A/N: This is a response fic to a prompt from Tumblr. Prompt revealed at the bottom.
What it takes
He doesn't think he will survive this. There is no way he will walk unscathed from this, not anymore. He's been robbed of his happiness, his future already days ago. But he can't give up, can't even start to grieve, can't do anything but wait and it's so crippling, so maddening that his heart might not hold out long enough to see the day - no, the hour - of when his daughter will be freed.
And she will be freed, whatever the cost, she must, because this has already cost him more than he ever thought he could bear and-
He can't. He can't think about it, can't grieve her, because once he starts, he knows the dam will break and the darkness will suck him into it's ugly, black hole, and he can't afford that, not yet, not while his daughter is still out there, counting on her father to get her out, get her safely home.
Still, his mind betrays him, shows him the image of his dead wife, battered and bloodied as his heart keeps on its regular chant: too late, too late, too late.
He was too late for Kate, but he can't be too late for Alexis too.
So he holds it together, until they make it, until it's done. Once Alexis is safely home again, he will allow himself to fall apart then, but not before. Then. After all of this.
He will come home and his eyes will stray to her painting hanging over the stairs, his gaze will fall at her mother's framed photograph standing on the piano, her discarded robe draped haphazardly over the back of the couch. He will walk into their bedroom, where her presence will be most concentrated, her perfume thick and heady in the air. He will let his fingers trace their covers, still crumpled in the same manner as they left them only a couple of days ago, that last morning together when she sneaked her hand around his neck and pulled him in for a searing kiss, her face alight with happiness and mischief before she eagerly grabbed for the coffee cup he brought her to bed, throwing a shy look at him from underneath her long, dark lashes at the sight of the foam heart.
At least she knew, Castle thinks with a heavy heart, at least he didn't hold back on his feelings for her that morning, at least she knew what she was to him, could carry that thought with her until the very last moment when cold fingers wrapped around her neck-
A sob claws its way up his throat, a low moan leaving his lips. Kate, God, Katie, Kate. His wife. Gone. He is breaking apart, cracking at the seams…but no, he can't, not yet. Alexis. Alexis needs him, his daughter needs him not to suffer the same fate as his wife. His daughter needs him, and his Mother needs him to find and bring back his daughter safely home. He can't leave the actress all alone in the world, with nothing more but a shell of a son she once had.
So he sucks it up, forces the bile back down his throat. He will take it, will hold long enough. And when his daughter is safely back, when Tyson is dead – and oh, he will be dead, there is no doubt in Castle's mind about that – he will go home, crawl under their sheets and pillows and that nasty threadbare blanket Kate's so fond of, and he'll finally allow his mangled heart to burst with his grief.
His wife. Dead.
"Mr. Castle," the Captain calls urgently from her office, something tender in her look, "they've got him. They've found the house."
His head snaps up even as his stomach rolls, the world spinning off its axis.
"The team is leaving in five, Esposito and Ryan with them-"
"Captain-" he says, his voice hoarse but beseeching. But she understands, the Captain understands, her own grief shimmering in her eyes, because his loss is also her loss. She gives him one curt nod then adds a simple: "Go."
He won't be told twice.
Alexis.
Alexis is there, his daughter, his baby girl. Inside that house while they still wait outside, hashing out the tactics, and his fingers twitch, his anguish terrible and brutal, but he can't do anything else but wait. He's already waited too much, too long, and it cost him the most precious thing he had in his life, and he can't take it anymore. He paces up and down between the parked SWAT cars, his hands in fists, teeth gritting. He can feel Ryan's and Esposito's looks of undisguised concern on him, because they know, they think they know, but at the same time, they don't, not really.
They can't, there is no way they could understand that crippling helplessness, the feeling of having lost everything and still having yet so much to lose.
"Alright, let's get this ball rolling," the commander-in-chief says, a gruff, bulky guy. He looks competent enough, but that's of little comfort to Castle when he knows it could already be too late.
It's all so fast after that. They break into the house and it's all a blur, loud shouts and screams, splintering of wood and breaking of glass. A shriek – a woman's shriek, oh God, God, Alexis – and an angry male shout, then gunfire.
He is forced to the very back, is pushed to the rear of the group even as he tries to battle his way to the front, to be the first one through the door, to get to his baby girl on time. It must be over, God, it must be over already, for the men are securing the room up front, the back team strategically taking positions around the narrow hallway while a search party goes up the stairs to inspect the rest of the house. He pushes forward, his heart in his throat but always forward to the room where the woman's shriek has come from.
He stumbles over the threshold, his missing a couple of beats, no air filling his lungs. His eyes catch a streak of flaming red before a person hurtles towards him, her body slamming into his chest, right against his broken heart. Two tiny hands grab the jacket at his back, hold on tightly, fiercely, and oh God, Alexis, his baby girl.
She's alive.
Alive and from the looks of it unscathed – physically, that is – she sobs against his throat, repeating daddy, daddy, daddy over and over again. And thought his heart breaks in his chest, splintering in his chest into a million cutting pieces at the emotion currently coursing through his veins, he is thankful, thankful that at least for one of them, he was on time. That at least for one of the two most important people in his life he wasn't too late.
"Daddy," Alexis repeats in a tear-filled voice, even as somebody tugs on them, pushing them out of the way so the SWAT team can get through. He won't let go of her, will shield her with his own body if he must. His eyes fall to the floor and despite the wetness in his eyes, he can see the lifeless body of Jerry Tyson sprawled on the ground, blood leaking from him at various places, and the rage he suddenly feels, that impotent rage towards the dead man threatens to swallow Castle whole.
His daughter is alive thought, his daughter is safe. Even if his wife is not. His wife is dead, and there is nothing that will ever make this right again. Tyson may have killed his wife, but the blood is on Castle's hands.
As if on cue, his daughter moans an agonizing "Kate" against his ear and his eyes fall shut against the sound of his wife's name from his daughter's lips. His knees buckle, threaten to give out, but he can't do anything against it, the relief over finding his daughter mixing with the insurmountable grief over losing his wife suffocating him.
"I know," he whispers with his face buried against his daughters delicate neck, unmarred by rope marks – thank God for small favors – and he keens, "I know," while an inhuman sound pushes past his lips, because his wife is dead.
Alexis is crying, talking to him over her hiccups, but he can't bring himself to listen, his head and heart empty, empty yet still so full with grief. His wife is dead.
"Dad!" Alexis cries again, so loud he jerks back, looks into her face, incomprehension coloring his eyes. She is alright, right? His daughter is alright. But she is- she's giving him this look, this intense thing, shaking him by the shoulders now. "Dad, we need to find Kate!"
His heart plummets and God, his heart. His eyes fall shut again and tears fall as he brings his daughter crushing against his chest again, his voice unrecognizable to his own ears as he whispers, "She's gone, Alexis. Kate's gone."
Saying the words out loud and actually mean then is a whole new kind of hell, but his daughter is pushing against him, crying "No, dad. No! She's not," and she might be in shock, or maybe it's just him, but nothing makes sense, nothing but his daughter alive in his arms.
"She's in the house," his daughter is saying, throwing her eyes at Ryan and Esposito, pleading with them, "It was not Beckett you've found, he was just fucking with you, she is still in this house!"
He cuts his eyes towards Ryan and Esposito, expecting the same level of understanding and compassion appearing in their eyes, but they are looking funnily at Alexis, like they might actually believe what his daughter is saying and oh God, no, his mind can't go that way, he won't survive it, survive such hope-
But no, he saw her! He cradled her battered and bruised body to him, his tears staining her lifeless, contused neck while his hand hold onto her cold, swollen fingers.
But the guys seem to believe her, believe his daughter. They are just about to turn and walk out the door, fierce determination setting over their faces, when their all hear a commotion from the upper floor, one of the men from the search party calling down to them to get up. He doesn't know what spurs him on, but Castle is the first out the door, his feet running own the narrow hallway and past the stationed men right for the stairs.
He takes two steps at a time, his knees painfully protesting, his chest clenched in a vice. Dark spots dance in front of his eyes and it's too much, he pants, it's just too much.
He hears footsteps behind him, boots running up the stairs but he's already barreling through the open doorway the man is guarding-
He comes to a stop, dead in his tracks. He's standing in a makeshift operating room, and the sight makes him sick. And then he spots the women – one dead on the ground, crimson red hair spread limply in her own pool of blood, the other with her back to them, only grey slacks and a simple white shirt and God, it could be- it might be- it looks like her. There's a bloodied scalpel in the woman's hand, but she still won't turn, won't look at them, appears to be frozen to the spot the same way they are.
"Kate," he calls in a trembling voice, knowing that if by some chance it's not her, not his wife, that this will be his end, his heart not able to survive such disappointment, because hope, impossible hope is scratching its way up in his chest.
"Kate," he calls again, takes a tentative step into the room.
The woman's head turns. The world shifts.
He takes another step into the room, closer, drawn in by her spell, this trick of his mind or some kind of a godly chimera he doesn't care, because so long as it has his wife's face, his wife's determination shining from her dark eyes, he will take it.
She looks at him as if he's a figment of her imagination too, careful and wary. And when he finally steps close enough to raise his hand and touch her face, when he finally feels the solid warmth of her familiar skin beneath the pads of his fingers, the spell breaks for the both of them. She falls forwards against him, a tremulous sigh leaving her lungs. The scalpel clatters to the ground as her hands fist in the back of his jacket - an echo of his daughter's movements just moments ago - and he crushes her against him, his wife, his partner, warm and firm and alive.
Prompt: Beckett and Alexis are kidnapped by 3XK. Tyson then arranges a crime scene to make the team think he killed Beckett. Only when they finally find Alexis do they realize that Beckett is still alive.