Beckett is patient, but after several seconds of lingering she arches an imperious eyebrow and shoots her fiancé The Look. It takes a moment for him to catch on, and his expression appears genuinely bewildered.
"What?"
"It's not an armrest, Castle," she replies dryly, jerking her chin pointedly to the side.
"Huh? Oh!" he blurts, snatching his hand away from her ass. A rueful chuckle escapes, quickly swallowed up in a rough clearing of his throat. "Sorry." A platinum blonde, middle-aged waitress at the diner's counter holds out his change. The author mantles subtly under her withering scrutiny. Her pastel pink lips curl with distaste. He tips generously without meeting her eyes again and tugs Beckett into a hasty retreat.
"It's not funny," he chides as they continue the drive moments later.
"You looked like your Mom walked in on you mid-hump!" she lilts, laughing again.
Castle just winces. He scowls through the windshield at the oncoming terrain.
"Oh," Beckett mourns mid-chuckle, and pat his thigh consolingly. "That's actually happened? Poor guy."
"I don't want to talk about it."
"Shocking," she remarks teasingly, but with an edge of rebuke, "because you're usually an open book."
Either he fails to detect the glint of seriousness or chooses to ignore it. They pass several miles in silence. That isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's not uncomfortable and the open countryside of Long Island is lovely even in the largely monotone shades of winter. Skeletal deciduous trees lining the roadside gleam with melted wetness in the midday sun, their nakedness stark contrasts to the snow. They are skirted by smaller conifers and dwarfed by others with growth rings measured in centuries. Highway 27 from New York City to Montauk is totaled in more than mere miles and hours. It's a special retreat for them, a world apart.
"I got busted by my folks a time or two in my younger days," Beckett offers at length, waggling the proverbial olive branch.
"Yes," Castle issues somewhat sourly, "tell me all about the other guys you've been caught boffing. It's my favorite car ride game. What has raging hormones, bad boy charm, and has penetrated my fiancée?"
Jeez. When you put it like that…gross.
"What a surly man," the woman observes with a mockery of peevishness, because she doesn't really mind. Rick isn't prone to morose behavior often, and rarely for long when it occurs. If he needs a little indulgence on her part to get through a spell of it here and there along the way, well—through sickness and health, babe. "You should just tell me what's on your mind already. It'll make you feel better."
Blue eyes shift from the road to view her askance.
Kate lifts an arm to point down at the top of her head. "Detective," she supplies impishly.
Castle sighs, starts to smile against his will, but combats the expression until it settles into one of consideration. His jaw shifts with intent, but he says nothing.
"You've been like this for over a week. I mean, not quite like this, but different anyway."
"I'm not hiding from you," he asserts, a bit too defensively.
Kate blinks at his choice of words, frowns lightly in the passenger seat. "Alright, enough," she declares, slipping by inches into interrogator mode. "I didn't say you were hiding." The driver shifts uncomfortably in his seat. "We both know what overcompensating implies." Guilt. She doesn't have to say it.
Another sigh unwinds from him. "I'm trying to find the right words first. It's frustrating, okay? Bear with me, please. I'm honestly not hiding, but I have been stalling."
Mild incredulous infuses her reply. "You, Richard Castle, are having trouble finding the right words." She blinks in the face of his frustrated nodding. "I—I don't understand. What words? What are you talking about? Oh god, is this about the wedding? We have to postpone after all?"
"No," he soothes. "It's nothing like that. And not to split hairs, but you're the one who's been talking about it, asking about it."
A light of realization blooms in her mind. "Oh shit. Is that about your piano? The timeline fits."
"Not—no," Castle answers haltingly. "I mean yes. That too." Kate just stares, bemused. He notices in the midst of another sideways glance and growls softly, twisting the steering wheel in his hands until the leather creaks from the abuse. "I'm referring to the past," he finally clarifies in a calmer tone.
"We've had conservations along those lines before. You never got riled up like this."
"I've never discussed…this."
Kate starts to reply, but screeches to a halt. The sheer seriousness the driver exudes, so often absent otherwise, demands a pause to evaluate. With some hesitance she asks, "What do you mean 'never'?"
"Just what I said."
"Never? Not with Alexis or your mother?"
"Mother knows. She," Rick pauses and stares at her for a silent beat. "She can't talk about it. Just the once; that was all she could bear." Oh shit. Her pulse-rate is jumping in her veins as if it wants out. What have I gotten us into? "That's always suited me fine," her companion continues evenly. "Nothing I said then seemed to change her way of thinking any. As a parent, I understand only too well now."
"Uh," she begins, trying to sort the confusion from her sudden misgivings. "You're not making sense."
"I know, damn it. I told you I don't have the words. Listen, we're almost there now. I'd rather wait."
"I definitely don't," she blurts. God no—let the unknown ax fall if it's going to. It's imperative to make that happen as soon as possible. The resulting damage can't be assessed until it does.
"This is hard enough without focusing on the road too."
"Oh god," Kate groans, pressing her fists to her stomach. "This is going to be bad, isn't it?"
Man. The look he levels on her in reply. She knows that look. It is knowledge coupled with the sad expectation of some unknown inevitability. Whether she shows it or not via a similar expression, that's the same feeling the detective gets right before dropping the life-changing news of a victim's death onto their family members. Experience has taught her over time the terrible reactions that will inevitably follow. Seeing him wearing it now is more than enough to forestall the immediate need to know.
A decisive unease has perforated their comfortable silence. The lack in the sedan hangs like a pall in the air. It's almost suffocating. Kate reaches for the radio, but hesitates upon the knob and leaves it be. This is going to be bad. She doesn't want to remember it with a soundtrack. With her luck the perfect wedding song will come pouring out of the speakers, forever marred by this tense ride through Montauk.
Few cars present themselves upon the icy roads. A couple pick-up trucks pass, each with grills armed with snowplows. Fewer still pedestrians reveal themselves. She and her partner pass through the more populated sections with hardly a blip to distinguish their arrival or departure. With a glance into the side mirror, Kate asks, "Where're we going?"
Castle's voice is distant, almost weary. "Montauk Point."
"It's probably closed." Please God let it be. No, don't. Fuck—I don't even know which to pray for.
"It'll be open."
And it is. God help her.
What did Castle do? Or did something happen to him? It must be the latter if Martha still feels raw about it. It has to be. He…got lost in all these woods or something, almost died. That's bad. It could be that.
"It was summer then," Castle says quietly. "A hot one by New England standards."
"We don't have to do this," Kate hears herself protest. Damn. She lifts a supplicating hand in the air even while hanging her head in shame. "Shit. Forget I said that." Her mother would be appalled. Hiding from the truth is not the way of Beckett women.
"Tell me to stop any time," Rick invites, but it sounds disconcertingly like pleading. "I don't need to talk about this, Kate. I just can't hide it anymore. Not this time—with you." Secrets. Meredith's lamented observations of their marriage were right; he kept her at a distance. "We're getting closer to the day, and it's been like a chain wrapped around my chest, pulling tighter link by link." The words remind her of Detective Raglan in the coffee shop. She winces hard. Castle doesn't seem to make the connection, continuing, "And then you…asked. Close enough anyway. I knew it was time to bring you here."
"This where the bodies are buried?" she asks acidly, getting angry now. Secrets. Kate thought they were well and truly past this hurdle. It's hypocritical, but she can't help being outraged. Damn him.
To her horror his features go bloodless before her very eyes. He tries to recover, to hide behind a smile, but it's more of a grimace, and his voice is raw with the unwitting impact her words inflicted. "Not anymore." The coldness which sweeps in through the opening driver's side door seems to go right into her core, like someone's lips hovering at a candle flame before snuffing it decisively out.