Elastic Collisions

The phone rang on the nightstand on her side, as it often did, and Castle groaned and sat up, glancing over at her.

Out cold.

Couple rough nights. Her phone was still ringing and Castle reached out and nudged her. He'd answer it if he had to, if she didn't get with it, but it was usually better if she woke for it herself.

"Beckett."

She groaned and rolled towards the phone, fumbling with it. When she answered, she accidentally jerked the charger out of the wall and cursed under her breath, got out of bed.

Castle slumped back against the headboard and checked the time. Five in the morning. Wasn't a body drop because the ring tone was wrong for the precinct - wasn't dispatch, but Kate was stumbling towards the hall and out of the room.

He thought to follow but it was five in the morning and the bed was warm, and he found himself slumping down and down until his head was on the pillow and the weight of sleep was heavy on his chest and he was gone.

He woke to her kiss on his forehead, a cloud of sweet-scented air coming with it, lotion and perfume and conditioner.

"I gotta go in," she murmured.

"You need me-"

"No, no," she said softly. Her fingers were light on his chest, but they kept him prone anyway. "No need. Come in later with my coffee."

"Mm, can do."

It took him a moment but awareness cracked into him like sunlight and he grunted, opened his eyes to see her heading towards the bedroom door. Castle lumbered up and followed, managed to grab her by the tail of her jacket.

"Beckett."

She turned, eyebrows raised. "Castle? Go back to bed."

He'd thought to say, that wasn't the 12th calling, but did he really care? Did it matter at all? Secrets or withholding information, she was naturally not that informative, and he was - perhaps unnaturally - an inquiring mind who always wanted to know, and those two personality types were just going to have to come to some kind of compromise or else crash into each other over and over. Butting heads.

She was going in to work; she'd woken him before she left. Good enough.

So Castle leaned in and he gave her an artless kiss, fingers tugging the belt of her jacket and sorta falling into her with the sleep-heavy state of his limbs when the belt gave way. She caught him, laughing around his lips, and propped him up with the cradle of her body, waiting until he was more stable.

She patted his chest and set him on his feet, an eyebrow up in question.

"Wanted to say good morning," he mumbled. And now he was actually awake, and he knew how not-smooth that had been, and so he stepped away.

"Well, good morning," she smiled. Her hand came up and cupped his cheek and she placed a softer, more accurate kiss against his mouth. "Thanks. Needed that. Now go back to bed. I'll see you at a decent hour."

He smiled back at her (no, he was not purring like a kitten; the nickname was entirely not accurate), and she nudged him back towards the bed.

He sank into the mattress and laid down, and already he could hear her locking the door to the loft behind her.

When Castle walked into the 12th Precinct, he wasn't technically late. He was, however, probably bringing Beckett her fourth cup of coffee for the day since she'd left at just after five.

A civilian passed him on the way to the elevator. He recognized that blank look he'd seen on Kate's face before, the haze of knowledge that couldn't quite be comprehended. A victim's family member, just given the bad news. (So he told himself, generating the story almost automatically, but that couldn't be quite right because Beckett hadn't gotten a call from dispatch this morning. So what had that call been and who was that woman?)

He hustled towards her desk and found Beckett with her hands in her head, hair tight in a knot at her neck rather than the waving tresses she'd left with this morning.

If she didn't look entirely wiped out, he'd be basking in the glow of 'A Mystery' and already attempting to ferret out a few solid leads, teasing information from her strand by strand until he could weave a more accurate picture. As it was, he just swallowed and felt a little heartsick at the way she slumped.

"Kate."

She lifted her head and immediately reached for the coffee, taking it from him in a rush and bringing the cup to her lips to gulp the liquid straight down. He sat in his chair and it was warm, recently occupied. The woman leaving as he'd arrived?

"What was that?" he asked, nodding back to the elevator.

She parted from the coffee, shot the lid a dissatisfied frown. "Old case. The call this morning."

"Something happened?"

She shook her head and leaned back into her chair, her eyes sliding away from his. "No, a cold case. Still cold."

"And the woman?"

"The sister. Man went missing in 2006; wife reported him. Woke to an empty - well, I was going to say bed, but he'd been sleeping on the couch. His coughing kept her awake so he'd moved to the living room."

Castle leaned in, elbow on the edge of her desk. A case from 2006 was before his time, and he had no trouble imagining that Beckett, stiff and a little rough around the edges, by the book, seriously intelligent, but not a whole lot of imagination. A cold case.

Kate must have read his interest because she gave a long sigh - and came out with the details. "Nothing more than that. No body. Investigation stalled out. The sister called me for months, all these little things, like she was Nancy Drew. The wife seemed to draw in on herself, later filed for divorce, and then for a certificate of death. The two women don't get along."

"Was the wife the one-"

"No way of knowing."

"But you have a hunch?"

"No." Her eyes came to his. "I have - nothing. Absolutely nothing. A lot of details that don't make sense, but too much unknown even for a hunch."

She was bothered by it; he could see it in her eyes, in the way she'd pulled her hair back so tightly like the more professional she looked, the better she was at her job. No hunches - that was Beckett though, especially back then. She had absolutely despised going with her gut when it could be so fallible, when people's families were relying on her to make an accurate assessment of the scene and deliver answers. Real answers, not wild guesses.

He chewed on that for a moment, then asked, "Suspicions? Persons of interest?"

"Everyone's of interest," she muttered. "Castle, when I say there's nothing, there is literally nothing. No forensics on scene - he was just gone. The wife - the ex now - said he'd been completely normal except for the cold."

"What was the sister here for?"

Kate let out a breath. "She was arrested."

He paused. He wasn't used to drawing her story out of her line by line, not any more, and he wasn't sure where to go next. He let the silence work for him instead, just sitting beside her in the morning light that sifted around them, that yellow of eight in the morning during the beginning of spring.

Silence seemed to do the trick. Kate sipped her coffee and then tilted her head, chin coming to her hand; she was entrenched now, ready to talk. "She and the ex got into a fight, neighbors called the police. Apparently, the ex-wife had told the sister she thought he'd gone to Bermuda with his - ah, boyfriend."

"Ouch. I guess the sister objected to that idea."

"With her fist, and then with household objects close at hand," Kate said, wincing. She suddenly sat up straighter and tugged on her shirt, arranging things, putting her coffee cup in its place by her keyboard, smoothing her fingers over the edge of the desk. "She called me this morning when she got out. I had her meet me here, talked to her."

That had been the call at five this morning. And Beckett had been talking to the woman this whole time? Talking her down, most likely. Giving the sister that speech that Beckett hated the most, the one she'd been given - there's nothing more we can do, no place else to look.

He watched her a moment and then he put his own coffee down, wrapped his fingers around her wrist to get her attention. "So let's take a few hours and look at it. That cold case. Just go over it with me."

She gave him a sardonic look. "Why? Because you have the magic touch?"

He sat back a little, releasing her arm.

Kate leaned in after him, dropping her hand to his knee, her face twisting. "No, that came out wrong. I just - don't think it will help. There's really nothing there."

"Can't hurt to look."

She squeezed his knee. "No, babe." Her teeth chewed on her lip and she sighed again. "It's not a good idea. Sometimes - there aren't any answers. No matter how hard you look."

It stunned him so much that he couldn't think of a word to say in response. She was already turning back to her desk, picking up her coffee and thumbing on her monitor.

Castle couldn't do anything other than sit there, wondering what that had all been about.

Because if there was one thing he was certain of - there was a story here.

He got nothing from her the rest of the morning. He didn't exactly try for it, though. He simply let the hours play out.

She had some paperwork she was avoiding, and so they went out and canvassed neighborhoods in Brighton Beach, searching for a tattooed man who had been seen leaving the scene of a crime. Stuff Esposito and Ryan normally did if it was important that a detective be doing it at all.

Probably wasn't. Probably Beckett wanting to get out of her head for a while.

Castle had learned not to begrudge Beckett her coping mechanisms. He bought soap-flavored suckers and handed one to her with a wink; she actually smiled at him and unwrapped it, stuck it in her mouth.

They were done for the time being - only reason she'd done it, he guessed - and they walked out of the corner store and into the sunlight, that white stick jutting out of her mouth and making her lips part.

Sexy. Kinda cute.

She took the sucker out and used it to point; he followed her wordless command and they headed off down the street for Brighton King Meats and their apparent lunch stop.

Once inside, the heavy and gamey smells of exotic coldcuts filled his senses and distracted his attention. Capicola, prosciutto, liverwurst, veal loaf, pastrami, roast beef, salami, something smoked he couldn't identify, a turkey that came with liberal honey glaze, a peppercorn chicken roll, a dark meat with olives he didn't have a name for.

And the breads. He couldn't even begin.

Beckett was already at the counter, ordering a specialty ham with a marble hoagie, and he had an excruciating moment where he had to actually decide between them all, where he had to make a real choice and rank them, come up with the highest-scoring and most wonderful concoction and then somehow deliver that pain-stricken order to the man behind the glass who appeared completely unsympathetic.

Of course he was; Castle would be too if he was allowed in such close proximity to amazing, foreign, delicious bounty all day long. If it was his job, then of course he'd be disdainful of both the uneducated (Beckett) and the gourmand (Castle) no matter their relative experiences, because his own blew those out of the proverbial water.

Beckett sighed. "He'll have the veal bratwurst on a hard roll. Diet Coke."

He was in love with her. He was truly, undeniably, forever in love with her. She was a goddess.

He must have been staring at her in love-rapt devotion, because she gave him a tender, though exasperated look back, and she actually took his hand and led him quietly down to the register.

He hadn't even gotten to the bratwurst in his mental rundown, hadn't actually known they were here, and yet Beckett had pinpointed him exactly. Left to his own devices, he might have gotten the red-pepper chorizo and been entirely sick with it, all those other gems of the meat business in such tantalizing view and Castle with merely a type of fermented sausage.

"You pay," she told him, nodding her head.

Oh, yes, of course.

When they had their lunch - not to be ruined or tainted by potato chips, the American snack, oh no, but actual thickly-sliced french fries with the skins still on - Beckett sat across from him at a little metal table and slid her knees between his so that his legs framed hers.

He liked that. She knew he liked that. She was still apologizing for this morning, and maybe also a little bit for making him canvas neighborhoods.

The soap suckers were long gone, thrown in the trash can before the intersection; they'd tasted horrific. They'd only been for nostalgia.

"Not yet," she told him. She was sipping water and then sucking some kind of horseradish off her thumb. "Not at work. I'll explain when we get home."

"Okay," he answered easily. He hadn't been expecting forthcoming-ness from her anyway, and so an obvious please just give me time was endearing and ensured automatic cooperation.

The benefits of cooperation, compromise, on this personality thing they had going. He could be flexible for her; she was flexible for him.

"Bratwurst good?"

"It's to die for," he gushed. A little gauche, maladroit, for the turn of phrase so soon after she'd asked him to leave the cold case alone.

Beckett only lifted an eyebrow in acknowledgement of his momentary lapse in social graces, and then she continued on with her sandwich (most assuredly a feat of culinary engineering by a master delicatessen).

That she was showing equal regard and admiration for her styrofoam cup of pasta salad didn't bother him. She'd known what he'd needed to order and she'd expertly handled his stumbling and inept dumbfoundedness.

He ravished his bratwurst in her pleaded-for silence.

As she'd promised him, they were at home in his loft when started to reveal her secrets. But Alexis interrupted, shyly stepped into the kitchen on her way out the door to tell them both good-night, this being her first Friday back at home. He was sitting at he bar stool and in a prime position for receiving, like royalty, his daughter's petition.

Kate waved three fingers in greeting as she poured them glasses of wine, and Castle tried not to feel too giddy with his daughter's return to form. "You don't have to tell me where you're going. You're in college; feel free to come and go."

"But it's your house," she murmured, kissing his cheek. "You'll worry."

True. But that wasn't her burden. "Go. I'll assume you're fine and making smart choices."

Alexis actually laughed, easing up a little, and then she left the loft in her too-tight skinny jeans and that top that looked suspiciously like one of Kate's - slinky and designed to be sexy. "You aren't letting her borrow your clothes, are you?"

"What? Why?"

"Too weird. Worlds colliding, remember?"

She tilted her head at him, one of those severe frowns falling into place like armor. "We're getting married. Aren't they supposed to collide?"

He backtracked, thought that one through, hastily revised his statement. "I meant - she's my daughter, you're my - almost my wife. You two do not need to be wearing the same clothes. If my daughter's wearing it, automatically makes it no longer sexy."

Kate gave a short laugh, brought the wine to her lips and sipped it slowly. He approved the slow-sip. Meant she was on solid ground again. She gave him a roll of her eyes. "I promise not to let her borrow anything sexy."

"It's all sexy on you," he said thoughtlessly.

She seemed to like that, because he got a beaming smile - teeth and wide mouth and her eyes alive - and she came around the kitchen island and stood between his knees. A lot of that today, in his space when she could get there, fitting herself into him.

Maybe not as solid ground as he'd hoped.

She gave him her own glass and he took a swallow of the red, let it go down smoothly.

Kate hooked her arms around his neck and didn't take the glass back, so he settled it on the granite countertop and framed her hips with his hands.

"The cold case. That was the one that did it."

Just for that, he leaned in and kissed her very softly, the taste of alcohol and her freshly scrubbed face - like soap. Oh, the sucker, probably. Left a potent aftertaste; he liked it. She tasted like she smelled before she slid into bed with him - washed clean, unadorned, content to be herself alone. That wasn't sexy; it was arousing for all its innocence and safety.

"You're thinking too much," she murmured.

"Job hazard."

"You figure out the story already?"

He shrugged. "The one that did it?" he echoed. "No idea. Did what?"

"I told you once, right after one of our early cases, that I'd been in therapy for three years. It was because of the work."

"You told me that? Oh, oh, you did. Huh. It's strange how early impressions get formed, you know? I heard it as grief. Grief counseling." Not like what she'd done to knock down walls.

"It was," she nodded. "The work was grief, and the counseling wasn't helping because the work wasn't a process - it was a stalling tactic."

Oh. Delaying the inevitable - acceptance.

She shifted closer but her arms dropped, her palms coasting down his chest to rest on the tops of his thighs. "I was in therapy but I wasn't listening. I was letting the cases be my therapy, and that's not a good idea."

"Not too many happy endings," he murmured softly. His heartbreaking baby Beckett. He wished he'd known her then, wished he'd understood, wished he'd been this person then.

But no, she'd helped to shape this person, and he wouldn't give that up. It was essential to them.

"I get their stories when they've already become tragedies," she sighed. "So, no. No happy endings. But I thought answers... if I found answers-"

"It'd be okay."

She nodded slowly, reached over and took another slow sip of wine. He was reminded of that one time he'd come over to her apartment and found her drinking an entire bottle alone, because she could or liked it, and not because she needed it. She'd been happy and she'd had just enough to follow him back out into the night and investigate a haunted house and tease him the whole time.

He'd seen love in her eyes, that night, and at least now it didn't require alcohol to see that love.

It did seem to require alcohol to touch back on this story, give it flesh again.

"And so this cold case?" he prompted. "The one that..."

"Showed me the futility of my grieving process. Or well, my using it as one."

"How did it do that?"

"There were no answers," she whispered. Her voice cracked only a little and she turned her head to look out across the living room, and assumedly at the night beyond the windows. "There are no answers in that case. A disappearance. I can't even say it was a homicide."

"No body," he nodded.

"No motive," she implored, her eyes cutting back to him. "Nothing. There's nothing, and I-"

Kate sucked in a breath and shook herself out of it. He waited, watching the way she sealed it over again, like her brain had little automatons in hazmat suits going over the biohazard waste and properly quarantining it again.

She was phenomenal.

"It's a case with no answers. Every detective has one. Sometimes two or three. I appreciate your offer to go back through it with me, Castle, but that would allow it a foothold in my soul. I want to keep my soul, for a while anyway."

He didn't know what that meant. "A case with no answers threatens your soul?"

"Dead ends. No leads. I'm a good cop, Castle. I'm a fairly superior detective, if that doesn't sound too conceited. I'm aware of what I'm capable of, and how hard I can push. It's all about exceeding limits - I exceed those imposed upon me to a calculated point. And that gets the job done."

He'd narrowed his eyes at her during this and now she finally saw it. Her face went blank - surprised - and then she laughed, a dry chuckle.

"Okay, so - that's another thing - my mother's case. But I did at least make the right choice in the end, didn't I? I came looking for you, and not my own death. And honestly, Rick, that's what I did back in 2006 as well."

"Cam looking for me?"

She snorted and narrowed her eyes back. He was just grateful for the amusement that now threaded her words to his and back again, a binding, a connection, a stitch. Kept her here, not there.

"Not you specifically, but yes, you. Life. Like I said, I'm a good cop, good at what I do because I push harder than most. I make more than just an effort. But on this one, I got nowhere."

He got it, all of the sudden, a blazing and neon sign lighting up his brain. "Oh. And if you - even you - had a case that was unsolvable, then maybe that was Raglan with your mother's case."

She nodded, her shoulders slumping, and she came in to lean against him in a kind of hug. He lifted his arms and embraced her, hands pressed to her spine.

"Dead ends, no leads," she went on. "But more than that, not just Raglan - me. Maybe I'd never figure it out either. Maybe it wasn't solvable. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it's not that it's a perfect crime, but that all the pieces just aren't available. And so I quit."

"You quit."

"I went in to my therapist's office and I told her, okay, let's do this. And I zipped through the stages of grief and came out the other end with mostly a low-simmering anger at the injustice of it - and it was done."

"It wasn't done," he murmured. He didn't think it was done even now.

She'd been talking into his ear but she pushed back a little and stood on her own feet. "No, clearly, it wasn't done. But I shut it away behind walls. Therapy did that, ironically; it helped me construct ways to cope with the reality that shit happened and I couldn't change it."

"All because a guy sleeping on the couch went missing one morning."

She nodded, drawing a frown. Her eyes came back to his. "It's a case I'd drown in, Castle, if I let myself. Don't know if you've noticed, but I do that."

"No," he gasped. "Really?"

She smiled back, just the corner of her mouth. "Really."

"Good thing you have such an excellent partner."

Kate perked up, stood a little straighter, and her arm came out and hooked around his neck. "I do. An excellent partner."

He grinned, pretty pleased with himself, and he tugged her into his body again, rubbing his hands up and down her spine. He nudged his nose into hers, ghosted a kiss along her mouth. "You feel good about it, Kate? Strong."

"Yeah. I am. Strong."

"You are," he agreed. His kiss came in to touch her lips, firmer, more presence. "So we'll look it over in the morning, that case, partners."

Kate gripped the nape of his neck and pushed her mouth into his, solid and real and possessive, colliding with him.

She'd known what to order for him at lunch and he knew what to order now.

Compromise. Two personalities meeting each other, finding ways to work. It wasn't a binary world, on or off; it was fluid and dynamic and exciting.

It was two worlds colliding without losing one to the other.

"We'll look at it in the morning," she whispered into his mouth. "Now come to bed."

Colliding of a different kind.