Miscommunication between Castle and Beckett leads to a defining argument their relationship, and it has to do with trust issues. Castle doesn't trust Beckett.
•••
I've been holding out for some silver in the clouds
It just gets dark, it just gets hard to see
Well you told me go for broke
You go first, I'll hold the rope
And make your way down to solid ground with me
Cheryl - Only Human
•••
"Have you guys seen Castle?" Beckett asked the guys as she strolled up to the murder board.
"No, why? Mom and Dad fighting again?" Espo joked.
"Don't start." She huffed. She wasn't in the mood, all she wanted was to snuggle up with Castle and fall asleep in his arms. He was her protector, and he never ceased to make her feel loved.
"Sorry."
"Did you guys see him at all today?" She tried. She was worried, more worried than she should be for only a partner. But this was Castle. He wasn't just her partner.
"No," Ryan added, "we haven't gotten a clear glimpse of you all day either. Where have you been?"
"I ran into an old friend," Kate turned to her closet friends, figuring she could trust them, as she's know them for years no, "we met and went out for lunch to catch up."
"Anyone we would know?"
"Actually...yeah." She looked away for a moment.
"Who?" Both men asked at the exact same time.
"Josh Davidson."
"Doctor motorcycle boy!" Espo almost shouted.
"Actually now its engaged doctor motorcycle boy." She raised her eyebrows and laughed at both they're open jaws.
"Really!" Ryan said closing his jaw.
"You bet. I'll tell you guys all about it tomorrow, but for now let's just call it a night. It's not like we have a case going on."
"Night." They both waved as their squad leader exited toward the elevator.
She had a feeling though, as the elevator descended, that she would not end up snuggling with Castle.
She unlocked the door and called out to him, "Castle? Are you here?" She hung up her coat and threw her keys, phone, badge, and gun on the counter, and went in search of Castle. The first and last place she checked was his office. Because he was there. He was sitting with his feet on his desk, his head leaned back, and a glass of what she could only assume was scotch, or maybe whiskey in his hand. She walked over and placed her hand on his shoes, yet he didn't acknowledge her if he had felt it. Kate furrowed her brow and removed her hand. Strange, she thought.
"Castle, where were you?" She began, "I haven't seen you all day," still an uneasy silence remained, "I was getting worried," still, nothing, "Castle!" She almost yelled. That, that was what caused him to barely move his eyes towards her figure. He just chuckled.
"What's so funny, Castle?" She crossed her arms and had annoyance sprawled across her face.
"Funny? I wouldn't call it funny." Castle said before removing his eyes from his girlfriend and replacing them with a small stain on the ceiling.
"What? What wouldn't you call funny?" She shook her head in disbelief at the way he was acting, "all I did was worry about you. Don't you ever look at your phone? I called, I texted, I even left voicemails, and still, nothing. I thought you had gotten kidnapped or something...or worse." She went silent and waited for an answer. Which to her surprise he took no time in giving.
"You were seriously worried for my safety?" He laughed in her face, sitting up in his chair so he could get a could look at her confused and somewhat hurt expression, "if you really cared you wouldn't have run off."
"Run off? What are you talking about?" She knew he was drunk, but this was obviously something he thought she would've known.
"You do know what I'm talking about, Kate, but why you refuse to admit it, I don't know. Oh yeah I do, you want me to tell you why?" He taunted.
"Yes."
"Because you're ashamed."
"Ashamed? What do I have to be ashamed of?" She took and shall step closer to him and watched as he gulped the rest of his drink, before slamming it down on the table, to the point where Kate jumped at the noise.
"You're funny." He winked.
"I'm going to need a little more here if you're going to need me to admit to something that I don't even know I did."
"You do know what you did, and I don't know what went through your mind when you did it. You obviously knew I would find out eventually." He chuckled to himself, widening his eyes.
"When I did what!" She yelled, her patience snapping at his childish behavior that she had and wanted no time for.
"When you cheated on me!" He yelled even louder, standing up from his chair, and towering over her.
Kate was frozen. Had she heard correctly? Did he just accuse her of cheating? Her cheating on him. Anger boiled underneath her skin, but she knew better than to release it now, she knew better, she knew better. He should've known better before he decided to drown his feelings in alcohol, instead of confronting her about it like a mature adult.
Her voice came out battered and hurt, "You thought I cheated on you?" She was suppressing her anger with pain.
"Didn't you." He said more of a statement than a question pouring himself another glass.
Kate at that moment in time, couldn't contain her rage. She reached out in front of her and smacked the glass half filled with Scotch, out of Castle's hand and watched as it shattered onto the floor, watching as the liquid formed around the wood floors, and soaking into the shag rug.
"No, I didn't cheat on you!" She yelled, "you're lucky I didn't throw that drink in your face!" She turned to walk ont of the room when she felt a hand grab her wrist and pull her back in. It was a firm hold but it didn't hurt. She knew that no matter what state of mind Castle was in he would never hurt her. At least she hoped.
"Do you expect me to believe you?" He somewhat fumed. Which only made the fire in Kate rise. How could he say that? How dare he stand there and accuse her of cheating, and then accuse her of lying about it!
"You're drunk Castle! You wouldn't believe me even if I took a lie detector test! You know how long it took me to let you in and yet you still have no clue what kind of person I am," her voice retorted to a small whimper, "did those books do nothing for you? Did you learn nothing on all those stories I told you?"
"Stories," he released her hand and pointed in directly in her face, "as in made up, as in lies. You're whole life is a story. You're a lie."
She couldn't contain herself and let her hand connect with his right cheek. As good as it felt, and as much as it released some anger, she knew it was the wrong decision, so she turned to leave. Rick just followed her holding his cheek. She had opened the door about to slam it when he called out to her, "Suppose you didn't lie." He muttered, stumbling to a halt.
She stopped dead in her tracks. She turned and walked up to him again.
"I didn't lie Castle!" She took her voice down a few notches, "I have never lied to you-"
"Well aren't you a hypocrite." He interrupted.
"I've never lied to you. Not about anything like this, nothing this big of importance," she looked down with tears rimming her eyes, "it hurts. You know," she choked out, "It hurts for you to think that little of me, to think I would stoop that low. That I would fuck another man. Why would I do it? What 'logical' reasoning would be behind it? Huh?"
"That you're a slut? I don't know." He took no time with his response.
Kate's breathe was taken from her as the shock choked her. She felt her body getting ready to collapse, and her heart begin to crumple. How could this man, the one she thought she would spend the rest of her life with, be this awful to her while under the influence? She didn't want to stick around to figure out what else he had to say before she turned and walked out the door, before the tears that were threatening her eyes, began to spill.
She went to her apartment and let her emotions pool over in a flood of pain, confusion, and anger. She didn't bother changing into sleeping clothes, all she did was take off her shoes, her mother's ring, and her father's watch, before she threw herself onto her comforter, with her phone, badge and gun, somewhere thrown on the floor.
She didn't know how to handle these feelings, and she wasn't up for dealing with them tonight. So she closed her eyes, suppressing her cries, while he tears silently spilled down her cheeks.
As the sun flooded her bedroom windows Kate peeled open her heavy, read eyes. She rubbed her wrist across both of them and sat up, letting her feet dangle over the side over the bed.
She almost forgot why she woke up alone in her apartment instead in the arms of Castle. But then she remembered. It only made the anger return. And the hurt. She needed to do something to distract herself. Beckett brushed her hair back and into a bun before she stood and padded into her kitchen. She started her coffee pot, and reached for a glass. She stopped inches before she reached the handle of the mug and turned toward the knock that had jut sounded at her door.
It couldn't be more than 6:00 in the morning. So then who the hell was at her door at 6:00 in the morning?
She quietly tiptoed over and peered through the peephole. She almost gagged as she saw the sight of Castle. She didn't want to talk at him, or even be in the same room as him.
But she opened the door anyways.
"What do you want Castle?" She said coldly, restraining herself from slamming the door in his face.
"Can we talk?" He said, trying to manage a smile. Kate took a moment to look him over. He was obviously wearing the same clothes as last night, as was she, yet under his eyes a darker color dominated his once colorful blue ones. They just reflected a dark grey. And there was a slight irritated red patch of skin on his left cheek where she had struck him. She couldn't tell if it was anger or guilt. It better not be anger. What right did he have to be angry at her, other than the broken glass, and the slap, oh right none.
"Kate?" He tried, using as soft of a voice as he could muster, battling the dryness in the back of his throat.
"Why are you here?" She handled him with no emotion.
"Can I just come in?" He pressed.
"Why so you can call me a slut again?" She crossed her arms across her chest as if to guard herself from anymore of his words.
"I'm really, really sorry about that." He said craning his neck and peering in behind her as if to check if someone else was there.
"Sorry doesn't change the fact that it happened," she noticed his not so subtle glances behind her and she snapped him out of it, "you are unbelievable!"
"What?" He asked innocently.
"No ones here, Castle! Is that why you came here? To try and justify what you said? What you did? Because you're not going to find it here if you are," She walked closer to him, only to close the door more, so he couldn't look behind her more than he already had, "So what else do you want to do besides calling me out on my whoring ways?"
"To talk?"
"You already said that, and I'm telling you right now, no." She then closed the door and lifted up her hand to lock in before something stopped her. It was the four words coming from the writer on the other side of the wood.
"But I love you."
Kate swung the door open with such force, that it hit the wall it was attached to.
"You love me!" She almost yelled, "if you loved me you wouldn't think I was cheating! You would believe me, but you dont- you dont- you dont-"
"I already said I was sorry." He used his chance and squeezed inside her apartment.
"Get out Castle!"
"No! Please-j-just hear me out." He begged.
"Why?"
"Because-"
"No. Why?"
"What why? Why what?"
"Why don't you trust me." She said looking down at her feet closing her door behind her.
"I do trust you, Beckett." Castle said almost instantly taking a step towards Kate. She matched his step, but only took hers away from him.
"You don't," she said, retaining a crack in her throat, that she tried so hard to keep from surfacing, "if you really did trust me, we wouldn't be having this conversation. You say you love me, you say all these things, yet deep down you don't trust me. A relationship isn't one sided, it relies on mutual trust from both partners, which we don't have. You know what's funny," she paused to recollect the memories, "I always thought the clinginess you had to me was cute, but now, thinking back on it, i realize that you were only staying by me so much, so you could make sure I wasn't cheating. What set you off? What made you think so little of me?"
"I didn't-"
"You did. Don't you try to deny it, because you know it's true," she felt her eyes becoming watery, "was this whole relationship just a ruse? Did you not trust me enough for anything else other than sex?"
"Oh god Kate, no! I love you!"
"Then why would you think I was cheating! Why do you not trust me enough to have lunch with an ex boyfriend, who you know I no longer have feelings for!"
"Because you didn't tell me!"
"Because you didn't answer your fucking phone!"
"That's not why." He rolled his eyes.
Kate huffed and let her anger pour out of her, "What the hell is wrong with you, Castle! Why do you have this constant doubt in me that I can't do anything other than be a living sex doll for you! I met Josh at a coffee shop on my way to work! You know why? Because I decided to let you sleep in! We bumped into each other and talked for no more than five minutes, before he proposed a lunch get together. I said why not, because it would be good to catch up. And then I tried to call you, but you were still sleeping, so then I sent you a message-"
"I never got a message."
"Never got, or never checked. And don't interrupt me again," she said sternly and now it was Castle's turn to wrap his arms around his body, "So we met. For lunch. And he's doing great. He's engaged. I told him I was in a relationship as well and we enjoyed a short lunch before he got a call to go in for a surgery, then we had a short two second hug and then we went our separate ways. We didn't even exchange phone numbers. Because lord knows I deleted his. That's what happened. So whatever you saw, whatever you heard, whatever you think you saw, and whatever the hell you think you heard, was wrong. Because I didn't cheat on you."
Castle looked down in shame.
"I just don't know why you don't trust me." She said with a tear slipping down her cheek.
"I do."
"No. You don't trust me enough, to believe that I won't lie to you. What have I done to lose your trust? Or did I never have it in the first place?"
"Kate-"
"I'd like you to go now." She said opening her door and stepping back, making plenty of room for him to leave.
"Are you breaking up with me?"
"I may be mad at you, and you may not trust me, but right now, it doesn't change the fact that still I love you. But who knows, maybe you don't even believe me when I say 'I love you.' Do you?"
"You know I do." He said not wanting to leave.
"Do I?"
"Yes."
"Really, because I find that hard to believe." She lifted her hands from her side and placed both on his chest, and pushed him out of her apartment, closing and locking her door, walking away, before anything he said could convince her to reopen it.
Her phone buzzed and she picked it up to read it,
I love you, Kate.
It was from Castle. She held herself back from replying, and shut off her phone before throwing away the fresh brewed coffee, and going back to bed.
HEY HEY HEY, UM SO JUST TELL ME IF YOU WANT A CONTINUATION OF THIS TO SEE IF THE TWO LOVEBIRDS WORK THINGS OUT!
MUCH LOVE,
:)