This Tornado Loves You---a Short Caskett WIP, set summer 2013
Title: This Tornado Loves You
W/C: ~1800
Rating: T
Summary: "He turns back to the doors, watching eagerly as a new tide of passengers comes and goes. She sees more than one jaded rider turn away to hide a small smile. Like it's impossible not to catch it from him. This fizzing enthusiasm for the moment. For the day. For life. She knows how they feel." Set in June 2013. Minor spoilers for After Hours (5x08). Technically AU, as this ignores Watershed.
A/N: Brain wanted to write something where they're happy. I know. It doesn't sound like Brain AT ALL. I will try to guard against Whedon-levels of carnage in the final chapter, but we all know Brain drives the bus.
This will probably be three chapters. Just a summer vignette.
He's practically bursting with excitement.
His knees jog up and down and he twists around to people watch at every stop, like he's never ridden the subway before.
Kate nudges him with her shoulder.
"You look like a tourist, Castle," she teases. "You're going to get us mugged!"
He wraps her in a sideways hug and leaves a loud, wet kiss on her cheek. It bumps the bill of his cap up and casts a private shadow, just big enough for two.
"We're going to Brooklyn," he says in a stage whisper. "I think scorned by hipsters is probably the worst case scenario."
She laughs and turns her lips to catch the corner of his mouth.
"Besides, I am a tourist today." He grins into the kiss. "I've never been to a minor league game. I've never been to a game with Becketts. Brave new world."
He turns back to the doors, watching eagerly as a new tide of passengers comes and goes. She sees more than one jaded rider turn away to hide a small smile. Like it's impossible not to catch it from him. This fizzing enthusiasm for the moment. For the day. For life.
She knows how they feel.
He settles his arm across her shoulders. He lets his cheek rest against the top of her head for half a second and then he's off again. Asking about the Mets farm system. Tracing the Cyclones logo on the cap resting on her knee and wondering aloud why sports teams name themselves after natural disasters. Pointing out particularly interesting subway denizens and telling improbable stories in a voice just low enough to entertain everyone in neighboring seats.
The train rolls into the Coney Island stop and he bounces to his feet. He's eager to be up and out, but she tugs hard at his elbow.
He drops back with an exaggerated oof. He pouts at her.
"You're the one who overpacked, Castle." She hauls one huge bag up from between her feet with a pointed look. "The least you can do is let everyone else off first."
"Overpacked? Everything in here is essential!"
"If there was ever any doubt you are your mother's son . . ." she grumbles.
He gives an injured sniff. "I'll remind you of this conversation when the sun is beating down and you're begging to borrow my umbrella hat with the built-in fan."
"I'll muddle through, somehow." She dumps the second bag in his lap and peers at the loud stripes peeking through the gaping zipper. "Also? If you wear that thing in public, I'm leaving you."
He tries for a scowl, but it collapses. He's not built for it today.
Lately, he's not built for scowling at all.
He's happy. She is, too. They're happy.
The thought fills her up. It makes the air feel bright and easy in her lungs. It makes her mouth taste like summer. It makes her want to kiss him again. To share the taste in a lazy back and forth. But the others are waiting.
They shoulder their bags and slip into the tail end of the stream of passengers. He tries to muscle his way through the crowded station, but she catches the hem of his shirt and he meekly comes to her side. He follows her lead as she deftly weaves them through knots of tourists and natives.
The mob is particularly thick at the doors. No one's moving. She raises up on her toes in her flat shoes, trying to see what the hold up is. His head swings back and forth over the top of the bobbing sea.
He spies a break in the crowd. He smiles and hooks her elbow. He puts his head down and powers them the last bit of the way. He turns and stumbles and apologizes, somehow managing to leave a trail of puzzled smiles in their wake.
They spill out on to the street and he's racing for the corner of Surf and Stillwell. His arm stretches out like a kite string behind him, snapping taut as she lags. He snags the tips of her fingers. He looks back with an impatient grin and takes her with him.
He barrels into Alexis and sweeps his mother's giant picture hat right off her head. He gathers them both into a hug like he hasn't seen them in weeks. Like he and Martha didn't snipe at each other over breakfast and Alexis hadn't come by for dinner two nights ago.
Kate hangs back. She greets her father with a kiss and a quiet exchange of words, but Castle calls out their names hauls them both into the fray.
She casts a worried glance at her dad, but he's smiling at her. He's shaking Castle's hand and clapping him on the back as Martha kisses each of Kate's cheeks with zeal to match her son's. Alexis is the quietest of all of them, strangely, but she ducks her head against Kate's shoulder with a smile and a warm, shy embrace.
"Sorry about Dad," she whispers. "It must have been like having a giant puppy on the Q train."
"A mostly well-behaved puppy," Kate agrees with a laugh.
She squeezes the girl's shoulder and bats at Castle's cheek as he leans in between them, demanding to know if they're conspiring against him.
They answer Yes in chorus, but he looks down at Alexis's arm where it loops easily through Kate's and he can't even muster a mock-wounded frown before he turns away again.
"One hour to game time," he declares, raising his voice above the group's easy chatter. "I have an urgent need for greasy food. Becketts, lead the way!"
Kate's father surprises her by taking Martha's arm. He falls in step beside her and points them all at the ballpark's main gate.
Worry knots for half a second under Kate's ribs. It's been six months - seven, really - and she knows her dad and Martha found common ground in the wake of that first disastrous dinner.
But she still worries it's too soon for this. That they're still months from joking and any second there'll be stilted conversation and thinly veiled insults. But Castle tips his head at the two of them-their parents walking arm in arm-and smiles so wide that the worry flits away into nothing.
Martha gestures broadly at the Parachute Jump looming in the distance. Loose, cool-looking linen whips around her ankles and floats at her wrists as she regales him with some story about a Coney Island show of hers back in the day.
It has her dad laughing quietly and shaking his head. He adds his own reminisces. He grew up in the city, too, and he tells stories Kate hasn't heard in years. One or two she doesn't know at all.
The worry flits away into nothing and Kate tastes summer.
Alexis surprises her, too. She hangs on to Kate's arm and shoos Castle away. "I hardly got to talk to Kate at all the other night," she scolds. "You go bother Gram."
He musters up an injured look for its own sake, but he shrugs the next second and steps up on Martha's other side. Alexis waits a beat or two. She waits to see if the puppy will come bounding back, but he slips easily into the conversation ahead of them. He listens and laughs and warns Jim against his mother's greater sins in the name of artistic license.
Kate watches Alexis out of the corner of her eye. She's smiling, but Kate knows the lines gathering on the girl's forehead.
She used to think that Alexis didn't look much like Castle. That even the pale blue of her eyes was more Meredith than him. But she knows those lines. She knows how the two of them carry their troubles. Father and daughter.
Kate bumps her hip and gestures toward Castle.
"He's been like this for days, you know," she murmurs. "Giant puppy. He's really happy you're home."
"Even though I'm not 'home'?" Alexis makes unhappy air quotes with her free hand.
"You're home. You're here." Kate lifts her palm toward the three in front of them. "You're making time for this. For him."
"Like I wouldn't. I miss him and Gram like crazy." She's scoffing. She's exasperated, but she's worried, too. "Columbia's just a few stops away, but . . . we really did talk about it. Me going right back to the dorms. And I know I just got back from Costa Rica, but they almost never ask Freshman into the summer program. . . ."
Kate lets her talk. It's a story they both know, but she lets the words make their way up and out, and sees that some of the worry goes with it. She nods. She wraps her fingers tighter around the girl's elbow and tells her that she knows. That he knows. That he remembered the conversation all along. That he's proud of her and brags to anyone who will listen, but he just needed a few days to feel sorry for himself.
She worries that her own words are wrong. That she's saying too much or too little or the wrong thing entirely, but some of the clouds lift. Some of the lines smooth out and she's not carrying so many troubles.
"You're taking care of him," Alexis says suddenly.
Kate's mouth opens to answer. To say she's trying. That they take care of each other. But it's not a question.
Their heads turn together at the sound of laughter from in front of them. They watch as Jim says something in a low deadpan. Martha's head tips back. Her tripping laugh rises up and carries. Castle leans in as her hat spills backward. He dances back and catches it, smiling back at the two of them as he spins and presents the rescued hat to his mother with a flourish.
"He's happy," Alexis says, and it's a realization for her.
It's strange to Kate. She'd have said he's a happy person. For most of the time she's known him, she'd have said he was happy. But today-lately-he wears it with a difference. It's more. It's the real thing.
"I think so." Kate nods. She smiles and pulls them along a few running steps to catch up. "As long as there are days like these. He's happy."