one hundred coffees || eighty-six to ninety-five (Ch. 18 & 19)

[youngerdrgrey]

Title: One Hundred Coffees || ff.net link
Summary: The story of each and every one of those one hundred coffees that Kate owes Rick. Castle/Beckett.
Warnings/Spoilers: (For 86-90) A Dance With Death. (For 91-95) 47 Seconds

eighty-six to ninety



86:

It takes Rick a while to get over the whole Odette is not really Odette thing. And, by 'a while', well, Rick spends his next theory building moment talking about it. The twins theory is out, but he can't just let it go. It's just Rick and Kate around when he asks, "Can you imagine it -someone else living your life?"

Kate doesn't even look up when she says, "You seem to be able to." She's referring to the books. But that doesn't exactly fit the bill.

"That's writing, Kate. This is pod person status. It's creepy."

Kate does look up then. "Don't worry, Castle. I'd know it wasn't you."

He grins, but then he wonders. "How?" It's a serious question, but he can't help joking a bit. "My sparkling personality? My wit? My sweet, passionate-"

"Obviously, your modesty, Rick," she responds. He chuckles. She flips a page on Barbara, then tells him, "It's your eyes. I don't know - there's something in them that's very you. I'd be able to see if it wasn't there. I'd know."

He knows what that something is. He bets she does too, even if she won't say it. He won't say it either. Not again. Not yet at least. So, instead of saying what he wants to, he says, "Thanks, Kate. You want to get a coffee while the boys are out?"

Kate laughs at the phrasing. "Oh, is it date night already?" she jokes. She closes the file and stands, the action putting her face to face with him. She gives him her own special look, and it's not just love swimming around in there.

He says, "We won't get anywhere if you keep looking at me like that."

She leans in, almost like she's about to kiss him, before she turns her head and steps aside. "I am pretty thirsty." She walks off to the break room. He follows, mumbling something about her being just as much of a tease now as she was before.

87:

"Panties on the head, Castle?"

There's a line between teasing, joking, and thoughtless statements. Rick is closest to the third option. He really needs to try shutting up. "I said, pretend I didn't say that."

Kate gives him this probing sort of glance. "Maybe we should talk about your number."

His face pales. "Oh, no, Kate, focus."

"You're the one telling all of these stories. First, you want to go to the strip club-"

He pipes in, "To interrogate-"

She continues, "To watch women dance around in their underwear."

Rick is silent a moment. He says, "Ryan's married. It's worse that he goes. I would be keeping those two under control."

Kate shakes her head. At the same time, she wields her mug like a finger pointed at his chest. He feels powerless under his weak excuse. Then again, he's normally powerless against Kate.

"No, you would be fighting off the girls who would be trying to flirt with you."

"Try being the operative word. I sense a little bit of jealousy here, Kate," comments Rick.

Kate's mug comes closer to his chest. She assures him, "It's not jealousy. You're not going anywhere."

Rick stutters, "Well, if you think that, why can't I go?"

"Do you want me to go to a strip club?" Kate asks. Rick's mind flashes to Kate dressed in something silky and black, something that leaves just enough to the imagination for the writer in him to go wild, not that it wasn't already. He can practically feel the fabric - and then he does feel the mug hit him.

He starts, jostling his own coffee on the counter. Despite his mental vacation, he answers correctly, "No. Of course not."

Kate just shakes her head again and walks away. He considers going after her, but changes his mind. He should let her cool. Let the coffee cool too just in case she wants to hit him again with her cup. Besides, he has a new little scene forming in his mind that's just dying to be explored.

88:

Later, after the big secret is starting to unfurl, Rick and Kate have a celebratory night coffee. He spends the majority of it with this proud smile on his face. Kate looks amused, but he sees that she's proud too. Of course she is. Who wouldn't be? Alexis is a child to be proud of. She's hard-working, intuitive, creative, and she might have just helped them crack this case. It's amazing.

Rick grins over his mug, mumbling, "My little girl - the medical examiner." He sighs happily, leaning back into the cushion of Kate's couch. She leans into him, her head coming to rest on his shoulder. He wraps his arm around her and plants a kiss to her forehead. He adds, "To think I almost tried to stop her from doing this."

"Almost?"

He nudges her with his shoulder. She looks up at him, and he's already looking down at her. "Honestly, though, thanks for stopping me, Kate."

89:

A few days later, Lanie gets a call. Kate says that it wasn't exactly on the list Lanie created, but she thought she would share. Lanie's squeals - so loud they can be heard through the phone - are what wake Rick up. He rolls over in his bed and heads towards the doorway. Kate's in his office, sitting in his big chair, wearing one of his shirts and an old pair of sweats, a cup of coffee in her hand. It's an unusual sight, yet it feels like it's right. He moves in closer and pulls the mug from her hands. She gives him a weak sort of glare and tells Lanie that she'll call back. Lanie calls out from the phone, "Is Castle there? Good morning, Lover Boy!"

While Kate flushes, Rick plucks the phone from her hand as well. He easily says, "Good morning, Lanie. Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to spend a little time with my girlfriend while we miraculously don't have a case. Bye, Lanie."

He can hear the smile in her voice when she replies, "Bye, Castle." He clicks the call off and properly greets Kate with a kiss. She pulls back.

"Wake up first. Kiss me later," she says. He raises an eyebrow but takes a sip from the cup anyway. As he does so, something solid comes sliding into his mouth. He spits it out back into the cup. His curious gaze meets her impassive one. Is this a joke? He reaches inside of the cup, much like a child digging for the prize in the cereal box. The prize is a key. He looks to Kate in shock.

"Now, this doesn't mean you get to start packing me bags or cooking me dinner whenever I leave you to chase down a suspect. I just want you to have it - just in case."

Rick wiggles his eyebrows. "Just in case you're lonely and need a little... company?"

She leans closer to him, whispers, "We both know you'll get lonely before I do. And after, you can try my new espresso machine. If you want to."

Rick does. Come to think of it, so does Kate.

90:

It's amazing. Both the coffee and the sex.

ninety-one to ninety-five



91:

The last time there was a bomb in New York, Rick and Kate almost died. But this time, they're not standing in front of the bomb with clasped hands and a faint hope that Rick will somehow save the day. This time, they're not locked away in a freezer, tongues too numb to say what they really want to say. This time, they're fine. But fine only goes so far.
It mostly gets them to this point, to where Kate says to him, "It makes you think of other things you don't want to put off anymore."

For Kate, she doesn't want to put off their future, their chance at happiness, telling him she loves him, being with him wholly and completely, letting go.

And Rick doesn't want to put off never letting go, or using his fear to force them forward, stopping the Dragon, protecting his family, telling her he loves her, and holding her in his arms until the day they do die.

It's a long list for the both of them, and that's not even everything. But that's about as much as either of them can rasp in the brief second between when Kate gives him the cup of coffee asking what he wants and when Rick brings her to him, whispering the word "You."

92:

While the case brings Rick and Kate closer, it almost seems to do the opposite for Rick and Alexis. It drives them physically further apart. He can't help it. As proud as he is of his daughter, he's also worried. Worried that her being in this world will only hurt her. Worried that, one day, she'll be the one on the slab of metal and Lanie will have that same wounded look that Alexis does now. Worried that life as they know it is changing, ending, done.

Maybe that's the writer in him that thinks that. But, the writer in him also understands her pain. Cataloging personal effects is tough. It's the tiny details that make the characters - the victims - real. So he brings Alexis home for something a little less realistic and a bit more relaxing. They watch movies and laugh and eventually Kate appears bearing coffee and a smile. They welcome her in to their night without pause, without thought. This is where she belongs, where they all do.

Rick goes to the bathroom at one point, and Kate reiterates that she is there for Alexis, whenever she wants, whatever she wants, always. The teenager nods with this watery eyed sort of smile. It worries Kate until she realizes that Alexis isn't about to cry. She's about to hug her and tell her, "You're the best, Kate. Not just for my dad, but for me too. I don't think I could do this if you weren't here to help me."

Kate's own smile turns watery. She says, "You could. You're an amazing girl, Alexis. You don't give yourself enough credit."

"Neither do you. You're so modest and even bashful sometimes. Can't you see how great you are and how much everyone loves you?"

Kate thinks about the family they've created at the Twelfth. Her boys, who alternate between being her brothers and the kids she has to control, and Lanie, her sister and best friend, and even Gates, the no nonsense mother who can't stop hazing her future stepson. It's weird to think of Gates as a mother, as someone other than this awful figure filling in for one of the greatest men that Kate has ever known. Despite everything, Roy has always meant a lot to Kate. And his only regret was that he couldn't help Kate sooner, wouldn't bring down the conspiracy that ruled their lives, shouldn't step in and force her to admit what she was trying to avoid. What she's done avoiding.

Kate looks up from Alexis's shoulder and meets Rick's gaze. How much everyone loves her - "Yeah, I know." If only they knew how much.

93:

Kate needs another coffee after talking with Bobby. She hates that the suspect has the same name as her barista, her little voice of reason. She almost wants to go to their shop and get her cup there, just to make sure that he's okay. That she can still look at him and see him rather than this idiot with a God complex.

She needs to calm down, but it doesn't help that Rick is there with her and all she can hear is his voice saying "I've been thinking about the victims and all the opportunities they'll never have. And I don't want that to happen." No one wants that to happen. Gosh, she's shaking at the thought of losing him. Or is it at the thought of what happened all those months ago? Of the bright sun and the damp grass and the pressure all over her body as Rick whispered, again and again, "I love you, Kate. I love you." She had wanted to answer, to tell him back, but she couldn't when the entire world was fading. And that's a great excuse for then. But for now? What's her excuse now when they're in a relationship, where they're sleeping together and swapping keys and turning always into a physical reality? What is it because it doesn't seem like she has one.

She walks back out of the break room with the cup Rick left on her desk and a cup she just made him. She sits with them. Waits. And waits. Where is he? He doesn't normally take off during cases unless something is wrong. Is it Alexis? Martha? What?

"Yo, Beckett, over here."

She glances up to Esposito. He waves her over to his desk; he's got a break. She gives a quick once over to Rick's empty chair and the cup cooling beside it. Rick'll probably be back soon. No, he will be back. It's nothing. Whatever this is, it will be fine. (And yet, even as she thinks it, she knows she's wrong.)

94:

"She's wrong," mumbles Rick with a glance around them. It's a fitting place for him to hide, a bomb memorial, but just because it's fitting doesn't mean it makes sense. Nothing makes sense. Not when Kate's been lying to him, not when the rug has been pulled out from under him and he's stuck sitting on his bare ass with no clue as to what's up, down, or anything. He can't even pin point who he is, who she is. "She's... She's..."

"The love of your life?" Martha supplies. Rick rolls his eyes. Yeah, the love of his life and she did this? "Your inspiration? The mother of my future grandchildren?"

He shakes his head, craning his neck at the same time to avoid Martha's gaze. He can't think about that now. Can't imagine the little boy with his hair and Kate's eyes. Can't picture the five of them at a picnic, or roasting marshmallows on the beach, or chasing down Grandpa Jim. He can't do that. "Not anymore."

Martha sighs. "Oh, Richard, just because she remembered doesn't mean she doesn't care about you."

He rounds on his mother, frustration mingling with the betrayal in his eyes. "She was embarrassed, Mother. She didn't feel the same way. She never has. She's settling, going for the easy route instead of what she really wants with some other guy."

Martha chuckles a bit, saying, "Nothing with you is ever easy." He doesn't see the humor. She sobers a bit, asks, "Well, what do you plan to do? Ignore her? Work side by side pretending you don't love her?"

"It worked for her," he grumbles.

"Anyone with eyes can see that she loves you and that you love her."

"You of all people should know that it's about more than what you see. It's about what you feel, what you say, what you do. And she's done enough. I've done enough." He scoffs bitterly. "I waited for so long, so long before I said anything or tried, and I thought that we had something. I thought we would work. But it all boils down to this. She knew, and she's always known, and she doesn't care."

Martha says, "But you do."

He shakes his head again. "Not anymore. I'm going to let her go."

"But, Richard-"

"I've got to go, Mother. I should be heading back."

"Richard!"

He ignores Martha, walking up the street towards the precinct. He wonders if he can handle it, if he can truly be in that building with her and not do or say something awful to her. Gosh, it's been about an hour since he heard her and he still doesn't know what he's feeling. He's angry, hurt, upset, broken, lost, shocked. He's relieved that it's said, furious that it's still treated like nothing, afraid that it doesn't matter. Why don't his feelings matter? He knows why. Because it wasn't him who got shot. He wasn't the one in recovery in the middle of nowhere for three months without communication. He was here, at the precinct, at home, doing his job and hers, walking this same street and being forced, again and again, to do what she seems to be doing now - remembering every single second of the shooting. Every blade of the slick grass moved by their falling bodies, every scorching piece of skin attacked by the sun, every gasp and scream and tear, every drop of her blood that ran through his fingers as if he wasn't even there. He loves her, but in this moment, he hates her too. So when he gets to her desk and sees the coffee waiting there, he tosses it without thought, without pause. One fucking cup of coffee won't fix this. He isn't sure if anything will.

95:

He's trying to tell Kate something. With every one of his incredibly ill-timed, snide, possibly passive aggressive comments, Rick is trying to tell Kate what's bothering him. She just wishes he could say it instead of throwing in comments whenever someone else is speaking.

"That's not the only way to maximize damage," he says. Well, Kate knows a way to fix whatever his damage is - talk to her, damnit. Look her in the eye and give her that same look he has for as long as she's known him. She's sick of this bitter pod person who's appeared today. This isn't the guy she fell in love with. This is the snarky author persona that sells novels to girls looking for a bad boy to save. Kate doesn't want to save him. She doesn't need to. They've saved each other and come out on the other side together. At least, that's what's they were supposed to do.

She forces herself to focus. She's in interrogation and she needs to focus.

The suspect - the bad Bobby - says, "Amnesia seemed like a better plan."

And then passive aggressive Rick says, "Yeah."

He says yeah. She gets a sinking sort of feeling in her gut. Does he know? Is that why he's been acting like this? But that doesn't make sense. If he knew that she knew, he wouldn't react like a wounded puppy. He can't. They're together. It's okay because they're together and he's supposed to love her. He does love her. No, her remembering is not the problem. It has to be something else. Something else they can sort through at the end of the case. Not now.

But the end of the case comes sooner than she anticipates. It's there in a flash and she's got a cup of coffee waiting with his name on it at their coffee shop. But Ryan and Espo head off and Rick... seriously, what's his issue? Since when does he want to just go home and not be with her? She wants to shake him, scream until he tells her.

Instead, calmly, a little bit hopefully, she asks, "What did you want to talk about?"

A part of her expects him to say nothing, to deflect the way he's been doing all day. But, for once, he meets her eye and he says, "There are lots of opportunities that we've missed, Kate. Chances for something... great that we've let go. I think it's best that we just follow the path we've started."

She doesn't understand. This doesn't sound like good news. This isn't - this is wrong. "Meaning?"

He takes a shuddering breath. (Or is that her? She can't tell the difference. Can't think. Can't breathe. So maybe it is him then.) "We need to let go. Take a break. So I'm going home and you go to your place, and we'll see each other at work tomorrow."

"Castle, why -"

"I need space, Kate. You of all people should be able to understand that." He starts walking away. Starts to leave. If he leaves, will he ever come back?

"Castle." He doesn't turn around. "Castle! Rick!" She rushes up, stopping him at the elevator. "I understand. Space is my thing. But I don't want space."

His eyes flare with indignation, frustration, rage. "It's not about what you want, Kate. It's about what's right, about other people, but you don't care about what other people want. The only justice is on your schedule."

"Rick, what-"

"We're together, Kate," but the way he says it tells her that they won't be for long. "That means that we're open with each other."

But that's a two-way street. "It also means you're not supposed to walk away. Wasn't that what you said in your big speech weeks ago? No waking away?"

"We're in the middle of the precinct, Kate. It's better if I just walk away."

"And then what? We see each other at work tomorrow? Do we get to go out then, or are we going home alone again? And how long is that going to last, Rick?"

And then he's screaming. "I don't know, Kate! How long were you going to wait to tell me that you remembered?" So that is what this is about. That's the issue. He shakes his head, but the fire is still in his eyes, in his shoulders, in his whole body. "That was months ago, Kate. Months. How long have you remembered? A week? Two? The whole time? You weren't the only one traumatized that day, and I can't even -" She wants to explain "- we can't -" No, this can't be the end. "- You know what, maybe I won't be in for work tomorrow." He punches the button for the elevator. Doesn't even look at her as he says, "Goodnight, Kate."

"Goodnight?" she repeats. "That's it? You go off and then you leave? You're a coward."

He whips around to face her, so close the pain coming off of him chokes her. "No. You're the coward, Kate. I didn't tell you some awful secret that day. I told you I loved you. After three years, I said it, and you ran away. You broke me, Kate, and you continue to do it. Over and over and over again. I can't let you do this to me anymore. That doesn't make me a coward. It makes me strong enough to say I'm done."

No. "You can't be done." But he walks into the elevator anyway. "Castle, stop." He presses the button for the ground floor. "Stop." The doors start closing. "Please?" They close. It moves. And he's gone.

As she stands there, alone, feeling the force of all of the eyes on her back, she sort of misses the passive aggressive comments. At least then she could pretend that nothing was wrong, instead of accepting that everything is.

Okay, team, there's another five. And we had a hell of a episode. I'm curious to how you guys felt about the way things went down in the episode, and also how you think they happened in this chapter and just what's going through your mind as we're about to embark on the final five. What are you thinking now?