Lean Wide Out the Window
The whining does come - the pouting - when he sees the wheelchair she rented from a medical equipment supplier waiting for them as they disembark. The rude awakening at touchdown, the necessity of being moved into the other seat produces a grumble of frustration - but she sees those things slide over him and then out once more. It's gone just like that, before she can even begin her long-suffering persona.
The drive is edgy, though Castle seems to think it's amusing she's called his car service for the limo. She just couldn't figure out a way to get him home with that stiff leg brace that makes everything a laborious undertaking. He pouts when she sits across from him instead of beside him, though even that fades quickly as the car jostles his leg.
He's white-and-thin-lipped with it, his hand clutched around the edge of the seat as if he has to concentrate to keep himself together. His eyes connect with hers in an electric moment and she can practically feel the grind of pain arcing out from him and into her.
She'll gladly take it, even if it just means listening to him complain. But he doesn't say a word.
For his daughter though, the whining comes back full force, like it's an act he's perfected and has to trot out in order to make her comfortable. Alexis hovers and makes over him, getting him pillows and blankets for the couch in the study, the remote for the television, making sure he's settled and has what he needs. Her eyes keep darting up to Kate as if to check, but Kate's perched on the edge of Castle's desk and has no idea what comes next.
"Dad, want to watch movies?" Alexis says, again with that quick look to Kate.
Maybe it's her cue to leave, or maybe just give them some space? Kate stands and studies father and daughter a moment before clearing her throat. "I'm just going to unpack everything."
Castle slides her a grateful look, that flashing smile that's only in his eyes, and she stands a little straighter, smiles back the same way. A way they've perfected, a way that feels right even if there are no words. She moves out into the living room and then takes both suitcases back with her to his bedroom, rolls his bag right into the closet and stands there a heartbeat too long.
Her body releases, tension mudsliding down through her body and draining out. She sways and sinks down, pretends it's just so she can reach the zipper on his luggage, her fingers trembling.
An early dinner. Go to bed. That's what she wants. The flight was too long and his face was a mask she couldn't breach. His daughter keeps looking at her like she should not only leave the room, but that she should leave the loft - and not even in a mean way, just in that, I thought you'd have to go.
It's Monday and she has a handful of sick days to get Castle settled and then what? They're supposed to go to Bora Bora for his birthday but she has precious few vacation days left and it's only March.
This isn't the time to think. Not now, not when she's on her knees in his closet trying to yank open his suitcase and failing rather epically. Kate tugs hard and realizes that the zippers lock together; she fumbles them apart and then widens the breach, lifts the lid to his rumpled clothes.
She packed them both, of course, to come back. Had to clear all their things from the lodge as he was airlifted to the hospital down the mountain. She must not have been paying strict attention; his expensive shirts are wrinkled and his pants thrown in haphazardly. But worst of all - his bottle of shampoo was tucked into the top netted pocket rather than in his dopp kit, and of course it burst open during flight.
Kate pulls things out, looking for stuff to salvage, but it will all have to be laundered if not outright thrown away. His jacket might be ruined, oh, and his shoes. She can probably dry clean the rest of it. She should ask him where he takes things, what the routine is. She vaguely remembers finding one of those dry cleaning hangers in the coat closet, still papered with the name around the wire, so she sorts everything in piles.
This is her fault; she'll clean up the mess.
She has to use the hand towel from the bathroom to wipe down the suitcase, the overwhelming smell of men's salon shampoo burning her nostrils. It feels like he's all over her, like when he's pressed deep and every gasp is filled with him.
She has to keep surfacing for deep breaths, a chance to clear her head, before going back to it. Memories like flashbacks, love like a panic attack in her lungs.
Once it's done, she leaves it there to air out and moves back out to the bedroom to open up her own suitcase. She mixes her clothes with his unspoiled ones: dry cleaner versus lights and darks that she can wash at home. Here. At his home here. She's not sure where she is, what she's supposed to do next.
And it gets to her.
She's muddled from sleeplessness, that's all.
As Kate leaves the piles in his closet, she feels a little more accomplished, better for the effort, and she makes her way into the study, something like peace finally settling over her. She finds Castle asleep with his head tilted back on the top of the couch, his arm slack around Alexis.
His daughter smiles tightly at her and slides out of Castle's embrace, gets to her feet. "Thanks, Kate."
She shakes her head. "No, don't," she murmurs, unwilling to be thanked like a guest who has been imposed upon. She's not sure what she'll do if Alexis gratefully shows her the door. "I've got our stuff unpacked, but his shampoo burst and it'll all need to go to the dry cleaners. If you can stay with him tomorrow sometime? I'll go then. Get groceries too."
Alexis's mouth opens, a flush of pink, and then her smile widens, hard and bright. "Yeah. I've got class at one in the afternoon, but I can come over and keep him company until then. Or. Or I can spend the night if you'd rather..."
"Oh." Kate was expecting her to stay, but Alexis is asking her permission - or wondering? That's not how she thought this was going to go. "I'll be here, but if you want to stay close-"
"Oh, no," Alexis rushes on. "That's good because I've got a huge test tomorrow and I wasn't sure - but I figured I'd stay here if I had to, but you know Dad... he's kind of needy when he's sick and I wasn't sure how much I could get done. But I don't want to leave him alone."
"He won't be alone. You should study. But maybe stay for dinner?" Kate offers, knots unloosening in her chest. She didn't realize it until now, but she wants desperately to finally be alone with him. "It'll just be takeout."
"Yeah, I'd like that. Takeout sounds good. Really good. Thanks, Kate." Alexis's arms wrap around Kate's shoulders, a sudden and swift embrace, over before Kate can even return it.
Castle is still asleep on the couch, oblivious.
He wakes to Kate Beckett's warm palm at his neck and his head being shifted. His eyes trace her dark outline in the dim twilight filling his study.
"Sorry," she whispers. "Go back to sleep. Just thought you'd get a crick in your neck like that."
Ah, yeah. His neck is pinched. He rolls his head on his shoulders, back and forth, and she skims her fingers down his spine, slips them under the collar of his shirt. Feels good, her fingertips cool and her hand warm, her thumb brushing across the muscles at his shoulder.
"Want some dinner? Alexis and I ordered Chinese. It'll be here in a few minutes."
"Sounds good," he mumbles, blinking his eyes to make the vision of Kate Beckett resolve. "Thanks. I wanna get off the couch."
She frowns at him, distinct enough for all his blurriness upon waking, and she stands slowly, studying him. "Okay, well the wheelchair's in here if you can shift."
"Yeah, course," he says breezily, wanting to believe it. There's a dull ache in his head that matches the pulse of his blood in his leg, but he feels like moving will pull him out of it. He'd prefer not to take the pills if he can.
When he pushes up with his fists against the couch, she makes a noise and darts in as if to catch him. He shoots her a staying glance and reaches out for the wheelchair's arm, flexes hard to drag his body over into the seat.
Doesn't quite make it.
Kate is on him, her hand under the back of his thigh and trying to lift, her panting breath at the top of his head as his body is slowly angled into the chair, almost there, and then his injured knee starts to torque.
"Ah, Kate," he bites out, pushing back, gripping the arms of the wheelchair. She stops, fingers curling at his good leg, her eyes meeting his helplessly.
"Alexis," she calls out.
"No," he growls. He bats at her hands and digs his elbow into her ribs to get her off of him, and she huffs but shuffles towards the doorway, probably to get his daughter and absolutely complete the picture of his misery.
"Alexis, can you-"
"Kate. Beckett," he says. She must hear it in his tone because she waves Alexis off and heads back for him. He's half straddling the wheelchair, half sprawled on the couch, but he is not having his daughter come move him like an old man.
"Castle, you're stuck. Let us-"
"Give me a second," he mutters. "I'm not an idiot."
She closes her mouth in a tight line but she doesn't try it again. He crooks his good knee and presses it against the foot pedal, half lifts himself over the arm of the wheelchair. His heart is pounding and sweat has broken out at the small of his back; he feels weak and that won't do.
Kate doesn't move. He reaches down and hooks his hands around the velcro of the brace, arranges his leg in the stirrup. Jeez, a stirrup. That's what it is.
He grips the tops of the wheels for a moment, steadying himself with short breaths, refuses to look at her.
"We'll get you a chair with lower arms," she murmurs then. "Easier to shift. My fault."
He nods shortly, then realizes what he's agreeing to and lifts his head to her. "Not your fault. You didn't have to arrange everything, but you did. I appreciate that."
She shrugs it off, that flat affect that he knows now is discomfort rather than disinterest.
He reaches out and curls his fingers around her wrist, wriggles his eyebrow. "You wanna push me into the kitchen to eat?"
"Not really," she says, voice low, mocking on her face. "But I guess if I have to."
He feels her hands come to the chair and turn him around towards the door. She starts rolling him forward and the way his leg is stuck out there makes him feel vulnerable to her direction. The door frame looms and he envisions the worst - the collide of his foot with the wood, the agony darting into his knee, the tension and twist...
"Trust me, would you?" she snorts from over his head.
He grimaces and cranes his neck to look at her, raises his hand to caress her fingers in apology. "Cursed with an overactive imagination."
"Don't I know it," she murmurs, but to his surprise, she leans down and drops a kiss to the top of his head.
And she pushes him through the doorway and down the hall, easily guiding him towards the kitchen, and hopefully, a little normalcy.