Evening, and all my ghosts come back to me

Shaking the Grass, Janice N. Harrington

And All My Ghosts

After she stops by the Fairwick Hotel on her way home from the precinct, Kate lets herself unwind with a glass of red and a book, tries to ignore the feeling that she should be elsewhere. It's been weighing on her lately, means she can't ever seem to settle down, relax properly. She's even sitting at the kitchen island, ramrod straight, instead of curling on the couch, because it just seems so cavernous when there's only her to take up all of the room.

Her evenings should be spent with Castle. Going to the movies or getting dinner or just reading, her feet in his lap and smothered by the too-big socks she'll steal from him. His absence feels wrong, means she finds herself constantly orienting around the space where he ought to be, and so when he shows up at her door there's no moment of surprise, not even a trace of confusion.

Of course he's here.

"Two words: Laird's Lug," he says when she pulls the door open, striding right on in to her apartment as if he knows there's a shadowy spectre where his presence should be, is here in place of that ghoul.

She closes the front door of her apartment behind him, turning back around to face him with an eyebrow arcing towards her hairline. "Laird's Lug?"

"Literally 'lord's ear,' it refers to the hidden alcove above a dining hall in many Scottish castles," he says and Kate sinks down to sit at her kitchen island, cradles the glass of wine she left there in one hand and sips at it as he talks. "The host could use it to eavesdrop on his guests."

Kate folds her arms, her glass pressed next to her knee now, and regards him with an amusement she knows is edging dangerously close to tenderness. "I think I've either had too much wine or not enough."

"Seamus McClaren, builder of the McClaren House, grew up right next to Edinburgh Castle, notable for its laird's lug. The concept so tickled him, he put modern versions of it into several of his houses."

She is listening, really she is. It's just that he's wearing that plaid shirt she loves so much, unbuttoned, and he's so adorable when he gets like this. The excitement of an unfolding lead makes his natural gift for wordplay come out and he presents the evidence to her like a story, has her hooked from the moment he opens his mouth. It makes it so very hard to focus sometimes.

"So you're saying that the McClaren House has a hidden alcove?" she says, dipping her head just slightly. It doesn't seem unfeasible - not as much as a ghost does anyway - but she sort of likes making him explain himself, the light that sparks in his eyes when he shows her how all the pieces slot together so neatly.

He gestures with one hand, as if that will help her see, and she bites the inside of her lip so she doesn't do something stupid like blurt out that she thinks he's adorable. "It explains everything. How come the killings only happen in that one room? How does the killer seemingly appear and disappear at will? Answers that have thus far remained elusive. Speaking of which, how did your canvassing go?"

Sighing softly, Kate sets her glass down on the counter top and watches the back and forth motion of the liquid inside, gives herself a moment to regroup before she lets her gaze flit back to him. "Came up empty. There's absolutely no evidence that Matt Benton was ever at the Fairwick."

"Maybe the evidence of his return will be in that alcove. It's worth a shot," he shifts his weight back and forth as if the excitement won't quite let him be still, both eyebrows lifting at her.

"We'll go first thing in the morning, see what we come up with," she nods, drumming her fingertips against the countertop. It feels good to have something close to a lead, even if it might turn out to be nothing, and she's so stupidly grateful to have him here in her apartment at all. He stares at her, mouth opening just slightly and his body pitching forward in eagerness. "You wanna go now?"

He lifts a shoulder at her, eyes flicking sideways and then dragging slowly back to her, a glance from under his brow. "Well, unless of course you're afraid."

"Yeah, right."

"No, I get it," he nods, the faux seriousness on his face making a roll of heat rumble through her belly. How she wants to rock her hips against him, slick her tongue into the wet cavern of his mouth and see how quickly she can get him to drop the act. "I mean, it is a haunted house."

Kate shakes her head, one hand braced against the kitchen island, and she works hard not to twitch, not to give him a single clue. "I'm not scared, Castle."

"No, no, you're right, you're right," he says, waving a hand in dismissal as he moves right past her, heading for the front door again. "I mean, the demon has tasted fresh blood, its thirst may not be slaked with just one victim."

He's got one hand to his ear now, scratching just behind it, and Kate tilts her head slowly to one side in deference to his carefully constructed nonchalance. She knows it's all to get a rise out of her, and damn if it isn't working. "Okay, come on."

She slides down from the barstool and turns to face him, hands held slightly away from her sides. He's so tall, so broad, and he stretches himself to his full stature and stares her down, suddenly so serious.

"Listen, if you're not scared, just say it," he says, and she feels a crunch in the wall of her chest as her heart thrashes wildly. She knows what he means - he's been needling her since they caught this case - but she's not thinking about ghosts or iconic lines related to them.

She's thinking about the secret she's sitting on. The way just his presence in her home has her at once calmer than she's been in months and teetering on the precipice of exhilaration. How much she wants to slide her arms around his waist and hold on, take his hand and lead him to her bed.

"No," she shakes her head at him, both to keep up the pretence that this is a joke and because she is more than a little panicked at the prospect of honesty, a flush of adrenaline burning high up in her cheeks and spreading along the pale column of her neck.

He tilts his head at her, his face softening just a little at the edges. "Come on, you know you want to."

"I don't want to say it, Castle." It's a lie, and even as she's uttering it she wants to take it back. She is so tired with all the dishonesty and the subtext and the edging carefully around what she means. How freeing it might be to just be honest with him.

His brow furrows at the gravity of her voice, the sudden calamitous drop from lighthearted posturing down into serious territory not lost on him. "For me. Please."

Damn. Is this really where she's at? All he has to do is give her that look, ask her to do something for him and she's putty in his hands, malleable and reforming into something new. Somebody who's deserving of him.

"Okay, Castle. I'll say it," she sucks a breath through her nose, lets it escape as a trembling sigh and she reaches for his hand, cradles it in both of hers. Her thumb strokes at the seam of his wrist and he gapes at her, eyes flying from the work of her fingers up to her face, his own adorably scrunched with confusion. "I love you."

"Kate," he gasps, staggering backwards as if she's socked him in the solar plexus. He catches himself against the wall and she's dragged along in the current of his shock by the grip of their hands, lets the momentum propel her closer until the length of her body meets his and her arms slide around his neck. "That wasn't really what I was getting at."

She huffs a laugh, sifting her fingers through the fine baby hairs at the nape of his neck. "Would you rather I quoted the movie?"

"Oh no," he says fiercely, his hands finally coming to settle at the curve of her waist. His grip is bruising, a little desperate, and she does her best to soothe with the stroke of her thumb just behind his ear. "No. Keep talking about how much you love me."

"How much?" she arches an eyebrow at him, smothers her laughter with the fierce catch of her teeth at the inside of her cheek when he flounders.

His head thuds back against the wall and he groans, eyes screwed shut. "That's not what I meant. I'm getting this wrong already. I wasn't- you didn't give me any warning. How am I supposed to be suave here?"

"You could say it back."

"Oh, god," he lifts his head again, one hand coming up between them to land at her cheek, his thumb settling at the corner of her mouth. "So much, Kate. I love you so staggeringly much. But I think you know that already, don't you."

She blanches, but he doesn't let her pull back from him, keeps a tight hold on her. The proximity is narcotic, has her breath coming in these desperate little gasps, and she's about five seconds away from actually begging when he finally, finally kisses her.

His tongue works at the seam of her mouth and she opens to him, her head reeling as he spins her around and backs her up against the wall, his thigh nudging between her legs. She sinks down, choking on a groan at the hard press of muscle right where she needs it most, the hands already underneath her shirt.

Kate fists one of hers in his collar and the other in his hair, tugs his head away from her. "Wait. Wait, Castle. Your lead."

"I don't care," he growls, delving back to claim her mouth again. She lets him, her body sagging back against the wall when he sucks at the thrum of her pulse, his tongue darting out to taste. "It can wait until morning."

"Okay," she laughs, nibbling at his bottom lip until he grunts and his hips jerk forward into the cradle of hers, rocking in a sloppy, rhythmless dance. "You gonna take me to bed then?"

He beams at her, that lopsided grin that creases his eyes, makes him look so boyish, and she can't help but frame his face in her hands, stroke her thumb over the swell of his kiss-smudged mouth. "Am I allowed? Are you sure? I thought we were waiting."

"Aren't you tired of waiting?" she murmurs, tilting her head to look at him. She can't believe he's actually here, with his hands all over her and his mouth already bruised from her kiss, feels as if he'll turn out to have been an apparition all along if she stops touching him for even a second. "Castle, I'm so tired of being without you. Do you know what I did?"

"What did you do?"

"I poured two glasses of wine, on autopilot. Because you should be here. We should be spending our evenings together, and not just because we've caught a lead and you think it'll be spookier to follow it in the middle of the night."

He laughs, hands sliding out from under her shirt to wrap around her waist instead, squeezing hard enough that she comes off the ground for a moment. "I'll spend my evenings with you anytime, Beckett. But you know I would have done that anyway, right? Not just because you love me. Because you're my best friend."

"I know," she nods, and then Kate slides a hand down between them, lower and lower until he jolts and hisses through his teeth. "But I don't want to be your friend, Rick. Take me to bed."

Afterwards, Kate lays on her front with her arms folded, head pillowed on them and the sheet draped over the dip of her lumbar curve. Castle's fingers trace up and down the notches of her spine, an ethereal touch, and his skin seems alabaster in the ocean of light that tumbles in through the open blinds, makes her want to dip her fingers into the pool of moonshine at his clavicle.

"Beckett," he whispers, and she hums lazily, blinks her eyes slowly open to see him. He looks very serious again, his mouth a sharp slash, but there's none of that drowning intensity in his eyes. Not like there was when he pressed over her, gasped her name over and over again. "I think it may have been too much wine."

"Shut up, Castle," she swats at him, but her limbs feel jerky and disconnected, worn thin as wire. "M'not drunk. And I'm not afraid of no ghost, either."

A/N: With gratitude to Pau, who gave me this idea in her tags and then allowed me to run with it, and to Allie and Berkie, who yelled in spite of my wishes.

Tumblr: katiehoughton

Twitter: seilleanmor