Close Encounters 9: Tomorrow Never Dies
Rick Castle felt the flame burn through his leg and twist his guts. He groaned, clawing at the darkness, unable to rise, the pain licking at his raw nerves. He was a live wire of agony and every movement drove spikes into his groin. He needed - he needed - there was something-
Kate.
He felt her cool touch at the point of his greatest agony, the soft slide of her fingers numbing him like ice, spreading delicious, lovely relief everywhere she went.
Kate.
She laid over him, her skin to his, cold and beautiful, and the fire began to abate, the hurt dampen and recede, drawn out by the heavy weight of her, dragging him down, and down, and deeper into darkness.
Kate.
"I'm sorry, son."
He couldn't breathe.
And then it came.
A rasp of air in his lungs and the inflation of his chest, too tight and rusty. The exhalation left with a groan, and his eyes dragged open at the sound.
For too long, there was only the nothing that wouldn't resolve. A blankness that wasn't even darkness but just a scrambled sense that something should be coming to him.
The ache behind his eyes was real. That ache sharpened to the agony of an ice pick, but his vision resolved. It was the beige and grey of an Army hospital overseas. Knew that much. That part worked. What else?
A twitching finger let him know it was his own and he turned his head slowly to look. Pain flashed like lightning behind his eyes even though he hadn't closed them, and then it flickered and crashed through the storm clouds of his irises, a layer imprinted over the thin skein of his sight.
His finger. His hand. His arm.
Sensation came back to him too slowly and he let out another breath, forgetting for a moment that he had to work at that too - the in and out of it. The pain in his head seemed to split at his eyes and work its way to his skull, like it was traveling the path of a jagged crack, widening and deepening even as he laid there.
"Hurts," croaked out of him, before he even knew he had voice to speak.
And then, when the silence came back to him like perverted sonar, a wash of stilted quiet over his body that signified something necessary and dire like drowning, Castle fought back the swaddling arms of drugs that seemed to drag him away from that very important nothing.
Nothing.
There was nothing.
The beige and grey blurred into the fringe of his lashes and the heavy weight of his eyelids.
He breathed in, sterile and too cold the air. The nothing, the absence, the lack that seemed to ripple with every movement only to be negated by every wave of sedation.
He was going.
kate
He was gone.
"Kate!" he shouted, hoarse and coming awake as he bolted upright.
Panic clawed at him and he ripped at lines and tubes that clung like spiderwebs, reached for the railing of his hospital bed to haul himself out and over-
"Fuck," he gasped, collapsing to the floor in an agony of defeat. "Fuck. What. . ."
His voice was raw, his throat ached. His leg was twitching with uncontrollable agony, jerking without his say, and he pushed up with his arms only to have the room spin and dip, a wild ride.
"Ffff..."
"What are you doing? What have you done?" Male nurse. Hurrying. The press of powerful arms around his shoulders and Castle groaned as he was lifted to his feet.
"Where..."
"Back in bed," the man said tersely. It wasn't English. What was he speaking? Why could Castle understand it? His head ached so badly that he had to close his eyes.
"No. Where's - my wife. My wife. Kate."
"What?"
His words were scrambled. French and English. Not what the nurse was speaking. Why couldn't he get a handle on his words? Everything was a jumble; his head was in a vise and being squeezed ever tighter.
"Let's get you back into bed. On my count. One, two-"
He cried out when his leg torqued, cursed violently even as the nurse got him back into the bed. His hands shook on the mattress and he raised one to his eyes, swallowed hard.
Kate. Kate.
"Where's my wife?" he asked again, German this time? Something. He couldn't understand himself even as the words left his mouth. He was scrambled hard; nothing worked right.
His leg.
"You have a man outside. I will tell him you are awake."
A man. A man. Fuck.
Was he captured? Was he in enemy hands?
What had happened to Kate?
He woke breathing hard with no oxygen, breathing hard and nothing, the weight of it on his chest.
A hand at his chest. An arm holding him down, holding him under the burn of pain that licked at his groin and down his leg until his toes curled and he cried out.
"Let the drugs work, son."
The face that hovered over his was the twisted grimace of a nightmare and he jerked, thrashing, tried to move.
Black.
"Get the straps."
His mouth wouldn't work, his head pulsed in agony, hands came and held him down, excruciating against the burn that scratched its nails at his inside thigh.
"No-"
"It's okay, son. It's to keep you from pulling out the stitches."
He grunted and the burn eclipsed all else, everything blotted out by the flame of agony that flared and twisted and ate at him, hungry mouths and talons.
A pinch of a vicious insect at his neck and suddenly the world melted like taffy and drooped, Dali clocks all, and whatever he was, whoever he was in this bed with the demon riding his chest, he couldn't tell, couldn't care, fell back to the dark and the void-
Where it was quiet like water
and nothing burned
kate
who is kate?
The drip. The clock on the wall. A language Babeled against him like water, buffeting, buoying, bringing him up.
The blur of beige as his eyes rolled back again.
Shorter this time, the awareness.
It burned. She was on fire. There was fire. No. Not fire but-
The nothing was wrong.
The melt of water was wrong.
He couldn't wake.
"Kate!"
Darkness. And alone. And the moonlight silver across his cheeks as he cried. Why was he crying? He hadn't cried since he was five years old.
No, since he'd found Kate in the forest on the property of Stone Farm, a broken thing. Was Kate trying to ride the horse again? Damn it, if she'd sneaked out of bed to ride a fucking horse-
His leg collapsed under him when he moved to go after her, a sudden drop that left him more surprised than hurt. Why was he now on the floor?
The moonlight burned his face where the tears had been and he raised a hand to his cheek, touched the wetness that burned.
No. No, it was the leg. The leg burned. Hot but also-
The floor was cool, the tile cool, the low-lying was cool to the touch and felt like her fingers over his skin, so sweet, so soft, the way she brushed his hair back and made everything okay again.
"Kate," he sighed and closed his eyes on the floor, against the floor, the touch of her. "Thanks, sweetheart."
And he was asleep in the moonlight.
"Nice to finally have you with us."
Castle swallowed thickly and tried to breathe. "Where-"
"A hospital on base in Turkey."
He nodded but the memories wouldn't come. A jagged edge of nothing in his head. "Eyes hurt," he said, and closed them.
"You have some time," he heard, but it was far off.
"Must be good drugs," he murmured.
"It is. Better than before. I'm sorry for that."
Had his father ever apologized? "Is Eastman here?" Castle sighed, felt the heavy hand on hist chest that made everything easier, harder, made the nothing so alluring and the black - the black- "Tell him to go home."
The Black.
"I'll tell him. Rest, son."
Wait.
Wait, no. . .
Her fingers in his.
The tap and the texture, the smooth glide of her thumb around and around the back of his hand. The sunlight that dappled her skin as she sat by him. He lifted his head to the Italian morning and smiled into the tug of her hand. He couldn't see her face for all the light, just the shimmer of her hair and the grape coming towards him.
She hummed and the fruit was pushed past his lips, the juice cool like water down his throat. His throat hurt. His eyes ached with light.
Kate. Let's go inside. It's bright out here.
She had to be smiling but he couldn't see it; her hand closed tighter around his and she was standing, a sharp relief against the light. She bent over him and caressed his face with those fingers, the catch of her nail at his bottom lip.
He felt her kiss and breathed it in, breathed.
No, baby. Stay out here with me.
He stayed.
Castle measured the moments by the clock hanging on the wall across from him. The beige unrelenting and uniform meant he was in an army base hospital. He'd been in enough to know. Smelled like it too. Dust and antiseptic and a flare of local color.
He stayed.
Five minutes conscious.
He had the phantom impression of awakenings like bruises against his skin, but he remembered nothing.
Army base hospital. He held on to that. And to the clock across from him that read 6:15, though whether it was morning or night-
Ah, the sun was pearling the sky just beyond the window. All right. Morning then.
He still stayed.
He was awake.
Castle moved his arm slowly for the call button, the bright red circle at the railing of the bed, and he pushed it.
Time to get this thing started.
Figure out what was real.
A nurse first, with nothing helpful. And then the doctor, a Turkish man with wire-rimmed glasses and drooping eyes who nevertheless seemed both familiar and comforting. Something about him. Something about fish. Gutting fish. He imagined the knife in his hand and the steady way he worked, saw himself sitting beside him on the back porch and the sunlight-
"Kate."
The doctor blinked and stopped talking. Castle frowned at the name but it was - it was the blinding light behind his eyes that ached - it was the pain. It was the agony, and the nothing waited behind it, and he clung instead to wakefulness and the here and the clock on the wall.
"Kate?" the doctor asked.
A dock. The water lapping at his feet and her body curled around his legs in the lake and that smile as she teased. . .
"My wife," he said.
The ring, Italy and the wedding, the fire - the bomb - the mortar shell-
"My wife was - we were together. Kate. Where is she? Where's my wife?"
"I'm sorry. I do not know. I do not know this one you speak of."
English, broken bits of English floated through his head. Kate. The agony flared behind his eyes and he closed them, sucked in a breath. "Kate. My wife. Kate Beckett. She was with me. Do you know if she's here?"
"I'm sorry. Your condition was touch and go, as they say. Your leg - you will keep it, thankfully."
"What?" he rasped, attention jerked back to the man before him. He looked like Jim. Jim Beckett, that was it. That was the point of connection. He'd forgotten. For a handful of minutes, Castle had forgotten.
His heart twisted.
"Your leg. No, do not worry. We saved the leg. Look, your heart rate is climbing - you must understand. The leg is okay now. Blood poisoned but - poisoning, blood poisoning - but you have survived."
"Can you - who came in with me?"
"A man. I do not know. But that's how it is, right? I do not know any of the men."
"No - woman? There wasn't a woman?"
The doctor with Jim's kind eyes shook his head. "I'm sorry. Here. We can give you more medication. The pain will recede in time."
"No," he got out, trying to sit up. "No, I don't need-"
"Your heart rate is accelerating. That is not good for you. The pain must be great; I can see it in your face - pinched and like wax. Let me adjust this."
"No," he growled, but his elbows were giving out and he couldn't move his legs at all. Not at all. His legs - restrained. His legs were velcroed to the bed. Holy shit. What the hell?
"Wait. No," he said, catching the doctor's hand. But he was weak, very, and his grip was shaken off like shooing a fly, natural and easy, a practiced gesture.
"You need rest. The infection is clearing up, and you need to rest."
Already his head was pounding with the light - every time he reached back to remember, it pulsed hard. He tried to resist, but the medication, the drugs, the black oblivion was engulfing him. He wanted the light.
"Please," he murmured. Kate.
It was Turkish. Not English.
They were speaking Turkish.
Castle began in Turkish, the moment awareness came to him and he sensed the presence in the room.
"My wife. Kate. Do you know where my wife is?"
A hand was at his elbow, the touch of the IV and the shift of the needle under his skin.
"My wife," he tried again, felt the broken bits of English slip out. "Kate. A woman with me. She was with me."
Spanish mixed with Porteguese maybe. He couldn't be sure any more. The words came out.
"My-"
"Hush now, hush. You're like a little child. Rest."
It was not the doctor; a nurse maybe? A woman with soft fingers. Not his wife.
It was not his wife and he couldn't make his legs work.
His eyes opened. She was smiling, her fingers were deft as they replaced the IV. She untangled the tubing from his arm and hung the clear bag from the IV stand and even then she watched him.
"My wife," he tried again, and this time the English was there.
She brightened, understanding on her face. "You've been transferred to Germany. A base. I'm Marieta, the night nurse."
Germany? "No," he groaned, eyes slipping shut.
"Don't worry, Mr. Smith. We're taking care of you."
Smith. Beckett. Kate. "Kate. My wife. Kate Beckett, please. Someone has to tell me. . ."
"Everything is going to be fine. You need to rest. The infection is clearing up nicely, Mr. Smith. You'll be up and about in a few days."
Days, days, no. He didn't have days. His wife - Kate. They'd been on mission. Where. There was bright light, too bright, and his eyes ached in his head, pulsed fiercely sharp. "I have to-"
"Rest. You must rest."
He didn't want to. But he was powerless.
He grunted at the movement and heard the voice.
"Do what has to be done. Enough of this."
"Sir, we can't cut him off the pain medication cold turkey-"
"This is too much. You don't know him like I do. This is too much - look at him. I brought him here because you're the best, but this is ridiculous. Half the dosage."
"Black," Castle rasped, and then he opened his eyes to his father.
"Son. I'm fixing this."
Castle swallowed tightly and licked his chapped lips, let out a short breath as his ribs ached. "Where's Beckett?"
"All in good time."
"Don't fuck with me," he said, but he'd lost all control of the words. They didn't come out right - or strong - and his father was taking the nurse and the doctor back with him to the door. "Black!"
He wheezed and closed his eyes at the effort but his father hadn't even paused.
Felt like a damn elephant had sat on his chest. One of Beckett's elephants. Damn her elephants for it; he couldn't breathe. He was so tired. He was so... very tired.
"You feel more with it this morning?"
Castle stared and the air and light resolved into merely an ache. His father was standing over him, half of his face drooping and twisted from Castle's own fists - a long time ago now.
"I feel like shit," he admitted, moving his hand over the mattress until he realized he was looking for Kate's fingers. For her strength. "Where's Beckett?"
His father sat down in the chair beside his bed - her chair, where she was supposed to be - and steepled his fingers up by his mouth.
"Just tell me," Castle said dully. "She's not here. There's a reason."
"There was - an incident."
"Mortar shell," he rasped, fought to clear it out of his voice, out of his eyes. "And?"
"I don't know."
"The hell you don't know-"
"Son. I don't know. We went back looking for her."
Yeah, right.
"I went myself. Took the lightcraft back out-"
"In the lightcraft chopper?" he said sharply. "That doesn't hold passengers."
"It was... necessary. Your leg - shrapnel nearly nicked the artery. It was touch and go."
"I've heard that before. Beckett. Where is Beckett?"
"Son, I went looking myself."
He closed his eyes. "No."
"Son-"
"Stop calling me son."
"Richard," he said instead, calm. Always so damn calm. "She's gone."
"I don't accept that. Beckett was with me. There was the mortar but she - she was - there was the mortar..."
"And then?" his father asked.
Castle gritted his teeth, felt his nails too long and cutting his palms as he clenched his fists. "And then..."
"There was the mortar and then?"
He dragged in a breath, pushed it out, but there was only the bright light, the ache behind his eyes that burned.
"I don't know," he admitted. "I don't know."
He woke again when there was nothing. Alone. He tasted her on his lips like a kiss.
Castle raised his hand to cover his eyes, realized it was one of her moves - the thing she did when she was trying to keep it together.
She was alive - she had to be alive. He would make every decision from here on out on that basic assumption: Kate Beckett lived.
Okay. What did he have?
Nothing.
Fuck, he had nothing. He had - Black was being his usual close-mouthed self, making the most of whatever had happened to Beckett. Was she back in Turkey inside some Turkish hopsital without protection? Had Black spirited him away just to-
No. No. Okay. He had to think. He needed... he needed something.
His head ached like an overripe melon, split at the seams, all the grey matter soured and running out. He pressed his fingers into his eyes and squeezed out tears, growled at himself in the darkness of the hospital room.
He just had to think. He had to think.
Prove the facts - one way or another. The mortar shell and then...
No, no. Work backwards. Black had said - Black had said what? I went back to look. Okay. So. He'd not found her body, right? And he'd flown the chopper that they were supposed to load the plutonium-
The plutonium. The nuclear weapons. The whole thing came back to him in a great rush and he moaned, the way the memories fit jaggedly and sparked agony behind his eyes.
The plutonium. Castle had been carrying it. He'd messaged the chopper to pick it up. The plan was - they would load the plutonium and then they were going to hike to the car and head for the border, cross into Kazakhstan on the IDs in his pocket.
Castle's hand went immediately to his thigh, but he was wearing a hosptial gown, a stiff and thin blanket draped over his legs and chest. Nothing. He had nothing. He didn't know, damn it, he had nothing to work with here.
"Come on, Beckett," he growled.
His voice was cracking, the black was wrapping around him and pulling him under, gentler this time but still relentless.
No. No. Think.
Kate Beckett lives.
He needed a plan.
But he had nothing.
