Disclaimer: Mine? Really? In what dimension?

Part 1 of 2

Spoilers: 3x16, 3x17

Ice Cold Revelations

They lie huddled together for warmth in the refrigerated container. They are so still, they could be dead but for the shaky plumes of condensation that spill from their blue tinged lips. The man is propped up against the ridges of the wall, the sting of ice metal penetrating through his jacket and the thick cotton of his jeans but he can't feel it any more. Neither can he feel the body of the woman tucked into his side, or feel the rise of her chest as it labours to suck in the burning cold air. The uncontrollable shakes from an hour earlier are dying down, their bodies can no longer afford the energy, they need what little is left to keep the vital organs functioning. This is when it becomes dangerous, when lethargy leads to sleep and sleep leads to death. Their eyes grow heavy from the ice crystals on their lashes, the beating of their hearts slow and the remaining heat slowly drains into the cold hard metal that will become their tomb.

The cold is beginning to work on them and they are trapped. Kate Beckett pulls the hood of her sweater tighter over her head and zips her jacket fully closed as she furtively looks for another means of escape but she already knows there is none. The steel door is locked and it's the only way out. Rick Castle is standing in the middle of the space as if he's rooted to the spot, his arms wrapped around himself. He looks like he's in a straight jacket.

"I could really use a silver lining right about now." Says Kate.

Castle draws near.

"Yeah. Um... I wish I had one."

She stamps her feet and hugs herself, her head bends forward allowing long strands of auburn hair to fall free from her hood masking the desperation her face surely betrays. She laughs, a quick, short bark, her mind suspended between disbelief that they find themselves in this untenable position, and the wild hope that the means for their escape will miraculously appear, even as she knows it won't.

"What do we do, Kate?" His eyes seek hers. He is scared, as scared as she is but she hides it better.

"We wait."

She can feel her body begin to shiver.

More pressing than the cold is oxygen. The container is airtight and with two sets of lungs, they will die of carbon dioxide poisoning before they freeze to death. They've already used up precious lung fulls banging uselessly like rag dolls against the door. So now they stand still and slow their panicked breaths because there is nothing else they can do. Castle is watching Kate and she is looking back. Never have things been so dire. They are both imaging the last hours of their lives, the inevitable moment when the cold will overcome their bodies, making them sink to the ground. Once they are on the ground, their core temperature will drop dramatically until their organs will no longer be able to sustain basic, life giving functions. Then their bodies will give out. The horror of this reality is reflected in their gaze and Kate looks away and blinks rapidly to hold back tears. She thinks of her father, who will be left without a wife and a daughter and imagines the abyss of his loss. She thinks of Josh and what they might have had. She thinks of her work mates – her family at the 12th Precinct where now two seats will stand empty. She thinks of the files in her desk labelled Joanna Beckett and the murder no one will care enough to solve. Her chest tightens and her breaths come faster, the injustice too much. She knows the world is harsh, she knows it is careless of the pain it causes but somehow she had believed that good would be triumphant and the bitterness of disappointment rises in her with every involuntary shake of her body.

She can hear the chatter of Castle's teeth and when she looks to him again, his eyes are full of an emotion she has seen before. One they have never dared speak of. The moment is pregnant with the things unsaid because of the assumption that there would always be tomorrow but now there isn't a tomorrow. They have run out of time.

And yet neither speak.

Time slows and then Castle pulls down the zip with trembling fingers and opens his jacket. He crooks his head, raises an eyebrow. There is nothing cocky or self-assured in his invitation, no innuendo. How could there be at a time like this? Kate closes the space between them, sliding her arms under the jacket to rest against his back and pressing her torso to his. He wraps the jacket around her, holding it here with his arms, his cheek coming to rest against hers. She can feel his heart beat against her breast. It's steady and strong, it's reassuring. She is so grateful that he is here.

In spite of the body warmth, their hands and feet are ice cold. They've begun to sway. It was imperceptible at first, under the shaking of their legs, but the movement is growing. They rock, like lovers at a dance, their eyes closed, only this is a dance for survival in which every available surface of their body is pressed together because it means a moment's more warmth. It's hard to say how long they move like this.

Eventually they slow their swaying and then stop. They are growing tired and weak, it is getting harder to stand. Their shaking increases and the air grows thin.

"We should sit." Kate says, teeth chattering. So they do. They try to arrange themselves comfortably but there is no comfortable way to lay oneself down to die. They shake and rattle and loose feeling in their arms and legs. Kate is acutely aware as each moment slips away and she smells a metal tang in her nostrils, hears their shattered breaths, tastes the sourness of her fear, feels the body against hers. Her mind grows tired and sluggish and half formed thoughts float through her mind. She wonders how long they'll lie here before they'll be found. She wonders what they will think when they see them in each other's arms. She feels the world slipping into pockets of darkness, pricking the edges of her vision.

"Castle? You there?" The sound is soft but it echoes sadly against the walls.

It's been hours since they last spoke.

"Yeah, I'm right- I'm right-I'm right here."

His voice draws her back towards life.

"I always thought, being a cop, I'd take a bullet. Never thought I'd freeze to death." She says. She's thinking about how this may be last thing she will ever say. Each word takes a monstrous, distorted importance and somehow nothing she can say can ever measure up to the pressure of making them count.

"Hey. W-we're not dead yet." She hears him trying for levity but to her mind it can only be a ruse. Even his careless optimism can't survive in the reality, can it? But despite the thought, she discovers a little nugget of steely strength and she realises something she hadn't been sure of in over a decade.

When her mother had been murdered, she had teetered on a knife edge. On one side had lain darkness, warm and inviting, one in which pain could vanish with oblivion. The other side had been light, harsh, uncompromising light that shone so brightly it burnt. Her father had stood in the light. Her friends had stood in the light. Her boyfriend, Tommy, had stood in the light. They had clasped their arms around her and pulled her towards them and she had gone like a deadweight, but she had gone. When she had gained enough distance she had decided to stay there, in the light, because only in the light could she find the people who had killed her mother but the promise of easy relief had hummed around her for a long time. It is only now as darkness threatens its finality that she realises that as hard and terrible as the light can be, she wants it because it can also be so strikingly beautiful. It can be breath taking. It can be unexpected and wonderful. In this moment she realises that she does not want to die, not like this. She still has work to do, a life to live and in her floating, half lucid state of mind, she knows Castle is one of the most unexpected and wonderful gifts she has been given. She feels a tide of emotion well up for this man.

"I just wish this was one of your books and you could re-write the ending."

"I'm s- I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"F- for being me. Going rogue. Getting you into- into this. If we hadn't gone- gone rogue..."

"Oh, shh. Castle, no. Okay? Shhh. You were right. We found the bomb. We were just too late, okay?"

If anyone should feel culpable, it should be her – for allowing a civilian to put himself in continuous danger, for growing to depend on him in all the small and big ways that meant that she had stopped fighting to get him to leave even thought it was always a matter of time before his boyish enthusiasm got him into serious trouble. Instead she had slowly extended her hand out to him, allowed him to clasp it tightly and dragged him along with her. It was she who should feel sorry, not him.

The edges of darkness are advancing again and she can't fight them off. She gathers her energy and slowly turns until she can see him, her head cradled on his shoulder. She wants the last thing she sees to be his face.

"Castle. Thank you...for being there."

Somehow she lifts her hand up and her frozen finger scraps the cleft of his chin. She's remembering the warmth of his lips on hers. It was only a month ago, but it's another world. She will never feel that again.

"Always."

It's suddenly important that he know how much he means to her, how deeply he has changed her, how much joy he has infused into her world.

"I just want you to know how much I... "

But the darkness clouds her eyes and the vestiges of strength dissipate from her body before the words can be spoken. Her eyes close and her hand falls limp into his lap.

"Hey, Kate. Stay with me. Kate. Stay with me."

A slither of light from the outside world pours in from the door that is cracked open. They see the huddled figures against the wall, sitting like two ice statues. Kate's body is cradled in Castle's lap in a lover's embrace but no one who knows them will ever say anything. They are alive, they will live and that is all that matters.