Because we all know there was so much more angst in this ep than what we were shown.
Carto, you are the rubber grippy on the mechanical pencil of my life.
Chapter 19: 2x18, Boom
You're alive! - oh, and you're naked.
Castle takes a while to finish his tea, then rinses out the cups, tidies up the (already pretty tidy) kitchen. He's just taking it easy. He is not listening to the sounds from upstairs. Not at all. Because it would be unbearably creepy to be mentally clocking the time she's taking in the shower and wondering if he should go check on her. So he's not doing it. He doesn't listen for the water shutting off, and he certainly isn't straining his ears to hear footsteps.
He makes his usual round of the downstairs, turning off lights (he leaves one on in the kitchen, just in case Beckett gets up during the night), checking the door, and he's about to go to bed himself when he sees her cell phone on the kitchen counter. He knows she keeps it by her bed, in the event she gets a call. She'll want it. Won't she?
He quietly climbs the stairs. Alexis' light is off, of course, it being a school night. Mother's out, so nothing from her room. The guest room is dark too.
He taps lightly at the door. No answer.
It's a dilemma. On the one hand, he can't help but think that this one piece of normalcy might be good for her; she's stuck in someone else's home, her world gone up in flames. This single link to her regular life seems important. On the other hand, the Kate Beckett he knows would almost certainly not want him walking into her bedroom. Ever.
He stands at the door, staring at the phone for a second, trying to decide what to do. Is she really asleep? Is she ignoring him? Does she think maybe he'll just go away?
That bloody cut on her forehead is suddenly at the front of his mind, and he's completely unprepared for the wave of rapid panic that chokes him. She seemed fine. But Rick Castle has spent enough time with Kate Beckett to recognize when she's bottling something up. She got blown up, for crying out loud. Did the paramedics really check her? Beckett has that irritating tendency to downplay her own needs. She was so contained, so quiet earlier. What if she has a concussion? What if she's lying in his guest room, slowly slipping into a coma just because he was too stupid to insist –
He opens the door before he can finish the thought he can't stomach. He can deal with her yelling at him for walking into her bedroom. (He can deal with anything she does so long as she's around to do it.)
His eyes adjust slowly to the dark room, and in the soft light spilling in from the hallway behind him, he can see her sleeping peacefully. Her breathing is slow, but deep and steady. Something painful in his chest uncoils and dissolves, something that's been blocking his lungs since that horrible moment he watched a fireball engulf her home. She's okay. She's breathing. She's fine.
Beckett – no. Kate. Beckett is a cop. Kate is the woman sleeping in front of him. She looks younger. Gentler. The angles of her cheekbones are softer in the shadows. His gaze lingers on the delicate lines of her face, the sweep of her long eyelashes over her pale, porcelain skin. She's beautiful. He's known it since the day they met, of course. But it's hitting him in the gut right now. Maybe it's the play of light and shadows on her face. Maybe it's the dark scar on her temple, reminding him just how close she came to death. Maybe it's both.
He swallows hard to fight down the suddenly maudlin emotions threatening to make him cry like a girl. She's fine, Rick. Stop staring. You're being creepy.
He reluctantly steps into the room, light spilling in from the open door behind him. She doesn't move. After everything that's happened in the last twenty-four hours, she desperately needs a good night's sleep. His protective instincts are going wild, since she's not awake to glare at him for it.
She's curled up on her side, one hand pillowed under her cheek. He edges carefully toward her, sits down gingerly on the side of the mattress. Her other hand twitches, but otherwise she doesn't move. Castle runs a careful hand down her arm, over the big (adorable) pink t-shirt, her soft skin. Adorable was never a word he'd associated with her (well, maybe the way her face screws up when she's mad at him) until now.
Her breathing gets a little quicker, but surprisingly, she doesn't wake up. He expected her to be the type who opens her eyes and immediately springs from her bed. Of course, murder calls aren't usually announced with a gentle hand on the arm.
"Beckett? Beckett." He bites back the strange impulse to say sweetheart. She murmurs something unintelligible and turns her face into the pillow. It's so utterly adorable that he doesn't know what to do with himself. He smiles, rubs her arm a little harder. "Beckett."
She mumbles something again, but it's muffled. He leans over to hear it, rubs his thumb over her shoulder. It's new, and warm, and intoxicating, being this close to her. She smells like his soap and that might be the best thing that's happened all day. "You in there?"
She turns toward him, her eyes hazy, hooded, barely open, and before he can stop her, she curls a lazy hand around his neck, tugs him down to her mouth and kisses him.
He's too startled to do anything other than let her. It's not the most elegant kiss – she's half asleep and not really looking, and it's sloppy and weak and the angle is awkward and he has to brace himself on one arm so he doesn't crash into her – but it's Kate Beckett and it's her mouth on his and then her tongue slides briefly over his lip, almost like she doesn't know she's doing it, and he has to bite back a gasp and this is officially the best kiss in the history of kissing.
Before he can really react (or kiss her back properly), she lets him go. She lets out a long breath that blooms over his face, curls back into herself. "Mmm."
"Beck- uh, Kate?" He thinks he can use her first name. Seeing as she just kissed him. Sort of.
She hums softly, low in her throat. "Mmmm. 'S nice."
"What?"
"Smell nice." She slurs the s's a little. Her mouth turns up at the corners, just barely, a hint of a smile. He desperately wants to kiss the edges, the soft curves that frame her lips. He wants to kiss all of her mouth, again, and again and again.
"Yeah, I get that a lot." He brushes a gentle hand over the side of her cheek before he can stop himself. This softer Kate is – she's –
He takes a breath. He's not ready for that. Not right now.
"You left your phone downstairs." She blinks at him, her eyes slowly focusing, but she doesn't say anything. "You want an alarm?"
Her face screws up in soft sleepy confusion, the furthest thing possible from no-nonsense Beckett. "'Larm?"
"To wake up. In the morning."
"Um." She blinks a little, scrubs a hand over her face. "Uh. Six."
"Okay." He quickly sets the alarm and sets the phone on the nightstand. Kate's eyes are shut again, and her breathing has slowed. "Kate?"
"Mmm." Her eyes don't open.
"I'm so glad that you're okay." It doesn't even begin to express everything bubbling through his chest, the overwhelming flush of emotions he has no idea how to handle. But it's something.
Her eyelids flutter a little. "Love you too."
Author's Note: Since she was half-asleep and won't remember it in the morning, I (personally) choose to think that maybe this ACTUALLY DID happen.