Compartmentalization Doesn't Work

"You could have at least called me. So I'd have known you were okay. Called me back."

He's rubbing two fingers over his eyebrow, his eyes on Alexis across from them as she cuddles with her grandmother after their meal. "I couldn't split my focus."

"A phone call," she murmurs, the weight of her selfishness doing its best to squeeze around her throat like guilt. "A text?"

"I couldn't be - worried about her and you at the same time," he says finally. He still won't look at her.

It's okay that he won't look at her. It's easier to look at Alexis, to drink her in, the way her smile is growing more and more effortless.

His breath is more sigh than anything. "I couldn't carry that."

"You think I don't carry that - every day?" she gets out, hears the rasp in her own voice but tries to shake it off with a little levity. "I mean, Castle, you go out with me on these cases and just look at the trouble that finds us. I carry it. You. And her. Every day."

His head snaps back to her with something like apology. And maybe a fresh understanding for the responsibility she bears. Towards him and his family. Getting him back in one piece.

"Beckett," he sighs. And the use of her last name lets her know she still hasn't punched through to his real man, the one that can't put out another joke to save his life. He's still trying to smile. For her sake. For his own. For Alexis's maybe. "Beckett, you compartmentalize. I can't do that. It all bleeds through. Makes me. . ."

Weak? Is that what he doesn't say?

She averts her eyes and frowns through that, because he's wrong, if that's what he was going to say. It's not right at all. A year of therapy has taught her that much.

"Compartmentalize? Castle," she laughs quickly, willing to join with him in this illusion of humor. "Oh, Castle. Can't compartmentalize you. Can't keep you out."

He chuckles at that; she finds a twist of his lips as she looks at him again.

His hand carefully lands at her knee. "Oh yeah? Four years says otherwise."

"Oh yeah? Five years says I'm right," she murmurs quietly. And then she lifts her fingers up to stroke at his jaw, touch this man who doesn't even begin to understand. "Can't keep you out, Castle. God knows I tried."

And, oh. Good. His eyes are crinkling up in a real smile now. That wide mouth she touches with hers and shares the relief that pours into him.

Like he's just now letting himself believe it's true. Them or this day or the fact that Alexis is home safe, she doesn't know. The relief is good. It's real; she's gotten through.

She kisses him again, pats his cheek a little harder than usual. "Not without me next time."

"I'll work on my compartmentalizing skills."

"You better not."

She wants to be selfish.

But she's got a calm and soothing voice in her head now that is accompanied by a stern, chastising look (and Dr Burke never really actually chastised her), and she can't do it. She can't be selfish with Castle now that she knows what she's doing and how it affects them down the road.

She wants to be selfish and keep his body draped over hers in his bed, draw circles on his back with her fingertips, her mouth at his temple until he falls deeply asleep.

But she won't do that.

(In a moment. Give me a moment.)

She understands that by deciding not to be selfish, she also can't do the deceitfully selfish thing that masks itself in altruism but which is - essentially - martyrdom. And not the humble kind.

The kind where she lets him fall asleep, satisfied and thinking all is well, and then she goes upstairs and sits alone in the dim hallway outside Alexis's room because she knows what it is to wake in the dark after a nightmare that doesn't seem to end. Because what she's doing then is not about Alexis or letting Castle get a good night's sleep even though he clearly hasn't slept in days-

What she's doing then is being selfish. See how good I can be? See how I was there for your daughter even though I was completely helpless and worthless to you this whole damn time? See how you do actually need me still?

So she faces that selfishness head on as she stares up at his ceiling (it's actually just old, old fear and she's done being afraid), and then she nudges him with her knee gently. Her hand curls through his hair even as she scatters kisses along his eyebrow that he kept rubbing, rubbing, rubbing as he told his fantastic story, like he couldn't fathom the past few days.

Neither can she. But his weight over her is fathomable enough and her hands are filled with him, and he tastes (still) a little of fear and adrenaline and shaky letdown relief. She skims her fingers up his sides and that does it.

He mumbles against her collarbone and jerks, hands clutching her suddenly too tightly, but she gentles him with nonsense until he wakes the rest of the way.

"Kate?"

"I think you should sleep upstairs," she says quietly.

"What?" he rasps lifting his head to stare at her.

She hears herself and her cheeks flame hotly in the darkness of his bedroom and she rushes to cover her mistake. "I mean in her room. Or outside it. Somewhere close by."

He sits up suddenly in bed, the sheet falling off of him and pooling somewhere at her knees. She lifts beside him and strokes her fingers down his arm, cradles his hand on her lap.

"Why?" he says, still a little stunned. She let him sleep too long. She didn't mean for him to get that far under.

"I know what it's like," she says finally. "Afterwards. When you finally feel safe again."

A startled oh falls out of him, but she gives him all of it.

"In case she has nightmares, you should be close by."

His breath runs harshly through his lungs and she curls her fingers around the inside of his elbow, waiting on him to pull it together.

He moves then, crawling over her for some reason to get his feet on the floor. She hears rather than sees him pulling on long pajama pants, his robe from the end of the bed, and she bites her lip as she watches him start to leave.

But he pauses in the doorway and turns back to her. She can just make out the curious and still somewhat sleepy cast to his face.

"Do you have nightmares?" he asks.

She lets out her breath. "Yes."

"Still?"

"Not so much."

When you're close by.

She waits a beat and he still hasn't moved, almost like she said it out loud.

"Go, Castle."

"Come with me."

Oh.

Oh, that never - she didn't think of that one.

Is that selfish?

"Please?" he whispers. "I told you. I'm not so good at splitting my focus. And you said not to do it without you."

She drags her legs out from under the sheets and finds his shirt, shrugs it on even as she comes toward him in the doorway. She's still trying to button it when he takes her hand and tangles her fingers with his, kisses her cheek.

"Thank you for telling me."

And they go upstairs to camp out on the floor outside Alexis's bedroom door.