29. Sorry seems to be the hardest word

His hand stops moving abruptly, surprise in the jerk of his arm, in the flash through his dark blue eyes.

“A game?”

“Yeah.” She doesn’t quite meet his gaze.  “Play Sorry with me?”  She can feel colour along her cheekbones, rising with his penetrating look.

Castle is surprised. He’d rather thought that Beckett-who-had-almost-become-Kat would want to stick with the deep, forceful kisses that he knows she likes.  Then he parses the sentence, and examines her face.  The streaks of red limning her cheeks and her inability to meet his eye argue a certain embarrassment.  Ah.  A way to apologise?  They haven’t played Sorry since… before Christmas.  She’d said, deep down drunk in the vodka, that she wished that she’d never got the game, that it had just been a mistake.  That it had been her mistake had been heavily implied.  So offering up the game now… is a peace-offering.  Taking them back to a point where they were… comfortable.  Before she started stepping back and pushing him away; before he started asking questions and, those questions left unanswered, making assumptions.

“Sure.” And time for his own step.  “If I set it up, could I have a coffee, please?”  Because the last time they’d played, they’d managed coffee and cuddles and soft Kat and both of them comfortable with each other.

“Sure.” She slides off his lap and aims for the kettle.  He aims for the game, slightly dusty on the same spot of the shelf that it had occupied last time, and concludes that it hasn’t been touched since before Christmas either.  He brings it back and opens up the board, shuffles the cards, and puts the little blue men out for Beckett and green ones out for him.  The soothing scent of good coffee permeates the room, and somehow warms it.  Shortly a tray appears bearing large mugs full of coffee, with creamer, nutmeg and cinnamon.  Shortly after that, Beckett appears beside him, a slight air of uncertainty around her.  Well, he can solve that.  He remembers how to do that, at least.

He slips an arm around her, encouraging her to move closer, and this time, as last time, she does. As last time, too, she adds enough creamer and spices to her coffee to obliterate the original taste.  Odd, that.  In the precinct, and indeed most of the time, she puts only a dash of milk in; in the mornings she likes latte; but here, in her own soft, vague, undemanding space where sometimes he’s found a Kat not a Beckett, she likes her coffee softened as well.  He takes that as a sign that she’s relaxed again, and doctors his own coffee with a pinch of cinnamon and a moderate dose of creamer.

“Who’ll cut first?” he asks.

“You can.”

Beckett wins the cut. Then she manages to get three men started while Castle is still staring disconsolately at a succession of useless cards.  She’s brought one of them home while he’s still locked out the board, and the other two are moving smoothly round.  She only needs one more to start, and he’ll have no hope of winning at all.  He doesn’t like that.  He wanted a game, not a procession.  But he is gradually cuddling Beckett closer and closer and…. And finally he’s got a start.

“Sorry!” he bounces, and not apologetically at all sends one of her little blue men back home.

“Humph,” she mutters, and immediately draws a one to restart it.

After that it gets a lot more even, and every time Beckett says Sorry Castle hears an apology for more than simply sending his piece back to the start.  His luck is not quite so unrelentingly bad, and his tactical acumen and far greater experience allows him to catch up.  Almost.  Beckett gets the rub of the green and plops her final blue piece home just ahead of him.

“I won,” she exults. “I beat you even though you’ve played this for years.”

Castle doesn’t hesitate.

“You get the prize, then.” And he leans slowly down and in, and smoothly takes her mouth.  He doesn’t hurry: explores thoroughly and when she’s perfectly responsive keeps kissing her until she’s lax, only then lifting off.

“How’s that my prize?” Beckett grumps.  “That’s the prize you insisted on when you won.  How do you get a prize when I won?”

“Would you have preferred M&Ms?”

“Might have.”

“I don’t have any sweets. You’ll have to have me instead.  I’m sweet.”  And he kisses her again.  “See?  Very sweet.  Much better than M&Ms.”  He picks her up and nestles her neatly into him.  “There.  Your prize, Beckett, is a Castle-heater.  Individually tailored to your needs to keep you warm and cosy whatever the temperature.”

Beckett rolls her eyes at him, but stays where she is, her hand creeping on to his midriff and then her head pillowing itself on his shoulder. He’s warm, and large, and indefinably stable.  Not like she is.  She feels more like she’s endlessly balancing on a wobble-board.  Here and now, though, she can be still.  No questions, no decisions, no need to be.  She shifts a little to tuck herself in more tidily, and Castle’s arms reflexively tighten to keep her there.  It’s a very odd feeling, to be enclosed like this.  Will hadn’t been much for cuddles… well, no.  That’s not true. She hadn’t been much for cuddles, and Will had taken the hint.  This is different.  Castle is not only into cuddles, but appears to be convinced that she should be, and she doesn’t seem to be arguing.  For now, all her tension and bitterness and need to fill the void in her soul are quiescent.  For now.

Until her conscience, fuelled on history and unacknowledged hurt, steps in.

“This won’t work,” she murmurs sadly.

“Why not?” Castle asks softly.

“I can’t do it. I don’t know how.  You’ll want more and I haven’t anything left.”

It’s the opening he’s been, unknowingly, waiting for, and he doesn’t hesitate to seize it now it’s there.

“You don’t need to know how,” he says, confidently. “All you need to know is that I do.  No decisions, except whether you want to try.  No need to lead or worry about it.  I’ll do that.  All you have to do is let me lead, and say no when you don’t want something.”  He stops, thinks for a moment, and starts again.  “But if something’s upsetting you, at least tell me that you need space, or need a hug, or even just that you’re not in a good mood.  You don’t even have to tell me what it is if you don’t feel you can.” No questions.  He doesn’t like unanswered questions, but there will be a pattern if she will tell him when she’s upset, and that pattern will answer the questions without her ever saying a word.  Besides which, he has the main answer.  Over-compensating.

“But you’ll want more. You already did.” And it didn’t work, he hears. You ditched me.  He hadn’t meant it to be so.  He’d wanted to shift it up.

“Don’t you want more?” and he answers his own question. “You do, don’t you?  You want someone who’ll let you stand down for a while.”  His voice softens.  “If you could only stand down for a little bit, then all the rest would be okay.  You’ll not be empty: you’ll fill up again.  Stand down here, with me, and then stand up again.”  His hand gently, firmly, slides around her waist and over her back, landing between her shoulder blades and holding her close.  “Come here.  Let’s not worry about anything else now.  Come here, and be easy.”

“I’m not easy,” she snarks, but gently.

“Eased, then.”

Eased. Eased is good.  Eased is very good.  She curls in, bringing her knees up and around his hip, her face pressed into the muscle over his shoulder, her arm around his neck: chest to chest.  She’s wrapped in, kept warm, held just tightly enough that she can feel his strength being applied.  That’s not accidental, she thinks.  He’s rather delicately making a point.  She essays a move away, just an inch or two, and discovers that, though she is able to separate, there is a very slight delay.  She nestles back in, and finds to her complete non-surprise that the same tightness reappears, without any delay.  She stays there, breathing in the mixed scent of cologne, Castle, and comfort, eyes closed.

Castle cossets his armful of soft, lax, stood down Beckett, holding her tightly enough that she can absorb the leashed power that’s around her: protecting her.  For a while there’s silence, and peace.  Occasionally she moves a little within his grasp: a small wriggle to stay close.  It’s thankfully similar to the second time he’d been here, when they’d played their game and then gently made out.  A little more similarity wouldn’t hurt…

He kisses the top of her head, and then down a little to her hairline at the edge of her cheek. Beckett-who-still-isn’t-quite-anyone-else-yet turns her face a fraction to expose the cream skin to his lips.  It’s not an invitation he intends to refuse.  He drops tiny, barely-there touches down the outline of her visage, encouraging her to turn further towards him, and, when she does turn, moves across to taste the full lips and soft mouth and suggest that more is on offer if she should want to play.  She opens for him and brings a hand into his hair to pull him closer and suddenly it’s all lit up: she’s right there with him and he’s dived in and taken her mouth hard and deep and forceful and she’s totally, wholly responsive.  His fingers slip under her sweats, untuck the t-shirt beneath and connect with soft, satiny skin, gliding over the small of her back, not exploring under the edge of her yoga pants now, but upward to spread his span wide, warm palm taking the slight weight as he turns them both and scoops her up to lay her out between him and the back of the couch.

“What to do?” he muses. “I could keep kissing you” – he demonstrates, and nibbles briefly at her neck where she’ll wriggle and purr – “for as long as you want.  Or you could tell me you wanted more… or I could carry on until you told me to stop.”  He smiles lazily.  “You don’t have to decide anything at all.  Nothing you don’t want, nothing you don’t like.  Just yes or no, any time.”

“Kiss me, Castle.” Kisses are good.  Kisses are…easing.  Kisses are the place to start.  “You choose, after that.”

“As you wish,” and he bends down, which most conveniently allows her to undo several buttons of his shirt and slide her own hands over his warm, muscled, torso. She’s lifted and pressed in.  There’s a slight noise indicating lack of male appreciation.  “Are you still cold?”

“No.”

“So you don’t really need this.”

“Not if you’ll keep me warm.”

Her sweatshirt promptly decorates the floor. Castle’s hand returns to her back, under her t-shirt, and his broad chest does, indeed, keep her warm.  He spends some time kissing her, which also keeps her warm, then moves to nibble softly at her ear, run a tongue tip over the small nerve behind it to make her squirm slightly and then mew quietly, and then slide down to the curve of her neck and the jut of her clavicle.  Her breathing rises in time with his, and the gentle making out begins to become more heated, movement more rapid, less controlled.  Her hands start to roam over his chest, one of his moves round to start to tease at the edge of her bra, then slips upward to cup the small mound and rub over her.  It sends heat and sparking desire flashing through her, the connection between them snapping into place instantly, and she stops worrying about anything under the leashed power and forceful, drugging hands and mouth that take her higher, hotter, wilder in his grip.  The t-shirt joins the sweatshirt, and both are shortly joined by Castle’s shirt.

Castle emits a satisfied, predatory growl which slinks straight down every nerve Beckett possesses and lands up in the liquid heat building between her legs. “More?” he asks, but somehow it isn’t really a question, it’s reading the need from inside her head.  She pulls him back down to her and kisses him.  It’s not the slick, practised preludes to slick, practised, sex that they’d had almost every time; it’s not, though, the surrender which wholly lets him lead and leaves herself swept up.  It’s something new: a wanton desire that’s taken over; something that she hasn’t felt before.  She claws into the hard muscle over his back, and fires the short fuse.  Castle simply scoops her up, half carries her to the bedroom without ever stopping kissing, touching and lighting her up, and then strips them both without any further ado.  They’re both so desperately hot for each other that there’s no more foreplay, no more teasing, only a completely primal coupling that leaves her limp under him, totally possessed as he in his turn bears the marks that she’s inflicted.

Eventually he rolls off, but doesn’t let go. Primal or not, cuddling doesn’t seem optional.  She’s held in, and it’s stupidly protective because she doesn’t need protected.  She does that: it’s her job.  It’s her life.  But it’s stupidly comforting, too.  She simply stays put.  It’s possible that her legs won’t hold her up yet.  It’s also possible that she likes the feeling too much to move away from it.

Castle is as much intrigued as satisfied – and he is currently very satisfied.  Still, even though Beckett isn’t making any effort to move away, he’s not inclined to let her escape.  That’s a whole new facet of her kaleidoscopically variable off-duty personality, and it’s very, very interesting.  He hadn’t expected it.  He also hadn’t expected that it would have such an inflammatory effect on him.  He’d intended to indulge in the same gently assertive leading that had produced Kat, but instead she’d tugged his head down to meet her mouth and suddenly they’d melded into one explosive, unthinking reaction. 

He strokes unconsciously over her skin, not asking or demanding anything by word, look or touch. For now, for her, a little closeness, a little peace, a little space simply to be, without needing to be something to somebody.  She only needs to be here, standing down for a little time, forgetting everything except that he’s here with her and holding her close and giving her respite.  In this one thing, he’s far stronger than she, and she can and should draw on his strength.  If only he were sure that she knows that, and knowing that, would rely upon it.  But that’s a niggle for another time.

It dawns upon him, there naked in her bed with her naked against him, that neither of them really has much reason to trust each other, yet. Sex isn’t love and love isn’t trust until they’ve each earned it.  He shivers, a little chilled, and Beckett moves slightly to pull a coverlet across them.  He’d thought she was asleep.

“Thought it was me who was cold,” she murmurs, and he realises that she is pretty much out of it.

“I’ll keep you warm,” he answers.

“ ‘Kay.” She curls up into him, and he strokes over her waist till her breathing deepens and slows and she is certainly asleep.  In true sleep, in which he hasn’t seen her until now, she’s relaxed, her face smoothed out and emptied of its usual drive and force.  She looks younger, but there are tiny stress lines around her mouth and eyes which are disguised by her on-duty shell.  He does a small amount of mental math, and works out that from age nineteen to twenty four she’d been dealing with her father.  Or forcing herself not to deal with her father.  That’s an impressionable age.  A bad age for bad things to happen.

An especially bad age to find that your parent is… unreliable. He pursues that thought.  Unreliable… which in the context means never there when you need him.  Always off with something else.  Something being the bottle.  Something… he loves more than you.

Ah. Over-compensating for her own so-called betrayal and hiding the feeling of being betrayed.  His mind wanders back to the idea of serious therapy.  He wonders if she’d had any, because if she did, it didn’t work.  She whiffles into his chest, naked and slightly sticky and sweaty, as he thinks further, plotting the story from the clues he has.  All the odd little hitches and pauses and starts and stops – must have been from fanged, clawed memory of some disaster. 

It’s Christmas time, there’s no need to be afraid. At Christmas time, we let in light and we banish shade… Or not.  Especially not if you’re running up to a traumatic anniversary.  How much booze does an alcoholic need to forget the triggering event, and how long beforehand might they really tie it on?  More than a couple of days?  More than the two-plus weeks that would take it back before Christmas Day?  That’s a lot of bad memories all tied up into society’s Christmas expectations of life, love and happiness; all wrapped in shiny paper and a big red bow.  Christmas with your family.  Everyone sharing presents and love.  Everyone enjoying themselves, laughing and joking and playing around; and under all of it the story of the season, of redemption. For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given: and the Child came with Love to redeem the world.  It’s the whole centre and meaning of Christmas: the power to redeem and the forgiveness of sins.  Castle’s faith is well-hidden and rarely noticed, even by himself, but he believes very strongly in the power of love and forgiveness.

But what if you can’t forgive yourself? What if you think you’ve forgiven those who have trespassed against you… what if maybe you haven’t really managed that either?  That’s a lot of unacknowledged guilt to carry.  Can’t forgive your own actions, and then can’t accept that you haven’t forgiven the other’s actions.  Because you’ve tried so hard to forgive, convince yourself you’ve forgiven, and do what’s expected of you.

Definitely therapy. The only question is how.  This is far too deep-rooted for Castle to even think about fixing.  In fact, it’s buried so deeply that Beckett probably hasn’t realised it yet.  The abandonment and that she can’t forgive herself, sure she knows that.  She’d vomited it all out on a tide of vodka.  The rest… not so much.  Ten years of pain, five of believing she’s forgiven her father and never being quite sure why she’s still uncomfortable, still unhappy; and all the time pouring herself out in every possible direction to fill the void in her soul; all the time her guilt deepening the abyss.

He holds her close, and, dry-eyed, weeps for her.