Chapter 7

Rick was already awake when his phone vibrated on the floor next to the bed, left there when Kate had insisted he fill the other half of it beside her the night before, and he reached down and silenced it as quickly as he could to avoid waking her at an hour he, too, found himself wishing his eyes weren't open to see.

He twisted his neck to try and steal a glimpse of her face in her slumber, but the shadows of early morning wouldn't cooperate, her body still bathed in its relative darkness. He could, however, distinctly make out her hand against the white of the sheet, its resting place beyond her side of the imaginary line she'd created and then so willingly defied and into his reason enough to grin away his weariness.

He had no idea what that day or those to come might bring them, or if she would want anything of him at all once she opened her eyes to their altered world of two, but he knew, more than he'd known the previous night and many before it, that she was what he wanted, and if that meant waiting one minute or one decade, that was precisely what he was prepared to do.

Giving his eyes a stiff rub, he managed to slide from the bed without a stir from Kate and he tiptoed towards his bag to retrieve his jeans. In one of his front pockets he found a handful of shiny confetti in the shape of the number fifty, given to him for "safe keeping," Theresa had said, as though she considered it a most valued treasure, and he exhaled a laugh at the beauty of it all.

"What's so funny?" Kate's croaky morning voice asked, muffled by the topography her pillow.

Rick looked back over his shoulder and could see she hadn't moved, so he came back around the bed to his empty side and crouched to her level. "This hour of the morning is so funny-best joke there is. I mean, have you ever seen it? It's like a whole different world."

"I should've become a writer," she responded, her implication clear. "Maybe it's not too late."

He reached out across the mattress and grazed the back of her hand with his fingertip, something, but not too much. "Impressive pun work, Detective. Very impressive." Pulling back he asked "Did I wake you?"

She shifted and curled up onto her side. "I'm not used to someone sleeping next to me, so I felt you get up." What she didn't tell him was that she took pleasure in the sensation, in knowing he was still there with her.

"I'm sorry. I really wanted you to be able to sleep."

"It's okay, Castle. I'll survive," she said with a yawn.

Rick pushed himself upright and went back over to his bag for a fresh shirt, her eyes following as moved and changed, and her body reacted in a way it never had with him before, given what it'd learned of his just hours before. "So, you're a stomach sleeper," he said. "That says a lot about you, you know." He stepped up to the end of the bed, and the urge to pull him back in raced through her. Whatever their night had done, it definitely had not served to mitigate her craving, and that was already abundantly clear.

"Yeah? Like what?" she asked, holding her impulse at bay.

"Okay, you got me. I just made that up. I like pretending I know things so you'll find me more attractive." He pushed his hands into his pockets and she instantly wished he hadn't, her imagination relishing in the visual of the prop.

"And you think that strategy's somehow working for you?"

He leaned over the bed and grabbed her by the foot, covered though it was. "Well, after last night, I now have an Exhibit B to go along with my Exhibit A, don't I? So, kinda, yeah."

"I guess you do," she replied coquettishly, and she felt it in the lull that followed; he wanted exactly what she did.

"So, I'm just gonna...pancakes and stuff." Rick backed towards the door, stumbling over his own feet as he went. "You stay, relax, go back to sleep, if you want. I can come get you when I'm ready...when it's ready. Sorry. I'm gonna..." He pulled the door open and quickly ducked out into the hallway and disappeared.

Kate tugged at her bottom lip with her teeth, because that was all she could do, and with her hand set out across the invisible line, once more, she closed her eyes and imagined he was still there.

xxxx

Rick was the only one up; he'd succeeded in that, though he could see that Theresa had been moving around at some point because her pink shoes were up on the table next to a half-empty glass of juice. He was able to find everything in the kitchen he needed for their breakfast, including the key ingredient that made his pancakes famous in his own house which he was surprised and thrilled about, and with a pot of coffee on, he set to it.

He fixed Theresa's batch first, each one of them with his or her own specially designed stack, and he managed to get through hers before Jim appeared, the oven keeping them warm until everyone was up and ready to eat.

"Good morning, Rick," Jim said, surprised to see him up, let alone having taken over his kitchen. "And here I thought this was supposed to be the host's job."

"Hope I'm not stepping on any toes, Jim. I just wanted to make a contribution to the weekend." He dropped Kate's first scoop of batter into the pan and let it set for a few seconds until he could begin to shape it. "This is a little thing I do at home. The girls enjoy it," he told him when his creation caught Jim's eye.

"I bet they do. That's very clever." He parked himself at the counter and Rick poured him a mug of coffee. "I can't wait to see what mine look like," he said with a smile.

"I will admit the vision for yours didn't hit me right away since we've only just met, but I am an excellent listener and I think you'll be pleased."

Kate happened to wander into the room as Rick was speaking and she overheard his comment. "An excellent listener, Castle? Seriously?" Her hair was pulled back away from her face in a tiny ponytail atop her head, her eyelids still heavy with sleep. "So, what did I tell you about putting the toilet seat down, huh? Guess you didn't catch that one." She stepped up to Jim and kissed him on the cheek. "Men," she teased.

"We're sorry," Jim said, taking one for the whole team and leaning in close, "but your special pancakes will make up for it, I think."

"My...?" Kate peeked over the counter to the pan on the stove and her eyes smiled.

"I wanted it to be a surprise," Rick said with a note of defeat. "Maybe I should've gotten up at 5AM. Do you Becketts ever sleep in? It's the weekend."

Suddenly, a disembodied voice came out of the blue from across the room. "I sleep in. Do I smell pancakes?" Theresa's head popped up over the back of the couch seconds later and the others chuckled, her hair this way and that, the pink tee she had on over her party clothes rumpled and twisted. "What did I miss?"

"You didn't miss anything at all, Aunt Theresa. You enjoyed every single second, trust me," Kate assured her, hurrying over to help steady her up. "Rick's making us all breakfast. How about some coffee?"

"Definitely coffee," she agreed, sounding almost desperate. "Are my girls here yet?"

"It's very early yet, Theresa," Jim said. "They'll be here later this morning. Phyllis brought your just-in-case bag in from the car before they left last night, though, if you want to clean up before we eat. It's sitting over by the front door."

"I made you special pancakes, Aunt Theresa," Rick called out like he was singing a proud song. "Some coffee and a shower and these babies are all yours." He poured a mug for her, too, and Jim passed it along.

"I love you, Richard," she hollered back, her coffee in Kate's hands. "A shower, yes." Kate hooked an arm around hers and led her down the hallway to the bathroom, stopping for her bag along the way.

"Whatever you do, do not give her your phone number if she asks," Jim warned Rick only half-joking. "She'll definitely use it."

xxxx

They all ate breakfast together around the table, Theresa seated next to Rick, of course, the pancakes a hit with all, though the chef refused to divulge his secret, to a unified pout. "I've never had them in shapes before, but I think it actually makes them taste better," Theresa announced, cutting into a second helping of her "5" and "0" shapes. "I am sort of jealous of those hearts, though," she added, eyeing Kate's plate. "You two are too much."

Kate and Rick shared a look when Jim chimed in. "Maybe he is a good listener after all, Katie. I barely remember mentioning the Yankees, yet here they are on my plate. And they sure do taste a lot better than mine would've."

"Thank you, Jim, for both compliments, and to you, Aunt Theresa, for just being you." He turned his attention back to Kate who was starting on her final heart. "What's the verdict, gorgeous?"

"They're good, Castle, thank you."

Theresa nudged him with her elbow. "I'm sure she'll thank you properly later, wink-wink."

"Theresa," Jim said in gentle reprimand.

"Oh, we're all grown-ups here, Jim, come on. Don't be a prude. Where do you think he got that nibble on his lip from?"

Kate felt warmth flood her face instantly. "No, that's not-" Rick started before Kate interjected.

"He's just a klutz, Aunt Theresa, that's all. I didn't..." But of course she had and she'd meant to and she'd been watching with adolescent satisfaction as the tip of his tongue acknowledged it over and over again since she'd gotten up.

"Kate's very gentle, believe me," Rick said, "and, Jim, we will now stop talking about this because I, too, have a daughter."

"Thank you, Rick," Jim enthused, gulping what remained of his coffee. "And thank you, again, for breakfast. This time, I'll handle the cleanup. Theresa seconded and insisted she help since she'd done nothing at all in service after the party. "Maybe you two want to take one last trip out to the pond before you head back to the city."

"I'm game if you are," Rick said to an agreeable Kate. "I just need to go put on some shoes."

Kate set down her fork, her plate clean. "I'll come with you. I want to grab a sweatshirt." Stupid her brain screamed, and she chastised herself silently for her idiotic and, she imagined, wholly transparent remark. She was already wearing one.

xxxx

Rick sat at the foot of the bed and pulled on his sneakers, Kate standing across from him, leaning against the dresser. Neither had spoken, yet somehow it seemed the room was swirling with words. "Your aunt should give lessons in hangovers," he said to say anything at all. "She handled this morning like a champ. No doubt my mother could've used her tips a time or two, I'll tell you that right now." He finished tying his shoes and looked up to find her watching him. "What?" he asked, without a good read on her.

She didn't offer any response. She just kept looking him and he her. "Tell me." His tone grew more insistent, and he pushed up off the bed towards her. Placing his hands along the edge of the dresser, he pinned her between his arms, one on each side, their bodies painfully close. "What?" he said again, his eyes making the short journey from hers down to her lips and back up again. "You wanna go again?"

He waited and watched as she summoned her voice. "Does it hurt?" She softly touched her own lip as she studied his and the memento she'd left.

"Stop. I don't care about that. Tell me what you're thinking about, before my back gets sore from standing like this and I get whiny. I know how much you hate it when I get whiny."

Kate inched her body up onto the dresser so she was sitting, and she reached out, grabbed a fistful of his shirt and pulled him in. "Do you have any idea how much you frustrate me?"

"Okay, well, that's not exactly what I was hoping for, but I'll bite because I do enjoy a good guessing game and say...bigger than a breadbox?"

She softened her hold but didn't let him go. "You should probably kiss me again before I change my mind, Castle."

"There," he whispered pompously, closing in, "now was that so hard?"

xxxx

"I really do like it here," Rick said as they paused at the clearing and took in the panorama before them for the final time that weekend. "I bet you didn't think I'd be saying that when you asked me to come."

"I don't know what I was thinking when I asked you to come up here, Castle," she replied in jest. "But, I'm not surprised that I'm surprised. I tend to feel that a lot when you're around."

"And is that a bad thing?"

She let him stew in her silence for a minute before she answered. "That's a new thing. Bad depends on the day." She took a couple of steps and stopped to make sure he followed. "Today isn't a bad day."

They walked the circumference of the pond and then returned to Jim's bench, the spot they shared not two days ago before abstract became existent. And they sat close, unlike the last time yet unspoken in execution, both with more questions than answers about what was to be once they left the bubble of their weekend pageant, one that contained less pretense than either could've imagined.

"So, back to it for us, I guess," Rick said. "Killers need catchin'." He'd always felt skilled at small talk, but even he had to admit that effort was a wild miss.

"God help the city if I left those two knuckleheads to handle things without me." Ryan and Esposito, ever the butt of the joke. "Plus, I have plants to try to keep alive. Sadly, they're about as much as I have time for." She heard herself say it and then realized how it must've sounded, like a suggestion she hadn't intended to make. She inhaled a deep breath of the fresh air and released it slowly. "I really was dreading coming this weekend."

"And now?" Rick asked with more reasons than one for the curiosity.

"And now leaving feels like the hard part." She gazed out across the water she'd said goodbye to hundreds of times before. "This place always changes me a little bit. I swear, I feel it every time I'm here. I don't know how that happens."

"Maybe that's why you keep coming back," he wondered aloud. "Maybe this place shows you things you can't see anywhere else. Maybe that's why it was brought into your life."

"Maybe," she responded thoughtfully.

And there he was, the Richard Castle that made it easy to understand how everything that'd happened that weekend had happened. Admittedly or not, she'd been walking two paths with him for some time, and up until a day ago, she'd been able to keep those paths from converging, but their moments of intersection, as frightening as they'd initially seemed, were exactly what she wanted, and there he was in their aftermath, still right beside her to walk on.

"Look, I'm not sure what I should or shouldn't say here, Kate, but I don't want to leave this place and what happened between us without you knowing that I don't regret a minute of it. Okay, well, except, maybe, for trying whatever the hell that pink drink of your aunt's was because I'm pretty sure it covered my recommended sugar intake for the next month. But, I digress."

He turned his body, as he had that first night, so he could speak directly to her without distraction. "Maybe this was one weekend, and we'll leave here and never talk about it again because we think it's easier-for ourselves, for the other person, whatever-but maybe that's not all it was, and I can tell you right now, for me, it won't be easier. None of the time I've spent with you has been easy, and for the best of reasons, Kate, but now that I know what it's like, what we're like, convincing myself to forget it would be an impossibility."

"Castle-" She tried to respond, but he just kept going.

"And I know that I frustrate you and annoy you and it's fucking scary and hard and scary some more, but I think we should try to try."

"Do you ever stop talking?" she asked when he finally came up for air.

"When you attack me with your mouth I do," he shot back.

"Yeah, well, why don't we go ahead and leave that as Plan B and you let me say something now." He drew two fingers across his lips, mimicking a zipper. "Castle, I have spent a long time living in protect mode, and I don't know how the hell it happened, but you bullied your way into my days and into my life and you found a way to see behind the curtain. And you're right. It is fucking scary because I've tried very hard to make sure that didn't happen."

"I know you have."

She eyed him sideways. "Are you talking again?" He shook his head no in silent apology. "We're such different people, Castle, and in a lot of not small ways, but I feel this...this pull towards you that I cannot shake. I don't know how to explain it better than that. Not yet. But what happened this weekend-what I did this weekend-I know it isn't something I can just ignore, and I probably owe it to myself to figure out what that means."

Rick raised his hand like a child in school. "May I say something now?"

"Yes, Castle, you can say something now."

"As a completely interested party with an extreme bias, you definitely owe it to yourself to figure out what it means. And, actually, you also owe me, because I'm going to have to explain this gash on my lip to everyone now until it heals, if it ever does, of course."

"Gash? Really? You big baby. Just go with the klutz thing. It'll end there, trust me."

"And you want to become a writer. Ha," he chuckled mockingly.

Kate set her hand palm-up on the bench between them and he took it. "I want to try to try, but you're going to have to help me and you know how hard it'll be for me to ask."

"A day or a decade, I don't care how long it takes. That's how good we are at it." He tugged her arm gently and they both stood up. "You ready to go home?"

"I am," she said he kissed her softly. "But for the love of God I am driving us home...grandpa."