3Disclaimer: Man, I sooo wish I owned Castle. Alas...doesn't the unfairness of life just get to you sometimes? T_T
Anyway, enjoy, guys.
Fast
Kate Beckett liked running. The NYPD detective ran three miles a day, six days a week. As a result, she was fast. She could sprint after a suspect for half a mile and still have the energy to take him down with a spectacular tackle that would turn most NFLers green with envy.
She had always prided herself on her ability to run so far and so hard her mind and body were numbed blanks, so why wasn't it working today? She must look a sight, she knew, running down Lex in a tank top and tights (her usual jogging attire) with sobs racking her body and tears running lines through her eyeliner and utterly ruining her eye shadow. Right then, she wanted a pair of comforting arms to run into, literally run into. She wanted those arms to be connected to a strong chest she could bury her head into. And in her fantasy, Beckett looked up at this fairy-tale man and saw blue eyes and floppy brown hair, with concern for her furrowing his brow, and that's when she lost it, really lost it.
She slowed to a stumbling walk, and ducking into the nearest alley, slumped against the wall.
"God," she whimpered, and took several deep breaths, trying to calm herself down, trying to convince herself it was no big deal.
But it was. It was.
Had she just made the biggest mistake of her life?
On the other side of the city, Richard Castle stared blankly at his laptop. How had it all gone so wrong? How could he have messed this up? What kind of idiot was he?
His hands reached out for something, anything, to give himself something to play with so he wouldn't fling his laptop across the room and lay waste to his office. He found a baseball, the same one Alexis had used to play catch with him, and that only served to remind him of what he had screwed up so royally.
It had seemed like such a good plan.
It had taken most of a year to get up the courage to do something about the detective he shadowed. The one who had become a part of his world so easily, fit in so seamlessly, he had barely noticed until an exasperated Lanie had dragged him, Ryan and Esposito into a conference room (the latter two looking like little boys who had been scolded by their mother) and told him if he didn't do something about his infatuation with Beckett, she would personally make sure he ended up on her table.
He believed her.
And he wanted to believe Beckett felt the same.
So he did something. He planned a dinner at Remy's, home of Beckett's favourite shakes, and those to-die-for burgers. He hadn't gone to expensive extremes, because that wasn't Beckett's scene. He then had proposed a walk to Central Park, waving off her concerns about going to the place close to sunset.
He shouldn't have pressed his luck. He should have waited. But he didn't. And now he had scared off one of the best things in life.
A knock on the door started him out of self deprecation. Alexis and Mother aren't home, he reminded himself dully. Guess I have to get that.
He took his time. After all, no one important was going to be there.
This was a mistake, Beckett thought, turning away. She didn't know what she had been thinking, showing up at his door like this. She should leave. Now.
Castle wrenched the door open, ready to bite off the head belonging to the person who dared disturb his wallowing. He could see the back of a tall, athletic woman heading to the elevators.
He would recognize that back anywhere.
All self-pity was forgotten. He had to see her. Her face, her nose, her mouth, her ears, her eyes, her.
"Kate! Kate!" Castle not only didn't care how stupid he looked, waving his arms around like a madman; he didn't notice. He sprinted toward her, stopping a few feet away, knowing it would be unwise to get too close.
The detective's head snapped to look at him, just as the elevator door opened with a ping. Annoyance at the elevator's impeccable timing was wiped away by a surge of overpowering protective instinct. Her eyes were red. Her make up was smudged.
She had been crying.
The shock of seeing Castle immobilized her. She vaguely heard the woosh of the elevator door as they opened, but her gaze was fixed on him.
"Castle," the name coming out as a question and a statement. Unbidden, a voice in her head screamed out an itinerary of faults with her current appearance, but she squashed it.
It was Castle. In a bathrobe. A pink, fluffy bathrobe. She was sure her jaw was hanging unattractively somewhere between her knees.
"Castle!"
The second time she said his name comforted him. She sounded like herself again, about to make a snappy comeback. "Your...bathrobe."
His what?
Castle looked down, as if seeing himself for the first time.
Oh. Bathrobe. Right.
Shit.
He'd never hear the end of this.
Beckett felt a smile tugging at the corner of her lips as he mumbled something about it being his mother's, and he had just grabbed it. His excuse might even have been believable if his cheeks hadn't turned the colour of "his mother's" bathrobe.
A rush of affection (she refused to call it anything else) flooded through her and she closed the gap between their bodies and found refuge in the light blue polo he was wearing underneath the robe.
His arms wrapped around her solidly and his warm breath was making her hair flutter anxiously. They rocked each other, neither speaking a word, especially not about what happened earlier in the evening, nor about the silent tears that were soaking Castle's favourite shirt.