Best of Times

happy birthday Sandiane Carter! I love you, Jules : )

I've been searching, for a couple words

They could grow wings and fly like birds

Course I know it sounds absurd

But when you're in love, all the lines get blurred

-I Hope This Gets To You, The Daylights

He has scars.

Truth is, so does she. Hers are deeper, where she can hide them with her own skin, while his are on the surface, where he can't hide them. They make people wince, or edge around him, or pat him on the shoulder, or take his hand. He is a good enough and kind enough and charming enough person to let it wash right over him.

The scar at his throat is a purple-tinged black now. Like a tattoo gone wrong, looping around his neck where Tyson strangled him. Fat like a snake. She'll brush her fingers over it, kiss it, reclaim every inch of his skin for him, for herself.

It doesn't seem to bother him at all, but he's a guy. Maybe they don't see scars the same way. Maybe it's a testament to fighting and surviving, fighting and living to see another day. A badge of pride.

For her, it's a mark of failure. How she couldn't save him from Jerry Tyson. And some other, darker things she doesn't have the courage to look at yet.

Castle is at physical therapy on the other side of this door, but she won't disrupt his session just because she's back to that free-floating anxiety. She'll stay in the waiting room, read this magazine (or at least flip through it and pretend). She will make herself better than this, force herself.

His dislocated shoulder is now back in place; the surgery was successful, no problems; and the therapy was minimal. He's not at PT for the shoulder though.

He's here for his hands, his formerly mangled fingers. The last therapy session he'll need. Hopefully.

Castle has wide, angry scars at the side of every digit on his left hand, and three on his right. Six broken fingers, two broken thumbs. The surgery to straighten and set all those tiny metacarpals was four hours long, but the surgeon was at the top of his game.

She wants it to be over with already, the whole terrible ordeal. She wants those scars to just be interesting scars, not a memory of horror and pain and terror. She doesn't want to wake in the middle of the night with it trapped in her throat, doesn't want to wander downstairs to his study and see him sitting in front of the laptop flexing his fingers but not writing.

Kate glances at her watch. Maybe ten minutes left-

The door opens and it's Castle. He's got his head turned back to say one last thing to his physical therapist; from his profile, she can see the pasty white of his face, the drying sweat on his forehead. She stands, drops the magazine back to the table.

Castle turns and catches sight of her, beams that huge, ridiculous smile. She can't help smiling back, some of the worry melting. He steps in towards her and catches her by the shoulders, curling his fingers - curling them - around her scapulae and pressing his mouth to hers.

She closes her eyes to the feel of it, him, tastes the sweat, the work on his lips.

"Last session," he says, breaking away to grin at her. "He said I'm doing good. Just the home exercises."

"I can help you with those," she murmurs, giving him a smile back.

"Counting on it," he says, then releases her to step over to the front desk. He signs a few forms, pays his co-pay, and chats nicely with the woman behind the counter. Kate couldn't make small talk if her life depended on it, not right now, not today.

When Castle turns back to her, she hooks her arm through his and tugs him towards the door. He's still waving good-bye; his physical therapists have clustered near the outpatient exit to pat his back and wave and shake hands with him. Of course they do. Richard Castle can't help but make friends everywhere he goes.

Finally out in the parking lot, Kate has him to herself. She stops him on the sidewalk in front of her car and leans in to kiss the scar around his neck, just once, in a kind of farewell to that part of their lives. She won't do it again, feeling like this.

Castle cups her face in his hands, lifts her mouth for a better kiss, stealing her breath, her heart. She wraps her arms around his waist and holds on, her reserve of strength mounting, building, the longer his lips play across hers.

When he releases her, she feels good, better, certain that they're going to make it. Her anxiety of only five minutes ago has burned away like fog under the noon sun.

"You taking me home?" he whispers, stroking one finger down her cheek as if to prove he can. She closes her eyes and revels in it, that long and beautiful finger able to work independently of the others, able to caress her skin.

"I'm taking you home with me," she says back, hoping he gets her message.

She doesn't hover when he moves to open the car door, doesn't watch him angle the seatbelt into the lock, doesn't try to help him unfold his sunglasses and put them on. He's been able to do those things for awhile now, mostly, and if the movement causes him pain after a therapy session - and she knows it does - he won't say it, and she won't see it.

She's never been the type to hover. She wouldn't demean him now by hovering, even though something broken in her needs it, wants to hover, can't rest at night for the agony of wondering if he's all right.

"I thought we'd stop for pizza or lasagna or something," she says into the silence, pulling out of the clinic's lot and into traffic. It's an effort to keep her voice even, measured.

"Italian sounds great."

The physical therapist that Castle had wanted to see, the best one for his hands, wasn't in the city but north up I-87 in White Plains. It takes an hour if they're lucky, and she was late getting off work today. She was afraid she might make him wait, but driving like a cop had gotten her here on time.

"I thought. . .we could try that place we saw?"

"The one near the exit for the Botanical Gardens?" he asks, turning in his seat to look at her. She tries to ignore the curious glint to his eyes. She has to. . .she needs to keep it together.

"Yeah."

"It's not takeout. You want to go in?"

She bites her lower lip and sighs. "Don't you? You said-"

"No. I do. I want to go in. I feel like. . .crap right now, but by the time we get there, I'll be good."

She checks him out with a swift glance, then nods to herself. He does look okay. She knows the physical therapy is painful, stretching tendons and muscles that have atrophied or been repaired. Still. His exhaustion is palpable.

"If you're not good when we get there-"

"You'll know," he says darkly, working on a laugh.

She sucks on her lower lip to ease the sting, tastes blood again. She's got to stop doing that every time the tension or confusion or reluctance overtakes her. She's got scars from biting her lip.

From the passenger seat, Castle lifts his hand and settles it on her thigh, squeezing her knee, showing off again.

She tosses him a look, but he's just smiling knowingly.

She's missed his hands on her, curling around her, in her, and she's never had them in the first place. How crazy is that? They had one interrupted date, and then she fell into the Triple Killer case and came out long enough to discover the wreck of Castle's body behind his study door.

Her nightmares haven't decreased in either severity or frequency. Neither have his. Often they wind up finding each other around two or three in the morning, both of them having gravitated to his study, to the silence, to the place where she found him that terrible day.

"You wanna doze until we get there?" she says softly, bringing her hand away from the steering wheel to drop heavily over his on her knee. She curls her fingers around his mostly healed ones.

"No," he answers. "I wanna talk to you. I miss you."

She glances at him sharply. "I've been here."

"Yeah, but not. . .yeah." He shakes his head and looks out the window, dropping it.

Some of her anxiety builds back up, like rising flood waters in her guts. It's her fault; she knows that. She tried to plan it all out to the last second, but being late to his therapy session has put her off her game. And feeling his fingers curl around her face, cup her cheeks, that has too. In a good way.

Back to the plan.

"I haven't been here," she says softly, acknowledging it. Finally. "Six weeks, and I haven't really been. . .myself."

She can see Castle turn his head to look at her. At least if she's driving, she doesn't have to make eye contact, doesn't have to see it on his face.

"I've been. . .unable to get it out of my head," she admits.

"I know."

Of course he knows. How could he not? He sees her more clearly than she does herself. He's watched her walk into his study at two in the morning, seen her rub her eyes, unable to sleep, but exhausted.

"I went back to my psychologist, but it made it worse," she confesses.

"Oh."

He didn't know that, did he? No. She was careful to keep that close. "Being with you. . ."

"I make it worse?" he whispers.

She shakes her head, can't speak past the clench of sorrow in her chest. Her hand squeezes around his, still on her knee, and she takes a long, deep breath. "Any time you hit a wall, an obstacle, any time I can see you in pain. . .it makes it worse. But it's not you. It's just this. This."

She smooths her thumb over one of the scars and hopes he understands. Because she can't explain it better, and she's not sure she understands herself.

"Do I need to wear gloves and a turtleneck from now on?"

Kate hears the teasing in his voice; her relief washes over her in a tidal wave. She shakes her head again. So grateful for him. "I'm. . .here now."

"Stuff still in your head?"

She drops her shoulders on a sigh. "Well. Yes. But today it gets better."

"Is this a Detective Beckett Decree? You've laid down the law. You *will* be better today?"

She gives him a small smile, acknowledging the effort. "In part, I guess so. But this is also your last day of PT. And I-"

She stops; she wants that to be a surprise.

"You what?"

All the other things she wants to say, could say, kind of hinge on that surprise. So she can't say those things yet either.

She tries a different approach. "Don't you feel it too, though? That this is the start of the rest of it. Of the good stuff."

He laughs and his fingers around her knee squeeze; she feels the muscles in her thighs twitch in response, desire and reflex both.

"I feel it, Kate. Yeah."

She smiles back at him, admiring the green of his tshirt and thinking - she can't help it - thinking how good-

No. Wait. Patience, Kate.

"Are you leaving tonight?" he says, as if he can read her mind.

She hedges. Here again, they've approached the line of all the things she can't say yet. "You mean because today is the official first day of being out from under doctor's orders?"

"Yeah." His thumb brushes up and down her thigh. "Because you don't have to be my hands any more."

She made him a promise to be his hands for as long as he needed her. She's been there awhile now. Six weeks.

"We'll see," she says softly, hoping to dull the sharp edge of having no real answer.

He hasn't asked her stay. She's pretty sure he never will. And not because of himself, but because of her. Because she's not that kind of person; she's too strong-willed, too certain of herself. Or at least, he thinks she is.

She's had to make some decisions.

She still has nightmares. So does he.

Rick watches Beckett's face as she drives, the late sunlight soft on her cheekbones, illuminating her lashes. He knows he's told her at least once that he loves her, but she's said nothing about it. She's spent six weeks in his guest room, half of almost every night sitting up in his study with him, and hours and hours of patient waiting on him.

Of course, he's had his mother and Alexis. He would've been fine without her. He really would have. But there was something special about her bringing him coffee in the mornings (in a travel mug to keep it from spilling), or throwing together a protein smoothie in the blender for him, or typing out his emails on his laptop as he peered over her shoulder.

His mother helped him dress (sweats), but Kate found him in the middle of the night when he'd woken yelling. His mother kept up with which medication when, but it was Kate who texted, emailed, and called him from work all day long to talk theory, crack jokes, or ask what he was making for dinner (nothing for the first few weeks).

Kate.

The sun is setting now, limning the car with gold. He's as far over as he can get in the seat, just to keep his hand on her knee. They've kissed, they've touched, but he hasn't managed to feel good enough to ask her to his bed, good enough to face the rejection. Well, except for that one time, but that was because that night it was Kate who woke them all shouting.

She let him talk her down, in his study of course, leaning heavily against his shoulder, listened to his incessant chatter until she turned her mouth to his neck and kissed him there, along the rope scar.

She kissed him and brushed her fingers along it and her eyes went from dark and troubled to dark and needful in minutes. They got far, but not far enough. He wanted her to come back to his bed, but they ended up curled together on the couch in his study, falling asleep together. And from then on, nightmares led them there, camped out on his couch.

Now that his therapy is over with, he doesn't have any idea where she's going to end up, curled on his couch with him or alone in her apartment. Or some other place. His bed. She's been everything to him, almost everything, for six weeks and he has no idea what tonight will look like.

Well, actually, she wants to go to that Italian place he's mentioned a couple times before. Saying they should go. She was always too keyed up, too tense, to stop. She wanted to get home and shower, change clothes, get the day off her.

So the Italian place. And then, after that, he has no idea.

"Kate?"

"Mm?"

"Thank you."

She gives him a quick glance. "No thanks needed, Castle."

"Still."

She's silent for a moment; he can hear her thinking too hard.

"Kate. Still."

She nods. "I wanted to do it."

He'll take that. "What happened at the 12th today?" He leans heavily against the back of his seat, closes his eyes for a moment. He wishes she would just talk, fill the silence with her voice. When she talks, his rough edges smooth down, his exhaustion gets massaged away.

"Well," she starts, then laces their fingers together and brings their joined hands to her lips for a brief kiss. "Nothing happened really. I did paperwork. Esposito got called to be lead detective on a body. His first."

"Ooh, go Espo."

He opens his eyes to see the flicker of her smile. She's driving with her left hand low at the wheel, their joined hands against her stomach. He lifts his index finger and strokes it across her shirt, feeling the heat of her skin beneath the material.

She cuts her eyes to him and he smirks. See what I can do? He wants to kiss that beautiful, proud set to her mouth. Proud of him.

"Ryan helped. It was slow. The boys said to tell you they expect a Halo night."

"Yeah right. Ryan wanted Guitar Hero, didn't he?"

She quirks her lips and shrugs with one shoulder. "I might have told him that Guitar Hero was beyond your capabilities right now."

"You take that back!" he gasps, mock outrage filling his voice.

"I didn't know," she murmurs, brushing her thumb along the back of his hand. "You've been holding out on me."

He grins, some of his post-therapy weariness leaving him. "I wanted to surprise you."

She pulls her lip in between her teeth, but she's smiling wider at him now. "I'm surprised."

He strokes his finger higher along her stomach, feels the quiver of her abs under his touch.

He smiles.