Castle shows up the next morning with a tray of coffees, passing them out to the boys before trotting into her office.
"And for the lady," he greets, placing the latte on her desk.
She smiles up at him gratefully, but frowns when he eases the door shut, a strange expression flickering across his features.
"What's wrong?" she questions immediately, but he raises a hand to pacify her concern.
"Nothing, I just - some stuff has been coming back to me."
Her heart starts to pound, mind racing to the worst case scenarios.
She ducks her head and swallows hard, pretending to check her place on the paperwork in front of her before returning her attention to him. "Oh?"
She's always known it was a possibility he may recall that night, that with everything else coming to the forefront of his mind, his book party might as well, but… she just hoped she would have more time.
"Well, I guess not coming back, but I've been… inheriting the memories of this man's - this version of myself - life," he explains, his brows knit.
"Hey, that's great," she manages, but he looks anything but pleased.
"Kate," he murmurs, looking up at her with his coffee cradled in his palms. "I don't think I like myself very much."
She frowns in response. "What do you mean?"
"My ex-wife showed up at my loft this morning. The first one," he clarifies before she has to ask. "Apparently, whenever she's in town, she stays at my place."
"Pleasant," Kate mutters, crossing her legs and leaning back in her chair, coffee against her chest.
He huffs, but continues. "Anyway, I tried to explain to her that I didn't think it was a good idea. Especially not - at this complicated time in my life."
She arches her brow, but says nothing, silently sipping her coffee.
"So, I tried to get her to leave and she started yelling at me. Both of my ex-wives yell a lot, it's a bit troubling." He frowns, but shakes himself out of the concerned look beginning to spread through his features. "Anyway, she told me I'd never been any good at this anyway. That I was more ghost than man around her since I - since the pregnancy. She told me I was the reason she did it to begin with, that she didn't want to be a mother and I wasn't present enough to be a father."
Kate nearly chokes on her coffee. She sits forward, sputtering. "Excuse me?"
"Beckett," he warns as she yanks her bottom drawer open and drags her purse free.
He's rising from the seat across her desk, catching her by the bicep before she can stride past.
"She isn't worth your time," he tells her calmly, but her heart is pounding, aching for him.
"She doesn't just get to say that to you," she hisses, but her muscle is softening under his grip. "She's wrong."
"Maybe what she did is," he concedes, but then his shoulders are shrugging. "But about me? Maybe not. Seems like I became a pretty shitty guy over the years, Kate."
As she watches him deflate with self-pity, determination flares in her stomach and she shakes her arm free of his grip.
"Let's go," she murmurs, snagging his fingers with her own and leading him out of her office.
He startles, following after her dumbly. "What? Where?"
"You need a day away from all of this." She taps the call button for the elevator. "From trying to remember the past and puzzle piece your life back into place."
"But-" He glances back to the bullpen barely coming to life. "What about work? You can't just-"
"It's a slow day," she assures him, drawing him into the elevator as the doors slide open. "And I haven't had a day off in… months."
The doors shudder shut and she eases her fingers from his slack ones. He's staring at her, something like wonder twinkling in his eyes. When the doors part once more, she strides out into the lobby before she notes his hesitation.
She looks back over her shoulder and lifts an eyebrow at him, some of that playfulness from her youth that she lost after her mother's murder flickering back to life inside of her.
"You coming, Castle?"
"Will you just tell me where we're going?" he whines, his knee bobbing impatiently beside hers.
They've been riding the Q train for nearly an hour and she refused to tell him anything, just sitting next to him with a sly grin every time he asked.
Rick huffs and drops his head back against the window pane.
"We're almost there," she chuckles, patting his knee. "Just be patient."
As the train continues to pass every stop and she makes no move to rise from her seat, he runs out of ideas for what she could have planned, until there is only one stop left. Amusement park rides come into view, the endless blue of the ocean in the distance, and he turns to gape at her.
"Kate," he says slowly. "Are you taking me to Coney Island?"
She winks and grabs his hand, tugging him to his feet when the subway begins to slow.
They roam the entirety of the park. They abstain from the amusement park rides, but he lets her buy him a hot dog and she lets him hold her hand on the beach.
"What made you choose this place?" he inquires, unable to tear his eyes from her profile.
Her heels are hanging by the tips of her fingers and her blazer is folded over his arm. The wind of the Atlantic ocean is whipping sand and sea air through her hair, dispersing the scent of cherries and the subtle oils of skin into his nostrils. The sun is lowering in the sky, causing her skin to glow. The passage of time has hardly felt noticeable to him. They've been on the island for hours now, but he's only seen her on her phone once, her fingers flying over the letters of a text message, an email.
"My dad and I," she starts, immediately hooking every tendril of his attention to her. "We, uh, we had a reception at our place after my mom's funeral and... it was miserable," she admits with a cringe. "I was miserable, and my dad… he took my hand and he said, 'Let's get the hell outta here, Katie.' So, we took the Q train, and came up to Coney Island." She steals a glance at him, offering him a small smile, shy and tender. "We walked up and down this same beach, just enjoying ourselves, talking about her as if she wasn't dead. We were still in our funeral clothes."
Rick brushes his thumb along her knuckles.
"Does that make that day a bad memory or a good one?"
She ponders for a moment. Their time on the beach is drawing to a close, the rest of the park coming back into view.
"Both," she decides. "When I think back on that day, it's a reminder that even on the worst days, there is a possibility for joy."
The smile tugs at his lips. They stop at the beach's end and slip back into their shoes, begin the trek back to the Coney Island terminal platform.
"I thought of you that day, you know," she murmurs suddenly, causing him to stumble for a second.
"You - you did?" he manages, trotting after her in order to fall back into step at her side.
Kate nods, chewing on her bottom lip for a long moment. "I hoped you were okay. I knew that in a way, her death would hurt you almost as much as it killed me."
They board the train in silence. Not uncomfortable, but heavy. He remembers now, what it was like to get the news, how he wanted to come straight home from the tiny book signing he was part of that day, but his manager at the time pleaded for him to finish. It was an opportunity to reach a bigger audience and it was not something he would so easily be offered again if he left a poor impression. The importance of his career wasn't what kept him from searching the city for Kate Beckett, though. It was the constricting panic in his chest, the throttle of grief around his throat. He hadn't seen Kate in over three years, Johanna was dead, and he couldn't face any of it.
But the rest of the day, the melange of fans with their copies of In a Hail of Bullets, were nothing but a blur to him. All he could see was the article he found online while on the phone with his mother - the picture of Johanna Beckett that had always been used on her law firm's website and the headline: Local Lawyer Found Dead
It haunted him until he forced himself to stop thinking about it. To think of nothing but the moment to moment monotony of getting through that damn book signing.
"I wanted to come home," he says, once the subway train is moving and they are on their way back to the city. "From the pathetic little book signing, I mean. That's where I was when I got the news."
"It's probably for the best you didn't," she murmurs, staring out the window across from their seats. "I was barely holding it together. Knowing us, we probably would have ended up fighting."
She's trying to make light of it, but he takes the hand closest to him and twines his fingers through hers.
"I still wish I would have been there. For you."
Kate leans her side into his, letting the warmth of her body bleed into him, comfort them both.
"I know you do."
"Can we make one more stop?"
They're back in Manhattan, a couple of blocks from the precinct where her car is still stationed.
Her eyes flash, but she nods. "Sure, Castle."
He thinks she already has an idea of where he wants to go, how he wants to end a perfect day. She doesn't look annoyed as their swings come into view though, the grin toying at her lips spreading.
They each take their unspoken spots.
Kate wraps her fingers around the chains and leans back, letting her legs lift in the air. She reminds him of the Kate he left when the lightning struck. He's damn near convinced himself that it was all a dream, that he somehow simply woke up with this random bout of amnesia that erased the last twenty years of his life. But there is a part of him that still clings to that day on the swings, unwilling to believe his subconscious merely imagined the searing flash of lightning, the white hot burn before the numbness that led to black.
He has always loved the idea of alternate universes, but he never considered them real until his own life-changing event took place. And now, he isn't sure if he even cares about the truth anymore. Maybe Kate is right - maybe he is where he's supposed to be and that's all there is. All there's meant to be.
"Do you remember your thirteenth birthday?"
Kate comes to a pause in her soft swaying, her eyes flitting to him in the growing darkness of the park, illuminated by lamplight from the streets and the glow of the city that never sleeps. A tiny smile flirts along her lips and she tries to conceal it, snags the flesh with her teeth and ducks her head to hide behind the windblown waves of her hair.
"Yeah, we went ice skating at Rockefeller Center," she murmurs, using the tip of her high heel to push herself back and forth, the chains of the swing rattling in the nighttime quiet. "All the girls teased me about having a boy at my party."
She throws him a look, as if it's his fault that the gender ratio was upset that day, but her lips are smirking, her eyes dancing with the memory.
"And you told them they were all just jealous," he recalls. "I can still remember the look on Madison Queller's face."
Kate laughs beside him, her head thrown back for a split second, offering the pale column of her throat to the kiss of moonlight.
"I ran into her a couple of years ago actually."
"Oh really?" Rick chuckles. "That must have been fun."
"She's not quite the drama queen anymore," Beckett assures him with a chuckle of her own. "She asked about you, though. She thought… she was surprised that we weren't together."
The glimmer in her eyes fades and he hates that, hates that he caused her so much grief, more than she ever deserved. Hates even more that he doesn't have real memory of inflicting any more pain than he had on her when she was sixteen.
He hates that he continues to hurt her, even now.
"She's not living in a dream house with Brent Edwards?" Castle inquires, hoping to exhume the frown lines curving at her lips, and it works, much to his relief.
"No, nothing turned out like we thought it would, did it?" she murmurs, resting her cheek to the knuckles curled around the swing.
"No," he sighs his agreement. "I was at least hoping my future would consist of more kisses from you."
A choked laugh escapes her and she quickly lifts her hand to her mouth, as if she can shove the sound back inside.
"Is that why you're bringing up my thirteenth birthday?"
"Duh, Beckett," he grins, swaying sideways in his swing until he can glide far enough to bump into her.
Kate huffs and pushes him away with her fist. "I was young and stupid."
"Oh, don't defile our first kiss with excuses," he teases, allowing gravity to do all the work, drawing him right back into her. "It was sweet."
"You looked horrified," she reminds him, catching his shoulder again when his side meets hers. "Your nose and your cheeks had been so red from the cold, but after I kissed you, your entire face turned the shade of an apple."
"It was my first kiss!" he defends, but it holds no weight, his smile and the bubbling laughter consuming his chest ruining the sincerity of his justification.
"Was not," she scoffs, dodging this time when he soars towards her. "All the girls adored Rick Rodgers."
"Maybe so, but I adored Katie Beckett," he says proudly. "And you know, though unmanly as it may seem, I've always been a hopeless romantic. So, naturally, I wanted my best friend to be my first kiss."
"Wait, so we were really each other's first kiss?" she asks, the tentative smile she's been battling turning shy. "Maybe that explains why you looked so terrified afterwards. The entire time, I thought I was just a bad kisser and that was why you never kissed me again."
Castle digs his heels into the dirt, dragging his swing to a complete stop.
"You… you wanted me to kiss you again?"
Oh, and there's the deer in headlights look he's grown to know so well. But she recovers quickly, obscuring her expression behind her hair again.
"You were my best friend, Castle. Had been for years. Is it really so surprising that I had a crush on you?" she questions with a quirk of her brow.
"Why didn't you ever say anything?" he cries, feeling the remorse swirl through his blood, the typical yearning to make up for lost time increasing tenfold and threatening to rival its intensity.
Kate shrugs, picks at the edge of her pencil skirt with a blunt thumbnail. "I don't know. I was scared of ruining our friendship. Besides, Castle, we were just kids back then, and it wouldn't have changed anything. You still would have had to leave."
Rick frowns, the rebuttal already forming on his tongue, but Kate shakes him off before he can speak.
"That's in the past though," she mumbles, attempting a smile that resembles a strained grimace.
"No, it isn't."
He coils his fingers around the closest chain of her swing and pulls her across the short distance until he can coast his free hand along her jaw, cradle the sharp bone of her cheek in his palm.
"Rick," she whispers, a breath of a warning, but her eyes flutter to his lips and his heart falters in his chest.
She doesn't stop him when he leans in, dusts his lips over hers, brushing one, two, tentative kisses there before finally sealing his mouth to hers. Kate's hand reaches for him, fisting in the collar of his shirt, stroking her thumb along the hollow of his throat as her lips part and her tongue peeks past the barrier of her teeth to slick lazily along the seam of his mouth.
He moans at the heated stroke, slipping his hand into her hair and cupping the base of her skull in his palm, sucking on her bottom lip when she gasps.
Kissing Kate Beckett has been a recurring daydream since he was a teenager, a near tangible fantasy since he woke up twenty years older, but the firm press of her lips, the intoxicating work of her tongue, exceeds any expectations he may have had. Their first real kiss is tender and wanting, breath stealing and wonderful, and he never wants her to stop, never wants this to end.
The hand in his shirt unfurls, skims along the tendons at his neck, the racing pulse beneath his jaw, before migrating to curl at his ear. Her fingers are gentle and caressing along the shell, the sensitive skin just behind the lobe.
They're forced to part for breath, but he doesn't release her swing, doesn't release her, holding her there as their foreheads clash and their noses bump.
"I think we've both gotten a little better at that," he exhales, tasting her breath of laughter on his lips.
A slither of tension wraps around her frame moments later, though, her lashes tangling with his as her eyes flare open. He lets go of her swing then, knows that if he doesn't she'll just jerk it from his grasp.
"Fuck," she rasps, planting her feet to the ground and piercing her knees with her elbows. He watches her bury her head in her hands with a heart that sinks, scrapes its way past his ribs and succumbs to the acid in his stomach.
"I'm… I wish I was sorry," he confesses, even though part of him truly does feel some shame for his actions. They had a perfect day and he shouldn't have pushed her. They were taking baby steps, barely any steps at all, and he knew she was kind of involved with someone else, a guy who's been loyal and kind to her, but that information didn't even cross his mind while he was sipping from her mouth.
But he doesn't regret it. He can't.
"I gotta go," she whispers, dragging a hand through her hair and rising to her feet.
"Kate, wait-"
She places a hand between them when he lifts to follow.
"No, this is - it's-"
"What?" he challenges, watching her hesitate, casting her eyes to the night sky.
"Rick, I can't do this again-"
"Again? What exactly-"
"You think you're some kind of eighteen year old time traveler and I-"
"I do not," he growls. "Kate, when I woke up without memory of the last twenty years, yeah, I was stuck. But as for the last month? I know who I am, what I've done, and who I want to be. And I know I don't want to be anything without you."
She purses her lips, her head maintaining that adamant, slow shake of disapproval.
"I'm sorry," she whispers, taking a step back from him, her hand still raised like a barrier. "We can't just turn back time, erase the last twenty years."
"We don't have to stay shackled to them either," he persists, watching her shoulders deflate. She's giving up on him. "Kate, were you happy? With Tom and the paperwork and the politics? It never felt like something was missing?"
"Rick, please," she sighs.
"Because I wasn't. I'm not. I love my mother, my career, but you have always been the missing piece. Ever since I left New York." He glances back to the swings, remembering their younger selves, the kids who had no idea. "I know I can't change the past, but I can choose my future."
Her lips part, words gone, but her eyes shutter against him, that damn wall going up between them like it never left.
"I - can't do this right now," she gets out, pivoting on her heel. Her shoes crunch across the gravel of the playground before he listens to her heels hit the concrete.
He watches until she disappears.