Picking Up Where We Left Off

what if Castle didn't say "someone you care about" to Beckett that day she returned to the job, what if Castle said "someone you love." 4x01 Rise

Summer in New York City is always miserable, and yet most of the misery for Richard Castle came not from humidity and sticky temperatures, not from disgruntled natives packed on subway cars, not from the heat radiating off the concrete and building up in the alleys. It came from her. This woman who has run him down on the sidewalk outside the bookstore.

This woman who can't seem to understand how she affects him. How watching her die could possibly have wounded him as well.

He sets his jaw. "You know what that's like? Watching the life drain out of someone you—" He won't stop now; he won't keep rolling over for her. "Someone you love."

Her face goes white. "That was real," she breathes. "You..."

"Of course I do!" he blurts out. "Look at you."

She flinches; her head turns away.

He scrubs both hands down his face, presses against his eyes to push it back. He can't though, can't push it back; she doesn't want his love, doesn't want him. "Why are you here, Kate." The bite in her name.

"Why aren't you here?" The snap in her voice jerks his head up. "If that's true at all, why aren't you here," she growls. "There. At the precinct. The boys said you quit."

"I won't stick around if I'm only in the way."

She blows out a laugh. "You?"

That hollow ache starts in his guts again. "Before I… knew you," —loved you— "I didn't care if I stuck my nose where it didn't belong. If I was the third wheel. But now I do… know you, then I won't do that to you. I won't make your job harder than it is. I won't stay where I'm not wanted."

Her eyes narrow. "When did I say that?"

He lifts his eyebrows.

That impatient toss of her head. "In the recent past, Castle. Don't be dense."

His jaw works. "Silence speaks louder than words, Beckett."

"Then you weren't listening," she grits out. Her irritation gritted between her teeth.

"Okay, then tell me. In words, Beckett. Give it to me pointblank."

"Why are you acting like I did something wrong here? I didn't do anything wrong; I got shot. And you wimped out."

His jaw drops. "—the hell?"

"I could really use you; this new captain is already against me. She called it a vendetta," Beckett snarls. "She closed my case and the boys scurried away, but I know you have the records. And I need them. So either you're in this or you're not."

"Are we talking about the precinct or are we talking about us?" he growls back. That's what this is; she needs those files. That's why she's here. He clenches his fists. "Months, Kate."

"I needed some time," she says tightly. "I needed some distance from everything."

"I'm sure Josh helped with that."

Her nostrils flare. "We broke up." And she twists on her heel and walks off. Jaywalking across the street like she's done with him.

Look at you.

She has been. She's been looking and it's not pretty. And how is pretty worth any of this, how is pretty worth jumping into the line of fire—for a face? because she's tall?

Kate Beckett strides to the opposite sidewalk and digs in for that step up, feeling it twinge across her abdomen. The flare of pain remembered and real, and the ever-present knot at her sternum that rasps across the front wall of her ribcage.

Look at you. If that's all it is, she's done. Just a heat of the moment thing, a deathbed confession in reverse, fine. Fine. She'll figure out how to get those files and she'll follow up on those leads some other way. She won't stop. Her shooter is out there.

"Beckett!" He snags her by the arm and the pain flares straight up her chest like an arrow.

"Let go," she gravels, her voice as hard as the flint digging into her heart.

He releases her, a fast breath. "Are you still… I didn't ask," he croaks. That stupid sweet face with those wide blue eyes. "I never asked. You look good, and so I didn't ask."

"You still haven't asked," she mutters, striding forward. Away from it, leave it there on the sidewalk, her failures. Leave it behind her.

"Are you okay?"

"Cleared for duty," she snaps back, still outpacing him.

"You came to find me," he states. As if that's some new information. "You're going to walk away now? You came to find me; don't you want what I have? Don't you want those files?"

She halts, wraps her hand around the wrought iron fence that surrounds the public park. Stares at the slide, the abandoned swings. She keeps her gaze away from him because she can't stand to see those wide eyes and the blue sky in conjunction. With the knot in her chest and the sweat prickling her scalp, she's a flashback waiting to happen.

She dealt with that at her father's cabin; she dealt and now she's done. It's done. Over.

"I need those files." She hates the shakiness in her voice. Who is she kidding? It's not over until she finds her shooter. "Castle, I have to do this."

He rubs a hand down his face. "The case." A bleak note in his voice. "You… were shot going after this case. Montgomery..." He squeezes the bridge of his nose. "I thought it would be done."

"I thought you'd be at the precinct." A tight breath, release on a count of ten. Doesn't seem to help. "Waiting for me."

"I got kicked out," he mutters. His hand runs through his hair, his face in profile, and that sure kicks hard at her battered heart. "Can we talk?" His eyes jerk over her face and away. "Let's head inside, sit down at a picnic table or something. Get off the sidewalk for this."

"You still have those files?" she asks, but she follows him into the park. She has to hold her body a certain way to keep up with his long strides across the grass, to lengthen hers without stretching muscles that have become knitted up too tightly. "Castle—"

"Why did you think I'd wait for you?"

She startles enough to hiss a breath, catches herself with a grip on the chain of a swing. "Because you said you would."

"I said I would." Flat and lifeless.

She sinks down into the swing even though she knows it will be difficult getting up. She can't keep standing though; she needs to hang onto the chains to keep her chest cavity from sinking in. She needs to breathe. "In the hospital. You said you would wait."

The flare of his anger goes over his face like lightning, fierce and then gone. He grabs the chain of the swing beside her and shakes it, flops down, his knees ridiculously angled. "I did. Didn't I." He hooks his arms around the chains. "You had to have known I wasn't talking about the precinct."

"I know I took more time than you expected, but I—"

"You talked to the boys. Lanie."

"Off and on," she hedges. "I haven't talked to Lanie in weeks." A confession. "Ryan texted me. Sometimes I texted back."

"I should have been more persistent. Is that it."

"No. I'm not a 'convince me' kind of girl." She swallows and presses his book flat to her knees. "It's good. Must have been difficult, writing that ending."

He glances at her, the book. "Write what you know."

She smooths her fingers over the plastic-y cover until it squeaks. "The dedication… that was fitting."

A muscle in his jaw jumps. He doesn't look at her.

"Castle," she blurts out. "It's not just the files, no, but it's all I can manage right now."

He looks at her.

"I needed time and distance from everything that hurt so much. And you were part of that, part of that day, part of the grief centering on Montgomery's death and then spiraling out from there."

"I'm not part of anything, Beckett."

"I can't be what… I want to be yet. Time and distance taught me that much. I can't even be a good friend with these… walls I built after my mother's death."

Now he's really looking at her, though worry has replaced the anger and she doesn't think that's much better. "Walls."

"I think I wanted to be sure it couldn't touch me again, like that, it couldn't make my world collapse. And. I wanted to be certain I wouldn't end up like my father. I built walls around myself, Castle, and I can't be the person I want…" Say it? What happens if she says it? Just tell him. "...I can't have the relationship I want until those walls come down."

It goes over his face like water over sand. Everything smooths out. Instantly. And yet her heart is thundering so hard she has to grip the chains to keep her balance.

His head bobs. "Okay. I know what your mother's death is for you." A soft breath. "Kate."

She studies the dirt at her feet then lifts her gaze to him once more. Once more. "I thought you would wait for me. But I guess I didn't give you enough reason—"

"I can wait."

She searches his eyes, her chest cracking. God, something to lighten this, something to alleviate the pressure of his whole-hearted regard for her. "How can you?" she starts slowly. "If Captain Gates kicked you out of the precinct?"

"The precinct?" It didn't take; he won't bite. "This relationship. I need to know what this is, what you're wanting here. You want the files, Beckett, or do you want me?"

Shit. She can't breathe.

He just looks at her.

"I—" She falters.

"Is it so hard to answer?" he says, gesturing between them. And as the seconds drag out, the hardness on his face finally relents. "Oh. You really can't put it in words."

She twists the chains in her hands, struggling for breath past the knotted scar.

"This is the wall," he murmurs.

"I need those files," she gets out. "I have to put this case to rest."

Castle stands slowly from the swing, and she turns her face, her hot cheek against the swing's chain. That burning in her chest, behind her eyes.

His hand comes into her field of view, palm up, fingers extended. Beckoning.

She takes his hand. He squeezes and pulls her to her feet.

"Okay," he says, standing too close. The wild mad crescendo of her heart. "I only let Gates kick me out. I can worm my way back in. Just you watch."

He holds her hand all the way out of the park.

She can't figure out how to take it back.

She doesn't want to take it back.

A/N: I needed to write one more thing, I guess.