Knock Me Down

I'm sick of chasing after things,
I'd rather them chase after me
Keeping up is bound to wear me down
So if you want me you'd better knock me down

I looked at her, she looked at me
I think she's waiting for me to believe
I wish that love was all it took
I'd fall into you if I could
Hoping for a graceful recovery

-Cain and Able [sic], Josh Kelley

When the elevator doors split wide, he can't make the necessary movement forward to get off. The lift remains there; his heart hovers in his throat.

Just as the doors start to lurch closed, Castle jams his hand against the side, drags his foot forward, stumbles out. He can already see her.

The fist in his chest eases for a moment, a breath, and squeezes ever tighter. Nothing works. Not the faint buzz of a good Scotch, not a poker night with the Gotham City Crew, not keeping his distance, not dissolving the night in the dregs of his last chapter.

Not that he's managed to write much good in Nikki Heat. The way things are going, Jameson Rook will be pulled from life support and Detective Heat will be on her own.

It might be better that way.

Yeah.

This should be it. He needs to make an end of it.

Castle pauses in the hallway, realizes he hasn't stopped watching her, drops his head. He presses his thumbs against the ridge of bone over his eyes, tries to push it back. A couple of shallow breaths is all he can manage.

When he lifts his head, she's watching him, her face that too-tender mask of concern. He forces himself forward, rounding the hall and heading for her desk.

His chair stands guard, but he's not sure it's a good idea to sit there. Not right now. Not when he can't be certain he won't-

Won't-

He takes a shaky breath, squeezes the back of the chair.

"Hey, Castle," she says gently.

He nods at the greeting, stares at the scratchy but worn fabric of his chair. He clears his throat, tries to figure out what he's going to say next to make this easier.

"No time to stop for coffee?" she asks, a note of something in her voice. As if trying for playful but ending up weighty.

So she feels it too, the thing broken between them.

He does her the respect of looking in her eyes. "I don't think - today at least - I think I'm going to work at home."

Hurt wipes across her face, transitions to resolve, determination. Ever the solid detective.

"Sure, Castle. I understand. Are you - behind on the book? Having trouble writing?"

He swallows. "I'm - I'm always behind, running after it." Too much there, too much truth. But he can't help it. "I can't keep up anymore."

"It's giving you that much trouble," she whispers, not really a question.

"I'm - I'll be at home, Kate. If you-" He shakes his head, turns away.

He almost said - If you need me.

It's not right. Everything is not all right.

Kate rubs her fingernail against the pad of her thumb, feels her chest catch like it used to do at the beginning of the fall. All psychosomatic and panicked.

Panic. That's what this feels like. An ambush of panic.

She pushes her hair back, scratches at her scalp as she peers past the murder board and into Gates's office. Where her friend and mentor and father figure used to pace, used to dictate, used to guide them all.

She lost him. She lost him to this, just like she loses everyone.

Her nostrils flare and she bows her head into her hands, breathes, counts the breaths when they come.

One.

. . .Two.

She can do this. First step, just breathe. Remember to breathe.

Head up. Eyes open.

Ryan is watching her. Hesitation all over his face. She tilts her head, goes for a smile that only twists her lips. She laces her fingers together, rests her mouth against her knuckles as she relearns to breathe.

She hasn't succumbed to a panic attack in months. Hasn't even needed the sleeping pills at night. What's triggered this one?

Everything is not all right.

She presses her clasped hands to her chest, her thumbs at her collarbone, her mouth tight.

"Hey," Esposito says quietly, rolls his chair over to her desk. Ryan on his wheels, doing the same. Both boys regard her solemnly, attempting half-hearted smiles.

She feels the same - half-hearted. Where did the other half go?

She nods, tries to nod once with effective reassurance, but it turns into a motion, a bobbing of her head to soothe herself and she can't stop.

"Castle isn't happy," Ryan says, as if telling her something she doesn't know. Espo smacks him in the chest.

But she nods to the statement of fact, eyes fluttering shut for a second, heart twisting.

"Not sure why," Esposito hedges. "All of the sudden, seems like." You didn't do anything wrong.

Kate opens her eyes, stares at the empty chair just in front of the boys.

"He's got a blonde," Ryan says, and it cuts right through her, makes her bleed.

Esposito smacks the back of his head and Ryan ducks, wincing, hand to his head, giving his partner a look, part confusion, part indignation.

Kate lifts her fingers to her mouth to keep it all in, keep it back.

"The blonde's stupid," Esposito says, as if that should make her feel better. "And - and Ryan's right. Castle don't look happy." Something's wrong with him.

Still worse.

The boys watch her, giving her those eager looks. Go kiss and make up with Dad.

She nods again, gets to her feet. "Guys, I'm. . ."

She trails off, unable to figure out what exactly she's going to say.

"We'll cover for you," Esposito rushes in. "You go. We got your back."

At least someone does.

Richard Castle ruminates.

The city is bright with spring sunlight, wide sky, wispy white clouds that barely brush across the blue.

He swirls the 1875 St Miriam Rock of Scotland in his highball glass, wishing this wasn't the last of the excellent whiskey. The bottle he bought from police evidence was long gone of course, but the moment the others became available, he acquired another.

Just too good.

And he always expected, at some future date, to share the bottle with her.

Remember their Captain, remake a memory, toast to a better time while hoping for future-

He needs to turn that off. It is a switch; he's determined for it to be a switch that he flips, but he's noticed this past week that it's more of a dimmer switch. One he has very little control over. Sometimes it's as brilliant as the sun out there, sometimes it's as wan as the moon.

And lately, when it's bright, it burns.

When it's dim, when the pale disc of his love casts such weak beams across the chambers of his heart, he can subsist in it. Vampiric. He feels the need to grab the blankets off his bed and hide from the sunlight pouring in through the windows in his study.

Instead he stands there, faces it.

He should take a walk. He doesn't want Alexis to come home from wherever she's been and see him like this.

He tips back the last of the whiskey, savoring it on his tongue, against the insides of his cheeks, then swallows it.

For a moment, it burns too.

She stands outside his door, unable to knock, dreading what's to come and not even knowing why.

No idea. She has - no idea. And it's not fair that he just - just - stopped. Like they never had that conversation, like he suddenly quit, like she's not worth it any more. God, her chest hurts. It aches, and if this is what it's like, what everyone says she's too closed up to feel, she'll leave it. She doesn't need this.

She does need it. She needs it. But.

But he stopped waiting for her, and now she thinks this is a terrible idea, entirely terrible. She's bound to get her heart broken, if it isn't already. Bound to have it smashed into pieces that will never come back together again. Not after this one.

One and done.

Oh God. She can't. This won't work. It was never going to work. What is she doing here?

She twists on her heel only to hear the door open, that noise of suction, the seal being broken open.

"Beckett?"

It's all wrong. It's not right.

But she turns around, taking a long breath in, shallow though it may be, and lifts her eyes to his. He's in his green jacket, a hand shoved into his pocket. "Were you - leaving?"

He nods. A single nod. He was leaving.

Oh. Oh, he was leaving.

She presses her hand over her eyes, tries to breathe again. She can't; it gets trapped. She's not having a panic attack in his hallway. She refuses. She is stronger than this; she's better than this.

Finally. She's been on the road to more, she's been so close; she will not let Richard Castle drag her down with a measly broken heart.

"Beckett?"

She lowers her hand, swallows. "Can we - go inside?"

"My apartment?" he asks, like that's a surprise.

"Yes. There's - something going on."

He shrugs at her, but he looks shaken. She follows him back inside. The moment she crosses the threshold, peace settles over her like snow drifting from the heavens, numbing and white, serene.

She's okay. She will be fine; she'll make it.

No matter what happens.

"There are a few things I need to say."

Castle hesitates at the door, but shuts it; the click echoes in the loft. He follows her to the living room, watching the graceful line of her shoulders.

"I have this feeling that something happened. Something I don't know, something big. But I'm blind here, Castle." She turns and looks at him, as if expecting him to launch into a discussion.

He has nothing to say. No use having the awkward, pitiful conversation. He'll try harder, be a better partner and friend. He'll just - damn it - he has to figure this out - figure out a way to stop aching when she looks at him with concern in her eyes.

"You won't tell me what's happened?"

He deliberately takes it all out of his eyes, off his face. "Nothing happened, Kate."

She's looking at him like he's crazy. Okay, so he's not so hot at hiding this anymore.

"Don't - don't do this," she says quietly. "Please don't do this to me."

He startles back, eyes stinging. "I - I don't know what you mean."

She presses her lips together, looks at her hands, then up at him with determination. Reminds him of that afternoon on the swings, when he could tell that she had a clear path in mind and she was going to plow straight through it. No matter what he said.

He doesn't want to think about that.

"Castle. I - I need honesty from you. You were right last year - we don't talk about things. I've been trying to change that. It's slow; it's a process. I know I'm not good at it-"

Talk about things? Is she delusional?

"I know - the summer - this summer wasn't-" She stops trying to talk, and he's grateful for that. He can't bear to hear anymore about this past summer. That should have told him all he needed to know; he should have realized then.

"Castle. Say something. I can't - I'm no good doing all the work here."

He watches her for a moment, finds himself observing like he did at the beginning - detached, attracted but impersonally. Maybe it will work. Maybe he can keep that thing in him from irradiating them both.

"You want to talk," he says slowly, testing it out. "About?"

"Um, about talking?" She gives a little laugh that he can't summon the energy to find humorous.

"All right."

"No," she says softly. "It's not all right. And I can't figure out why. But I want it back. Whatever it is that's missing."

"You can't have it," he says, entirely without thinking. He closes his eyes, sighs at himself and his big mouth.

A hand on his arm makes him open his eyes again; he sees that fierce and indignant determination in her again, that sense of righting wrongs and being on the side of good and kicking some ass that attracted him in the first place, attracts him now, pulls him in despite himself.

He's just so tired. So tired of this, and it's not easy, and he's never going to be able to stop loving her, is he? Never.

Her thumb on his wrist bone is sharp; she stares him down. "I don't know why you're doing this. I don't understand. She's not your type; this darkness and weariness I see all over your face - it's not you. Not the man I know."

"Maybe it is now."

She shakes her head. "I refuse to believe that. You - the Castle I know - he put up his own money to lure my mother's killer into a trap. He brings me coffee in the morning. He looks at me like he sees everything, knows my heart-"

He's staring; he knows he is, but he can't - he didn't - he can't even believe her. Not after everything. (Oh, but he wants to. He wants to and that is just such a bad idea.) "It'll be fine. Soon enough." Knows my heart.

She bites her bottom lip, regards him for a moment. "You don't - you don't believe me."

He gives a one-shoulder shrug and glances down to the fingers at his wrist.

Pale, barely there. So easily broken.

"Well, it's the truth. And I thought I'd proved myself already. I thought we'd had this conversation and you understood."

"I don't understand anything anymore," he rasps, feels like his heart is being broken all over again, and he doesn't even know why. He thought he was as dark, as hollow as it got. But this is worse. And he doesn't know why. She doesn't make any sense. She wants him to love her while she remains untouchable?

The sick part is - he'd do it. He will do it. He'll never be able to stop.

"I don't know how to make you believe," she says quietly, her eyes searching his. "What proves it to you?"

Proves what? That she needs his faithful sidekick persona? That she wants his coffee at her desk in the morning? That she needs some pigtail-pulling playground friend? That he provides the laughter? "Always good for a laugh, right?" he says finally, getting it past the knot in his throat. "Give me a week or two to get over you, Kate, and I can be back to my funny self."

She chokes on a sound, her hand suddenly tight around his wrist. "Get over me?"

Yeah. Truth? He can't. It won't happen. He shakes his head, rubs his free hand down his face. "I'll be better. I can be better. I just need some time to - just - Kate, please let me figure out how to stop loving you so damn much."

"No," she cries out, everything twisted, all of it wrong. "You can't." God, she's going to cry. She's going to cry and it's all his damn fault.

He used to - he used to wait. He was going to wait for her. He was going to-

He used to smile at her. Oh God, oh God-

He shakes her hand off.

"No," she croaks out.

He shuffles back; he won't look at her.

"Castle."

He won't look at her. He's already leaving, like it's done, like they're over-

She lunges forward, she has to reach him, she has to get him, she can't not have him.

Kate fumbles, tripped by her own panic and the feet of the coffee table, feels him rock back on his heels, his hands coming instinctively to her hips to hold them both up.

But it's no good. The momentum brings her to her knees, knocks him down with her, limbs tangled, Castle awkwardly against the coffee table, her elbows against his chest, hips flush.

"No need to tackle me," he gruffs, but it's not funny and she needs to reclaim this now, get it back.

Kate surges up and takes his mouth, pushes her tongue past the surprised gasp, sucks down the last of his breath. Her body wraps around him, instinctive and natural, her fingers kneading at his shoulders, gripping too hard.

He groans, low and desperate, all manner of ache in his tone as it reverberates through her. She works at his top lip, feels him respond to her. He's tightly leashed, unrelenting, a hand crushing her to him, another in her hair, an anchor.

He bites her bottom lip, smooths his tongue over and around it, his teeth clashing with hers inelegantly. He grunts when she gets a leg free to press her knee into his side.

"Kate, you better mean it. You better damn well mean it," he growls, his hands already traveling low.

"I want you," she gasps, feels her body opening against his touch.

He loses his precarious position against the table and they both tumble back, his skull hitting the floor with a jarring thud. She runs her fingers through his hair, cradles the back of his head, dips her mouth to his to taste.

He's furious - he's hurting. She doesn't know why, only that he's letting her have it.

"Don't stop," she moans, and she knows she means Don't stop loving me, but she doesn't know in what way - this, the way of their bodies meeting - or the way he has been all year, tender and delicate and dedicated. Or both.

He crushes her down, flips them so that she's suddenly pinned down by his hips, his broad hands pressing her wrists into the floorboards. "You better know, you better understand. This isn't messing around, Kate Beckett-"

"No-" she pants, lifting her hips against him. "Never. No. More than that."

"This is everything," he insists.

She nods.

"Because I love you, and it doesn't stop, it won't turn off, it won't leave me alone-"

"No," she groans, shutting her eyes to it, to the way he wants to stop loving her. "No, don't. Don't leave me alone in this."

He stills. She feels him hard and held away from her, breathing harsh, and then the space grows wider and she opens her eyes.

He thins his lips, tone low and deadly. "What?"

She shakes her head, not understanding, needing him to move, to press tighter.

"What. You said. In this. You said, in this."

She nods, flutters her hand between them even as his bruising grip on her wrists keeps her trapped. "This." She meets his eyes, finding them dark and drowning and desperate. "Love, Castle. Don't leave me alone in love with you."

His body falls to hers; his mouth robbing her of breath, words, everything. She gives it, feels the grip on her wrists ease; she slides her arms around his shoulders, cradles him to her.

He adores her mouth, smudges the line of her lips to trace back to her ear, his voice rough, raw, disbelieving but wanting it all the same.

"You know I love you."

And it's all back, all of it, and she pushes up to meet him.

In this.

She's in this.

He lifts himself off the floor, takes her hand to help her up, her cheeks lit with flame. Burning but not consuming.

He heads for his room, their fingers laced together, and she follows.

Her lips pressed into his shoulder, her forehead bumping against his deltoid, she follows.

And then she knocks him down to his bed; he pulls her after him.

They are both in this.