6: Time flies
"You can keep sneaking into my bed as often as you like, Beckett. We could start now."
"For the third time, I didn't sneak. I sleepwalked."
"Don't believe you," he singsongs. "I think you sneaked both times."
"I did not. I sleepwalked. It was just because I had a nightmare" – she slams her mouth closed on the confession.
"Nightmare? You said you hadn't sleepwalked much since before you went to school – I thought you meant grade school."
"I did." Castle notices that she's not exactly explaining what triggered not much.
"Oh. What nightmare, then?" There's a defeated, unhappy pause. "C'mon, Beckett. I've seen you taking down the bad guys. I'm not going to judge. Everyone has bad dreams. I do. I dream about writing bad romance novels and being trashed by the critics. Of course, I also dream about being eaten by flesh-devouring zombies and about winning a Pulitzer when naked, so you could argue that I should stop eating cheese late at night…" He trails off. His particular brand of Beckett-baiting insanity isn't cheering her up any.
"Kate?" He never calls her Kate, but she's suddenly tense and sad and he's pushed her too far again but he'd only been teasing: if he'd thought she'd react like this he'd have stopped. "Kate, it's okay. You don't have to say anything." She curls into him, and he automatically holds her in closer.
"It didn't matter if it was you because I couldn't hurt you," she stutters out into his neck. Say what, Beckett?
"Hurt me?" Castle pets her hair and, since it's there, her cheek. "You can't hurt me, Beckett." His tone is deliberately provocative.
"I could kill you with my bare hands." Better. Back to better Beckett, anyway. "But not when I'm asleep." There's a pause in the flow. "But…"
"Mmmmm?"
"But I dreamed that the killer was in front of me and I was burning and I just went after him because that would stop the burning and I had my hands around his neck and I squeezed and he died – I killed him – and it was so fucking real, Castle. So real, and what if that had been whoever I could have sleepwalked into? If it had been anyone else and I'd done it for real?" She burrows her face into his neck.
"Don't be silly," Castle says briskly. He has a plan, and it doesn't involve Beckett self-flagellating for completely ridiculous reasons, or indeed any reasons. Quite unnecessary. "Dreams aren't reality. You're over-stressed by the whole situation and you've made a mountain out of a worm cast."
"Molehill."
"No, it's not even that big. Worm cast. Best-selling writer here, and I know exactly what metaphor I want." He pets a little more, and keeps the brisk tone. "No way would you have hurt anyone. Not even me. It was just a dream, and no matter what you think you're doing in dreams you aren't doing it."
" 's not true. People do violent things when they're sleepwalking."
"They're already ill. You're not. Are you?"
"No." That carries considerable indignation. Good.
"Well then. And you wouldn't have done violent things to my mother or Alexis. You're a cop. And if you haven't murdered me, you're not going to murder my family. You're being silly, Beckett." He pets yet more. "So stop hiding in my ruggedly handsome neck. It can't be helping your ribs."
Nothing happens.
"Beckett," he wheedles, "come out. I've got a lollipop for you."
"Liar." But her head has lifted and she's looking at him, slightly uncertainly, it is true, but looking at him. He never refuses when opportunity knocks.
"Yes," he says amiably, "but now you've come out just in case I do." He smiles beautifully at her. "Good."
"Good?"
"I can do this." And he kisses her again, softly and briefly. "Can't do that if you're buried in my neck."
"I could go back there. Or to my room."
"Or to mine," Castle says hopefully and very provocatively. "I like you in my room." Beckett is back to gulping like a goldfish. Good. Silly girl, thinking she'd hurt someone. Beckett, supercop par excellence, who only ever tries to fix people's hurts? How dumb can she be?
"Your room would have you in it."
"That's its main attraction. You said so."
"What?"
"You said you needed me. So since I sleep in my own room, just like I've done since we could afford separate rooms" – oops, that made Beckett jerk, and the swearing in his ear means she's hurt herself.
"You couldn't afford separate rooms?"
"When I was small. Before Mother got a bit more successful." He doesn't say – before I got successful. His mother had managed that herself, later on, before he had become a superstar.
"Oh. Right."
" – I sleep in my own room, Beckett, so you'll just need to sleep there too."
He starts counting seconds. He gets to three, which is two further than he'd expected, before that sinks in.
"What? I'll just need to sleep in your room? What makes you think I'll be doing anything like that?"
"You did last night. And the night before. And before that you were in hospital and you wanted me to stay till you were nearly asleep. So, Beckett" – he waggles his eyebrows lasciviously – "I'd say you want to sleep in my room. In my bed. With me, in fact." He adds a wolfish smile. "I really don't mind that at all."
"I'm sure you don't." But, Castle notices, she hasn't (yet) said that she does mind. He smiles to himself, and says nothing more on that subject. He strongly suspects that if he simply leaves it alone now, some time tonight Beckett will appear in his bed again. Since that's what he wants, and he thinks that's what she wants, that's just fine.
"What did you buy?"
"Are you trying to give me whiplash as well as broken ribs?"
"I didn't give you broken ribs. How am I giving you whiplash?"
"You switched the subject so fast my neck is still catching up with the change of direction."
"Protecting my assets, Beckett. I thought you were about to shoot me. So what did you buy?"
"Stuff," Beckett says uninformatively.
"Not very descriptive, Beckett. You'll need to do better than that."
"You're the writer, not me. Stuff."
"What sort of stuff? Pretty stuff? Foodstuffs? Apparel?"
"Apparel? What's wrong with saying clothes?"
"Boring."
"Yes, clothes. Boring, ordinary clothes."
"Show me?"
"You'll see them when I wear them." Castle makes a very sad face at Beckett. "What?" she snips.
"I want to see now. Pleeeeease?"
"No."
"Aw, Beckett. You're no fun. Not even a little peek?"
"No."
"Okay," he says sadly, and droops. His arms fall away from her. This means that his hand lands on the bag, lifts it up, and dumps the contents on the couch. His eyes light up. "Ooooohhhh, Beckett."
"Give me those back."
Castle doesn't, and compounds his disgraceful conduct by wrapping his arms back round Beckett.
"They're pretty. Not boring at all." He twinkles at her. "I like them. Will you model them for me?"
"No."
"Pleeeeease?"
"No."
"Beckett, that's not fair. I've never seen you in shorts and a tank top. Is that your workout garb? Or do you wear it when you're relaxing on your own?"
"Running. I can't go running so you won't see them."
Castle makes a face at her. "You'll be better soon. Then I'll see them." His mind flitters off. "What else did you get?"
"Nothing you need to know about." Beckett looks crossly at him. "Put it all back in the bag, please."
Castle complies, and manages not to tip out the contents of some more interestingly squishy and much smaller bags. His fingers tell him that there is underwiring. His brain tells him they're full of underwear. His body tells him several things he should do about that but he's just about managing not to listen to it. Beckett is still on his lap and still within the loose circle of his arms and still not killing him, and he's not going to spoil that.
"What do you want to do?"
"Huh?"
"Well, you can't go to the precinct because you've been banned."
"I wasn't banned. I'm on medical suspension."
"Like I said. Banned for misbehaviour. Catching killers when you were supposed to be sitting still and not annoying the Feds." Beckett growls. "So what shall we do? We could braid your hair, or paint your nails, or make out a little more, or a lot more – ow!"
"Shut up, Castle." Beckett removes her nails from his ear.
"Beckett," Castle says in tones composed equally of sweet reason and provocative patronage, "you are sitting on my lap. In which alternate universe shouldn't we be making out?"
"All of them," she snipes.
"Well, it's just as well we're not in any of them, then." Castle runs his hand back up into Beckett's hair and tips her head to an accessible angle. "Kiss me, Kate," he murmurs, and prevents her doing so even had she tried by kissing her first.
She might have been snipping and sniping and possibly snapping at him, but she's not even pretending to try to move away. Anything but. Castle deduces that Beckett is quite happy to make out a little more. He certainly is. He's quite happy to make out a little more for a lot longer. He'd be quite happy to make out a lot more for a lot longer, too. His free hand drops to her leg, hers is locked in the hair on the back of his head. His arm supports her in a position that doesn't appear to hurt. Their kiss deepens: Castle demands entry, Beckett presses her own demands upon his lips. His hand slips higher above her knee; he moves round to nibble delicately on her ear, tease her neck, and return to repossess her mouth.
Matters are rapidly getting out of control. Neither Beckett or Castle seems to care, rapidly descending into the same scorching hot, unstoppable sink of desire that their first real kiss had brought. Her free hand is knotted in his shirt front, her fingers on the buttons and beginning to release them, his continues to rise on her leg, over her hip; his arm still supporting her as his fingers trail across to the button of her pants, pausing on the waistband, waiting for some indication of how far she wants to go.
It becomes instantly obvious that the answer is much further when all his shirt buttons fall open and a delicately seductive hand trails inside the cotton and starts to play, flirting lower and lower. The only question is how much further they can go without this all imploding in broken ribs and general suffering – not just Beckett's. It doesn't stop him undoing in his turn, tracing the rim of her pants and pushing them just a little open, sliding one strong finger into the gap, teasing just a little…
And then pulling back, stopping, returning his hand to the relatively safe zone of her hipbone: still kissing but trying to damp the fire down. Her hands are still inside his shirt, but she, too, has stopped teasing. Her hands are still and peaceful, flat against his chest.
"We need to be…careful, Beckett," Castle murmurs, after a long, calming pause. "You're injured. I don't want to break you any more than you already managed on your own."
"I didn't break me," Beckett says indignantly. "Dunn fell on me. Hardly my fault."
"If you'd stayed on desk duty rather than bullying the Feds…" Castle replies very provocatively.
"We wouldn't have saved Shaw." This is very true. Castle subsides, playing idly with a wisp of Beckett's hair and sliding a gentle hand from hip to waist and down again, soothingly.
"But you wouldn't be so badly hurt." It slips out.
"Saving her was more important. My ribs will mend. Death's permanent." It's as black and white as Beckett always is: no room for moral equivalencies there.
Castle leaves it. He's never going to change Beckett's spun-steel core, and he doesn't want to – he just wants Beckett not to be killed herself. He carries on playing with her hair, cosseting her on his lap, simply… taking care of her in a comfortably affectionate, unobtrusive way to which she is – amazingly – not objecting. Her stiffness is a consequence of her injuries, not discomfort with her position; and her head has dropped back on to his wide shoulder to lie conveniently tucked into the hollow of his neck. Her necessarily shallow breathing whiffles against him, not quite tickling. His arms lie still around her, no pressure, just lightweight support.
Eventually the peaceful space of time has to end.
"I should put my stuff away," Beckett yawns. "Help me stand up, Castle?"
"Huh?"
"Moving hurts. You picking me up hurts less. Please would you stand me up so it doesn't hurt as much?" Castle boggles at her, and fails to move from stunned paralysis. "Castle, please will you stop staring like a stunned sow and help me stand up?"
He starts. Beckett squawks. "Sorry, sorry, sorry." He lifts her from his lap and sets her on her feet, slowly letting go of her waist. She looks as if she wants to stretch out, and stops.
"I can't even stretch," she grumps. "I hate this. No home, no job to do, and my ribs hurt every time I move or breathe."
"This is why you should invest in a space in a cryo facility, Beckett. You could be put into cryosleep for three weeks and when you woke up you'd be all better. No pain, no boredom." He grins. "Of course, you wouldn't be able to talk to me, which would be a major downside for you, but" –
"I would be asleep, Castle. You would have no-one to distract with your incessant persiflage." She grins nastily. "Actually, you might have a point about the advantages of cryosleep. Peace, quiet, no chatter, no pain…"
Castle makes a sulkily disappointed noise to preserve the normal formalities, while noting that Beckett has re-acquired her colour and personality since he'd fed her lunch and cuddled her up peacefully. Or kissed her, not so peacefully. His errant mind wanders to whether, if she reappears in his bed tonight, he couldn't work out a way of making them both very, very happy without risking unpleasant consequences. He's sure there ought to be a way. He just has to think about it.
While he's been pondering Beckett has made it as far as the stairs and is crabbing her way up them with a minimum of grace and a maximum of (very hot, but disturbingly intense) Russian swearing. The one understandable piece of speech, once he strips out the extensive covering of profanity in two languages, seems to amount to how does this hurt so much more a couple of days after? He has no idea, and is not planning to find out if it's true by experimenting.
He tidies up the lunch utensils and wanders off to his office to make a few notes about Nikki, injuries, and watch-repair – all of which is abruptly halted when he notices the watch in the presentation box on his desk where he'd left it. He'd forgotten to give it to Beckett. He thinks for a moment. He is fairly sure that Beckett wants to attend to her new clothes without company, and possibly have some quiet, solitary time, so bounding up the stairs brandishing the watch is likely to be unhelpful. He puts it back down and defers presenting Beckett with his success for now.
Beckett doesn't reappear till after Alexis is home from school. From her very slightly tousled look, Castle infers that she has either taken a nap or spent the afternoon reading in solitary splendour. While he'd have been very happy if she had spent it reading in his company, he's always rather had the impression that Beckett needs quite a lot of time without company, and anyway since she still hasn't access to anything other than a smartphone she can't have been doing serious research on rental apartments. With only a little luck, in fact, since her agent-visiting had been so depressingly useless this morning, she won't have been doing any research at all.
"Can I help?" she asks, slowly attaining the kitchen counter and a stool. Castle looks up from the yellow pepper he's efficiently julienning.
"I don't know. You may help," he says irritatingly and pedantically, "but whether you can or not depends on how you and your ribs feel about it."
Beckett's hand flexes and makes a small but threatening move towards a stray knife. Castle swiftly removes it. He likes his fingers in their current shape and alignment.
"Okay, if you want to help you may…" he looks around. Everything else is already done. "Oh. I'm finished. There isn't anything with which to help."
"Not even your grammar," Beckett mutters, not quite inaudibly.
"My grammar requires no help," Castle says very smugly. "But should you need help with yours, I'll be very happy to assist."
"No, thank you. Writing police reports is a skill which you do not possess." Castle opens his mouth. "They require facts. Your writing is not factual." He shuts it again. There isn't much to be said to that. Besides which, Beckett has just very pointedly reminded him that she can use perfect English if she wants to. He concludes that discretion will be the better part of valour, drops the julienned pepper into the salad in an attractive pattern, and grins.
"Done. Dinner when everyone's ready."
Castle doesn't let Beckett help with putting dinner out either. There's no need: Alexis is there, and he doesn't want her or his crockery damaged if she twists and tweaks her ribs. The mistake, on balance, was saying the second part in the way that he did. Beckett doesn't start an argument in front of Alexis, but she's not terribly impressed by his care for either her or his crockery – or the equivalence between them – and then ensures that Alexis carries conversation by asking her a number of questions. Castle watches the masterclass in applying gentle interrogation techniques to avoid a conversational direction that one doesn't want to take – that would be anything Castle might say – and stores it all up for Nikki. He doesn't mention that. Beckett doesn't need to know that while she thinks she's making it clear that he's in trouble, he's actually benefiting enormously.
However, a glass of wine – only one, early enough that it will have worn off before Beckett takes her bedtime painkillers – and an offer of coffee restore relative harmony. Beckett peels herself off the stool, undertakes a very slow attempt at a stretch from feet to waist and then from shoulders to scalp, missing out the danger zone of her chest along the way, and walks with a reasonable imitation of normality to the couch. Castle's just about to (metaphorically) cheer when he realises Alexis is joining Beckett.
Dammit. He'd been planning to present the watch, but he's not doing that in company. Anything could happen, and he would rather it happened in private. Public displays of emotion are not the Beckett style. He scraps his plans, and preserves a happy family visage and conversation all evening. Just for once, it would have been helpful if Alexis was still six and could be put to bed at seven-thirty. Instead, she's trying out career options and study combinations and – what?
Colleges that aren't within two hours' drive of Manhattan? Colleges on the West Coast? Colleges overseas? And Beckett is not dissuading Alexis? Why not? The West Coast is dangerous. It's full of geeky types and surfer dudes and movie moguls who didn't commission movies or TV shows from his books until Nikki. (No taste at all.) And overseas? England? No no no no! It's full of non-Americans. Funny accents and the wrong spelling, and people who don't appreciate good English. Why, some of them seem to think they invented the language and it's Americans who use it wrongly. Ridiculous. Of course he's travelled widely, but that's different. Alexis can travel as much as she likes – on vacations or short study tours. Living that far away? Not his baby.
"Of course, it's really different living abroad," Beckett is saying. "You immerse yourself in the culture – at least if you want to get anything out of the place. It's pointless going if you're just going to eat McDonalds or mac-n-cheese all the time." Her face glints with mischief. "The drinking age is a lot lower, too. Eighteen in England, so I hear."
"What about Kiev?"
"I don't remember there being a cut-off. Technically it was eighteen, but no-one really cared as long as you looked it."
Castle chokes. Then he chokes again as Beckett casts him a don't-be-so-overprotective glance and carries on.
"Travelling really expands your horizons. I loved it. Living away from home for college and going to Kiev was scary, but it was the best thing I ever did."
Castle glances swiftly at Beckett. That last had sounded more than a little wistful, and her eyes are suddenly bright in a different way, mischief gone.
Thank you to all readers and reviewers.