there should be stars (21/X)
Title: there should be stars (21/X)
Characters/Pairings: Castle/Beckett
Summary: Four years can make a world of difference. AU.
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: Up to Season Four finale.
They’re sharing a space on the couch in her apartment. The Thai food has been put into Tupperware, joining the rest of the leftovers in her fridge. She cleaned out their wine glasses, setting them in the drying rack near the sink. And now she’s comfortably tucked into his side, her face buried in his neck as she drifts closer and closer to sleep.
“Will you stay?” she asks softly, her lips tickling his skin.
His hand tightens at her shoulder. “You have to keep asking?” he growls, pushing up from the couch, nearly tripping on the coffee table.
She’s up after him, reaching for his elbow as he steps out of her range. “What’re you talking about?”
“You keep asking me to stay like you expect me to leave again!” he shouts, his hands bruising at her upper arms when he grabs her suddenly.
She freezes. Her breath hitches as she looks up at him, too shocked to do much more than stare. “Castle, I didn’t…”
“No, Kate. Is that what you think? You think I’m going to be here one day and gone the next? I’ve done it once so I’m branded a disappearing act now?”
The silence is heavy, a dead weight that hangs in the space between them as she struggles to find the words to lighten the load. Because it’s not true. It’s not.
But before she can string her thoughts together and find some way to keep his trust in her, his fingers give her arms one final squeeze before they drop away. She watches numbly as he pushes his arms into the sleeves of his jacket and moves for her door. He pauses, as if he’s giving her one last chance before he opens the door and leaves.
She’s not sure how long she stands there, watching the door for him to come back. But he doesn’t. Her hands start to shake as she searches for her phone and calls the one person she knows she can trust.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, voice instantly concerned.
Beckett sits on her couch, her feet pulled up under her. “Dad, he left. He left again and I…”
“Give me ten minutes, Katie.” She can already hear him getting his keys, the rustle of his jacket. “You give me ten minutes and I’ll be there.”
She pulls down the throw blanket from the back of her couch, wrapping it around her shoulders, a poor substitute for Castle’s body heat, staring blankly at the windows over her kitchen counter until she hears the knock at the front door. On unsteady feet, she opens it to her dad. “Thanks for coming,” she mumbles, letting him gather her up in a hug.
“Anytime, sweetie,” he says, pressing a kiss to her temple. “Come on. I’ve got ice cream.”
Jim finds spoons in her silverware drawer, taking out the two pints of ice cream, and handing them over to his daughter. And then it’s like she’s fifteen again and just had her heart broken for the first time as they let the ice cream melt on her coffee table as she cries into her father’s lap.
“It’s my fault,” she whispers roughly as her dad brushes his hand over her hair. “It’s my fault he’s gone.”
“He’ll be back, Katie,” he says.
She shakes her head. “No, Dad. He won’t come back this time.”
She doesn’t feel him slide from under her head, replacing his lap with one of her throw pillows as she falls asleep.
It takes Jim Beckett a few minutes to find his daughter’s phone. Luckily she’s still a creature of habit; it’s plugged in next to her bed. He scrolls through the contacts, finds the right one at the very top.
“What do you want?” comes the voice, rough and cruel even through the speaker, when the phone connects.
“Rick?”
“Mr. Beckett. I, uh, thought it was…”
Jim sits on the edge of Kate’s bed, glancing around the room. “My daughter. I know. My daughter who has just cried herself to sleep for the first time in about five years. Any idea what that’s about?”
Castle is clearing his throat but Jim doesn’t give him a chance to answer.
“Do you love her?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then get back here. Make it right,” Jim says. “You’ve hurt one another before and, without any judgment, you left then. She’s going to withdraw again, hide behind those walls, and it’ll be that much harder to get her to open up again. So fix it now.”
“Okay,” the other man replies. “I’ll be there in five minutes.”
“The door will be unlocked. My number will be on the kitchen counter. Call if you need anything.”
Jim plugs the phone back in, setting it on the bedside table next to the photo of him and Johanna from their wedding. His fingers coast over his wife’s face, almost feeling the strands over her hair, the smoothness of her cheek.
Kate is still sleeping, curled into a ball, the pillow clutched against her. This time, he can feel her tangled hair, the slightly puffy skin under her eyes from crying. His daughter sighs, moving into the touch. Jim tucks the edges of the blanket under her legs, around her shoulders before ducking down to press a kiss to her forehead.
“You’ll be okay, Katie,” he whispers into her ear, ruffling her hair. “Give him another chance. Third time’s the charm, after all.”
He puts the ice cream in her freezer, returning the unused spoons to the right drawer. His daughter has a pad of paper on the fridge, a cup of pens nearby for body calls. He uses one of them to write his cell number down, folding the paper in half so that it stands up near her coffee maker.
And then he slips out of her apartment, closing the door softly behind him.
They’ll be okay.
The door is indeed unlocked when he tries the handle. Her apartment is dark, darker than it was when he left. The only light comes from the lamp on the sidetable of the couch. It casts a glow onto her face, the bit he can see from under the blanket and around the pillow. He can see the faint redness around her eyes and feels the stab of guilt deepen.
He leaves his jacket and shoes on the ground, walking slowly over to her.
Make it right.
He slides his arms under her, taking the blanket that is tucked around her with him so that her bare skin is protected from the chill of his fingers. Her head lolls onto his upper arm.
“Dad, what’re you…?” she mumbles, her eyes opening to narrow slits.
“Shh. Not your dad. Just putting you in your bed,” he says. “Go back to sleep, Beckett.”
She’s back under when he lays her down on her bed. He brushes a hand over her hair, letting one of the loose curls twist around his finger before he pulls the sheets over her body. She inhales, her knees drawing up to her chest for a few seconds before everything relaxes.
He pauses for a moment, just watching as she falls back into deep sleep.
He can fix this.
He can.
Just not tonight. Tomorrow.
He turns out of her room, shutting the door so that it is only open a crack, and flops down on the couch. The cushions are still warm from her body as he stuffs the throw pillow under his head. He sets the alarm on his phone, trying to ensure that he is awake before she is.
He can fix them tomorrow.
He can try.
She smells the coffee first. It pulls her out of sleep slowly, blinking into the pale sunshine peeking around her curtains. The throw blanket from the couch is tangled around her legs, making her lower half warmer than her torso. Her fingers shake a little when she picks up the mug on her sidetable, pushing up so that she’s leaning against her headboard.
Her body feels heavy, her throat tight even as she sips the coffee.
She doesn’t know when her dad left but she vaguely recalls Castle showing up, moving her to her bed. He didn’t slide in next to her so he must have stayed on the couch or gone home and then returned to bring her coffee and make breakfast.
Which means that she was wrong.
He came back.
She doesn’t know how to fix what she broke.
But she knows that she’ll need to face him at some point because she can hear glasses clinking lightly in her kitchen so he’s still here. She shoves the blankets down, getting out of her bed while taking another drink from the coffee. She’s still in yesterday’s clothes, her shirt up around her waist, jeans twisted around her calves.
There’s time to change yet. It’s her day off so she pulls on a pair of flannel pants and a t-shirt that is two sizes too big, flipping her hair from the neckline. It’s oily and dirty and she needs to shower away the guilt from yesterday but she needs to talk to him first.
He’s got a stack of pancakes on one of her plates. There are glasses of orange juice next to the full pot of coffee. His clothes are wrinkled as he transfers another pancake to the plate. She can see the way his shoulders slump, the tension in his hands.
She’s going to fix this mess she made.
“Hi,” she murmurs, stepping around the armchair.
He startles, nearly dropping the spatula as he turns. “Uh, morning. I was making breakfast,” he says, waving a hand over the plate of food as if it weren’t obvious.
“Yeah. Listen, Castle…”
“Can we have food first and then talk?” he asks softly, looking over at her from the corner of his eye. He holds out one of her plates, her favorite deep purple one, and a fork. “Take whatever. There’s coffee and -”
She cuts him off with a finger against his lips. “I got it. Thanks.” She reaches around him for the other plate, serving both of them, flicking off the stovetop as she pushes the edge of his plate into his side. “Come on. Let’s eat on the couch.”
They sit apart, her feet barely touching his hip as she cuts into the pancakes. When she looks up, he’s watching her carefully, plate untouched on his lap. She puts their plates on the coffee table, her fingertips brushing over the back of his hand. But she doesn’t linger, sitting back against the cushions.
“I’m sorry.”
She’s not sure which one of them says it first.
He is the one who pushes on. “I am so in love you. You’ve got to know that I won’t leave. Not again.”
“I know. But,” she pauses, takes a deep breath as her fingers play with a fold in her pants, “can you blame me for being a little wounded? The tiniest bit afraid even if I didn’t mean it like that last night?”
“Oh, Beckett,” he sighs, snagging her shirt to tug her closer. She scoots over on the couch, her knees pressing into his thighs before he swings her over him. His hand coasts up her back, pulling her tight against his chest. “I’m sorry.”
“Why didn’t you call?” she asks, her voice tiny. “Four years and you never called or e-mailed. I mean, it was Boston, Castle, not Antarctica. You could have called. I missed you.”
His lips are gentle against her forehead, down along her cheek. “Everything was just so much work there. Personal life just fell by the wayside for months and then I found out you were with Sorenson and had moved on and I…” He breathes out, ruffling her hair. “I kind of gave up.”
“I never did.” She draws back, touching her fingers to his jaw lightly. “I hid in relationships, built up walls. But you were always inside them.”
The kiss is soft and slow, her fingers curling against the back of his neck as his hands press into her back.
“I need to shower,” she breathes. But she makes no move to get off his lap, letting her head fall against his shoulder.
The shower can wait. So can the cooling pancakes on the coffee table.
They’re sharing a space on the couch in her apartment.
Characters/Pairings: Castle/Beckett
Summary: Four years can make a world of difference. AU.
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: Up to Season Four finale.
They’re sharing a space on the couch in her apartment. The Thai food has been put into Tupperware, joining the rest of the leftovers in her fridge. She cleaned out their wine glasses, setting them in the drying rack near the sink. And now she’s comfortably tucked into his side, her face buried in his neck as she drifts closer and closer to sleep.
“Will you stay?” she asks softly, her lips tickling his skin.
His hand tightens at her shoulder. “You have to keep asking?” he growls, pushing up from the couch, nearly tripping on the coffee table.
She’s up after him, reaching for his elbow as he steps out of her range. “What’re you talking about?”
“You keep asking me to stay like you expect me to leave again!” he shouts, his hands bruising at her upper arms when he grabs her suddenly.
She freezes. Her breath hitches as she looks up at him, too shocked to do much more than stare. “Castle, I didn’t…”
“No, Kate. Is that what you think? You think I’m going to be here one day and gone the next? I’ve done it once so I’m branded a disappearing act now?”
The silence is heavy, a dead weight that hangs in the space between them as she struggles to find the words to lighten the load. Because it’s not true. It’s not.
But before she can string her thoughts together and find some way to keep his trust in her, his fingers give her arms one final squeeze before they drop away. She watches numbly as he pushes his arms into the sleeves of his jacket and moves for her door. He pauses, as if he’s giving her one last chance before he opens the door and leaves.
She’s not sure how long she stands there, watching the door for him to come back. But he doesn’t. Her hands start to shake as she searches for her phone and calls the one person she knows she can trust.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, voice instantly concerned.
Beckett sits on her couch, her feet pulled up under her. “Dad, he left. He left again and I…”
“Give me ten minutes, Katie.” She can already hear him getting his keys, the rustle of his jacket. “You give me ten minutes and I’ll be there.”
She pulls down the throw blanket from the back of her couch, wrapping it around her shoulders, a poor substitute for Castle’s body heat, staring blankly at the windows over her kitchen counter until she hears the knock at the front door. On unsteady feet, she opens it to her dad. “Thanks for coming,” she mumbles, letting him gather her up in a hug.
“Anytime, sweetie,” he says, pressing a kiss to her temple. “Come on. I’ve got ice cream.”
Jim finds spoons in her silverware drawer, taking out the two pints of ice cream, and handing them over to his daughter. And then it’s like she’s fifteen again and just had her heart broken for the first time as they let the ice cream melt on her coffee table as she cries into her father’s lap.
“It’s my fault,” she whispers roughly as her dad brushes his hand over her hair. “It’s my fault he’s gone.”
“He’ll be back, Katie,” he says.
She shakes her head. “No, Dad. He won’t come back this time.”
She doesn’t feel him slide from under her head, replacing his lap with one of her throw pillows as she falls asleep.
It takes Jim Beckett a few minutes to find his daughter’s phone. Luckily she’s still a creature of habit; it’s plugged in next to her bed. He scrolls through the contacts, finds the right one at the very top.
“What do you want?” comes the voice, rough and cruel even through the speaker, when the phone connects.
“Rick?”
“Mr. Beckett. I, uh, thought it was…”
Jim sits on the edge of Kate’s bed, glancing around the room. “My daughter. I know. My daughter who has just cried herself to sleep for the first time in about five years. Any idea what that’s about?”
Castle is clearing his throat but Jim doesn’t give him a chance to answer.
“Do you love her?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then get back here. Make it right,” Jim says. “You’ve hurt one another before and, without any judgment, you left then. She’s going to withdraw again, hide behind those walls, and it’ll be that much harder to get her to open up again. So fix it now.”
“Okay,” the other man replies. “I’ll be there in five minutes.”
“The door will be unlocked. My number will be on the kitchen counter. Call if you need anything.”
Jim plugs the phone back in, setting it on the bedside table next to the photo of him and Johanna from their wedding. His fingers coast over his wife’s face, almost feeling the strands over her hair, the smoothness of her cheek.
Kate is still sleeping, curled into a ball, the pillow clutched against her. This time, he can feel her tangled hair, the slightly puffy skin under her eyes from crying. His daughter sighs, moving into the touch. Jim tucks the edges of the blanket under her legs, around her shoulders before ducking down to press a kiss to her forehead.
“You’ll be okay, Katie,” he whispers into her ear, ruffling her hair. “Give him another chance. Third time’s the charm, after all.”
He puts the ice cream in her freezer, returning the unused spoons to the right drawer. His daughter has a pad of paper on the fridge, a cup of pens nearby for body calls. He uses one of them to write his cell number down, folding the paper in half so that it stands up near her coffee maker.
And then he slips out of her apartment, closing the door softly behind him.
They’ll be okay.
The door is indeed unlocked when he tries the handle. Her apartment is dark, darker than it was when he left. The only light comes from the lamp on the sidetable of the couch. It casts a glow onto her face, the bit he can see from under the blanket and around the pillow. He can see the faint redness around her eyes and feels the stab of guilt deepen.
He leaves his jacket and shoes on the ground, walking slowly over to her.
Make it right.
He slides his arms under her, taking the blanket that is tucked around her with him so that her bare skin is protected from the chill of his fingers. Her head lolls onto his upper arm.
“Dad, what’re you…?” she mumbles, her eyes opening to narrow slits.
“Shh. Not your dad. Just putting you in your bed,” he says. “Go back to sleep, Beckett.”
She’s back under when he lays her down on her bed. He brushes a hand over her hair, letting one of the loose curls twist around his finger before he pulls the sheets over her body. She inhales, her knees drawing up to her chest for a few seconds before everything relaxes.
He pauses for a moment, just watching as she falls back into deep sleep.
He can fix this.
He can.
Just not tonight. Tomorrow.
He turns out of her room, shutting the door so that it is only open a crack, and flops down on the couch. The cushions are still warm from her body as he stuffs the throw pillow under his head. He sets the alarm on his phone, trying to ensure that he is awake before she is.
He can fix them tomorrow.
He can try.
She smells the coffee first. It pulls her out of sleep slowly, blinking into the pale sunshine peeking around her curtains. The throw blanket from the couch is tangled around her legs, making her lower half warmer than her torso. Her fingers shake a little when she picks up the mug on her sidetable, pushing up so that she’s leaning against her headboard.
Her body feels heavy, her throat tight even as she sips the coffee.
She doesn’t know when her dad left but she vaguely recalls Castle showing up, moving her to her bed. He didn’t slide in next to her so he must have stayed on the couch or gone home and then returned to bring her coffee and make breakfast.
Which means that she was wrong.
He came back.
She doesn’t know how to fix what she broke.
But she knows that she’ll need to face him at some point because she can hear glasses clinking lightly in her kitchen so he’s still here. She shoves the blankets down, getting out of her bed while taking another drink from the coffee. She’s still in yesterday’s clothes, her shirt up around her waist, jeans twisted around her calves.
There’s time to change yet. It’s her day off so she pulls on a pair of flannel pants and a t-shirt that is two sizes too big, flipping her hair from the neckline. It’s oily and dirty and she needs to shower away the guilt from yesterday but she needs to talk to him first.
He’s got a stack of pancakes on one of her plates. There are glasses of orange juice next to the full pot of coffee. His clothes are wrinkled as he transfers another pancake to the plate. She can see the way his shoulders slump, the tension in his hands.
She’s going to fix this mess she made.
“Hi,” she murmurs, stepping around the armchair.
He startles, nearly dropping the spatula as he turns. “Uh, morning. I was making breakfast,” he says, waving a hand over the plate of food as if it weren’t obvious.
“Yeah. Listen, Castle…”
“Can we have food first and then talk?” he asks softly, looking over at her from the corner of his eye. He holds out one of her plates, her favorite deep purple one, and a fork. “Take whatever. There’s coffee and -”
She cuts him off with a finger against his lips. “I got it. Thanks.” She reaches around him for the other plate, serving both of them, flicking off the stovetop as she pushes the edge of his plate into his side. “Come on. Let’s eat on the couch.”
They sit apart, her feet barely touching his hip as she cuts into the pancakes. When she looks up, he’s watching her carefully, plate untouched on his lap. She puts their plates on the coffee table, her fingertips brushing over the back of his hand. But she doesn’t linger, sitting back against the cushions.
“I’m sorry.”
She’s not sure which one of them says it first.
He is the one who pushes on. “I am so in love you. You’ve got to know that I won’t leave. Not again.”
“I know. But,” she pauses, takes a deep breath as her fingers play with a fold in her pants, “can you blame me for being a little wounded? The tiniest bit afraid even if I didn’t mean it like that last night?”
“Oh, Beckett,” he sighs, snagging her shirt to tug her closer. She scoots over on the couch, her knees pressing into his thighs before he swings her over him. His hand coasts up her back, pulling her tight against his chest. “I’m sorry.”
“Why didn’t you call?” she asks, her voice tiny. “Four years and you never called or e-mailed. I mean, it was Boston, Castle, not Antarctica. You could have called. I missed you.”
His lips are gentle against her forehead, down along her cheek. “Everything was just so much work there. Personal life just fell by the wayside for months and then I found out you were with Sorenson and had moved on and I…” He breathes out, ruffling her hair. “I kind of gave up.”
“I never did.” She draws back, touching her fingers to his jaw lightly. “I hid in relationships, built up walls. But you were always inside them.”
The kiss is soft and slow, her fingers curling against the back of his neck as his hands press into her back.
“I need to shower,” she breathes. But she makes no move to get off his lap, letting her head fall against his shoulder.
The shower can wait. So can the cooling pancakes on the coffee table.
They’re sharing a space on the couch in her apartment.