Home to You-A short TARDIS-verse story for the 2nd anniversary of Kill Shot

[pollylynn]

Title: Home to You

Rating: T

WC: ~2300

Summary: "He'd hoped that she would remember. That she might make a point of it. But it's late now, and every time the clock turns over there's less chance that it will happen. There's less chance she'll come home at all." A TARDIS-verse story for the second anniversary of Kill Shot. There are probably accidental season 6 spoilers here? References to the original TARDIS story and to Memento Vivere, last year's November 21st story.

A/N: Had no intention of writing this or anything. Then it fell out of my ear.

Info on the TARDIS-verse, which has nothing to do with Dr. Who, is in my bio.

She's not home. He's trying not to be mournful about that. He's trying not to be a pain. But he left the precinct a long while ago, and he'd hoped she'd be able to follow sooner than this. That she'd want to follow.

He'd hoped that she would remember. That she might make a point of it.

But it's late now, and every time the clock turns over there's less chance that it will happen. There's less chance she'll come home at all.

More chance she'll go home. To her place. Because there's still a her place, and he's trying not to be a pain about that, either. He's trying not to mournful.

He's not, really. This is their place. The loft. They squabble about that. About shelves and loading the dishwasher and where shoes go, but it's mostly show. Bleeding off tension. Or building it up, because that's fun, too.

Squabbling works for them, and he likes when she stakes her claim. When she shoves his things aside and arranges hers in neat rows. Or tosses things carelessly behind her. An emphatic gesture, either way. He loves that this is their place because they made it that way.

And he doesn't mind that there's still a her place. Because the loft is his family's place, too. His mother. And Alexis, still. Wherever she lives most of the time. Wherever she lives officially, it's still her place, and sometimes there are too many redheads. Sometimes there's too much noise and way too much togetherness.

Sometimes it's just too many people that aren't the two of them and he welcomes the retreat. They both do, because it's intense. They're intense in a lot of ways, and even the people they love-even their family-doesn't always get that. They squabble, but they argue, too. They fight and make up. Fierce and loud and hard on the bric-a-brac.

They're both hard to live with. Harder to live with together. The thought makes him smile. The way she's for him and he's for her.

It makes him smile, but it's good that there's a her place. It's good that she lets him in. She makes room for him and he loves that. He more than doesn't mind.

It surprises him. It's the kind of thing he would have thought would hurt. A wound likely to fester. Because he spent a lot of time looking for warning signs just like that. Watching out for them. Proof that she's still leaning away. On her mark, even now, and ready to run.

But it's not like that. The opposite, really. Because she goes sometimes, but she tells him. She looks him in the eye and says she needs to go for a while. That sometimes it's her. And sometimes it's him. But she tells him. There's no evasion and even the white lies they've been too in the habit of telling are fewer and far between. It's not safe to spare each other. They know that now and they don't. So she tells him and he tells her when one of them needs to go.

He's proud. Glad at the way things work between them. Glad she's made a space for him and grateful every time she's sloppy and careless and makes herself at home. Hers and theirs. He's glad that straight-backed courtesy is behind them.

He's glad about all of it. He was just hoping she'd come home. He was hoping she'd remember.

She steps out the front door of the precinct on to a quiet street. Kind of quiet. Relatively.

It's late. Everything took too long today, but she takes a minute. A second to breathe in and out.

It's late. Her own case closed a while back, but she stayed to help out. She's still earning her place. She feels that way, anyhow. Like she has to make it clear that being back isn't some kind of consolation prize.

It's not. And no one who matters really thinks it is. But she stays anyway, sometimes. She helps out and mends fences and hopes she's right when she lets herself breathe. When she let's herself realize that the smiles are less forced every day. That the breakroom doesn't always empty when she steps in.

He's part of it. Both ways. They're mad he left, too. Mad that he sailed back in. Mad that they're glad he did. Mad that it's hard to stay mad at him. She sympathizes.

But it is. It's hard to stay mad at him, and people smile more when he's with her. They smile to see them together. And it doesn't hurt that he's shameless with bribes. Coffee, of course, and endless pink pastry boxes. Lunch and enough nights out for everyone that the Old Haunt has to be a charity at this point.

He's part of it. But today he left her to it. Knocked off around dinner time. When she should have been leaving herself.

It was probably for the best, even though he was a little mopey. Even though she was. But fence mending today was on the boring side. On the sitting-still-being-quiet-attention-to-detail side. Probably for the best that he took himself from the mix, mopey or not.

She slides her phone from her pocket, but the face of it is black and flat. As quiet as the street.

It's all a little strange. The quiet of the street. It's not that late. It's New York, and it's warm for November. The flat black of the phone when she knows he must still be moping. When she knows he remembers. He knows what day it is.

It's strange, but there's something about it she likes. The stillness. Not having to try so hard for a little while. Standing alone and letting it wash over her. Solitude and New York quiet. She breathes.

Her eyes close and open again. It's darker. A streetlight winking out or a cloud scudding across the moon. Both, maybe, and the stillness is different. Like a warning. She shakes her head at that. It's not quite that. A push at her back. The thing before the warning.

She should go. Home. She should go home. Her shoulders twist, but her feet are planted. Home.

It's her place she's picturing. Her couch and her wine and zero chance of anyone else's crisis already in progress. That's the home she's picturing. Spaces to seal off. Doors to close and solid places. Real walls and hunkering down. It's what she's picturing and she tells herself it's habit. It's just habit.

There's a flare of guilt anyway. A short-lived sinking in her stomach. She looks down at the flat black of the phone. She pictures him moping and remembers the date. She's been remembering it all day and she knows he has, too.

The loft. That's the home she should want. She does. Most nights. Every morning because their bed is better than hers. And their coffee is the best. The coffee he brings her on ridiculous trays. Bright flowers and the paper folded just how she wants it. She does want that. Mostly.

But right now, she wants . . . neither. Not the loft and not her place, either. She wants space. She wants streets and the strange November warmth creeping in at her collar. She wants this, right now.

He's the only thing missing. The only thing.

She breathes and realizes that's it. She knows what she wants.

The wind kicks up then. Warm and strange and rain spatters the pavement. A gust from nowhere. The thing before the warning again. The particular press of her mother's lips right before she'd say I told you so.

It makes her laugh. The image and the memory. The push of stillness at her back. She tilts her head back and laughs. A couple on the not-quite-empty street edge toward the street. Away from her. The guy curls his arm tighter around her shoulders. The girl shoots her a look.

She smiles and waves at their backs. She slides her phone out again. Grins down at the flat black and starts off down the street. Shoulders and hips and feet. Heart and mind. She sets off down the street after what she wants.

He's over it. The clock ticks over again and again and he mostly doesn't notice. She'll call when she's home. Her place, and that's fine.

A long day. She's had a long day already. He's not mournful. He's not going to be a pain.

He might wheedle about facetime and states of undress, but that's allowed. He might make some demands on that front. Even when she's had a long day, that's negotiable.

He smiles at that. He's not mournful. Mostly.

He thinks about the date. He'd hoped she'd remember, but maybe it's better. No one's shooting at her this year at least. He assumes no one's shooting at her.

His stomach drops. It turns over with one sick thud just thinking about it. Dirt and blood and the way her body shook in the graveyard. Her voice, shaky down the line and her arms filled with lavender. The two of them wet and filthy int he kitchen. Laughing a little hysterically because it could have gone differently. Every day she's on the job it could go different.

Maybe it's better not to remember.

He's just thinking it. He's turning it over in his mind and on his tongue and he thinks it's right. He's most of the way there when his phone chimes. When he looks down and realizes it's been in his hand the whole while. That it's her and she remembered and he wants to run circles around the loft.

It's her. Time Out!

Two exclamation points. One for each year, he knows, and he really could run circles. She remembered. She's making a point of it.

Time Out!

He sends it back and he does run circles, then. He needs shoes. He trips and trips again. There are plenty of shoes, none of them living room is like a minefield of shoes that aren't his, and he feels a squabble coming on, but not tonight. Not tonight.

Location?

He sends that back, too. Right away. He's impatient and can't move at the moment anyway. The last shoe took him right into the coffee table and he's grabbing his shin.

Location. He wonders what she'll pick. A park or a diner or the roof. A walk, maybe and he grits his teeth. His shin will have to suck it up. He wonders, but the bell rings, then. It's the bell,and he doesn't quite get that. That's confusing, but he hobbles to the door anyway.

His shoes are there. Because that's where shoes go. By the door. Not in the couch cushions and not not-quite-under every end table and arm chair. He's shoving his feet into properly placed shoes and pulling the door open because he wants to be on his way. He wants to be with her now.

And there she is.

Like a wish on a star, there she is, smiling and tugging at him. Tugging him hard by the shirt out into the hall. Kissing him and then shoving him back through the door. Saying something. Lots of somethings fast and low and impatient, and he only has a shoe and a half on.

"Kate!" He laughs and grabs for her. Stills her hands and does some tugging of his own. Some kissing of his own.

"Beckett," he groans. He tries to fend her off, then. Belated better judgment. Practicality that he thinks is her fault. This confused push and pull is all her, and he'd like to get out of shoe limbo. He'd like to get out of the doorway before the rating on things heads any further in a non-doorway appropriate direction.

He tries to still her hands, but she's pushing him away all of a sudden. She's dragging the back of her hand over her mouth and glaring like all this was his idea. She looks him up and down and he braces for the blame.

She surprises him, though. She always does.

"Take me out, Castle." She pushes him further into the loft. Yanks open the closet and grabs a coat at random.

"Where?" He takes the coat from her. Struggles into and scowls because she's not helping. She's not helping at all.

Her hands are all over him. She's on her toes. She's behind him and her teeth are tugging at his ear. She's in front of him again and her fingernails are dragging down his sides.

"Out." She whispers it in into his mouth. Pats his pockets for keys and phone and tugs him by the belt loops when she's sure of them.

She tugs him out the door. She tugs him down the hall and presses him to the wall when the elevator takes too long. She makes demands.

She wants food and a story. She wants to walk the streets, quiet and loud. She wants to buy him coffee, even though she doesn't owe him any more. She's firm on that point and he's groaning. Agreeing. Promising her anything.

She wants to kiss him on a park bench and a street corner. On her doorstep and theirs.

She wants a lot of things. He syas yes to every one.

"Take me out, Castle." The elevator dings and she pulls him on board. She presses him into the back and makes good use of the time.

"Take me out," she says again.

He says yes.