Written in the Scars (2/2)
Title: Written in the Scars (2/2)
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~2500
Pairing: Castle/Beckett
Summary: This was inspired by the song “Just Give Me a Reason” by Pink/Nate Ruess. It takes place about a year after C/B started dating, but is not tied to the specifics of season five. In other words, it’s a slight AU, forcing the ugly conversation they’ve needed to have for quite a while.
Part 1 here
They settled back onto the couch, steaming mugs in hand. The entire scene was strangely misleading; if someone were to walk into the loft, they’d see middle-of-the-night domesticity without the hint of trouble. There was no outward sign of her abrupt abandonment of their relationship, or his desire to salvage it. The room was silent, almost eerily so, and she almost wondered if she was dreaming.
His gentle voice eased her back from her reverie. “Again, neither of my marriages should have started, so the ends were inevitable, really. I married Meredith because she was pregnant with Alexis and it seemed like the right thing to do, but she wasn’t cut out to be a wife or a mother. I pushed her into my vision of the perfect little family and we both feigned happiness for as long as we could. But one day, when I came home earlier than expected, I found her straddling her director on our couch.” He barked out a sad laugh. “Who knew that a cheating wife wouldn’t be the worst surprise I’d ever come home to after a meeting?”
That stung; his words were like darts perfectly aimed at her lungs, making it more difficult to breathe with each tiny wound.
“Gina was a marriage of business, publicity, and convenience. We worked well together as publisher and author, and we were obviously attracted to each other physically, so we thought it would be a match made in literary heaven. And I think I was eager to give Alexis a more normal family. But outside of the bedroom and the boardroom, Gina and I had nothing, and I ended up shielding Alexis from Gina more than I included her. Our marriage ended as clinically as it had begun.”
She let his words sink in. The explanation was so simple, so why had it become such a big deal? “Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?”
His long, deep sigh complemented the quiet of her question. “I was the only child of a single mother who spent more time delivering soliloquies than conversing with me. She did her best, but had to work to support us, so I was largely left alone. I learned early on to use my charm and sense of humor to make the most out of the few moments I got with her or anyone else.”
“You already know that I got kicked out of a lot of schools; I guess I let the charm and humor get out of control sometimes, but it was so easy to rely on it. At the same time, I wrote a lot, because the dialogue on the page was often more than I experienced in person. When I became famous, it was just more of the same…maybe even worse. Suddenly I was surrounded by people, more than I could have imagined wanting to be near me, but there was never anybody who actually wanted to talk to me. To listen to what I had to say.”
“Kate, I know none of this is an excuse for not talking when you’ve wanted to, and I’m sorry. You’re right that deflecting with jokes is a defense mechanism, and you deserved better than that from me.”
She felt the tears return, a reaction to his sincerity. For the first time all day, she questioned her haste and wasn’t sure what she wanted anymore. Actually, that wasn’t true. She had always wanted him, and that hadn’t changed in the last 24 hours. She had just stopped believing it could last forever and she was getting desperate to make him see her side. If she didn’t convince him soon, she might lose the will to do it at all. Before she could say anything, he continued, his accusing tone somehow encouraging.
“And I deserved better from you.” Her head snapped up, his anger demanding attention. “I get it, Kate…when you freak out, you run. You had concerns about our relationship, and I wasn’t communicating with you well enough to face them, so I’ll take half the blame. But you waited until I was out of the loft, packed up everything you’ve brought here over the past year, and you quit on us because you thought it would be easier than having an adult conversation about an adult relationship. Do you hear me, Kate? You quit on us.”
Now it was his turn to seek space, rising from the couch and walking toward the window overlooking the lights of the city they both loved. Running his hands through his hair in frustration, she knew he was still holding back. She forced the issue.
“Castle, I was just trying to---“
“No, Kate. I don’t want to hear any of your bullshit. You were selfish and scared, so you left without any regard for me. You know, you once told me that you kept one foot out the door, just in case, and I thought that you had finally given that up when you showed up here and said that you wanted me. But now I get it; you’ll find a way out of a relationship no matter where your feet were planted a second ago.”
Good. This was good. It hurt like hell, but he was angry and much more likely to let her go. If ending this peacefully wasn’t an option, then fury would have to do. Anything was better than a slow death. She joined him by the window and spoke unrestrained.
“Yes! You are a flippant, insecure child and I am a self-centered coward. You avoid and I run. It doesn’t matter how much we love each other because we are going to keep hurting each other until there is nothing left. Castle, can’t you see that it’s so much better to do this now? Please.”
Without warning, he pushed her up against the glass and ripped open the top of her blouse, two buttons lost to the darkest corners of his living room. In direct contrast to the force with which he exposed her, he gently ran the tip of his finger over the puckered skin between her breasts, lovingly tracing the reminder of the day she almost died.
“There is always something left, Kate.”
She glanced down at her chest, then up into his wet eyes, her confusion quieting her to a whisper. “What do you mean?”
“This scar; it’s proof of past pain. It will never go away, but that’s okay because it’s a sign of survival. Your scar will always be here to show us that you were terribly hurt and so close to losing it all, but we wouldn’t be looking at it right now if you hadn’t made it through. You and I both have other scars, dozens of them, all representing times that we’ve been hurt and healed.”
Unable to speak around the lump in her throat, she simply closed her eyes as he continued.
“And there are more, too. Ones we can’t see, hidden deep inside. They were left there by our parents, Meredith, Kyra, Royce, and Montgomery. And by each other, Kate. We’ve hurt each other more than once and, yes, we’re doing it now. But if we look closely, we’ll see the truth written in the scars, written deep in our hearts. The reality that we’ve survived and are still here, together.”
He was still mad at her, she could see it beneath the calm he was projecting, but he wasn’t giving up on her. On them. And he was standing so close to her, but she couldn’t push him away. She gradually realized that she was anchored by his certainty, a welcome replacement for the guilt and fear that had held her down all day.
Unable to accept the soft tug of hope, she kept talking. “Castle, how can you be okay with us hurting each other? Doesn’t that tell you that it’s better to let go?”
Shaking his head slowly, he seemed sad that she didn’t understand his point of view. Truly, the feeling was mutual. “We can’t avoid pain by running from it. But we can stop reopening old wounds by communicating with each other. I don’t want this to be the end, Kate; I want it to be our beginning. I want us to open up about everything that has damaged us in the past, and I want us to stop them from happening again. We won’t be perfect, but I didn’t wait years to be with you just to let you walk out the door now. ‘Always’ wasn’t a pick-up line; it was a vow.”
The tears were back. Would they ever really stop? “But I don’t know how to stay.”
Pressing into her, his large body more of a comfort than it should have been in the situation, he carefully closed the distance and touched his mouth to hers. Her body responded instinctively, her lips parting, the taste of liquor and coffee shared between them. The kiss ended before she could acknowledge the disaster it would bring with it, her resolve crumbling.
“Kate, tell me you can still feel that. Tell me that you haven’t already built a new wall. I know you think we’re broken beyond repair, but it’s not true and we can learn to do this right. Please, just give me a reason to keep fighting for us.”
Her lips still tingled with the ghost of their kiss. Her heart was gripped by the ghost of so much more. When she snuck out of the loft that morning, loaded down with duffel bags and remorse, she had been confident that she was doing the right thing, no matter how much it hurt. She had been able to see everything wrong with their relationship, and was convinced that amputation was healthier than a slow-spreading infection. So, what was giving her pause now? Why wasn’t she gone?
She looked up, into the azure eyes of her answer.
Castle.
With hungry hands, she grasped the front of his t-shirt and crashed her mouth against his. They opened for each other and it was perfectly messy, a clashing of lips, teeth, and tongues. Her hands fought their way thought the infinitesimal space between their bodies until she could reach under his shirt and absorb the heat of his stomach with the palms of her hands. One of them moaned, she couldn’t possibly tell who, and they didn’t separate until they were gasping for air.
“Kate, we have to stop.” Even as the words left his mouth, he was kissing her still-wet cheeks, his large hands bracketing the sides of her head. “We can’t solve anything like this. I just need to know that you’re still here.”
The lower half of his body was tight against hers, so she knew that there was a primal part of him that wanted to solve their problem exactly like this. But he was right; she had left him that morning, and losing their clothing and short-term memories was only going to exacerbate things. She was almost willing to add it to her growing list of offenses, to allow them an illicit farewell; instead, she simply covered his hands with hers and waited until they reestablished eye contact. She was becoming aware that there would be no goodbye at all.
“I meant what I said, Castle…I don’t know how to stay. I got scared and stupid, and I don’t know a way around that.”
They remained pressed against each other, and the window, but lowered their hands so that they were clasped at their sides. He regarded her carefully before digging deeper.
“Why are you scared?”
“You already touched on it, talking about our scars.” Her laugh was sad, the memories overwhelming. “Everyone leaves me. My mom, Royce, Will, Montgomery…sometimes it was intentional, sometimes it wasn’t, but all the ones who mattered ended up leaving me.”
He nodded, almost to himself. “So instead of waiting for me to be the latest abandonment, you figured it would hurt less if you were the one who left.”
“See? Stupid.”
“At least you realize it.” He was actually teasing her, the familiar smirk on his face welcoming her home. “Look, Kate, my psychoanalysis skills pretty much end there. We obviously have a lot of things wrong between us, and we’re going to have to claw our way back from this, but I will be by your side if you’re willing to put in the effort. We can drive out to the Hamptons and spend a weekend screaming and yelling until we’ve sorted out everything that has gotten so fucked up. Or, if you want to be a little healthier about it, I’m sure we could get a referral from Dr. Burke and talk to a professional.”
A small smile of relief graced her mouth for the briefest moment, but it took longer for her timid reply to find its way out. “Yeah, that sounds good. I mean, the professional, not the fighting at the beach house.”
He leaned into her and captured her mouth with his, resuscitating her with the strength of his love, breathing life into her body. The kiss was the perfect reminder of everything they were and everything they could still become. She wasn’t sure how she was lucky enough to be wrapped in his arms after what she had done, but it was time to earn the love that he had bestowed upon her so unconditionally, the patience that was never-ending.
“Castle?” She had pulled away just enough to speak softly against his lips and he hummed in response. “Don’t ever let me go.”
While they both knew what she meant, he seemed intent on taking her literally for as long as he could. Holding her tightly, he maneuvered them back to the couch and onto their sides. Her back was pressed against his chest, their legs tangled, and his arm draped across her waist; it was a position that was both comfortable and intimate, reassuring without forcing anything they couldn’t safely embrace.
There were lots of conversations to be had and wounds to be repaired, but for now, they needed nothing but sleep. Closing their eyes, they allowed themselves to fall, confident the sun would alert them to a new day, and all the second chances that would come with it.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~2500
Pairing: Castle/Beckett
Summary: This was inspired by the song “Just Give Me a Reason” by Pink/Nate Ruess. It takes place about a year after C/B started dating, but is not tied to the specifics of season five. In other words, it’s a slight AU, forcing the ugly conversation they’ve needed to have for quite a while.
Part 1 here
They settled back onto the couch, steaming mugs in hand. The entire scene was strangely misleading; if someone were to walk into the loft, they’d see middle-of-the-night domesticity without the hint of trouble. There was no outward sign of her abrupt abandonment of their relationship, or his desire to salvage it. The room was silent, almost eerily so, and she almost wondered if she was dreaming.
His gentle voice eased her back from her reverie. “Again, neither of my marriages should have started, so the ends were inevitable, really. I married Meredith because she was pregnant with Alexis and it seemed like the right thing to do, but she wasn’t cut out to be a wife or a mother. I pushed her into my vision of the perfect little family and we both feigned happiness for as long as we could. But one day, when I came home earlier than expected, I found her straddling her director on our couch.” He barked out a sad laugh. “Who knew that a cheating wife wouldn’t be the worst surprise I’d ever come home to after a meeting?”
That stung; his words were like darts perfectly aimed at her lungs, making it more difficult to breathe with each tiny wound.
“Gina was a marriage of business, publicity, and convenience. We worked well together as publisher and author, and we were obviously attracted to each other physically, so we thought it would be a match made in literary heaven. And I think I was eager to give Alexis a more normal family. But outside of the bedroom and the boardroom, Gina and I had nothing, and I ended up shielding Alexis from Gina more than I included her. Our marriage ended as clinically as it had begun.”
She let his words sink in. The explanation was so simple, so why had it become such a big deal? “Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?”
His long, deep sigh complemented the quiet of her question. “I was the only child of a single mother who spent more time delivering soliloquies than conversing with me. She did her best, but had to work to support us, so I was largely left alone. I learned early on to use my charm and sense of humor to make the most out of the few moments I got with her or anyone else.”
“You already know that I got kicked out of a lot of schools; I guess I let the charm and humor get out of control sometimes, but it was so easy to rely on it. At the same time, I wrote a lot, because the dialogue on the page was often more than I experienced in person. When I became famous, it was just more of the same…maybe even worse. Suddenly I was surrounded by people, more than I could have imagined wanting to be near me, but there was never anybody who actually wanted to talk to me. To listen to what I had to say.”
“Kate, I know none of this is an excuse for not talking when you’ve wanted to, and I’m sorry. You’re right that deflecting with jokes is a defense mechanism, and you deserved better than that from me.”
She felt the tears return, a reaction to his sincerity. For the first time all day, she questioned her haste and wasn’t sure what she wanted anymore. Actually, that wasn’t true. She had always wanted him, and that hadn’t changed in the last 24 hours. She had just stopped believing it could last forever and she was getting desperate to make him see her side. If she didn’t convince him soon, she might lose the will to do it at all. Before she could say anything, he continued, his accusing tone somehow encouraging.
“And I deserved better from you.” Her head snapped up, his anger demanding attention. “I get it, Kate…when you freak out, you run. You had concerns about our relationship, and I wasn’t communicating with you well enough to face them, so I’ll take half the blame. But you waited until I was out of the loft, packed up everything you’ve brought here over the past year, and you quit on us because you thought it would be easier than having an adult conversation about an adult relationship. Do you hear me, Kate? You quit on us.”
Now it was his turn to seek space, rising from the couch and walking toward the window overlooking the lights of the city they both loved. Running his hands through his hair in frustration, she knew he was still holding back. She forced the issue.
“Castle, I was just trying to---“
“No, Kate. I don’t want to hear any of your bullshit. You were selfish and scared, so you left without any regard for me. You know, you once told me that you kept one foot out the door, just in case, and I thought that you had finally given that up when you showed up here and said that you wanted me. But now I get it; you’ll find a way out of a relationship no matter where your feet were planted a second ago.”
Good. This was good. It hurt like hell, but he was angry and much more likely to let her go. If ending this peacefully wasn’t an option, then fury would have to do. Anything was better than a slow death. She joined him by the window and spoke unrestrained.
“Yes! You are a flippant, insecure child and I am a self-centered coward. You avoid and I run. It doesn’t matter how much we love each other because we are going to keep hurting each other until there is nothing left. Castle, can’t you see that it’s so much better to do this now? Please.”
Without warning, he pushed her up against the glass and ripped open the top of her blouse, two buttons lost to the darkest corners of his living room. In direct contrast to the force with which he exposed her, he gently ran the tip of his finger over the puckered skin between her breasts, lovingly tracing the reminder of the day she almost died.
“There is always something left, Kate.”
She glanced down at her chest, then up into his wet eyes, her confusion quieting her to a whisper. “What do you mean?”
“This scar; it’s proof of past pain. It will never go away, but that’s okay because it’s a sign of survival. Your scar will always be here to show us that you were terribly hurt and so close to losing it all, but we wouldn’t be looking at it right now if you hadn’t made it through. You and I both have other scars, dozens of them, all representing times that we’ve been hurt and healed.”
Unable to speak around the lump in her throat, she simply closed her eyes as he continued.
“And there are more, too. Ones we can’t see, hidden deep inside. They were left there by our parents, Meredith, Kyra, Royce, and Montgomery. And by each other, Kate. We’ve hurt each other more than once and, yes, we’re doing it now. But if we look closely, we’ll see the truth written in the scars, written deep in our hearts. The reality that we’ve survived and are still here, together.”
He was still mad at her, she could see it beneath the calm he was projecting, but he wasn’t giving up on her. On them. And he was standing so close to her, but she couldn’t push him away. She gradually realized that she was anchored by his certainty, a welcome replacement for the guilt and fear that had held her down all day.
Unable to accept the soft tug of hope, she kept talking. “Castle, how can you be okay with us hurting each other? Doesn’t that tell you that it’s better to let go?”
Shaking his head slowly, he seemed sad that she didn’t understand his point of view. Truly, the feeling was mutual. “We can’t avoid pain by running from it. But we can stop reopening old wounds by communicating with each other. I don’t want this to be the end, Kate; I want it to be our beginning. I want us to open up about everything that has damaged us in the past, and I want us to stop them from happening again. We won’t be perfect, but I didn’t wait years to be with you just to let you walk out the door now. ‘Always’ wasn’t a pick-up line; it was a vow.”
The tears were back. Would they ever really stop? “But I don’t know how to stay.”
Pressing into her, his large body more of a comfort than it should have been in the situation, he carefully closed the distance and touched his mouth to hers. Her body responded instinctively, her lips parting, the taste of liquor and coffee shared between them. The kiss ended before she could acknowledge the disaster it would bring with it, her resolve crumbling.
“Kate, tell me you can still feel that. Tell me that you haven’t already built a new wall. I know you think we’re broken beyond repair, but it’s not true and we can learn to do this right. Please, just give me a reason to keep fighting for us.”
Her lips still tingled with the ghost of their kiss. Her heart was gripped by the ghost of so much more. When she snuck out of the loft that morning, loaded down with duffel bags and remorse, she had been confident that she was doing the right thing, no matter how much it hurt. She had been able to see everything wrong with their relationship, and was convinced that amputation was healthier than a slow-spreading infection. So, what was giving her pause now? Why wasn’t she gone?
She looked up, into the azure eyes of her answer.
Castle.
With hungry hands, she grasped the front of his t-shirt and crashed her mouth against his. They opened for each other and it was perfectly messy, a clashing of lips, teeth, and tongues. Her hands fought their way thought the infinitesimal space between their bodies until she could reach under his shirt and absorb the heat of his stomach with the palms of her hands. One of them moaned, she couldn’t possibly tell who, and they didn’t separate until they were gasping for air.
“Kate, we have to stop.” Even as the words left his mouth, he was kissing her still-wet cheeks, his large hands bracketing the sides of her head. “We can’t solve anything like this. I just need to know that you’re still here.”
The lower half of his body was tight against hers, so she knew that there was a primal part of him that wanted to solve their problem exactly like this. But he was right; she had left him that morning, and losing their clothing and short-term memories was only going to exacerbate things. She was almost willing to add it to her growing list of offenses, to allow them an illicit farewell; instead, she simply covered his hands with hers and waited until they reestablished eye contact. She was becoming aware that there would be no goodbye at all.
“I meant what I said, Castle…I don’t know how to stay. I got scared and stupid, and I don’t know a way around that.”
They remained pressed against each other, and the window, but lowered their hands so that they were clasped at their sides. He regarded her carefully before digging deeper.
“Why are you scared?”
“You already touched on it, talking about our scars.” Her laugh was sad, the memories overwhelming. “Everyone leaves me. My mom, Royce, Will, Montgomery…sometimes it was intentional, sometimes it wasn’t, but all the ones who mattered ended up leaving me.”
He nodded, almost to himself. “So instead of waiting for me to be the latest abandonment, you figured it would hurt less if you were the one who left.”
“See? Stupid.”
“At least you realize it.” He was actually teasing her, the familiar smirk on his face welcoming her home. “Look, Kate, my psychoanalysis skills pretty much end there. We obviously have a lot of things wrong between us, and we’re going to have to claw our way back from this, but I will be by your side if you’re willing to put in the effort. We can drive out to the Hamptons and spend a weekend screaming and yelling until we’ve sorted out everything that has gotten so fucked up. Or, if you want to be a little healthier about it, I’m sure we could get a referral from Dr. Burke and talk to a professional.”
A small smile of relief graced her mouth for the briefest moment, but it took longer for her timid reply to find its way out. “Yeah, that sounds good. I mean, the professional, not the fighting at the beach house.”
He leaned into her and captured her mouth with his, resuscitating her with the strength of his love, breathing life into her body. The kiss was the perfect reminder of everything they were and everything they could still become. She wasn’t sure how she was lucky enough to be wrapped in his arms after what she had done, but it was time to earn the love that he had bestowed upon her so unconditionally, the patience that was never-ending.
“Castle?” She had pulled away just enough to speak softly against his lips and he hummed in response. “Don’t ever let me go.”
While they both knew what she meant, he seemed intent on taking her literally for as long as he could. Holding her tightly, he maneuvered them back to the couch and onto their sides. Her back was pressed against his chest, their legs tangled, and his arm draped across her waist; it was a position that was both comfortable and intimate, reassuring without forcing anything they couldn’t safely embrace.
There were lots of conversations to be had and wounds to be repaired, but for now, they needed nothing but sleep. Closing their eyes, they allowed themselves to fall, confident the sun would alert them to a new day, and all the second chances that would come with it.