A Willow Bending
It has been a while since she has stepped foot in the office. Not much about the area has changed; there's still the soft light from around the blinds and the bookshelves behind his chair and a quietness that could always find a way to calm her down. She hadn't thought she'd be back, honestly.
But she needs it now. Maybe more than ever.
She can't pull her legs up onto the leather chair but she does slip her shoes off, curling her stocking feet against the warm rug. Even sitting in the soft chair hurts, makes her bow over, elbows resting on her thighs. Her shoulders cry in pain but she pushes it back.
"Want to tell me what happened, Kate?"
Her breath hitches as she shakes her head. "No." Her bandaged hand reaches up to brush over her jaw, tripping over the butterfly bandages at her cheek before she pushes at her hair. "But I need to. That's why I'm here."
He's silent. It worked those years before and she knows it'll work now. She has changed but not that much.
"I don't… I don't know where to begin."
"What was the case?"
"No," she says into the phone, getting out of the car. "Stay in your meeting, Castle. Just serving a warrant and I'll meet you at the restaurant."
She can't stop the smile when he whispers a quick 'I love you' before hanging up. God, she had hoped she'd never turn into this sappy person who missed Castle even though they had seen each other that morning. But now that she did miss him, she didn't mind it so much.
Shaking the smile off her face – she's a cop serving a warrant, arresting a drug dealer, for goodness sake – she steps up onto the porch outside the house. She takes the folded paper from her back pocket before raising her hand to knock on the front door.
The guy answers, wearing leather loafers, pressed pants, and a button-up that is anything but buttoned over his chest. "Hello, Detective," he says smoothly. "I take it you've come to bring me back to Manhattan."
"Turn around, Mr. Foster," Beckett demands, stepping closer to the man as she unsnaps the handcuffs from her belt.
He spins, facing the door, putting his hands at the small of his back. "No need to be gentle, Beckett." His cocky grin leads when he glances over his shoulder. "I've heard you like it when guys take charge. That true?"
She brushes it off, keeping her face wiped of emotion, as she snaps one of the cuffs over his wrist. "You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say ca –"
The baseball bat hits her knees hard, making her buckle. She loses grip of the handcuffs as she reaches for the doorframe to stop her fall. The next swing comes across her shoulders, clipping the back of her head and making lights dance across her eyes.
No. You cannot give in. Not like this. Not after hanging up with your… Castle.
But her body isn't working, stuck on her hands and knees in the door of the house in Staten Island.
"How's this for taking charge, Detective?" the other man asks from over her, tapping the bat against her side. She flinches away from the metal. "You liking this?"
Move. She needs to move. Her fingers scramble against the wood of the floor as her body fights for air.
A hand coasts down her side, fumbling along her belt until it finds the key ring. Foster rips the keys off, taking the dark grey belt loop of her dress pants along with it. There's a jangle of metal on metal as he shakes the cuffs free.
Her blood goes cold when the metal clicks around her wrists after he pulls them back behind her.
"Up," he says. When she doesn't move he yanks on her hair. "I said up."
She nearly falls again as she fights to get to her feet. Her shoulders sing. Her stomach rolls with the slam of the front door as it closes.
Her phone vibrates in her jacket pocket. Foster takes it out, throws it on the ground next to her feet. "See that?" His foot comes down on top of it, smashing the screen. She flinches as her one safe-line is destroyed, kicked off into another room. "You're mine, Beckett," he whispers over her shoulder. "There's no help for you."
She plays with her options quickly. Either keep quiet and pray he doesn't do much or taunt him until he slips up.
Beckett goes with the second choice as Foster shoves her down a hall. "My team will notice I'm not back."
Foster laughs, dark and humorless, as he opens a door to the basement. "They'll never find you."
"Is the PTSD back?" he asks softly, drawing her eyes up from the ground.
A wave of fear sweeps over her. If she wasn't already curled over in half, she is certain she would crumble. "It's not the same. As before."
"How so?"
"It's a little easier." She takes a deep breath, focusing herself. "I didn't deny it this time. I couldn't, not when Castle was always there. I just had to face it."
Burke nods, slowly and with a calm that always had reassured her of the man. "Did that help?"
"Not really. I… There are nightmares still. It kills me." She has to pause as she struggles to get the words to come out. Because if she says it, it's real. "It kills me that they wake him up. That he has to see me like that again. And I can't stop them." She tips her head back, refusing to let the tears fall. "Every morning, I see the circles under his eyes and how he needs an extra cup of coffee before he's truly awake. I caught him asleep in the break room the other day."
"Have you two talked about what happened in the basement?"
"He doesn't need to know," she insists with more iron in her voice than she's been able to manage in a long time.
Burke shakes his head. "I think he does. I think it would help him to know just what you went through." Before she can protest, he continues. "He's a writer. His imagination is most likely carrying him off with scenarios, some much worse than the truth. You need to tell him, Kate. He needs to know in order to stop the 'what ifs' and come to grips with the truth."
Her breath shudders out and she frantically reaches up to brush away the tears. "I don't know how."
"He loves you?"
It draws a miniscule smile when she whispers. "Yes. God, yes."
"So he'll understand," he says quietly. "If he loves you, nothing will change that."
"Don't let him in," she grinds out from between clenched teeth. "Do not let him in." She can almost see the hesitation, the look that she knows the two other officers are exchanging.
"Beckett, he's not gonna stop for long," Ryan says. "You know that."
It hurts to breathe. It hurts to think. She can't deal with Castle right now.
"Yeah. Just hold off as long as you can."
The door clicks but she can hear Castle starting to yell at both of the guys. And then there's a loud bang as the door hits the wall. Obviously Ryan and Esposito didn't hold him off for long though she gives them credit for shouting after him.
"Beckett!"
She reaches out a hand, feeling the air until her fingers connect with warm skin. His outline is blurry, a dark area next to the bed.
She hadn't known how much she needed him here until that moment.
"I'm okay," she manages, voice rough and quiet. "Hear me, Castle? I'm okay."
His fingertips trace over her cheek gently, carefully avoiding the left side of her face as he tips her face toward his. His words feather over her as he touches his forehead oh so softly to hers. "They wouldn't tell me anything. Something about us not being related and they could only tell family members and God, Beckett…"
She closes her eyes – it doesn't do anything, it was fuzzy and dark to begin with but it does sting a little – when she angles her mouth up to brush it over his. It only lasts a few seconds before she can't hold her head up any longer. "I didn't want you here," she says. His hesitation, the moment of heartbreak, is palpable. "But I was wrong. Stay?"
"Oh, you couldn't move me from this spot."
The door opens, far less violently this time. "Detective Beckett? I'm Doctor Theresa Lehane. And this is…?"
"Richard Castle," she responds before he can answer. "He's with me."
"Okay." The chair squeaks as she sits. Beckett can hear her heels click on the tile. "You've got a mid-grade concussion which is why you have fleeting blindness at the moment. There's a hairline fract -"
"Wait. You can't see?" Castle's hand squeezes hers until she gasps. "Beckett, you can't -"
"Not really, no," she says calmly. "Let the doctor continue."
He twines his fingers with hers. He needs the connection and she could stand having someone supporting her.
"You have a blowout fracture in your left eye socket. Strained shoulder muscles. There are two knife wounds that we're worried about. One's across your back, another along your cheek. Both of them are pretty deep so there's a high risk of infection."
"Go back to the part where she's blind," Castle says.
The doctor's voice is calm, a counterpoint to the panic in Castle's. "It's a normal side effect from a concussion. There'll probably be headaches, nausea, some balance problems, and sensitivity to light and noise in the coming days as well." There's the scratch of a pen on a pad of paper. "I'll give you some pain meds for your shoulders and the eye. Just take it easy for the next few weeks until you're cleared by the physical therapist for full duty."
Left alone, silence hangs in the air. She can feel his fingers circling against her wrist, careful of the IV. When she turns her head down, trying to force her eyes to focus on their hands and only succeeding in making her left eye ache, Beckett sighs.
"What do you want?" he asks, bringing her hand up so his lips can press to the knuckle of her thumb.
"To go home. I just want to go home." She finds his outline next to her. "Can we?"
He hums, moving his lips to the corner of her mouth briefly. "Let me go talk to the nurse."
She knows he'll have questions. He's not going to let her dodge them with half-answers or teasing jokes to deflect the seriousness of the situation.
As soon as she can deal with what happened herself, she'll share.
Beckett turns her phone back on once she leaves Burke's office. There are five messages from Castle, ranging from corny jokes to complaints about the signing he was at. There's even a photo of a security guard dragging a pair of girls away with the corresponding question asking whether she was one of those girls at some point. The laugh bubbles up, escaping from between the fingers she has pressed to her lips.
The clock says he should be just getting out of the bookstore so she hits the speed dial, holding the phone to her ear as she starts toward the apartment. She's still on edge, eyes coasting over every face that she passes. Every jostle of her shoulder makes her wince even as she spins to see who it was. Just in case.
"I am starving," is the first thing that comes through the earpiece.
"Don't they feed you during those things?" she asks, crossing against the light after glancing down the street and finding it devoid of traffic. "Or do they deprive you of food so you'll faint and draw a larger crowd?"
She can almost see his grin. "Not usually but don't let Gina hear that. She'd be completely for that idea. You leaving Burke's?"
"Yeah. Meet you at the apartment?"
"Will there be food?"
"You'll have to show up to solve that mystery. See you in a while?" she asks, pausing at the corner with a group of tourists.
When he says he'll be back in thirty minutes, she changes course. Not enough time to cook but she can get take-out. She calls the restaurant from the back of the cab, ordering their food. Telling the cab driver to keep the meter running, Beckett ducks through the deep violet door of the restaurant. With the bag of food in one hand, she's resting her elbow on the counter as the hostess swipes her credit card when her name is called out.
Maddie nearly gives her a hug before taking in the gauze around Beckett's wrists, the bandages on her face. "What happened to you?"
"Bad case," Beckett says, moving in for the hug that Maddie had halted. "Just getting dinner for Castle and me."
"Geez. Scoot over, Joan. I'll ring Becks up," Maddie says, nudging the other girl out of the way. "And grab two slices of cheesecake with the raspberries." When Joan disappears into the back of the restaurant, Maddie smiles. "Free of charge. You look like you need something sweet."
Beckett takes back the card, sliding it into her wallet. "Thanks, Maddie. I'll owe you."
Joan gives Maddie the plastic box with the cheesecake and Maddie hands it to Beckett. "You owe me nothing. Go let that man take care of you."
He's not home when she unlocks the front door, opening it with her hip as she balances the bag of food and the cheesecake. She's already vibrating with nervous energy so it takes all of her focus to not drop the plates as she takes them down. The steak and potatoes don't look nearly as pretty as they would in the restaurant as she transfers them from the plastic take-out containers to the porcelain plates.
She has them in the microwave for a quick heat-up when the door opens, squeaking a little. He hangs his keys on the tiny hooks along the wall, dropping the bag and jacket on the ground on the way to the kitchen.
"Hey," she starts, licking butter off her thumb before he grabs her up in a hug. The bandage along her back pulls a little but she pushes the pain back; they both need the comfort more than she wants him to let go.
He's lifting her up off her feet, his mouth touching her neck. She closes her eyes, letting her head fall to rest on his. She knows it's hard for him to leave her in the city alone after what happened once he hung up that time.
The microwave beeps and he puts her down. "You got food."
"Q3. Maddie says hi, by the way," she says, taking the plates from the microwave and setting them on the coffee table in the living room. Castle is reaching for the handle to the wine cooler when she grabs his wrist. "I need to talk first. Wine later?"
He looks confused but she's thankful that he doesn't push. Instead he gets water from the filtered pitcher in the fridge. He sits first and she knows it's because he wants her to pick the distance between them. She wants to be close but she needs to separate herself from him if she wants to get through this. So she compromises, sitting just near enough that she can touch him if she reaches out but not so that she is on top of him.
"Castle, I…"
"Are you breaking up with me?" he interrupts.
Could her story top breaking up with him? Would he want to cast her away as someone far too broken after he hears? Her hesitation has his face falling. "No," she says quickly. "I… I need to tell you about the basement."
"Beckett…"
"I need to. I know I said I didn't want to talk about it but I think we both need to hear it." She swallows, glancing at the ceiling for a moment before diving in. "He hit me with a metal baseball bat. Twice. Once along the shoulders, though he got a bit of my head in that swing, and against the back of my knees. He handcuffed me, walked me downstairs to the basement." She can picture the place, can almost smell the mildew. "Foster wanted the names of the witnesses against him in the trial. The first thing he did was this," she says, tapping the bandage along her cheek. "A warning, he said, of what would happen if I didn't tell him everything."
She can feel his fingertips on her upper arm. She can't bring herself to acknowledge them as she pushes on as detected as possible. "Then came the beating. Baseball bat again or his fists. Can't really remember which. I think that's when he broke my eye socket. He forced my arms backwards which is how I ended up with the strained shoulders and the wrist lacerations."
When Castle's hand touches her elbow, she gives in. She uses the cushions to get closer, to wedge her shoulder under his as he wraps his arm around her. "He must have heard Ryan and Esposito upstairs because the knife came out again. Might have been a last-ditch effort to get me to say something before the boys got down to the basement." She gives a short laugh, smiling against his navy dress shirt. "Didn't work. Thank goodness for Gates's policy of calling in our locations."
"Kate," he chokes out, angling his head so he can see her face, devoid of tears. "Did he…?"
She's quick to shake her head, tipping her face up to meet his eyes. "No. No, Castle. No. The boys got there before he could do… No."
He shudders as he places a kiss on her lips. "Good."
"He's going to prison. His drug dealing charges have the added charge of kidnapping and attempted murder of a police officer now." She tugs away from him, picking up one of the plates and holding it out to him. "Can we eat?"
Castle takes the plate and silverware as she picks up the other. He does bring her close again, working to balance the food and keep her pressed to his side. "Why'd you tell me? You said you weren't going to."
"Burke thought it might help with the PTSD. Clear the air and things like that. He also said something about your writer's imagination carrying you away with worst case scenarios, that it might actually be better with you knowing rather than having your mind just guess at what happened."
"Hey," he says, potato halfway to his mouth. "That imagination comes in handy sometimes. Like when I figure out how to rock your world tonight without hurting your back?"
She cuts off a piece of her steak, shrugging one shoulder. "Believe it when I see it."
"Then eat up. You'll need your strength," he teases. Then he shifts his silverware to one hand, using the free one to turn her head up. "I'd love you through anything. You know that, right?"
And then the tears push at her lids as she blinks at him. "Yeah. Same goes."