Three Weeks
A/N: This little short was inspired by a song I heard a few days ago, that I love. It's so bittersweet and made me think of this angsty little scene. I hope you enjoy!
—-
When I need you
I just close my eyes and I'm with you
And all that I so want to give you, babe
It's only a heartbeat away
When I Need You, Leo Sayer
—-
Three weeks, tomorrow morning.
Kate couldn't believe it had already been three weeks since she'd seen him.
She crawled into bed, their bed, at the loft. Her hair was freshly washed for the first time in days, and she was wearing one of Castle's t-shirts and boxer shorts. It could have been just like any other night, she thought, but he wasn't here. And he hadn't been, for three, long, arduous, grueling, catastrophic weeks.
It was shortly after ten, and it was time for her nightly routine.
Step one: Crawl into bed wearing his clothes. Search for his scent, anything that might still be lingering on their sheets, even if it was only imagined. Curl up in a ball on her side of the bed. That way, in the night, she could try to pretend that he was still there.
Step two: Get out her phone, and scroll through the news in the dark. Search for his name + missing, to see if anyone else in the world might have posted something about where he might be. Barely blink as she reads the same articles over and over again, urging citizens to call this hotline if they had any information regarding his whereabouts.
(If she was feeling particularly masochistic, she'd open her photos app and scroll through images of him instead. Candid ones she's taken when he wasn't paying attention, selfies he'd taken on her phone without her knowing. Varying images of a goofy, smiling Castle scattered throughout her library like dandelion seeds in the wind.)
Step three: Cry. Try not to. Force her eyes shut against the ache, and the sting of failure that burned inside her ribs. Tell herself she'd let him down. Then tell herself it hadn't been her fault. Blame him for leaving her, hate him for all of five seconds, and then admonish herself for thinking such a thing in the first place.
Step four: Open her phone again. Send him a text. There were a string of them, all unanswered. Several at first, within the first week of his disappearance. Then only one a day, only sent at night. All different, but conveying the same message: "I love you. I miss you. Please come home."
Finally, step five: It gave her hope to talk to him. To whisper in the darkness, as if he were really there beside her. She thought back to their routine when she'd been living in DC, where they'd Skype one another and she'd blow him kisses or squeeze her pillow, pretending it was him. She thought of those more salacious calls, when they'd done other things through the webcam she hadn't even come close to attempting since he'd been gone. It felt like a distant memory, but it also reminded her they'd done this kind of thing before - been apart.
She opened her favorite photo of Castle. It was taken at the Hamptons house. He was walking along the beach, wearing a baseball cap and dressed in a white t-shirt and blue bathing suit trunks. He was turning her way as she stood behind him, a smile caught blooming to life on his face. His eyes were sparkling, as bright as the ocean beyond, and he had his hand up like he was about to wave at her. She'd snapped it just before he'd done so.
She took a deep breath, and whispered down to her phone, telling him about her day, about her updates. She'd just gone back to work a few days ago, and was planning on taking more time off soon. She was scheduled to go on live TV in a couple days, to ask for the public's support in continuing the search, and she was nervous. She told him she hoped he was okay, wherever he was, and ended the pretend call with "I love you."
Then, she blew him a kiss, hugged the phone to her chest, and clicked off the screen.
She closed her eyes, and took grounding breaths. She imagined that he was beside her. She conjured the image so hard in her head, that a small kernel of joy hummed inside her chest. She knew it was Hope being resurrected, just as it did every night (before she squashed it with the heel of her boot the next morning).
But it was enough. Enough to keep her going. Enough for her to fall asleep. And worth it, to keep the same nightly routine. She couldn't lose hope.
—-
When I need you
I just close my eyes
And you're right here by my side
Keeping me warm night and day