Wander, Chapter 3: Not In Our Stars; Short Castle WIP post-Squab and the Quail (5 x 22)
Title: Wander, Chapter 3
WC: ~5800 this chapter (ooooooppppss); ~12,500 total
Rating: T
Summary: "But it's not just this April she hates. It's the last and the last and the last. Almost since he's been with her, though not quite." A short WIP (4 chapter) set after The Squab and the Quail (5 x 22). Light on references to the ep, and I know nothing about the rest of the season.
A/N: Erm. This is probably going to be 6 chapters. Still hopefully done before Monday, though.
Here's Chapter 1, if you missed it.
And chapter 2.
The sun is barely up and he's heading for her doorstep on a whim.
Not a whim.
He misses her.
That's why he's stumbling through the slowly waking New York streets. That's why he's headed for her doorstep.
He misses her and that's what he'll say. He shoves down the lame excuse he came up with. Half asleep and still buttoning his cuffs, he'd come up with something. It's not great. That's an understatement. It's bad enough that he keeps forgetting it.
And anyway, he just misses her.
He decides it's too early for a cab. Even Eduardo's mojo won't get him one any time soon, and he's impatient.
He misses her. He eats up squares of sidewalk in long, clumsy strides and worries about his hair. He can't remember if he checked the mirror before he left. He hopes it at least looks deliberate. He thinks about ducking into a drugstore or something. Someplace with a security mirror, a rack of sunglasses-anything. But he knows he's stalling.
He's rushing and stalling at the same time, even though he misses her and he's prepared to just say that. Mostly prepared. He's not sure how welcome he'll be. But he misses her and he'll risk it.
Socks. That was it. He cringes and registers that he's had the green for long enough that the little red man is flashing now. He sets his jaw and refuses to take it as an omen. He heads out into the intersection and jumps back a second later, barely clearing the path of an oncoming bike messenger who's just blown the light. He tells himself that's not an omen either.
Socks. That's the excuse that gave him permission to take the turn toward her place. Away from where he needs to end up not all that long from now, even though it's early. Early early. Not just early for him.
Lucky socks he'd left in his drawer. He'd had some story for why he needed those socks in particular. Why they're lucky. He'd had something for it a minute ago, but it's gone. It's not like she'd believe it anyway. Not that it matters whether she would or not when he forgets again the next second.
He thinks of it as his drawer and he can't remember much of anything then. His. The space she gave him in the heart of her own.
He misses her and that's what he'll say. And not just because his excuse is lame enough-because he's worn out and frazzled enough-that he keeps forgetting it. He'll say it because it's true.
It's only been a couple of days. He thinks so, anyway. If the pile of cast-off clothes by the bedside and the amount of trouble he had shaving are anything to go by, it's only been a couple of days. Maybe only one night? She'll give him hell if it's only been one night, but he doesn't care. He misses her.
There's a concentrated ache just under his left ribs. He stayed put as long as he could once it broke through. Once it sent him stumbling from the office into the dark recess of his room and he realized with a start that the bed was cold and empty. Once the clock told him it was well past late and hadn't quite made it to early, he made himself sit and watch the sun spread across the office floor until something like a decent hour.
He's been writing and she knows how he is. She's good about it. She teases him about real work. She hums "Money for Nothing" while she gets ready in the morning and laughs when she catches him absent-mindedly singing "chicks for free" under his breath.
She ignores the pointed sighs and the way he paces the loft with the ties of his open robe trailing pathetically along behind him. She pays no mind to his wide-eyed muttering as he tries to scrabble his way out of whatever corner he's written himself into. She won't engage.
She won't stand for him taking himself too seriously, and she has no patience for his melodramatics when he's in a real rut. But she's good about it when he's writing.
She deals with how he gets, and it's not a thing between them. She gets that he just disappears into it and she doesn't hold it against him. She calls him on his bullshit, but it's not ammunition she stockpiles. She's good about it.
She stays sometimes. She hangs around and food shows up at his elbow. She'll coax him to bed-she'll order him when she has to-when she decides that it's been enough hours in a row.
She lets him stay if it comes crashing over him at her place. The need to write.
That happens more and more. More and more over the last year. More and more lately.
He's fascinated by her space, and lately it's a breakthrough. She's been letting him in for months, but all of a sudden all these things strike him and he has to write. He has to capture and document and all these things in his mind.
He sees everything like it's new. The way she arranges her space and the hundreds of touchstones and fetishes she fills it with. The hollows and niches with their splashes of color and texture. Things to touch and drink in. He's fascinated by all the sides of her he gets to see now-all the spaces she inhabits-and it fills the well. He has to write.
Nikki is better than ever for it, but it doesn't end there. He's behind on the latest book, but not because he's not writing. Because he is.
Because when he sits down to write it's Nikki and half a dozen new paths he strikes out on. Some of them circle back. Sometimes it comes back to this book. Character or plot or detail for here and now and he gets further behind because the book just gets better and better and he won't stop himself from taking the time with it.
Sometimes he tucks it away. He follows a path and makes something. He adds it to a growing pile of someday. He can't remember the last time he had so many different possibilities.
He's writing. There was a lull during that few weeks. When things were hard. He wrote, then, too, but it fought him. That stuff . . . it's good. Different. And every word of it fought him, but it's sharp. It's worth it. He has the strong sense it's worth it, even if he's not exactly sure what he'll do with it. He's just not sure right now.
It's Nikki and Rook on the surface of it, but dark and deep. The kind of thing there really isn't time for in the breezy two hundred pages Black Pawn wants. That he usually wants.
It's been a relief over the last four years. The formula. He's good at it and it's been a kind therapy. Lazy therapy, maybe, but therapy. A simple path from point A to point B that's satisfying. That's a relief. Getting the two of them together exactly half way through the first book and knocking down every obstacle after that in no more than a chapter or two.
Shooting his rivals in the face.
Transparent, maybe. Lazy, maybe. But satisfying. So satisfying.
But in that few weeks-when it was't good-there was more. Something well below the surface that he struggled with when he really didn't need anything else fighting him. When everything was fighting him, the words wouldn't come without a fight, either
But he's proud of it. He's proud of the little he captured, even if he doesn't know exactly where it fits right now. It's work that will keep.
Since it's been better-since they've been better-he's been writing. Fast and constant and every time he thinks he can take a break, it's there. The words are there and the scene is there. Pushing at his mind and demanding. He's writing. And she's good about it.
She stays or she lets him stay, and sometimes she goes. She gives him the room when he needs it. Or when she does. He's not easy to be with when he's writing. He's not easy to be with, and sometimes she goes. She checks in on him, but not too often. She laughs when he loses focus and drops the phone in the middle of a conversation.
And she lets him have it when it's enough. When it's been long enough and he's taking his frustration out on Alexis and his mother. On her. She goes and she comes back and she lets him have it.
She left this time. Not because of anything he did. He doesn't think so? She called, so he doesn't think it's something he did. She called. Last night? Or maybe in he afternoon. She was on her way somewhere. Driving or something and distracted. Upset, maybe?
He hopes not, but he thinks she might have been upset. He thinks that's what brought him out of it. Eventually. Sudden, belated alarm bells and the strong sense that she might be upset. That he definitely missed her.
That's what's landed him on her doorstep now and it's still early, even though he diverted to pick up coffee and stall for a little more time. He sets the cups on a newspaper box and shakes back the cuff of his jacket, but he's staring at bare skin. He left his watch. He squints up at the sun as if it will tell him the time. It hurts his eyes and says early. Early.
It takes him far longer than it should to remember his phone. He fumbles it out of his pocket. The wrong pocket. The pocket he never keeps it in. He fleetingly wonders if he remembered to change his underwear-if he even remembered to wear any-but the thought goes, because . . . shit. It's really early.
He's on her doorstep. He's worried and he misses her, but he thinks about going. He thinks maybe this is a bad idea, even if she's upset. Maybe especially if she's upset.
He has meetings today and . . . shit. That's why she called. One of the reasons she called. Because she knew he'd forget. That there's a better than even chance that he'd forget and not even register Gina's ring tone or Paula's. Hers-Kate's-is the only one that seems to penetrate when he's like this. Even Alexis only has a 50-50 shot of catching him.
So she called to remind him, and . . . shit. She hates that. She should hate that. She's not his damned secretary. He wonders about underwear again and it comes back to him all of a sudden. How quiet she was on the phone and the fact that she really only called to remind him. He thinks he's useless and an ass and he really might need a secretary.
He snatches up the coffee cups. The liquid sloshes on his shoes. A single scalding drop soaks through to the skin of his thigh, but he's too impatient to right himself. One of her neighbors is coming out the front of the building. He catches the door and throws a distracted smile the woman's way. She glares and darts clear of another coffee geyser as his elbow connects sharply with the heavy glass door.
He opts for the stairs. It's a dumb idea, given the coffee and how clumsy he is, but he's impatient. He misses her and he thinks she was upset and he was clueless and he just wants to see her. Even if she yells, he wants to see her. He takes the stairs two at time and wonders idly how much coffee will be left in either cup before he hits her floor.
He juggles the cups to the crook of one arm and digs for the key in his pocket. It's not there, and he thinks for a minute he might cry. He's tired. There was no chance of him sleeping while he waited for it to be just regular early, and he doesn't remember the last time she ordered him to bed.
He closes his eyes and takes a long breath. It's there. The key is there. He's more certain about that than he is about underwear because he's hardly let go of it since she gave it to him. It's there. It's always there.
He remembers the phone. The wrong pocket. He shifts everything over to the other arm and searches. The panic is just about to set in when he finds it in a jacket pocket he never uses-one he hardly knew he had. The underwear situation is probably hopeless.
He fits the key in the lock with jittery hands and twists before the voice wondering if he should knock can get too loud. He misses her. He doesn't want to knock.
He bumps his hip against the door when it sticks like it always does. The lid pops off his coffee entirely. The ensuing coffee wave gets most of his sleeve and one lapel. He's definitely going to have to change. He eases the door closed and absent-mindedly wonders if he has anything even half suitable here. Anything he can change into before he has to go.
"Kate?" His voice is rough and creaky. He probably hasn't uttered a word since they talked on the phone, whenever that was. He clears his throat and tries again as he makes his way into the kitchen. "Beckett, heads up."
"Castle?" It's testy. Muffled, but testy.
"I brought coffee," he says quickly. Easily a third of it's missing and it's already going on lukewarm, but it might just save his life.
He hears the thunk of the bedroom door and turns toward the short hallway. He's eager.
He turns and she's there. Sober navy from her chin to the floor. From her chin to the flat, high-gloss shoes that almost brought a laugh bubbling up that day. Almost a laugh, but not quite, because they're so out of place on her, but Roy was dead and things were so bad between them and he didn't know if they'd ever be good again.
She's there in sober navy.
Sober navy except for the light glinting off the bright brass of a button that shouldn't be there. The same button that's tucked away in his desk. That he found under plastic and pinned to a hanger with the rest of his dry cleaning. The button he didn't remember pulling off. But he must have he must have tried to do something useful. To claw away the dark fabric and figure out how-how-there could be so much blood before he'd even had time to draw breath.
She's there in sober navy.
The coffee slips from his hands.
It's piling up behind her. It's still better. They're still better than they were, even if they're not good. Even if things have been piling up. They're still better.
But things are piling up. She knows. She'll deal with it when she can. Whenever that will be.
Not today. Today, she arranges things on the unworn duty belt. Whistle. Polished cuffs and white gloves with the seams that will pinch and chafe. The holster that's stiff and creaking, but shines. All of it shines.
None of it's broken in. None of it fits right. There was no time to order a tall dress shirt and her wrists stick out under the jacket, pale and bony and adolescent looking. The pants don't quite brush the polished tops of the gleaming lace-ups and she'll probably get dinged for that.
She'll probably get dinged for all of it. For how many inches from this section of the P.G. 204-01, 10-01 Revision, Section D, Paragraph 3 says that should be. Everything she has is piecemeal and not quite right. Things she had to get together in a rush because it's another thing that's been piling up.
She's somehow missed out on Gates and her enthusiasm for dress inspection the last two years. Shot. Suspended. Good excuses, she supposes, but this time she just put it off. This time she dug in her heels and decided to forget about it until she was scrambling.
She shrugs her shoulders, trying to make the shield and name plate sit right on her chest. Her shirt tail bunches up under the ill-fitting belt and wonders if it's too late to get shot and get out of this stupid inspection.
The thought fixes her spine in place. The heel of her hand lands hard, high-up on her chest and the thought freezes her joints.
It's not just another thing piling up. It's . . . . shit.
She forces her hand away from the scar. She makes her fists heavy and drops them to her sides and looks in the bathroom mirror. Fog from her shower clings to the outline of it in a jagged frame. It breaks her body up into startling pieces like an unexpected truth. Shit.
It's not just another thing piling up. Her skin crawls under the scratchy fabric and she wants to strip it all off. She wants to claw it away. Shred it until she's naked. Until she can breathe again and the air washes over her skin. Until she can breathe.
It's not just another thing that's piling up. But it's one of them. One of a lot, and it might be why? It's one reason why, anyway. Shit.
She's been watching it all out of the corner of her eye. The things as they pile up. She doesn't even really know what things they are. If they're hers or theirs. More hers, she thinks, but even still . . . even still. There's less of what's hers that she can keep from him. Less that she should. Less that she wants to.
That carries her along. She tells herself it's a good thing and that's not a lie. There's so little she can hide from him now and even less that she wants to. That's good.
But it's a relief that he's writing. That's not a lie, either. It's a relief that he's kind of . . . checked out right now.
That's not exactly fair. Checked out. He's working and thinking like that is what let Meredith in. What let Vaughn in. Partly, anyway.
He's working and however much she gives him shit, she respects that it is work. She likes that it is.
She wondered how that would be. Long before they were together, she wondered if Richard Castle would come crashing down to earth for good and all when she got to see him working.
He did. He has. But that's not exactly it.
The romance of it is gone, but it isn't. She snags the thought as it glides across her mind and tucks it away for later. She likes it. She likes it for them and the heavy jacket isn't quite as tight over her shoulders when she tucks the thought away.
The romance is gone because he really will wear that t-shirt until it disintegrates if she doesn't herd him into the shower. If she doesn't snatch it up from the bathroom floor and stuff it deep in the hamper while he's still in there.
It's gone because gets bitchy in a hurry when he's too dumb to know that he needs sleep or food or both, not necessarily in that order. It's gone because he gets stupid and forgetful and she finds a sharp reminder on her tongue that she's not his damned mother. And she chokes on that for all kinds of reasons.
But it's work. She gets to see it happen. Her favorite author clacking away and making things she loves. And it's work.
For her, that's a different kind of romance. She likes him better for it. She loves the books more for it. For the long hours and the fact that they both know it's a lie every time he shoves back from the desk and says that it's good enough. When he runs a frustrated hand through his hair and says that he's just done with it and it's good enough. They both know he'll be back at it before too long and she likes that.
She always likes it, but it's a relief right now.
There's nothing wrong. Not exactly wrong. She doesn't know why things are piling up, just that they are.
She blames April. The sun sets later and later and there are hardly any days left in it. They haven't talked about summer. She doesn't want to talk about summer.
She wants it to just happen. Like last summer. She wants the days and weeks to just happen, but they can't. It will never be the first summer again with its stolen days and all its secrets.
That's a good thing. She tells herself that. She knows that. But she still has to tell herself, too, and it's a relief that he's writing.
She doesn't want to have to steal days. Not really. She reminds herself what it was like listening to his end of every phone call while Alexis and Martha were in Europe.
The way he'd try a little too hard. The way he'd wink and twine his arm around her waist just as he was hanging up. The way he'd pretend like he loved getting away with something. The way he'd turn the phone over and over in his hands the whole night like he wanted to call back and confess.
Not confess. Share. Tell the world.
However he might have panicked the morning after the storm-however much he really did love having a secret with her last summer-his instinct is to tell. Always to tell.
She doesn't want the secret. They don't need it. This isn't about the forbidden.
After the fact-so long after the fact-she knows that. She curses herself for it. She curses herself for needing the reminder. For it being another thing she knows, but she still has to tell herself.
Because Sophia Fucking Turner, or whatever the hell her name really was, is someone else she let in. Another insidious voice that whispered and whispered. That made her mistrust the things about him-about them together-that she loves most.
That made her worry about how bright and hot they've always burned, whether they were together or not. About how long that could possibly last.
They still burn. That hasn't changed.
Because it's not about the secrets. Or not the way she thought. Not the way Sophia made her afraid it would be. The way she let Sophia make her afraid.
They still have secrets. They'll always have secrets.
Because she swears she's not ticklish, and he finds these places on her body that he makes his own. That drive her out of her mind and she swears they don't exist when his hands aren't on her.
Because he has these ridiculous gaps in the things he knows and he loves her telling him. He loves her introducing and explaining and turning things over on her tongue. He loves arguing with her and he loves when she wins.
There will always be secrets. They'll always burn. They've survived daylight.
They've more than survived it and even though things were bad for a while, they're better now. They're still better.
But they haven't talked about summer and that eats away at "better."
Alexis will be home. She won't be at college, anyway, and Kate's not sure what that means.
She and Alexis are fine. Since Paris, they're better than fine. They're back to something more than just getting along for his sake.
Alexis is her father's daughter. She wants to know things. To understand. She's naturally curious.
Not naturally. She learned to be curious. He taught her that. Endless, maddening questions, and her mannerisms are so much like his that she wants to laugh out loud.
But she hides it behind a fist. She does now, anyway, because Alexis is serious. Serious and sensitive, and the one and only time that Kate forgets herself and laughs, there's a flash of something familiar on the girl's face. Something she's seen before on him and she realizes that it's hurt. Embarrassment and retreat and hurt. He's just better at hiding it.
She wants to know things. Kate finds it such a relief that she wants to know things. That she makes sense of the whole experience by asking questions that Kate can answer-about jurisdiction and procedure and extraordinary powers-and she files the information away and it helps.
It's such a relief that she'll come to her with questions like that. And an equal relief that she goes to him-that she goes to her father-when she needs to fall apart. It's such a relief that she can do something for her-for him and his daughter.
And it's a relief that no one asks her to do too much. To do that emotional heavy lifting that leaves him grey-faced and stoic and trying not to fall apart. No one asks her to do too much, and it's a relief.
She's not proud of that, but it's a relief all the same.
She doesn't know what it means for the summer, though. They're resilient. Both of them. They're so eager and able to bounce back. But it's not over for them. He still has nightmares, and Alexis has slipped into the loft in the middle of the night more than once over the last few months.
More than once Kate has found the two of them huddled on the couch together. One blanket between them and the sun just touching them through the window. More than once, she's found him slumped against the doorframe to his daughter's bedroom, staring and not really awake. Not really asleep, either.
More than once she's pried the phone from his hand at 3 am and reminded him that it's not a good idea. That he can call her in the morning, but the middle of the night is not a good idea for either of them.
They go away for the summer. He goes away. Not last summer, but that was stolen. Not the summer before when he was waiting. Waiting almost the whole summer. She knows that from Espo. From Ryan and Martha. He's never said, but he waited.
But they usually go away for the summer, and she knows he'll say that she's welcome whenever she can get away. Whenever she can take the time. She thinks he'll say that and she thinks he'll mean it.
But she doesn't know where she fits when he and Alexis are better, but not good. She doesn't know if they need the summer. She doesn't know whether or not she's part of what either of them needs.
She feels a strange sensation at the back of her eyes. She looks into the mirror, startled to see all of herself at once. Startled to see the overhead light shimmering in the suspicious brightness of her eyes. Startled to find herself shaking and the tears ready to fall.
She swipes a brutal cuff over her face and slams the medicine cabinet. She doesn't have time for this. Instinct has her eyes dropping to her wrist, but her father's watch isn't regulation. She doesn't know what she has time for, but certainly not all the things piling up behind her.
She turns on her heel and hates the squeak of the uncomfortable lace ups. She makes her way into the bedroom and tries to remember where her phone is. She tries to remember her hat and whatever else she needs for this stupid inspection.
She hears something. She freezes again. She freezes, then jerks into motion. It's the door. It's her door and it takes her too long to go for her weapon. The coat doesn't move freely and the holster is stiff and her heart is pounding.
She gets it the next second. She understands. It feels like the longest second of her life, but she gets it. It's him and rage and relief rise up in equal measure. It rises up from her toes and she can feel herself flushing to the roots of her hair.
"Castle?"
She shoulders out the bedroom door and down the hall. She hears him babbling about something. Something.
She's going to strangle him.
She's going to kiss him.
He'd better have coffee.
She rounds the corner and it almost knocks her down. The look on his face almost knocks her down.
Something falls from his hand. She hears a hollow pop. Not actually loud. Just loud in the sudden, heavy silence. It's enough to still her. It's enough to make him to take one lurching step toward her, then stop dead.
She watches. One cup lands upright and the lid erupts in a vertical wash of brown. The other lands on its side and rolls drunkenly back and forth in the rapidly spreading puddle.
He had coffee.
His pants are splashed and spotted all the way up to the knees.
She's trying to get close to him, but he has her by the elbows and his arms are stiff. They're straight and unyielding and there isn't a hint of color in his face.
She's ruining her shoes.
"Kate?" His voice sounds rough and strange and unused. "Who's dead?"
"What?" Her fingers close tighter around his forearms. She must be bruising him, but he doesn't seem to notice. He doesn't seem to care. "Dead?"
"How long have I been out of it?" He sounds more like himself. The words crowd and pile up and there's an edge she thinks he means to sound funny. It doesn't. "I thought it was a day or two."
"No one's dead, Castle," she says gently. "We talked last night."
She takes a step closer to him and feels the coffee top the rubber sole of her shoe and seep in at the stitching.
He looks down at her, stricken. Pale and absolutely stricken, and she can't remember anything in the last year that's hurt as much as the look on his face right now.
He looks down at her and she hates these fucking shoes.
"Inspection. Remember?" She's trying to make it light. She's trying to make him look at her some other way.
"Inspection," he repeats.
It's hollow. She's making it worse.
"Castle . . ." She tugs at his sleeve. It's soaked, too. She wonders idly what happened. Where he's been and what he's been doing. She tugs at his sleeve. She tries to make him sit down.
"I missed you," he says suddenly. "Your coffee. I'm sorry."
She tries to tell him it's fine. She tries to make him sit down, but he's talking in fits and starts now. It's hard to follow, and he's trying not to look at her like that. He's trying and he's making it worse, too.
"We talked yesterday?" He looks to her for confirmation and she nods. "You were upset. I'm sorry."
She blinks at him. She wasn't . . . she was. Things are piling up and she was staring at the uniform. A dark oblong on the back of the closet door, duller for the plastic. She was upset, but he wasn't supposed to know.
"I wasn't . . ." She narrows her eyes at him. "I'm not upset with you, Castle."
"You should be," he says quickly.
He slides his arms around her and ducks his head behind hers. His lips land just below the knot of hair gathered at the nape of her neck and it's . . . home. It's the only word for it. She feels weary and warm and she just wants to shut the world out. She wants to be with him and shut the world out.
"No," she says and it's defiant. Petulant.
He laughs. The barest stirring of breath against her skin and she just wants to shut the world out.
"Yes," he insists. "You're not my secretary and I missed you."
Her spine jerks straight. It hurts-it physically hurts-but she peels herself back from him. She takes a step back. The soaked cuff of her pants sticks to skin.
"Meetings. You have meetings and shit! Castle!" Her eyes dart around the room, panicked. She's looking for a clock. Doesn't she have any damned clocks? "What time is it?"
"I don't care," he snaps and pulls her back toward him. "Also, I don't have my watch."
She laughs and goes along willingly. She crashes into him and tilts her mouth up along his jaw. "Me neither."
He presses his lips to her cheek.
"You don't care?" he sounds hopeful and resigned at the same time.
"Don't have my watch." She sighs and lets her forehead fall against his shoulder. "Not regulation."
He slides his hands down to her elbows and steps back. It's clumsy and reluctant and they're both sloshing at this point. His shoes are ruined, too.
He studies her. She can feel him studying her and she's afraid to look. She's afraid what she might see, but his hands are traveling now. Shoulder to wrist and over her collar. His fingertip connects the bright brass dots of her coat buttons.
"It's new," he says quietly.
She nods, and he looks relieved.
"I have . . ." He stops abruptly. His fingers close around the second button like he can't help it.
His breath hitches and she looks up at him. She can't not look any more.
It's not . . . She doesn't know what it is and what it's not. He's studying her and she doesn't know what that means.
"We need to talk." His voice is a clipped, cool blank and his face is unreadable.
He's studying her and her stomach drops. Everything drops and she feels heavy and awful.
He sees it. He must see it, because the next second his palm is splayed out over the back of her neck and he's kissing her hard, and deep.
"Not . . . Not like . . ." It's disjointed. He can't seem to stop kissing her. "Not like that. We should talk. I want to talk."
"Ok," she murmurs and she can't stop kissing him either. "Yes. Ok."
He kisses her one last time. Thoroughly. Soundly. He pulls back and keeps his eyes on her face like anything else is a problem. "Ok."
"I'll come over when I'm done?"
"No." He frowns. Shakes his head. "I want to . . . Can we go out? Will you go out with me?"
She grins up at him. "You asking me on a date?"
"Yeah," he grins back. "I'm asking you on a date."
A/N: I remember being fascinated whenever my dad had dress inspection. There were all these things he didn't usually carry or wear and everything was pressed and polished . Of course, as a kid, I never really thought about the fact that the only other time he'd wear his dress uniform was a formal funeral.
I may have questioned him on the down low about whether a detective would have dress inspections. (Making it the second strangest bit of research I've ever done for a fic . . .)