We counted all the bruises on your neck
And the bloodstains on your thighs
And figured out it takes more than getting hurt
To keep yourself alive.
To keep yourself alive, Meggie Royer
Happy birthday to my darling KT, my partner in crime, who actually asked me to write this storyline, so if you want to blame anyone then blame her (this counts as a disclaimer, right?). KT sweetheart, have the best day. You deserve it.
They arrive at the building four minutes after it happens.
It's a blur or red and blue lights from the fire engines, making her blind for a moment. Beyond that, she can see the flames licking high into the sky, almost brushing against the clouds – no, not clouds, soot. Swirling thickly above them, suffocating them on this Earth.
Castle's yelling, calling his daughter's name as they watch flames the same colour as Alexis' hair swallow the morgue she's in. I just want to visit Lanie, Alexis had told them just two hours ago. I haven't spent time with her since I started college.
For a moment Kate doesn't catch the movement in her peripheral vision, but when she does she's struck still as Castle shoves past firefighters, heading straight for the flames.
The stillness passes and she's after him in an instant, racing past the firefighters who watch him, astounded, before they rush for him too, yelling something but she doesn't hear what. Over the roar of the flames, all she can hear is him screaming Alexis, Alexis, Alexis, and it burns her, parches her for breath but she runs anyway, face heating up the closer she grows to the burning building.
He runs inside and it almost tears her apart so she doesn't think twice, would never think twice about following him into the fire.
"Castle!" She cries, slowing her run to a jog as her eyes burn with the sting of the smoke and the fire licks at the air around her. "Castle, where are you?"
Halfway down the first corridor she finds him, narrowly dodges the flames tearing up the wall. He's stopped by fallen debris, and she presses her hand to her mouth coughing up smoke, glancing around to find that the building is collapsing in on itself. In the room beside her, a beam falls down, adding to the bonfire the building has become.
Before she has time to stop him, he reaches out a hand to the debris pile in front of him, trying to move a sheet of metal out of the way but he cries out, falling backward at it scalds his skin. She reaches for him instantly, curling her arms beneath his as he falls and joins them around his chest.
"Kate," he pants, voice gruff from all the smoke he's inhaled. "Kate, help me."
She presses her mouth into his skin, blackened from soot.
"I am," she promises roughly. "I am."
They stumble backwards, Castle dizzy from lack of oxygen, the temperature and fire surrounding them making them both sweat profusely, eyes hazy. He fights against her grasp, but he's too weak from the smoke that he's been choking into his lungs, so he can't help but stumble back with her.
"No, no," he curses, thrashing in her arms and she grits her teeth and holds on because she has no other choice, losing him is not an option. "Help me."
"I am, I swear to God I am," she cries, adrenaline coursing through her as she navigates them through the fire backwards, him fighting and cursing against her.
Firefighters appear then, aiding her and Castle has no option but to let them drag him out of the fire. Her hair gets caught in her mouth as she tries to say I'm helping you, and she can taste the smoke, the heat, it burns her tongue. She doesn't relent though, keeps her arms wrapped tightly around him even once they're outside.
The air is cool on her skin, a relief, but not enough, it will never be enough again. They stagger into the road with the help of the firefighters, who try to pull them further, but she pushes them away and collapses into the road with Castle. His weight crushes hers but she pushes him upright, holding him against her chest as he slumps between her legs, and she finds herself rocking him back and forth gently, a juxtaposition to the horrific scene in front of them. She grips one of her hands in his hair, the other in the fabric of his shirt and whispers nonsense into his skin.
"I saved you, I saved you from the fire at your aparment," he rambles, hands scrabbling against the tarmac ground. "Let me save her."
She chokes on it, presses her mouth against his neck to find his pulse beating unwillingly beneath the skin.
"Too late, too late," she murmurs, trying to soften the words with her kisses. "I'm sorry, Rick. We're too late."
The paramedics rush over, one with an oxygen mask and another with a bandage for his hand. Castle tries to fight them, pushes them away with weak hands while he sobs.
"Babe, don't fight them," she tells him between tears, "don't fight, you need this."
You can't die on me, she wants to say, but the words get trapped in her own choking lungs. I won't lose you.
His head tilts back onto her shoulder, his eyes shockingly ice blue when they meet hers.
"I won't forgive you," he rasps. "I won't be able to love you."
"I know, Castle, I know," she sobs, doesn't know what else to say, she understands, and this fire is tearing her apart.
He's still crying when the paramedic slips the oxygen mask over his mouth, setting the small tank down beside them. The paramedic is saying something to her – something about it being temporary, she doesn't know, can't focus between her tears and Castle's words. Then they dress Castle's wound, and he's sobbing and the mask is steaming and the tears are hot against her fingers when she tries to wipe them away and finally the paramedics leave the two of them alone.
His fingers tighten around her legs, making her gasp because it hurts, he's hurting her, but she doesn't say anything. Continues rocking him and crying and whispering things like I love you and I'm sorry even as her boys and her captain and the firefighters watch, and she continues doing so until the building collapses on itself and finally – it's over.
Yet somehow, it's only just begun.
She thinks it's ironic, how Lanie and Alexis are moved from one morgue to another.
They both entered that morgue alive, and now they're leaving it dead.
When his eyelids begin to flutter, her grip on his good hand falters, her eyes roaming his face as her heart flutters wildly in her throat while wakes up.
Finally, his eyes open, grief shining as bottomless as the ocean. They cast over her briefly before settling on her hand atop his, his hand flinching away from hers but she refuses to let go.
With her other hand, she reaches over to pull his oxygen mask when he attempts to speak.
"You're not supposed to take this off," she tells him weakly.
"Alexis – Is she – " Castle doesn't finish speaking, his voice strangled as he attempts to slip his hand from hers again, but she only holds on tighter.
"Dead, yes," Kate murmurs softly, watching as his eyes shut and his breath shatters, fractured in the air. "She, Lanie and another medical examiner were found in one of the closets at the back of the building. Autopsy shows that fumes in the air killed them. Not the fire."
For a moment she's worried he's not breathing, so she places his oxygen mask on again. It makes his eyes open but they don't fall on her. Simply the wall behind her.
"Even if you'd made it to her, Castle, she would've been gone already," she says, and she has no idea why she's still talking when it's not making anything better. So she adds, "I'm so sorry, Rick. I'm so sorry."
This time, when he pulls his hand from her grip, she lets him have it. He uses it to pull the oxygen mask off, rasps words that ruin her.
"Go. Don't come back."
"Rick," she whispers, tears clogging her throat.
His eyes shut again, jaw tense.
"Please, Kate."
"Okay," she says, stumbling from the chair with shaking fingers. "Okay, Rick."
When she reaches the door, she turns back to him, needing to say something, anything, that means a damn thing.
"I love you."
His eyes close and he places the oxygen mask back on, so she closes the door behind her. As she walks through the hospital corridors her legs turn to jelly beneath her, her entire body shaking and she receives many concerned looks as the tears begin to overfill her eyes, tumble down her cheeks.
Her father meets her outside, drives her home in silence, not even the radio filling the air between them.
The first night without him isn't the cruellest.
Martha keeps her up to date when it comes to Castle. Informs her that Castle left the hospital against medical advice the day after he'd been admitted and learned of Alexis' death, had left for the Hamptons hours later while he arranged Alexis' funeral.
Five nights after the fire, she and her once-future-mother-in-law sit on the couch drinking wine the way she and Castle used to do.
Kate's fingers trace the rim of the glass, staring into the scarlet liquid, wondering if perhaps she'd made the wrong choice and should've let Castle's blood boil instead of subjecting him to this living Hell. Maybe it had been selfish of her to save him.
"Do you think I should've done it?" She asks shyly, glancing up at Martha.
The woman rests a hand on Kate's shoulder, her weariness showing in the lines of her face.
"Katherine, I've already lost my granddaughter. If I had lost my son too…"
She nods, eyes filling with tears again and she tries to breathe through it, in and out, to stop it. Too much crying. Too much pain.
Martha reaches out for her, so she places her wine on the table beside her, allows herself to fall into Martha's embrace. It's the first human contact she's had since Castle sent her away, and it startles her how she feels herself shedding grief through it. She had been so unaware of how her body had been weeping for this, how lonely and isolated she'd been feeling in just a matter of days, and so she cherishes this, Martha's comfort.
But she still has to face an empty bed in the night.
Lanie's funeral is first.
It's respectable, quiet, except for the sound of her mom crying. Esposito doesn't show at the reception and Ryan leaves early, to be with his wife and his daughter, the memories of fire still reflecting in his eyes.
It's the first time she sees Castle since the hospital. Twenty days later.
After the burial, he heads towards his car, and she finds herself following him – can't help but be drawn to him. He stares at her feet when they stop in front of his car, and she knows he doesn't want her to follow.
"I just want you to know that I'm still here, Rick. And I always will be."
Castle opens the door to his car, doesn't put his seat belt on in his rush to drive away from her. She doesn't blame him. So after the reception and paying her respects to Lanie's family, she finds herself driving out to Esposito's apartment, where she finds that he's smashed his television to pieces and has probably had one too many beers.
She takes one for herself, shrugs her black shawl off and wishes she could climb out of her skin too.
"How's he doin'?" Esposito asks ten minutes after they sit drinking in silence.
She picks at the label of the beer bottle, doesn't meet his eyes.
"I don't know."
They don't speak again that night, not even when she leaves.
He ignores her through Alexis' burial. He stands with his mother, and she aches to be by his side, just to be close to him. But she stands with her boys instead, tries not to let the tears fall anymore.
The service is beautiful. Castle's words are heart-breaking, and it's then that she realises she truly has no idea how he's doing, that she'll never understand a loss like that. She knows why he'll never love her again, and so she leaves the reception almost as soon as she arrives, pressing a kiss to Martha's cheek and brushing her fingers along the small of Castle's back as she does
At midnight, she's startled when she hears loud noises in the front room. Immediately she grabs her gun, fearing the worst, only to be startled when she finds Castle stumbling his way through to the study.
"Castle?"
At her voice he seems to flinch, bumping into the doorway and it's then that she notices the haziness licking at the corner of his eyes, his shaking hands. He's drunk, more so than she's ever seen him.
"What're you doin' here?"
He ignores her question, eyes settling on her chest. "You're naked. Why're you naked?"
She ignores his question, because she's not quite sure if he's either sober or emotionally stable enough for the answer. The truth is that she can still smell the smoke on her clothes, on her skin, and she feels the guilt weighing down on her so heavily that she barely has the strength to pull clothes on anymore, that all she wants to do is shed her own skin with the shame of it all, and this is the closest she'll ever get.
Double checking that the safety is on, Kate places her gun on one of the bookcase shelves, reaching out a hand to steady him when it looks like he's going to stumble.
"Do you want me to get you some water?"
His large, shaking hands settle on her waist, pinch at the skin there before one lifts, cupping her breast. It goes straight through her, and she feels warmth pooling between her legs and so she tries to step away, because he's drunk and not thinking straight and he'll regret it in the morning, and the last thing she wants is any more regret between them.
"Castle, you're drunk. I'm going to get you some water, okay?" She says, carefully extracting his hands from her skin, feeling the loss instantly.
He ambushes her as she's passing the couch, fingers winding round her waist until they settle on her hipbones, thumbs brushing her abdomen. One of her hands reaches out for the back of the couch, steadying herself as she gasps, the length of his body pressing against her back.
She can't help her body's reaction. She's missed him, she loves him, she wants everything to go back to how it was.
"Don't want water," Castle slurs in her ear, lips clumsy and wet against her neck. "Wanna know what I want?"
She shivers as his right hand, smooth and un-blistered, once again cups her breast. God, she really shouldn't be giving into this.
"Need more clues?" He asks, the rumble of his voice vibrating against her back and then he dips two fingers low, brushes her clit and makes her squirm and whimper beneath his touch.
"Castle – You're drunk – you don't – "
"I do," he says, fingers tweaking her nipple, a little clumsy but still so good, shit, shit, they can't –
His tongue draws a line across her shoulder, up her neck that halts at the line of her jaw. She whimpers, rocking her hips against his and can feel the bulge in his pants, ready for her, and all of her reservations about this go flying out of the window, along with the rest of her rationality.
His fingers slide down, past her clit and spread her, forcing her to widen her stance as he dips two fingers inside of her without warning.
She gasps, rising up on her toes while his fingers scissor inside of her, his burnt palm pressing against her clit while the other squeezes her breast roughly. Kate reaches back, tangles her fingers in his hair as she arches her back and undulates her hips at the feel of him, leaning her head against his shoulder.
"Castle," she pants, breath coming in jerky, shallow gulps. "Rick."
His thumb flicks against her clit roughly. He's touching her like he's repulsed by her, and fuck if it isn't totally doing it for her.
"You like that?" He growls into her ear, fingers pumping faster but not enough, and he knows it, the bastard. "Hm, Kate?"
Fingers tightening in his hair, she moans, louder and more encouraging than she thinks he's ever been able to worm out of her. He bites down on her neck in retaliation, not bothering to soothe the sting with his tongue and she hisses, hips jerking against his fingers, crying out from the pure torture, his rough fingers, setting her on fire but not quite –
Finally, finally, his thumb presses down on her clit again, circling her crudely and quickly. She tries to suppress her moans but they come tumbling out of her as she comes, shaking in his arms, legs turning to jelly and he doesn't hold her up and she finds herself crashing to the floor.
Kate looks up at him, dazed, satiated, to find him scowling down at her in disdain, tilting to the side in his drunken state.
Anger courses through her at that, and then she's unbuckling his belt with determination, scraping her nails against his lower abdomen. He jerks away from her touch, but she rises up on her knees, licks a path along the V of his stomach and stops at the waistband of his boxers, dipping her fingers beneath in the teasing way she knows he likes.
"Beckett," he growls, and she fumbles to pull him free, through the slit of his boxers and lightly blows across his tip, smirking as he curses. "Fuck, stop teasing."
She wraps a hand around him, leaping straight into it as she takes him into her mouth, groaning as he curses. She knows what he likes, makes sure to pump her hand in time with her lips as she licks his underside, scrapes her teeth ever so lightly against his tip and laughing when his hips jerk.
He cards his hands through her hair, pulling her away from him forcibly and making her shoulders burn, glaring down at her.
"Nothing about this is funny."
Her nails bite into his hipbones as she sets her jaw.
He releases his grip on her and she's on him again, everywhere, bringing out every trick that she knows, every spot she's ever learned in the times they used to love each other. He keeps cursing at her touch, at the feel of her warm tongue, and the anger and the drink loosen his control because he's thrusting into her mouth, fingers tight in her hair and making her scalp sting but she closes her eyes and focuses, his thrusts a little sloppy because he's drunk but she works with it, until he groans her name and spills in her mouth, and she swallows it all like she has a point to prove, the wooden flooring biting into her knees as she does.
He slumps against the couch, tucking himself back into his pants and she rises, strokes a gentle hand along his arm. He moves away from her touch, and she can see a touch of sobriety rushing back into his eyes, so she fetches him his glass of water and forces him to drink some to lessen the headache in the morning, and confiscates his car keys so he won't make any more mistakes in this state.
His head collapses on the couch pillow, his legs tangled in the blanket at the end of it. Castle's eyes open, a flash of clarity burning through them, his eyes fixed on her legs and he mutters, "Hurts."
Soon he's asleep, and she sits before him, caressing the blistered flesh of his palm. She presses her lips against the blisters, watching as he winces in his sleep.
At some point in the night, she wakes in their bed to find him hovering over her.
He startles her so badly that she whacks her head on the headboard as she struggles upright, tears burning in her eyes as he barks with laughter. Glancing at him, she notices that he's considerably less drunk now.
"What're you doing here?"
He shrugs, tugging on her legs to lay her back down on the mattress. He peels the comforter away from her body slowly, revealing her naked skin to him once again.
"Missed the luxuries of my own bed. Nostalgia."
She gulps as his finger trails down her throat, his palm widening at her sternum, setting fire to her skin.
"I thought you'd leave."
His lips scatter across her torso, teeth nipping the underside of her breast, tongue darting out to collect the sweat gathering in the hollow of her collarbone.
"Not staying."
Her body arches into his touch, soft sighs escaping her lips.
"Please," she pleads, curling her fingers in his hair as he smatters kisses down her abdomen, the inside of her thigh. "Please stay with me."
His teeth nip harshly at the fragile skin on the inside of her wrist, eyes blazing.
"No."
Her earlier tears return even when he slides a finger through her, finding her warm and wet despite her best intentions. He smirks into her skin, then lifts away, settling into the cradle of her hips and pushing his entire length inside of her without any warning. It startles her, makes her spine arch as she throws her head back into the pillow, wraps her legs around him to pull him closer.
His thrusts are hard, deep, fast, driving her to edge all too quickly as he grips her hips, holding himself up on his knees and pulling her hips up with him for a deeper, impersonal angle.
Kate cries out, digging her nails into his biceps as he slams into her, and she knows that she will surely have bruises in the morning, but shit, it's so good – so good – and if this is the only part of him she can have, then she'll accept it readily, because she can feel a piece of her heart healing even if it's wounding her in the process.
Castle releases her hips and slides out of her, leaving her unfulfilled and confused. She opens her eyes to find him crying, and she reaches out to comfort him, to tell him she loves him, but he pushes her away, flips her onto her front.
"Rick," she groans into the pillow when she feels him enter her again, stretching her so sinfully well.
His hands sneak beneath her torso, wedging themselves between her breasts and the mattresses as he cups her, squeezes. Her hips jerk against his, but he keeps going, slamming into her repeatedly and forcing the lewd noises of the union of their bodies to fill the 3AM silence of the room.
"Fuck," she pants, can feel herself growing close as his thrusts grow sloppy, his grip tightening on her breasts. "Rick, Rick."
His name becomes a mantra on her tongue until she can't think anymore, feels one of his hands slip away from her skin and tug on her hair, pulling her head back and making her back arc. It's then that she falls apart, muscles straining, a silent scream hollowing her cheeks.
As she slumps on the bed, she feels him spill into her, hot against her oversensitive nerves. He pulls out of her almost instantly, but then collapses on top of her. She can't breathe, but having so close for the first time in so long means everything.
"Why'd you do it, Kate?" He rasps into the nape of her neck.
Her shaking fingers seek his out, finds them by her side and tangles them together.
"I couldn't lose you," she tells him honestly.
"But I couldn't lose her."
She turns her face into the pillow, hides her tears, but he can probably feel the shaking of her shoulders anyway.
He doesn't comment on it.
"Of all the people in the world I thought I could hate," he whispers into her skin, branding her with this weight forever, "you were never one of them."
She hiccups, lifts her mouth away from the pillow to ask, "And now?"
He sighs, lifts away, and pulls the comforter over her body before he leaves. The act is so parental that is makes her shiver, rattling through her bones, but she's so tired, so very tired, that instead of thinking anymore all she can do is sleep.
Five weeks later, cold and shivering alone on the bathroom floor, she discovers bruises weren't the only thing he left her with that night.
He turns up on their doorstep out of the blue two weeks after.
"Castle, why did you knock?" She asks, stepping aside to let him in, heart fluttering wildly in her chest.
"It's not my place anymore," he says, monotone, doesn't enter, stays standing in the hall.
Her fingers clutch the door tightly, frowning at him while trying to maintain a strong façade.
"Of course it's your place, Rick."
"No, it's not," he says, eyes lifting to stare at her shoulder. "This was my home once. Not anymore. I came by to say I'm giving you this. I know it's your home, and I wouldn't kick you out, no matter what… No matter what's happened between us."
"I don't understand. What are you trying to say?"
"I'm giving you the place, Kate. You, my mother, it's your house now. We'll figure out the legal stuff later. I found a place in Rhode Island, on the shore, pretty secluded. I'll be happy there."
He pauses, and in that silence, can he hear her heart breaking? He doesn't, and his eyes drop from her shoulder to the floor, something final about his next words that burn her from the inside.
"Goodbye, Beckett."
There are so many words swirling on her tongue. Don't go. Stay. I'm sorry. I know you hate me. None of them come out as she grips his t-shirt in her fist.
"I'm pregnant."
For the first time in months, his eyes meet hers.
The End