Things You Didn't Know: A Castle One-Shot set between seasons 3 and 4
Title: Things You Didn't Know
WC: ~2900
Rating: T
Spoilers: Knockdown and Rise, sort of, but very oblique. Set between seasons 3 and 4, round about June 21, 2011.
Summary: "He climbs the porch steps. He sidesteps the loose board with unthinking ease. Like it's habit. Like he knows the tumble-down bones of her father's cabin as well as she does. It is. He does."
A/N: This is an experiment in a number of ways. It's a companion to my other "Weird Story is Weird" Story, called "You in Mind," which I wrote just about a year ago. I'd like to say that one doesn't make sense without the other, but they're both odd, so I'm not sure they make much sense in any case. It would be delightful if you read both and extra delightful if you let me know what you thought.
Things you didn't know wouldn't change anything now
Lifetime of love and hate up and gone away
It doesn't matter how you live just so you get along
Things you didn't know wouldn't change anything now
- Bottle Rockets
He comes to her at the most unexpected times.
They're all unexpected.
He's in the city. She's not. It's been weeks. Weeks.
So they're all unexpected.
She assumes he's in the city. She doesn't know. He could be anywhere. He could have gone anywhere.
He's in the city. You know where he is.
She ignores that. It's a just voice, and usually that's easier to ignore than the too-solid visions of him. Usually.
Usually? Sometimes. Maybe. At best. You talk back a lot, you know.
The voice is amused. Smug, of course, but with a rueful kind of hope underneath that she just can't take right now.
The voice is a lot of things she can't take. A lot of things she doesn't want to take. Shouldn't have to take, because she's here and he's . . . wherever.
The voice is a lot of things, but it's not wrong.
She does. She talks back. A lot. She blames the medication.
It's well past the point where that's reasonable-where that makes any sense at all. But she blames the medication anyway. For the fact that he comes to her in the first place. For the fact that she talks back.
She blames the medication, even though it sits in that same amber bottle. Even though it's still the first one. Even though it occupies a tiny, circular footprint on the warped and bubbling surface of the nightstand.
She blames it every time she stumbles. Every time the pain judders up through the soles of her feet and the breath whips out of her in a hiss. Every time she sets the nightstand rocking on its uneven legs.
She blames the music it makes when the amber bottle topples and rolls. The tempting percussion and the deeper note that sounds as it catches the seams between floorboards.
She blames the way the song ends when the bottle wears itself out and comes to rest in the same place. When it stills in the not-quite-right angle at the corner of her room.
She could leave it there, but she doesn't. Every time, she retrieves it. She bends and crouches and it feels like she must be sweating blood. She must be, but she pushes herself anyway.
Every time, she counts the floorboards that open up between her arm and her body as she reaches for the bottle. She counts the seconds it takes for the wave of red to bleed back from her vision. How many sobs break through her teeth before she decides it won't kill her this time. Not this time.
Every time, she sets the medication back on the nightstand. She sets it within the confines of the exact same circle as before, and she blames it.
For him. For her. For more conversations like this than she's willing to remember.
It's an unexamined kind of blame. It falls apart under too much scrutiny.
There's a lot of that going around lately.
And with that, he arrives. The whole of him. Jeans and short sleeves. Sunlight tinting his hair to bronze when the wind ruffles it. He arrives, no longer a voice alone.
He climbs the porch steps. He sidesteps the loose board with unthinking ease. Like it's habit. Like he knows the tumble-down bones of her father's cabin as well as she does. It is. He does.
He comes to her at the most unexpected times, but he comes to her. Medication or no medication. Again and again. Since the beginning. Since she left the hospital. Since she left the city and Josh and everyone.
Everyone but him, apparently.
Him, too, he says. She looks up and he says it again. Him, too. This is something else entirely.
It's a fact. Not an accusation or an opening salvo. It's a fact, and she wants to scream. She wonders why she doesn't. She answers back, so why not scream?
"There's no one to hear," she says out loud.
The words land between them and die. The heavy summer heat swallows anything that might echo. She's losing her mind, but at least she doesn't have to worry about the neighbors. She talks back, but there's no one to listen.
There's me, he points out when she doesn't say anything more.
She still doesn't say anything. She doesn't answer. She doesn't scream.
He's not going anywhere, though. He never does until he's good and ready.
Until you are.
He ignores the wide adirondack chair beside hers. He leans a hip against the porch railing opposite her and blocks her view. Even in profile, deep chest and broad shoulder blot out the lush green of the midsummer canopy and hide the sliver of lake in the distance. Even in profile, all she sees is him.
It's a confrontation, then. That's what the staging suggests.
She's fine with that. She prefers it to his quieter arrivals. To his appearance by her side at sunrise or sunset when she's making fragile peace with her body and there he is, out of the corner of her eye. The hesitant, unreal brush of his fingers and his low, soothing voice. There he is. Real in his own way. A non-negotiable part of it all.
Am I your first?
He turns to face her and there's that frank, hungry curiosity of his. The will and drive to know her, whatever distance she puts between them. There it is, and more of the world goes away. More of the world narrows to him and she wonders if this is pain.
She's lost track of the sensations she's ignoring. Pain. Exhaustion. Fear. Fury.
Loneliness.
She ignores that, too. The word. His voice. Him. The way he drinks in the summer light and gives it back. The way he makes more of it and never uses it up.
Not . . . that. She's not ignoring that, because she's not. She's never been that.
She spends more energy than she has. She ignores him for all the good it does.
He's not bothered by it. He notices. Patience takes hold of his shoulders and settles them. Back and down and a little straighter. He's not going anywhere.
He notices, but it doesn't bother him. That's how she knows he isn't real. Whether he's a voice in the not-at-all-silent black or he's right in front of her, blotting out the sun, it's how she knows he isn't real.
The real him would pitch a fit. He'd act up. Do something ridiculous or annoying or stupid. All three at once. He can't stand it when she ignores him.
He can't.
It's quiet. A statement of fact, too, but a careful one. As careful the real him had become. As careful as he'd come to be with her right up until that last night. That last day.
He can't stand it, he says again, and its cautious syllables are dissonant. They rub unpleasantly against the things she's not remembering.
"But he is, isn't he?" she snaps, because she can't go on not remembering. She can't forget how reckless he was in the end. Not careful at all. "It's been weeks and he's been standing it just fine."
He tilts his head at her. He studies her a moment, and sharp blue eyes go wide.
You didn't expect him to stay away. You expected him to follow. To do something stupid.
He's surprised. The imaginary Castle in her head is surprised.
A shrill laugh scrapes a painful arc along the inside of her sternum and the lie escapes before she can think better of it. "I didn't expect anything."
That doesn't surprise him. The denial doesn't surprise him, but he knows it for what it is. He presses his lips together. His eyes narrow and he leans his elbows on the railing behind him. He crosses one ankle over the other and nods. He's not pushing her. Not yet. But he doesn't believe it.
Maybe not. But here I am. And you know he's not fine.
So maybe he's pushing a little. He says it mildly. Carefully. But he's pushing and she'd like to hit him.
She ignores him instead. She stares at a point beyond him. Through him. She imagines that she can see the lake. That she can see beyond that. All the way to the city where he's just one person among millions. Where he's not all the world.
She ignores him and doesn't bother to hide anymore. She doesn't bother to be brave. She lets pain or whatever it is flow through her unchecked.
It worries him. She sees it. The busy, anxious movement of hands with nothing to do. The hitch of breath dying on his lips again and again like he needs air to speak. It worries him.
Am I your first?
He asks the question again, and even the second time, it's enough to make her blink. It's strange enough that her eyes find his, and that's a mistake. She's looking for clarification. He's a figment of her imagination and she's looking to him for answers.
She finds clarity instead. She's not ready for it. She's nowhere close to ready for that. For truth, stark and simple and not so easily blamed on the medication.
"First what?" She asks faintly. She asks like she's stalling for time. Like she can distract this version as easily as the real thing.
He's silent. He holds her gaze and lets her know she can't. She can't distract him, but he's interested in this. She's interested. She must be be or they wouldn't be talking about it, right?
We're not talking about it, though, he points out reasonably. You're not, anyway. Yet.
He smiles. He has Castle's exact, maddening tone. The one that keeps her following every crazy thing he says. The one that turns her body toward his and has her leaning in for more. Picking up the threads to spin. To elaborate. To listen, no matter what nonsense he's spouting.
She's angry all of a sudden. All of a sudden it flares up again. That night at the hangar. The cemetery and the words hurrying out of him on panicked breath.
It all flares up and she twists away from him. She wants to twist away. Now. From this version. From everything she hates him for.
She wants to twist away, but her body betrays her. She jerks an inch in one direction and it's agony. She falls forward over her thighs and a white-hot burn skips up and down her ribcage.
That's pain, he says gently. He drops to a crouch. He seeks her level and leans in toward her.
"Yes it's fucking pain." It's a breathless string of bitten-off consonants. She squeezes her eyes shut against it. Tears well up and fall. She tries to swipe at them, but the movement is too fast and it hurts all over again.
He's quiet. She counts her own heartbeats and he's quiet. She digs her fingernails into the side of her thigh. She transfers the pain there. She focuses on it and he's quiet for a long while.
You miss him.That's pain, too. It doesn't have to be.
"How can I miss him if you won't go away?" She's shouting now. She's pushing the words out on every last breath she has. She's shouting and there's so little left in her that the sound barely makes it across the porch.
He won't. He's watching her. She counts the slats of the porch. She won't look at him, but she knows he's watching her. He won't go.
"And you?" She means to yell. She wants to yell, but it's . . . forlorn. She hates herself. She hates him.
It's up to you. Whether I go or stay. Why I'm here and when. It's up to you.
She wants to argue. She wants to tell him that she didn't ask for any of this. For him. Here or there, she didn't ask for any of it.
She wants to argue, but she's out. She's out of everything. She drops her chin to her chest. That's pain, too. Everything is pain, and it's too much. All of it is too much.
He rocks back on his heels. The soft, splintering board three over from the steps bows with the transfer of his weight. He opens up space between them, but it's not caution. He's still watching her.
Am I your first?
It's the same question, but the urgency is new. Like he thinks they're getting somewhere and maybe they are. Maybe she is. Maybe.
"First what? Imaginary friend?" She's too tired to argue. She's too spent not to look any more. Too weary to deny that he's right. It's pain, but it doesn't have to be. Not all of it has to be pain.
Her eyes find his and he smiles. It still hurts. She still hurts. But that smile is warmth and blood-rushing promise and peace and she misses him. It hurts a little less and she wonders who or what to blame.
Imaginary friend, he repeats as though he likes the taste of it. As though the words are pleasant on his tongue. Something like that. Am I?
"Shouldn't you know?"
She kicks a toe out toward him. She taps the pale, warped wood where his fingers almost brush it, and she's pleased. It hurts. It bunches the muscles of her hips and her belly and it hurts, but it's the tired pain of hard work. Well-earned soreness that she feels like she's in charge of.
You're strong, he says and she realizes he means it to be an answer. She tilts her head and he goes on. I think I am. This Kate's first, anyway.
"This Kate?"
The Kate from after. Nineteen and on.
His eyes roam over her, then drift away. He smiles. He's writing.
She misses him. She misses this. The way he builds her up from nothing. From pieces of her only he can see. Pieces she thought she'd lost long since.
She aches with missing him, but there's a sweet thread of calm running underneath. Running all through it like the tired pain of hard work.
He's quiet. His fingers brush the porch. It's tentative, but then his palm flattens like he's found her. The Kate from before and he can feel her pounding through the airy open space of the cabin and out into the thin light of morning filtering through these same leaves.
He's grinning at her now. She's been caught up in it. The silent story he's been telling her. She's been caught up in it and she wonders how long he's been getting away with that.
She glares. He grins wider.
She had lots, didn't she?
"No," she snaps, but her lip finds its way between her teeth and she might as well grin. "She didn't even believe in Santa, remember?"
No. He's serious. He's suddenly serious and her heart pounds. She didn't. But she believed in the things she made. She believed and she wasn't lonely.
"Are you?" She doesn't know where that came from. She only just stops herself from looking over her shoulder to see who even said it. She only just stops herself when she tastes the words on her own tongue. Sharp and sour and something she wants to know. "Are you lonely?"
I have you.
He looks away. It's not like him. It's not like this version of him to spare her. However careful he is, he doesn't spare her.
"Is he?"
He rises. He presses his palms to the wood once more. He lingers a moment and rises. He's going and a hollow kind of soreness opens up in her without permission.
"Is he lonely?" she asks again.
He doesn't answer. Not really.
You could believe, too. This Kate could believe.
"No," she says flatly. "I was dying."
You did die. He nods. Gestures to where her fingers are raking over the scar. To where they're stirring up the pain like white-banked coals. You were dying. You died. That might mean something if it were the first time. If it were the only time.
"No," she says again. She doesn't have anything else.
He lifts his head. He meets her eyes and she sees it all. Everything she's been explaining away. She sees it all, and she's far from ready.
He shoves his hands in his pockets. He lifts his shoulders and lets them fall. He's resigned. He's going, but not yet. Not quite yet.
I don't know anything you don't know.
He shakes his head and turns toward the stairs. He stops with one foot on the top step. Turns back toward her like he can't just let it go.
Like she can't let it go, she supposes.
He smiles like he hears that. Like he knows. He does. Of course he does.
I don't believe anything you don't believe.
His second foot falls. It joins the first. He's going.
"Which one of us?" Her hand drifts up without her knowing it. Her palm tips up and back. Toward the scar. Toward the trees and the places she wandered when she believed. "Kate before or Kate after."
Both. You're one and the same.
"To him, maybe." She shakes her head. "But not really."
To him. Really.
The stairs creak under him. He's going. He's gone. Just a voice now.
He loves you.
She answers back.
"I know."