Disclaimer: I don't own Castle.
Prompt #39: Intersection - Sometimes they almost met up, but some obstacle always had one veering away before arrival.
Words: 731
It happened four times.
Four times they could have started.
Four times they were diverted.
Four times, if fate hadn't intervened, they might have been farther along.
That first time, it could have happened if he had played his cards right.
Their first case together was an enormous exercise in futility. They were just two very different individuals brought together because of circumstance...and a dead body.
He prodded playfully, she argued angrily. He went over her head and beyond her back. She scolded him for jumping the line and cuffed him for stealing her files.
But they solved the case, caught the bad guy, and had a real taste of what they were capable of together.
When Castle joked about how they would have been good together, Beckett had to whisper back, "You have no idea."
And with that first miss, he made it his personal mission to get close enough to get an idea.
That second time, it could have worked if she hadn't shot him down.
They'd gone through hell that year. An old flame of Castle's returned. Beckett's apartment blew up thanks to a delusional nutjob. They'd grown closer, learning more about each other than anyone else ever could have.
He'd offered a summer in the Hamptons strictly as a friend. But she'd been with Demming, and that relationship was on the rocks, so she said no.
By the time she figured out what she wanted, Castle had already filled her spot with Gina.
And her chance left on the breeze that carried his words of "See you next fall."
That third time, it was just really bad timing that foiled them.
Their third year just upped the ante on crazy. 3XK made his return appearance, sending everyone on a rollar coaster that wouldn't end after finding Castle and Ryan in the motel room. Beckett's mother's case heated up once more, and the prevention of a terrorist attack on the city almost had Castle and Beckett put on ice for good.
L.A. would have been a great place to hook up. Castle had the hotel dialed. Nobody from New York would have known.
But Royce was dead, and Beckett was emotional, and Castle was too much of a gentleman to pounce on a grieving woman while her good friend and training officer wasn't even cool in his grave yet.
So they went back to NYC without ever addressing the moment that had almost come to be.
That fourth time, if everything hadn't gone sideways, they could have been together.
Montgomery's funeral had been a poor setting to confess his feelings, in retrospect.
But she was down in the grass, bleeding from her heart, and he was coming to grips with the fact that he could be, quite literally, letting her slip through his fingers for good. He would've never forgiven himself if she'd passed without knowing that someone loved her.
So the words kept spilling from his lips as the light faded from her eyes, his hands pressing against her wound trying to keep her there long enough for the ambulance to arrive and save her.
By the time he saw her next, Beckett claimed to not remember his confession.
So when she said, "I'll call you," he left her with Josh and the last chance he ever had.
And that fifth time...
"Wait, five times?" Kate sat up and looked at her husband with a confused pout. "I only count four."
"I'm counting when you shot me down after I called you out on being obsessed with your mother's case and walking out of your apartment," he explained. "You know, before you came over my place in the pouring rain and practically attacked me in the entryway."
"I don't count that one."
"Why?"
She nuzzled the side of his face. "Because after that time, we actually did get together."
"Hmmm, you've got a point," he murmured. "But I really thought I was gonna lose you for good that time. So I count it."
They sat in silence for a spell before Kate spoke again. "But we're together now."
"That we are." He wrapped his arms tightly around his wife's waist. "And I'm never letting you go again."
"Right back at ya."
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