Material Witness-River, Ch. 2 (3 x 13, Knockdown)
Title: Material Witness-River
WC: ~2300, this chapter, 4700 Total
Rating: T
Summary: She shakes her head, ignoring him mostly. Caught up, because she loves this, too. The unexpected rhythm to this. The way he’s still doling out these things more than a year on. The way he knows she loves presents, though she’d never say it in a million years.
Spoilers: Set during Knockdown (3 x 13) and just after Limelight (6 x 13).
A/N: This was an offshoot of the epilogue of “Silent Night, Ferret Night,” inspired by the diabolical BerkieLynn
2014
“Easy, Kate.” The warning comes too late. She’s yanking at the zipper of her boot and it’s agony. “That’s . . . ouch.” He gives a sympathetic wince and glances up at her, asking permission, though his hands are already hovering over her calf. “Ok?”
“Just.” She blows out a hiss of air. “Go ahead, I just . . .” She braces, but he’s gentle and patient, and it’s no worse than an ache as he eases her foot from the boot.
“We should get you in bed.” He’s already stooping to shoulder her arm up and wind his own around her waist.
“It’s seven o’clock . . .” She bites the words off as she moves wrong and pain lances up her shin.
“Yes. Seven o’clock and by 7:05, you’ll never get those skinny jeans past the swelling.” He has her halfway off the stool, talking all the while. “And, no, I’m not trying to get in your pants.” He thinks about it. “I’m not just trying to get in your pants.”
“I ruined our date.” She means to yell at him. She doesn’t want to yell at him, but it’s safer than this. It’s safer than stupid tears pricking at her eyes, half pain and half disappointment.
“Not ruined.” He stops them, halfway across the living room. He takes the weight of her body against his own. “We can have it here.”
“I know.” She smiles against his shoulder. It’s hard not to when he’s dropping kisses on her skin and murmuring plans with that little-boy excitement she loves. “I wanted to go out, though.” She pulls back to look at him. “I like going out with you.”
“Told you.” He grins. He dips suddenly out of view and sweeps an arm under her knees. He spins them in a circle and heads for the bedroom. “Told you you would.”
He did tell her. Once they were “out.” Once his ring was on her finger and she was back in New York. Back on the job and everyone knew already, he thought they’d just fall into it. Normal nights out. Formal events with her on his arm. Him on hers. Couple things.
He assumed, and she didn’t, and it was more than a little rough for a while. Her already rocky homecoming, and this new kind of friction. But they’d weathered it. She’d carried her point and in the end, the sullen declaration was mostly a joke.
Fine, he’d mumbled into the pillows. Fine. But you’d like it.
And she has. She does. She really likes going out with him. They’ve had a ball thwarting the press since she sent the engagement announcement. They go bowling and hit diners and second-run movies. They slip on hats and sunglasses and do their grocery shopping in the middle of the night when they’re fresh off a case. They do the most mundane things possible, and she loves it. She wanted that tonight.
“We can go when it’s better, right?” She bites back a yelp as he packs the bag of peas into the depths of the pillow so it fits snug over swelling.
“Better,” he repeats, giving the black and blue just visible at the edge of the bag a dubious look. “Not sure this’ll be better enough for ice skating before the rink closes for the season.”
“The season?” She’s practically shouting. It’s that or tears again. She’s disappointed all out of proportion, and her whole leg aches. “It’s only February!”
“It’s a pretty bad sprain.” He smoothes his palm over the bare skin of her other leg. “It might be . . .”
“It’s not broken.” She cuts him off. “It’s not.”
“Because you say so?” He’s smiling, but it’s a little hard. He hasn’t quite given up on the idea of the ER and X-rays and nonsense.
“Because I did not break my ankle tripping over some nineteen-year-old sleeping off a drunk underneath the chairs outside interrogation.”
“Well, I’m convinced.”
He moves to push himself up. He’s annoyed. Worried, and she knows she’s being a pain in the ass. She grabs his hand.
“It’s not broken. Look.” She bites her lip hard and rocks her foot side to side. She flexes and extends, rattling the peas. It hurts like hell-duller now underneath the burning cold numb-but everything moves. “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to be . . .”
“. . . I’m sorry I’m being all . . .” She talks over him. Waves a hand over herself. “All Beckett.”
“Never be sorry for that.”
He leans in to kiss her, over it already, but she’s still caught up in something. She catches his cheek in the curve of her palm. She stops him, their lips a few inches apart.
“I really - “ she looks up at him, shy and sincere through her lashes “ - really wanted to go skating with you.”
“Me too.” He kisses her sloppily, a loud smack that only catches the corner of her mouth. He’s pushing up and away. Bounding toward the closet. “Be right back.”
She digs her fists into the mattress and tries to sit up. It tweaks her ankle in some unexpected way that squeezes her eyes closed and has her head knocking back hard against the headboard.
“You ok?” She feels the bed sink next to her. His weight and something else. “Kate?”
“Can I have . . .” She clears her throat. Licks dry lips and tries to make her voice work. “Scotch?”
He frowns. “With the ibuprofen, you probably shouldn’t . . .”
“Castle!” She turns to him, letting herself look exactly as pathetic as she feels.
“Scotch.” He scowls at her. “A little scotch.”
He goes. Her hand lands on the something else. The thing he brought with him, still weighing the mattress down beside her thigh. The bright red paper crackles as she fumbles it into her lap. It’s translucent, but he’s wound the stuff around and around so she can’t really see what’s inside.
“For me?” She looks up as is steps halt in the doorway.
“Of course for you.” He closes the distance to the bed and sets the tumbler down on the night stand. There’s a very little scotch in it, but she’s on to other things now. She’s tugging at the ribbons, but he stays her hand. He gives her an odd look. “It’s a regift, kind of. And a little strange. But . . . topical.”
She shakes her head, ignoring him mostly. Caught up, because she loves this, too. The unexpected rhythm to this. The way he’s still doling out these things more than a year on. The way he knows she loves presents, though she’d never say it in a million years.
“It’s . . . a ball?” She shoves the paper aside impatiently, turning the red sphere over and over in her hands. She finds the key and turns, delighted with the firm catch as it winds. The fingers of her other hand trace the seam around its middle and find the hook. She flips it loose and carefully spreads the two halves until they’re open flat. “A music box.” She smiles and nods her head along to the pretty little waltz, still frowning. Still puzzling.
“There’s . . .”
He reaches for something but she slaps his hand away. “Mine!”
“Yours.”
He rubs his fingers in mock indignation, but his eyes are dancing as her thumb sweeps over the side and she finds another seam. It’s an oblong, this one, and it gives when she presses. A long, wooden tongue slides out, and on it, two little figures, bundled up and facing one another, like they’ve just been stealing a kiss.
“Oh!” She holds them up to the light. “He looks like you.” She studies the boy in his bright blue sweater with the striped, trailing scarf. He laughs and blushes and tries to steal it away. She fends him off, though. She guards the two of them with her palm and looks down at the silvery surface of the pond. “They skate, don’t they!”
She sets them down, delighted by the solid click as the magnets connect. She winds the key tight and laughs out loud as they twirl, weaving in and out of each other’s figure eights, brushing hands and breaking away.
“See?” He settles down to watch. “We can have our date right here. Skating and everything.”
“Skating and everything,” she echoes.
She looks up and he’s smiling at her. It’s warm and a little wounded. This is one of the harder ones. This gift, and she wonders why. If it’s them or something else or both.
“A regift, though.” She makes a face like she minds. It takes the sting out, whatever it is and leaves warmth behind. She hides her own smile behind a sip of scotch. “Better be a good story.”
“Oh, it is.”
He clambers on to the bed beside her, clumsy and careful of her all at once. He roots around the half dozen pillows on his side of the bed and chooses something thin and flat. He lays it out between them, reaching to take the music box from her when it winds down. He sets it carefully on the pillow, winding it up tight again and waving his fingers at the tiny skaters as they set off.
She sips her scotch, watching him expectantly, but he’s quiet a while. He curls an arm behind his head and turns half on his side. He watches, silent and thoughtful as the boy and girl glide around and around.
“Did I ever tell you about my grandmother?”
She blinks. The words are soft. Hardly louder than the music, but that’s not what surprises her. She almost laughs, wondering if it’s some kind of a joke, because they still go ‘round and ‘round about this. A year after Meredith and the land mine she left between them-a year of them trying, together and separately-and he’s still just not inclined to talk about himself.
She almost laughs, but he goes on before she can. He’s . . . somber, and she’s glad she didn’t.
“I guess I wouldn’t have.” He reaches out, the brush of an apology over her knee. “I hardly knew her.”
“But this . . .?” She waits a while before she says anything. She twirls her finger over the girl’s head. Over the boy’s, following their path.
“This.” He shakes himself, like he’s startled. Like he forgot he was telling a story. “She and . . .” He turns something over in his mind. “My mother never said, but I got the feeling her mother thought I was . . . a mistake.”
“A mistake?” She keeps her voice level, but her scotch sloshes in the tumbler when she sets it down a little more firmly than she’d intended.
“She was sick. For a long time,” he says, and she’s not quite sure he means it as an excuse. “Parkinson’s I think. But you know what it’s like trying to get any medical information out of my mother.”
He’s babbling. He reaches out to wind the music box up again. She stills his hand.
“You hardly knew her,” she prods gently.
He nods something like a thank you. “When I was eight, she got sicker.” He gives her fingers a brief squeeze. He picks up the thread again. Out of order and not like him. It’s hard. “She was . . . funny. Sharp.”
“You liked her?” She reaches for the key again. Vents the riled up feeling building up in her chest in a vicious turn or two. Mistake.
“I liked her.” He rests a palm on her knee, like he knows she’s two seconds away from a dumb move that’ll wrench her ankle all over again. “And whatever hell she gave my mother. She . . . I think she liked me well enough.” He chuckles to himself. “She taught me to play cards. Poker.”
“She kind of taught you.” She can’t quite resist. He doesn’t pinch her, but he thinks about it and she’s glad to see the shadows lift from him a little.
“She was in the hospital. Months it seemed like. We’d play for hours.” He laughs to himself, like something’s only just occurred to him. “I guess she was . . . babysitting? Or the nurses were.”
He’s quiet again. He hums along with the waltz, his eyes fixed on nothing much.
“She gave this to you?” She traces a delicate green leaf with one nail.
“Other way around.” He stirs. He gives her a rueful smile. Another thank you for urging him on. “Christmas. I think . . . I must’ve known she was dying, and my mother was . . . neither of us was handling it well. I saw it in the gift shop, and I just got . . . insistent about it. My mother was furious, and I’m sure . . . It was dumb. It was a dumb thing.”
The last notes of the waltz sound again. A pretty chime, hesitation, and one last note. The peak of the melody rings out and fades.
“She died Christmas Day.” That, of all things, is matter of fact. It’s a hard memory. Not a happy one, but he’s past it. He looks up at her. “I told you it was strange.”
“Strange,” she agrees, but that’s not exactly new for them. “But you’ve had it up there a while?” She nods toward the closet.
“A while.” He leaves it at that and she wonders what he’s trying to get out of. She wonders why as she watches his face. His head rests on his arm. His eyes cloud and clear. He tips his chin up to meet her eyes, determined now. “Raglan. Lockwood,” he says.
“The photos.” She stumbles a little over the words. “My mom’s photos. Those stupid skates.”
She blushes as memory sweeps through her. Flowers and the warmth of sun and nearness to him. One kiss and another and not enough time or courage to say the things she should have in the back of the ambulance.
“Wanted to ever since.” He presses up on one hand and leans over the music box. He kisses her. It’s shy, like he’s younger and she’s younger. It’s almost chaste, but just enough not quite. “Wanted to take you skating.”
“You will.” She shifts on to her hip, wincing a little even though she’s careful. She slides her fingers into his hair and kisses him back. Gentle and answering in kind. Shy. “You will.”