there should be stars (27/30)
Title: there should be stars (27/30)
Characters/Pairings: Castle/Beckett
Summary: Four years can make a world of difference. AU.
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: Up to Season Four finale.
He’s really good at distractions.
Eventually, she forgets - as much as she can ever - that she relinquished control over her mother’s case to her co-workers. They don’t ever mention new leads over the next few months. She’s thankful for that, not sure she’d be able to handle hearing and seeing possible leads and do absolutely nothing about it.
And it’s good. She feels a little lighter. Even when they brush death twice in two days, nearly freezing to death in each other’s arms but escaping with mild cases of hypothermia to holding hands and praying in front of a dirty bomb set to go off in seconds.
But then Royce shows up dead and she feels some of that weight come back. Not just because Royce was the first to catch her as she buried herself in her mother’s case, hiding out in the archives with a Maglite after her shift was over, hoping that no one would come down to that corner of the concrete room but because he was one of the first to trust her gut while on the job. Instead of hovering like most of the other training officers, Royce let her take lead on some of their cases, let her make mistakes and learn from them.
The trip to Los Angeles is a heady mixture of going rogue with three days of sex interrupted by phone calls from Ryan and Esposito as they ran interference with the Twelfth or Seager butting in from the LAPD.
Now the murder board is covered with information about the Baron’s All-American Beauty Pageant and she’s having vivid memories of freshmen year at Stanford while rooming with Debbie. The boys are acting a little cagey but she’s too concerned with matching that damn black sequin to one of the dresses of the contestants to corner Ryan and get him to spill.
The phone is cradled in her shoulder as she tries to get the costume director for the pageant to tell her who was wearing black sequins the night before the murder.
“You having flashbacks?” Castle asks from his seat, head tilted to the side as he studies her grimace.
She tucks the mouthpiece against her chest, still able to hear if the costume director takes her off hold. “It was my own private Vietnam. Our place smelled of hairspray, perfume, and cigarettes.” She laughs, shaking her head as if to wave away the lingering scent. “I’m surprised we didn’t spontaneously combust one night.”
Then the costume director is back, telling her to come on down to the ballroom and she can match the sequin to the hangers of clothes from that night. She takes the evidence bag with the single black sequin off the murder board, clipping it into her leather folder of notes.
“Come on, Castle,” she says, tapping him on the shoulder. “Let’s talk to the costume lady and then we can go home.”
Castle is on his phone the entire ride down to Victor Baron’s tower. He keeps sending her quick looks that he thinks she doesn’t catch. He actually looks worried, bordering on frightened. She tries to focus on the case instead, tracking down the costume director in the back dressing rooms. He stays outside, his voice low and quiet as he talks to someone.
By the time she gets out of the room full of way too many costumes for one pageant but finding that the black sequin matches the sparkling blazer worn by Victor Baron the night before, Castle is fidgeting in the hall.
“What’s going on?” she asks, practically boxing him in against the wall, her hands coasting up his sides.
“Nothing,” he says, shaking his head as he ducks down to brush a kiss over her cheek. “Let’s go home.”
But then her phone rings and she shoves her folder into his hand as she digs for her phone in her pocket. “Sir?”
Next to her, she hears Castle mutter “Shit” as he keeps walking around to the other side of the car.
“We need to meet Montgomery for a few minutes,” she says, hanging up and turning the key in the ignition. “He’s got something to show us. Castle, what’s going on?”
“Huh?”
“Don’t huh me. You’ve been acting weird all afternoon. What do you know about this?”
“Nothing.”
She doesn’t believe him. He keeps twisting his hands in his lap on the drive into the outer borough, following the GPS directions on her phone to the address that Montgomery gave her. She wants to pull over to the shoulder of the highway, push him against the seat, and demand to know what has made him so damn nervous but she doesn’t. She keeps driving, both hands steady on the steering wheel.
The parking lot for the airport hangar is nearly empty as she parks in one of the spots next to Montgomery’s crossover, switching the car off. The place is silent as soon as the engine cuts out.
“You coming in with me?”
He’s already out of the car, closing the door quietly behind him. Beckett clears her gun as she strides to catch up to him, feeling tension in the air before he even has a chance to open the door to the hangar. There’s a helicopter taking up one of the spaces, the night lights setting the place in a bluish glow.
“Captain?” she calls, her heels echoing off the walls. “Sir?”
“Over here.” He’s in the shadows until he steps out to meet them halfway. His hands are held out at his sides
“What’s this about, Roy?”
“Your mother’s case,” Montgomery rasps, reaching back for the revolver that catches the light when he holds it out. “I need to wrap up loose ends.”
She feels Castle shift behind her, his arm bumping hers as if he’s prepared to jump in front of her. “What?”
“I was a rookie, Kate. McAllister and Raglan? They were heroes to me. So when they said that what we were doing, abducting mobsters for ransom, was right, I didn’t question it. I started to believe in it. That night, we were supposed to just snatch Joe Pulgatti. Bob Armen, this undercover FBI agent, wasn’t supposed to be there.” His exhale is heavy, the hand holding his revolver waving against his thigh in a way that has Beckett reaching for her own weapon. “Armen reached for my gun and that’s when I heard the shot. Didn’t even know it was my gun that went off until Armen went down. McAllister pulled me into the van, kept telling me that it was okay, that it wasn’t my fault. ‘Happens in this town every day.’ McAllister and Raglan tried to drown it but I put it all back into the job. I became the best cop I could be.
“And then when you walked into the Twelfth, Kate,” he continues, looking up at the ceiling. “I felt the hand of God and I knew he was giving me a second chance. I thought, if I could protect you the way I should have protected her, then maybe…”
She sways, dangerously close to falling to her knees under the press of knowledge. Castle’s hand is at her elbow, trying to support her until she knocks him away. “Did you kill my mother?” she whispers, sheer will making sure that her voice doesn’t crack.
“No.” His answer comes quickly, accompanied by a shake of his head. “That came years later but she died because of what we did that night.”
“And now you’re going to finish the job? Get rid of anyone who knows anything about what you’ve done?”
“No,” Montgomery insists, stepping forward. She holds her ground. “But somehow, the man who did kill her found out what we had done and he could have turned all of us in. Instead, he demanded the ransom money. He took that money to become what he is and, God forgive me, that may be my greatest sin.”
“Give me a name,” she grinds out. “You owe me that much.”
“I can’t. I give you a name and you’ll run straight at him. You don’t stand a chance against him. But I brought you here to lure them.”
This time, she does falter, letting Castle’s solid strength behind her catch her. “You baited them?”
Montgomery nods. “They’re coming,” he says, gesturing toward the set of headlights making their way down the runway of the small airport. “You need to leave, Kate. They’re coming to kill you and I’m not going to let them. I’m ending this now.”
“I’m not leaving, sir,” she says, flipping the lock off of her gun.
“Yes, you are. Castle, get her out of here.”
She spins on her heel, her mouth open. “You’re in on this?”
“Kate, just -”
“No, Castle,” she hisses, turning back to Montgomery. “Sir, you don’t have to do this.” She shrugs Castle’s hand off of her shoulder. “Sir, I forgive you, okay? I forgive you.”
“This is where I’m making my stand. I’m not leaving.”
Tears push at her eyes but she refuses to let them fall. Instead, she grabs for her captain’s hand even though he jerks away. “No, Roy. Please. You don’t have to do this.”
“Castle, get her out of here. Now!”
Before she can stop him, Castle’s arms band around her upper arms, trapping them against her sides. Her fingers dig into his thighs as he runs from the hangar even as tires squeal behind them. She’s babbling, the protests falling from her lips ignored by Castle until he gets outside of the hangar. He drops her to her feet, turning and pressing her back against the side of her vehicle.
She slumps down, all of the fight gone as he cups her cheeks, his lower half keeping her in place even as his mouth ghosts over her face. He’s breathing apologies into her tear-stained skin, quieting her with soft touches across her lips.
When the first gunshot rings out, she jerks under him, a harsh sob escaping that she muffles in the fabric of his jacket. “Castle, please… Let me go,” she begs as a second and third shot echoes. She knows her nails are scoring his neck and collarbone as she tries to force his weight off of her but can’t bring herself to care. Not now.
It is only when the last of the eight gunshots die down and silence settles over the area that Castle steps back. Her legs give out and he catches her.
“Kate, you don’t need to see -”
But she dashes away the tears as she runs back to the hangar. Her voice is thin and broken as she calls out for Montgomery, searching the fallen men for her captain. Her knees ache as she drops to them at his side, her hands hesitating before she curves over his body, her forehead pressed lightly to his. She hears the door open and shut behind her, hears the low whispers.
“Beckett, we need to secure the scene and get statements.” It’s not the man she thought she would hear. It’s Ryan who lays a hand gently on her shoulder, pulling her back.
He helps her up, giving her the tiniest of pushes toward the back of the hangar and away from the bodies. Esposito passes her, nodding tightly, his jaw set.
Castle dips his fingers into her pocket, taking the keys out before she can really react. “I’m driving,” he says simply, nudging her toward the door even as she turns to look back.
Neither of them speak on the ride back to Manhattan. She breaks off from him once he unlocks the front door of the loft, going to the liquor cabinet and taking down the bottle of whiskey and a tumbler. Her hands are steady as she pours the amber liquid. The bottle comes with her as she sits on the couch, taking a deep sip of the whiskey.
She can already feel the nightmares tugging at her. The alcohol is making her already exhausted body drop closer and closer to the darkness of unconsciousness and she just wants the image of her mentor bleeding out on the hangar floor gone. She wants to rewind, to go back and fight Castle just a little harder. To save Roy.
And that’s when her body starts to shake. Some of the whiskey sloshes over the rim of the crystal, droplets hitting the rug under the couch as Castle takes the tumbler from her.
“Let’s go to bed,” he says softly.
She lets him tug her up to her feet and she sees the flash of panic as it goes across the surface of his eyes when she stumbles against his side, the grace she carries so naturally shed back on the hangar floor with her captain. When they get into the study, the moon providing the only illumination, she shoves him up against the bookshelves.
“What’re you doi -” is all he manages before she practically climbs his body, her right leg hooking as high around his knee as possible. Her lips blaze a heated trail along his jaw, teeth biting down sharply at the day’s worth of stubble. Even then, the motion is slower than usual, her feet dragging as she pushes herself closer to him.
“I want to forget,” she whispers into the corner of his mouth. “I can’t sleep yet. I just need you.”
He’s tense, far too still against her when he turns his head. “This first and then bed?”
Her fingers are between them, trying to yank his shirt over his head. “Yes,” she pleads as his lips brush lightly over the arch of her nose. “Please.”
His hand loops under her thigh, helping her hop up so that both legs circle his waist. Her shoes drop to the floor as she rolls her body against his, her head tucked into the crook of his shoulder in an attempt to keep the tears at bay for just a little while longer.
“We do this my way then,” he bites into her neck, his fingers pushing under the hem of her shirt to squeeze at her bare back. “In bed.”
She wants to protest, to demand that he just help her right here and right now because she needs to get her mind away from the darkness lingering right there but he’s already spinning off of the bookshelves and moving into the bedroom. Her breath huffs out of her when he drops her onto the bed. Still standing, he works at the button of her dress pants, sliding them and her underwear off so that they fall onto the ground. Her fingers fumble with the zipper of his jeans, giving up and resorting to pulling his shirt over his head. As he gets his pants off, his belt buckle clatters against her badge, still clipped to the waistband of her pants on the floor.
He goes for her shirt, tangling her hands in the fabric at her wrists, pinning her hands over her head. She arches up when his free hand skims down along her side, his thumb lingering over her breast where his short nail scrapes over the nipple through the cotton of her bra. His mouth captures her whimper when he abandons her breast and continues down to tease at the sensitive skin just below her navel. Her hips jerk up, her eyes slamming shut.
His knee pushes her thigh out so that her foot falls off of the bed, toes barely touching the rug. She wants to touch him, to feel the ripple of muscle as he teases her clit. Her hands twist helplessly in her shirt when he pushes deep into her, a little roughly.
“Oh, God,” she chokes as he thrusts fast and hard until she comes on a short, sharp cry. His release follows on the heels of hers, his body heavy and hot over her as she tries to free her hands before she completely breaks down, the distractions worn out and gone.
She fails.
Her arms relax and she turns her head into his shoulder just as the sobs wrack her body.
He only murmurs acknowledgements as he unhooks her bra, sliding it down her arms and tossing it with the rest of their clothes. She hears him padding over to the bureau then he sits her up to pull on the soft t-shirt. The mattress dips as he gets in behind her, tugging the covers up and over them.
She buries her head into the crook of his neck, her mouth open at his collarbone as she forces the tears to stop. “I don’t know what to do anymore,” she admits finally as his fingers trace patterns over her back.
“One day at a time,” he tells her, his voice as rough as hers, touching a soft kiss to the corner of her eye. “Sleep now.”
She doesn’t sleep.
Neither does he.
Characters/Pairings: Castle/Beckett
Summary: Four years can make a world of difference. AU.
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: Up to Season Four finale.
He’s really good at distractions.
Eventually, she forgets - as much as she can ever - that she relinquished control over her mother’s case to her co-workers. They don’t ever mention new leads over the next few months. She’s thankful for that, not sure she’d be able to handle hearing and seeing possible leads and do absolutely nothing about it.
And it’s good. She feels a little lighter. Even when they brush death twice in two days, nearly freezing to death in each other’s arms but escaping with mild cases of hypothermia to holding hands and praying in front of a dirty bomb set to go off in seconds.
But then Royce shows up dead and she feels some of that weight come back. Not just because Royce was the first to catch her as she buried herself in her mother’s case, hiding out in the archives with a Maglite after her shift was over, hoping that no one would come down to that corner of the concrete room but because he was one of the first to trust her gut while on the job. Instead of hovering like most of the other training officers, Royce let her take lead on some of their cases, let her make mistakes and learn from them.
The trip to Los Angeles is a heady mixture of going rogue with three days of sex interrupted by phone calls from Ryan and Esposito as they ran interference with the Twelfth or Seager butting in from the LAPD.
Now the murder board is covered with information about the Baron’s All-American Beauty Pageant and she’s having vivid memories of freshmen year at Stanford while rooming with Debbie. The boys are acting a little cagey but she’s too concerned with matching that damn black sequin to one of the dresses of the contestants to corner Ryan and get him to spill.
The phone is cradled in her shoulder as she tries to get the costume director for the pageant to tell her who was wearing black sequins the night before the murder.
“You having flashbacks?” Castle asks from his seat, head tilted to the side as he studies her grimace.
She tucks the mouthpiece against her chest, still able to hear if the costume director takes her off hold. “It was my own private Vietnam. Our place smelled of hairspray, perfume, and cigarettes.” She laughs, shaking her head as if to wave away the lingering scent. “I’m surprised we didn’t spontaneously combust one night.”
Then the costume director is back, telling her to come on down to the ballroom and she can match the sequin to the hangers of clothes from that night. She takes the evidence bag with the single black sequin off the murder board, clipping it into her leather folder of notes.
“Come on, Castle,” she says, tapping him on the shoulder. “Let’s talk to the costume lady and then we can go home.”
Castle is on his phone the entire ride down to Victor Baron’s tower. He keeps sending her quick looks that he thinks she doesn’t catch. He actually looks worried, bordering on frightened. She tries to focus on the case instead, tracking down the costume director in the back dressing rooms. He stays outside, his voice low and quiet as he talks to someone.
By the time she gets out of the room full of way too many costumes for one pageant but finding that the black sequin matches the sparkling blazer worn by Victor Baron the night before, Castle is fidgeting in the hall.
“What’s going on?” she asks, practically boxing him in against the wall, her hands coasting up his sides.
“Nothing,” he says, shaking his head as he ducks down to brush a kiss over her cheek. “Let’s go home.”
But then her phone rings and she shoves her folder into his hand as she digs for her phone in her pocket. “Sir?”
Next to her, she hears Castle mutter “Shit” as he keeps walking around to the other side of the car.
“We need to meet Montgomery for a few minutes,” she says, hanging up and turning the key in the ignition. “He’s got something to show us. Castle, what’s going on?”
“Huh?”
“Don’t huh me. You’ve been acting weird all afternoon. What do you know about this?”
“Nothing.”
She doesn’t believe him. He keeps twisting his hands in his lap on the drive into the outer borough, following the GPS directions on her phone to the address that Montgomery gave her. She wants to pull over to the shoulder of the highway, push him against the seat, and demand to know what has made him so damn nervous but she doesn’t. She keeps driving, both hands steady on the steering wheel.
The parking lot for the airport hangar is nearly empty as she parks in one of the spots next to Montgomery’s crossover, switching the car off. The place is silent as soon as the engine cuts out.
“You coming in with me?”
He’s already out of the car, closing the door quietly behind him. Beckett clears her gun as she strides to catch up to him, feeling tension in the air before he even has a chance to open the door to the hangar. There’s a helicopter taking up one of the spaces, the night lights setting the place in a bluish glow.
“Captain?” she calls, her heels echoing off the walls. “Sir?”
“Over here.” He’s in the shadows until he steps out to meet them halfway. His hands are held out at his sides
“What’s this about, Roy?”
“Your mother’s case,” Montgomery rasps, reaching back for the revolver that catches the light when he holds it out. “I need to wrap up loose ends.”
She feels Castle shift behind her, his arm bumping hers as if he’s prepared to jump in front of her. “What?”
“I was a rookie, Kate. McAllister and Raglan? They were heroes to me. So when they said that what we were doing, abducting mobsters for ransom, was right, I didn’t question it. I started to believe in it. That night, we were supposed to just snatch Joe Pulgatti. Bob Armen, this undercover FBI agent, wasn’t supposed to be there.” His exhale is heavy, the hand holding his revolver waving against his thigh in a way that has Beckett reaching for her own weapon. “Armen reached for my gun and that’s when I heard the shot. Didn’t even know it was my gun that went off until Armen went down. McAllister pulled me into the van, kept telling me that it was okay, that it wasn’t my fault. ‘Happens in this town every day.’ McAllister and Raglan tried to drown it but I put it all back into the job. I became the best cop I could be.
“And then when you walked into the Twelfth, Kate,” he continues, looking up at the ceiling. “I felt the hand of God and I knew he was giving me a second chance. I thought, if I could protect you the way I should have protected her, then maybe…”
She sways, dangerously close to falling to her knees under the press of knowledge. Castle’s hand is at her elbow, trying to support her until she knocks him away. “Did you kill my mother?” she whispers, sheer will making sure that her voice doesn’t crack.
“No.” His answer comes quickly, accompanied by a shake of his head. “That came years later but she died because of what we did that night.”
“And now you’re going to finish the job? Get rid of anyone who knows anything about what you’ve done?”
“No,” Montgomery insists, stepping forward. She holds her ground. “But somehow, the man who did kill her found out what we had done and he could have turned all of us in. Instead, he demanded the ransom money. He took that money to become what he is and, God forgive me, that may be my greatest sin.”
“Give me a name,” she grinds out. “You owe me that much.”
“I can’t. I give you a name and you’ll run straight at him. You don’t stand a chance against him. But I brought you here to lure them.”
This time, she does falter, letting Castle’s solid strength behind her catch her. “You baited them?”
Montgomery nods. “They’re coming,” he says, gesturing toward the set of headlights making their way down the runway of the small airport. “You need to leave, Kate. They’re coming to kill you and I’m not going to let them. I’m ending this now.”
“I’m not leaving, sir,” she says, flipping the lock off of her gun.
“Yes, you are. Castle, get her out of here.”
She spins on her heel, her mouth open. “You’re in on this?”
“Kate, just -”
“No, Castle,” she hisses, turning back to Montgomery. “Sir, you don’t have to do this.” She shrugs Castle’s hand off of her shoulder. “Sir, I forgive you, okay? I forgive you.”
“This is where I’m making my stand. I’m not leaving.”
Tears push at her eyes but she refuses to let them fall. Instead, she grabs for her captain’s hand even though he jerks away. “No, Roy. Please. You don’t have to do this.”
“Castle, get her out of here. Now!”
Before she can stop him, Castle’s arms band around her upper arms, trapping them against her sides. Her fingers dig into his thighs as he runs from the hangar even as tires squeal behind them. She’s babbling, the protests falling from her lips ignored by Castle until he gets outside of the hangar. He drops her to her feet, turning and pressing her back against the side of her vehicle.
She slumps down, all of the fight gone as he cups her cheeks, his lower half keeping her in place even as his mouth ghosts over her face. He’s breathing apologies into her tear-stained skin, quieting her with soft touches across her lips.
When the first gunshot rings out, she jerks under him, a harsh sob escaping that she muffles in the fabric of his jacket. “Castle, please… Let me go,” she begs as a second and third shot echoes. She knows her nails are scoring his neck and collarbone as she tries to force his weight off of her but can’t bring herself to care. Not now.
It is only when the last of the eight gunshots die down and silence settles over the area that Castle steps back. Her legs give out and he catches her.
“Kate, you don’t need to see -”
But she dashes away the tears as she runs back to the hangar. Her voice is thin and broken as she calls out for Montgomery, searching the fallen men for her captain. Her knees ache as she drops to them at his side, her hands hesitating before she curves over his body, her forehead pressed lightly to his. She hears the door open and shut behind her, hears the low whispers.
“Beckett, we need to secure the scene and get statements.” It’s not the man she thought she would hear. It’s Ryan who lays a hand gently on her shoulder, pulling her back.
He helps her up, giving her the tiniest of pushes toward the back of the hangar and away from the bodies. Esposito passes her, nodding tightly, his jaw set.
Castle dips his fingers into her pocket, taking the keys out before she can really react. “I’m driving,” he says simply, nudging her toward the door even as she turns to look back.
Neither of them speak on the ride back to Manhattan. She breaks off from him once he unlocks the front door of the loft, going to the liquor cabinet and taking down the bottle of whiskey and a tumbler. Her hands are steady as she pours the amber liquid. The bottle comes with her as she sits on the couch, taking a deep sip of the whiskey.
She can already feel the nightmares tugging at her. The alcohol is making her already exhausted body drop closer and closer to the darkness of unconsciousness and she just wants the image of her mentor bleeding out on the hangar floor gone. She wants to rewind, to go back and fight Castle just a little harder. To save Roy.
And that’s when her body starts to shake. Some of the whiskey sloshes over the rim of the crystal, droplets hitting the rug under the couch as Castle takes the tumbler from her.
“Let’s go to bed,” he says softly.
She lets him tug her up to her feet and she sees the flash of panic as it goes across the surface of his eyes when she stumbles against his side, the grace she carries so naturally shed back on the hangar floor with her captain. When they get into the study, the moon providing the only illumination, she shoves him up against the bookshelves.
“What’re you doi -” is all he manages before she practically climbs his body, her right leg hooking as high around his knee as possible. Her lips blaze a heated trail along his jaw, teeth biting down sharply at the day’s worth of stubble. Even then, the motion is slower than usual, her feet dragging as she pushes herself closer to him.
“I want to forget,” she whispers into the corner of his mouth. “I can’t sleep yet. I just need you.”
He’s tense, far too still against her when he turns his head. “This first and then bed?”
Her fingers are between them, trying to yank his shirt over his head. “Yes,” she pleads as his lips brush lightly over the arch of her nose. “Please.”
His hand loops under her thigh, helping her hop up so that both legs circle his waist. Her shoes drop to the floor as she rolls her body against his, her head tucked into the crook of his shoulder in an attempt to keep the tears at bay for just a little while longer.
“We do this my way then,” he bites into her neck, his fingers pushing under the hem of her shirt to squeeze at her bare back. “In bed.”
She wants to protest, to demand that he just help her right here and right now because she needs to get her mind away from the darkness lingering right there but he’s already spinning off of the bookshelves and moving into the bedroom. Her breath huffs out of her when he drops her onto the bed. Still standing, he works at the button of her dress pants, sliding them and her underwear off so that they fall onto the ground. Her fingers fumble with the zipper of his jeans, giving up and resorting to pulling his shirt over his head. As he gets his pants off, his belt buckle clatters against her badge, still clipped to the waistband of her pants on the floor.
He goes for her shirt, tangling her hands in the fabric at her wrists, pinning her hands over her head. She arches up when his free hand skims down along her side, his thumb lingering over her breast where his short nail scrapes over the nipple through the cotton of her bra. His mouth captures her whimper when he abandons her breast and continues down to tease at the sensitive skin just below her navel. Her hips jerk up, her eyes slamming shut.
His knee pushes her thigh out so that her foot falls off of the bed, toes barely touching the rug. She wants to touch him, to feel the ripple of muscle as he teases her clit. Her hands twist helplessly in her shirt when he pushes deep into her, a little roughly.
“Oh, God,” she chokes as he thrusts fast and hard until she comes on a short, sharp cry. His release follows on the heels of hers, his body heavy and hot over her as she tries to free her hands before she completely breaks down, the distractions worn out and gone.
She fails.
Her arms relax and she turns her head into his shoulder just as the sobs wrack her body.
He only murmurs acknowledgements as he unhooks her bra, sliding it down her arms and tossing it with the rest of their clothes. She hears him padding over to the bureau then he sits her up to pull on the soft t-shirt. The mattress dips as he gets in behind her, tugging the covers up and over them.
She buries her head into the crook of his neck, her mouth open at his collarbone as she forces the tears to stop. “I don’t know what to do anymore,” she admits finally as his fingers trace patterns over her back.
“One day at a time,” he tells her, his voice as rough as hers, touching a soft kiss to the corner of her eye. “Sleep now.”
She doesn’t sleep.
Neither does he.