12. Twelve: Thursday

Twelve

Castle stands in front of the eight-story glass edifice on East 34th Street off the FDR. He can see the East River from here, smell it too. NYU Medical Center practically dwarfs the office building Kate has brought him to; this area of Manhattan is crawling with people, the street choked with traffic. He's not sure why they're here, except that today she wanted to show him something of her city.

She hesitates on the sidewalk.

"Kate?"

"Well, two for one today?"

"Okay," he says, a little bewildered. "Sure."

She's been withdrawn, as if under glass. Still affectionate, still woke him this morning with coffee and the complaint that he sleeps too much, her lips pulled up in a smile, but he thinks this is the default Kate, the one the world gets when she's protecting herself.

And he doesn't know why, but it maybe has something to do with that statement she tossed off yesterday - innocent and arch all at the same time - putting it out there like it's nothing.

Maybe next time.

Uh-huh. He will not soon forget that.

It explains the mood. The insular way she's approaching the world, and him as well. He can try to let her take her time, but he's one hundred percent certain that something smart-ass is going to come out of his mouth about it. He hopes it's funny when it does.

"So, two places today. What's first?"

She stands on the sidewalk with her face pointed towards the Medical Center, reaches back to take his hand. "This first. From right here though. We don't need to go in; it'll take too long."

He takes a moment to check her out - hair touched with sunlight, those sunglasses again, the outfit in greens and browns and blacks - some kind of draping thing that hugs her curves, and then leggings with leopard print flats. She reminds him of LA, of when she was on her own time out in the warmth of California with him.

"Castle?" she says, turning over her shoulder to look at him, tugging on his hand.

He steps up beside her and waits.

"NYU Medical Center has this amazing rehab center - the Rusk Institute. You probably know that."

He does.

"That's where I was."

Yeah. He knows that too, but he stays silent.

She lets out a shaky sigh. "For rehab. From last summer."

"Yeah," he breathes out, then squeezes her hand. "You could afford that?" He's not fishing, he's really not; he just wonders how much her father has told her, how much, in fact, her father himself knows.

"Dad paid for most of it," she says quietly. "Rusk isn't exactly covered in our city health insurance."

"I'm glad you could go here."

"Me too. I think this place shortened my recovery time practically in half. Actually - I don't know how my dad paid for it either," she says with a shrug. "He said something about a gift and I thought he was being funny. But now I wonder."

She tilts her head to look at him, calculating. Does she wonder? She's a detective; she must have an idea that it was him.

Castle keeps his mouth shut, shifts his eyes to take in the sprawling NYU complex. Rusk is renowned for its level of care and its standard of rehabilitation. He wanted first and foremost for her to get her life back, whatever that meant, even if she didn't want him in it.

Kate comes up on her toes, hanging on to his shoulder for balance, and presses an open-mouth kiss to the edge of his lips. She doesn't say a word, but he feels gratitude and pleasure in it, his heart pounding at her touch.

And then she turns and heads back for the eight-story office building, her hand loose in his.

"Kate?"

"Yeah," she says, tugging him after her, hair spilling off her shoulders.

"I'm glad you're here," he says, because - for once in his life - he doesn't know how to say it.

She gives him an indulgent smile and stops on the sidewalk, waits for him to come to her, and then she does it again, lifts up on tiptoe to get at his jaw this time, the scrape of her teeth coming to play along his chin.

Oh, he adores the height difference. Beckett in flats is just too good.

They stop in the lobby, all sleek chrome and black banquettes, a plastic ficus, no lobby security, just a row of elevators in the middle and a huge black board listing the companies renting floor space.

Kate sighs at the change. "This isn't how it used to look," she mourns, spinning around slowly in the lobby. "There used to be carpet. Like in the old buildings in the city - threadbare carpet and the ceiling had those copper or tin ceilings."

"Yeah, I know what you mean."

"I guess - well, the law firm has gotten bigger. Since I was here last," she murmurs, then leans against one of the eggshell white walls.

Castle is being patient, just watching her, so she takes a breath and plunges into it. "This is where my mom and dad first met."

He grins at her, a slow thing that spreads across his face as he casts his eyes around the lobby again. "Yeah?"

"Nearly forty years ago," she says, stunned herself at how much time it's been. How much time since everything, all of it. "They worked on the seventh floor - both very junior lawyers in the Carney firm."

"Carney?" he says, lifting an eyebrow and grinning at her.

"Not like circus people. A man's last name, Castle." She rolls her eyes and takes him by the hand, tugs him over to the black board. "See? Oh, look at that, Carney rents out the top two floors now."

"So your parents both worked here."

"They did. My dad said it took him something like four years to get up the courage to even tell my mom-"

The look on his face makes her stumble; she feels the blush climbing her cheeks.

"Oh really. History repeats itself then."

She sighs at him, leans in to hook her arm around his neck, drag him down for a grateful brush of her lips. "Let me finish my story," she murmurs against his mouth.

"My bad. Go on," he whispers back, kissing her again, his hands hot on her hips.

She breaks away, stepping back so she can find her voice again. "The way the firm worked back then, the top partners basically took only pro bono work. Everyone else, in order to pay for that practice, worked like dogs on anything and everything, making up the lost revenue. All of it criminal law."

"Actually, that sounds rather noble."

"Maybe so. I don't know. My dad didn't love it. After I was born, he quit Carney and went to a firm closer to where we lived. He told my mom she should quit too, that it wasn't worth the hours."

"Oh, really? I can't imagine anyone telling your mom to quit."

Kate grins at him, a surge of pride flooding her chest. Not because of her mom, well that too, but because of him, because this man is hers. Because he actually seems to know Kate's mother, and how she was, and that makes it easier somehow. Maybe Kate has managed to continue her mother's legacy, to honor her memory despite all the - the grief - the heartache. The death. Maybe Kate has managed to show Castle her mother's life as well.

"So. What happened when your dad told her that?" Castle prompts, nudging her hip with his thumb, still hanging onto her.

"Mom refused to quit. She had already put in the work and she was going to make partner soon. She wanted to take on indigent cases, people who didn't have the money to pay for an attorney. She didn't want them getting stuck with the court-appointed ones."

"I hear they're awful."

"Usually not so hot," she agrees, shrugging at him. "Mom stayed on here. She made partner when I was four."

"Wow. Took some time."

"It was a smaller firm back then. They worked harder, longer, to stay afloat I think. But you know what? I don't remember a single time in my life that I needed my mom and she wasn't there. She was always there."

Castle's hand slides from her hip to her ribs, palm so broad that his fingertips are practically at her spine. "Temptation Lane."

She laughs. "Like that. Watching Temptation Lane curled up on the couch together. But if I was sick or she had to work on a Saturday, she'd bring me up here with her. I usually had a book to read, but still Mom would spend a lot of time answering my curious questions, telling me about the law, about the case she was working on. This is where I learned to love. . .justice."

Castle steps in closer, presses a kiss to her forehead, a soft sigh on his lips. She sees him struggle to find a way to keep them both upbeat, and she's grateful for it. She also wishes he didn't have to. But his humor - his coping mechanism - comes in handy.

He trails a kiss down her nose, leans back to look at her. "What about your dad? How'd he like it as Mr Mom for four years?"

She flashes him a grin. "Oh no. My dad worked. He was a lawyer too, Castle. You think I'm a workaholic, should've seen the two of them. They never intended to have kids, actually. I was a mistake."

"Surprise," he says immediately, fingers digging into her hip. "Not a mistake."

She glances up at him, sees the look on his face and remembers. Duh. Alexis.

"Right," she says softly. "A surprise." She pauses to cup his cheek, brush her thumb along the lines of his smile, which grows the more she touches him.

"A really good surprise." He leans down to kiss her, again so soft, delicate, his lips transferring his happiness.

She soaks him in like sunlight.

"Hey," he says suddenly. "We should go up. Check it out."

"Why? It's been remodelled. Nothing looks the same."

"Just to get on that elevator again and go up the seven flights until you can step out onto the same floor your mother worked on. So hard, and for so long. To be back in the same hallways where you first learned the law."

She's struck again by how much sentiment Castle infuses everything with. Because, yes, she holds on to things with meaning - her mother's ring, her father's watch - but he does it in a way that's healthy, and symbolic, and charged with good memories. Whereas she has a tendency to do it with the darkest parts of her past.

"Okay," she says finally. "Let's go up."

He can tell by her face that it's not the same, and even just walking into the lobby - all glass walls and white furniture - has done something to her. But when she turns to him, she's giving him that gentle, you're a good man smile.

His heart eases to look at it; he brushes his hand up her spine and lets her stand there for a moment, absorbing it. Maybe it's a good thing that the place is so different, that there are two women standing by the desk, talking softly, that it's not the same firm that Johanna Beckett-

"Can I help you?" one of the women says. No receptionist is in sight, just the two of them, but now the other woman is leaving through the front doors. "Are you - are you looking for family court mediation? Divorce lawyer?"

Castle grins and shakes his head. "No. She's stuck with me."

"Not looking to get rid of him," Kate says at the same time, and they turn to look at each other, smirking.

The older woman makes a noise. "Sorry. Was there something I could help you with?"

Kate shakes her head. "Don't worry about us. I just wanted to see the place again. My mother used to work here, about thirteen years ago."

Castle nudges her pinky with his own; she hooks hers around his as she smiles softly over at him.

The older woman tilts her head, and then her mouth drops. "Oh. Johanna. You mean - oh, you're little Katie Beckett."

"She is," Castle beams, reaching past Kate to shake the woman's hand in greeting. "I'm Rick. Did you work here with Johanna?"

"Oh, I did. I'm Margaret Mason; I've been an attorney here for years. Katie, look at how you've grown. Oh, it's so good to see you."

Kate shifts at his side but allows the woman's embrace. "I - should I remember you? I'm sorry."

"Oh no, I'm sure you wouldn't. But your mother would bring you up here. And then, well, after her death, all those moments are given nuances, a sharpness that sticks with a person. You know?"

Kate nods; Castle takes her hand again when she leaves the woman's hug.

"So, what do you do, Katie? Is this your. . .?" Ms. Mason trails off as she glances over at Castle.

"This is her writer," he says with an easy grin. "Kate let me follow her around the 12th Precinct these last few years. I wrote a couple books."

"Oh? Nonfiction or novels?"

"Fiction," Kate interrupts, giving him a strange look. "I was a homicide detective until recently."

"Oh," Ms. Mason sighs. "Because of Johanna. That - oh, Katie. She was such a fervent advocate, so on fire, so passionate. If you brought half of that same zest for life to your work there, then I'm sure you've been an amazing detective."

Kate rocks back; her mouth drops open.

Castle fills the void smoothly. "She's extraordinary."

Ms Mason beams at him, reaches out and squeezes his hand in a familiar, motherly way. "I'm glad she has you. Everyone needs a defender-"

"Partner," Kate says suddenly, her hand around Castle's squeezing so tightly his fingers are losing circulation. "He's my partner. And he's pretty extraordinary himself."

Margaret Mason reaches out and hugs Kate again, pressing a kiss to his partner's cheek, practically clucking over her. "You be good to him, then. I remember your father - Jim - he always had the same lovestruck look on his face around Johanna that your man has here."

Castle lets out a noise of indignation, but chases it with a sigh. No doubt the woman is right. Lovestruck, foolish, helplessly idiotic, a sentimental-

And then Kate hums and presses closer to his side, their hands trapped between them. "Well, if I don't look the same, then it's only because I have a better poker face."

Vaguely, Castle hears the front door open and slam shut, and then Kate is coming through the study and wriggling her butt down in his chair. She curls up with him, her narrow hips not quite narrow enough to accommodate his, her body sticky and damp with sweat after her run.

But she squirms deeper, her knees drawn up, her hands curled around her ipod, and he grunts as her butt bone digs into his thigh, but he doesn't comment.

"I am seriously perturbed with you," she says on a growl, tugging the earbuds out.

Rick draws his laptop back to him, resting it against the arm of the chair, debating the best way to type. "Perturbed huh?"

"Ticked off."

No, nothing doing. He can't. And he loves her, he really does, but she's seriously throwing off his writing groove.

If she could just-

Oh, whoa, wait a second.

"Ticked off?" Castle lifts an eyebrow at her and balances his laptop for a moment more, then gives it up, puts it on the floor.

She hums, as if in satisfaction, and he realizes what she's got.

"Hey. Is that my phone?"

She grins, gives him a look under her lashes that she must know works. Entirely too well. "Yeah, it is. I think it falls under What's mine is yours?"

He huffs. "Don't think so. You gotta marry me first."

She shoots him a hot and also withering look. "Back to why I'm so ticked at you."

"Uh-huh, this should be good. I'm guessing it involves my phone?"

"Yes. This zombie app. Castle, I need another conspiracy like I need a hole in the head."

"Conspiracy?" he laughs, squeezes her hip, sliding his fingers into the waistband of her running shorts. She's not wearing underwear. Oh my-

"These people are paranoid. They think I'm somehow in league with the zombies or with some human faction out to take down their town or something. The runner I was paired up with? She basically threatened my life."

"You do know this is a game, right?" He grins at her and wiggles his fingers against her hip, slides them down a little more.

She's entirely undeterred. "Don't be cute. Their paranoia is catching. I'm running down the path in Central Park and I keep thinking some guy is following me, or that other jogger is staring at me and maybe even shuffling a little, and then I think I'm hearing zombie moans in the middle of your playlist-"

He chuckles into her neck and kisses her softly, licking at the sweat that's drying on her skin. She shivers and her hand comes up to hold his head against her. He hums and trails down her neck.

"Ahh, Castle." He can feel her swallowing against his mouth. "And why - exactly - is Britney Spears on your playlist?"

He pauses. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Britney. 'Womanizer.' Really?"

"I - that's Alexis's?"

"No dice, hot shot. You run to 'Womanizer'?"

He sighs. "It - it gets me going."

She laughs, her fingers around his ear, curling this time instead of tugging. "Oh it does?"

"Not - not like that. It just - arg, Kate," he whines, wanting to go back to where he was being all seductive and clever with his tongue. He slides a hand to her backside, squeezes as he tugs her hips towards his, then kisses the underside of her jaw, blows on her ear.

She shivers. "Your dumb, dumb zombie game. I hate it."

"I think you love it."

"I hate that I love it."

"I can sometimes have that effect," he laughs again, scraping his teeth at her jaw, his body twisted around hers in the chair.

"Oh," she murmurs, her fingers curling at his ear. "I'm gross. I need to shower."

"You taste good to me."

"You just basically proposed, and then you made fun of my PTSD, and now-"

"I did not make fun," he growls back, nudging the top of her shirt with his nose even as his mind goes blank over her casual mention of PTSD. She has PTSD? This is what the therapist has been for? "And I didn't even really propose. Besides you started that one yesterday."

She laughs darkly against the top of his head; he feels her fingers tripping down his spine. "Mm, I kinda did."

"You so did." PTSD. She has. . .oh, she has her fingers in - ah - a really nice place. Farther down, Kate.

She's silent now, so he renews his assault on her running shorts, but the way they're both crammed into the chair makes it impossible for him to get his hands on anything good. More's the pity.

"Do you think maybe I am paranoid?" she says suddenly.

"What?" He startles back to look at her, sensing actual hesitation in her voice, uncertainty. PTSD. She has PTSD and he never knew it. But the sniper case - oh that makes so much more sense.

"I really - I did think someone was following me. And then every single time this stupid game has those zombies chasing me - I have this mini panic attack-"

"Where you put on a burst of speed and you can't breathe too good?" he says, giving her a grin. "I know that. That's just the game, Kate." He doesn't want it to be PTSD; he wants her to be cured. He wants to have cured her. Stupid as that is.

She leans in to him, an arm hooked around his neck. "Okay. It's just the game."

"You're okay?" He wants to ask about the PTSD, but he won't. "You don't have to do the zombie thing, Kate."

She huffs a breath against him and then slides out of his chair. He watches her for a moment, but she reaches out and brushes her hand through his hair. Her smile is tender. "I like the zombie thing. And maybe it's what I need. I did nine miles today."

He laughs at that. "Yeah?"

"Haven't been able to push past eight since. . ."

Since. . .oh, since she was shot.

"Well. Good then. Keep it."

She's already heading out of his study for the shower, and apparently he gets no invitation this time. That's okay; their stop this morning was inspirational for Nikki Heat. He-

"Hey Kate?" he calls.

She comes back through the door, a question in the arch of her eyebrow.

"Thank you."

She tilts her head, giving him a cute little smile. "What for?"

"Showing me your city."

Somehow that brings her straight back to his chair, bending over him, her hands on his cheeks as she guides her mouth down to his. Her kiss is long and slow, thorough, soft; she tastes like adoration and gratitude.

She hovers over his mouth; he feel her smiling. "Castle. I should be thanking you. Making me go upstairs. I never would've gotten to hear that about my mom if you hadn't made me."

He lifts his hand and strokes the loose strand of hair back over her ear, curls his fingers there. He says the only thing he knows how to explain. "I love you, Kate."

"Come shower with me," she murmurs, and he could swear it sounds more like I love you too.

"Always."

She laughs, gorgeous and rich, and tugs him up and out of the chair.