26. TwentySix: Thursday

Twenty-Six

"Remy's?" he asks, giving her a look. But she's just coy and clever as she watches him, holding open the door for him.

Castle sighs and goes inside. He's kinda hungry anyway.

Kate comes up behind him, brushes his side with hers, fingers tangling. He's. . .surprised, to be honest. Surprised she's so public with it. Not that she hasn't held his hand on the street or in the theatre or walking down the sidewalk, but this is Remy's. This is a shared space, a place where their friends go, other cops-

"Beckett!" And there's Ryan hustling towards them, a beaming look on his face as he hugs Kate, then slaps Castle on the back. "Castle, man. You guys look good. What're you doing here?"

"This place off-limits now?" Kate answers, an eyebrow arched that makes Ryan stammer and backpedal. But Kate presses her lips together, meets Castle's eyes, and then laughs at Kevin. "Kidding. We're doing a thing, walking around the city together. You guys taking a lunch break?"

Ryan turns back to the main counter and grabs the to-go bags, juggling everything. "Yeah, actually, it sucks without you guys. I'm partnerless, without a team, and I'm the one who gets stuck with the lunch runs."

Castle glances to Kate and sees a flicker of remorse across her face, but he can't tell about what. She reaches out and squeezes Ryan's forearm. "Hey, Kevin. I should've - I'm sorry."

He shrugs at her and his face is that easy-going and open Ryan; no harm, no foul. "No apology needed, Beckett."

"Esposito talk to you yet?"

Ryan gives an uncomfortable look away, glances once to Castle, then shakes his head. "Naw. It's okay though. He's suspended too, but he's not sticking around the city. Did Lanie tell you?"

"Lanie?" Castle asks, intrigued by what seems to be a switch in topic. "What does Lanie have to do with Esposito anymore?"

"Well, more now I guess?" Ryan grins at them. "Lanie is taking the next two weeks off - the whole department is talking about it - and she's going on vacation to Puerto Rico-"

"With Javi?" Kate says, her incredulousness making her voice rise. She gives a swift look to Castle, then back to Ryan. "That's - awesome. I'm so calling Lanie. She didn't tell me that."

"Oh man, maybe I shouldn't have said anything."

"No, no," Castle interrupts. "This is stuff you share."

"What about this?" Ryan says, nodding his head at them, juggling the bags again. "This stuff you share?"

Castle doesn't know what to say. But before he can even think what might be okay to mention, Kate's grinning and stepping right into the void. "We're together. For good."

For good.

His chest squeezes and he looks over at her, his palms suddenly tingling, and she's giving him this smug little smile, just the corners of her mouth lifting, and he clutches tighter at her hand.

"Well, good. Good," Ryan says, somewhat dumbly, maybe as stunned as Castle feels. "I'll let you guys. . .I gotta get the food back."

"Wait," Beckett says suddenly, grabbing Ryan's elbow. "You said - Esposito is on suspension. . .too?"

"Yeah, though you knew that."

"I know, I just - I mean. You say that like he's not the only one? Who else got suspended?"

Ryan gives a rough little laugh. "You. I mean. You and Esposito. What're you talking about?"

Castle feels her stumble back, lifts his hand to catch her by the waist, their fingers still tangled together. He glances at her, sees the wash of surprise on her face.

"Ryan. I quit. I cleaned out my desk because I'm not coming back."

He hesitates, and slides a look at Castle. "Yeah. Um. Gates still has you on the duty roster. Inactive because of your suspension, but still."

Castle feels Kate stiffen. "Not going to happen, Ryan. It'd take an act of God to get me back there."

Ryan bobs his head nervously, shoots Castle another look, then makes his excuses and leaves.

Castle, rubs his thumb over the back of her hand as she watches the door shut behind Ryan. "Kate?"

"I'm not going back."

"Okay."

She's quiet for a few minutes as they sit in the booth and wait for their orders to arrive. She picks at the silverware in the napkin, tries to get her bearings again, reassert some of the ease and sense of purpose she's had for the last three weeks.

Kate made a choice. And it's been taken away from her.

No. Not taken away. It's still a choice, still hers to own. The consequences - for good or ill - are still hers.

She glances up at Castle and sees the wariness in his eyes. It's not on his face; no, his face is still that open and honest Castle. But his eyes are reserved.

He expects her to be unbalanced, to lean back to her old job. She won't though.

It's not up for discussion, either.

"Remy's," she says finally, determined.

He looks surprised for an instant, but masks it to give her a lopsided smile. "I know a lot of Remy's, right?"

"What you don't know is - this is where Roy took me, my first night on as a detective," she says back, bringing her smile back to him.

"Ryan and Esposito?" he asks.

She shakes her head. "Esposito wasn't on my team. Just been transferred from the 54th; he was a little rough around the edges. His partner had just died - oh." She stares at Castle. "Well, he didn't, did he? But of course, Espo didn't know that. So."

"So his partner had just died. But I'd say Esposito is still a little rough around the edges."

She grins at him, her shoulders loosening at just the touch of warmth in Castle's voice, the humor lacing the edges of their conversation. She likes his coping mechanisms much better than hers.

"Hm, yeah. You could be right." She shares a smile with him, his eyes so very blue in the sunlight coming in through the blinds, a connection between them that, if she's honest, she has to admit has been there since the first day.

"Montgomery brought you here," he says softly. "And then-?"

"This was the spot. For everything. Lunch, dinner, a drink after the big cases. Esposito and I were partnered, but neither of us wanted it, so we agreed to do our own thing, mostly. We worked well not together, like that, but then Ryan was transferred up to Homicide, so it was three of us - so the two of them partnered instead."

"And how did Esposito go from rough around the edges to partners with Ryan? Seems unlikely."

"I think Ryan just - he's too nice. He's a good cop, a good detective, and he works hard. He knows what's right." More than she does, more than Esposito, who was willing to follow her to their deaths because they're comrade-in-arms, brothers behind the badge. "You think Ryan would be a pushover, but he's not. He has a strong sense of right and wrong."

"I'm glad for that," Castle says in a rush, like he's got to get it in.

Unspoken is He saved your life but it's there, in the air between them.

"I am too," she says finally.

He watches her as a few others from the 12th come in and out; she's easy enough with them, smiling, taking their jokes and giving her own back. She keeps her foot propped on his bench seat, scandalously tucked up under his thigh. She's wearing sandals that she apparently slipped off sometime during lunch, so he feels her bare toes flex into his hamstring.

Sexy as hell is what it is.

She sips her strawberry milkshake, her cheeks hollowing to get the thick, icy pink concoction into her mouth. She's seriously too beautiful to be out in public like this, too sensual and erotic as she lifts her eyes from the straw and looks at him.

As if she knows what she's doing to him.

Her toes flex and he has to reach under the table and grab her by the ankle in warning; she smiles broadly at him, her tongue comes out to lick at her bottom lip.

He squeezes tighter, lifting an eyebrow at her, and she grins, all feral and wild, and it just goes right to his guts, makes his heart tighten up, makes him want to put his mouth on her, all over-

"Stop looking at me like that, Castle."

"You stop," he hisses back.

"You started it," she murmurs, her eyes dark now, arousal glinting in their depths.

"Tell me another story. Quick. And try not to be so sexy when you do."

She laughs, bites her lip. "Hm. Okay." She huffs out a breath and looks away from him; he sees her cradle the milkshake in a hand, then press it against her neck.

He laughs and she shoots him a deadly look; she so doesn't think it's funny, does she? He grins wider, pleased that he somehow affects her just as much as she affects him.

She waves her hand at him, as if to shoo him away, forcibly drags her eyes back to the sidewalk outside as she thinks. He knows his face is practically split apart with his smile, but all of the sudden her lust is just as encouraging and reassuring as her For good was earlier.

"Okay," she says suddenly. "I got it. A couple years ago, it was after a case. A squatter in an apartment, family came home to find him dead-"

He grins, his chest unfurling with love. "I think I remember that one."

"Oh?" she says innocently. "Should I stop then?"

"No, no," he says hastily. "Finish the story. I'd like to - see it from your perspective."

"Well then. Turns out he was a thief, had a falling out with his partners in crime. My partner-"

Him. That's him she's talking about. Her partner.

"He had a rough day, I think. A little bitty spider freaked him out-"

"It was a huge spider, Beckett. Huge. A tarantula."

"They don't hurt you," she smirks.

"They carry some of the deadliest venom."

"Harmless to human beings, Castle."

"You never know."

"Back to my story?"

He growls at her. "You gonna tell it right, or what?"

"I am telling it right. You keep interrupting."

He waves her on, pretending hurt, but this is awesome. This is really very cool, hearing her talk about how it felt on her side of things. Way back then. Like he gets to visit that moment all over again, their own kind of time travel.

"Anyway," she says sarcastically. "He had a rough day, but he did a good thing-"

He did?

"He made me give a second chance to a guy named Mickey."

Ohhh, that's right. He did that? She did that, really; he was just the annoying one who bugged her about it.

"I wasn't going to vouch for a guy that had been in and out of prison, couldn't seem to set himself straight, repeat offender."

"But you did," he says softly.

"Hm, well, my partner can be pretty persuasive."

Him. She means him.

"And both of us - well, we'd been on a couple of disastrous dates - they were so self-absorbed - and we were starving. We'd run right out of dinner when we figured out what was going on with the smuggling-"

"You looked amazing," he murmurs, can't help it. "But not too amazing, which is good. Since you weren't with me."

She stops, looks stunned that he said that, and then her voice lowers. "You were wearing that velvet jacket, the shiny tie, just like Bachelor Number 9 should be."

"You remember that."

"Seven the year before, Castle. Slipping."

"Ah, you were paying attention? That's nice to know. But I wasn't even ranked after that."

"Well, you weren't a bachelor the year after that, were you?"

"Definitely not now," he says, and keeps his fingers tight around her ankle, making promises, all kinds of promises, all of them. For good.

She watches him for a moment, as if reading his promises and letting herself absorb them. "After all that, we decided to come here."

"You ate a huge burger and fries and had a shake then too, if I remember."

"Yeah. You ate as much as I did. But you jumped ahead, Castle."

"I did?"

She nods. "All I wanted to do was go home. That's all I ever did, back then. But you said - well, I thought you were going to be crude, honestly, but you weren't. You asked me out."

"I-" He flushes at the memory, because yes. Yes, that's what he'd been doing, but he hadn't realized she knew that at the time. "I did. I asked you out."

"And I said yes."

Oh, she said yes. He asked her out and she said yes.

"Was that - was that our first date? Here at Remy's."

"What do you think, Castle?"

His heart is pounding wildly in his chest. "Yeah." He clears his throat. "First date."

She smiles at him, that same smile as two years ago, almost three, slightly shy, but pleased and happy. She bites her lip and then her hand sneaks up to her hair, fingers twirling, and he's struck with it, made breathless and stunned by that simple movement.

"You're flipping your hair," he murmurs.

She looks startled, but gives him another little smile.

"And smiling," he adds, the years rushing back to him with the force of a tsunami, crashing over him.

"So?" she laughs. "I'm happy. We're reclaiming our time, Castle."

He has to fight to breathe, his love chokes him up and makes him want to do stupid, foolish things in the middle of Remy's. Instead, he just squeezes her ankle tighter and brushes his thumb over her ankle bone, over and over and over, mesmerized by her.

"Castle?"

"Yeah. You're right. This was a good idea. And Kate?"

She lifts her eyebrows at him in question.

He takes a long breath in and then he just says it, without anger, without frustration, without desperation or need or trying to prove a point. He just says it because it's true.

"I love you."