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Oct. 16th, 2011 01:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cassievalentineTitle Maybe This Time
Fandom Castle
Paring Kate Beckett/Richard Castle, mentions of Meredith Castle/Richard Castle
Rating PG13
Summary AU: In an alternate universe, Castle and Meredith try to save their failing marriage with another baby . . .
Warnings Kid fic, I guess. If that's really a warning in this fandom? Alternate Universe, Canon timeline fudging.
"You're a little freaked out right now, aren't you?" Castle asked as soon as he saw Beckett's number come up on his caller display. He was surprised she'd waited until nearly 6pm to call him about this. He'd seen the picture in the paper early that morning and had been waiting for her to call.
"How are you not??" she asked him, just barely keeping the panic out of her voice. She knew he was a favoured paparazzi target, she'd been known to buy those trashy gossip magazine just because his picture was in them, but they had lessened after Alexis, even more so after Charlie and had all but disappeared after the divorce. In fact, his appearances anywhere but page Six had become so scarce that she had nearly forgotten that it was even something to be taken into consideration. "My father saw the pictures."
"And now he wants to kill me, doesn't he?" Rick asked. He knew Kate, had heard a few stories about her father and would not doubt for a minute that Jim Beckett would kill him and hide the body. "Kate?" he asked after he realized that she had suddenly gotten really quiet.
"No," she finally admitted. "He poked fun at me about the situation." Castle made a mental note to laugh about that when Kate was no longer on the line.
"It'll be fine," he assured her. "If they could have gotten a closer shot, a better shot, they would have. As of now, all they know about you is that you're tall and have brown hair. Paula, my publicist, is telling everyone you're just a family friend." Kate swallowed hard. The man had a publicist. A publicist! Well, she knew, or at least assumed that he had someone to handle publicity and what not but being confronted with it head one was another matter. Does this mean that she had a publicist now as well?
"And if the class keener finds out who I am?"
"Then that will be a conversation," he replied, trying to play it off like it was no big deal. Did he not realize she was a cop?
"You do realize I'm a cop, right?" she asked him, her mind whirling with all the horrible things that could happen if her name, her picture, really got out in public. Visions of meetings with Montgomery and other higher ups in the police force started flashing in his mind, discussions about how she was now a risk instead of an asset were playing heavily.
"Of course I know you're a cop. It's really not a big deal Kate," he tried to assure her.
"It is though, it is a big deal, a HUGE deal!" she said, the panic taking over. "I'm a cop, I make my living by not standing out in a crowd. How am I supposed to do my job if every perp in the city knows what I look like? How am I supposed to go undercover? How in the hell am I going to do my job without putting Ryan and Esposito in danger? Without putting me in danger?" Ricked sucked in a breath when she mentioned Ryan and Esposito. He'd heard stories about her partners, but up until now, they'd just been a pair of humourous sidekicks that tagged along after her on cases. Rick had never really thought of them as real, flesh and blood people before.
"I understand," he told her calmly, trying to talk her down without really talking her down. "But if I tell Paula to kill this, to make it go away, they'll want more, they'll dig deeper and they will find out who you really are and what you do. Can you trust me to take care of this? To take care of you?" That made Kate pause. They had been seeing each other for nearly 10 months now, dating for nearly 7 and she knew he trusted her. Trusted her with his secrets, his fears, his kids, but did she trust him like that? She trusted him with her father, with a handful of her secrets but she didn't trust him with her mother. She changed the subject every time he asked about the ring, every time he asked why she became a cop, why she worked so hard. "Kate, do you trust me to take care of this for us."
Us. They were an us and her heart was pounding out of her chest. She'd never really been an us. She'd been a me and him, but never an us.
"Yes," she finally replied, her voice barely above a whisper.
"Then I will take care of it," he assured her. "I also think I need to come and see you, the sooner the better," he replied. "I will find a sitter for the kids and be there as soon as I can, alright?"
"I'll be here," she replied, forcing her hand not to drop the phone and her feet not to run.
"Ok," he said. He offered her a few more assurances before they finally hung up and as soon as she heard that click, Kate did drop the phone and rush for the bathroom, convinced she was going to throw up.
**
"Kate, open the door," Rick called out, knocking on her door again. "You're neighbours are starting to stare," he tried again, which was actually mostly a lie. The only person who he'd caught staring was the nosy old lady across the hall and 3 doors down. It worked though, Kate finally unlocked the door and swung it open. He took one look at her and held up the bottle of tequila and the small bag of limes.
"Tequila?" she asked him as he came in.
"You sounded like you were two steps away from freaking out and this didn't seem like a sipping wine of scotch kind of night. All Kate did was snatch the bag of limes from him and head to the kitchen counter, pulling out a cutting board and knife as she went. She stayed silent as she cut the limes into wedges and he rummaged around her cupboards for shot glasses, or something that would pass as shot glasses, and a bowl for the limes. Eventually, she swept the lime wedges into the bowl he found, grabbed two shot glasses out of a drawer he hadn't looked in and plucked the salt shaker from the table before leading them both into the living room where she promptly pushed the coffee table out of the way with her foot and sat on the floor.
Castle took a moment to regret bringing the tequila over. Any drinking that involved shots that started on the floor was never going to end well. He stared at her for a moment, hoping for a little guidance, but when she gave him nothing, he set up the first round, licking and applying salt to his hand as she silently did the same. They were each three shots in before Kate finally spoke.
"You trust me way more than I trust you," she told him as she poured shots number 4. She didn't care that he wasn't doing his as she tossed hers back. "You trust me with your privacy, your closely guarded private life and your kids and I trust you with nothing about me."
"You trust me with what you can," he supplied. He wanted to know more, everything, about her but there was some invisible force about her that told him to tread carefully, that one wrong step would send her away, maybe even forever.
"It's not enough," she said and chased the statement with number 5. "It's a drop in the bucket compared to what you've shared but I can't make my self share more no matter how much I want to."
"Everyone has issues," he supplied. "I didn't drop of the radar after Meredith because of my kids. Well, mostly because of them, but not completely. I trusted her with everything and she betrayed it, I wasn't willing to put myself out there again."
"But you are now?" she asked, swallowing number 6. He put his hand over her glass when she tried to pour number 7. Beckett may be tall, but she was not a large woman by any stretch of the imagination. He had no idea how she wasn't on her way to slobbering drunk already.
"If you hadn't stopped to talk to me at Alexis' school, I never would have asked you out for coffee and the fact that you understood that 'going out for coffee' was simply 'going out for coffee' and not something else made me call you again. You were, are, the first real 'talk about anything' friend I've had in a long time," he confessed, finally throwing back the 4th shot she'd poured for him.
"So why did you risk that? Why up the stakes and ask me out?"
"Because you actually listened when I complained about Meredith and then you told me about your dad." And they were back to the whole trust thing again and she had never been more thankful to have a shot glass to fill up before in her life. She filled both of the glasses and grabbed the salt shaker, but she hesitated.
"Is it enough? What I do tell you?" she finally asked, her eyes dropping to the shaker in her right hand and the fist her left was curled in.
"For now," he told her. "I know something happened to you, something horrible and that you're dad's drinking was just a symptom," he confessed. Her head jerked up to look at him after he said that. "I'm a writer, I read people," he told her, answering her question before she could ask it. "And I know that you're wounded, but we both are. My wounds are just a little easier for me to talk about then yours are." Kate contemplated the shot sitting before her for a long moment before she finally applied the salt to her hand and expertly downed the shot before biting the lime.
"My mother was killed," she finally said. "Murdered," she amended, dropping her eyes to the empty shot glass. "I was 19 and home from Stanford on break and we were supposed to have dinner, me, mom and dad, only she never showed up. There was a cop on our doorstep when we got home."
"Kate. . ." she shook her head.
"Dad held it together for the investigation, what there was of it, the funeral and to send me back to school to finish my year, but once I was gone . . ."
"He started drinking," Rick filled in quietly, downing his shot, number 6 and sighing as he felt the booze starting to kick in.
"I figured it out over the summer and switched my major from chemistry to criminology while transferring to NYU," she confessed, finally looking up at him. He filled in the blanks that she transferred to be closer to her dad, to keep an eye on him. "It didn't really matter though," she finished with a shrug. "He kept drinking and I picked my mother's case as my drug of choice until Montgomery stepped in and put a stop to it." A heavy silence fell over them, Kate feeling to raw and exposed to say anything more and Rick was simply at a loss. He'd always been good at reading people, but he had never managed to hit it so on the nose before.
"Another?" he finally asked, holding up the bottle of tequila. Kate swallowed hard and shook her head before she stood up, only the slightest wobble in her balance, before heading tot he back of the apartment and her room. Rick stayed where he was for a moment, surveying the remnance of their drinking before he simply capped the bottle tightly and pulled him self up with far more difficulty that she had. He checked the lock on the door before he began turning lights out and following to her room. He quickly stripped off his jeans and shirt and crawled into bed behind her, moving slowly to give her time to push him away as he lay behind her and pulled her tight against him. She let him and he heard the hitch in her breath a moment before he felt a few tears on the arm he had tucked under her head. He desperately wanted to say something to her, to reassure her or thank her or something, but for the first time in a very long time, he couldn't find the words.
He decided to put his faith in the adage that actions spoke louder than words instead and dropped a soft, lingering kiss to teh top of her head as he hugged her a little tighter.
Fandom Castle
Paring Kate Beckett/Richard Castle, mentions of Meredith Castle/Richard Castle
Rating PG13
Summary AU: In an alternate universe, Castle and Meredith try to save their failing marriage with another baby . . .
Warnings Kid fic, I guess. If that's really a warning in this fandom? Alternate Universe, Canon timeline fudging.
"You're a little freaked out right now, aren't you?" Castle asked as soon as he saw Beckett's number come up on his caller display. He was surprised she'd waited until nearly 6pm to call him about this. He'd seen the picture in the paper early that morning and had been waiting for her to call.
"How are you not??" she asked him, just barely keeping the panic out of her voice. She knew he was a favoured paparazzi target, she'd been known to buy those trashy gossip magazine just because his picture was in them, but they had lessened after Alexis, even more so after Charlie and had all but disappeared after the divorce. In fact, his appearances anywhere but page Six had become so scarce that she had nearly forgotten that it was even something to be taken into consideration. "My father saw the pictures."
"And now he wants to kill me, doesn't he?" Rick asked. He knew Kate, had heard a few stories about her father and would not doubt for a minute that Jim Beckett would kill him and hide the body. "Kate?" he asked after he realized that she had suddenly gotten really quiet.
"No," she finally admitted. "He poked fun at me about the situation." Castle made a mental note to laugh about that when Kate was no longer on the line.
"It'll be fine," he assured her. "If they could have gotten a closer shot, a better shot, they would have. As of now, all they know about you is that you're tall and have brown hair. Paula, my publicist, is telling everyone you're just a family friend." Kate swallowed hard. The man had a publicist. A publicist! Well, she knew, or at least assumed that he had someone to handle publicity and what not but being confronted with it head one was another matter. Does this mean that she had a publicist now as well?
"And if the class keener finds out who I am?"
"Then that will be a conversation," he replied, trying to play it off like it was no big deal. Did he not realize she was a cop?
"You do realize I'm a cop, right?" she asked him, her mind whirling with all the horrible things that could happen if her name, her picture, really got out in public. Visions of meetings with Montgomery and other higher ups in the police force started flashing in his mind, discussions about how she was now a risk instead of an asset were playing heavily.
"Of course I know you're a cop. It's really not a big deal Kate," he tried to assure her.
"It is though, it is a big deal, a HUGE deal!" she said, the panic taking over. "I'm a cop, I make my living by not standing out in a crowd. How am I supposed to do my job if every perp in the city knows what I look like? How am I supposed to go undercover? How in the hell am I going to do my job without putting Ryan and Esposito in danger? Without putting me in danger?" Ricked sucked in a breath when she mentioned Ryan and Esposito. He'd heard stories about her partners, but up until now, they'd just been a pair of humourous sidekicks that tagged along after her on cases. Rick had never really thought of them as real, flesh and blood people before.
"I understand," he told her calmly, trying to talk her down without really talking her down. "But if I tell Paula to kill this, to make it go away, they'll want more, they'll dig deeper and they will find out who you really are and what you do. Can you trust me to take care of this? To take care of you?" That made Kate pause. They had been seeing each other for nearly 10 months now, dating for nearly 7 and she knew he trusted her. Trusted her with his secrets, his fears, his kids, but did she trust him like that? She trusted him with her father, with a handful of her secrets but she didn't trust him with her mother. She changed the subject every time he asked about the ring, every time he asked why she became a cop, why she worked so hard. "Kate, do you trust me to take care of this for us."
Us. They were an us and her heart was pounding out of her chest. She'd never really been an us. She'd been a me and him, but never an us.
"Yes," she finally replied, her voice barely above a whisper.
"Then I will take care of it," he assured her. "I also think I need to come and see you, the sooner the better," he replied. "I will find a sitter for the kids and be there as soon as I can, alright?"
"I'll be here," she replied, forcing her hand not to drop the phone and her feet not to run.
"Ok," he said. He offered her a few more assurances before they finally hung up and as soon as she heard that click, Kate did drop the phone and rush for the bathroom, convinced she was going to throw up.
**
"Kate, open the door," Rick called out, knocking on her door again. "You're neighbours are starting to stare," he tried again, which was actually mostly a lie. The only person who he'd caught staring was the nosy old lady across the hall and 3 doors down. It worked though, Kate finally unlocked the door and swung it open. He took one look at her and held up the bottle of tequila and the small bag of limes.
"Tequila?" she asked him as he came in.
"You sounded like you were two steps away from freaking out and this didn't seem like a sipping wine of scotch kind of night. All Kate did was snatch the bag of limes from him and head to the kitchen counter, pulling out a cutting board and knife as she went. She stayed silent as she cut the limes into wedges and he rummaged around her cupboards for shot glasses, or something that would pass as shot glasses, and a bowl for the limes. Eventually, she swept the lime wedges into the bowl he found, grabbed two shot glasses out of a drawer he hadn't looked in and plucked the salt shaker from the table before leading them both into the living room where she promptly pushed the coffee table out of the way with her foot and sat on the floor.
Castle took a moment to regret bringing the tequila over. Any drinking that involved shots that started on the floor was never going to end well. He stared at her for a moment, hoping for a little guidance, but when she gave him nothing, he set up the first round, licking and applying salt to his hand as she silently did the same. They were each three shots in before Kate finally spoke.
"You trust me way more than I trust you," she told him as she poured shots number 4. She didn't care that he wasn't doing his as she tossed hers back. "You trust me with your privacy, your closely guarded private life and your kids and I trust you with nothing about me."
"You trust me with what you can," he supplied. He wanted to know more, everything, about her but there was some invisible force about her that told him to tread carefully, that one wrong step would send her away, maybe even forever.
"It's not enough," she said and chased the statement with number 5. "It's a drop in the bucket compared to what you've shared but I can't make my self share more no matter how much I want to."
"Everyone has issues," he supplied. "I didn't drop of the radar after Meredith because of my kids. Well, mostly because of them, but not completely. I trusted her with everything and she betrayed it, I wasn't willing to put myself out there again."
"But you are now?" she asked, swallowing number 6. He put his hand over her glass when she tried to pour number 7. Beckett may be tall, but she was not a large woman by any stretch of the imagination. He had no idea how she wasn't on her way to slobbering drunk already.
"If you hadn't stopped to talk to me at Alexis' school, I never would have asked you out for coffee and the fact that you understood that 'going out for coffee' was simply 'going out for coffee' and not something else made me call you again. You were, are, the first real 'talk about anything' friend I've had in a long time," he confessed, finally throwing back the 4th shot she'd poured for him.
"So why did you risk that? Why up the stakes and ask me out?"
"Because you actually listened when I complained about Meredith and then you told me about your dad." And they were back to the whole trust thing again and she had never been more thankful to have a shot glass to fill up before in her life. She filled both of the glasses and grabbed the salt shaker, but she hesitated.
"Is it enough? What I do tell you?" she finally asked, her eyes dropping to the shaker in her right hand and the fist her left was curled in.
"For now," he told her. "I know something happened to you, something horrible and that you're dad's drinking was just a symptom," he confessed. Her head jerked up to look at him after he said that. "I'm a writer, I read people," he told her, answering her question before she could ask it. "And I know that you're wounded, but we both are. My wounds are just a little easier for me to talk about then yours are." Kate contemplated the shot sitting before her for a long moment before she finally applied the salt to her hand and expertly downed the shot before biting the lime.
"My mother was killed," she finally said. "Murdered," she amended, dropping her eyes to the empty shot glass. "I was 19 and home from Stanford on break and we were supposed to have dinner, me, mom and dad, only she never showed up. There was a cop on our doorstep when we got home."
"Kate. . ." she shook her head.
"Dad held it together for the investigation, what there was of it, the funeral and to send me back to school to finish my year, but once I was gone . . ."
"He started drinking," Rick filled in quietly, downing his shot, number 6 and sighing as he felt the booze starting to kick in.
"I figured it out over the summer and switched my major from chemistry to criminology while transferring to NYU," she confessed, finally looking up at him. He filled in the blanks that she transferred to be closer to her dad, to keep an eye on him. "It didn't really matter though," she finished with a shrug. "He kept drinking and I picked my mother's case as my drug of choice until Montgomery stepped in and put a stop to it." A heavy silence fell over them, Kate feeling to raw and exposed to say anything more and Rick was simply at a loss. He'd always been good at reading people, but he had never managed to hit it so on the nose before.
"Another?" he finally asked, holding up the bottle of tequila. Kate swallowed hard and shook her head before she stood up, only the slightest wobble in her balance, before heading tot he back of the apartment and her room. Rick stayed where he was for a moment, surveying the remnance of their drinking before he simply capped the bottle tightly and pulled him self up with far more difficulty that she had. He checked the lock on the door before he began turning lights out and following to her room. He quickly stripped off his jeans and shirt and crawled into bed behind her, moving slowly to give her time to push him away as he lay behind her and pulled her tight against him. She let him and he heard the hitch in her breath a moment before he felt a few tears on the arm he had tucked under her head. He desperately wanted to say something to her, to reassure her or thank her or something, but for the first time in a very long time, he couldn't find the words.
He decided to put his faith in the adage that actions spoke louder than words instead and dropped a soft, lingering kiss to teh top of her head as he hugged her a little tighter.
