A/N: An extended version of the scene where Beckett rescues Castle from near death at the hands of those hunting her.
She appears like an apparition, out of nowhere, running into the blurred lines of his vision and causing his heart to stop for a split moment. Castle fears he's hallucinating, that the after effects of the drugs and the hard hit he took from the female of his two captors has knocked him into a state of delirium. But if this is how he dies, it's only fitting that she is the last thing he sees.
His vision begins to clear, the edges still fuzzy, but clarified enough to ensure him that that is in fact Kate, his wife, shooting at the enemy, securing his safety seconds before she finally turns to him. Definitely not a hallucination.
Her eyes are sharp, focused and brimming with determination, but they soften a fraction once they snag his, her entire face rippling with a mixture of relief and dread that he yearns to understand.
Beckett comes for him in three long strides, dipping forward to throw the bleeding woman's gun out of reach and dropping to her knees beside him, cradling his face in her hands, and it's so surreal to have her touch on his skin, to have her right in front of him again.
"Castle," she breathes, her thumb grazing his cheek as her eyes sweep down his face, over the length of his body. "Are you okay?"
"Where have you been?" Is the first thing he gets out, a bubbling well of anger and panic and terror and need rising up in his chest. "Why haven't you called?"
The skin of her cheeks is dirty, a dark streak running down the side of her face, and her hair has that oily look to it, as if she hasn't washed it in days despite that it's only been hours. It's her eyes that pour gasoline on the flame of his panic, though, the wide-eyed look of fear circling her dilated pupils, consuming everything.
"I couldn't."
His entire body is aching from the blow, his hands still shaking from the long minutes of torture and the adrenaline rush that followed, but he reaches for her thigh, curls his fingers into the denim stretched across her hamstring.
"Kate, what's going on?"
"I-" Her mouth opens, the words brimming on the tip of her tongue, but her brow is furrowing, the conflict weighing her down and she shakes her head, lifts her eyes to his once more. She's going to tell him, he knows it, and he skims his hand up to her side in encouragement, but pauses at the hot spread of a stain just below her ribs.
Castle's eyes dart to the path of his hand, unable to see in the darkness, but his worst fears are confirmed when she winces.
"Kate, what happened?" he demands, his other hand flying up to cup her shoulder, drawing her in closer until she hovering over him, her forehead sealed to his. "You - the dry cleaners. You stitched yourself up."
She nods, her lips pursing. "Shot. Graze."
"Shot?" he echoes, the horror twisting his intestines into knots. Not again. "Where? How?"
"A graze, Rick. Just a graze," she breathes, the heat of her breathe rushing past her lips soothing him, the curl of her fingers in the fine hairs at the base of his skull almost enough to make it okay.
Almost.
The shame rises like bile in her throat at the look she's put on his face, the overwhelming concern and remorse as his eyes stare unseeing into the burning spot beneath her ribs. Her stitches had torn, all of the running and quick movement too much for the thread holding her together, but the pain had been nonexistent the second she had seen the unconscious woman behind them kick her husband to the ground.
"I should have been there," he grits out, his fingers drifting away from her side and up to her face, his palm covering her cheek, suffusing warmth into her skin. "You should have told me. We're partners, Kate-"
"I couldn't-" she croaks, pressing in closer, their noses nudging and her spine curving into a bow over him. She's so tired, so tired of running and hiding in shadows, hiding from him. Lying to him. She wants to go back to this morning, before that phone call came in and splashed her insides with ice water, back to his sweet smile and that beautiful bracelet she had left like a breadcrumb at the crime scene. "I love you. I have to protect you, to-"
"I don't need protecting," he growls, his fingers knotting in the unraveling bun of her hair. "We're supposed to be a team, but you – you lied to me."
"I-" She chokes on the single syllable, at the hurt staining his tone, the indignation in the frown lines bracketing his mouth. She had promised no more lies, never between them, had promised herself too after a bombing case and secrets had threatened to break them before they had ever even began. But this… this had left her with no choice. "Everything I'm doing, Rick. It's only to keep you safe. Always to keep you safe."
"Then tell me what you're doing," he demands, and Kate takes a deep breath, a summarized version of the explanation for the last twelve hours of madness forming on her tongue.
But the second she opens her mouth, the scream of sirens sends her jerking upwards, panic flaring in her chest. They can't find her, can't help, not yet, not yet-
"I gotta go."
"No, no, Kate, Kate," he begs and she can't turn away from him when he pleads with her like this, desperation so prevalent in the rushed spill of her name, in the clutch of his fingers around her forearm. "Why are you shutting me out?"
And he looks so much like a little boy then, so lost and afraid, and she's seen this expression before, has felt the pang it shoots through her heart in the past, but this time, it has the bruised organ in her chest shattering, jagged pieces piercing her lungs, cluttering her ribcage.
Her eyes sting and she surges forward, memorizing the feel of his face between her palms once more as she holds him there, speaks what could be her final words.
"Castle, I love you."
She smears a kiss to his lips, hopes with everything she has that he can feel how deeply she loves him through the press of her mouth and that he can taste her apology.
"Kate," he gets out as she forces herself up, her palm grazing his chest, skimming over the pound of his heartbeat as she ascends to her feet, escaping the grasp of his reaching hand, and starts for the exit. "Kate-"
Her name is an echo behind her, the sounds of his struggle ripping her insides to shreds, but she keeps going, has to keep going to protect him, to keep him safe. So she grits her teeth past the burn in her side from the bullet, blinks past the sting in her eyes, and quickens her pace.
It's arguably the hardest thing she's ever done, but she doesn't look back.