Go Out Fighting 4: We Don't End

Happy Birthday to AllusiontoanIllusion; Shannon, have the best year ever.

"Castle," she said. "Whatever happens after this, after the end, we don't. We don't end."
-Go Out Fighting 3

She handed him a glass of wine and he saluted, sipped at it as they moved towards the living room. He headed for the last open box and pulled out another one of Alexis's childhood creations; he was turning his head and smiling at Kate, sharing it.

He still had the habit of silence when they were alone. She wondered about it, but she'd long become used to it.

Kate settled against his couch and watched Castle put the last of the ornaments on his - their - Christmas tree.

His tree, his family. It was his, still, in her head. And while she'd been living with him since their return from the rehab center, she had recently come to understand that she had these invisible lines in her head, like do not cross police tape strung over certain parts of her life that forced him to keep his distance, made her a little off limits.

No more. She was living with him, sleeping with him in what could only be called their bedroom with the way they'd meshed their lives together, and those lines were keeping her from what she wanted.

It was ridiculous to throw up walls between them, protecting herself. From what? Her therapist had been working on dismantling her false constructions, and even though Christmas with Castle scared the hell out of her, she wouldn't - she was not - going to keep pretending it didn't really matter.

He was staring at the tree and wincing.

"What's that face for?" she laughed.

He shook his head. "Jaw."

She nodded towards his wine and he sipped at it again, but she saw that he was working his mouth funny to drink; it wasn't relaxing him like it usually did. He was still numb, she knew, because the damaged nerve was growing back, but she hadn't realized it would get so bad.

"You're just tired," she said softly, curling her toes into the couch. "Come sit, Castle."

He settled his wine glass on the coffee table and backed away from the Christmas tree. The lights were white, and she knew that she should've asked him for a strand of multi-color to liven things up, to make it more her own. She should've brought it up.

She was learning; she really was.

Next Christmas.

Castle finally settled with her and closed his fingers around her ankle. She shifted to set her glass next to his and then curled into his side, rubbing her palm over his knee.

"Got something to say?" he murmured.

She laughed and watched the tree with him for a moment more, gathering her courage in the seven-foot physical manifestation of her own stupid failures at communication these past few months.

She had to do this.

"I have something for you," she said finally, sitting forward.

"Oh?"

She detected a note of panic in his voice and she pressed her lips together in a smile. She'd said no gift exchange this year, and she'd meant it, but she needed him to have this one thing first.

"Not a gift, Castle. A re-gift," she said, moving towards the tree.

"Kate."

"Not a gift," she insisted, getting to her knees with a slight wince as her scar stretched.

"That cream is on the bathroom counter," he reminded her. He'd seen her face then.

They'd had eight weeks in the rehab center practically right on top of each other, and then she'd come home with him and never left. They knew each other so well. Physically, at least. She could tell when the tingling in his jaw started to drive him crazy and she was the one to distract him from it, and he always knew how to interpret her winces and held back faces, knew what she needed next.

The heart though. . .

She was going to have let him know her, the same as he let her know him.

She pulled the wrapped shirt box from under the tree and stood again, carrying it over to him on the couch. He didn't move, just quirked an eyebrow up at her.

"It's not a gift, I swear," she promised that look, dropping it in his lap. He startled and caught it, as she knew he would, and she sank to the couch next to him again.

While he studied the paper for a second (it was her own purchase, late one night at a pharmacy while she'd been getting more prescription strength advil), Beckett leaned over to the coffee table and took a fortifying sip of wine.

When she turned back to the couch, his fingers were already slipping under the paper and ripping it off, shaking the top of the shirt box loose.

She realized she was holding her breath and let it out slowly, biting her bottom lip and releasing her fists.

She knew him. She knew he wanted this. It wasn't a risk; it was a sure thing.

When his hands pushed back the tissue paper, he laughed, lifting his head to look at her.

His face was so beautiful, even with the thin line of a scar at his jaw. Where he'd been shot saving her life. Maybe more so because of that.

She smiled back, unable to help herself, and watched him lift the not-a-gift from the paper.

She'd had his index cards framed. Dark cherry, silver inlaid, entirely too formal and distinguished for a couple of stained, white index cards.

But not even close to accurately depicting how much she cherished those cards. What he'd meant with them every time he'd pressed one into her hand and held it tightly there.

He stared down at the two frames, cradling them in his palms.

Kate leaned in and pressed her cheek to his shoulder to read them.

I love you

and

I love you.

"I don't get both of them?" he poted, giving her a little grin as she sauntered in the bedroom. He'd already laid down, but he was waiting for her to finish washing her face.

"No. Not both. I get one," she said back, shrugging at him. He'd noticed that the frames were more like shadow boxes and he'd stood them both on his bedside table. Now, still standing at the side of the bed, she reached over him and plucked one up, cradling it against her chest.

"You do get one," he answered, looking up at her over him. "They were yours in the beginning."

She tilted her head and leaned down to kiss him softly, a smile thawing out her hard edges. He lifted his hand and caught her by the back of the neck, remembering how it felt to curl with her in bed at that rehab center, the index cards in her hands and poking him, but how she'd clung to them.

"His and hers," he added.

She laughed, knocking his forehead with her own and then lifting up. She skimmed her fingers over his jaw and he had that strange sensation again of feeling only half of her touch.

He'd gotten used to it. It was better than it'd been and every day of pain meant he was closer to full recovery.

She handed the framed I love you back to him. "Put it on my side, would you?"

He nodded and couldn't help the grin that flickered to life at the inherent statement she made every time she took his I love you or gave it back. But he rolled onto one hip and propped the framed card on her bedside table, pushing a paperback out the way.

Patterson. Grrr.

"What are you growling at?" she called back to him.

He looked up to see her standing just inside the closet, skimming her pants off her hips as she laughed at him.

"Why are you reading Patterson?" he whined, felt his jaw pop.

She hummed and pressed her lips together, giving it an extra shimmy as she undressed. He watched distractedly, remembering how it felt to have her shimmy on top of him, but his fantasy popped when she laughed again.

"To be honest, it's not that good. I'm skimming."

He sighed with pleasure and sat up against the headboard. "The framed index cards were really gift enough, Beckett. Now you're just stroking my ego."

"Foreplay is sexy," she murmured, her lips lifting into a smile that did it for him too. And then she was laughing again, her fingers fluttering at the scar across her stomach in an unconscious gesture. He wondered if it still hurt.

"What's so funny?" he asked, expecting her to say the look on your face.

She shook her head and came towards him, running her hand through his hair and kissing his jaw softly. He felt most of it, and what he couldn't feel made it all the more arousing.

"I got an email today." She was moving back for the closet, her fingers in the waistband of her panties and slipping them down.

"Oh?" How did this relate? And why was she so merciless? "Get back over here."

"Email from Amazon. One of those ad things, saying 'here's some authors you might like to try.'" She turned around even as she slipped a night shirt on over her head.

"Oh no," he groaned. He didn't know if he was disappointed in her covering up or in Amazon for their email.

"Oh, yes."

He growled and she came back to him with a smirk, looking so pleased with herself. "It said-"

"Don't tell me."

"'Have you tried James Patterson's latest best seller'-"

"You're so mean."

"Not me," she said, eyes wide. "Amazon."

"They're evil."

"His latest best seller," she mused.

"You said you're skimming."

"I am," she said gravely, crawling across his body to get to her side of the bed. He skated his hand up her thigh as she went. "It's shameful, I know. Skimming. I might - oh, Castle - I might have to skip to the end and read the last page."

She put her hand to her mouth in mock horror and he narrowed his eyes at her. "So long as you never do that to one of mine, do all you want to Patterson."

She laughed and he saw it, so clearly; he knew exactly what she was going to say. So he preempted her.

"No. Forget I said that. Only do things to me."

Her grin widened across her face and she slipped her knee across his lap, ran her hand up his chest to his neck.

"Oh yeah? What kind of things, Castle?"

"All the things," he husked and then groaned. "All the things? What am I, five? Damn, woman, you're making me sound like an idiot. I do better when I shut up around you."

"Oh no," she breathed out, her mouth at his, so close, so very close. "I love your words. Don't stop."

That did it. She couldn't expect him to hold back when she made that little noise, when she breathed in and her chest lifted and her eyes were dark with arousal-

No.

He wrapped his arms around her and flipped them, his body pressing hers into the mattress. He stared down at her, struck speechless with the ardency in her face, the intensity of her reaction to him.

"Talk to me," she murmured and lifted her head up to kiss his throat. "I'll do all the things if you just keep talking."

She was cutting up the last of the pears into a bowl of mixed fruit when he shambled in from the bedroom, coming up at her side. He immediately restarted their conversation, diving right in like he knew she'd follow.

"You really mean it?" he said suspiciously.

She rolled her eyes and thumped his hand, scaring him away from breakfast. "I really mean it. No presents. And stop eating my food."

"You said you were making enough for both," he grumped.

"I am. Until you eat it all." She knocked into his hip for good measure and he shuffled back around the counter to the bar stool, slumping into it with a yawn. She liked that - all of it - the food-snatching and the yawning and the nonchalant way he chatted with her.

She still remembered sitting across a cafeteria table from him, getting into a monstrous fight over honey because he wouldn't eat enough. Having him pick up scrambled eggs by his fingers and stick them into his mouth was barely even on her annoying-things-he-did radar. Barely.

Not at all really.

But she had to keep up the facade, the routine of normal interactions. She needed that too.

"When are you gonna be done?" he sighed, scratching at his chin.

"Soon. Is it numb?"

He nodded, still rubbing his fingers over his jaw.

"Stop messing with it, Castle. You know what the doctors said."

"I know," he huffed but swiped one last time over his skin. He'd started cutting himself while shaving, so she'd bought him an electric razor - which he hated, the Ludite - and every time he picked at the places where he had no feeling, her heart gave a strange, panicky half-beat.

It wasn't like he could get leprosy from a few patches of nerve-damaged, numb skin, but she still found herself eyeing him whenever he messed with it. His eyes turned introspective, and his fascination made her jealous - which was so stupid - but still. Jealous. He was supposed to look at her like that. Intrigued by the mystery.

"I just like the way it feels," he muttered.

She put the knife down, wiped her fruit-slicked hands on the kitchen towel, and then she came around the counter to his side. He turned his head to look at her, waiting on her next word, and she slipped between his sprawled knees, her fingers touching the tops of his thighs.

His eyes snapped to her mouth in an instant.

Kate leaned in and lightly brushed her lips over the skin at his jaw, trailing her kiss slowly and inexorably towards his ear where the scar was knotted. She sucked at it and his hands clenched at her hips, a noise coming up from his chest that she hummed a response to.

"You like the way that feels?" she murmured.

"Oh, yes. More."

"Then leave it for me. Mine only, Castle."

"You think-" he started, then sucked in a gasp that made her smile against his cheek. "You think you can - just - uh - wow - just manipulate me to your own ends with all this. . .this - oh, yes that."

She released his earlobe from her teeth and chuckled, slid her hands up higher on his thighs until she felt his legs twitch. That tic in his jaw started up as well, which she knew he hated, but she pressed her mouth to the spot and tasted the involuntary movement of his abused face.

His fingers spread over her hips and pulled her in closer, made her lean into him, and he was nuzzling her neck and pushing his mouth to her cheek, seducing her even as she wound him tighter, and his mouth was good at this and his hands were slowly inching their way towards-

The buzzer startled her so badly that she bit him, and he jerked as well, but she untangled herself and ran for the oven, thumbing off the timer with her heart pounding hard, cheeks flushed.

"Well, that's sure to kill me."

She glanced over at him in surprise, then realized he'd rucked up her shirt so much-

"Your own fault," she muttered, tugging her sleep shirt back down. "I should go put on some pants."

"Oh, no. No, please. Not on my account."

"Wouldn't want to kill you, Castle. Not yet anyway."

She pulled the muffins out of the oven and laid the tray on the counter to cool, then dropped the oven mitt to one side. When she turned around, he was right there, working his fingers at the back of her shirt and tugging it up again.

She pressed her lips together and shook her head at him, but she was scrambling to think it through. "Your daughter's not coming back until tomorrow, right?"

"Sunday. Yes."

"And-"

"And Mother's banned. I banned her."

She found herself wanting to laugh but only smiled instead, pressing closer to him, her heart still thudding painfully and now his pulse jumping under her mouth. His fingers trailed lower and curved, pulled her that much tighter to his hips, and his rumble of pleasure decided it for her.

"Everything can reheat," she murmured finally.

"Magic words," he grinned, pushing his mouth down to meet hers even as he dragged her away from the stove.