In The Event Of, Ch. 3-A post-Montreal Caskett 4-shot
Title: In the Event of, Ch. 3
Rating: T
WC: ~1800 this chapter, ~ 8200 so far
Summary: "His mouth twitches into a brief frown. They're working on this. Getting past this new habit of reassurance-I know. Of course. I know. Getting past the sour note that sounds every time either of them voices something that's gone powerfully unsaid almost as long they've known one another-I know you. I trust you. Always."
A/N: I guess this is four chapters with a kind of ending after all. This-or the next chapter, anyway-is the end point I had in mind when I started this back after Montreal aired, but I didn’t quite envision this path to it. As with the other pieces, it’s set after Montreal (7 x 02), but it’s spoiler free other than that and after that, not really engaging with what we’ve seen on canvas since then.
"Castle!"
She hears the surprise in her own voice and tries not to wince. He's standing on the other side of the bullpen fence and the uneasy set of his shoulders says it's been a while. That he's been standing there a while, and he might be as surprised to be there as she is to see him.
It is a surprise. Just on the surface of it. She's off today, and this is just a fly by to move some paperwork from point A to point B. Something no one but her could seem to find. On the surface, it's a surprise that he'd try to catch her here. But it's not on-the-surface that's the problem.
It's a surprise because he's kept to the edges at the precinct, first when the calls rushed in and now that the phone hardly rings at all. It's a surprise because they're both prone to flashes of anger at the sidelong glances he gets. They both get. Him like he's a criminal, her like she's a fool.
It's a surprise, because that's not just life at the precinct. It's life on the subway and at the grocery store and every place they try to go. People shouting crazy things and terrible things. People pushing their way between the two of them like it's their right to have their say. It's a surprise because he's not exactly a shut in, but there's a deep breath he takes every time he pushes through the door to the outside world.
It's good. That's what Kate tells herself. It's what the delight rising up tells her, even though there's worry to spare. It's what she decides. It's good that he's here. Unexpected delight, and that has her rushing to him with eager steps, smiling.
"Hey." She presses a kiss to the cheek he offers. "I was coming home."
"I know," he says quickly.
His mouth twitches into a brief frown. They're working on this. Getting past this new habit of reassurance-I know. Of course. I know. Getting past the sour note that sounds every time either of them voices something that's gone powerfully unsaid almost as long they've known one another-I know you. I trust you. Always.
She lets her fingers linger on his shoulder. She lets them brush the corner of that frown and chase it away.
"I know you were." It's a tease this time. He's smiling. Looking a little sly. "I kind of wanted to be . . . out though." His brows draw together, looking inward. His plan, such as it is, ends at the elevator. At the bull pen fence. "Can we walk? It's . . . well, it's not gorgeous . . ."
She turns to follow his gaze through tiny, high-up window at the other end of the room. It was warm enough when she left the loft, but the sky has a sullen, bruised look to it. She remembers the wind. How it made her put her head down and insist on each step and she liked it anyway. She liked something about it.
"Not gorgeous. But kind of . . ." She can't put her finger on it. She shivers with something that's not quite unpleasant.
"Kind of," he nods, like the nothing on her tongue is exactly it. "Can we walk?"
She slips her arm through his and tugs him toward the elevator. She slaps the button and presses herself close to his side. "We can walk."
The streets are crowded. It's New York. They're always crowded. But the two of them are out of step, strolling while others rush by with more than the usual urgency. Grinning, not glowering, when the wind moans so loud they can hardly hear each other and the scent of coming rain feels their mouths. They're out of step with everyone who isn't them, and it's welcome. Intimacy in the crush of everything.
They don't talk much at first. They slow at corners in silent, mutual agreement that they're not going anywhere particular. They're just going, and sometimes he's the one to tug back the other way, sometimes she is.
Her insides flutter. She mistakes it at first for worry. It's unusual. Him coming to collect her when she was on her way home. This leisurely, wandering journey. It's strange, and breaths she hasn't taken yet ripple against her ribs. But he's smiling, or nearly so every time she steals a glance. Their strides are long and easy. Exactly matched, and she takes pleasure in that. Pleasure in how perfectly their fingers twine together and the eerie howl of the wind around them.
It's like courting. She laughs out loud when the word lands at the center of her mind. His head swings toward her. She answers with a stumbling I'll-tell-you-later kiss. He smiles right into it and nods. He gets it.
It's good, she decides again, even though it's far stranger than an unexpected visit. They never got to do this. Court, she thinks again. Laughs again and the look he shoots her is a little darker this time.
They flirted for years. They pushed each other's buttons and walked a line that was too painful, too often. They came together in thunder and lightning, their connection strained not quite to breaking, and no time at all to find rest in each other after that first, desperate crash of mouths and bodies and vows.
They loved each other that first year. Of course they did. But they had for so long before that, and they both made too little of the difference. Of the profound ways they'd altered, though life on the surface looked so much the same. They loved each other and nearly got lost in settling for the thing that had been so long in coming that it seemed they ought to settle for something so extraordinary. They ought to settle at least a while.
And he'd asked her to marry him in stubborn anger. She'd said yes in wild relief that he'd follow her a little longer. And again there wasn't any rest. Fourteen frantic days to tell everyone who mattered. To unwind her life from his when it was the last thing either of them wanted.
They never got to do this. They never got to walk side by side and tease secrets from one another, big and small, the way lovers do. They never got to come calling for each other with nothing more than a walk in mind. They never got to court, and this is good in the terrible center of two months lost and the things they don't know. Things they can't know.
They've stopped before she realizes it. They've come to rest, and he's swung around on some street corner to face her. He looks serious. Like he's thinking something over, and he's not sure what she'll say. He's not sure how to ask for whatever it is he wants.
"Yes." She twines her arms around him and kisses his chin. The closest thing she can reach in her flat weekend shoes.
"I haven't asked anything." He gives her a cross little smile. "I was thinking we could go . . ."
"Yes." She cuts him off, jerking his mouth down to hers this time. "We can go. We can go wherever you want."
It's not far. They retrace steps, their wandering to that point having carried them away a little from where've he has in mind, but it's not far. It's not new, either. Not to her and not to them. It's nothing like a regular haunt, close to the precinct as it is. But they listened to jazz on the lawn here once. For about five minutes before she got a call. A year ago. Closer to two.
It's not new and it's not old. She wonders about it in an idle sort of way, as she lets him lead her to an unfamiliar entrance. It takes them all the way around to Avenue B, and she thinks at first he might be stalling. It's an obscure little gate in a low, wrought iron fence, though, and it seems deliberate.
"Secret garden," he says with a wink as he holds out an arm to usher her through and she thinks then that it's deliberate after all.
"Secret," she agrees. She tips her head back, dizzy with how high above them the thick canopy of green stretches. She pivots on one foot, back toward the gate, half expecting the city to be gone. It's not. Of course it's not, but there's something other worldly about the little grove that makes it feel far from everything. She grins at him. "Spooky."
"A little spooky." He grins back, but there's something nervous in it. He reaches for her hand again and she comes quickly, as anxious to be at his side as he seems to have her there. "Benches this way." He inclines his head down the narrow left fork of a path. "Ok to sit for a while?"
She nods and starts off. She makes it the length of her arm and his, nodded at the fingers, but he's gone still. "Castle?"
"You're not cold?"
The wind kicks up, as if on cue, a dervish of soil and dry leaves circling his body up to the knees. He is stalling now, where she's eager. She's fierce with the good they've found together, even lately. Especially lately. She shakes her head.
"Hungry?"
"Castle."
She takes a step toward him.
"Sneezy? Sleepy?" He stays put, talking quickly. Nervous. Worried. But smiling, too. Delighted, and she feels the giddy rise of her stomach. She takes another step and another until they're toe to toe. "Bashful?"
"Have I ever -" she bumps her hips against his " - ever been bashful?"
"Lots of times." He laughs and reaches for her, fitting their bodies together. "Lots of times. It's amazing."
He murmurs the words into her hair and she believes him. She remembers the moment her scar came to light. The way his eyes swept up her legs the first time he saw her in a sundress. She remembers her own fingers creeping over a movie theater arm rest and his arm landing across her shoulders. She remembers the brilliant flare of Martha's love when she showed off her ring and the warmth in her cheeks when her dad had pulled them both into an awkward hug.
"Happy," she says, her lips pressed to the warm hollow of his throat. "Only dwarf here."
"Dopey?" He squints down at her, trying a little too hard for jolly.
"Happy." She leans against him, letting the weight of her body tell him she's here. That she'll wait with him as long as he needs.
"Happy," he echoes, holding on to the moment a little longer before he steps back.
He keeps her hands in his and studies her, reassuring himself. She flexes her fingers. A gesture of presence. Patience, and he seems to know that. He seems to take it as given, and that's good. It's good.
"I want to tell you the story."