castle fic; just hold onto me
just hold onto me | Castle; Castle/Beckett | 3,761 words | g | post Countdown
Always.
The truth is he thinks he's only just now beginning to understand exactly what that means.
He's said it more than once and it's always been so easy, felt so completely natural, and maybe that should have been a sign; maybe it had been and he'd simply pretended he didn't see it. But not anymore.
What he feels for her is bigger than anything he's ever experienced and if nothing else, nearly dying with her twice in 24 hours has made him acutely aware of one difficult truth: for better or worse, what he feels for her will never be undone.
Over and over again, the word always plays in his ears and he can't forget how it felt to be holding her, just trying to keep her alive, hearing himself promise that he was with her. Always.
It's one single, simple, word but he understands now that really it holds the same meaning as three.
-
It's a cliché, he knows, that nearly dying makes you want to take all the risks you never thought you could before but he understands that there's truth to it because he feels it right now, this overwhelming urge to tell her exactly what he means when he says 'always'. The problem though, is that it doesn't actually make it any easier to do so.
He could have told her when they first realised they were locked in, made it a reason to fight all the harder to get out, but he didn't because at that point he still thought they would get out and he wasn't completely sure that those words would stand up in the face of reality.
(It's not that he thought they would cease to be true, only that they had the potential to change everything and maybe they wouldn't know how to face that in the warm light of day.)
And he could have told her when they were huddled against the wall and he was trying so hard to hold her close and keep her warm; or when they were staring down a ticking bomb and she was gripping his fingers in hers, but he didn't and he's not even sure why.
Perhaps the truth of it is that if he's going to say the words, they can't simply be borne out of fear or adrenaline; they have to be deliberate because he won't be able to take them back and he knows that one way or another, they will change things.
It's not enough to take that risk in the face of death. He needs to tell her knowing that, good or bad, he'll live with the consequences because she's worth the risk.
Montgomery's right, he knows how lucky he is and it hasn't really got anything to do with being alive but everything to do with the fact that, by pure chance, he stumbled into Kate Beckett's life and for some unknown reasons she's let him stay there with her.
He can feel the words settling on his tongue and in this moment it seems completely simple.
But then he sees Josh behind them and the words dry up, as he's so rudely reminded that though it often feels like it, the world is not just he and Kate and he knows he can't say it, not like this, with her boyfriend right there.
The problem with Josh - with any of Beckett's boyfriends truth be told - is that he's not really a bad guy. It's easy enough to make fun of him, to call him 'Doctor Motorcycle Boy' as a way of feeling less inferior to his particular brand of perfection, but at the end of the day the truth is he is a decent guy and he knows that because Beckett wouldn't be with him if he weren't. And that's what makes it so much harder, because how can he want it to end if it's going to hurt her? And how can he feel jealous, or angry, or disappointed if she's happy?
He loves to see a smile on her face and though he of course prefers it when it exists for - or because of - him, he can't really resent Josh for her making her happy because he's honestly glad she is.
As he watches Josh drape his arms around her he wonders if maybe this is what she was feeling the night he left with Gina for the Hamtpons.
The fact is, he never allowed himself to really think about what happened that night. He couldn't face up to the brutal truth that just maybe he'd walked away from her right when she needed him to stay. It was only later that he could even acknowledge that she had wanted to tell him something that night and he hadn't let her.
(At the time he was afraid of what she might say. Now he's afraid of what he didn't let her and what they might have missed as a result.)
So he bites his own tongue and walks away because he refuses to hurt her by putting his desires before hers.
-
She's still a little shaky, even now, and she finds it harder than she should to fit her apartment key into her lock. Josh stands patiently next to her and he should be a comforting presence but it doesn't feel that way.
Instead she feels like everything has changed in the past twenty-four hours and she's only ever felt that once in her life, when her mother died, and this should not feel the same because no matter how close they came, they lived and that should be all that matters.
(She tries to let that fact be all that she feels but there's still so much else swirling inside her and she's finding it hard to focus. On anything.)
She takes a breath and her hand stills long enough to finally get her key in the lock and turn it smoothly. Josh smiles at her warmly and this time she thinks she's beginning to understand why this doesn't feel right anymore.
What she'd loved about their relationship when it began was that they were both independent and they seemed to know how to respect that in each other and she knows that right now, Josh is letting her work things out for herself because he knows she doesn't need him to protect or take care of her.
But just hours earlier Castle had seen her shaking hands and taken the coffee pot from her and it didn't feel condescending or undermining, it just felt like Castle knowing her well enough to see when she needed help.
And maybe when you get right down to it, that's just the difference. With Castle there's three years of friendship and partnership between them and it just means so much more; he knows her better than Josh.
She feels unfair for comparing them like this. After all, time can change everything. Six months into their partnership she still mostly felt like Castle was a six year old on a sugar rush and she never imagined he could be who he is to her now. But of course, that's just the point; Castle is this important now and is part of her life in a way Josh isn't. And maybe Josh could be that important given more time, but a tiny part of her can't help but wonder what kind of sense it makes to spend three years just trying to find that out.
(An even bigger part of her - a part she wants to ignore, lest the guilt eat her alive - already knows it would be a waste. No one will ever mean the same to her as Castle.)
-
She leaves Josh to order dinner while she takes a shower.
She steps into the scalding water hoping to finally chase the cold ache from her bones but the heat of it burns her skin and she finds she can no longer distinguish the difference between the sting of heat and the bite of cold.
Under the steady stream of water she still shivers and she can't stop her mind from taking her back to that freezer. She's tried not to think about it since she woke to Josh's concerned face hovering above her and his hands gently holding her down as she tried to breathe out the single terrifying question in her head at that moment - “Castle?”
But now there's nothing else to focus on; no urgency of a ticking bomb weighing on her, nor the cautious affection of her boyfriend as he tries to demonstrate his commitment - just the feel of water on her skin and the memory of thinking she was going to die in Castle's arms.
It seems to be a recurring theme with them, that every time she thinks they've reached a new depth of intimacy, something bigger takes hold of them.
There was a time, not even so long ago, when holding his hand while sitting by an empty pool had once felt like the closest they had ever been and she had held her breath in that moment, almost overwhelmed by the power of it. But now in her memory it's eclipsed by the hours they'd spent locked in a freezer together, and the mere seconds it had taken her to reach out and touch him as she wondered if she was going to die.
In those last few moments before the cold completely took over all she could feel was him and not just the physicality of his arms around her, but the depth of his loyalty and the strength of their partnership. And when he whispered the words “I'm sorry” she felt every piece of herself she'd given him over the years and everything he'd given her in return; she felt their entire relationship in perfect clarity and understood just how much he meant to her life.
She wishes she had had the strength to comfort him in that moment, the way he did for her, and she wishes she still could now because she's sure that this will leave scars. There was something on his face as he left the precinct that afternoon that she can't seem to shake and the thought of him going home alone makes her ache.
There's a knock on her bathroom door and she hears Josh's voice, “Kate? Are you okay?”
“I'm fine, just getting out now,” she calls back and she can hear the tension in the back of her throat. It shouldn't be there, she thinks. But then, there's so much right now that shouldn't be. She shouldn't be irritated by Josh respecting her space and calling through the door but she is.
And she absolutely shouldn't be thinking about the fact that if she were with Castle, he would just walk right in, because he'd know that she needed him.
(But she is.)
-
By the time Alexis and Martha get back from the Hamptons he's well into his third glass of wine.
“Darling, I'm all for celebrating being alive but you couldn't wait an hour for us to get home?” his mother says lightly as she and Alexis walk through the door.
He puts his glass down on the counter. “I'm not exactly celebrating mother,” he says tiredly, already feeling the effects of the alcohol in his system and though he's usually a happy drunk, tonight it's making him melancholy.
“Well then I'm a little confused as to what's going on right now,” Martha says gesturing at the bottle of wine in front of him and Alexis stands by her side silently watching him.
“I need to talk to you both about something,” he says carefully.
“Dad? Is everything okay?” Alexis says, worry evident in her voice as she does what he's asked and pulls out one of the kitchen stools.
“No. Yes,” he shakes his head with a sigh and then pauses for a moment before finding the strength to finally say the words out loud.
“I'm in love with her,” he breathes out looking at them both with something so close to despair in his eyes because a confession like this should be one of joy and excitement, but for him it's so much harder.
“With who?” Alexis questions in a single breath, not because she doesn't understand but because she wants absolute confirmation of something she and Gram have been so sure of for quite some time now.
And he does confirm it, with a single syllable. “Kate.”
“Dad, you have to tell her!” Alexis exclaims and the smile on her face just makes it hurt all the more. He knows Alexis admires Beckett, knows she's always wanted him to find someone he could have a serious relationship but as mature as his daughter is he still sees so much innocence in her.
“I can't,” he tells her sadly, looking to Martha for understanding.
She stands and walks to the cabinets, pulling out a wine glass and filling it to the brim before speaking, “You're right Richard, this does warrant a drink.”
Alexis looks back and forth between them, “Why can't you tell her?”
“She's in a relationship sweetie,” he answers her.
“But she has feelings for you too dad. I mean, come on you know she does,” Alexis says firmly.
He sighs. “Yes. I think she has feelings for me. But she's with Josh and I know she wants it to work. I can't ask her to make that choice. It's not fair.”
“So what are you going to do Richard? You can't just keep pretending you don't love her,” Martha asks gently, seeing how much pain this is causing her son.
“I don't know,” he tells them sadly. Alexis leaps off her stool and runs to him, wrapping her arms around him as he hugs her back tightly, grateful at least for the comfort of his family.
-
After a day or two of slight awkwardness between them (which they each privately chalk up to exhaustion and nothing more) they fall back into routine easily, like they always seem to, gravitating back to the comfort zones they've created with each other with no mention of what they've been through.
They choose instead to simply be.
(It's their own way of clinging to something they're so afraid of losing.)
-
For five nights in a row Josh sleeps at her apartment. He doesn't ask her, just assumes that this is where she wants him, and he wraps his arms tightly around her enveloping her with warmth.
But it's the wrong kind of warmth, suffocating and cloying, filling her with the same sense of panic she had felt as the cold had slowly taken over her, and each night she carefully slides out of his embrace to sit on her couch wrapped in a light blanket instead.
It's odd having him so present and she feels guilty for not being happier about it. It's just that, when she said she wanted him here, it wasn't so much about wanting him in her space every day as it was simply wanting the option, wanting to know that if she called him he could be with her in a matters of minutes, not days or weeks. She just didn't want him to always be on the other side of the world; she didn't want to feel like she was in a relationship with a ghost.
Now he's here, always, and it's not what she wants. She wants to feel like she can breathe again.
(Once more she feels betrayed by her own secrets truths and she can't help but compare the two of them yet again because she sees Castle every day, he's always in her space, and it never feels like anything less than their own normality.)
On the sixth night she tells him she needs a night alone and he nods like he understands but his eyes tell her he doesn't really.
-
At first it feels good to have her own space back, just for a little while. The air is less stuffy and she feels like she can breathe again, content to just curl up in bed and enjoy the silence - but then she starts to feel cold and the warmth of her blanket is only superficial and she feels that familiar shiver deep in her bones.
For hours she tries to fall asleep but she can't and she thinks about calling Josh but she knows it's not really his company she needs. (Or wants.)
She picks up her phone and hesitates for a moment, aware that this will inevitably be seen as a turning point (for which part of her life, an ending or a beginning, she's not exactly sure) but she takes a deep breath and dials his number anyway.
It rings and rings and she nearly hangs up but eventually she hears his voice, like a question, “Beckett?”
“Hey.”
“Hey,” he replies, surprised to hear her voice at this time of night, and when there's still silence on the other end of the line he says, “You couldn't sleep,” in that confident way he has with her.
She knows there's no point in either confirming or denying it because, as is often the case with him, he just knows, so instead of answering she just says the first thing that enters her head.
“Your freezer's always stocked with ice cream right?” (And how odd, she thinks to herself, that it should be that.)
He laughs, “Of course. With Alexis and Martha in the house it'd be dangerous not to.”
“Good. Cos I think I could really use some right now,” she tells him. “I'll see you soon.”
“Okay,” he answers easily and she silently thanks him for not questioning why she's calling him at one in the morning like there's nothing strange about it.
-
She knocks quietly at his door, conscious that everyone is else is fast asleep, but he's right there waiting for her and he opens the door quickly, letting her in and leading her to the couch where he's already got two cartons of ice cream waiting on the coffee table.
She smiles at him and he grins back, neither saying a word but simply sitting on the couch in companionable silence.
It's a strange sort of catharsis she thinks, embracing the cold of the ice cream with the warmth of his apartment - and maybe more importantly the warmth of his presence on the couch beside her - but somehow it works.
She can feel the tension in her start to evaporate and exhaustion begins to catch up with her. She leans her body into his couch, resting her head on it's back while he gently pulls her legs up over his lap, letting his hand rest lightly on her thigh.
(He tells himself that he's not crossing any lines because whatever else he feels for her he's her partner and friend and she came to him for a reason. He's just trying to be whatever it is she needs. Of course, he doesn't completely believe it because his heart is pounding a little too hard in his chest for it be safely within the boundaries of friendship.)
When she closes her eyes all she can feel is the warmth of his hand on her thigh and it almost feels like the heat from that one point of contact is radiating through the rest of her body. Maybe it's this small comfort, or maybe it's that she's just too tired to fight it any more, but when she opens her eyes to find him looking at her so gently, the words just slip out of her.
“I'm not happy with Josh.”
He holds his breath, reminding himself not to jump to conclusions, that her relationship with Josh is independent of whatever it is they have, and he shouldn't assume that this revelations has anything to do with him at all.
“I'm sorry Kate,” he tells her sincerely, reaching out and gently stroking her hair. (He tries to reign himself in, thinking to himself: boundaries, but he can't quite manage that much self control, wanting only to comfort her in this moment.)
“Thank you,” she tells him quietly, almost asleep now.
“For what?” he questions, as the sense of deja vu begins to flood over him.
“For being here,” she murmurs. “For being you.”
He doesn't reply, doesn't say always, because he's not quite sure he can handle replaying that moment so precisely. It doesn't matter though, she's already asleep.
He pulls a blanket over her, comfortable with the warmth of her body so close to his, idly thinking that maybe this was the cure they needed for the memory of almost freezing to death, and falls asleep soon after.
-
In the morning he wakes to the notable absence of Kate's weight on his lap and he finds her in the kitchen quietly sipping coffee. She looks up when she hears him and smiles warmly at him. She looks less burdened than she did the night before and it fills him with uncontrollable hope.
“I was just about to head home,” she tells him.
“You sure you don't want breakfast?” he asks her and she raises her coffee mug as if to say, it's right here.
“I could make eggs. Or something,” he offers awkwardly but she shakes her head at him, though still with a trace of her earlier smile.
“I've gotta get home and change for work,” she says taking a final sip and putting the mug on the counter.
She steps out from around it and stands in front of him. “See you at the precinct,” she says, not a question but a statement, and he nods. Then she reaches for his hand, gripping it briefly but tightly, while her eyes never leave his.
She walks to the door and he walks with her, unwilling to let go of her hand until he absolutely has to and as he watches the elevator doors close he has only one thought: he'll wait for her to be ready.
-
In the elevator Kate Beckett smiles to herself. There are things she has to sort through first but in the end she's sure she'll be okay.
She won't wait much longer.