A/N: Hey, look! It hasn't been a ridiculously long time, and I'm updating again! It hasn't even been a week! I'll need to be careful, though... you might actually start expecting me to update things in a timely manner. In all seriousness, though, my muse seems to have come back from her vacation, and I am trying to write more. So hopefully it will continue to work. Also, I swear I wrote the bit about the s'morelette before Castle mentioned it in "Significant Others." Not that it really matters, just... for the official record. The episode wasn't what made me think of it. Enjoy the chapter. :)
"Ow, ow!" He flipped the small, and rather hot, metal clip that held the pie iron together, and opened it to reveal a very black sandwich emitting a different kind of smoke than what was coming from the fire. He scowled at it. "Great."
Kate rolled her eyes. "Let me see."
"It's a burnt mountain pie, what is there to see?" He dumped it into the trash can.
"Let me do the next one."
"No. I said I was going to make them, and I'm going to make them."
"But you've burnt the last three, and I'm hungry. Just let me try one."
He sighed and relinquished the iron. "Fine."
She started going through the motions of preparing yet another sandwich - butter, bread, sauce, cheese, pepperoni. "I can't believe you only have one of these things," she commented as she did it. "I mean, you're not usually big on moderation."
He shrugged, still irritated by the fate of his last three sandwiches. "We used to have two, but I could only find one."
She buried the iron in the coals and nodded toward the table where the food was laid out. "Don't just stand there sulking, make a hot dog or something."
"You telling me what to do?"
"Only if you're listening."
He skewered a hot dog with a marshmallow stick and returned to the fire.
"Was that so hard?" she teased.
He had the urge to jab her with the hot dog stick, but didn't particularly want to ruin another piece of food. "And you say I'm the annoying one in this relationship."
She raised an eyebrow. "Relationship?"
"Uh, yeah. Friendship. Whatever."
She looked down at the pie iron, and he wasn't sure if she was blushing or it was just the glow of the fire. But she was smiling.
He continued to cook his hot dog in silence for a little while, watching the edges brown and begin to blacken as the fire crackled and sparked. Just as he was coming to the conclusion that if he cooked it any more it would be as burnt as the last three pies he'd discarded, Kate took the pie iron out of the fire. "You think that's done?" he asked.
She smirked. "I think it is, and I think you've lost the right to judge that."
He readied a hot dog bun while she fiddled with the clip, trying to open the iron. When she did get it open, the sandwich inside was perfectly golden brown, and smelled a whole lot more appetizing than campfire smoke. "Beginner's luck," he muttered.
"Beginner's skill," she corrected. "Want me to make you one?"
"No," he said, feeling obstinate. "I'll make my own." What he'd wanted was to make one for her, but now that she'd already done that, there wasn't much point.
"That looks good," she said, looking at his plate. "Wanna make me one?"
He had a feeling she was patronizing him, but didn't question it. "Sure. As soon as I'm done with this."
"You make me a hot dog, I'll make you one of these pizza things, and we'll switch, okay?"
He sighed, giving in. That didn't sound like such a bad arrangement. "Fine. But my mountain pies are legendary, just ask Alexis."
She laughed. "I never said I didn't believe you. I'm just having better luck with it tonight. I don't think your pie iron means anything personal."
"But we've been through a lot together, me and that pie iron. It's just meeting you for the first time."
"Well, apparently I make a good first impression."
He shrugged. "I can't argue with that." On a whim, he spread some pizza sauce on his hot dog bun and sprinkled some cheese on top.
She raised an eyebrow. "That's disgusting."
"No more disgusting than the s'morelette, and look how successful that was."
"The whatlette?"
His eyes widened as he realized that Kate hadn't yet experienced his breakfast nirvana. "Tomorrow morning," he promised. "You'll see."
She made a face as she finished assembling her second mountain pie. "Can't wait for that."
He thought he detected a hint of sarcasm in her voice, but decided to ignore it, and focused instead on his pizza-hot-dog. "Delicious," he decided. "Oh my god. Beckett, you have to try this." He immediately realized his mistake and looked at her. She hadn't stopped putting the sandwich together, but was frowning now, and he didn't think it was because she was imagining what a s'morelette might taste like. "Sorry," he began, but then realized that he wasn't. Not really. "But, look, day after tomorrow you're gonna be Beckett again. At least to the judge. And it'll always be your name, no matter what happens. So maybe you should get used to it."
She nodded, still concentrated on the sandwich. Apparently a lot of effort went into making sure the cheese was sprinkled in precisely the right place. "Yeah. I know."
He remembered the plan - relax, regroup, don't think about the hearing - and didn't embrace the change of subject. "So, your take on the pizza-hot-dog is...?"
She shot him a halfhearted, but not forced, smile as she closed the pie iron. "I think I'll just have a regular one, thanks."
"Boring. At least try a bite of mine."
He must've shoved the unbitten end toward her face a little harder than he'd intended, because she stepped back, lost her footing in the sand, and, somehow, managed to land in one of the folding camp chairs, laughing. "Get that thing away from me!"
"Just try it! You'll love it, I promise. If not, I'll toast all your marshmallows for you tonight. Perfect golden brown, the way you like them."
"Okay, okay, if you'll get that thing out of my face, I'll try it." She took the hot dog from him, still laughing, and took a bite.
He raised his eyebrows, waiting for the verdict. "Well?"
She nodded. "Not bad."
"Didn't I tell you?"
"Weird, but not bad." She handed it back. "I'll still take a regular one, though."
"Fine, be boring."
He finished his pizza-dog and began preparing another, destined to be plain, as he'd promised Beckett. When he looked, he saw that she was still sitting in the chair she'd fallen into, holding the paper plate containing the mountain pie in her lap without eating it.
He set down his marshmallow fork and took the chair beside her. He didn't say anything at first, and she didn't look in his direction, although he knew that she realized he was there. Finally she raised her head, meeting his eyes, and he took that as his cue to speak. "Are you sure you don't want to talk about anything?"
She considered for a second, but then nodded, slowly. "Yeah. I'm sure." She looked at her half-eaten sandwich and smiled. "I still owe you one of these, don't I?"
He shook his head. "Look, if you don't want to-"
"No, I told you I would, didn't I? And I'm still expecting my hot dog. No crazy toppings, please."
He grinned. "'Crazy' is a matter of opinion, isn't it?"
"How about you cook it and I'll get my own toppings?"
"No, no. You said I could make it. You can't back out now."
She rolled her eyes, smiling a real smile. "Fine. Do your worst."
The air was warm, but the sky was cloudy. He remembered the constellations that Kate had shown him and tried to pick out one or two, but there weren't enough stars visible. They were obviously still up there, but blanketed by a layer of haze, hidden from the world. There was no rain, no lightning, no visible upset, but nothing else was visible, either. It didn't matter how long or hard he looked, he wasn't going to find any constellations. He wasn't going to find anything.
He couldn't see the water from here, but he could imagine what it would look like. The dark, rolling waves of the nighttime sea. The clouds forming their own little horizon, separating the water from the sky, making the sky seem higher, further out of reach, than it usually did. Like the sky was walling itself off from the ocean, establishing itself as a completely separate entity.
The fire was dying, but his eyelids were getting heavier, so he didn't add any more wood. Kate had been so quiet that he thought she might've fallen asleep, or into some sort of coma brought on by her excessive intake of campfire food, like the one he felt coming on. But when he looked in her direction he saw that she was sitting up, staring into the fire. "Tired?" he asked.
She jumped, startled by his voice, like she'd forgotten that he was there. "Oh, um, sort of, I guess."
"I think I'm gonna turn in. Want me to throw another log on for you?"
She shook her head. "I can do it."
"So you're staying up?"
She shrugged. "Yeah. Little while longer, anyway."
"But you will come in before too long?"
"What are you, my dad?"
He frowned and stood up to go inside. "No. Fine. Do what you like."
He couldn't see her face clearly in the low firelight, but her voice softened. "I'll be in soon."
He nodded. "Good." He stared at the remnants of smoldering logs for a long moment, and heard himself speak again almost before he realized that he'd meant to say anything. "I'm sorry there wasn't more I could do. These past few days, especially... I wish I could've helped."
"Castle, you have."
"I appreciate you saying that, but I know I haven't really done anything. All I've done is distract you."
"Exactly."
He frowned. "What?"
"You helped me to not think about the hearing for a few days, and that's exactly what I wanted. And what I still want, to be honest. I don't want to think about it yet. It's just that it's hard not to. I just... I really don't want to lose my job."
"The NYPD would be stupid to dismiss their best detective," he said. Maybe he couldn't assure her that everything would be okay, but this much he could say with confidence. He believed it.
"You're sweet."
"I'm not trying to be sweet. It's true." She didn't say anything this time, and he waited a bit before speaking again. "I can stay up a little longer if you want company."
"That's okay. Go to bed. I'd like to be alone for a little while."
"You sure?"
She nodded.
"Alright." He tapped the back of her chair as he walked past. "Night."
"Night."
He'd gotten used to this morning ritual: prepare the coffee, then take his cup out onto the deck and meet Beckett. Some mornings she was already there, but others, like today, he was the first one outside. He'd heard her come in last night, maybe an hour after he had, but when he'd gotten up this morning she'd still been asleep.
As had become his custom, he leaned against the railing and looked out at the horizon. Everything seemed calm today. The clouds had subsided, and the surface of the water reflected the sky's blue as the waves rolled gently toward the beach.
He heard the door open and watched her emerge with her coffee. It was strange to think that this was the last morning that would begin this way. The last morning of the trip, and maybe the last morning ever. Other than the present circumstances, what reason would he and Beckett ever have for being in the Hamptons together like this? Unless... He remembered the conversation they'd had at the beginning of the trip, about how maybe, after the hearing, there would be time to reevaluate their relationship. But who knew if that would actually happen, or how it would turn out? Everything seemed so up in the air right now. And until tomorrow, he guessed, it was. Nothing was for sure.
"Morning," she greeted him, forcing his thoughts back to the present.
"Morning. How'd you sleep?"
"Not bad." She sipped her coffee and joined him at the railing. "You?"
"Not bad, either."
They drank their coffee in silence for awhile, preparing for the day in more ways than one. Neither said anything about leaving, but the reality hung in the air. The time they had left here was down to hours now instead of days or weeks.
"Lets take a walk," she said. It wasn't a question, nor did it sound in any way optional. She started down the steps to the beach, half-full coffee cup in hand, and he for some reason felt compelled to follow her. So he did.
The morning sun was just beginning to warm the sand, and it felt good against his bare feet. Kate cut a slow diagonal course toward the water, like she was trying to walk down the beach, but some kind of magnetic force pulled her toward the surf. He fell into step beside her, following her path, wherever she should choose to lead.
When they got close enough to the waterline that the occasional wave licked their feet, she suddenly stopped, pointing at something in the water. "Look, Castle!"
He frowned and tried to see where she was pointing. "What am I looking at?"
"Just look! Right here."
In another second, he saw what she saw. Maybe fifty yards out from where they stood, a dolphin's fin appeared between the waves, arcing gracefully out of and back into the water. Then another one, two, three. At least four dolphins, just beyond the sandbar, where the water started to get deep.
They seemed to circle in the same area for a little while, jumping and surfacing individually and together for a few minutes before they disappeared altogether. The next fin sighted was farther down the beach, moving away from them. It almost seemed like the ocean's way of acknowledging that they were leaving; of waving goodbye.
Without a word, they started back toward the house, walking right along the waterline now. Something in the sand caught his eye, and he bent down to pick it up, just to see what it was. He let a wave rinse the sand off its surface, and held the almost completely round disc in the palm of his hand. It was the skeleton of a perfect sand dollar, bleached white by the sun.
He handed it to Kate. "Here. Something to remember the trip by."
She smiled. "There's no way I'm going to forget it."
"Well, then never turn down a free souvenir."
She took it, and traced the star-shaped imprints with her finger. "I love it."
A/N: I feel the need to once again remind you how much I love reviews. Leave some, please? Thanks for reading!