Jane Doe
When the elevator doors slide open on the precinct Kate remains for a moment inside the car as a shiver rattles its way up her spine, arrested by the incongruity of the bullpen. This is her domain, her home, and since she woke up and found that she's ten years older than her brain was insisting she is, she's been desperate to come to work. To be, finally, someplace she recognises.
On the surface, it seems much the same. But there are more framed photographs littering her desk, ornaments she's never seen before. And people - uniforms and detectives alike - nodding at her or offering a friendly smile she returns automatically, before the blip of vacant nonrecognition even hits her.
Striding out of the elevator car, she heads for the Captain's office with her shield clipped to her hip, her gun a weight more comfortable and familiar to her than her own son in her arms. Rapping her knuckles against the wood, Kate steps inside at the signal from the woman behind the desk and pushes her hands deep inside of her pockets, tries not to feel like a little girl about to be scolded.
"Detective Beckett. How are you feeling?" The woman - Captain Gates, so Castle says - asks, her voice far gentler than Kate had anticipated.
Shrugging her shoulders inside of the sharply cut blazer she picked from the closet this morning, Kate manages a wry grin. "I'm okay, thank you ma'am. Ready to get back to work."
For that, she earns herself an eye roll that makes her jump a little, the silly need to take a step backward bubbling up inside her. Gates is shaking her head now, gesturing for Kate to sit, and she folds herself into the chair opposite her captain's desk with as much grace as she can muster. It's a jarring sensation, wading through a foreign world, and Kate keeps finding herself constantly off balance.
"I forgot that you wouldn't know. Please, Detective, call me Sir or Captain. Not ma'am."
"Of course, Sir." Kate says, feeling a wry grin tugging at the corner of her mouth. She lets it free, just a little, and gets a smile back from her boss. "How much requalification am I going to need to do?"
Gates laces her fingers together and rests them against her desk, lifting an eyebrow and opening the file in front of her. "I pulled some of your records from ten years ago, to see where you're at mentally right now. Seems to me that you're just fine to be out in the field. I would like you to requalify at the range, but otherwise, I'm happy for you to return to work. Detective Esposito will take the lead on the first few cases, just while you find your footing again."
"Of course." Kate says again, so grateful for the opportunity to be good at something. She's a terrible wife, a depressingly average mother, but back in 2008 she was a damn good cop and she's confident the same is still true.
Gates offers Kate a nod of dismissal and she stands, leaves her captain's office and heads for her desk. The computer is fancier than the one she was expecting, seems quite complex, but it isn't that which has her forehead creasing. Back in 2008, she didn't have any photographs on her desk. There weren't any that she would want to have at work, to see every day.
Now, there are a cluster of frames all crowding together, garnering for her attention. In one, Kate stands at Castle's side with the salted sweep of the ocean behind them, a silvery line of cresting waves separating it from the hard blue edge of sky. Her dress is all lace and chiffon, spilling out from her hips to drape gently around her.
It's stunning. Her wedding dress. Delicate and beautiful, and even in a photograph Kate can see that she must have felt like a princess in it. She and Castle are gazing at each other, soft smiles melting both of their faces, and it doesn't seem staged. Doesn't seem like a moment for the photograph, but rather a moment for them that the photographer just happens to have captured.
There are more pictures, too. One of the family all crowded into a booth, Kate sandwiched between her father and her husband, her stomach swollen with their child. It makes her breath catch to see it, herself glowing and radiant and all those things she hasn't even been able to admit to wanting. Opposite the three of them in the booth is Castle's daughter and an older, redheaded woman she assumes to be his mother.
Kate presses a hand to her mouth to hide the silly grin from her colleagues, her insides threatening to bubble over with her delight. She has a whole family in this life, so many people to care about. It's not just her son, not just Castle, it's all of them together.
The final picture frame shows Alexis curled up in an armchair, her hair longer than it was when Kate met her yesterday and wound into a braid that drapes over her shoulder. In her arms, Marlow is cradled, fast asleep. His little mouth is open, his cheek mashed against Alexis' chest and a tiny hand fisted in the collar of her shirt.
Her son has a sister. Kate wonders if they're close, she and Alexis. Maybe that's something to ask Castle about, a safe topic of discussion. She's so afraid of hurting him, will do anything to avoid it. Even if that means swallowing the harder questions until she can pose them to someone else. Lanie, maybe, or even the boys.
It takes her an embarrassing amount of time, far longer than it should have, but eventually Kate manages to figure out how to turn on her computer. It swells to life, another picture filling the screen. This one is of feet in the sand; her own she recognises on the right. On the left are larger ones she assumes to be Castle's, and in the middle the chubby little toes of their son.
She smiles to see it, but her heart swells with melancholia all the same. How desperately she wishes she could have held on to some of these memories. It's so very odd, to look at the photographs and the evidence and feel a strange mixture of longing and jealousy. She wants so badly to be the woman in the photographs, to have that same joy that makes her grin so wide.
Kate moves the mouse around the computer screen, opens up a couple of documents and finds that even the programs running them are utterly foreign to her. Resigning herself to the fact that she's going to need someone to explain this to her, she stands up from her desk and heads for the break room.
This morning, she snuck out of the loft early. Entirely on purpose. After last night, the tenderness forged between herself and Castle, she couldn't quite stomach the thought of seeing him and having to further disappoint him. She just. . .isn't there yet. Isn't ready to handle the way he looks at her.
In the break room, she finds a new coffee machine and sinks down to the couch with her head in her hands, breathing heavily to try and get a handle on her emotions. It seems like every tiny little aspect of her life has evolved in the gaping hole of her memory; she can't even make herself a cup of coffee anymore.
The sound of the door nudging slowly open brings her out of her wallowing and she looks up, her heart singing in relief when she sees Ryan come inside and sit down beside her. "Beckett, hey. How are you doing?"
"Still trying to figure out how to work everything." She huffs a sardonic laugh, musters the courage to meet his eyes. Kate steels herself for pity but finds none there, only a gentle openness she should have known to expect from Kevin. "Who would have thought technology would advance so much in ten years."
"Right?" Ryan grins, nudging his elbow into her side and standing up from the couch. "I guess it must be pretty daunting, huh? Well, the coffee machine isn't too complicated. And you actually have your husband to blame for this one."
That makes her smile, shaking her head. From what she knows of Castle, it doesn't surprise her at all that he would buy a coffee machine for her workplace. "Of course I do. Let me guess, our coffee wasn't good enough for him?"
"Something about monkey pee and battery acid. Actually, you refused to use it at first. We thought you were being stubborn, and then we figured out that it gave you an excuse to keep Castle around, have him make your coffee for you every day."
Ryan is smirking at her now, leaning back against the counter with folded arms and lifting his eyebrows. And it's horrifying, but Kate finds herself blushing hard, has to half-turn her face away from her colleague. Her brain reels as she tries desperately to think of something to say, some way to defend herself, but thankfully Kevin steps in to fill the silence.
"After the little man was born, Castle taught you how to use it so you wouldn't have to go without your coffee while he was at home playing Mr Mom."
Kate nods, rolling her eyes at herself a little. It's ridiculous, how flustered she's gotten just because of this gentle teasing from her quasi-brother. And honestly, it's not like it's a secret that she cares about Castle, or at least has cared about him in the past. She married the man, for goodness sake.
It takes her a few tries, and Ryan's ever-resilient patience begins to stretch a little thin, but eventually she figures it out and manages to make herself a latte. Somehow just this, the warmth of the ceramic seeping into her palms when she wraps them around it, makes her feel like everything's going to be alright.
Yes, she doesn't remember so many things. But she can learn, and she refuses to give up. She'll figure this out. Her job, her son, and how to be what Castle needs from her. How to stop hurting him.
It takes an enormous effort on Rick's part not to text her throughout the day. Usually, they keep a conversation going the entire time they're separated. Rick sends pictures of their son or things he's found on the internet that he hopes will make her crack a smile, and in return she feeds him tidbits from her cases, lets him build theory with her via message.
Not today, though. Today, every time he finds himself reaching into his pocket for his cell phone he stops and he does something else instead, distracts himself with his son or his mother. He hasn't been entirely in the dark though; Ryan has kept him in the loop, assured him that Kate is doing just fine.
When she comes through the door at six thirty, his mother is the first to meet her. Rick is busy upstairs, getting Marlow dried off and into his pyjamas after bath time, and so the first he knows of his wife's return is his mother's voice ringing out in welcome.
He hurries through the remaining buttons on Marlow's footsie pyjamas and scoops his son up, thunders down the stairs with Mal giggling and shrieking against his neck to rescue Kate from Hurricane Martha.
If anyone asks later, he'll blame the dual distractions of his mother and his son, or maybe the weak-kneed relief that Kate actually came home to him. Not that either of those is, really, a viable excuse as to why when he reaches his wife at the door and hands over the squirmy boy whose hands are already reaching out for his mama, Rick chases the exchange of their son with the brush of his mouth against hers.
Underneath the press of his lips, Kate goes completely still for just a moment, and then Rick is hurrying to pull away and Kate is arranging Marlow to rest more comfortably against her hip and Rick's mother is watching them with undisguised interest, an eyebrow arcing up towards her hairline.
Rick touches a hand to his mother's elbow to draw her away from the door and give Kate room to come further inside the loft. They gravitate towards the kitchen and Castle holds up a bottle of wine, gets a nod of affirmation from his mother and a shrug of acquiescence from his wife. He pours three glasses, sips at his own and tries not to be too obvious in his admiration for Kate as she juggles Marlow and her wine.
They fill the room with idle chatter, much of it directed at Mal, but he starts to grow sleepy fairly fast. His head drops to Kate's shoulder and his eyes flutter closed, and Kate sets her glass down to better wrap her arms around their little boy.
Surprisingly enough, it's his mother that peels Marlow out of Kate's grip and holds him close, leaning in to let the sleepy boy's mother kiss his cheek before she comes around the counter and offers Mal up for Rick to kiss as well.
"I'll tuck him in, give you two a moment alone." His mother says, and her tact - or lack thereof - makes both Rick and Kate smile, sharing a look behind her back as she heads for the staircase.
Once she's out of earshot, Rick comes around to sit next to his wife, squeezing her shoulder on his way past. She looks tired, but far less uncomfortable than she did this time yesterday. It would seem that being at the precinct has done her some good. "How was your day?"
"Good!" She offers him a soft smile, but the one he gives in return must be a little too much because she dips her head, glancing away from him. "Captain Gates said I can come back to work. Espo's gonna take point on the first couple of cases while I find my footing again. But Castle, it was so good to feel useful." Her whole face lights up and she beams, meeting his eyes again. "I knew what I was doing, there."
He's happy for her, really he is, but it does sting. That she's still so unsure of herself, here in the life they built together. "You know you're useful here too, right? Marlow and I, we both need you. But that doesn't mean that you. . .have to stay."
Immediately, he hates himself for saying it. And not because it might plant the seed of that idea somewhere dark and warm in her brain where she can nurture it. No. Because she looks utterly wrecked by his words, her whole face slackening into a mixture of shock and anguish.
She stares at her feet and he finds himself grabbing for her hand, lifting it to his mouth and dusting his mouth to her knuckles. "Please don't go. But don't stay out of a sense of duty or something either, Kate. Stay because you want to."
"Castle." She breathes, freeing her hand from his crushing grip. His heart sinks, but then she's lacing their fingers together and dropping their joined hands to rest at her thigh. "I'm not going anywhere. And I"m not here because I have to be. I'm here because I want to be. This is my life."
She shrugs, like she hasn't just assuaged all of the fears he's had since she got hurt. Like it's nothing, even though more than anything he wants to draw her against him and kiss her slow and deep and good until her body melts in his arms. "Thank you, Kate."
"Please don't thank me, Rick." She murmurs, her eyes closing. "I know I"m not anywhere close to being the woman you love."
"You will always be the woman I love, Kate." He says quietly, doing his utmost not to frighten her with the depth of his adoration for her. Even when she'd had years of them as friends and colleagues to ease her way into it, he held back. Didn't tell her he loves her again until she said it first. So yes, he does know how, but he's out of practice in the art of not overwhelming Kate Beckett.
When he meets her eyes they're glassy and she chews at her lower lip, her pulse jumping visibly in her throat. "I wish this wasn't happening, Castle."
A tear breaks free and skids down the slope of her cheek and he stands up from the barstool, wraps both of his arms around her and buries his face in her hair. "Shh, Kate. Don't cry. It's gonna be okay."
He really wishes he could figure out how to make this easier for her. It seems like all she's done since she woke up in the hospital is hurt, and cry, and beat herself up because she can't fill the shoes found in a closet ten years ahead of where her brain is.
It doesn't matter. They'll figure it out, find a way to make their family work. Right now, she's soft and warm in his arms, hers are looped around his waist and he loves her. There's not much else he needs.
Eventually, he feels her relax a little and he steps back, swipes his thumbs over her cheeks and brushes a soft kiss to her forehead. They watch each other for a moment, but neither acknowledges either the contact or her lack of resistance and then the fragile peace swells and grows into something awkward and Rick clears his throat.
"What would you like for dinner?"
Kate can't sleep.
It's a bizarre feeling, like a muscle memory, but she just can't get comfortable in the too big, too empty bed. She keeps finding herself trying to orient around a mass that isn't there, and she's cold. Cold in a way another blanket just won't fix.
Her skin is used to being flush against his, drawing the heat of Castle's body, and without him she just feels off. Like something isn't quite right. Sighing quietly - and embarrassed to do so, as if the shadows are watching - Kate sits up and pushes the sheets down her body and off, curling her toes in the mattress.
There's no way she's going to get any sleep here alone. Her brain is desperate for it, but her body is stubbornly refusing, and she is just so very tired. Slipping out of bed, Kate pads through the living room and up the stairs, hesitating a moment outside the guest bedroom before she nudges the door open and slips inside.
The blinds aren't closed all the way and moonlight comes tumbling in, eager to drape its silvery light over the planes of Castle's back, cap the ridge of his spine with snow. The sheets drape over his hips, but one of his legs is free too and she can see a whole lot of his bare skin.
It makes her heart pound, skipping eager in her chest. He's a big man, a broad man, and Kate isn't ashamed to admit that being in his arms in the kitchen earlier tonight is the most whole she's felt since she woke up from the accident.
Kate comes all the way to his side and kneels down, is just about to touch her fingers to his shoulder when his eyes peel open and his mouth tilts up at the corner. "Hi there."
"You're awake." She murmurs, carding her fingers through his hair before she even knows he's doing it. The velvet kiss of nighttime steals years from him and he looks so young, so beautiful. So much like their son. She can't help wanting to mother him.
He smiles, a little bit self-deprecating, and rolls over to sit up. Kate rises too and sits sideways on the bed at his hip, doing her utmost to ignore the broad, bare stretch of his chest. Castle reaches out and tugs the strap of her shirt up where it had slipped down on her shoulder.
"I couldn't sleep. I'm. . .sort of used to having you stealing all the covers and cutting off the circulation in my arm."
She flushes, hopes he won't see the flood of colour at her cheeks in the darkness. "I couldn't either. It's weird. I keep looking for you, even though I can't remember ever sleeping with you."
"Oh, I'm so sorry, Kate. You need to sleep."
"Yeah, I do." She hesitates a moment, dipping her head, and then she lifts her chin and tucks her hair behind her ears and holds his gaze, lets him see how fiercely she means it. "So. . .come to bed?"
He stares at her for a moment, and then his face stretches and grows into something that seems fluid and effervescent, his delight just spilling out to soak them both. "You're sure?"
"We both need to sleep. And I trust you not to push me to do anything I'm not ready for." She shrugs, and then she stands up and heads for the door before her gratitude can do something silly like make her kiss him.
He's an attractive man, a good man, and she wouldn't exactly be opposed to sleeping with him in a less literal sense. Only, he loves her so deeply, and it wouldn't be right for her to take advantage of that. So no.
He's her husband, but she won't let him make love to her. Not unless a day comes when she can love him back.
All the way back downstairs Castle's body is close behind hers, warmth rolling off of him in waves and it makes her shiver in pleasure. When they eventually slip back between the sheets Castle ends up behind her, curled around her body with an arm draped heavy over her waist.
Right before Kate slides underneath the surface of sleep, so serene and calm as it waits for her to dive right in, Castle dusts a kiss to the nape of her neck that makes her whole body come alight, crackling with awareness. And then she feels him smiling into her skin, and his palm - very slowly - splays at her stomach.
He drags her body a little closer, the silk sheets making her come into him with almost no resistance. And then he's settled and comfortable and she feels unconsciousness take hold of him, scant moments before slumber closes over top of her own head.