Material Witness—I Take My Chances (2 x 02, The Double Down, 7 x 02, Montreal) (original) (raw)

Title: I Take My Chances

WC: ~4500

Rating: T

Summary: "Caution doesn't have a prayer in that moment. There's only hope, and it's native to him anyway. Faith and optimism when it comes to the few in his life he holds dear. And he does . . . she is . . ."

A/N: This begins during The Double Down (2 x 02) and skims over parts of seasons 2–6, then picks up again just after Montreal (7 x 02). If you're not familiar with this series, I began it a couple of years ago on the heels of a story I wrote just after Secret Santa aired. The conceit is that Castle has accumulated gifts he never gave to Beckett over the years. Technically, this is the 18th chapter of a single story, but in reality the chapters can be read as independent stories, and I've posted them as such on LJ.

But I never learned nothing from playing it safe

I say fate should not tempt me

I take my chances, I don't mind working without a net

I take my chances, I take my chances every chance I get

— Mary Chapin Carpenter

2009

It's a whim. A hopeful act that flies in the face of the caution he's trying hard to maintain with her this time around. But he can't help it. Caution was out the window the second she raised her eyes to his, hurt and determination at war, and opened herself to him again.

It's just . . . this one. It reminds me of my mom's case.

Her tentative, skittering look, then bravery again. Momentum in saying without saying that she's thought about it. She is thinking about it and has been thinking about it. What he found.

Knowing why matters.

Caution doesn't have a prayer in that moment. There's only hope, and it's native to him anyway. Faith and optimism when it comes to the few in his life he holds dear. And he does . . . she is . . .

But the thing with the money. It's a whim. The tiniest spark of an idea as she follows him around, supervising as every folded, creased, and crumpled wad of bills makes its way out of his inside jacket pocket and back into the hands of people from a surprisingly broad swath of the precinct. People he knows, people he's waved to, and perfect strangers. He likes that. The idea that they're the talk of the town.

She doesn't like it one bit. She remarks loudly to every single one of them what a nice gesture it would be if the bets wound up going to the victims' favored charities. Money goes into pockets and purses and billfolds, and money comes right back out. Every single one of them. She gathers up the up the pile that grows and grows on a spare desk. She divides it neatly in two. She stands with one hip propped against the edge, facing the bills.

"Done?" She looks up with a sly grin as he turns the empty bookmaking envelope out under her nose

"Almost." He fishes for his money clip. He peels off one, two, three, four bills and holds them out. "Payouts to both Esposito and Ryan, per agreement. And I'm covering yours," he adds when she raises an eyebrow.

"I can cover my own, Castle." She turns her nose up and moves to dig in her own pocket.

"As God is your witness, yadda yadda." He waves her off, nudging the cash her way again. "I led you into temptation."

His heart pounds a little and the words are low and not as steady as he'd like. A little flirtation he sends up like a test balloon. She snatches the money from his hand as the color climbs her cheeks.

He goes then. Follows the whim as it carries him up marble steps and around and around the kind of rope line he hardly realized anyone even had anymore. As it carries him right up to the confused teller behind the plexiglass.

"You just want . . . change?" The kid looks like he needs the stool cranked all the way up and that just might be his first necktie.

Castle shakes his head. "The opposite of change." He taps the twenties fanned out in the silver tray. "One one-hundred-dollar bill. New, if you have it."

There's a prolonged discussion on the far side of the glass, but the kid comes back with it eventually. Holds it up to the light and peers at it, as if it's all too odd and he has to do something official.

"Thanks." Castle breathes a sigh of relief, sliding the bill carefully—reverently—from the counter and slipping it between the hard covers of his moleskine. "Thanks," he murmurs again, to no one in particular as he steps back out into the sun.

A hundred on us.

2009–2010

He racks his brain, thinking what to do with it. Stashes it under the base of the skull lamp on his desk and takes it out every once in a while to peek. To toy with an idea.

Silly things tickle him at first. Some of the more obvious scams that land in his inbox take on a certain appeal when they're working the Steven Fletcher case. He thinks he could drop a hundred on that. Or maybe a custom box set of con movies on blu-ray.

Later on he thinks of something awful on black velvet. The finest any given yard sale or thrift store can offer, and that comes courtesy of Jeremy Preswick and the romance of his thumb print. Then he stands shoulder to shoulder with her, watching the three of them—Jeremy, Emma, and Lucy—head out into bright sun, and he thinks about an adoption fee. He thinks about shared custody of a shelter dog, because she's a romantic—Beckett is a romantic—and he thinks that way about her. About them. He thinks long term, and none of that's . . . quite so silly.

He thinks about spending it on _them_—more and more as the year turns over. A new decade. He thinks about silly anniversary gifts, though it's nowhere near that yet. He's sentimental, though. He likes the idea of ending one decade with something so profound as meeting her. He likes the idea of the decade just throwing wide its doors with the two of them already a work in progress.

She catches the bouquet at Kyra's wedding and he looks at drive-thru chapels in the tri-state area and some of them have gift certificates. Gift certificates, and that's really tempting. Silly and terrifyingly not silly, because he thinks that way, too. About tossing the hideous thing down on the desk with its border of blush-pink roses and hugely fat cherubs and holding out his hand. He thinks about looking her in the eye and telling her they both know where this ends up, so why waste time?

And then there's Coonan. There's a thousand times this flimsy piece of paper in play and it's not enough. It could never be enough, because he's responsible for that shot. He's responsible for blood on her hands and forehead and those awful, wracking sobs. He's responsible for the fact that the odds just got immeasurably worse that she'll ever have any kind of closure.

Knowing why matters.

He doesn't spend the hundred on the over-the-top spread. Sushi and hot dogs and kebabs and Chinese to drown out the misery as he tells her that he'll go.

She tells him he can't. That she doesn't want him to, and he wants to spend it right then. He wants to throw it down on a sticky table in a seedy bar and tell the barmaid to keep it coming until the hundred runs out. He opens his mouth, thisclose to saying it when he remembers her dad. He remembers just in time and feels awful. Unworthy of it. He doesn't peek for a while.

He thinks about it though. Pictures it just beneath the heavy wooden base and plans. What he really wants is to take her out. A real date. A ball game maybe, but it's winter yet and that's too far off. He's too eager. But a date. It seems . . . possible for a while. A better idea than the drive-thru chapel thing. A better idea than anything that comes to mind during the bondage case, for sure.

Probably for sure.

But Scott Dunn changes everything. The sky erupts as he stands, gaping, beneath her apartment. He watches the flames climb the winter night and fractures when he realizes he's too late. That he's lost her. He thinks in some broken, disembodied part of himself that the sight is beautiful. He stands there, gaping, and knows that every good, foolish, hopeful thing in his life was gone. Smoke and ash rising over that city block, but the fire is beautiful.

He's afraid then. From that moment on, it's nothing like a joke, and he's afraid of all he wants to give her. A home, not just shelter. Security and rest, not just safety. Joy, not just freedom from sorrow. He's afraid of all the things a hundred dollars can't buy. Afraid of what it would be to lose her when he doesn't even have her. He doesn't like those odds at all.

He's out of ideas, then. Suddenly it seems so foolish. The idea of an us is just terrifying and foolish. He pushes it from his mind until the day he sees her kissing Demming, practically out in the open. Nothing uncertain or veiled. Nothing at all like the reading-between-lines he'd thought they'd been doing. He sees her kissing Demming, and everything he thought he knew dissolves.

He storms through the loft and practically knocks the lamp to the floor. He has the bill in his hand and he's thinking how to end it. Fire or the stupidest thing he can possibly buy. Bags of Lucky Charms—marshmallows only. The cheap cheese potato chips he binged on as a kid. Girl Scout cookies, well out of season, just to spite her.

He has a hundred ideas. One for every dollar, but not one of them moves him an inch.

He sets it in the center of the desk and stares a long time. Still and quiet. He doesn't know what decides him. Not then, not ever. It's just in his nature to hope. It's the only thing he can think of when he remembers the moment later. The calm, out-of-body feeling as he finds pen and ink and thick paper. As he finds an envelope and his hand moves across the page. A hundred on us.

He tucks it high up on the closet shelf. He leaves it unsealed.

It's a whim. That's the only explanation he has. A hopeful gesture.

2010–2011

He thinks about it all along. The envelope and the words. Without her and with her again in this new, arm's length way. He thinks about it more than the other things, and there's quite a tidy pile by then. He thinks about the feel of that crisp bill between his fingers.

They ring out the year at his newly acquired bar. Gina doesn't come. She hates the place, and she has something else anyway. He's invited to whatever it is. Half-heartedly, but there's no real question he'll go. Midnight and flame licking at resolutions. It's not a combination either of them is looking for right now, though the conversation is coming soon enough.

She shows. Beckett. Kate. Late in the evening, and not dressed for a party, exactly, but she shows. She's a little apart the whole time. She hoists her glass and pounds the bar with the rest of them. She joins in off-key choruses and fends off sloppy hugs, but there's no mistaking the way she's looking for the exit from every conversation. The way she only ever takes a few sips from any given drink before she walks away from it.

He runs into her in the narrow stairway near the bathrooms. Near the office. He's not following her. He's really not, but he's grateful enough for a few quiet words. Grateful enough she seems inclined to linger beyond I'm glad you came and wouldn't miss it.

"You're hiding," he says.

He's not sure what prompts it. She's not the only one who's been walking away from drinks most of the night. Not the only one skimming the surface of things, so it's not courage, liquid or otherwise. He's not sure what makes her nod when it's clear her first instinct is to deny it. To move on.

"A little." She works her jaw, unhappy at the slip in her control. Unhappy that he's noticed, but not going anywhere, either. "Hard time of year."

It breaks his heart to hear her say it. And fans a stupid, foolish, flame. He thinks back to a year ago, and as hopeful as he was then—as sure that they were so close—he can't imagine this moment between them. He can't imagine her giving voice to it.

"You want to . . ." He gestures to the frosted glass of the office door. "It's quieter. You want to come in? Sit for a while?"

She nods again, relief in every line of her body as she follows him. She settles on the couch with her feet curled under her. He takes the chair. It's not exactly minimum safe distance, but it's smarter than the alternative. Smarter than sinking down at her side. Gathering her up and holding on. It's probably smarter.

They talk quietly a while. Nothing profound. He doesn't ask where Josh might be as the world starts another circle around the sun. She doesn't bring up Gina's glaring absence, but the fact of the two of them stands in the way of too much. Or maybe this just isn't the time.

They share a drink. Short pours from a private bottle, and as she moves to touch her glass to his, he laughs. It's a very private bottle_._ Not _r_ed-glass-and-long-dead-politicians private, but even the little bit of gold in the bottom of their tumblers is probably enough to burn through a hundred.

"What?"

She smiles, anticipating the joke or whatever ridiculous thing he has to say, but he shakes his head. It's nothing like he imagined after Coonan. He's with someone else, and she is, too. They're behind closed doors with a roaring crowd of people who know them on the other side. They're clinking glasses at twenty minutes to midnight, and somehow it's nothing like surrender to their own worst instincts. It's nothing like that at all.

He shakes his head. "Nothing. Just . . . Happy New Year."

"Early for that." She frowns and smiles at the same time, happier and more at ease than she's been all night. She keeps her glass high, waiting on him.

"Still," he says, raising his. "Happy New Year."

2011–

He doesn't take the envelope down that New Year's Eve. He thinks about it, but that's nothing new.

He doesn't take it down when it's over with Gina for good and he's so relieved. And guilty for feeling that way the very second it's done. And frustrated, because she's still with Josh. The paradox is hard on them both. Arm's length, but closer than they've ever been. There's some illusion of safety that comes of being involved with someone else, and it makes them reckless. Careless with the things only he knows about her, and only she knows about him.

He doesn't even take it down when he kisses her. When he brings flowers to her door and she throws the shutters wide and the air is heavy with implications.

Josh know about this?

Over the summer, when you were in the Hamptons.

It stays untouched through that.

It's Jay Hixton who has him shoving aside accordion folders and wrapped things, big and small. It's Chet Paliburn and the slow, spreading smile on her face when he bursts through her door with a guest list and a fundraising plan.

He takes the envelope down that night with nothing particular in mind until he's out the door and around the block, grinning hard enough for himself and the very skeptical clerk at the Lucky Beggar. He slides the bill across the counter—another silver tray, another plexiglass window, and the symmetry pleases him.

He spends an inordinate amount of time buying lottery tickets in their infinite variety. Scratchers, regular drawings, and things with power and mega and ultra in the title. Combo cards with multipliers he doesn't understand.

He rakes them all in, at a loss for a moment. He neatens the pile and pockets the cards and ticker tape strips. He smuggles them home. Into his office with the lights off like a reverse thief. He rubs away silver with the side of a coin. He holds his breath for the drawings the next day, two days after, nearly a week out, then does the math.

He's added a little to the fortune. Thirty bucks or so, and it all goes back in the envelope. He runs a thumb over his writing. Thinks for a second about crossing out the total and writing the new number in. But it seems right to leave it as is. It seems right to leave the envelope unsealed.

It becomes a ritual. He studies her. Writes about her. For her. He waits, patiently and impatiently.

They almost die together. A whole lot of people almost die, and it's a foolish, nothing-left-to-lose whim that saves them. That saves the city, and God, does he feel lucky. He spends the hundred out again after that. Leaves his tiny profit untouched, but heads to the Lucky Beggar for another mish-mash of tickets. It's the same clerk, and he thinks he'll have to switch convenience stores next time.

The envelope grows thick. A little over two hundred now, and he doesn't color up the bills. He keeps on marking their progress. Tiny acts of faith.

When she takes him to see a movie and they both know he's lying when he pretends he's never seen it. When they're on the other side of the continent and he can practically feel her hand in his. Shy, terrified fingers and the world falling away because they're so close to finally taking that leap. He cheats then. A fifty from his own pocket, because the envelope's back in New York, and the twenty-one he has to add when they're home again feels like it should have an asterisk.

He keeps on, even when it's hard. When she tells him they're done, he spends down to the original hundred again. He's angry and it's nonsense, but he hits big on a scratcher that time. The envelope is too stuffed to lie flat under the lamp any more.

He keeps on when she's gone. When she's back and he hates himself for it. The foolish hope that has him pulling the first bill that comes to hand and spending it out. He loses that time. He doesn't make a cent, but he's stubborn about it. He sees milestones in everything, big and little, easy and hard and he bets on them.

Even at their very worst—at his very worst, when he loses faith entirely—he runs his fingers over the words and there's some lingering magic in this.

A hundred on us.

He runs his fingers over the words and he remembers. He digs in without looking. He bets on them every time.

2014

She's right about getting married. Right that they can't—they shouldn ' _t_—let who- or whatever's stolen two months of their lives take anything more from them. Even if who- or whatever is him. The thought makes him miserable. Doing nothing. Doing the wrong thing. To the left and the right of them, it all makes him miserable, even though he knows she's right.

But he's right, too. Wanting something for them feels right. For her, because it's unthinkable. What she's gone through. What she's still going through with everyone from fucking talk show hosts to Esposito reminding her how literally unbelievable it all is.

Getting married, letting this dictate that is the wrong thing. But doing nothing—playing at normal—feels wrong, too.

It drives him from bed. From her side, though he leaves the covers peeled back and the door to the office open. He snaps the lamp on immediately. A breadcrumb trail so she won't wonder. So he'll hear and see if it's another night when she bolts up suddenly, sticky with sweat and mouthing wordless, terrible things about the fire. About him leaving without a word.

But it's not a night like that. She wakes quietly and pads into the office on soft feet. She perches on the back of the arm chair, fingers slipping beneath the collar of his shirt to find skin. To make sure of him, a little rough. A little fierce, but otherwise it might be any other night.

"You're not asleep." She breaks the silence when he doesn't. When it's clear he doesn't really have anything to say for himself. She slides from the back of the chair into the wide seat next to him. On top of him, really. Rough and fierce. Shoving under his arm and stretching her thighs out across his. "You're . . . " — she plucks the envelope from his hand — " . . . up in the middle of the night with an envelope full of cash . . ."

"It's not . . ." He wraps his hands hard around hers. Leaves her with the envelope, because he wasn't thinking. God, he wasn't even thinking about dumpsters and duffle bags and that maddening image of him on a grainy security tape, and she's trying to joke about it. Trying to keep the alarm from her voice. "It's . . . from a long time ago. Kate, it's not anything . . ."

"I know." She sits up tall to kiss him. To draw him back down. His body close to hers. "It's not anything." She tugs their hands apart, gentle. Turns the envelope over and over. "A present?"

"A present." He presses his face to her shoulder. His lips to her neck, warming himself in the spark of little-girl excitement this always brings. It's the first moment this doesn't feel like playing at normal. The very first. He nudges her gaze down to the words across the front. "A hundred on us. Do you remember?"

She shakes her head, and he's not quite sure whether it's entirely true or not. Whether she's teasing the story out of him. Why she might be. Which of them she thinks it might do some good, but the truth is both. It'll do them both some good. So he tells her. Has her laughing and protesting before too long. Pinching him hard when he waxes rhapsodic about his Lady Irina–inspired ideas.

"This isn't just a hundred, though." She peers insides, her thumb flicking and her mind whirring. "This is . . . a lot of hundreds." She drops her cheek to his chest and sets the envelope aside. "Tell me the rest."

"There's . . . " he looks over to the desk. He has notebooks. The half-assed journal he should better about keeping. He could pull the pieces together—the literal truth—but it comes down to one thing. "I bet on us. I kept betting."

He tells her about a few of his jaunts to the convenience store. Happy ones. And a few not so happy, because that's their story, too. Stubborn determination and overcoming stupidly bad odds.

"Even after?"

She kisses him. Swift and unexpected. Right on top of the words, almost. She kisses him like she did the night of the storm, and he knows what she's asking.

"Even after." He sweeps her hair behind her ear to kiss her temple. "All along. When you said you didn't want us to date other people . . ."

"When we had that awful dinner with your mom and my dad?"

"Definitely then." He laughs, remembering. "And when you came for Christmas. And when I bought this." He curls her left hand in his and lifts the ring to his lips. "When you said yes."

She studies it. Their tangled fingers and the ring. She raises her chin and studies him. She's never asked. He's never told, but it's a story for another time. He practically sees her brush it aside, suddenly intent on something else entirely. Suddenly focused.

"How far would it get us?" The question comes with another swift kiss. Dazzling and maybe a little worrying. "Gotta be a thousand there?"

"Twelve. . . " he stammers, "twelve thirty-three, I think?" He pulls back to look at her. "How far?"

"We should go." She tips herself back. Leans for the iPad on the end table, and her fingers are flying over it. The blue of a map stretching and snapping tight to corners. "Which direction?"

She turns the tablet to face him. He winces in the too-bright glow.

"Kate . . ." He holds up a hand. "We don't need . . ." He takes the iPad from her and dims it black with his thumb. He doesn't know what to say. "It'll keep."

"I know it'll keep." She digs the envelope out from where it's wedged between cushion and frame. She holds the words up to the light. Her words. "I know, but Idon't . . ." He sees her jaw twitch. Feels the hard clench of her teeth running all down her spine as she struggles for words. "This is . . ." She waves the envelope at him. "It's crazy. And wonderful. And I don't want . . ." She swallows hard. Props the envelope against her own thigh, resting on his. "I don't want it to have to keep any longer. I don't want to be afraid."

"Afraid?" He takes her face in his hands, alarmed. "Kate . . . Afraid? Why would you . . .?"

"Castle_."_ She turns her lips to his palm, soothing. Quieting, even though he sees the silver of tears threatening at the corners of her eyes. "You are . . . romantic and spontaneous and chaotic half the time. And I am none of those. Except when I'm with you."

She pulls his hands into hers. A squeeze that says she's not finished, but he wouldn't dream of interrupting. He's so still inside—so transfixed—he couldn't if he wanted to. She stretches up to glide her lips along his cheek. To let them play at the angle of his jaw.

"I love the way it feels to be like that, Castle." She breathes the words right in his ear. "To just let go and fall with you. I spent so long being afraid of that side of you. Of me." She buries her face harder in his shoulder. "Afraid we'd be this big romantic thing and just . . . flare out."

"Never." He kisses her knuckles. Her finger tips. "Would never happen."

"I know that." She laughs, like that's the point. "I know we won't, and I want . . . " She breaks off, reading him. Seeing that she's getting nowhere. She changes course. "In a month, or two months, or whenever, we're going to get married. We're going to be old married people."

"One of us is." She bites him for that. Bites him hard on the shoulder and goes on.

"I know we are, but I want us to be this, too." she nudges the envelope with her knee. Turns her fist to tap at it with her ring. "I want to be the people who just get in the car with twelve-hundred bucks and go. I don't want to be afraid to be that. Not because we've been together a million years. And definitely not because of what happened. Does that . . . do you get that?"

He doesn't. He really doesn't, and the unease punching at his stomach feels like this is one grand gesture filling in for another. He doesn't get it, but with her face turned up and her fingers laced through his, he believes. He has faith, and nothing feels more like solid ground than this.

"North." He kisses her, clumsy as he reaches for the iPad again. For blue stretching under his fingertips. "As far north as it'll take us."

A/n: I don't know why chapters of this keep cropping up. Thanks for reading.