18: A time to get

They exit Walmart with enough household accoutrements for – according to Beckett – a year. She is voluble. She's also wrong, but that doesn't stop her. Castle supposes that if she actually lived in her apartment rather than simply dropping in on it for – oh, say five hours a night? – she might need more stuff.

"Why did you insist on getting all this?"

"Well, your cart wouldn't have housed a mouse for a week."

"Nonsense. There was exactly what I usually get."

"Yeah, when you had a home with supplies already there." She whitens. Ooops. He puts an arm round her. "You need everything. You know that. It won't change just because you don't want to think about it."

"You shouldn't have paid for anything. You should have added it to my trolley." She pins him on her stare. "You will bank the check I'm about to write you. I will make sure you have."

"Can't I give you anything?" he says, unhappily.

"You got my watch fixed. I haven't asked about that, have I? I haven't asked and I won't ask. Promise."

"Well, no, but…"

"But me no buts, Castle. "

"That's not Shakespeare, you know." He's distracted for an instant.

"Henry Fielding." Castle is shocked into silence. "Now, how much?" He's so flabbergasted by her literary knowledge that he actually hands her the till receipt without thinking. She pulls out her checkbook, scrawls across the paper, signs it with her usual slash and hands him both back. "If that's not cashed by the end of this week I will not be happy." Castle droops pathetically at her and widens his eyes. "Nope. I'm not using your money."

"But I want to help."

"No. I know you do, but I gotta do this myself." That's sufficiently definite that Castle backs off. He supposes it makes sense, in the context. It's her life, and she can manage it, fund it, and live it. He just wants it to be with him. Oh. Ah. Right. She doesn't want to live off him. Much becomes instantly far clearer. He gets that. Oh boy does he get that. So although he has rather less need for her check than he does for a pair of sparkly pink earmuffs, he'll cash it. Because she needs him to cash it. Because she needs to prove – and needs him to prove – that she won't live off him. Which means that she's in this for real.

"Okay. I'll cash it Monday. Promise." He smiles, a little mischievously. "But I am allowed to buy you a housewarming gift. I saw this rug in GreenFlea, and if you liked it…"

"Yeah. You can do that. That's what friends do. Now c'mon. Let's get back and put all this away and" – she smiles very wickedly and seductively – "christen my new apartment properly." Castle perks up instantly. All over. "With coffee." He splutters, then laughs and kisses her.

"We'll start with coffee, Beckett. I've got plans for you." He looks down at her in her flat shoes. "Oh yes. Later."

Offloading everything and carrying it up is tedious and tiring, even with the elevator, and is, in Castle's view, definitely not improved by having to remind Beckett that she is not allowed to strain herself in any way because he is not taking her back to the ER and didn't they have this conversation four times already? Eventually it's all done. Beckett makes coffee, and in default of the couch she doesn't yet have they sit on the floor. It's oddly reminiscent of college.

"I think you need a couch," Castle says. "It would be more comfortable than the floor."

"Yeah, well. All in good time. I don't even have a table and chairs yet."

"Just a bed," he murmurs.

"I'd cook you dinner," Beckett says, ignoring that, "but I'm not eating sitting on the floor. Let's go find somewhere to eat. My treat." Castle scowls theatrically. "We already had this conversation. My treat."

"Okay. But I hope buying me dinner doesn't mean you expect me to put out. I'm not that easy." He affects a naïve, innocent look. Beckett laughs so hard she nearly knocks her coffee over.

"I don't think I need to buy you dinner to get you to put out, Castle. I think I just need to do this," and she undoes the top three buttons of her shirt, then his, kisses him hard and scrapes nails across his nipples. And then the evil witch pulls away, stands up and makes for the bedroom. What's a man supposed to do? Of course he follows her.

They christen the bed in some style. When not in his loft, Castle discovers, Beckett is not shy of making noise, issuing orders and/or requests – mostly orders – and finding out in some detail what makes him make noises. Quite a lot, as it happens. And in the end they're happily cuddled up together, Beckett's head on his chest and his arms around her, both of them contentedly half-dozing.

Unfortunately they have to uncurl, wash, and dress. The shower turns out to have superb water pressure but one huge disadvantage, being that there is not room for both of them. Castle sits and pouts spectacularly all the time that Beckett is showering, and hopes that she's doing the same while he showers.

Dinner passes quietly, in a Thai place on Amsterdam. There's not a lot of talking. Beckett is obviously pondering: Castle is steadily becoming unhappier that at the end of the evening he won't have a Beckett coming home and sleeping in his bed. When he realises that he can't even go back to Beckett's for a proper end to the evening, he buries himself in his beer and paranoid, pathetically petty ponderings of his own. What if she doesn't like his rug? What if she doesn't come to the loft any more? What if she simply…drifts away, now she's so far away? He reaches for her hand, and holds on tightly, trying to hold her to him.

Her fingers skate lightly over his hand, stroking rhythmically, reassuring in a way he couldn't describe, and then close over his. "You're thinking too loud. D'you want coffee, or are we done?"

"Coffee at yours?" he asks rather plaintively, really not ready to go home yet. Not when it means leaving alone.

"Sure," Beckett says, and something in her eyes and tone makes him think that she's maybe not any more happy with him going home than he is.

They walk back tucked together, Castle's arm round her shoulders, Beckett's arm round his waist and her hand slipped into his back pocket. Which is unfair. She keeps pinching his ass, and making him squeak. The few blocks it takes them to return have probably left him with bruises.

"Ow! Stoppit, Beckett!"

"Stop what?" she purrs innocently. She looks about as innocent as a succubus.

"Pinching my butt. It hurts. Stop it."

"Okay."

He's surprised by her acquiescence, until he realises that they're back already, and she's taken her hand out his pocket to open her door. She turns the wrong way, he notices, her hand slapping the wrong side of the doorway to find the light switch, and she growls with frustration. There's a tiny hesitation as she orients on the kitchenette and the kettle, a moment to find the mugs, a half-turn till she locates the fridge. Nothing's quite smooth or practised yet, nothing is quite where she seems to expect. It occurs to Castle that Beckett is, understandably, smoother in his kitchen than this new, unfamiliar one.

He prowls up behind her and makes himself useful by finding the creamer. When he's done that, he makes himself useful by wrapping her in and occupying her mouth till the kettle has boiled. If he has to go home, he's going to hold her close for as long as he can. He knows she had to move out. He does know it.

He just doesn't have to like it.

They drink their coffee sitting on the floor, again, in an ever more depressed silence. Beckett leans into Castle, drops her head on to his shoulder, and wriggles in. Their hands join on his leg, fingers tightly twined.

"I ought to go."

"Mmm," comes a dispirited hum.

He starts to stand. Beckett struggles to her feet, still a little awkward and protective of her ribs, and hugs him.

"Thanks, Castle." She doesn't say anything more, simply kisses him. And then he kisses her, and then her mouth opens under his, and then all his need and want and desire and upset that he has to leave flood out and he takes her mouth as if he'll always have the right to possess and protect, pulls her into him and shows her with his responses how much she means.

And then he lifts away, and leaves.

The sound of the door shutting is the saddest sound imaginable, and there is absolutely nothing either of them can do about it. He has responsibilities, and his love for his daughter, and shucking them is unthinkable. He'd always wonder – she'd always wonder – if he'd shuck the next responsibility, another love, as readily. He's never, ever wanted to leave his daughter alone. He doesn't now. He wants Beckett to come back with him, and stay, but she won't, and in some way, she can't. She needs space from his family.

But she'd said she didn't need space from him. He clings to that, all the way home in the cab, and consoles himself that he'll see her again tomorrow before they all go back to GreenFlea. Actually – that's a point. He has no idea what time they're all meeting up. Somehow that subject hadn't come up in – er – conversation. He taps out a quick query, and presses Send.

Come at around 9.30. Meeting the others at GreenFlea at 10.30 comes back, almost immediately. He feels better, that she's so quick to reply, and that she wants to see him before they meet the gang. He bites down on the sudden feeling that she's standing, solitary, looking out the window at the rear lights of each passing car and truck, flaring in the lonely dark, bites back the instant impulse to tell the cab driver to turn around, to take him back. He mustn't go back, tonight.

He shares a glass of wine with his mother, only making a couple of barbed references to her annexation of yet another bottle he would rather she had missed, and conversation with Alexis.

"But Dad, why are you even home?"

"Pumpkin, you're here," Castle says affectionately. "Where else would I be?" His mother regards him beadily.

"With Katherine, darling." Castle casts her a fulminating glare.

"If it weren't for you, Mother, she wouldn't" – he stops, suddenly remembering Alexis's presence.

"Wouldn't what, Dad?" Oh, shit. Alexis looks between him and his mother, acquiring an unpleasantly beady regard of her own. "Grams? What did you do?"

"Nothing, sweetie." Alexis stares hard at her. "My friend, Doug – you remember Doug? – is going to Europe and needed an apartment-sitter, and I thought that Katherine would like to do it, so I suggested it to her."

"Grams!"

"Now, pumpkin. Grams thought it was a good plan." Castle flatters himself that he kept every drop of bitterness out of that sentence.

"Well, I don't. So Grams made Detective Beckett think she should move out?"

"Sweetie, no." Both Castle and Alexis turn identically disbelieving glares on his mother. "I would never have done that."

"You made Detective Beckett move out?" Alexis screeches. Castle claps his hands over his ears. "Grams, how could you?"

"I didn't, darling. I thought she should have stayed here with your Dad."

"You did a real fine job of convincing her," Castle says bitterly. "If you hadn't suggested apartment-sitting Beckett wouldn't have started apartment hunting nearly as soon." His mother looks – not nearly guilty or penitent enough for Castle's taste. A hair shirt and sackcloth would be a good start, he thinks. Alexis clearly thinks the same.

"Grams, I really wish you hadn't done that. I liked Detective Beckett being here." Alexis casts her grandmother a very disappointed look. "I'm going upstairs."

"But sweetie…"

"No. You were wrong, Grams."

On which scarifying note Alexis makes an exit that wouldn't have disgraced Joyce Grenfell. Castle resists the urge to applaud, and considers that Alexis is sometimes far too adult for anyone's comfort.

When he looks up his mother has slunk away. This is fortunate. By tomorrow night he might not want to rain his annoyance over her. Maybe. He'll just go shoot a few innocent avatars for a while. When that palls, or he's calmed down, he'll go to bed. Which thought irritates him all over again. He wants, he thinks childishly, his cuddly Beckett-bear. Since a toddler-like tantrum is unlikely to produce his Beckett-bear, he doesn't indulge in one. He shoots a few more avatars, instead. Then he considers his phone. It's only ten-thirty. He could call. He shouldn't call. But he could call.

He picks up the phone. He's about to tap the screen when it lights up with a text. The bed's too big. Shouldn't have let you persuade me. She's managed to find a pouting emoji, which is a piece of humour he'd never have expected from the sardonic brain of Kate Beckett, even though she has revealed a more playful, childish side with him these last couple of weeks. He'd never have believed in that before, either. It's never appeared at work.

You love it really, he sends back.

Hmph. Night, Castle.

Till tomorrow, Beckett.

He wonders if, in her solitary apartment up on the West Side, she's as lonely as he is now, missing his warmth as he is missing hers, wishing they were snuggling up together.

Castle is on Beckett's doorstep at nine-twenty-nine and fifty-nine seconds, achieved by careful timing from a more robust and cheaper watch than he would normally wear. However, furniture shifting is not good for expensive, delicate watches, and he'd rather not damage his favourites.

"You're not wearing your watch," he says, as soon as greetings have been exchanged. Greetings, in this case, being an extremely leisurely kiss hello.

"No. You just mended it. I don't want it damaged." There's the odd flick of pain again. This time Castle identifies it as a memory of fire and pain and noise.

"Good. I don't want to be a watchmaker."

"I don't think it would suit you. It needs constant attention to the tiny details and an orderly approach. No scope for wild theories there." Castle pouts. Beckett nips his protruding lower lip, and ducks away before he can turn it into a kiss. "Pouting won't get you kisses, Castle." He pouts harder. "Now," she says, from halfway to the door, "you coming, Castle? We need to get the truck."

The truck turns out to be a smallish pickup. Beckett drops Castle at GreenFlea, and takes the truck home, explaining that there's unlikely to be parking and she's not wasting time searching: they'll get everything to one place and then she'll bring the pickup over.

"Pick up the pickup?"

"Oh, God. Spare me the puns."

Castle makes his way to the meeting point and finds Ryan and Lanie, with Espo appearing only a moment later.

"What's the plan?" Esposito asks briskly. Castle shrugs.

"Wait for Beckett. She's the one with the plan." Just as he's about to say She's parking the truck and thereby reveal considerably more than he should or than he wants to, she shows up.

"What's the plan, Beckett?" Beckett doesn't even get her mouth open before Lanie starts.

"First point of the plan is that Missy Broken-Ribs here doesn't fetch or carry anything heavier than an ice-cream."

"Lanie!"

"No, you don't. I got my sources and they tell me that you cracked your ribs then went out against orders and got them broken. So since you aren't a barbecued rack, girl, you don't do any carrying. You hear me?"

Castle looks at Espo who looks at Ryan and all three of them look at Lanie, who is unaccountably not dead yet. From the glare she's getting, she ought to have shrivelled into a cindered slug.

"But…"

"No buts. If I see you carrying anything heavier than your keys I'll wrap you up like an Egyptian mummy.

Beckett humphs and harrumphs and grumbles and growls and not one single syllable has the slightest effect on Lanie. Castle and the boys stay out of her view. They're having some difficulty controlling both their expressions and their laughter.

"Okay then. Just remember it was your idea when you have to listen to these three complaining about sore muscles and stiff backs."

Lanie grins widely. "Stiff backs? Is that what you call it?"

"Lanie, I don't know what you mean."

Lanie raises a very sceptical eyebrow. "Really, girlfriend? Pull the other leg." Her grin turns evil. "Or your writer-b…man's third one. Much more fun." Beckett descends into a swamp of profane muttering in two languages and turns her back huffily on Lanie, who sniggers and sends the others a mischievous thumbs-up.

"Okay," Beckett says firmly. "Now that Doctor Tyrant there has finished, the plan is this." And she outlines a carefully researched route to get the furniture to one point with the least carrying and the most convenience. "When it's all in one place, I'll get the truck and we'll" – Lanie coughs – "okay, Lanie! – get it all in and take it home. And since Lanie won't let me do anything, I'm going to get a mirror on the way."

As with most of Beckett's organisational efforts – and natural authority – it all works perfectly. The last thing that happens is that Castle remembers the rug and goes dashing back into the market to get it, returning with it on his shoulder and looking, as Espo puts it, like a carpet-seller in the souk. Castle simply smiles sunnily and says "Housewarming gift." He doesn't mention the other small bag tucked in his jacket pocket, and nobody calls him on it. Possibly this is because he's carefully at the back of the group where they can't see it. It ruins the line of his jacket, and he'll never hear the end of that. Anyway, it's private.

Beckett swoops in with the pickup so that they pack it up in minimal time and escape before a passing parking attendant can catch them.

"For three cops and an ME you're scofflaws when it comes to parking regulations," Castle points out, to universal derision.

"You've never got a ticket? Get real."

"Speeding tickets, sure. No parking tickets." He smiles smugly. "Parking under my block." If they weren't perched in the back of the pickup – Lanie had called shotgun and not one of the men had dared to quibble – he's fairly sure Ryan and Espo would have taken revenge for that.

Unpacking is dealt with equally rapidly, for the same reasons. Beckett tosses Castle her apartment keys.

"Will you put the kettle on, while I return the truck? I only rented it for today, and I've got to get it back by four. I'd rather take it now and then we can shift the stuff into place when I get back."

"I'm coming with you," Lanie says. "You and me need to have a talk." Beckett briefly looks as if she's been caught in the headlights.

"Don't you wanna take a break, Lanie?"

"No, I wanna talk to you."

Castle would love to be a fly on the wall for that discussion. Unfortunately, he's been left with the keys, the heavy lifting, and the prospect of the boys cross-questioning him. He's not sure who got the worse end of that deal.

Thank you to all readers and reviewers. For reference, there is only one more chapter, and possibly a short epilogue.