sempiternal:
(adj.) eternal and unchanging; everlasting.
"C-castle," she gets out through the harsh chatter of her teeth, squaring her jaw to still the violent trembling as he collides with the steel of the door for what has to be the hundredth time. "It's not going to budge."
Beckett watches him step back from their only exit, scowling at the unmoving metal, and if she could feel anything at all, she'd be impressed by the massive dents the slams of his shoulder have made in the interior, but neither his body nor her bullets have made a difference. They've been trapped in this freezer for a solid half hour and she's beginning to feel the spread of numbness through her fingers, the exposed pieces of her skin, leaching through her bones.
She knows the symptoms of hypothermia, knows the three phases – mild, moderate, and severe. And she knows where they'll soon end up on that scale at this rate.
Shockingly, Castle has yet to suffer the effects of the cold, still moving without issue, still breathing normally, still fighting. She chalks it up to his larger size, the extra body heat, hates him a little for it as she sits shivering against the wall, wishing he'd come share some of that excess warmth with her.
"Rick," she whispers, his name a labored breath falling past her lips, and he turns on his heel, his eyes shifting from a terrified midnight, dark as the night with bright strikes of worry like shooting stars, to an electric, almost unnatural blue.
"Oh Kate," he breathes, shrugging his coat off and she immediately begins to shake her head.
"No, don't," she rasps, but she gravitates towards him when he drops down beside her, seeking that wealth of heat he seems to possess. "You'll - freeze."
"I won't," he swears to her, but she still resists the drape of his coat until he's wrapping it around her, blanketing her in the extra layer of wool. Prolonging the inevitable. "I'm fine, Beckett. Promise."
"Then just - just come here," she mumbles, hooking her fingers in the front of his dress shirt, and Castle complies without hesitation, settles down on the floor next to her and bands an arm around the coiled ball of her body. "Shared body heat."
"Doesn't that require us to get naked?" he quips and her chapped lips crack into a grin against his neck.
"N-not this time, Castle," she murmurs, curling into him, sighing in relief she doesn't have the energy to hide when his arms bundle her tight against his chest.
He gasps, loud and overdramatic, and squeezes her shoulder. "We definitely have to survive this now if there's a chance at a next time."
"We'll make it. H-have to." Kate nuzzles in closer, her brow furrowing at the lack of reaction when the frozen tip of her nose touches his throat, when he fails to shiver or brace his body against the cold. "You already feel like ice."
Castle releases a quiet exhale against her temple, slips his hand inside the cocoon of his coat and rubs his palm up and down her arm to create friction, generate heat. "So do you."
"I can't feel anything," she slurs, pursing her lips, moving her tongue against her teeth, but even the cavern of her mouth feels as if it's going numb, going cold. "I - I always thought being a cop, I'd take a bullet."
"Kate," he murmurs, pressing his cheek to her forehead, adjusting the hood of her jacket over her head and trying to cover her ears.
"I never thought I'd freeze to death," she confesses, fear a subtle spark in the pit of her stomach, smothered by the slosh of ice within seconds.
"Hey, we're still here," he argues softly, the stroke of his knuckles to her cheek so smooth, not even a slight tremble in his touch, but maybe she's just imagining the grace of his movements.
It's not like she can accurately determine anything right now, the chill layering over her brain like a blanket, the frigid temperature of the freezer coating her mind in a frosty haze.
"I just wish… wish this was one of your books and you could rewrite the ending," she rasps, blinking when her eyes fall shut and forget to reopen.
She thinks he holds her tighter, attempts to burrow her body in deeper against his, but she can't tell, can barely do more than stare up at him with eyes that threaten to slide shut and stay that way. "I'm sorry, Kate."
"For what?" she asks in confusion, wishing she had the energy to snag the hand brushing her arm, cradle it to her chest.
"For being me, for going rogue, not being fast enough, letting this happen. I could have – I never should have called you, gotten you into this. I'm so sorry. This is all my fault-"
"No, Castle, shh," she soothes, reaching upwards to touch her fingers to his chin, unable to feel the skin beneath, uncertain whether or not she accomplishes her goal as her eyelids fall closed beneath the worsening weight of the cold. "We found the bomb. Just… just too late, okay?"
"I'll get you out of here," he whispers, the dull press of his lips to her forehead all she can register apart from his words. "I promise, Kate. I'll get us out-"
"Castle," she interrupts, forcing the lids of her eyes to part one last time, just once more… "Thank you. For being there."
Castle's hand closes around her fingers at his chin, touches the tips of them to his lips, and it's such an odd sensation, able to see, but unable to feel the innocent kiss to her skin.
"Always."
The corner of her mouth twitches and she musters her breath for more, words she wants to leave him with, but her heart is thudding like a dying thing against her ribs, short circuiting and turning her lungs to shards of ice that crack with every inhale.
"I just want you to know how much I…"
Her fingers trip downwards, but she doesn't know where they land, only that the cold is closing in, the darkness weighing her down, and she sinks deeper into Castle's embrace, drifts to the sound of his voice calling her name.
"Kate, hey," he calls, his desperation beginning to grow and spread like poison through his veins. "Stay with me."
He nudges her, willing her to wake, but her skin is practically blue, her body limp in his arms, and Castle cradles her cheek in his palm, touches his fingers to the dull proof of life beneath her jaw. Her pulse is waning, succumbing to the chill of the freezer, and weakening with every passing second.
"No," he whispers, holding her tighter against him, as if that will help, but he's absolutely useless to her. He can't break down the door, can't protect her from the cold or keep her alive long enough for the cavalry to ride in and save them.
He can't even offer her warmth.
"Kate, you have to wake up," he pleads softly, shifting her body in his arms. "You can't just - you're not allowed to die. Not you."
But she can't hear him, too far under, and Castle glances back towards the freezer's door, one of the few surfaces he's faced in this lifetime that he can't breach with his bare fists. He could try again, keep beating against the steel until something happens, but that would mean leaving Kate's side, unable to monitor the decline of her pulse, the struggling beat of her heart drumming loud and ever present through his skull, but consistently fading. It's all fading.
The flood of her blood is beginning to slow from its usual rush beneath her flesh, the heat of it dropping quickly, her temperature threatening to match his within minutes. Her organs would fail soon, her brain function would cease, and her heart would stop, leaving him alone with the shell of the woman he loves, awaiting death without her.
He refuses to accept it.
"Come on, Kate," he urges, standing with her body still cradled against his chest. She's dead weight in his arms, unmoving, and he wracks his brain, searches through the archives for a solution, for anything other than waiting for help that may never come.
But any potential choice, any other decision, is stolen from him within minutes of pacing the ice encrusted floors, critically assessing the walls for a weakness, when he senses her heartbeat begin to stutter and die out.
Dying, she was dying.
Castle grinds his teeth to suppress his panic, dropping to his knees to lay her gently across the floor, contemplating the idea of CPR, but he's afraid he may break her ribs with the force of his chest compressions, her body too fragile for the strength of his shaking hands. He can't remember the last time in the past 200 years that his hands shook. Can't recall ever losing the careful grip of his control to the consumption of fear and desperation, imagined grief.
There are only two options: let her die, peacefully, naturally, like a human should, or save her life by damning her at the same time. Both were permanent, both detrimental in their own way, and he only wants to do right by her, do what Kate would want.
But rarely does he have any idea what Kate Beckett truly wants from him.
Castle unwraps the blanket of his coat from around her stiffening frame, feathers his hand over the center of her chest, press his fingers to the collapsing beat of her heart.
Can he really bear to live without her?
Her heart goes silent.
