Disclaimer: The only part of Castle that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.
"And here I thought that nothing escaped you, Detective. How wrong I was. Did you not follow the trail of clues?" He pauses to drink some coffee.
His bottom lip is resting on the rim of the blue mug and all she can think about is that his eyes are exactly the same color as it is. Where did that mug come from, anyway? She has to buy a dozen and replace every other mug in the house with them.
"Did you not observe the bag from Harry Meets Sally? Did you not discover, by a mere glance into the bathroom wastebasket, the wrapper from a three-pack of Jockey shorts?" Is she paying attention? "Beckett?"
"Sorry." Clues, did he just say something about clues? He's wrapping his fingers around the mug, and her attention has moved from his eyes to them. Now all she can think about is that those fingers, with their perfectly trimmed nails, are going to be running through her hair in a few minutes when he gives her a shampoo. When she and Castle cross the hair line. "Clues?"
"This is beginning to look like dereliction of duty to me."
"Dereliction?" What the hell is he talking about? His blue eyes are smiling.
"That you don't know that I am, in fact, wearing underwear. I'm wondering if you used mostly decaf when you made the coffee, since it seems you're not fully awake."
"You have underwear?" Shit, her commando fantasies just disappeared, and she'd been really, really enjoying them. "You got more?"
"Good morning! Yes, remember? My little shopping expedition to Harry Meets Sally yesterday? Oh, wait, let me show you what I got!" He goes to fetch the bag and plops it on top of the table. With a flourish, he produces the socks, the two other pairs of shorts, and his three shirts.
He looks as excited as if he'd just been at an Armani sale when he holds the blue tee shirt up to his chest. He had to choose that one to show off, not the green? "Magnificent, Castle," she says. She means it, but he doesn't have to know that. Shouldn't.
"I know, right? They're soft and they're great colors. That place has some bargains, Kate. You shouldn't write if off."
"Lesson learned, Castle. Now get your underwear off the table, please."
He pops everything back into the bag, bows deeply and says, "Yes, ma'am. And now, if you'll excuse me, I shall prepare breakfast. One of succulent delights."
She wishes he hadn't said "succulent," especially attached to "delights." She's squeezing her legs together under the table. Thank God for that. "So, no Cheerios then?"
He's halfway to the stove, but turns around. "Cheerios? Seriously? Do they sound succulent to you?"
Succulent. Again. Is he doing this on purpose? "I'm sure whatever you whip up will be delicious, Castle." Whip? There's another image she needs to erase from her apparently overheated brain.
"Waffles! I'm whipping up waffles! I saw you had a waffle iron."
Whipping. She can't take it anymore. "All right, while you're doing that I'll just take a quick shower."
"They'll be ready when you are," he says cheerfully. Cheeriofully.
There's really no such thing as a quick shower for her these days, not with the time it takes to cover her bandages to make sure that nothing gets wet. Bending over is difficult, too, so she puts soap on a long-handled back brush and washes her legs that way. She's picking out a clean tee shirt when she remembers. Pants. She needs to wear them. She gets a lightweight pair of yoga pants from her drawer, and slips them on. They're not as clingy as usual because she's lost so much weight.
The two of them approach the table at the same moment from opposite ends of the cabin. She looks rosy, almost healthy, though he's disappointed that she's no longer bare-legged. And the pants are way too loose. He should put some chocolate syrup on her waffles. Plus whipped cream. And butter.
"Yum," she says from her chair as he makes a show of presenting her with a plate. "Am I supposed to eat all this?"
"Of course you are. Toppings, too. You can't be eating a naked waffle, it's unseemly."
And now he's talking about naked? Will this never end? "Fine, pass me some of that seemly maple syrup, please." She survives breakfast, barely.
"I'm going to do the dishes and then transform the kitchen into Salon Richard," he says, rising from the table. "Be prepared."
"For what?" She attempts nonchalance. "No tangles, all right? My scalp is very sensitive."
"Monsieur Richard nevair make zee 'ow you say? Zee tang-els. Nevair!"
Good, the laugh is good and distracting. "Terrible French accent, Castle. Truly."
"That may be, but it is no reflection on my abilities as a coiffurist, I assure you. So, go do whatever you want, just be back here in twenty minutes. And bring your comb and brush."
"Geez, you coiffurists sure are bossy. I'll sit outside until then."
"That's not merely outside, Madame. That is the garden room."
"My mistake, Monsieur Richard."
She feels a hand, a not-yet-familiar-enough hand, touching her lightly on the elbow, and she shakes her head. "Castle?"
"Sorry to wake you, but I was afraid you might get a burn out here. You're probably not wearing sun block."
"Wasn't asleep. I just sat down. Can't burn in one minute."
His hands are on his hips. "That's probably true, but it's been forty minutes."
"What? Not possible."
"Okay, check your watch. And take a look inside. The dishes are done and put away, the salon's set up. Oh, and I read two short stories in the book I've borrowed on your father's library card. I was very careful not to drop food on it, in case you're worried." He puts his hand out to help her up. "It's time to cross the hair line!"
"Thanks. I'll get my comb and brush."
When she returns and walks into the kitchen, she's amazed. It's hardly a salon, but he had put a cushion on one of the kitchen chairs and rigged up something for her to rest her neck on when she had to tilt her head back over the sink. Shampoo, conditioner, and a hairdryer, all of which he must brought from the bathroom, are lined up neatly on the counter. "What's that?" she asks, pointing to a plastic sheet that's folded over the back of the chair.
"Oh, that's a smock thing so you don't get wet."
"Smock thing? It looks suspiciously like a shower curtain. In fact, suspiciously like the one in the bathroom here."
"Good to see that your detective powers have been restored. Must have been my waffles. Anyway, yes, it is the shower curtain. I took it down and ran some ribbon—I found it in a kitchen drawer—through the grommets. I'll drape it around you and tie the ribbon and you'll be completely dry. Except your hair, of course."
A few minutes later, he's pouring warm water over her head. She's surprised by the comfortable cushiony thing that's supporting her neck. "What is this, Castle? That's under my neck?"
"That? Oh. I found a hot water bottle in the back of the cabinet in the bathroom, so I filled it about three-quarters full with warm water and then wrapped a big towel around it. Is it all right?"
She wiggles her head a little. "I thought it was going to be awkward, but it's actually a lot better than the awful sink that cradles my head when I'm getting a shampoo and a hair cut."
"Thank you. I try to be resourceful. Now relax and let me do my job."
"Bossy. Okay."
Initially, she's relaxed. Super relaxed. In her 31 years on the planet, she's never had a better shampoo. His touch is perfect, at the nexus of hard and soft. The water temperature is ideal. He never lets soap get into her eyes. He doesn't pull her hair; his fingers are magic. She's beginning to fall into a dream state when something changes. He's added conditioner, and the entire experience shifts: PG to NC-17 in five seconds. He's massaging her scalp as if he were Michelangelo working with clay. He's practically caressing her wet hair, lifting it up, squeezing it, then massaging again. It's almost an orgasmic experience. The only thing that's keeping her from arching her back and lifting her hips off the chair is the pain it would cause in her chest. She's fighting every impulse she has to keep herself still, but she devotes so much energy to it that she forgets to censor her mouth. It's as though she controlled the video portion of a program and completely ignored the audio. His thumbs are at her temples when she lets go: it's a deep, erotic moan that courses through arteries, arterioles, and capillary bed, through heart and lungs and up through her throat until it pushes her sealed lips open, escapes into the humid air in the kitchen, and reverberates. "Holy fuck," she says, digging her nails into her palms. "Do that again."
It's the sexiest thing he's ever heard, and the atmosphere is so charged that he almost moans, too. He prays to all that's holy, whatever it may be, that he can do it again, since he's not entirely sure how he elicited this response. He doesn't say a word, just concentrates on replicating what he'd done before, ending by pressing his thumbs softly against her temples. That's it. This time he can almost track the moan as it travels through her body, as if it were shooting through the pneumatic tubes that used to carry messages at high speed underground in New York City. He's so transfixed that it's a shock when he feels her clutch his thigh.
Her eyes pop open and she finds that they're looking straight into his. She's having trouble catching her breath, but she's vaguely aware that her hand has caught something. His leg. She yanks her arm back so quickly that she nearly slaps herself. "Oh, my God."
"Wow," he says. "Wow."
"Castle?"
"Wow."
"Stop saying 'wow' and let me sit up. I have to dry my hair."
"I'll dry it."
"Not sure I can take it."
He helps her into a sitting position and they both start to laugh, and they stop only when it's too much of a strain on her chest. "You okay, Kate?" he asks, almost soberly.
"Gotta ask you something."
"Do. Please, please do."
"Are all the line crossings gonna be like this?"
"I certainly hope so." And they laugh all over again.
"Gimme that list, Castle."
"No way. I want to surprise you."
"Fine. Now, I'm going to get up in as dignified a manner as possible, all right? I think I'll just let my hair dry on its own."
"This is a full-service establishment, you know. Blow dry is part of the package."
"Maybe another time. Like twenty days from now." And with that she picks up her comb and brush and retreats to her room. She's almost there when she looks back over her shoulder. "Thank you. Thank you, Rick." And then she disappears.
"Wow," he says again, as soon as he's sure that she's out of earshot. "I think I need to cool down with some Dostoevsky." He reads off and on for an hour, sitting on the porch and very aware that she's less than fifty feet away, doing physical therapy that takes everything out of her. He's tracking a bee that's buzzing around some wildflowers when he senses movement in the cabin. Kate's standing inside the screen door. With her hair loose and untamed she looks like a Botticelli, if any Botticelli beauty had worn an oversized NYPD tee shirt and blue flip-flops.
"Hey," she says softly.
"Hey."
"I was thinking. Maybe we could cross two lines today since we didn't do one yesterday. You know, stay on schedule. But only if you have a very, very safe and calm line."
His heart is going to explode, and then where will he be? His mind is racing through the chart. "I do. I do. Story."
"Story?"
"Story line. I'm going to tell you a story."
"What story?"
"The story of us."
TBC
A/N Thank you for reading this. Happy Independence Day. Rejoice in your independence, wherever you may live.