For the anon who sent me this prompt on tumblr:
I doubt you've ever watched Prison Break, but it's back on tv now and so I was hoping can you write an AU where Castle or Beckett is a prison doctor and the other is an inmate?
A/N: I unfortunately have not seen Prison Break, but I did hear about the revival and I'm so happy for the fans of the show! As for the prompt...
"Want to tell me what happened this time?" Castle inquires, slowly extending her arm, examining the bruising that stains her skin from shoulder to elbow, pressing gently to the swelling of her bicep.
Beckett purses her lips, represses the whimper he can hear quivering within her throat, and he carefully lowers her arm back to her side.
"Door," she releases on an exhale, closing her eyes. "Just caught my arm in the door."
"Kate, it's your third time in the last two weeks, seventh time this month-"
"I'm okay," she murmurs, peeling her eyes open and mustering a weak grin for him, and it's not the first time that he's thought - even with a yellowing bruise on her cheek, a bandage across the side of her throat, and lines of exhaustion carved into her skin - that she looked beautiful. "You know it's because I was a cop. Knew this was what I was in for."
Castle shuts his mouth, because he still doesn't believe her guilty of the crimes she's in for, and she already knows, has it reaffirmed every time he treats her injuries with grit teeth of frustration.
"You're only six months into your sentence, they're going to kill you at this rate," he sighs, stepping away from her to grab the ice. "Let me see if I can do something, get you placed somewhere you'll be safe-"
Kate's fingers hook on his lab coat and he pauses before he can cause her arm to tug, backtracks to the bed she's propped against.
"I'll never be safe, Castle," she confesses, the traces of a smile disappearing, the hint of gold just barely flickering in those eyes going dark. "I was set up, but they want me silenced. They want me dead."
His heart plummets, but he lowers his hand to his side, curls his fingers around hers and holds on.
"I'm not going to let that happen."
Kate sighs, but sits up, wincing as her dislocated shoulder is jostled. "You've been good to me, Rick. Thank you for that."
"Kate-"
"I should probably go back now," she whispers, easing off of the bed and swaying into him on unsteady feet, and Castle takes the forbidden opportunity to brush his lips to her bruised cheek.
He may have gone to med school, but he's a writer by heart, chose to work in a prison despite his other options, better options, because he sought the stories, the gritty details, the inspiration. But he had never truly found it until he met Kate Beckett.
"Just don't stop fighting, don't let them win, that's all I ask," he murmurs as he braces her with his hands on her waist.
Kate glances up to him, that spark of gold alive again.
"Didn't plan to."
It's less than a month later that he's accepting the crumple of her body from a panicked looking female guard, hoisting her into his arms and carrying her into his infirmary, laying her out gingerly atop one of the hospital beds.
"What happened?" he growls, roaming his gaze from the top of her head to the toes of her shoes, feeling his heart skitter painfully at the sight of blood staining her side.
"Found her in the yard, bleeding all over the grass," the guard rushes out, scraping a hand through her hair. "Listen, Doc, I try to keep an eye out for her, most of us do, but she has so many enemies that it's impossible to-"
"Okay, I get it, just - let me patch her up," Castle sighs, rolling up the hem of her white t-shirt, exposing the stab wound.
Stabbed in the side and left to bleed out alone, just like her mother.
Kate hisses as he begins to clean the wound with alcohol, still not fully conscious, but flickering back to life with the pain.
"Just hold on, Beckett," he murmurs, dragging over his tray of medical supplies. "It looks like they missed any internal organs, so I'll just clean out the wound and stitch-"
"Castle," she groans, one of her arms extending to reach for him, fingers snagging on the sleeve of his shirt, tears leaking from the corners of her closed eyes, into her hair.
"Oh Kate," he breathes, dusting his fingers along her face, the split lip and the gash to her cheek, the hot, swollen flesh of her eye socket. "Enough of this, Beckett. Enough."
"Rick," she manages, breathless, her eyes fighting to open, breaking his heart when they do. "I can't - can't take it. Too much, can't-"
Castle glances over his shoulder, ensures he has the room to himself, no stray nurses or guards outside the windows, and strokes her tangled hair back from her forehead with the hand that isn't stained in her blood, traces his thumb along the curve of her brow.
"You shouldn't have to, never should have had to," he murmurs, draping his palm at her uninjured side when she tries to turn, resting her cheek to the hand caressing her face. "You're super badass, don't get me wrong, but no one could take this day after day, Kate. Especially someone who's innocent."
"You're - only one here who believes me," she gets out, lashes fluttering, trying to stay awake. "All think - think I killed Bracken."
"I'm a writer, I can read a set up from a mile away," he quips, withdrawing to prepare the IV drip she's going to need. "I'm also a believer in justice and the pen being mightier than the sword, therefore, I promise to get you out of here, one way or another."
"Can't do that," she mumbles, watching him through slit lids as he returns with the IV line, accepts the arm she holds out to him. "Trouble."
"Have some faith," he huffs, inserting the needle with a murmured apology. "That's what all the great love stories are about, right? Beating the odds."
"Don't love me," she sighs, finally letting her eyes fall closed.
"Maybe not yet, but I'm pretty sure I could be well on my way," he muses, talking nonsense that isn't necessarily nonsensical at all, but she's delirious with pain and likely won't remember any of it when she wakes anyway.
"Not good," Kate slurs, the tension laced through her body slowly beginning to unwind. "Not a good idea to love me."
Castle bends and feathers a kiss to her forehead, the heat of her skin burning his lips. "Like I said, pretty sure it's too late."
It takes ten days for Kate to recover from the stab wound and severe series of beatings she took in the prison yard, and he does his best to make her stay in the infirmary last as long as possible.
"They're going to catch on, you know," she murmurs on the eleventh day when he walks in to check on her.
"Excuse me, do you want to go back into general population?" he huffs, setting her charts down on the table and pulling up a chair to her hospital bed. "Besides, you're my last patient of the day and it's too late to transfer you back tonight."
"I'm not complaining," she chuckles, sitting up and easing to the edge of the bed, letting her knees sit between his.
She's wearing pants, the navy blue set all inmates are given, but he knows beneath the starched fabric, the knobs of her knees have only barely began to return to normal size, are still doused with bruises that had practically colored her skin black.
"I don't want to send you back there."
Kate sighs, takes one of his hands from his lap and cradles it between hers. "I'll - it'll be okay, Rick."
He squares his jaw. "No, it won't, and we both know that. You'll be back here in a matter of days, if not sooner."
She keeps her gaze down, trained on his hand in hers, and he shakes his head, can't handle the idea of her showing up bruised, battered, and bleeding again, worse with every visit, destined to be on the brink of death by next month. But Kate catches the edge of his coat with her unoccupied hand when he moves to stand, walk away from her to get some air.
She has this horrible tendency to steal all the oxygen he needs, makes him dizzy with her warmth and the subtle scent of sweetness that clings to her skin beneath the generic soap, something like cherry blossoms, vanilla spice.
"Stay," she whispers, meeting his eyes before flicking hers to his mouth, tugging gently on his coat until he's leaning in. "It won't be okay," she concedes, tilting her chin upwards once he's close enough, brushing the tip of her nose along his. "But it is right now. I'm okay right now, I'm safe."
Rick cups her cheek in one of his palms, paints the purpled, paper thin skin beneath her eye with a brush of his thumb, before he finally presses his mouth to hers.
And all it takes is a kiss from Kate Beckett, the hum of her sigh and the stroke of her tongue, to convince him.
As his mother once told him jokingly when he took this job, true love is when you're willing to break someone out of prison. And it may have only been a few months so far, he may only be having the privilege of kissing her for the first time tonight in an empty infirmary, but he already knows his answer.
"I'll get you out of here, Kate," he whispers, his heart racing as they part, allowing their foreheads to kiss for a moment as she catches her breath.
Beckett shakes her head, but slips her hands to his neck, submerges her fingers in the fine hairs at the base of his skull, and seals another kiss to his mouth.
"Just stay with me tonight, Castle. We can talk about escape plans in the morning," she mumbles, and he knows she isn't serious, but he is.
He will get her out.
Kate falls asleep draped at his side, but he doesn't close his eyes, combing his fingers through her hair, following the too prominent line of her spine through her t-shirt, caressing the strip of skin between fabrics.
He doesn't want the first time he has the chance to actually be with her to be in an infirmary, in a prison, and the healing flesh along her side wouldn't benefit from anything more either. But he's more than content to hold her, to touch and explore while she sleeps, grinning when she wakes at four a.m with bleary eyes and a rare smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.
"Why don't the guards survey this place at night?" she whispers, shifting carefully to prop her chin atop his chest.
"Because, usually, prisoners aren't in this area. This is primarily the examination zone, patients stay in the next room over, so there's no reason to check here," he explains, resting his hand at the small of her back. "Kate, how much longer do you think you can make it out there?"
Her brow creases and she straightens a little more against him. "I don't know. Why? You're not… please tell me that escape talk was a joke, Castle."
"I have money, resources, I could… you could disappear, Kate. I could make it happen, I swear to you-"
"Rick," she whispers, her eyes falling closed with exasperation, but he cups the back of her head in his palm.
"You're serving 25 to life for murdering a man you didn't kill. You're not even a fraction into your sentence and you've been stabbed," he reminds her with a gentle squeeze to the back of her neck. "This isn't a bargain, not a debt, you wouldn't owe me anything. I just can't watch this anymore."
"Then don't. Let the other doctor treat me-"
"Hell no," he mutters, drawing a hand down her back, and Beckett shifts her hips, tightens the muscle of her thigh around his, and arches an eyebrow in challenge before she rolls her eyes at him.
"This isn't one of your books, Castle," she sighs, fisting her fingers in his shirt. "This isn't TV or a movie and being on the run, being a fugitive, isn't as effortless as it seems."
"You think I don't know that?" he scoffs. "I've done my research, spoken with a few reliable sources, and what I also know is that if you get out of the country, never settle in one place for too long, you can make it. Not to mention you're smart, resourceful - if anyone could do it, it's you, Beckett."
When she doesn't respond, training pensive eyes on his chest, Castle sits up, gingerly drags her into a sitting position with him.
"And in the meantime, maybe your lawyer, your friends at your old precinct, will get together the evidence they need to exonerate you," he adds, hope simmering bright in his chest. "The truth always comes out, conquers-"
Her eyes flash up to meet his, glimmering with something sharp and needful that he doesn't quite understand, but at least he has her attention.
"But you can't just sit here getting beat to death on a daily basis waiting for it to come to light," he reasons, pleads with her. "I need time, but I can make it happen, so tell me how much you think you can give me."
Kate drops her head to his shoulder, shudders out a breath that pools in his collarbone. "I wish my mom were here," she rasps and Castle wraps a gentle arm around her, presses his cheek to her temple. "She would have known exactly what to do."
Rick swallows, brushes his thumb over the rounded edge of her swallow. "What do you think she would say about this plan?"
He feels her suck in a shallow breath at his throat and then Kate is lifting her head, staring up at him with a devastating mixture of defeat and hope in her gaze.
"Six months at most. Three at least."
Relief floods his system and he cups her face as he kisses her, feels some of the tension drain from her body when he grins against her mouth.
"I can do that."
"So, three is looking a lot more probable at this point," Castle murmurs, probing her swollen knee with delicate fingers, trying to ignore the whimpers of pain she bites back with every touch. "Your kneecap is shattered, Kate."
"I never would have guessed," she grits out, breathing through her nose as he stands from his kneeling position, scanning the room, the unguarded window, before he cradles her jaw in his palm, holds his breath when she drops her forehead to rest against his sternum.
"I'll keep you here for a few days," he begins under his breath, tracing the shell of her ear with his thumb. "Then, if you can just have a little time to heal and can walk properly again, everything will be in place."
"When are you going to tell me the plan?" she breathes out, slowly withdrawing to look up at him, and he wishes he could keep her away from the danger for the rest of her stay in this hellhole, keep her safe and allow her a chance to actually sleep without one eye open.
"Once it's closer to being executed. My source-"
"Who is your source anyway?" she mutters, quirking her brow in question, but he narrows his gaze on her.
"Beckett, if I tell you who the mystery source is, it won't be a mystery anymore. Besides, feels kinda wrong to rat out an escaped con to a cop."
The corner of her mouth twitches before the hint of her smile turns rueful.
"A month," he says before she can dwell on her lost position, passion. "Just one more month and you'll be on your way to a private beach somewhere."
She sucks in a fortifying breath and nods. "Okay, how many days here?"
Castle casts another glance to the vibrant purples and blues painting her knee. "At least a week, maybe two. I'll try to keep you out of general population for as long as I can, love."
She shoots him an amused look. "Love, huh?"
But Castle only shrugs, ignores her narrowed gaze even as she tugs him close by his button down.
"Told you, Castle. Not a good idea."
"Hm, what?" he mumbles, playing dumb, dropping his eyes to her mouth.
"Loving me. Don't," she states, but Rick merely leans in, grazes his lips to the shard of her cheekbone.
"Told you, Beckett," he parrots. "Too late."
On the night of her planned escape, he has her stay in the infirmary for the nasty cut she had sustained to her side, too close to her stab wound for his comfort, but the wound is superficial, doesn't slow her down, and he makes the call.
"Okay, we need to go if we want to make the flight," Castle tells her, guiding her into the bathroom and handing her a pair of jeans, a sweater, and leather jacket with a pair of boots he really hopes fit.
"How?" she asks from behind the partially closed door, changing quickly, striding out of the bathroom looking like a civilian, looking normal, and he has to suppress his smile. "Castle?"
"That old woman, Mary Zigner, died earlier this evening. As far as the guards know, she hasn't been transferred to the county morgue yet, so no one would question if they saw me wheeling a body bag out to the parking lot," he explains, watching Kate's throat bob with apprehension. "All you have to do is lie in the body bag."
"Shit," she breathes, watching him step into the other room, grabbing the gurney with the black bag gaping open and waiting for her. "Castle, I don't know if I can-"
"I will be with you the entire time," he promises, reaching for the fist of her hand, stroking his thumb to her throbbing pulse point. "And I'll walk as fast as I can."
Kate steps forward without another word, lets him help her onto the gurney and situate her body inside the cocoon of the bag.
"Just breathe," he murmurs as he begins to zip it up, watching her eyes flutter closed as the zipper reaches her chin.
He makes quick work of wheeling the gurney through the infirmary halls, towards the nearest exit, running into the night guard, Jensen, only once and receiving nothing but a solemn nod and a single question.
"Taking Zigner out to the morgue, Castle?" the man inquires and Rick returns the somber acknowledgement with one of his own.
"Felt wrong to let her stay here overnight without proper preservation," he responds, and it wasn't a lie.
He had snuck Mary Zigner out during the guards' fifteen minute break that afternoon, thankfully had her transferred to the county morgue without issue. But no one else knew that, except for Kate's friend who also happened to be the medical examiner, Lanie Parish.
Castle doesn't unzip the bag until they reach his vehicle in the parking lot, calms her with the embrace of his hand over hers as she gasps in a shallow breath of cool night air.
"Just lay out in the backseat, okay?" he whispers, aiding her in her transfer from the gurney to the back of his suburban. "The drive to the airstrip in Jersey won't take long, promise."
Their drive is mostly made in anxious silence, Kate lying in worry and disbelief in the backseat, while he tries to remain calm, to not speed.
"If we make it, I'll owe you," she whispers when they're pulling into the abandoned lot behind the hangar. "For the rest of my life, Rick, I'll-"
"You don't owe me anything," he murmurs, putting the car in park, but Kate sits up, reaches for his shoulder and Castle drops his cheek to her fingers. "Come on, you need to be on that plane in five minutes."
He pops the trunk, opens his door, and goes around to retrieve the bag he packed for her.
"Wait," she starts, following him out of the car. "Castle-"
"There's clothing, toiletries, and enough cash to last you a while inside," he begins to explain as he approaches her with the carryon, but Kate stops him with her hands on his chest.
"Where's your bag, Castle?" she whispers, casting her eyes to the emptied trunk, fisting her fingers in his shirt.
"I - I can't come with you, not yet-"
"No," she rasps, but Rick drops the bag, stays her with his hands on her waist. "I can't just-"
"I told you from the beginning that this wasn't a debt, a bargain, and you don't owe me-"
"I thought we were partners in this," she hisses, staring up at him in the darkness as if he'd betrayed her, added another knife to the plethora already embedded in her back.
"We are," he agrees, desperate for that look in her eyes to dissipate. "This isn't goodbye, Kate. But it'll be easier for you to do this part alone, for me to catch up with you after, once the suspicion has died down."
She bites down on her bottom lip, but lifts tentative hands to his cheek, drops her forehead to the familiar resting place of his.
"I have to make sure Alexis and my mother are safe, that they'll have a way to see me again once things settle," he adds, knowing his daughter is a bit of a weak spot for her, a reoccurring argument between them, but it has her nodding nonetheless. "There's a burner in the bag and I have one of my own, it's the only number in your contacts."
"I never thought it'd be so hard to say goodbye to you," she chuckles, but her eyes are glistening like the stars peppering the night sky, and Castle closes the fraction of space between them to kiss her frowning mouth, hard and thorough until she's arching against him.
"Not goodbye," he repeats, panting against her lips, but turning quickly at the approach of footsteps, his hammering heart slowing from its potential panic at the sight of his pilot, sending a polite nod their way before he boards the plane. "Call me once you've landed safely. But don't tell me where you are, not until I know I can come to you."
Kate sighs, glances back to the plane that's rumbling to life, and squares her jaw with that familiar determination that always flares hot in her eyes.
"You better not get caught," she warns, arching on her toes to steal one last kiss from his mouth, nipping on his bottom lip and leaving him wanting more.
"Careful, Beckett, you're really starting to sound like you want me around," he teases, lowering his hands from her waist to retrieve her luggage, brushing his knuckles to the scar marring her side as she slings the bag over her shoulder. "Be safe."
"You too," she replies, catching his hand at her healed wound and lacing their fingers, squeezing hard. "Castle, I-"
"Rick, we need to take off," his pilot, Tony, calls from the plane's entrance, and Kate purses her lips.
"She's coming," he calls back, stepping in close to kiss the top of her head, savor the scent of her hair and the heat of her breath expelled into the hollow of his throat. "I love you, Kate. I'll see you soon."
"You better," she whispers, lifting her head and mustering a smile for him as she begins to pull away, walking backwards with a spark glittering gold in her eyes. "Because I'm not saying it back until you're on that private beach with me, Rick Castle."
It takes him nearly six months, six months of convincing his colleagues that he had no idea about Kate Beckett's escape, six months of waiting for the media coverage to die down, for the importance of Kate's capture to fade into yesterday's news, to assure his mother and daughter that he may be an idiot, but he had done it for justice above all else, finally earning their acceptance. Six months of too short phone calls with Kate in the middle of the night, of missing her.
Six months before he finally boards the same plane she had stepped onto, private and off the record, and flies to the third location she's migrated to during her time on the run.
His heart is an anxious bird in his chest, beating its wings too hard against the cage of his ribs when he arrives at the address she had murmured to him over the phone last night.
It's been over six months since he'd last seen her, since he had told her he loved her, and there was such a huge chance that she didn't feel the same, that she never had, that she has no interest in making room in her hectic life for him.
But when he reaches the seaside villa on the secluded beach of France, Kate Beckett is waiting for him on a set of white porch steps, the once pale, battered expanse of her flesh turned golden, the limp locks of her hair shining and streaked with sun, and the smile on her face genuine.
Castle lowers his suitcase to the sand as she stands, descends down the steps, and catches her bottom lip in her teeth.
"You made it," she grins, crossing the distance between them in quick strides. "Safe?"
"Seems that way," he nods, the bird of his heart breaking free when Kate collides with him, her arms around his neck and her cheek sealed against his. Castle bands his arms around her waist, feeling the strength in her body, rebuilt into her muscles, and pressed against him. "God, I missed you."
"Sorta missed you too," she breathes, grazing her smile along his cheek as her head turns, brushing it to his mouth, and he unwinds his arms from her body to cradle her face, to hold the apples of her cheeks in his palms.
"You look happy," he mumbles, touching his thumbs to the upturned corners of her mouth.
"I am happy," she admits, hooking her fingers around his wrists. "I'm free and you're here and we're on a beach in France. For now, there's nothing more I could want."
"Don't worry, Detective, we'll find a way for you to right the wrongs of the world soon enough," he muses, already knowing that a life of living on a beach will never be enough for her, that she needs a purpose, but, like she said, for now… this is all he wants too, to be standing in front of the ocean with Kate Beckett in his arms.
She shakes her head and takes a step back, but doesn't let him go, trailing her hands down his arms to interlace their fingers. "Alexis? Martha?"
"Safe and sound and accepting of my decisions," he answers, tracing her knuckles with his thumbs. "Are - are you?"
Her brow falls into that adorable furrow, but her eyes are alive with questions, and he swallows down his nerves.
"Listen, Kate, I know it's been a while and at the prison, I was the only guy around, so I understand if you don't - don't feel the same way as I did, as I do-"
"You think…" Kate casts her gaze to the waves lapping at the shore, something akin to amusement in her green eyes, but she's serious when she looks back to him. "I think you've gathered after over a year of knowing me that I don't believe in much, but I'd like to believe that if we'd met under different circumstances, we'd still end up here, anywhere, together." She tugs on their linked hands, draws him back into her personal space and he finally feels his nervous heart begin to slow and find peace. "You broke me out of prison, Castle. Of course I love you back."