If The Truth Be Known

He'd researched it once. Once, a time that seemed to far away and yet not all that long ago. Once, he had a warm coffee before him. Once, he had decided to sit down at his computer and delve into some of the more scientific nature. Once, he had decided that this would be a fantastic idea, and that no harm would come of it. Once, he had been rather freaked out. Though his interests in voodoo and some of the other darker sides of human nature had been arguably in his worst interests and incredibly bad for not only his mental health, but also his curiosity, nothing had given him a shudder of the creeps more than the fact that such a thing as truth serum existed. Of course, they weren't truth serum, they were variations, subsitutes, pipe dreams in the quest for knowledge that wasn't supposed to be gained, but they were there. And more worryingly, they were printed over the internet for anyone to see, easy for anyone with the access to the components to put together.

The words 'sodium pentothal' had made his stomach turn.

True, his stomach should have warned him that something was bad long before, but as usual, he kept up the hope that nothing would go wrong, that nothing would actually come of the waver he had signed at the start of his working with the 12th Precinct. Instead, he accompanied them into the seediest parts of New York City in the small hours of the morning with no regard for his own safety because Beckett had a gun, and Beckett knew what she was doing, and Beckett wouldn't let him get shot because he knew how much she'd despise the additional paperwork.

But Beckett was unarmed. And Beckett was in no position to be protecting him, especially when she wasn't able to protect herself.

There was a certain moment when he was able to say, for sure, that he had lost hope. He knew that Ryan and Esposito were on the way to the rather cliche abandoned warehouse on the most dangerous part of the East Side he could say he'd been to, hand on his heart. He knew they would be here, but he didn't know when. Beckett had sent the order to them long before they had ended up in the predicament they were in, and hadn't asked how far away they were, or how long it would take them to get there. She had no reason to. Up until that moment they were in a routine situation. Follow, confront, question, arrest.

They'd followed, confronted...but found they weren't the ones asking the questions.

And now Beckett's weapons, both the one always at her hip as well as her back up that he realised that strapped to her left ankle, not the right as he had always imagined, were both on the other side of the room. Usually that wasn't an issue, this was something that would have Beckett moving across a room faster than a hungry drunken man towards an open-til-midnight kebab store, but it was hard for her to do so when she was cuffed and tied to a chair.

Well, tied to the chair.

Cuffed to him.

Her ankles were tied to the legs of the chair, causing her obvious discomfort as it had been her tiny twist of an ankle that had gotten them caught in this predicament in the first place. An unintentional hiccup which had left them both overpowered and outnumbered by four underground surgeons who were experimenting with the use of sodium pentathol in illegal 'back street' operations as an anaesthetic. Naturally, their case studies had all died and been discarded of, and until that moment they had found it to be a typical open-shut case. But then they found the location, and they decided to go alone, and they hadn't realised there would be four of them.

And then Beckett had twisted her ankle, alerted them to their presence, and they had found themselves thirty-four minutes later bound to the chair by their ankles, with their wrists bound to one another with Beckett's cuffs.

He had several jokes he could have made, and that he was prepared to make the moment they were left alone by the psychotic surgeons, both about the fact that he'd had several dreams about Beckett's handcuffs binding them together and that for once it hadn't been him getting them caught, but that had been until he pinpointed that moment where he had lost hope - the moment that he heard a new sound - the sound of Beckett in pain.

He'd never heard it, even when her apartment exploded. She'd been in agony then, as well as shock, but that had been a pain he had taken her away from. She hadn't seen it that way, but that's what he had seen it as. He'd gotten her out of the bathtub, respected her privacy, given her his jacket - being a complete gentleman even in a life or death situation. If it hadn't been for him, she might have died in that explosion - no, she would have died, no doubt about it - and now, he was losing hope because if she was away from her weapon and in pain enough for him to sense it without being able to see her, then he was pretty sure that this situation could be filed under 'dire'.

"Beckett?" he questioned.

She quickly replied, her voice not hiding the grimace that was obviously covering her face. "M'fine."

"Don't sound it," he observed.

She was silent for a moment, enough for him to realise that he'd caught her out. That she was in pain and that she didn't want him to know, that she wanted him to believe that she was still in control of the situation. He wasn't sure if there was any control that could be had in a situation where four highly dangerous surgeons had left the room to retrieve a truth serum, with their back up goodness knows how far away from them. Why were they looking for truth from them? What information did they possibly have that they wanted to know?

They'd find out soon, but in a situation where Beckett had no control whatsoever, then he had to believe that perhaps there was something he could do.

Perhaps.

"Beckett."

"Don't," she said softly. "Focus."

He wasn't sure if she was talking to herself or to him, but he decided to listen to her anyway.

"They're coming," she whispered.

He hoped to God she was talking about Ryan and Esposito, but it seemed more likely that she was referring to the footsteps moving towards them from the adjoining corridor. Shadows were thrown into the wrecked room they were held in, the light above them sheilded by a shattered lightshade and casting them into an eerie glow. He strained over his shoulder to see if he could catch her eye, but instead he just felt like he was even more helpless. He could see little else than her shoulder and some of the messed hair that covered her ear - how had it messed? Just how much had they ruffled her when they tied her to the chair? He knew that she'd put up a fight.

And when they came back, he was so focused on trying to figure out whether or not Beckett was hurt in more places than her ankle that he forgot to put up a fight of his own.

"Mr Castle."

He frowned, blinking back into reality and fighting through the blur. He was aware of being conscious for several minutes now, but he was only just starting to return to coherency. For a short while he'd been under the impression that he was hung over and miserable in bed, no doubt beside a woman he should have wanted to crawl out of the doorway as soon as they were done so that his daughter didn't catch him entertaining another one-night-only visitor. Yet now he was starting to realise that he was mostly upright, and that while a woman was close to him he realised that it was a safe bet that she was not a recreational guest.

"Come on now, Mr Castle, or you'll ruin our fun."

That sounded inviting. Castle remembered some clear words from not long before darkness had engulfed him. "Don't. Focus." He wasn't sure how the 'don't' applied in this moment, but the focus definitely had to. He had to focus. The hand that hung by his where they were cuffed was still limp and not twitching uncomfortably like his own.

"Every minute you fail to respond will be another strike to Detective Beckett, and I will warn you in advance that it will not be kind."

A whimper from behind him stopped his breath for a moment, making it impossible to find what was reality and what was his half-conscious mind was scaring him with. A whimper from Beckett did nothing but make his heart pound impossibly fast. There was movement, and then there was a thud and a sound of complaint, not quite a moan and not quite a scream, but there was something there that made him want to make a mirroring sound. From the sound of her discomfort, they'd hit her across the cheek.

"I'll tell you whatever you want to know," he told them, confused at how easily the words rolled off his tongue when he felt like every syllable should have slurred.

"I know," one of them taunted him. "I should introduce myself. Doctor Daniel Bryant. But I'm sure your detective friends have already figured that out."

"Yeah," he mumbled.

"Perhaps you should have...not figured it out," he suggested. "It would have kept Detective Beckett's face beautiful. However..." he trailed off, and Castle heard footsteps moving away from him as he turned to face Beckett. "Sometimes, a few bruises can improve a woman's appeal..." he straighened, and turned to one of his companions. "Another minute has passed," he announced.

As he returned to Castle's side, the writer heard a heartwretching whimper of pain from behind him. "What are you doing to her?" he asked.

"As I said, every minute you fail to respond will be another strike against her skin. I probably should have mentioned before, you were unconscious from the sodium pentathol for twenty minutes, so that was twenty strikes."

He gulped visibly. He'd been given the sodium pentathol.

"You didn't ask me anything," he realised. "You can't punish her for me not responding if you haven't asked me anything yet."

Another strike. Another whimper. And another sick smile from Dr. Bryant.

"I think you'll find I can, Mr. Castle."

"What do you want to know?" he asked desperately.

Dr. Bryant was interrupted from answering by a far off bang in another part of the building. He frowned, exchanged glances with the others, and then spoke in rushed tones. "It's time to go," he announced.

"And these guys?" one asked.

"Leave them," he hissed.

Leave? Castle frowned. He was confused. He thought that there was a reason, a purpose for them being there - a reason that justified tying them up and injecting him with a possibly unstable serum. A reason that they'd hurt her for information. But watching them leave through the only door in the room, he realised that their reason was a message - their beating, and possible deaths, would have been a message that these serums were stronger at getting information than the more mainstream co-ersion techniques.

"Kate," he mumbled. "Kate. Come on, we need to get out of here."

There was no answer, just a whimper.

"Kate, come on."

Nothing.

"Detective Beckett."

"I can't," she groaned. "They did...my ankle. I can't stand. I won't be able to..."

"What did they do?" he asked her.

"You were unconscious," she told him. "My twisted ankle...they...they stomped on it. I think it might be broken, I can't check...my hands..."

She was panicking, and if he couldn't hear it in her voice he could sense it in the way she was moving her hands around. They were cuffed together, so it was jarring his own wrists with her frantic movements. He could hear her breathing a little faster, becoming overwhelmed in the moment which was incredibly unlike her. For whatever reason, being held down like this was panicking her, scaring her, and he needed to make it stop. He didn't know exactly how hurt she was. When she coughed her with her increased breathing, it sounded wet as if she had a mouthful of blood. Twenty one times were accounted for. Twenty one strikes because he'd been unconscious.

He turned his hand around, twisting it as much as he could with the ankle which ended up being a perfect angle to grasp her hand in his. He did it with his other hand as well, to stop the frantic movements of her wrists. "Hey," he said softly. "Breathe. They're coming."

"It might not have been them," she told him. "It could be anyone. We have to be ready."

"We are ready," he said simply. "It's Ryan and Esposito. They're coming, and we're ready for them."

Still, she was breathing fast. "Talk to me," he told her. "Where are you hurt?"

"My ankle," she told him.

"They said they hit you twenty times," he recalled.

"Yeah..." she mumbled.

"Where?"

"My stomach," she told him. "A few on my face."

He swore out loud. "Kate-"

"You never call me Kate," she mused.

He gripped her hands tighter. "Kate. Listen to me."

"Things must be pretty bad for you to be calling me by my first name," she thought.

"Listen to me," he said.

"Are you hurt?" she interrupted. "Did they hurt you?"

"No," he told her. "They just...they injected me with that serum."

He felt her muscles tense through her palms. "The sodium-"

"Yeah," he cut her off. "Their truth serum stuff. So, I guess that means I can't lie."

"Castle-"

"That means you have to believe me when I tell you that things are going to be ok," he told her. "And that it's Ryan and Esposito and they will get us out of here. Ok?"

"Castle-"

"Kate, you gotta stop doubting, ok?" he told her, leaning his head and moving it a little so that it stroked the back of hers. "I can't lie to you, and I'm telling you that you're going to be ok. Do you hear me?" Again, there was no answer. "Kate."

"I hear you," she whispered, finally returning his grasp.

"You are going to be ok," he repeated. "I am right here with you. Just breathe."

She started breathing deeply, as he instructed, and he knew she was starting to calm a little, to believe that the foreign noise at the other side of the building really had been Ryan and Esposito, when her head fell backwards alongside his, half resting on his shoulder and half against the side of his head. If she hadn't been gripping his hands so tightly still, he'd have worried for a moment that she'd fallen unconscious, but instead she continued gripping, concentrating on even breaths.

He turned his head sideways a fraction, so that his lips met her ear. "I'm right here. I'm not going to leave you."

She shuddered at his words, something that he couldn't miss in this proximity, but he didn't call her up on it as footsteps were heading towards her. She frowned. "Castle-"

"It's them," he told her.

And he was right, and she was greeted by the sight of Ryan and Esposito coming into the room. They wasted no time unbinding them, releasing them from their chairs as they confirmed that they'd arrested the maniac doctors and they were heading back to the precinct with the back up they'd called in. Even when the binds fell to the ground, though, Kate didn't move. She was just staring at her ankle, trying to assess how bad it was without moving it and causing a fuss in front of her team. Castle turned around, crouching before her and taking her foot into his hands.

"Ah!" she hissed, as he turned it slightly, prodding various points with his fingers.

"It's not broken," he confirmed with some relief. "I think it's just sprained. You shouldn't walk on it though," he added.

"We need to go," Esposito said.

"I've got her," Castle said to them, and without waiting for a protest from Beckett, he lifted her into his arms, carrying her bridal style down the corridor that the other two lead him down. Instead of fighting, she looped her arms around his neck and settled quietly, no argument whatsoever about him carrying her. She still felt tense though. "Relax, I'm not going to drop you," he said lightly.

"I know," she mumbled.

"It's over, Kate," he whispered to her. "It's over, they're going to jail."

"And you wonder why I don't like doctors?" she asked him ridiculously.

Later, she agreed to be examined, but only by Lanie. This incident had shattered her faith in doctors for the meantime. Castle, true to his word, never left her side. The others were used to joking about how they would find each other so quickly, how they would bounce off one another in a truly unique way, but now there was no humour to be found in how they gravitated towards one another. It had been a short experience, but something about what happened in that room had changed the way they acted towards each other. Even now, as Lanie pressed on the bruising on her abdomen, Castle winced almost as much as she did.

"There's no internal bleeding," she confirmed for them. "Just a hell of a lot of bruising. You're not in for a comfortable few days, girl."

"Great," Beckett mumbled, pulling her shirt back over her stomach, which was already turning purple. She sat up with a groan from her injured muscles and looked around. "Is Castle-"

"Waiting at the door," Lanie told him. "No doubt pressed against the window watching."

Lanie was correct, and she saw Castle staring at her with an intense expression on his face. "He can't lie," Beckett muttered.

"What?"

"They gave him the truth serum," she told her friend. "He can't lie."

"Oh, this could be fun," she smirked.

Two hours later, and the others had taken full advantage of his inability to lie. A pizza night in the bullpen had turned into a humourous affair, trying to get all the tiniest details about any time Castle had refused to answer a question.

"Favourite musical?" Ryan asked him.

"Grease," he admitted. "And I'm not ashamed of that in the slightest."

"Are you, or have you ever been, a fan of Mariah Carey?" Esposito asked, with the others laughing before he'd even answered.

"I once knew all the words to 'Hero' but only because Alexis played it for a month straight."

"Best ice cream combo?" Beckett asked. "And don't let me down here with something gross."

"Mint choc chip and coffee," he gushed.

Beckett thought about this, then nodded her approval, before Lanie jumped in with something slightly more serious. "What are your feelings for Beckett?"

Castle showed a terrible show of restraint, words about to fall out of his mouth as easily as they had done for the past few hours, before he managed to get a hold of himself. "What?" he mumbled.

"I asked you what your feelings are towards Kate," Lanie repeated clearly. "In detail, preferrably. You are a writer. Make it good."

Castle looked at each of them in turn, taking in the three amused expressions and Beckett's glare towards Lanie, and he found that he didn't have the restraint to stop the words that had been filling his head for months now.

"I...I think she's the most amazing woman in the world," he admitted. "And I can't imagine a situation where I can't be with her anymore. She's changed me for the better, and she makes me want to be a better man every single day. She's opened my eyes to things I never imagined, given me the greatest challenge of my life, and I care about her more than I can explain."

Things fell silent, and he realised that Beckett was staring at him with her jaw gaping, but words were still burning on his tongue to be spoken.

"And I have this urge to hold her, to protect her, even though she'd probably be better at protecting me. I want to wake up beside her every morning, bring her coffee so she doesn't get grouchy at me for waking her. I want her eyes to be the last thing I see before I go to sleep at night. I want to tell her how much she means to me every second of the day, I want to be with her every day. She...she completes me, as corny as it sounds."

"Wow," Lanie mused. "Pretty intense."

"I've spent the last year imagining on and off marrying her and having ten children with her. How's that for intense?"

At that, the pizza Beckett was eating to distract herself got lodged in her throat and she started choking on it. "What?" she cried, after coughing.

"Well, not yet," he defended, blushing deeply. "We'd have to ease into that part."

"You didn't ease into announcing it to the entire team!" she cried.

He held up his hands in innocence. "I've been drugged!" he reminded her. "It was Lanie's fault!"

"You should know better," she hissed. "Lanie's been planning our wedding for the past six months, did you really have to get her material like that?" she asked him, watching his eyes flicker to Lanie in curiosity. "Unbelievable," she muttered, turning around and mumbling to herself as she moved towards the ladies room. "I'm going to be abducted, flown out to Vegas and forced to get married in front of Elvis."

"That sounds so cool!" Castle called after her. "Are you free tomorrow? I'm good for the weekend if you wanted to stay for a honeymoon..."

But the closing of the bathroom door cut him off, as she clearly wasn't listening anymore. He frowned, looking at Lanie. "That wasn't very nice."

END.