Kith and Kin, Ch 2: Castle 2-Shot in the TARDIS-verse, set during Significant Others (5x20) COMPLETE
Title: Kith and Kin, Chapter 2
WC: ~5900, this chapter, ~9900 total
Summary: "Meredith is no evil mastermind-Meredith isn't any kind of mastermind-and he's no innocent victim." A TARDIS-verse two shot, set during Significant Others (5 x 10). See my bio for information on the TARDIS-verse. It's not a crossover.
Rating: T
A/N: Chapter 2, as promised. Please ignore that brain decided to write another 1900 words or so . . . Thank you for reading! I always appreciate hearing what you think.
It's no better on the other side of the door.
It's no better in the hallway or the lobby or out on the street.
It's worse. However bad it was in the suddenly close confines of the loft, this is worse.
She misses him.
Not just him right now. Not just knowing that he's on the other side of the bed. That he's right there, even if she's pissed at him.
She misses him.
It hasn't even been forty-eight hours since Meredith landed on their doorstep and she misses everything about how easy it is to be with him.
Not all the time. They're both too stubborn. They're both too used to having their own way for it to be easy all the time.
But most of the time.
Most of the time it's comfortable. Like being alone, without the loneliness. Talking to him-listening to him-is restful.
She wants to laugh at that. The idea that anything about him is restful, but it's true.
It's like thinking out loud and someone she really likes answering back. Above and beyond everything else-the way she wants him all the time and the way she hopes he knows she feels, whether she says it or not-she likes really likes him and she misses how easy it is.
It's worse out here. It's cold. She stole one of his jackets for the extra length, but the yoga pants aren't cutting it. The weather is miserable, but that's not what makes it worse.
It's every step she takes away from his door. It's the fact that she had to go. That she couldn't stop herself from going, and this is worse.
She stops herself now. She glowers down at her own feet and hooks her fingers around a brick and stops herself. She hates that this is what it takes-the physical effort of it-but she stops.
She looks up and breathes. She takes a second and another and knows she's going back. Because she shouldn't have gone and this is worse.
She looks up and winces. It's bright and disorienting like sudden daylight out of place. She narrows her eyes to slits and peers around the corner.
She smiles. It's grim. She feels that in the set of teeth on teeth and the hard line of her lips, but it's a smile.
The picture comes together. Not just where she is, but where she's going and how.
Her phone is in her hand and then it is isn't. She hesitates. He's sleeping. She forgot that he was sleeping.
That makes it ok, somehow. The fact that she forgot. That it's not a punishment. It's that she misses him and this is urgent. This is worth it and he'll think so, too.
This is her cutting him a break and the phone is in her hand again. She turns the corner and lets the neon draw her closer. She lets the neon-a familiar neon sign-draw her a few steps more away from him. Just for now. Just a few steps more and just for now.
The phone is in her hand and she taps out the familiar message: Time out.
He gets out of bed anyway. He's not going after her, but he gets out of bed.
She's no less gone wherever he is.
He thinks it's worst in the bedroom, but that's only until he's in the office. Until he sits at his desk and pops open the laptop. Then that's worse. It's worse that he's not tapping away. Setting word counts and page-based finish lines. Milestones until he can close up and give in to the tug-the relentless pull of of knowing she's in his bed.
He thinks that's the worst until he's in the living room and all the furniture is empty. All the throws are neatly folded and the pillows are plumped and waiting for her to unfurl herself. To toss them aside or snatch them up. To rearrange them under and around and over herself.
But the kitchen is really the worst. The scene of his most recent crime and the site of his first domestic fantasy about her. About giving her a home. Making a home with her, however unlikely that was. However unlikely it might still be, given how badly he is screwing this up.
However childish and stubborn and hopeless that vision has been through the years, he's never been able to let go of that morning. Borrowed clothes and her behind the counter. Her at the stove and chatting easily with his mother. It's been three years and he's never been able to let go of the fantasy of her at home here.
The kitchen is the worst, but he sinks on to the stool anyway. He presses his palms against the frigid marble. The cold grabs hold of his joints. His knuckles tighten. His hands feel old and there's grim satisfaction in it. Some kind of prophecy coming to pass.
He spins the spice rack. The clatter is loud in the darkness. He stops it, afraid it will wake Alexis, even though he's foggily grateful for the company of even the smallest sound. He knocks a canister loose. It bounces on the counter once with a loud tock! and rolls to the floor before his clumsy hands have half a chance. It lands with an even louder tock! and the lid bursts off. Of course.
He stoops to retrieve it. He more than half expects it to be nutmeg, but it's red pepper. A fine mist of it is still raining down. It stings his eyes and nose and skin. He sneezes. It's huge and he unwisely tries to fight it. He tries to keep it quiet and it bulges painfully against his ribs. His head rears up and smacks against the underside of the counter.
He thinks about giving up. He thinks about collapsing on the floor and waiting for the end to come, and he cares not at all how melodramatic this dead-of-night tantrum is.
He's mad and she's gone and there's nothing he can do to fix anything and he's done.
He's just done.
His phone chimes then. It's loud. Even all the way from the bedroom, it's loud.
His phone chimes.
Except it doesn't. It can't possibly. There is absolutely no way that just happened. He barks out a harsh laugh and claps a hand over his mouth the next second. There's red pepper all over it and it burns.
He assumes he's lost his mind. That he's dreaming. That he never did get out of bed and this is one of those dreams. Waking up like nesting dolls.
But it happens again. The phone chimes and he clambers up. He dusts his hands off on his thighs and absently thinks that will come back to bite him later. It will, but he doesn't have time for it. On the off chance that he hasn't lost his mind-that he's not dreaming and it's her-he has absolutely no time to think about the perils of red-pepper-dusted flannel.
He trips over every thing there is to trip over. The phone chimes again just as he picks it up. Just as he turns it over in his hand it chimes again and lights up.
Time out.
He taps it back and hits send before the worry can set in.
She takes the stairs. It's a stall tactic as much as anything. She doesn't want to wait. She doesn't want to be standing on his roof waiting for him.
It's a good idea, though. She's warmer by the time she hits the top step. By the time she pushes out on to the neat stone path and its right angles cutting through the sleeping garden, she's warmer and her mind is clear.
And the stalling works. She has time for a handful of deep breaths. Time for a few sips of the Mexican cocoa and then the phone buzzes in her hand. She peers down, and the color bleeds back into her fingers when she sees it. The usual countersign.
She's relieved. She always is. She shouldn't be. She doesn't need to be. But she always is.
She texts him the letters-Roof-then thinks better of it. She adds YOURS because he's not exactly 100%.
She makes her way to a particular corner, the one she thinks of as theirs. She pulls up short, startled by a cluster of shadows, squat and grotesque. Her breath catches and her heart pounds even though she's already made sense of it. Furniture. The wrought-iron cafe table and chairs wrapped up for winter.
Of course it's wrapped up. She remembers last January. She remembers last year and the brutal cold of the park bench and how he chased it away. How they chased the cold away together and light came unexpectedly.
"I brought a blanket."
That should startle her. His sudden, soundless appearance at her shoulder should startle her more than anything so sensible-anything so expected-as furniture wrapped up against the season.
It doesn't though. She tries not to smile too hard. She tries not to smile at all as she turns to him and holds out the cup in her left hand.
"Hot chocolate," she says.
His eyes light up. "La Esquiña?"
She nods. Narrows her eyes and lifts her own cup to her lips in a defensive move.
"No kissing," she mutters.
His smile fades into nothing. Like it was never there. He gives her a grim nod and hands the cup back to her. Her heart bumps half a dozen frightened times in her chest. She has the absurd fear that he's going. That he's walking out on this. Walking out on her. But he's just spreading the blanket.
"If you want to sit for this." He gestures to it-an incongruous square of orange, bright and soft, from the foot the bed-but makes no move himself.
"For this?" She doesn't budge either.
"You said 'no kissing'," he replies testily. "Nothing good starts with that."
She shoves the paper cups at him, one into each hand. She reaches up and grabs his face. She pulls his mouth down to hers and kisses him hard. She pushes him away, fingers twitching with the familiar urge to twist his ear.
"No kissing for you," she snaps. "And don't snap at me. Sit."
The corner of his jaw twitches. His mouth screws up. He's mad again. The kiss and the sudden barrage make him ornery and it's dangerous. It feels dangerous.
"No talking for you either." She snatches the cup from his left hand and drops on to the blanket. "Not yet. Sit."
He folds up, just like that. He sinks to the ground abruptly and waits. He's still mad. Really mad now. The words are hammering against his teeth, but it's better somehow. She's mad, too, and somehow that makes it ok.
She watches him. Her eyebrow twitches as he sets his cup down and folds his hands in his lap. He's the picture of attention. The picture of innocence. She'd like to smack him even though it helps. He's being really annoying, and it helps tremendously.
"I'm not your girlfriend." She blurts it out and even though it was just a start-just the set up for what she wants to say-but she didn't think what it might sound like, and she's sorry right away. All the fight goes out of him before her tongue touches her teeth on the final d and she's sorry. She hurries on. "Right now. For, like, the next three minutes I'm not your girlfriend."
He drags in a breath. His face goes from white to red and the air crowds around his mouth in frantic puffs. "Kate . . ."
"No talking." She growls it at him, then softens it with a kiss. He goes from panicked to confused, then, and he's really very cute. He's just a really cute train wreck. She gives him a warning look and he settles down. "So three minutes. I'm not your girlfriend. I'm your partner."
He looks at her. He opens his mouth, then thinks better of it. He pulls out his phone and twists away like he expects her to smack him. He holds up the phone with an exaggerated flourish. Three minutes on the timer.
Her hand snakes out. He flinches away. She snorts derisively, jabs the button and sits there, absolutely silent.
The seconds tick down. She knew what she was going to say. She knew exactly what she was going to say a second ago. But she doesn't now. Now, she suddenly has no idea, but her mouth is opening anyway.
"It doesn't make you a nice guy."
They're both surprised by that. Not just the words, but how gentle they are. How careful she's being with him after that dictatorial beginning. After all her bluster.
"What Meredith is asking-to invade your life, to walk in and out of Alexis's whenever she pleases-it's not reasonable. It's not something she has the right to expect. And giving it to her doesn't make you a nice guy."
She looks down at her fingers. They're sitting knee to knee and her fingers have somehow gotten tangled up with his. She thinks it's too much. More girlfriend than partner. Or maybe she was never a very good partner. Maybe they could have been closer to more all along.
She pushes the thought away and holds on to his fingers. It makes her tired, and it's something for later. She has less than a minute now. She's frantic to say everything she wants to say-everything she feels like she can't say as his girlfriend-and she's desperate for it to be over, too.
"I'm not jealous." It's not something she wants to say. It's something she'd really like to unsay, but it's done. She hangs her head. "That was more girlfriend than partner."
The timer runs out. He cuts it off before the first beep finishes and looks up at her expectantly. She lets out a laugh on a short breath and nods.
He grins and the words rush out. "Nah. My partner was always 'not jealous,' too."
"Castle." She makes a frustrated noise. "I'm not. It's why . . . I would have said the same thing if we weren't together. If we were never going to be together."
He gives her a skeptical look. "We were never going to not be together."
"Castle."
It's less frustrated now. It's sadder, and he hears it. It's sadder because she thinks he's not listening. That he's deflecting and brushing her off. He squeezes her fingers.
"Ok," he says quietly. "You're not jealous."
"You want me to be." Certainty plucks at her. It's an unpleasant twanging inside. "You want me to be jealous?"
He fiddles with the lid of his cocoa. He takes a sip. He's stalling. Not stalling, thinking. For once he's thinking and maybe that's the trick. Maybe that's how he doesn't make things worse.
"No," he says finally. It's only one part of the answer. It's only half the truth, but not because he's hiding the other. Because this should come first. He doesn't want her to be jealous. He just . . . he wants to know it would hurt to lose him. But he thinks that's not a conversation for now.
This part is. This is how he thinks he might not make things worse. He goes on slowly. "I want you to trust me. I want you to know that however I've run my mouth off in the past, I don't want to be with anyone else. And I wouldn't. I want you to trust that."
She thinks about it. She tries, but his words bring an odd rush of relief and it's hard. It's hard not to give into the temptation. It's hard not to pretend like that's all there is to say, but it's not. It's not.
She steels herself for the next thing. She steels herself for it and belatedly wonders what it is.
He seems to know though. He's staring down at their hands, too, but he seems to know what comes next. For him, at least.
"I don't care about being a nice guy." He turns their joined hands this way and that. He's not happy with the words. "I mean. I hope I am?" He looks up at her. "I guess I hope I am. But that's not what it is with Meredith."
He stops then and she doesn't know if it's because she's supposed to say something. This isn't quite like him. He's thinking it through. Mulling it over before something stupid comes out. He's trying. She waits.
"I'm not bucking for ex-husband of the year. I . . . it never really occurred to me. But I have to think the best of her." He nods like it's close enough to what he really wanted to say. "She's Alexis's mother, and even when I know exactly what she's doing-even when I know she's being manipulative and greedy and using us both-I have to at least act like I think the best of her. Because she will always be Alexis's mother."
"But it's not fair." She thinks it's quite possibly the dumbest thing she's ever said. It's certainly the dumbest thing she could have said right now.
But he just laughs a little and nods. "It's not fair. But it's . . . it's better than the alternative. I spent the first few years hating her." He stops and looks up at her. "Can I kiss you?"
It's so sudden, so intense, that she blushes like she hasn't in a year. "Why?"
"Because you said I couldn't before. I want to be clear on the rules."
"No you don't." She narrows her eyes. "You're stalling."
"No." He shakes his head and the wicked spark that was there a second ago winks out. "I need to say something and I'm not sure I can without sounding like a complete ass."
"Maybe you shouldn't say it, then."
"I don't have to," he says. "But I think I probably should."
"Fine," she says between her teeth.
"Fine to the kiss or . . ."
"Castle!"
He dives in. He kisses her like it might be the last time, and he's not sorry.
It ends and he pulls back. He's very sorry about. And if it's the last time he gets to kiss her, sorry won't be the word for it. But they've started this now.
He takes a breath. "I don't know if this makes sense to someone isn't a parent." His eyes flick to hers. He looks at her . . . shyly? It's something like shy and she burns with hit. "Isn't a parent yet . . ."
He's afraid. Shy, too, but afraid. It stops her mouth. She's not sure she would have said anything anyway. She's not sure what to do with it. Him pulling rank that way, even though he warned her.
The "yet." She's not at all sure what to do with that, but her stomach flutters and it stops her mouth.
He's afraid, but she can't help him. She waits again.
"If had been just me . . . If she had just cheated on me, I think . . . I don't know." He steadies himself with a breath. He's afraid and this hurts, but she can't help him. "It's not like she was the first woman who did. And it's not like I never had. After Kyra . . ."
He shakes his head. It's getting away from him. This isn't what he needs to be telling her right now. He steadies himself again. "If it had just been me-just me and Meredith-maybe I'd never have seen her again. Maybe we'd have kept circling around each other. But I could never have hated her the way I did those first few years if it weren't for Alexis. I've never hated anyone that way. I don't think I could for my own sake. But for her . . . for your kid."
He trails off.
Kate nods. She's not thrilled. She's still not sure what to do with it, but she's trying.
"It didn't do any good," he goes on miserably. "Meredith was Meredith. Maybe a little worse. I think . . . doing it this way. Trying to give her the benefit of the doubt. Hoping for her to do better. To be better at it someday. It doesn't do a lot, but I think she has some shame."
"Not a lot." It slips out. It really just slips out. She leans toward him. Tips her face up toward his. "I'm . . . Castle, I'm sorry."
"No. You're right. Not a lot. Maybe not any."
The agreement comes quickly. It's hard and stoic and she hates to see it. The realization glides through her, slick and unpleasant. She likes his way better. She'd rather watch him hope for the best than live with the worst.
"Rick, no. I get it." She growls at her own lie. Not a lie, but not the truth, either. She falls forward and knocks her head against her own knee. "I don't. You're right. I'm not . . . I don't have kids. So I don't really get it and it's not fair and she shouldn't get away with it. You deserve more and Alexis deserves more and . . ."
The words drop off suddenly. Inspiration flashes through her. She has an idea, and for two seconds it seems brilliant. "I can hate her for both of us. All of us. Alexis, too."
He laughs at that. He lets go of her hand and sets his cup down. He falls over her and tugs at her waist in the world's most awkward hug. He laughs and buries his face in her hair.
"I don't want you to have to hate her," he says when he can breathe again. He sits up a little and takes both her hands. He pulls her up, too. "I don't want you to waste the energy or have to deal with her at all, but . . ."
"But she's Alexis's mother," Kate sighs, "and she's not going anywhere."
"Well . . ." He considers it. "It's Meredith, so who knows. Maybe something shiny will catch her attention and she'll disappear for another three years."
"Has it really . . ." She hesitates. She's not sure she really wants to know. "Three years, really?"
He looks embarrassed, and she wishes she'd listened to her instincts. It's the flaw in her master plan. It's the problem with hating Meredith enough for all of them: He'd still have to apologize for her.
"Um . . . there was . . . she was supposed to meet them-Alexis and my mother-in Europe." He studies her fingertips and doesn't meet her eyes. "There were a couple of miscommunications, and then they were finally supposed to at least meet for lunch at the airport . . ."
"But . . .?" She ducks to meet his eyes. She's not quite sure why she's doing this to either of them, except there's something else she thinks she needs to say and she might need him to come this far to hear it.
"She got lost." His face is hard. She's seen him angry. She was pretty sure she seen the absolute full force of his anger, but she's never seen him look like this. She understands what he means about those first few years. About hating Meredith. She understands in a way she didn't five seconds ago.
His voice, when he goes on, is flat. It's awful. "Alexis said she got turned around in the international terminal and they only connected for about 20 minutes."
"But that's not what happened," she says gently.
"My mother saw her slipping out of a bar." He shakes his head. "There was a man at her table and judging from the fact that Meredith was a little unsteady on her feet, my mother thought she'd been there for a while."
"You believed her?" she asks quietly.
He looks up, surprised. "My mother's a pretty good judge of how . . ."
"Not your mother." She sweeps her thumb over his palm. A preemptive apology that isn't half good enough. This is going to hurt. "Alexis. She's smart. Observant. Lanie says she'd be great at forensic work."
He stiffens. His fingers tighten around hers, but she barges right on ". . . and some other time we can talk about how to smile and nod and tell her you're proud and happy with whatever she chooses until you really are. But do you really think she doesn't know?"
He blinks. He looks stricken. He really did. Until two seconds ago, he really believed. She's not sure she's ever felt this low. She leans in. She kisses his cheek and coaxes his eyes up to hers.
"Castle, I get . . . I'm not a parent . . ."
"Kate," he breaks in. "I wasn't trying . . . God, I knew I would sound like an ass."
"Yes," she says quickly. It's mean and it's not entirely true. It's definitely not fair, but she takes the save. She needs to say this. "You sounded like an ass, so shut up for a second."
He bristles, then swallows it. Whatever he was going to say.
"Should I set a timer?"
It's a joke. But one with bite. He's not happy and he's not going to be. That's too bad. Right now, it's too bad.
"You could just listen." She lets it hang there. She doesn't soften it. There's no venom in it, just weariness, and she knows that's worse. That it hurts more. But they're both defensive and raw and exhausted, and this is probably getting close to the end of anything productive here.
"Ok," he says, just as wearily. It hurts just as much. "Ok, Kate. I'm listening."
"It's normal . . ." She breaks off. It's not the first time she's said this out loud. She never hated Burke as much as the day he brought her to this particular cliff and dropped her over it. It hurts exactly as much now. "It's normal for a 19-year-old girl to hate her mother a little."
He jerks back. He pulls his hands away from her. She looks up sharply and they're hovering. Like he doesn't know where to put them. Like he's sorrier than he's ever been and he wants to help and he doesn't know what to do with his hands.
"Castle, please." Her throat is tight and she doesn't bother to hide it. "Just let me say this."
He starts to say something and stops. He decides. His hands land on either side of her face and he kisses her once, gently.
"Ok." He leans his forehead against hers for a brief moment, then pulls back. "I'm sorry."
She nods and catches his hands again.
"I loved my mom. So much." She clears her throat. "All things considered, we had a great relationship. When I looked at my friends-Maddie and Debbie, everyone-I was so lucky. But the year I was at Stanford? We fought constantly. That Christmas vacation . . . we wore each other out. We fought about everything."
She swallows tears back and tries to catch her breath. He brings her fingertips to his lips. He kisses them one by one and waits. She knows he wants to say something. She's grateful he doesn't.
"I said I was sorry to her the day she died. For saying I hated her the day before. It's why we were having dinner. My dad was trying to play peacemaker. He promised we'd go where I wanted if I took it back." Her eyes drop to the blanket. They fix on a point somewhere far away. "So I did. I said I did, but the truth is, I hated her a little."
"Kate . . ." He makes a gesture. Pulls their hands to his chest like he wants to take it back. He does. He doesn't. He wants to say a dozen things. That he's sorry. That he had no idea. That it's not really the same. He wants to say so many different things, and even her name is too much.
"It hurts to remember that." She corrects herself. "It hurts to admit it. I never forgot. But saying it out loud. It was the hardest thing I had to do last year. My dad . . . we don't . . . we never. . . . We've come so far from when she died."
"But you only talk about parts of her," he says slowly. He looks up to ask permission. To see if it's ok. If he's getting it right. She nods. Just barely. "Only the good parts. And she was more than that."
"She was. She was a workaholic. And she had a temper. She was stubborn and she always had to be . . ." She stops. She stares at him. His shoulders are shaking. His shoulders are shaking. "Castle. I know you're not laughing."
He looks up at her. His lips are pressed together and his eyes are wide. He shakes his head. He is laughing and doing the worst job of hiding it of anyone, anywhere, ever.
"Do I need to remind you that we are on a roof?"
It breaks loose at that. He laughs. He presses their hands to his mouth and laughs.
She glares, but it won't hold. He looks up at her and there he is. The man who is so easy to be with. The boy she really, really likes. His eyes are sparkling and his mouth turns up.
"I'm sorry," he says, sounding like the least sorry person in the world. "I'm sorry. Go on. Tell me about your mother's flaws."
"I don't like you," she grumbles.
He leans in and kisses her. "Yeah, you do."
She does. She really, really does. But she bites his lip anyway.
He yelps. She stares him down.
"Can I finish?"
He drops his eyes and nods. He looks something close to sheepish, now. Something close.
"It's not the same for Alexis. I know that. She's lucky." She tugs on his hands until he looks up. "She has you, and she has . . . what she has of Meredith."
"You didn't have either," he says suddenly. Like it's just clicked. It has. He knows she was nineteen. That her dad disappeared into alcohol more or less right afterward. He knows all that. But it hits him-really hits him for the first time-that Alexis is nineteen. "Shit."
"Yeah. 'Shit' about sums it up." She gives him a minute. He bows his head over his knees like he's suddenly tired. Not suddenly. He is tired. They both are.
She pulls one hand free and runs it through his hair. "I never got to have a relationship with my mom as an adult. I think we would've been close again. Eventually, I think we would have been friends. And there would have been things I didn't like about her and she didn't like about me. And that's normal."
He tips his head to the side. Seeks her palm against his cheek and asks something he doesn't really want to hear the answer to. "And your dad?"
She hates him for it and she loves him. It's something she should say. It's something she would have said a year ago and it's where this has all been leading. She would have said it a year 's not that she wanted to hurt him then. It's not that she wants to hurt him now. But he's asking. He's asking.
"I think . . . when I was nineteen I was still daddy's little girl. I played him off my mother and did what I could to get my way and . . ." She takes a breath. This hurts, too. It all hurts. "That had to end some time. It's supposed to."
She waits to see if he'll break in. She expects him to, but he doesn't. His head dips down again, and he doesn't look at her.
"It's supposed to end. Not the way it did for me. It's not supposed to end like that. And for Alexis, it won't. She'll always have you. She won't lose those years. I did, and even still, I love my dad." She pauses. She thinks about her dad. His calm way and his dry sense of humor. But the sadness that clings to him, too. The way happiness is a fragile thing for him.
"I love my dad," she says again. "But when it comes to my mom, we tell these lies. We only talk about this perfect version of her, because it hurts too much to do anything else. And there are parts of her that neither of us gets to know, because we can't . . ."
She breaks off again. She swipes at her eyes and knocks against his fingers, on their way to the same task. She pulls their hands into her lap. It helps. Holding on to him helps.
"I'm not blaming him for that. It's . . . it's both of us, and it's been too much time." She's abruptly tired of the sound of her own voice. She feels like she's been going on for hours.
She swallows hard and looks him in the eye. Lanie was right. It's about boundaries. His and hers, too. Theirs together.
"Don't make Alexis lie to you. Don't . . . invite that. You've done right . . ." She bites her tongue. She starts to, then stops. She would have said this last year. "You've done more than right by Meredith, but you can't keep managing that. You have to let Alexis draw her own boundaries and make her own demands. And she's probably going to hate her mother. At least for a little while."
"And me?" He's looking at her now. At least he's looking at her.
"Maybe, Castle," she says quietly. "Maybe a little? Maybe sometimes? I never . . . not even when my dad was drinking. We never clashed like my mom and I did. Maybe it's a father-daughter thing, or maybe we're too different to get under each other's skin that way. I don't know. But I love knowing my dad the way I do now. As a grown-up. For all the things we do wrong, we do a lot more right, and there's no way I'd trade that for staying his little girl. I don't think Alexis would, either."
"But what if I paid her?" He says suddenly. His voice breaks. It's hoarse and ruined. It spoils the effect entirely, but she laughs anyway.
She laughs and slides over next to him. She wedges herself between him and the canvas bulk of the stacked chairs. She wraps herself around him. He wraps himself around her and whispers Thank you against her skin. She shakes her head. She kisses him.
They sit together. The traffic grows fainter, and the sky will grow light eventually. Even in January,the sky will grow light.
They have to go back downstairs. She wants to go back. She wants to step inside his home and reclaim her welcome. In a little while, though. A little while. For now she likes this. She likes the sky and the city above them. She likes the two of them in the corner of the roof she thinks of as theirs.
She likes it, but he's shivering. She has his coat. She has one of his coats and apparently he's forgotten the other fifty. He's sitting there-he's been sitting there-in his pajama pants and a couple of sweatshirts.
She slips out of his arms. She untangles him from around her and tugs him up while he complains. He mutters and reaches for her, but she shoos him away. She shoos him off the blanket. She scoops it up and wraps it around him. She pulls it close under his chin and leads him back home.