Due North: Epilogue-Once Upon a Time-A Caskett PWP three-shot set in S6. COMPLETE
Title: Due North: Epilogue-Once Upon a Time
WC: ~1400 this chapter, ~6100 total
Summary: "She rolls her eyes. Tips her head back. It's not just for him. The impatience. The disbelief. It's for her, too. For youth and stupidity. He wishes, not for the first time, that she weren't so hard on herself. All her selves."
They're at right angles to each other on the bed. He can't remember how they wound up like this, him sprawled width-wise at the bottom with his feet dangling and her stretched out along one edge.
"I'm starving." She tickles the outside of his thigh with her toes. She holds her arms high above the bed and circles her wrists. She's long and languid and catlike and if he had any energy at all, he'd definitely be taking advantage of that. "Aren't you starving?"
"Starving," he agrees. "Unsurprisingly."
"Unsurprisingly." She drums on his calf with her feet and he wonders how she can move at all.
"I'm not sure room service is an option." He cracks an eye open, cowering a little as he peers up at her. She hasn't forgotten his earlier adventures. There'll be hell to pay for that at some point. He grins up at the ceiling. She sees it. She knows exactly what he's thinking, but hell isn't knocking just yet.
"Only one way to find out." She pushes herself up on an elbow and leans away from him.
She turns back, far more quickly than she should be capable of right now, and tosses the phone's handset at him. "Be brave."
He glares. He tries to, but now she's sprawling belly down on the bed. The view doesn't really lend itself to glaring, especially when she shimmies for the far edge and plucks the red coat from the floor.
She holds it up and tsks at him. "Rumpled, Constable."
"Shameful." He tosses the phone aside and tries to climb up the bed for her on his knees. She pushes him away with one bare foot. He topples back on to his hands while she slips her arms into the coat and pulls it just barely closed over her breasts. It stops him hard in his tracks.
"That . . ., " he stammers, ". . . that is just . . . wow, that is . . . I totally get it."
"Get it later, Castle." She falls back on to the pillows. The jacket covers a maddening blend of nothing and everything and Wow. He totally gets it. "Feed me now."
He does. He feeds her. Champagne and roses, and he gets it. They both get it in a variety of ways. There's infinite fascination in the intricacies of the straps and the endless lines of buttons. And then there's the hat. The hat. He thinks the costume might be the best investment he's ever made.
The sky darkens outside the window and the city comes to life. There's a gap in the blackout curtains he should really do something about. He would, but she's curled tight against his side, half her own body draped possessively over half of his.
She drifted off a while ago, but he's not quite there yet. He's still kind of wired. An odd juxtaposition of a mind that's racing and a body that's thoroughly worn out.
The lights aren't helping to bring the two halves of him in line with each other. He's making up his mind to it-formulating a plan for slipping out from under her to deal with the window when she speaks.
He doesn't hear the words. He feels them at first. Breath and vibration against his skin. It's that quiet.
"He was . . ." She thinks about it. Draws in more breath. What she needs for this kind of story. "Ridiculously handsome." She pinches his side. "Don't say it."
"Say what?" He grins. He turns to face her, tugging her limbs back over him until they're a messy, comfortable tangle.
"More handsome than you." She sticks out her tongue. "At least I thought so."
"You were seventeen." He shrugs. "I won't hold you responsible for your poor judgment."
She rolls her eyes. Tips her head back. It's not just for him. The impatience. The disbelief. It's for her, too. For youth and stupidity. He wishes, not for the first time, that she weren't so hard on herself. All her selves.
"I was so . . ."
Her hand comes up to cover her face, but he catches it. He kisses her palm. "So . . . seventeen?"
"I threw myself at him." She ducks her head. Pointedly watches her fingers as they trail along his arm. "I was so pissed. So tired of being a kid and it was supposed to be . . . God, I just want to die when I think about it."
He keeps quiet. Strokes her hair back from her face and lets her be until she meets his eyes again. Until a brief smile flickers across her lips. Something grateful. She wants to tell.
"Why'd they show up in the first place?" He can't resist a flash of grin. He's still caught up in it. The moment. The thrill of being in trouble. "The constabulary?"
"The guy . . . I was with." There's a shadow now. Something serious. Bad. He remembers the tremor in her voice. "Turned out there was a warrant out for him."
She closes her eyes. There's something beyond embarrassment here. This is worse. He waits for her to tell him how. Why.
"There was a gun in his bag. Drugs . . . prescription and some other stuff. Probably enough to draw trafficking charges. He'd had me chat up the guys at the border. He swapped my bag for his when they weren't looking." She looks up at him. "When I wasn't looking. Could've been bad."
"But he let you off the hook?" He tips his head back toward the hat on the night stand behind him.
She laughs. A huge, relieved thing. "He saved my ass."
"Who can blame him?" He laughs, too. Sneaks a kiss. "It's a fine, fine ass."
She's smiling. A little wobbly, but a smile. He decides to risk it. A flat out question.
"So . . . the throwing yourself at him . . . before or after he bailed you out?"
She gives him a hard look, but he weathers it. She sticks her tongue out at him again.
"Before." Her cheeks go pink. "That was my master plan to get out of it."
"Ouch." He kisses the spots of color. Says it again, more gently, because he can't think what else to say. "Ouch."
"He was nice about it." She buries her head against his shoulder with a groan. "That was the worst. He was absolutely clear that it was never, ever going to happen. But really . . . nice about it."
"So why'd he help you?" He lets his hand slide down her back. "Other than your fine ass?"
"I didn't know anything." She shrugs. "The guy I was with? I didn't even know his real name, I guess, and he . . . he just left. Went out for beer and never came back. He said . . . the constable . . ." She drops her voice. She's playing, but not playing, too. She really is still a little starry eyed about him, even after all this time. "After he turned me down, I . . . "
The playfulness goes as suddenly as it came. He waits. This is something he definitely has to wait for, though it's killing him. The way it hurts. The way she's burning with it.
"I blubbered about how I wanted to go to law school and . . . my mom . . ." She sighs. "How disappointed my mom would be."
He can't picture it. He absolutely can't picture this version of her, even when she manages to look up at him again and there's a fleeting glimpse there. She's someone he's never met. That incarnation that could cry on a stranger's shoulder, even if she hated herself for it later. That part of her is gone and it's bittersweet to know her for just this little while.
"He said that stupidity shouldn't ruin someone's whole life." She grimaces. She's more than a little pissed off, and that he can picture. Not-so-little Kate Beckett in leather, sullen and slouched against a car door. That he can see. "He drove me back to the border after his shift ended. So I got to hear a lot about how very stupid I'd been."
"Give him a break." He kisses her hard. Pulls her body against his and wonders how he can possibly even think about doing this all over again. He is, though. His mind is buzzing and his body can deal with it. Maybe. "Lecture as defense mechanism. It was simple self preservation."
"Self preservation?" She gives him a lazy grin. Predatory. She's not really listening.
"Absolutely," he mutters against the skin flushing hot against his lips. Again. "Trapped in a confined space with Bad Girl Kate Beckett? Few men survive."
"No men." She clambers on top of him. Reaches for the night stand and jerks one of the long leather straps toward her with a snap. "None survive."
A/N: And that's it. Thanks for reading.