Post-ep for 7x01 "Driven"

Solace

„You cut your hair." His palm rested at her nape, fingers coiled around the shorter strands.

It was so random, so innocuous a statement that she choked on a mirthless laugh that sounded more like a sob, hid her face further against his chest where his scent was strong and familiar and still so much him. Her hand fisted in his robe, fingers clenched so tightly around the terrycloth fabric that she could feel the bite of her nails into her palm.

"Yeah, I… It's… yeah." She had no words. No way to explain how she'd woken up one morning with the ghost of his fingers sliding through the long, mussed waves of her hair, the echo of his voice, murmurs of love and pleasure in her ear and the next thing she knew, she'd found herself in the chair at her salon, giving instructions to 'chop it off'. How close she'd come to have it all come off, wear it really short again, in sharp angry spikes at the back of her neck like the Beckett who'd still had that wall that shielded her from this unbearable pain.

How she couldn't do it because she never again wanted to be that person who didn't know what it was like to love Richard Castle, to be loved by him. How it would've felt like giving up.

"I like it," he murmured. His fingers tightened in her hair, gently tugging back her head until she was looking up at him. "Guess it really has been two months."

There was sorrow in his quiet acceptance, a deep ache in the words that she hadn't seen in him since he'd woken up; in fact had wondered why it'd been lacking, reactions that drew even more attention to the poisonous doubts that had inundated her brain, that she'd sometimes simply lacked the strength to fight any longer in the face of overwhelming evidence.

"I'm so sorry, Castle." She couldn't stop crying, the tears a continuous deluge down her cheeks. Beseeching, her fingers clinging to his robe, her voice as raw as her heart as she choked on her words, a random, useless spill she could no longer stop. "Rick… I'm so sorry I doubted you. I never should've… I'm… I… I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm s..."

"Hey, hey, hey." His grip tightened in her hair, dragging back her head. It was borderline painful, shocked her into silence. "It's okay." His other hand rose to her face, cradling her jaw line, so infinitely tender, his thumb swiping at the tears that were collecting at the corner of her mouth. "I forgive you. It's okay."

She looked up at the man she loved, her eyes blinking through the sheen of tears, roving, taking in the deep shadows beneath his eyes and the lingering, pink rawness of his skin; the unchanged, deep-sea blue of his eyes, the unwavering belief he still had in her.

"How…?" She wasn't sure she could ever forgive herself. It had been just like 3XK - planted evidence, lining up neatly, too neatly, trying to plant doubts - only this time they, whoever they were, had succeeded. She'd been so lost, so abjectly scared that sometimes, sometimes they'd get her at her weakest, at her most vulnerable, made her question when she knew better. She knew better.

"Because I know you, Kate." He left it at that, and she wasn't sure what that meant; was this a good thing or did he just not expect any better of her? The thought hurt, doing nothing about the questions she had in herself. Yet his eyes wandered her face, fingers following their path, awed as he smoothed along the frown on her forehead and the vulnerable circles of her temples, trailed the shell of her ears, the curve of her jaw and down the length of her neck. Her skin tingled, her heart pounding from his nearness, his scent, his tender, loving touch that she feared she'd never get to feel again.

"But I see this pain in your eyes," he murmured, fingertips tracing back up to the wet hollows beneath her eyes, then down to slide across her bottom lip, "in the way you move, in every one of your smiles. It still feels like only a couple of days for me yet it's been two months for you; everything feels different and I don't know how to fix it."

She dropped her forehead to his chin, her fingers loosening from the grip around his robe, hands sliding over his shoulders, curling around his neck. It all made sense, the jokes and flippant remarks, the humor to deflect, to cope when he didn't know how to deal, what to feel. "Just stay. I need you. I just need you with me."

He nodded, his arms tightening around her, strong and solid around her ribcage as he cradled her to him, as she drew herself nearer, fingers curled into the short strands of his hair at his nape, drawing circles onto the skin of his neck. Drawing promises from each other neither could make with words when forces beyond their control seemed determined to rip them apart.

"Does kissing still have to wait?" She almost missed the question; he spoke so quietly, whispered the words into her hair and yet he sounded so pained, so forlorn and lonely that it ached her, everywhere.

Kate lifted her face, sought his eyes, hands cradling his face. "No." There was more she wanted to say, plead for the kiss she denied both of them earlier but her words are stuck in her throat, drowned out by her pounding heart and her blood rushing through her veins when he drew nearer.

Her eyes fluttered closed but she forced them open, determined to see, to take in every facet of his return to her. Her lips fell open on a shuddered, expectant breath but instead his lips found her forehead first; brushed, tender, almost tentative kisses that landed on each of her eyebrows, traveled to her temples, her cheekbones and the tip of her nose, an exploration of her jawline, the sensitive spot beneath her ear, ever closer to the corner of her mouth until she could barely breathe.

"I love you," she sighed when his breath whispered along her lips and he caught her words with a moan; finally, finally his mouth met hers, his tongue sliding inside. He kissed her deeply, with an intensity that rushed heat into her cheeks, as if he knew how much she'd missed him, yearned for him, how much it hurt to face the fact that she may never see him again, day after day after day – and maybe he did.

Her fingers were slow, determined as she untied his robe, peeled away the layers of cloth that kept her from the warmth and comfort of his skin. His hands followed suit until they were both naked, pressed skin to skin, finding solace in each other.

The first step in finding their way home.