May 14, 2011
She was comfortable in his shirt. It was too big, and twisted around her body awkwardly when she rolled over, but she didn't mind. She felt safe all wrapped up in his luxuriously plush comforter. Settling into his bed, melting into his sheets, it should have felt unnatural. It should have felt all kinds of wrong, but it didn't. She felt at ease, peaceful, as she drifted off to sleep again, easier than she had in weeks.
It was a little past 1am when she was pulled from her sleep by the sound of her phone ringing in the distance. She sluggishly pulled herself upright, searching the nightstand for the offending device.
She rubbed her eyes, threw the comforter back and pulled herself from the bed. She grumbled as she dug through her jeans, discarded in the corner of the room, until she found which pocket she had left the phone in.
"Beckett," she answered, forcefully removing the frustration from her voice. She had, after all, volunteered for this. "Mmhmm. Text me the address, I'll be there in thirty."
She scrubbed her hand over her face, trying to dissolve the last traces of sleepiness. Now would usually be when she'd jump in the shower for a minute or two to wake herself up, but that wasn't an option this morning. She should have gone home when she had the chance...
She slipped into her jeans, stuffed her phone back into her pocket. She put on her blouse, buttoning it up as quickly as she could but tired fingers slowed her down.
She slowly opened the bedroom door. Light from the TV illuminated the loft, shadows dancing along the walls as the pictures on the screen moved. She walked toward the kitchen, moving slowly as to not make too much noise. She grabbed her keys from where she had left them on the bench, the slight scratch of metal on stone drawing the attention of the two teens away from their movie, startled.
"Sorry," Kate whispered as she tiptoed toward the lounge.
"Are you leaving?" Alexis asked, softly.
"Yeah, got called into work," Kate explained, looking at the lump of blankets on the lounge, Castle buried underneath them, fast asleep. She tilted her head to get a better look at him, his face poking out from the soft fortress he had made.
She crouched down beside him, brushed the stray lock of hair from his forehead. She couldn't help but smile when he smiled in response to her touch.
He looked so peaceful; she considered leaving him there. But she had heard him complain many times about falling asleep on the couch, and the effects it had on his back the next day. So, if she wasn't using his bed, he should be.
"Castle," she whispered softly as she leaned closer to him, stirring him from his sleep. His eyes fluttered open. "Sorry to wake you. I have to go."
"What? Why?" he grumbled into the lounge. "Stay."
"Got a case," she explained, combing her fingers through his hair.
"I'll come, too." He tried to sit upright but gave up halfway and flopped back down. His eyes struggled to stay open. He was in a daze.
"No, you need sleep," she said with a smile. "You can come to the precinct later, if you still want to."
"I can bring coffee. And food."
"Thank you."
She pushed back that stubborn lock of hair that had fallen over his forehead again, her thumb lingering, slowly brushing over his warm skin. She hesitated, fighting the impulses that surged through her, before ultimately giving in. She leaned forward slowly, pressing a gentle kiss to his forehead.
"Mmm," Castle moaned, sleepily, as she pulled away. "Do it again. I dare ya."
She laughed. "Go to bed, Castle."
She rose from her crouched position, waving goodbye to Alexis and Ashley as she left.
Kate ducked under the police tape that barricaded the sleepy side-street in the Bronx. Red and blue lights flashed across the pavement, lighting up the brick walls of the buildings that lined the street. Uniformed officers were deterring the half-dozen bystanders, encouraging them to continue on their journeys home.
"Hey, Lanie. What have we got?" she asked as she approached the bodega.
The ME looked up from her seat in the back of the examiner's van. "What are you doing here?"
"Working," Kate said with a smile, pulling the latex gloves from where she had stuffed them into her pocket and guiding her fingers into them. "What have we got?" she repeated.
They entered the small store, Lanie taking the lead. She lead the detective toward the man who lay face down behind the sales counter.
"ID identifies him as Ramon Fuentes, 43-year-old male. He owns the bodega, apparently. COD most likely the gunshot wound to the face," Lanie began to explain, reading the notes from her clipboard.
"To the face," Kate repeated with a grimace.
"I'm not seeing any other injuries, so far. He would have died almost instantly."
"Almost?" There wasn't all that much that got to her after all the horrific scenes she had seen over her years, but there was something about having to endure a bullet to the face that just didn't sit well.
"It would have been quick enough," Lanie reassured, allowing a beat for her friend to take on the scene around them. "How was your date?" she asked with a mischievous smile, changing the subject.
"It wasn't a date," Kate stated, trying to convince herself as well as Lanie, but she couldn't hide the smile that gently tugged at the corners of her mouth. "Surely you and Javi have better things to do than talk about me."
"He's worried about you," Lanie explained with a shrug.
Kate took a breath. She had been very obviously tiptoeing the edge of a cliff, so close to toppling over, of course her team, her friends, would be worried. The same way she would be if she were in their position.
"You can tell him there's no need to be concerned. I'm doing okay, now."
"So, things with Writer Boy..." Lanie's voice trailed off as she saw two officers approaching.
"Detective Beckett," one of them greeted.
Kate turned around to face them, greeting them both with a smile. "Morning Alvarez, Moore. Fuentes was the bodega owner?" she asked, diving right into the case.
"Yeah, he usually worked the overnight shift, according to your witnesses," Moore explained.
"Did you take statements?"
"No ma'am. One of the witnesses started to panic, became quite chatty. I've taken a few notes but no official statement yet. She is being looked over by a medic."
"Okay, thank you."
Officers Alvarez and Moore walked away, leaving Beckett to get a start on the witness statements.
She turned back to Lanie. "We'll talk later," she promised.
"We better," Lanie called as Kate walked away. "I'm invested, I need all the details," she continued quietly as she crouched to examine the body.
8am on the dot, Castle arrived at the precinct with coffee and pastries in hand.
After Kate left, he dragged himself from the couch and tucked himself into bed. His pillow was warm, and still smelled very subtly of cherries and vanilla and something floral, of her. For an hour, he fought a war in his head, the battle of what next, before finally succumbing to sleep again.
He dreamt of her, of course. Of their perfect night together, replaying each touch, each look. Even their interrupted moment hadn't put a damper on the night. In his dream, he allowed himself to curl up in bed beside her, to hold her as she slept, to watch as she dreamt of them, their future, their baby. His dreams were always so simple.
But real life was never that simple. Real life was complex. In real life, their perfect night together was nothing more than a painful reminder of what he was lacking right now. A reminder of what was so close to be within reach, and yet still so far away. A reminder of how lonely he felt, how isolating this whole situation was for him, how much he missed his friend. Because in this in between, she didn't even feel like that anymore.
He stopped, just short of the elevator, when his phone began to vibrate against his leg, his ringtone echoing out just seconds after. Shuffling to rearrange the breakfast in his hands, he balanced the beverages and retrieved his phone from his pocket.
"Castle," he greeted, holding the phone to his ear.
"Hey, Castle. Did I wake you?"
"No, I actually just got to the precinct." He held the phone steady with his shoulder, reaching forward to push the button that would call the carriage to his level. "Just waiting for the elevator."
"Oh, where are you?"
"Ground floor."
The elevator bell chimed, and the metal doors opened, revealing his partner standing centred in the carriage, phone pressed to her ear.
She smiled brightly as their eyes locked. "Hey stranger."
Her voice echoed through the receiver with a slight delay - only a fraction of a second - stranger. He knew she had meant it as a joke, a play on the fact that they had just spent the night in each other's company, but it felt fitting considering how much he was missing her. He straightened his head, the phone dropping from his shoulder into his waiting hand and ended the call.
"Good morning," he said as she exited the elevator. "What are you doing?"
"I was just calling you to tell you not to come in." She tucked her phone into her pocket. "I didn't expect you so early."
He looked her up and down, taking in her demeanour, her appearance. She seemed... light, airy. Relaxed. "Are you heading out?"
"Home." She stepped aside, leading him to the side of the hallway so they could continue their conversation without being in anyone's way. "Everything is all wrapped up here."
"What?" he exclaimed: a little impressed, a little disappointed. He checked his watch. "Case closed in seven hours? That's got to be a record."
"Surprisingly, it's not," she informed him with a smile. "We got lucky - witnesses, guilty conscience. We had a confession within a few hours."
"Oh."
"Don't look so disappointed, Castle," she said with a slight laugh.
But working a case had been his excuse to see her, to see if the simplicity of their time together last night had been authentic or not. Last night he had been so ready to commit himself to her, to tell her that he didn't need any more time, that he trusted she was doing everything she needed to do and that they could work this out. But as soon as he was left to his own devices, the doubts crept back in.
"Right." He straightened his shoulders, replaced his disappointment with a smile. "What are your plans for today?"
"Well, I'm still on call so I was going to go home and try to get a little sleep, just in case I get called back in."
"Right. That's probably a good idea." His attention drifted to the cups in his hands, his ring finger beginning to cramp from the way it was uncomfortably curled around the paper bag of pastries, desperately clinging to it and holding it against the bottom of the cardboard cup. "Well, these are for you."
He held out his hand, passing her the cup and bag.
"Thank you," she said, taking them from him. "Are you going to join me?"
He looked around the lobby, to the officers and detectives that were coming and going, then back to his partner.
"Uh, no. I, uh- I have to do something. But, uh, talk later?"
"Yeah, of course." She watched him walk away, a little unsure of what just happened.
She was fidgety, anxious, pacing around her living room as Lanie's voice tried to comfort her through the phone.
"Are you sure?" her friend asked, feeling every ounce of Kate's pain.
"I'm sure. He's pulling away again." She lowered herself into the corner of her couch, toyed with the corner of the cushion. "I screwed up."
"What happened?"
"Everything seemed fine," she explained, thinking back to her interactions last night with Castle. The closeness, the ease, his teasing 'do it again, I dare ya' when she kissed him goodbye. "It was like he couldn't get away quick enough this morning."
A sigh crackled through the cell receiver. "You sure it isn't your mind playing tricks on you, again? I mean, he went to the precinct to see you."
"I don't know," she conceded, hanging her head back against the couch. "I hate this."
This: the doubt, the nerves, the selfish unloading of her burdens onto her friend.
"I know, sweetie. But you know what you gotta do now?"
She swallowed, hard. She had to stop avoiding the problem, she had to face it head on. "Talk to Castle."
"Yeah."
A knock on the door caught her off guard. She sat up, alert, curious. "Hold on, Lanie. Someone's at the door."
She rose from the couch, walked toward the door to peep through the peephole. Castle stood on the other side of the door, nervously fidgeting with his hands.
She opened the door without hesitation, relieved to see him, despite his apparent nervousness.
"I'm gonna have to go," she spoke into the phone, hanging up once Lanie had said a rushed goodbye.
"Didn't mean to interrupt," Castle said apologetically as she invited him into the apartment.
"Not at all." She closed the door behind them and ushered him toward the lounge room. "I wasn't expecting you to come over."
"I didn't want to call, just in case you were asleep. Didn't wanna wake you."
She nodded, appreciating the thoughtfulness. They stood in silence for a moment, an awkward air passing over them, but she didn't want to settle into it. "Do you want a drink or something?"
"No. No thanks." He nervously shuffled toward her, hand resting on the kitchen counter, leaning the way he did when he was trying to feign nonchalance. "I, uh, I wanted to talk to you about last night."
Her heart sank, her mind racing with a million different things he might possibly want to say: most of which were something along the lines of 'last night was a mistake...'
She couldn't blame him, though. How many times had she fallen into the trap of getting too comfortable, acting too familiar and then, in the wake of it all, having to reset those boundaries she had crossed. She always felt horrible having to do that, but boy did it suck being on the other end of it.
She could try to convince herself that this conversation wasn't headed in that direction - that he wanted to talk about how right it felt, how he wanted to spend that quality time with her every single day for the rest of his life - but his tone of voice wasn't at all reassuring. Neither was the solemn look on his face. No, this was definitely not going to be that conversation.
But she put on a brave face, forced the smile she knew they both needed right now. The reassurance that, even though they were both broken and bruised by the precarious nature of them, they would make it out alive. Together or not. He didn't need to feel guilt for leaving, not when she had made it near impossible to stay.
"What about last night?" She searched for some clue in the depths of his ocean blues. A storm of emotion brewed there, threatening to sink this ship.
"Something you said has been bothering me," he continued. "You said that talking to each other was complicated."
With a furrowed brow, she slowly shook her head, confused. "Isn't it?" She sure felt like it was.
"It shouldn't be. You don't see that as a bad sign?"
"No. No, I don't," she insisted. "Talking to you about literally anything else is as easy as breathing. It's just this particular situation-"
"Right, but if we can't talk to each other about this..." his voice trailed off, eyes glued to the floor as he tried to finish his thought coherently.
"I just don't want to hurt you," she said.
Because her thoughts would hurt him. Her lack of faith - in herself, in him, in their future together - would hurt him. Her anger, her confusion, her lack of feeling for the baby would hurt him. Her silent prayers that she would wake up and this all have been a bad dream would hurt him. She knew they would, because they hurt her.
"I'm hurt, Kate. Everything about this hurts, and not being about to turn to each other, not being able to rely on each other... that doesn't make it hurt any less. I need my friend, but she's hiding."
"Not anymore. Not hiding."
"But for how long?" His words were like an arrow to the heart.
How long before she reset the boundaries, again.
How long before she let him down, again.
"I've spent this week thinking about everything," he continued. "I just wanted to say that regardless of our situation, if the baby is mine I will be the best father I can. I will love and provide for my child."
"I know that."
"I know we are just weeks from finding out paternity, but I don't want to wait anymore. I stand by what I originally said: I'm in, whatever the results."
Her stomach dropped; her breath caught in her lungs. Like a dip on a roller coaster, like expecting the cart to turn right but it swings hard to the left, his words were unexpected.
He stepped closer, taking her hands in his. "I'm not expecting this to be easy. I'm not expecting you to embrace all these changes overnight. I know we've got a battle ahead of us. But I need more from you."
"Whatever you want from me, whatever it takes to show you I'm in, too, I'll do it."
He had given her a tiny shred of hope, and she would cling to it.
"I need you to be open to me. I need to know what's going on in that head of yours. Talk to me about your doubts, don't bury them. Don't push me away when you're scared."
"I won't."
"Even if you're scared of hurting me, I can almost guarantee you now, nothing you can say hurts me as much as you do when you push me away."
"I promise you, Castle, I'm done keeping you on the outside."
He smiled, joyous and light, his happiness crinkling in the corners of his eyes. He felt... unburdened. However temporary the feeling may be, he was going to cherish it while he could.
He could see the tears in Kate's eyes, relief threatening to spill free at any moment. He released his hold on one of her hands, lifting it to smooth his thumb over her cheek. Slowly, he leant in and pressed a soft, loving kiss to her lips.
Alexis sat at the kitchen counter; textbooks, notepad and laptop in front of her. She was supposed to be studying, but she couldn't get her mind off the worry she felt.
Her dad had seemed... off. All afternoon he had been distracted, preoccupied. The same distant person he had been too often lately.
Usually, he was an open book. Usually, he would talk rather openly about whatever was occupying his thoughts. But not when it came to Detective Beckett. He protected her, like a secret he was sworn to keep.
She looked up, over her shoulder, when she heard the door open. It was late, he had missed the dinner she had cooked.
"Leftovers are in the fridge," she informed him, voice void of emotion. She wouldn't let him know that she was upset. There was no point.
"Thanks, Pumpkin." He walked over to the kitchen, placing a kiss to the top of her head as he passed. "You're up late."
"You're out late," she returned instantaneously. "Were you with Detective Beckett?"
"Yeah, I was."
"Is she okay?"
"Why wouldn't she be?"
She shrugged. "Last night, she seemed... I don't know. Different, I guess."
"She's fine," he answered, too quickly. "Look, I wanted to thank you for last night. I know you've been upset, but I appreciate you letting her join us."
"You wanted her to stay." That was the only reason she backed down, for him.
"Yeah, I did." He smiled softly before moving to the refrigerator to dig out the leftovers.
She wanted to leave it at that, but she just couldn't understand. Why did he put himself through this? What was it about Beckett that kept him going back after she hurt him.
She liked the detective, and she could see that the relationship between her father and Beckett had influenced him positively. But whatever had happened between them months ago, it had crushed him. It was hard to watch.
"How do you do it?" she asked after a few moments of silence. "How do you forgive so easily?"
He sighed, placing the leftover dinner into the microwave. "It's complicated, Alexis."
"Isn't it always?"
He looked at her and shrugged. "Some people are just, worth it."
"Worth heartache and pain?" she asked incredulously.
"I meant they're worth forgiveness. But, to a certain extent: yes, some people are worth heartache and pain."
"Why?" she pushed.
"They just are."
"That isn't an answer," she started to get more upset at his diverting answers. "How do you know she won't hurt you again?"
He took a breath. "I don't," he said truthfully.
"And you're okay with that?"
"I'm not a cut my losses kind of guy."
"Maybe you should be."
"I know you're saying this because you care, but you don't know what's going on."
"Then tell me," she pleaded, desperation thick in her throat.
He had always kept his personal life hidden from her so that she wasn't exposed to his heartbreaks. But the older she got, the more she saw. It wasn't that he stopped hiding things, it was just that she was more intuitive, picked up on his moods easier. And she knew something wasn't right here.
"It's-"
"Complicated," she interrupted, rolling her eyes. "Right."
"It's none of your business," he snapped.
She dropped her pen onto her notebook and leant back into the barstool. She knew she had crossed a line, she knew she should apologise, but she also knew she had every right to be concerned about him given the ups and downs of these past few weeks.
"Alexis..." he started, apologetically.
But she didn't want his apologies. "I'm allowed to express an opinion."
And her opinion was that he was being reckless, gambling a good thing on what could be fleeting feelings.
"Yes, you're entitled to your opinions, and you have every right to express them. But your opinion doesn't change how I feel about her. It doesn't change the fact that we are going to be a family."
"A family?" she laughed. "What am I supposed to call her 'mom' now?"
He hesitated slightly. "No."
Her smile faded as confusion grew. A family?
He waited, patiently, waiting for her to process. She could see it on his face: the anxiousness, the regret. He had let slip something he hadn't meant to.
Realisation dawned on her. A family.
"Dad, is Detective Beckett pregnant?"
