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Prologue
"Director." A young agent in a crisp suit with a clean face pressed open the office door with one hand, a small manila envelope swinging in the other. "You may want to take a look at this."
A potted tree decorated the corner of the large office; glass windows looked out on a spectacular cityscape. Behind a desk of polished cherry, an elder gentleman in a starched white shirt straightened from the files spread over his desk, his square frame too large for his creaking chair.
"Information from our Iranian asset?" the director asked, clicking his pen repeatedly in unconscious rhythm, a habit built from long hours behind conference tables and countless debriefings.
"No. From our local Mexican runners." The young agent stepped in, letting the door swing shut behind him.
"Drugs, guns, what's new?" muttered the director rhetorically; hunching his shoulders back over his papers. "What I need is the Iranian intel. By yesterday."
"This isn't intel sir. It's a sort of ransom message. I would advise an immediate review."
"Ransom? That's not my department." The director looked at his subordinate critically, and reading into his silence, reached for the envelope.
Inside was a cheap plastic DVD case containing a generic brand DVD. No instructions. Turning, he shoved it into his computer and drummed the desk as the computer responded with the appropriate program. No documents, folders, or images. Just one solitary file, most likely from a hand-held camera or similar recording device.
The video opened, revealing a hooded victim lashed to a chair in front of an untraceable black back-drop. The director leaned back against his chair and resumed clicking his pen, watching the hostage shift uncomfortably as a computerized voice ran through a short list of demands. His thumb stopped abruptly, mid-click, when the list concluded and a string yanked the hood from the victim's head.
"What the hell?" The director ground out. "How the fuck did they know?"
Chapter 1
She stirred, rousing him.
"No, stay."
The woman at his side burrowed her face into the thick of his shoulder, using her forehead to press her chest away, just enough to free her hand from between their bodies.
"Kate," Castle whined again as her wriggling woke him further, her free hand pressing into his side. He felt chilled air wash into the created space; it felt thin and empty and not enough.
Her murmur whispered across his ear as he rolled and pinned her half beneath him, his fingers finding the soft recesses between the ridges of her ribs; the void replaced by suppleness and strength.
Soft nails worked through his hair; fingertips dragged lazily across the nape of his neck. He was in a world saturated with touch and warmth and emotion, all sense of reality scrambled and intangible. His nose was cold; he shifted it away from an irritating and damp surface, found skin and burrowed down.
A hum thrummed beneath him; her lips touched his temple. "Hey," she whispered. "Can we get a shower?"
The last word registered; he grunted a negative and rooted until he found the tiny ridges of her throat.
"No?" she asked, letting her teeth fall against the shell of his ear.
He arched his shoulders as he ran a hand down the slide of her ribs and into the basin of her waist, placing the heel of his palm against the crest of her hip to still her. "No, just..." he trailed and found her mouth, still wondrous and new on his lips.
A moment later he broke away, settling to the side. But she followed, wrapping about him.
"Just..." she prompted.
"Stay, a moment." Because he wasn't sure when they would have another.
Her arms found their way around him and she buried her words in his sternum to soften their emotional swell. "I need you," she whispered on a breath. "You have to know that, you have to know how much..."
"I know, I know," he assured, raising a hand to brush at the tangled curls; still trying to understand how she was here; how she was lost to him and had come back, desperate...
Impossible.
"I love you, Kate."
She answered with a hot, open-mouthed kiss in the dip between his collar bones, her lips resting there as she breathed against him. He let his eyes wander over her skin, but startled back at the tickle of water running off his neck.
"Kate..." he gentled, coddling her head.
"No, it's good - I need it-" she swallowed and choked on the words; his neck was slick with it now. "-It's just, I almost died - and you - only you-"
"Okay; it's okay. I've got you."
They flowed longer than he would have thought; silent, ragged breaths chasing the tears down the lines of his skin. He noted her hair was heavy and damp between his fingers and it reminded him of her clothes, cold and clinging as they peeled away.
"Did they try and drown you?" he asked quietly.
"Hm?" Beckett replied, shifting to wipe a hand at her eyes. "Oh. No. It was raining."
"You were soaked."
She lifted her head, and his fingertips caressed her throat, tracing the subtle pattern of bruises for the first time.
"Stop," she murmured, lowering her head to cover his lips, breaking into his line of vision. "You don't have to worry about that anymore."
"No?" he wondered, stroking the plane of her cheek repetitively with the pad of his thumb.
"You were right," she added, breaking away to rest her head upon his as she closed her eyes. "I was blinded and I was stupid and...I'm sorry, Rick. I'm sorry I-"
"Shhh," he cut in, angling his chin to still her words against his lips. "I already forgave you. But Kate - " he closed his eyes and steeled himself. "This can't - you can't -," he opened his eyes, found hers searching his. "Promise me."
"Castle," she murmured, features softening . "I'm done. I'm done with it all. You've convinced me my life is worth more than my mother's death."
Reaching to draw her closer, he wove his fingers into her hair. "You'll stop."
She dropped her lips to his ear. "It's over. I'm out."
"You know I'm gonna want the whole story."
"Showers make for great interrogation."
"Mmm - gotta sweat for it first," he teased, lips already traveling her jaw.
"I thought-"
"Changed my mind," he growled against her skin.
He woke first and settled an egg casserole in the oven, bearing a mug of steaming coffee on his retreat back to the bedroom. His heart stumbled at the sight of Beckett still curled asleep in his bed, and a long internal argument ensued before he set the morning's brew on the nightstand and turned towards the bathroom. She'd be late for work if he started something now.
Leaving the bathroom door cracked, Castle stripped and soaked himself in the spray. The mystery of her sudden transformation drove theory after theory across his brain, and in hindsight, he realized he had little knowledge of the circumstances that placed her soaked and desperate on his doorstep. Driving the shampoo through his hair, he growled. Now was not the time for morning-after regrets. Sure, she had brushed death. Sure, she had given up the case that had defined her life. But Beckett was rational, controlled. She wouldn't use him for comfort; not like that. She came to him because she wanted him in her life: not because she needed a one-night stand to smooth over an emotional day.
Allowing the steady water pressure to purge the suds and other thoughts from his head, he cut off the flow and stepped out, frisking himself with a towel before securing it about his waist. Exiting the steamy bathroom, he set his jaw.
Kate was gone.
The butt of his fist swung backwards to pound on the doorframe before he sagged onto his outstretched arm, suddenly weak. A one night stand...another Sophia. He glanced over the room, noting she had taken her clothes. And her coffee.
But not her phone?
He barely managed a neutral expression before she stepped in from his study; an angel in his extra-large t-shirt.
"Hey." She stopped, thrown off by his stance: half-naked with one hand braced out against the doorjamb. "Castle?" she puzzled.
Quickly, he popped out his hip and set his free hand on his waist. "Just thought you might, oh, admire the view of a Greek god," he improvised in his best stage voice.
She blinked, tucked in her lips, and brought her mug up to hide further expression. "Oh yes. I see the resemblance now."
"Aha!" he torqued his eyebrows into heroic posture. "Hercules, perhaps? Or Atlas? Or – dare I – Zeus?"
"Oh, no - Martha. I see the resemblance now."
"Woman you wound me," Castle flatly stated, straightening as she approached him to steal two quick kisses. "And Zeus himself could not make better coffee. I can taste the satisfaction on your tongue."
Beckett laughed, moving the mug from between them so she could kiss the warmth of his shoulder. "You know it. Double shot, too."
"It seemed like a double shot sort of day."
"Good guess," she grunted and turned, melding onto the bed in one fluid motion. "If anyone calls, tell them I'm out on a run."
Castle puzzled a moment, glancing at the clock. "Gates give you the day off?"
"Something like that," she muttered, her face turned away into the mound of blankets, mug cradled to her chest.
"And you wouldn't mind me answering your phone at nine in the morning?"
She rolled over to face him, watching him quietly a moment. "No," she finally said, a smile softening her eyes. "I wouldn't." Her gaze shifted over his shoulder, and the smile faded into mild alarm. "Castle, why is there smoke coming from your vent?"
"What? Oh! Breakfast!" he squeaked, shuffling out as quickly as the towel would allow.
Expecting to find smoke pouring from the oven door, he was surprised to find the casserole a bubbling golden brown, the delectable aroma of roasting cheese and browning sausage untainted by acrid stench. Sliding the dish onto the counter, he noticed he'd left his phone by the sink; an unread text message hovered on his screen. It was from Lanie; he flicked the bar as he retraced his steps towards the bedroom.
And stopped so quickly his feet burned as they scuffed into the carpet.
If you had anything to do with Beckett quitting her job, we are going to have words, Castle. Lots of words.
Suddenly all his confidence in Beckett's rationality dissolved, and a cold streak shot down his spine. Suddenly he needed to know everything that had happened in the past days, and suddenly he wasn't sure of the woman waiting in his bedroom. Because Detective Kate Beckett of the Twelfth precinct would never, ever quit her job.
"Castle?" She stood in the door of his study, concern and tension written across her visage. "Castle, there is smoke-"
"Kate." He looked up, eyeing her. "Did you-" he stopped, glanced back at his phone. "Did you quit your job?" Even as he said it, he almost laughed.
She blanched. "No. Yes. It doesn't matter," she finished, pointing behind him. "There are tendrils of smoke coming through your vents and if you don't call 911, I will."
Casting an obligatory glance behind him, Castle saw the tiny white snakes drifting and curling near the vent. "Ok, yes, I do find that very strange," he quipped, tapping in the digits on his keypad. "But how could you not tell me this?" He was ready to complete the dial when a pounding sounded on the loft door.
"New York Fire Department, open your door!"
"Get your clothes on!" she hissed, snapping into action and rushing past him.
Scrambling through his study, he scooped yesterday's shirt from the floor and slung it over his shoulder as he dragged his crumpled jeans and boxers up one leg and then the other. He snatched her phone and his laptop on the way out; the pounding was more insistent now and he hollered over the noise to let them know he was coming. Beckett was approaching from the direction of the laundry room, still struggling to pull her damp jeans up over her hips.
"You said 'I almost died,'" Castle continued, striding for the door. "Nothing about 'I quit my job.'"
"Does it make a difference?" she growled back.
"Yes – one is a normal situation and the other is an abnormally emotional decision." Castle flung open the door, and by the stance of the Hispanic fireman wielding a sledge hammer, not a moment too soon. Two other stout, dark men stood near their companion in full fire gear, grim and unsmiling.
"There is an electrical short on your floor. We are evacuating the building for an investigation - please come with us immediately," informed the fireman with the sledge hammer.
They scurried down the hall and scuttled into the elevator, Castle realizing for the first time he was still barefoot. Beckett nudged his Sperrys into his hands. "Gates was going to suspend me."
"So you quit? How does that make sense?" He dropped his shoes to the elevator deck and shoved in his feet.
"Will you focus a moment and realize what is happening right now?" Beckett snapped, grabbing his wrist in a vise.
He snapped his head up, and the fear spinning uncontrollably behind her eyes made his mouth run dry in realization. "No – surely this is a coincidence – I mean, you quit, right?" he asked.
"It could be a bomb, a diversion, a warning – anything," she breathed. "But they're here. Somewhere, somehow..." she shuddered, the angle of her jaw suddenly sharpening as the muscles clenched. "They're after me."
A/N: When a story grabs your mind, it shakes and shakes until it finally finds its freedom. And I missed you all. :)
I am writing this as I go; so, more reviews means I stay up later and post faster. :D