. . . Are Mine: An All the Things You Are Sequel (Caskett one-shot set durin The Final Nail 3 x 15)
Title: . . . Are Mine: An All the Things You Are Sequel
Rating: T
Summary: "She hates everything about this case, truth be told. She won't apologize for doing her job, but right now, she hates having to do it alone. Having to be this. The voice of reason. Of cynicism and likelihood running headlong at the dogged, stubborn good that resides in him. Stalwart belief that won't let him see anything less in this man he's been building up in his mind since he was just a boy."
A/N: This started out in a very different place, then became this sequel to a story I wrote a long while ago set during and after The Final Nail (3 x 15). Unfortunately, I don't think this will make much sense without having read "All the Things You Are" first.
The dearest things I know are what you are.
Someday my happy arms will hold you,
And someday I'll know that moment divine
When all the things you are, are mine.
- "All the Things You Are," Kern & Hammerstein
She hates the sight of him leaving. Hates the symbolism of the box in his arms, though it's nothing more than a twenty-year-old murder case that can only bring him more misery.
Damian Westlake
She hates everything about this case, truth be told. She won't apologize for doing her job, but right now, she hates having to do it alone. Having to be this. The voice of reason. Of cynicism and likelihood running headlong at the dogged, stubborn good that resides in him. Stalwart belief that won't let him see anything less in this man he's been building up in his mind since he was just a boy.
She's angry with him for more than stepping on her toes at every turn. Angry with him because she wants it to be someone-anyone-other than Damian Westlake. She wants to ignore the evidence. For the first time in her career-in the whole of her adult life-she wants to forge ahead on nothing more than belief.
She doesn't. Of course she doesn't. And she hates the sight of him leaving.
She's a version of herself she doesn't much like without him. A re-version. The realization makes her skin feel tight all over. Like she doesn't fit inside anymore, and her voice sounds strange in her own ears. Like it's too loud inside her head.
She bats down run-of-the-mill theories from Ryan and Esposito. Territory they have to cover- that it makes good sense to cover-but it's slow going without him. Without a mind so entirely different from theirs.
They get on to one jeweler, then the other, and she should be revving up, eager to close in. But she feels dull. Clumsy, like gears that usually hum along in her head are grinding and clanging. Like she can't see the whole of anything without him, and she's angry again.
Angry as she jams her finger down on the bell. Thinks better of it and slams her fist against Damian Westlake's door. She feels like herself for a fleeting instant. Satisfaction as the man jerks the door open and startles back from the fist she's just about to bring down again. A fleeting instant, before she shoulders her way into the foyer.
She's too loud. Too harsh. Too everything, and too wrong in too many ways until the conversation takes a turn she wasn't counting on. A sudden turn that surprises her, even as she settles into the right lines.
You really think I'm that cold?
Personally, I have no doubt. But Richard Castle believes in you, and I believe in him.
She settles back into the right lines.
They almost run into each other. They pull up, each of them, just short of the elevator. It gives him a lift. Her too, their near collision. The coil of tension between them snaps, just like that. It dissolves, suddenly and absolutely, and the sheer relief is absurd on both sides.
I think I know who the killer is.
Perfect unison and a long beat. The two of them staring at each other like long-lost friends reunited. Except not quite like that.
Not quite friends.
The thought flits through her mind. Flickers over her face. Either that or he sees the suddenly pounding pulse at the hollow of her throat, because he's looking at her so intently-patient and eager, sure and unsure. She blushes. She's about to, but she remembers the box. That he'd run off to solve a twenty-year-old murder. She frowns instead.
"You know who . . . Victoria Westlake?"
"No." He gives her a tight shake of the head, a little abashed as he looks past her and adds absently, "Phillip . . . Damian's father."
She turns to follow his gaze. Amber Patinelli with a possessive arm looped through Simon Campbell's.
"Those two?" he asks, but he's already on to it. Already sure enough what she means by the eager nod she gives him that he's aiming himself toward the door of the conference room.
She catches him by the sleeve, though. Stops his forward progress and pulls him around to face her. "But Phillip . . ." She gives him the opening, but he doesn't take it, and she's puzzled by how flat everything about him is. "Not Damian?" she asks, half afraid to.
"Not exactly." His eyes drop to the floor. "Maybe not at all," he adds. It's not convincing. Not at all. He shakes himself, though. Squares his shoulders and shoes her toward the room. "This first. For Victoria."
"I can come with you."
They're both surprised when she makes the quiet offer. She hangs up her desk phone-a courtesy call from the higher ups who'll handle actual arrest-just as he brings his thumb down on the face of his cell.
He's resigned to it-everything to come-and shocked at the same time. Crushed absolutely and still resolute.
"If you want," she adds when he doesn't say anything. "If it would . . . help. I could come with you."
It's hollow. Inadequate. She shakes her head, eyes downcast. She opens her mouth to apologize. To tell him to forget she said anything, but he reaches out before she can. His fingers just brush her wrist. The back of the hand that's still braced against the desk, bloodless with tension. With regret, even though she was just doing her job.
"It would help." It's almost inaudible, like he's not quite convinced the first time. Like he's not quite convinced anything can. But he says it again, steadier. "It . . . thanks. It would help."
She's not sure what this is. The aftermath. He's devastated. Young with it. He looks so young that it sounds wrong when he says it.
It must've been Ernest Hemingway who said, 'Man, I sure could use a drink right about now.'
And then she's offering, even though it was the farthest thing from any kind of a hint on his part. So far from it that he brings up Josh. He brings up Valentine's Day and where it is she ought to be.
She falters then. Projects and thinks maybe he wants his solitude after all. Maybe he wants to lick his wounds in private or maybe he's still angry. Maybe he'll always be angry that she was the one who took this from him. Validation. A friend and mentor in the lonely upheaval of adolescence. Maybe he'll never forgive her for the sight of Damian Westlake being ducked into the back of an unmarked.
She almost leaves him to it, but she hates the thought of him going. She hates to think of the sun setting on him alone.
I've got a couple of hours.
It's work she's not used to doing. Talking. Keeping the conversation alive. Not with him, because it's never a struggle. He talks more than enough for two. Far more than enough for two, but that's not it, either. She talks to him. They talk to each other. Banter and tit-for-tat abuse, but they talk, too.
He coaxes, of course. Teases and baits. But he has such an open heart that hers can't help but answer, and they talk. On endless rides in her unmarked and brisk walks to and from the precinct. While they wait and wait and wait for warrants and transfers and results. They talk.
But it's work tonight. He's monosyllabic and she's stumbling. Rubbing salt in his wounds when she doesn't mean to.
"So. Worst Valentine's Day?"
She could kick herself for it. Even before the pained laugh. The rusty, sawed off reply that hurts, even though he doesn't mean that. It's nothing to do with her, but it hurts.
"This one?"
It must be all over her face. HURT in bold type, right across her forehead. It must be. He sinks further into misery, and she feels like she's going right down with him, because she's so bad at this. So bad at being anyone's shoulder to lean on.
She stares down at her own hands. The nearest piece of a body that she thinks of as strong. Capable and self-sufficient. She stares down at her hands, hurt and miserable and wanting to do better by him. By them, and it dawns on her that she's out of practice.
She thinks about her dad. The Herculean effort of tugging him up from the depths. The infinitely harder work of letting go when it was time for him to pull himself the rest of the way. She hears her own voice, low and still surprising in the hum of the never-silent bullpen.
He's sober now. Five years.
Another two since then. Another two, and she can't think of a single person since who's asked her for this: To be there. To share a burden even for the space of a few hours. She can't think of anyone she's made the offer to. Not a single person.
She raises her eyes. He's staring into his glass. It's empty, and not for the first time, but she pushes that aside. The reflexive stiffening of her spine. The knee-jerk urge to pour and pour again, because it can go either way.
She waits for him to look up, her hand wrapped loosely around the bottle. She waits. Holds his gaze when he finally does and offers. Takes a leap that's as much panic as it is ferocious clarity.
"You wanna hear mine?"
She feels powerful telling the story. Some parts are harder than others. But she feels powerful and ridiculous and shame-faced and delighted that she'd ever been such a love-struck fool. That once upon a time she'd had the luxury of that. Of being different and not-so-different from any other 19-year-old.
He hangs on her every word. He laughs and gasps and his eyes go wide. She's lost in it. The role reversal and everything that comes along with it. The sore, raw places in her exposed by this thing she hasn't done-no one has asked her to do-in so long.
It's not easy. She burns all the way up from her toes. Hurts, in a distant kind of way that's mostly nostalgia. Out-of-body sympathy for the fool she was. It's nothing like easy, but she's as swept along as he is. As eager to know what happens next, and it's like every time she picks up a best-loved book and wonders in her heart-of-hearts whether it might turn out differently when she cracks the cover this time.
She's caught up enough that even the sudden shock of his fingertips touching hers can't pull her off course. Not entirely. She lets him top off her glass and his, but it's nothing more than a gesture. The good kind of anchor that keeps them here. In this moment and not sinking.
Far from sinking.
It's dark when they climb their way up to street level. That deceptive February kind of dark that comes on suddenly. Makes her blink hard and wonder what day it even is. If they've somehow talked their way through clear to March. It's an oddly pleasant thought. Silly and hopeful, like spring lurking nearby. Like an unexpected early spring twining between them in the circle of early evening streetlight.
It's pleasant, but it seems to leave her shy. She steals a glance up him and sees they're in agreement that shoes are the most fascinating thing in the world right now. He's so fixated on his own-on hers-that she's bolder. She gives him a once over and brightens to see the easier set of his shoulders and the familiar geometry of lips inclined to smile.
He's better. Not good, but better, and they are too. When she closes her eyes and breathes in, it's not the sight of him leaving that greets her. It's him stepping off the elevator, scanning the bullpen and finding her right away, It's him with his shoulders lifted and two white cups curled protectively into his chest. Their morning offering.
The wind kicks up. It rattles the leafless branches and sends trash scudding along the pavement. It rouses her. She laughs at herself and opens her eyes. He's watching. A bold gaze of his own for half a second before the wind and something familiar paint cheeks. Bold, then shy, then bold again.
"So," he says, his voice not quite as playful as he'd like. Not quite as steady. "Best Valentine's Day?"
It's an obvious question. Point and counterpoint for these few, nameless hours. It shouldn't feel momentous, but lately everything does between them. Gina and comfort food and him going. The two of them bumping shoulders, side by side as they leave something so painful behind. The two of them standing here, not quite toe to toe in the sudden February dark.
"Yet to come, I think."
It takes forever for the words to make their way out into the world between them. Forever, and then there's nothing but stillness. Hers. His. There's nothing until she finds the will to ask. Will to do the work when his eyes finally meet hers again and she doesn't understand what she sees there. She doesn't understand.
"What about you, Castle? Best Valentine's Day?"
He's silent still. Shrugging, and her eyes sting unexpectedly. Hurt rising up again, and she doesn't understand. Herself or him. She doesn't, and she's about to say so. Or turn and leave. Or grab him by the lapels and make him explain. She's about to do something heroic or stupid or both, but her phone buzzes and it all comes clear.
She remembers.
Shouldn't you be . . .
. . . I've got a couple hours
She remembers what they are and what they're not.
Dinner with Josh is nice. They get off on the wrong foot. A flare of tension, because she's late. Frazzled at how little time she'd had to get ready in the end. And he's annoyed. Worried they'll lose their table, and it wasn't easy to get.
But he pulls out her chair, and his hand lingers on her shoulder. She smiles up at him. She reaches up to rest her own fingers over his. There's a beat and they both step back, because they're good at this. Space. Mutual respect.
"Work thing," he says as he opens the wine list. He nods as if he understands. He always nods as if he understands, just like she does.
It's an easy enough lie, she thinks to herself as she scans the single-sheet menu.
Lie.
The word echoes through her head, but she pushes it away. She doesn't wonder what it is that makes it so, because things are fine after that. He talks, then she talks, then he talks again, and they're good at this, too.
She looks around the restaurant and thinks about all the women she wouldn't want to be. One turning a too-tight wedding ring in laborious circles around her finger as she tries to to pull three syllables together from her husband's mouth. One about her age who's too nervous. Too bright and determined to have a good time. She thinks about Lanie and Esposito and the pressures of the Hallmark holiday when you're just starting out.
She looks back to Josh, dropping into the conversation when she's supposed to, silently listing the things they're good at when it's not her turn. She's halfway into the one glass of wine she'll have tonight. Smiling and laughing and ticking things off one by one. Watching Josh smile and laugh when it's his turn, and all the while she feels out of herself. Floating above.
And then his pager goes off. He says all the right things. How sorry he is. How disappointed, and that he'll make it up to her. She says all the right things. That she understands. That she'll hold him to it.
She kisses him right there. Standing by the table, because she should finish her wine. She should wait for the dessert they'd already ordered, and he has to go now. She kisses him. Pushing him away with a laugh when he lingers, because it's urgent, right?
"It is."
He stoops to kiss her once more, on the cheek she turns up toward him at the last second. To whisper one last sorry, and she feels a dozen pairs of eyes on them. Women she wouldn't want to be, looking on in envy or curiosity or smug satisfaction as he goes at last.
She sits again, palms flat on the textured silk table cloth. She sits and lets out a breath she shouldn't have been holding. She feels her shoulders inching downward and her spine going soft. She settles back into herself and wonders where she's been this last hour or two. She wonders why it's not awkward, sitting there alone by candlelight.
She looks at the empty chair across from her and wonders why, mostly, she's relieved.
There's no reason at all to go to the precinct. No reason at all to make the trip all the way past her place and the long, hot bath waiting for her.
But she does go. She steps out of the cab and climbs the steps with purpose, because she can't just stand here on the sidewalk wondering why the hell she's here. She nods to the duty sergeant in his bulletproof cage. She stabs at the elevator button and closes her hands into fists at her sides. Resists the urge to pull her coat closed tight over the little black dress that feels far too short all of a sudden. Far too revealing.
The elevator dings on four. She doesn't move. She stands with her back pressed to the wall and thinks about hitting one again. She thinks about heading down and out and back. Home, because it's ridiculous being here when there's no reason for it. When there's the possibility, however remote, that Josh's emergency will resolve itself, one way or another, and he'll call. He'll come to her place.
It's the thought that has her pushing off the wall suddenly. The off chance that has her twisting her shoulders through the narrow gap in the doors just before they bump closed.
The possibility, however remote, that has he almost running right into Castle.
"Kate." Her name is a breath of surprise that comes with the first full-on smile she's seen from him in days. It fades, though. Turns to consternation as his hands drop away from where they'd landed on her shoulders to steady her in the suddenness of another near collision. "Beckett."
He says it like a correction. Like he's the one remembering what they are and what they're not. But he steps back and looks her up and down and up again. His eyes are wide when they meet hers.
"You're pretty," he blurts. He goes ten shades of red. "You look pretty." Worse and worse, as he tries to recover. "Your dress. New dress. I mean." He grits his teeth and his voice comes out something like normal this time. "You look amazing."
She doesn't know what to say to that. There's no thank you or any smart remark ready on her lips. She's warm with pleasure. Buzzing with nerves, and she has absolutely nothing to say.
"Here. Why?" He jumps dumbly into the silence, because someone has to say something. "You're not supposed to be . . ."
It galvanizes her, his vaguely accusing tone.
"Neither are you."
Her mind whirs. Not with possibilities, because there aren't any. There's no earthly reason for either of them to be there, and yet here they are, practically toe to toe again in a different circle of light.
"I just . . ." His head swivels on his neck. Back in the general direction of he desk. "Nothing," he says after the world's longest pause. "Stupid. Beckett . . . It's . . ."
He's following her now, because she seems to be going. Moving across the bullpen floor at speed, and the sound her strappy heels make on the scuffed terrazzo is deafening.
"It's nothing," he says again. Lamely, because there never been a more obvious lie. Even between them.
It's not nothing. It's enormous, and she notes with fondness-with some just-right brand of irritation riding along-that he's actually had to move things out of the way. Phone and stapler and sticky pad and elephants. They're all just slightly displaced, because it's huge. A massive heart-shaped box swaddled in purple satin, and there's nothing so pedestrian as cardboard underneath. There's structure to it and attention to the wide bow snugged diagonally across the whole, damned massive thing. It's not from any drugstore, that's for sure.
"Half-priced chocolate."
She says it almost to her self. Almost to her long-ago self, but he's right there. He's at her shoulder, and the reply that glances off the bare skin sounds just right, now and then. There's a sharp slice of longing right through her. A warm buzz, and she feels here. Right here and now.
"They were out of . . ." His courage fails him at the last second, but that's right, too. The way she turns from her desk-from not nothing-to face him. She stares him down, half laughing, half not. "The other thing," he finishes at last. "They were out."
"Too bad." She arches an eyebrow at him, hardly knowing who she is right now. Knowing exactly who she is and who she isn't, right here with him. "I wanted to see that cowboy wallpaper."
"Next year," he says boldly. Earnestly, even though he's bumping her around again. Nudging her fingers toward the bow. Toward the lift-off lid of the enormous satin heart and trying to get a peek inside. "Definitely next year."
A/N: Thank you for reading and supporting.
Rating: T
Summary: "She hates everything about this case, truth be told. She won't apologize for doing her job, but right now, she hates having to do it alone. Having to be this. The voice of reason. Of cynicism and likelihood running headlong at the dogged, stubborn good that resides in him. Stalwart belief that won't let him see anything less in this man he's been building up in his mind since he was just a boy."
A/N: This started out in a very different place, then became this sequel to a story I wrote a long while ago set during and after The Final Nail (3 x 15). Unfortunately, I don't think this will make much sense without having read "All the Things You Are" first.
The dearest things I know are what you are.
Someday my happy arms will hold you,
And someday I'll know that moment divine
When all the things you are, are mine.
- "All the Things You Are," Kern & Hammerstein
She hates the sight of him leaving. Hates the symbolism of the box in his arms, though it's nothing more than a twenty-year-old murder case that can only bring him more misery.
Damian Westlake
She hates everything about this case, truth be told. She won't apologize for doing her job, but right now, she hates having to do it alone. Having to be this. The voice of reason. Of cynicism and likelihood running headlong at the dogged, stubborn good that resides in him. Stalwart belief that won't let him see anything less in this man he's been building up in his mind since he was just a boy.
She's angry with him for more than stepping on her toes at every turn. Angry with him because she wants it to be someone-anyone-other than Damian Westlake. She wants to ignore the evidence. For the first time in her career-in the whole of her adult life-she wants to forge ahead on nothing more than belief.
She doesn't. Of course she doesn't. And she hates the sight of him leaving.
She's a version of herself she doesn't much like without him. A re-version. The realization makes her skin feel tight all over. Like she doesn't fit inside anymore, and her voice sounds strange in her own ears. Like it's too loud inside her head.
She bats down run-of-the-mill theories from Ryan and Esposito. Territory they have to cover- that it makes good sense to cover-but it's slow going without him. Without a mind so entirely different from theirs.
They get on to one jeweler, then the other, and she should be revving up, eager to close in. But she feels dull. Clumsy, like gears that usually hum along in her head are grinding and clanging. Like she can't see the whole of anything without him, and she's angry again.
Angry as she jams her finger down on the bell. Thinks better of it and slams her fist against Damian Westlake's door. She feels like herself for a fleeting instant. Satisfaction as the man jerks the door open and startles back from the fist she's just about to bring down again. A fleeting instant, before she shoulders her way into the foyer.
She's too loud. Too harsh. Too everything, and too wrong in too many ways until the conversation takes a turn she wasn't counting on. A sudden turn that surprises her, even as she settles into the right lines.
You really think I'm that cold?
Personally, I have no doubt. But Richard Castle believes in you, and I believe in him.
She settles back into the right lines.
They almost run into each other. They pull up, each of them, just short of the elevator. It gives him a lift. Her too, their near collision. The coil of tension between them snaps, just like that. It dissolves, suddenly and absolutely, and the sheer relief is absurd on both sides.
I think I know who the killer is.
Perfect unison and a long beat. The two of them staring at each other like long-lost friends reunited. Except not quite like that.
Not quite friends.
The thought flits through her mind. Flickers over her face. Either that or he sees the suddenly pounding pulse at the hollow of her throat, because he's looking at her so intently-patient and eager, sure and unsure. She blushes. She's about to, but she remembers the box. That he'd run off to solve a twenty-year-old murder. She frowns instead.
"You know who . . . Victoria Westlake?"
"No." He gives her a tight shake of the head, a little abashed as he looks past her and adds absently, "Phillip . . . Damian's father."
She turns to follow his gaze. Amber Patinelli with a possessive arm looped through Simon Campbell's.
"Those two?" he asks, but he's already on to it. Already sure enough what she means by the eager nod she gives him that he's aiming himself toward the door of the conference room.
She catches him by the sleeve, though. Stops his forward progress and pulls him around to face her. "But Phillip . . ." She gives him the opening, but he doesn't take it, and she's puzzled by how flat everything about him is. "Not Damian?" she asks, half afraid to.
"Not exactly." His eyes drop to the floor. "Maybe not at all," he adds. It's not convincing. Not at all. He shakes himself, though. Squares his shoulders and shoes her toward the room. "This first. For Victoria."
"I can come with you."
They're both surprised when she makes the quiet offer. She hangs up her desk phone-a courtesy call from the higher ups who'll handle actual arrest-just as he brings his thumb down on the face of his cell.
He's resigned to it-everything to come-and shocked at the same time. Crushed absolutely and still resolute.
"If you want," she adds when he doesn't say anything. "If it would . . . help. I could come with you."
It's hollow. Inadequate. She shakes her head, eyes downcast. She opens her mouth to apologize. To tell him to forget she said anything, but he reaches out before she can. His fingers just brush her wrist. The back of the hand that's still braced against the desk, bloodless with tension. With regret, even though she was just doing her job.
"It would help." It's almost inaudible, like he's not quite convinced the first time. Like he's not quite convinced anything can. But he says it again, steadier. "It . . . thanks. It would help."
She's not sure what this is. The aftermath. He's devastated. Young with it. He looks so young that it sounds wrong when he says it.
It must've been Ernest Hemingway who said, 'Man, I sure could use a drink right about now.'
And then she's offering, even though it was the farthest thing from any kind of a hint on his part. So far from it that he brings up Josh. He brings up Valentine's Day and where it is she ought to be.
She falters then. Projects and thinks maybe he wants his solitude after all. Maybe he wants to lick his wounds in private or maybe he's still angry. Maybe he'll always be angry that she was the one who took this from him. Validation. A friend and mentor in the lonely upheaval of adolescence. Maybe he'll never forgive her for the sight of Damian Westlake being ducked into the back of an unmarked.
She almost leaves him to it, but she hates the thought of him going. She hates to think of the sun setting on him alone.
I've got a couple of hours.
It's work she's not used to doing. Talking. Keeping the conversation alive. Not with him, because it's never a struggle. He talks more than enough for two. Far more than enough for two, but that's not it, either. She talks to him. They talk to each other. Banter and tit-for-tat abuse, but they talk, too.
He coaxes, of course. Teases and baits. But he has such an open heart that hers can't help but answer, and they talk. On endless rides in her unmarked and brisk walks to and from the precinct. While they wait and wait and wait for warrants and transfers and results. They talk.
But it's work tonight. He's monosyllabic and she's stumbling. Rubbing salt in his wounds when she doesn't mean to.
"So. Worst Valentine's Day?"
She could kick herself for it. Even before the pained laugh. The rusty, sawed off reply that hurts, even though he doesn't mean that. It's nothing to do with her, but it hurts.
"This one?"
It must be all over her face. HURT in bold type, right across her forehead. It must be. He sinks further into misery, and she feels like she's going right down with him, because she's so bad at this. So bad at being anyone's shoulder to lean on.
She stares down at her own hands. The nearest piece of a body that she thinks of as strong. Capable and self-sufficient. She stares down at her hands, hurt and miserable and wanting to do better by him. By them, and it dawns on her that she's out of practice.
She thinks about her dad. The Herculean effort of tugging him up from the depths. The infinitely harder work of letting go when it was time for him to pull himself the rest of the way. She hears her own voice, low and still surprising in the hum of the never-silent bullpen.
He's sober now. Five years.
Another two since then. Another two, and she can't think of a single person since who's asked her for this: To be there. To share a burden even for the space of a few hours. She can't think of anyone she's made the offer to. Not a single person.
She raises her eyes. He's staring into his glass. It's empty, and not for the first time, but she pushes that aside. The reflexive stiffening of her spine. The knee-jerk urge to pour and pour again, because it can go either way.
She waits for him to look up, her hand wrapped loosely around the bottle. She waits. Holds his gaze when he finally does and offers. Takes a leap that's as much panic as it is ferocious clarity.
"You wanna hear mine?"
She feels powerful telling the story. Some parts are harder than others. But she feels powerful and ridiculous and shame-faced and delighted that she'd ever been such a love-struck fool. That once upon a time she'd had the luxury of that. Of being different and not-so-different from any other 19-year-old.
He hangs on her every word. He laughs and gasps and his eyes go wide. She's lost in it. The role reversal and everything that comes along with it. The sore, raw places in her exposed by this thing she hasn't done-no one has asked her to do-in so long.
It's not easy. She burns all the way up from her toes. Hurts, in a distant kind of way that's mostly nostalgia. Out-of-body sympathy for the fool she was. It's nothing like easy, but she's as swept along as he is. As eager to know what happens next, and it's like every time she picks up a best-loved book and wonders in her heart-of-hearts whether it might turn out differently when she cracks the cover this time.
She's caught up enough that even the sudden shock of his fingertips touching hers can't pull her off course. Not entirely. She lets him top off her glass and his, but it's nothing more than a gesture. The good kind of anchor that keeps them here. In this moment and not sinking.
Far from sinking.
It's dark when they climb their way up to street level. That deceptive February kind of dark that comes on suddenly. Makes her blink hard and wonder what day it even is. If they've somehow talked their way through clear to March. It's an oddly pleasant thought. Silly and hopeful, like spring lurking nearby. Like an unexpected early spring twining between them in the circle of early evening streetlight.
It's pleasant, but it seems to leave her shy. She steals a glance up him and sees they're in agreement that shoes are the most fascinating thing in the world right now. He's so fixated on his own-on hers-that she's bolder. She gives him a once over and brightens to see the easier set of his shoulders and the familiar geometry of lips inclined to smile.
He's better. Not good, but better, and they are too. When she closes her eyes and breathes in, it's not the sight of him leaving that greets her. It's him stepping off the elevator, scanning the bullpen and finding her right away, It's him with his shoulders lifted and two white cups curled protectively into his chest. Their morning offering.
The wind kicks up. It rattles the leafless branches and sends trash scudding along the pavement. It rouses her. She laughs at herself and opens her eyes. He's watching. A bold gaze of his own for half a second before the wind and something familiar paint cheeks. Bold, then shy, then bold again.
"So," he says, his voice not quite as playful as he'd like. Not quite as steady. "Best Valentine's Day?"
It's an obvious question. Point and counterpoint for these few, nameless hours. It shouldn't feel momentous, but lately everything does between them. Gina and comfort food and him going. The two of them bumping shoulders, side by side as they leave something so painful behind. The two of them standing here, not quite toe to toe in the sudden February dark.
"Yet to come, I think."
It takes forever for the words to make their way out into the world between them. Forever, and then there's nothing but stillness. Hers. His. There's nothing until she finds the will to ask. Will to do the work when his eyes finally meet hers again and she doesn't understand what she sees there. She doesn't understand.
"What about you, Castle? Best Valentine's Day?"
He's silent still. Shrugging, and her eyes sting unexpectedly. Hurt rising up again, and she doesn't understand. Herself or him. She doesn't, and she's about to say so. Or turn and leave. Or grab him by the lapels and make him explain. She's about to do something heroic or stupid or both, but her phone buzzes and it all comes clear.
She remembers.
Shouldn't you be . . .
. . . I've got a couple hours
She remembers what they are and what they're not.
Dinner with Josh is nice. They get off on the wrong foot. A flare of tension, because she's late. Frazzled at how little time she'd had to get ready in the end. And he's annoyed. Worried they'll lose their table, and it wasn't easy to get.
But he pulls out her chair, and his hand lingers on her shoulder. She smiles up at him. She reaches up to rest her own fingers over his. There's a beat and they both step back, because they're good at this. Space. Mutual respect.
"Work thing," he says as he opens the wine list. He nods as if he understands. He always nods as if he understands, just like she does.
It's an easy enough lie, she thinks to herself as she scans the single-sheet menu.
Lie.
The word echoes through her head, but she pushes it away. She doesn't wonder what it is that makes it so, because things are fine after that. He talks, then she talks, then he talks again, and they're good at this, too.
She looks around the restaurant and thinks about all the women she wouldn't want to be. One turning a too-tight wedding ring in laborious circles around her finger as she tries to to pull three syllables together from her husband's mouth. One about her age who's too nervous. Too bright and determined to have a good time. She thinks about Lanie and Esposito and the pressures of the Hallmark holiday when you're just starting out.
She looks back to Josh, dropping into the conversation when she's supposed to, silently listing the things they're good at when it's not her turn. She's halfway into the one glass of wine she'll have tonight. Smiling and laughing and ticking things off one by one. Watching Josh smile and laugh when it's his turn, and all the while she feels out of herself. Floating above.
And then his pager goes off. He says all the right things. How sorry he is. How disappointed, and that he'll make it up to her. She says all the right things. That she understands. That she'll hold him to it.
She kisses him right there. Standing by the table, because she should finish her wine. She should wait for the dessert they'd already ordered, and he has to go now. She kisses him. Pushing him away with a laugh when he lingers, because it's urgent, right?
"It is."
He stoops to kiss her once more, on the cheek she turns up toward him at the last second. To whisper one last sorry, and she feels a dozen pairs of eyes on them. Women she wouldn't want to be, looking on in envy or curiosity or smug satisfaction as he goes at last.
She sits again, palms flat on the textured silk table cloth. She sits and lets out a breath she shouldn't have been holding. She feels her shoulders inching downward and her spine going soft. She settles back into herself and wonders where she's been this last hour or two. She wonders why it's not awkward, sitting there alone by candlelight.
She looks at the empty chair across from her and wonders why, mostly, she's relieved.
There's no reason at all to go to the precinct. No reason at all to make the trip all the way past her place and the long, hot bath waiting for her.
But she does go. She steps out of the cab and climbs the steps with purpose, because she can't just stand here on the sidewalk wondering why the hell she's here. She nods to the duty sergeant in his bulletproof cage. She stabs at the elevator button and closes her hands into fists at her sides. Resists the urge to pull her coat closed tight over the little black dress that feels far too short all of a sudden. Far too revealing.
The elevator dings on four. She doesn't move. She stands with her back pressed to the wall and thinks about hitting one again. She thinks about heading down and out and back. Home, because it's ridiculous being here when there's no reason for it. When there's the possibility, however remote, that Josh's emergency will resolve itself, one way or another, and he'll call. He'll come to her place.
It's the thought that has her pushing off the wall suddenly. The off chance that has her twisting her shoulders through the narrow gap in the doors just before they bump closed.
The possibility, however remote, that has he almost running right into Castle.
"Kate." Her name is a breath of surprise that comes with the first full-on smile she's seen from him in days. It fades, though. Turns to consternation as his hands drop away from where they'd landed on her shoulders to steady her in the suddenness of another near collision. "Beckett."
He says it like a correction. Like he's the one remembering what they are and what they're not. But he steps back and looks her up and down and up again. His eyes are wide when they meet hers.
"You're pretty," he blurts. He goes ten shades of red. "You look pretty." Worse and worse, as he tries to recover. "Your dress. New dress. I mean." He grits his teeth and his voice comes out something like normal this time. "You look amazing."
She doesn't know what to say to that. There's no thank you or any smart remark ready on her lips. She's warm with pleasure. Buzzing with nerves, and she has absolutely nothing to say.
"Here. Why?" He jumps dumbly into the silence, because someone has to say something. "You're not supposed to be . . ."
It galvanizes her, his vaguely accusing tone.
"Neither are you."
Her mind whirs. Not with possibilities, because there aren't any. There's no earthly reason for either of them to be there, and yet here they are, practically toe to toe again in a different circle of light.
"I just . . ." His head swivels on his neck. Back in the general direction of he desk. "Nothing," he says after the world's longest pause. "Stupid. Beckett . . . It's . . ."
He's following her now, because she seems to be going. Moving across the bullpen floor at speed, and the sound her strappy heels make on the scuffed terrazzo is deafening.
"It's nothing," he says again. Lamely, because there never been a more obvious lie. Even between them.
It's not nothing. It's enormous, and she notes with fondness-with some just-right brand of irritation riding along-that he's actually had to move things out of the way. Phone and stapler and sticky pad and elephants. They're all just slightly displaced, because it's huge. A massive heart-shaped box swaddled in purple satin, and there's nothing so pedestrian as cardboard underneath. There's structure to it and attention to the wide bow snugged diagonally across the whole, damned massive thing. It's not from any drugstore, that's for sure.
"Half-priced chocolate."
She says it almost to her self. Almost to her long-ago self, but he's right there. He's at her shoulder, and the reply that glances off the bare skin sounds just right, now and then. There's a sharp slice of longing right through her. A warm buzz, and she feels here. Right here and now.
"They were out of . . ." His courage fails him at the last second, but that's right, too. The way she turns from her desk-from not nothing-to face him. She stares him down, half laughing, half not. "The other thing," he finishes at last. "They were out."
"Too bad." She arches an eyebrow at him, hardly knowing who she is right now. Knowing exactly who she is and who she isn't, right here with him. "I wanted to see that cowboy wallpaper."
"Next year," he says boldly. Earnestly, even though he's bumping her around again. Nudging her fingers toward the bow. Toward the lift-off lid of the enormous satin heart and trying to get a peek inside. "Definitely next year."
A/N: Thank you for reading and supporting.