"I know you're shy but would you, please, just kiss me."
December 2014
He finds her in the bedroom practising.
The room is near pitch, darkness a sweeping shadow that she hides below. The room is a quiet cocoon, a sanctuary, just how she likes it for this.
Save for the light creeping in under the bathroom door, that casts sepia stains over skin, he's not even sure she could read the note cards in her hands. He knows that to be deliberate too.
She's testing herself.
The cards in her hands are for show, the speech segmented and broken down on her phone is another. She knows these words by heart, at this point he probably does too.
There's a mirror in front of her as she works her way through each sentence, voice low but steady, yet she never once meets her own eyes. It's not about watching herself or rehearsing facial expressions for the crowds that will hear the words she speaks, it's not about preparing a false representation of who she is to show the world. The mirror is simply there to reflect back a feeling; a feeling that unnerves her.
She hates public speaking. Hates it!
It took him a while to fully grasp it, still catches him unawares enough that he has to stop and take stock of this part of her character even now. But she does. She hates it.
He took time to try and understand, why?
When she's knowledgeable, eloquent, poised. When she's calm and collected. When her words fall almost musically as she speaks. When each verb or adjective is chosen with unprecedented care to make her point yet neither exaggerate nor overstate; when she says exactly what she needs and no more in a tone that holds the exact amount of weight for the situation, levity of tone and inflection, why does she hate public speaking?
He has no idea.
There is an art to giving a good speech, delivering your thoughts and opinions to others in a way that teaches and informs, your rhythm, pitch, timbre and volume all key. It's a gift, and one she has.
He asked once. Needed the knowledge and even now it still takes everything in him not to question her worry and anxiety further rather than follow her through the rituals, a quiet observer. But he did. He asked once.
He asked once, if she is able to command a room full of cops when she needs to, talk to senators and tv execs, millionaires, the famous and the not so famous alike, in their droves, en masse, why is this what makes her hands start to shake?
Why? She replied to him, voice a soft sigh that told tales of having gone over this a million times before; there is no easy answer.
Why does one set of eyes in a crowd of ten or one hundred look at you as though they know the worst parts of you, the parts you don't wish for the world to see? The parts you hide from yourself. Why does that one set of eyes strike deep to your secrets, know them, see them, revel in them and set you on edge? Why?
There is no way to explain it, it just is!
She told him again, before their wedding that never was, that she was terrified of saying her vows. That she'd speak the words that should mean the most to them both, words that would echo a lifetime of love, in front of hundreds of people, meaning them only for him, and trip over them. Maybe she'd say the wrong name, or in the wrong order. Say the words too soon, or too slow or with too much emotion.
She had panicked and practised and in the end, at the wedding that wasn't what they planned but everything they wanted, she hadn't used the words that she rehearsed over and over, instead they came at her in the moment, new, fresh, true and stole his breath away.
Perfect.
It hadn't mattered then, it probably wouldn't matter for this either, but it's her ritual and he respects it.
He knows she hates it though, when he walks behind her quietly as she works her way through the speech. Walks with quiet, well timed steps, until he's the audience in the mirror staring back.
Her eyes dart to his and fall away almost immediately, too much just now as she reaches the crux, as she surges through memories and reasons behind why they do this. Why they do it here, this way, together!
He lifts her hair away from her neck and drops his chin to the recess he finds there, between shoulder and the deep hollow of her throat, the warm expanse of skin that smells sweetly of her. He waits so she has no choice but to meet his eyes in their reflection.
She's shy, but something about his expression makes her smile.
She recites a joke and he chuckles right into the shell of her ear, her eyes light up, heat blooming against his cheeks as hers darken in the mirror.
She's shy but she glares because it might have been his idea to be funny, a little funny, in that dry mischievous way she can be, and it totally works for the speech.
He doesn't gloat, well, he'll try.
He loops his fingers about her waist, knots them together low on her hips so his thumbs can glide beneath her shirt and sweep over her skin.
Another joke, another laugh and she's got this, her anxiety another mystery he absorbs and leaves for another days perusal. He listens and lends silent support, grateful she allows him near enough to see this process at all.
She tapers off, a little emotional, ending with a memory of a wide eyed little girl that makes his heart ache for her, only to feel his eyes brim suddenly when she mentions him and the life they've built together.
She turns as he steps back, turns from the mirror and makes him the only audience she needs for this part. With her head down, eyes on cards she doesn't require, she takes a deep breath and reads the last sentence.
She thanks him, thanks him for friendship, for being her partner, for suggesting this way of honouring her mother in the first place.
She drops the cards, lets the snow white paper flutter to her feet, caught beneath bare toes when she steps in close, reclaims the space that's wholly hers to meet his eyes and say it again, just for him.
"Thank you, Castle."
She's shy, but not with him, not now, not for this. She kisses him and he kisses back, taking the unneeded thanks from her lips and replacing it with love.
She's shy. But not with him.