8: Let the good times roll
Castle is writing when Beckett re-surfaces, and, being wholly lost in Nikki, doesn't notice her as she pads through to find coffee, doesn't notice her when she puts a mug next to him, and doesn't notice her sitting very straight in a high-backed chair until inspiration finally expires, killed off by sore fingers and the extremely nasty experience of a mouthful of stone-cold coffee.
"That's amazing," Beckett says.
"Huh? What's amazing?"
"This." She gestures constrainedly at the clear desk and sleek laptop, contrasted with the stuffed bookshelves and boys' toys elsewhere in the room. "Given the chaos around you all the rest of the time, I'd never expected a tidy desk." That's just good luck. Normally Castle never has a tidy desk, but he'd been procrastinating more than usual and tidying his desk had been a good displacement activity. He smirks.
"I'm wholly amazing, Beckett."
"Yeah, sure you are. You know what's really amazing?"
"Oh, so many things about me are amazing…"
"That you were quiet. I didn't know it was possible." Castle pouts at her. "You talk all the time. You never stop moving your mouth."
"That's not always talking, Beckett," Castle leers, since she's given him the feed line. "I can do lots of other things with my mouth. Come and sit on the desk and I'll show you some of them." Her eyes roll.
"No." Well, that was disappointingly definite. "Could I…" she pauses, a little embarrassed-looking, "draw myself a bath?"
"Only if I get to wash your back."
"What?"
"You tried to wash your own back and it's hurt you every single time, hasn't it?" Beckett glares. Castle glares right back. "Hasn't it?"
"Yeah," Beckett mumbles guiltily.
"Why didn't you tell me?" There's an uncomfortable silence. "Why not? I could at least have found you a loofah, or a long handled bath brush, or" – he grins evilly – "come and washed you myself."
"And there's why," Beckett snarks. "You'd have ogled."
"Unfair, Beckett," Castle points out. "I wouldn't have ogled, That's for callow teens. I – being very definitely a grown man, as you know – would have admired. Entirely different." Beckett makes a rude and disbelieving noise. "And" – his tone changes entirely from flirtatious to serious – "I would have found you whatever you needed, so that you didn't hurt yourself." It changes back to cheerful insanity. "I told you, I don't like the ow noises. They're very detrimental to my mental state. They disturb its peaceful happiness. I'll need to meditate for hours to remove the negative energies from my chakras."
Beckett snorts. "You? Meditate?"
"I have been known to take the occasional yoga class, too. I got some of my best ideas there." He smiles soulfully. "The instructor was really flexible."
"You?" Beckett bleats. "You? Yoga? You?"
"Yes, Beckett. Lotus position and everything. I never managed a headstand, though."
"I'm surprised," Beckett mutters. "I'd have thought you could balance Mount Everest on a surface that size."
"Now you're just being mean. You're trying to distract me. It won't work, you know. If you want a bath, I'm going to wash your back. If you want a shower, I'm going to wash your back. If you want a" –
"I know, you're going to wash my back." –
"another cup of coffee while the bath runs," Castle continues, and smirks annoyingly, "then why don't you put the bath on and I'll put the coffee on?" He smirks more widely at her face. Gotcha. He then wonders when she'll realise that she hasn't actually said that he can't – or won't – wash her back. If she does, of course he'll comply, ows or not. But until she does… washing her back is fair game.
It would, of course, be very nice to replace the vision of injured Beckett in a wrecked bathroom with the towels on fire with a vision of Beckett luxuriating in his bath. The first is, unfortunately, a real picture that he can't unsee. The second – he's hoping will be created. He puts the coffee on, and wanders through to find Beckett looking slightly dispiritedly at the filling bath.
"What's wrong, Beckett?"
"I haven't any bath salts."
"I do," Castle says, "but I don't think you want mine. Let me go find some upstairs." He disappears, raids the upstairs bathroom, and swiftly returns with a glass bottle which he thinks will suit Beckett. Not too floral, or girlish. Beckett, he thinks, would want a more sophisticated scent. Not that she ever really seems to wear one: only the familiar hint of cherry around her hair.
He waves the opened bottle under Beckett's nose and, when she doesn't choke, sneeze or come out in hives, tips at least half of the contents into the water. The mistake that this has been becomes immediately apparent as the bath fizzes violently and turns a lurid shade of purple, foam rising. The salts hadn't been that hue: they had been quite a pleasant lilac. It doesn't appear soothing, though the steaming scent is delicately aromatic.
Beckett is looking at the water with some horror. "Were you trying to dye me violet, Castle? It smells good, but if I come out looking like a blueberry I will remove the blood from your body if necessary to wash off the colour."
"I don't think blood washes as well as soap does, Beckett. You'd end up looking like a red and purple tie-dye covering. Until the blood dried. Then it would be a nasty shade of brown. Not stylish. I really wouldn't do that."
Beckett regards him with a familiarly irritated bogglement.
"Get in, Beckett. You'll be much happier if you have a nice bath. You'll be even happier when I've washed your back. I promise to tell you if you're going purple."
Beckett's grumbles fade into the bedroom, and strengthen as she returns. She glares at him. "Why are you still in here?"
"To wash your back," Castle says impatiently. "I told you that."
"That doesn't mean that I'm going to strip in front of you and step into the bath." Castle puts on a disappointed face, and watches annoyance rise.
"No? Really no?"
"No."
"Didn't think you would," he says, "but a boy can hope."
"So you're a boy again? In that case you'll be ogling and if that's the case you can stay well away."
"Man. Not boy. And the deal was that you only got a bath if I got to wash your back and stop the ows happening."
"Will you quit using that ridiculous phrase? Ows happening? It's not even English."
"I liked it," Castle humphs at her. "Now, seeing as you won't let me admire you getting into the bath, I'm going to make the coffee and when I come back with yours you'll be safely hiding under the foam." He scowls theatrically at her. "It's very unfair, you know." She glares. "It is." The glare intensifies.
Castle decides that discretion is the better part of valour and retreats to the kitchen, listening to the soft ripples of water and the soft indrawn breaths of pain as Beckett, presumably, manoeuvres herself into the bath. Ah. That's why she'd pushed him away. She doesn't want him to see any more of her painful movements. He deliberately takes a little longer to sort out the coffees, indulges himself in putting a pretty design on the top of Beckett's mug – she'll wrinkle her nose at him, which is cute, and pretend that it's ridiculous and sappy, but she'll appreciate it really – and wanders back when all noises that might indicate pain have finished and there are no noises that might indicate that Beckett is turning purple. Yet.
He takes the precaution of tapping on the door. No point in being rude, after all.
"Yeah?"
He takes this as permission and enters. Beckett is buried in bubbles – though there are already fewer bubbles than there had been – and is not noticeably purple. Castle thoughtlessly puts the coffee on the vanity, tries very hard not to stare, and saves his eyeballs from freezing at the view by turning to the cupboard and producing a split-new sponge.
"There we are, Beckett. Back-scrubbing time." She acquires a resigned expression, under which is some relief that she won't have to do it. "I'll be really careful and gentle, but you have to tell me where the fractures are first, so I barely touch them."
"There's no chance of that, Castle. They're at the front." Castle clamps his jaw shut on some very suggestive comments indeed just before both feet, not to say also his ankles and then knees, land in his mouth.
"Okay." He kneels on the bathmat and then stands up and leaves.
"Huh? Where are you going?"
"To find a hairclip. Your hair is in the way." He bounces out and shortly bounces back, hairclip in hand. It's entirely serendipitous that twisting her hair into a neat twirl clipped out the way allows him to firstly run his hands through it and secondly have a really good view of the elegant curve of her neck. It is not serendipitous that the view of her equally elegant shoulders shows off a complete gallery of blue and purple bruises. "Those look horrible," he says, shocked. "No wonder you can't move easily." He has a thought. "I didn't hurt you, did I? When I was hugging you?"
"No. Don't worry. You didn't."
Castle breathes a sigh of relief – he'd hate to hurt her, he's never going to hurt her – turns his glance from the bruises to relocate the sponge, notices that he left her coffee out of reach and brings that back too, and is just about to ask her to lean forward when she emits a muffled noise. It doesn't sound happy.
"What is it, Beckett?"
She sniffs. Castle drops the sponge, which disappears under the bubbles, and shuffles round to see her face. Her eyes are glistening and her mouth is twisted in a way indicating that tears are being resolutely blocked.
"Beckett, what's wrong? Does something hurt, suddenly? Do I need to get you painkillers? Or to the hospital?"
"I was going to run my bath, and have a glass of wine in it like I do when the case gets difficult, and then you rang and rang and I was so cross that you were disturbing me when I just needed to think on my own and without you or Shaw or anyone talking all the time; and then I got your message and I was thinking before you warned me that you were just being such a pain and pestering me and it said Goodbye Nikki and I dived for the bath and then it all blew up and you saved me and if you hadn't rung I'd be dead and now…" she dissolves. Speech has become beyond her, all that is left are the desperate, cleansing tears that she hasn't cried properly since he carried her out of her burning apartment.
Castle writes off his shirt without a single regret or qualm for its expensive cotton, and takes Beckett into his arms as far as is possible without falling into the bath. She's sobbing helplessly into his shoulder as everything catches up with her properly. This should have happened three days ago, straight after the second injury, but it seems like it's taken the hot bath to trigger it all. He pats her back and strokes her hair and lets all his strength flow into her while she cries: simply holding her close and saying nothing except there, there.
When she's still weeping several moments later, Castle retrieves the bobbing sponge with one hand and very gently washes those bits of Beckett which are available for washing – her neck and back. He thinks that she'd likely washed the rest of her, and she'll be even more unhappy if she's only part-washed rather than wholly washed. Then he reaches for the large, dark blue towels he likes, smoothly lifts her and wraps her into one without ever quite letting go of her for long enough to be noticed, wraps a second round her so that she'll stay warm and carries her back to the bed, where he can sit more comfortably against the headboard and keep her safely cuddled in till she stops crying.
Eventually, the tears stop and Beckett shifts a little, nestling closer. It occurs to Castle that she might be cold, large fluffy towels and his own body heat notwithstanding.
"Do you want the robe back, Beckett?" She shakes her head against his neck.
"Just you," she sighs. "Keep me warm." She sniffs, messily. There's a space of silence as she calms herself and Castle simply carries on cuddling her as closely as he can manage in the circumstances. His damp shirt is cooling rapidly, however, and since that's not comfortable for him it can't be particularly pleasant for Beckett either. He wiggles a hand in between them to undo his shirt buttons, tries very hard and completely unsuccessfully to ignore the softness that the back of his hand is rubbing against, and only just manages to pull the clammy fabric out the way before he forgets the damn shirt in favour of warming and cheering up his miserable bundle of beleaguered Beckett.
He snuggles her in more definitively, which has the happy advantage that the towel dries him off a bit, and waits. She's still sniffing soggily below his ear. He puts a Kleenex in her hand, and instead of being growled at, she simply blows her nose and scrunches it up in her hand. She's limper than he's used to: lax against him. Even when he carried her out her apartment she wasn't this floppy.
"Are you okay, Beckett?"
"Will be," she says, after a while, and blows her nose again. Castle waits some more, supporting her as her intense misery lightens marginally. "It's just all… everything… it's all gone. My home, all my clothes, furniture, all my photos, pictures, souvenirs – all the things that help me remember her. The only thing I've got left is my mom's ring. Even my dad's watch… He fought so hard to beat it and I wore it because I was so proud he had…" She starts crying again. He rams down the urge to drop her, run through to the study and bring the box back right now, because doing that will make her think he's abandoning her. Instead he pats her some more, puts another Kleenex in her hand, and then puts her off his lap and, ignoring her sharp noise of distress, whisks off the bed, into his study, and returns before the noise has wholly faded.
He picks her up again, tucks her in, further ignores the stiffening of her frame and annoyed growl, and tips her chin up to meet her damp, reddened eyes.
"Got you something to cheer you up, Beckett."
"You've given me enough. I need to get my life back together." She tries to move.
"Just look at it, Beckett. You'll like it. Promise."
"Castle, it's really sweet, but whatever it is, I can't deal with it. Leave it."
"No, look at it now. Here it is." He puts the box into her hand. She tries to give it back. He wraps his hand around both hers and the box. "C'mon. If you don't like it I'll…I'll be silent for the whole of the first day we're both back in the precinct."
"Don't push, Castle."
"Open it." His fingers curl around hers and force them to slip under the lid to open the box. She can't resist the pressure.
"Stop pushing. I don't want it, whatever it is."
"I think you will. Just look. Just once? Please?"
"Stop it." Castle lifts the open box. "I don't want – oh my God. Castle…" She starts to cry again, in earnest. "How…?" she sobs.
"I went back to get your chain and ring and the watch. Except the watch was broken and so I got it fixed but it took a day or two."
"You got it fixed?"
Castle squirms a little. He loves being generous. He hates it being known about. His charity donations are strictly private and he has a standard clause for making them which includes a complete lack of publicity. He didn't mind the dry cleaning bill – that was fairly trivial. This… well, Beckett might not like the price, and she'll like it even less if he won't tell her, and she'll try to offer to repay – just like she did with the dry cleaning – and he'll refuse, again, and she'll feel obligated; and oh God, why is it always so complicated between them?
"I did." He thinks of a distraction. "I even got to put the face and hands on, and then the glass. It was really interesting," he waffles on, "to see the insides of a watch like that. I never knew how complicated they were." Success. She's still sniffling soggily, but there's a half-quirk of her lips.
"You were mending my watch?" She stares at his fingers meaningfully, where they're still curved over hers with the box in the palm of her hand.
"Yes," he says indignantly, hoping to achieve more distraction. "I did it well. The jeweller said so." He carefully omits the name of the jeweller. He wouldn't put it past Beckett to call him and insist on paying and the jeweller reimbursing Castle – he certainly wouldn't bet against her forcing it through at gunpoint, if necessary.
"With hands that size?"
"I didn't hear you complaining about my hands when" –
"Finish that sentence and you will never speak another" –
"Beckett, Beckett. When I was carrying you out of a burning building, I was going to say. Whatever were you thinking?" He pulls on a saintly smile.
But Beckett is staring back down at the watch, and then suddenly buries her face in his shoulder, dissolves into tears again – at this rate she'll dissolve him too, which would be unfortunate – and turns into this very un-Beckett, non-Kate, tearful mess who needs support and hugs and love.
Oh. Love. Well, he knew that. Mostly. Sort of. Probably. He just – hadn't actually thought about it. It snuck up on him when he wasn't looking, and now it's tapped him on the shoulder and shouted boo and made him jump. Metaphorically, of course. Really jumping would disturb his beautiful Beckett: even if right now her eyes are likely puffy and her face crumpled and tear-stained and her nose sniffly – she'll still be gorgeous.
And then he tips her chin up and even with tears still trailing down her face she's objectively gorgeous. Of course he's perfectly objective about her… oh, he is so completely gone on her. He's not at all objective. He can't help but drop a kiss on her forehead, and then lean back and hold her there. She's still crying, just a little; sniffing, just a little; staring at the watch in its presentation box in their still linked hands.
"You got it back," she snuffles. "You went and got them both back." Castle puts another Kleenex in her free hand. "Everything that mattered most."
"Yes. Because it mattered." He grins. "And it wasn't like you could go back. That EMT wasn't going to let you go anywhere. So if you couldn't, I could."
There's more sniffing, and a certain degree of eye-blotting. She's clinging to the box as if she'll never let go.
He'll never let go.
I trust that those of you wanting the watch are now happy? Note that the story is not complete...
Thank you to all readers and reviewers. I really appreciate you all.