frowned and gave a half-nod, suddenly flustered.
"I… sure, but… I mean, I'd really like to talk, later. We should–"
He sighed, and whatever else she was going to say vanished from her mind. He looked weary again, then he schooled his expression once more.
He looked down at the empty cup in his hands, peering into it as if there were answers to be divined in its depths. After a couple of seconds, he looked up at her.
"Let's… just focus on the work," he said, then he turned and walked away.