Close Encounters 10: Living Daylights
Richard Castle couldn't sleep. He should; he knew he should. But the echoes of her breathing and the slow trickle of water over stone were the opposite of lulling. Not soothing, not comforting, but a reminder of all they stood to lose.
It was only mid-afternoon and he planned to start their long journey home the instant it fell dark. She'd nursed a nutrition shake all morning as she had sat in the pale light coming into the mouth of the cave. Castle had done quick recons, searching for hiding places and possible cut-throughs, ways to get around the Russian encampment.
He wanted to avoid bloodshed if he could, keep from alerting the Russians that there were armed agents let loose on the steppe. But he was afraid it would be unavoidable. And the moment Castle killed a scout party was the moment they were truly on the run.
As it was, it was going to be hard enough to get to where he'd stashed the farm truck. Kate was just not in condition for this, and Castle himself had maybe three days worth of rations before it affected him as well. If they could go from water source to water source, he'd be okay. He'd make it. But he didn't think Beckett could travel that far each day.
So first on his mind - the Russians. Second - the food situation. And third - the miles they could conceivably cover.
Finally - and it seemed the worst of all - there was just no cover. The Russian steppe was filled with grassland from here to that farm truck he'd had to dump, and line of sight was clear to the horizon.
No cover.
They'd be spotted miles and miles away and there was nowhere to hide. It looked impossible.
And so he couldn't sleep.
When Beckett woke, it was with a violence and panic that she'd not felt in days.
"Just me, just me," he whispered.
Her madly beating heart shook her whole body, but she realized it'd been a dream. A wolf and a blackening fire. A gun. Radiation. A jumbled mess of fears. But if she was dreaming again, she was on her way back to healthy, right? If her mind could draw up her fears, then it wasn't so concerned with keeping her body from shutting down.
She was going to take it as a good sign.
"You sleep?" she murmured back to him, the darkness in the cave making it easier to hide from each other. "Castle."
"Some."
Not that he couldn't function on little sleep - he could, and so could she; they were professionals - but it was good to know. What his limits might be, where she might have to think ahead.
"You?" he breathed out.
"I don't know, Castle. You were watching me sleep. What do you think?"
He chuckled in the pitch black stillness of the hideout, and then she felt his lips glancing off the corner of her mouth, the warm breath as it skated across her cheek. She raised her hand to meet him, curled her fingers at his neck to feel the slow thump of his pulse.
"Rick," she murmured.
He stayed right where he was, paused for her. She found her courage, what strength she could muster, and she palmed his neck, brushed her nose against his.
"I love you," she said, letting him know. Just in case.
"Kate," he rasped out, and then he wrapped his arms around her tightly, drew her up out of the sleeping bag and into his lap. "I won't say it. I won't. This isn't the end."
She couldn't find an answer to that.
If she'd wanted to rip him open and pull out his guts before they even started this ordeal, then she'd been a rousing success.
Saying good-bye in the darkness like a ghost. So not cool, Beckett.
He ignored her as she crawled in the darkness behind him, ignored the way her breath came rough and quick, ignored the fumbling as she steadied herself on the rock. Ignored it. He wouldn't let the possibility for failure enter his mind. She could do this. He could do this for her.
Rick Castle hadn't come back to Russia only to lose her now.
He reached back and grabbed her by the collar of her coat, dragged her up out of the tunnel with him into the broader cavern. She got to her feet clumsily, but she stayed. She was there.
He dropped his hand and stepped away from her, but she was steady. "Let me check before we head out," he murmured.
"Can you see?"
"I've got the goggles," he said and pushed down them down over his eyes. "Stay right there."
She did, and Castle pushed towards the entrance, picking up his feet. He got down in a crouch and belly crawled out into the night, scanning the horizon with the goggles. The flare of green showed him the Russian camp, and he took a deep breath out to calm himself.
Steady. Every step of the way had to be certain. Castle took in the landscape, mentally plotted out every point of their trek back towards the farm truck he'd liberated. He'd hidden it well, but he wasn't going to hinge their escape from Russia on it being there. If it wasn't, he needed a back-up plan.
He wasn't sure yet what that would be, but he had time to think.
After a few minutes, he felt Kate come settle at his hip, her forehead against the curve of his rib. He took a breath and felt her close, felt her grip on his jacket. She didn't say anything so he didn't either, just continued to map the horizon. He knew from watching the camp that there were five guards, four posted and one wandering, and it took only moments to track the first three. The guard posted at the north was on the other side of the camp, and they should never run into him.
She squeezed his hip and he pushed the goggles up, turned his head back to her.
The darkness of the cavern was complete, but he thought for a moment there was a flash of her teeth in a smile, probably trying to reassure him.
"You ready?" he said.
"Yes."
And he told himself to believe her.
It really wasn't that bad. Her chest was tight with a creeping fatigue and she knew she was depending on Castle to be her eyes and ears, but it was pitch black out here anyway. Wasn't like having five more days worth of nutrition shakes was going to help that situation.
She'd had her fingers tucked into his waistband at first, but it hadn't been ideal. Now she trailed only a foot behind him, listening for his quiet commands as he warned her about the rough terrain. It'd only be another few miles as they went over the ridgeline, and then they'd be well into the grassland.
It was cold and her breath was noisy, but she ignored that. Nothing she could do about it and she couldn't waste her energy trying to modulate her breathing. She needed to breathe, had to breathe, and she'd take whatever she could get.
The ground was rough and she kept stumbling. Wasn't like her, but she knew the clumsiness was due to her condition, knew her muscles wouldn't coordinate as fast she was used to, if at all. She concentrated on following Castle as precisely as she could and picking up her feet.
She trusted Castle to know when they were in danger.
"Becks, how goes it?"
"Good," she rasped back, heard her own voice shaky and weak. She winced and cleared her throat. "I'm good."
"Okay. Can we pick it up?"
Pick it up? They weren't already going the pace he thought they ought to? "Yes," she gritted out. "Yes. You lead, Castle; I'll follow."
"When you can't, you tell me."
"Yes," she said.
"Beckett."
"Yes. I'll tell you."
"Because I will carry you. I can carry you tonight, probably even tomorrow. But after that... And you may not be able to handle it later either. So-"
"I got it, Rick."
He didn't say anything more and she chose to accept that he believed her.
She'd push it as far and as long as she could, but she knew she couldn't afford to be stupid. She'd tell him.
Shit.
Russians.
"Drop, Kate," he hissed, reaching back and dragging her down with him.
Castle felt her land on top of him, his back crunching hard against the rock, his elbows jarred where they met the ground. She was breathing hard over him, and he cradled the back of her head as he turned them, laying over her now, bracing himself on his raw elbows.
He had to stop paying more attention to her than to their surroundings. His fault they'd gotten so close.
He felt her hand slide down his back, shove against the pack tight at his spine, and then her fingers tucked into his pants and drew his weapon.
He froze.
She brought the gun between them and her eyes were glittering in the darkness. Wordless, she handed it over to him, and he took it slowly, wrapping his fingers around the grip.
And then he saw she had the knife.
That scared the shit out of him. These guys were not getting close enough for Beckett to use that damn knife. Her fucking hand was shaking. No way. No.
He gnashed his teeth and pressed his knee down into her wrist, kept her there; he felt her curl under him, a brief struggle, and then she released her fingers and dropped the knife.
When he was sure, he let his knee up and kept his eyes on the three men making their slow way across the rocks. He couldn't tell from this distance if they were Army, but their lack of formation and the general looseness to their walk made him think not.
Beneath him, Kate let out a long breath and sucked in another one, so he lowered his head to hers, cheeks brushing so that his mouth was at her ear.
"Natives, sweetheart. We'll just hunker down here and keep out of their way."
She let out a quick breath and then her fingers were wrapping at the back of his knee in a grip so tight, so fierce, that he'd never forget.
Never.
How the relief poured out of her.
It was harder to get up off the ground than she expected, but he hauled her to her feet and held her for just a second, letting her get her bearings. The knife was back in its sheath at her thigh; she wouldn't let him take it away. She let Castle go ahead of her a few steps and she settled back into the rhythm of walking through the darkness.
She was going to have to filch one of his guns when she had a chance. He couldn't be left unprotected; she wouldn't be his weak side. Not in this. No matter her capabilities right now, she would hold a gun and at least cover his back.
At least.
The gun. He was right about the knife; it was useless against the Army and if their enemies got past Castle with his gun, then what the fuck did it matter if she had a knife? She couldn't let go of it though, because for so long it had been the only thing between her and death. The thought of not having the knife at her thigh made her panic.
She stumbled hard, couldn't catch her balance, and mentally cursed herself for not paying attention as her knee cracked against the rock.
"Kate," he breathed out, hissing in the darkness. He'd reached back to grab her but he'd missed.
"Okay, I'm okay," she said back softly, keeping her voice down. And keeping the pain out of it.
He gripped her elbow and helped her stand, and she flexed her knee a few times to make sure. Just ached. Not broken, not even that badly bruised. She hoped. Different knee from last time too, so there was that.
"Go," she murmured.
He left his hand at her waist for the first few steps, and then he started hustling her again, his steps quick, and she gave up pretending and gripped his wrist hard to keep up.
The grip of her hand around his forearm made him feel better and he didn't know why. It was a grip close to panic, but it gave him a strange strength, feeling her right at his side, feeling the tightness of her fingers around him like she could never be ripped away.
When even that started to fade, he shook her off and instead tangled their fingers together, sweaty palms meeting close. This way she stumbled more at his heels, kept clipping them with her quick steps, but it was better to know for sure she was following.
After a good long time, when his mind had started moving on to the next stop, the next cluster of caves that were just beyond the horizon - if they could make it - he realized that Kate was stumbling a lot.
A lot.
This time when she fell, he felt her balance shift the second before it happened and he flipped around and caught her, rocking backwards with the force of her momentum.
"Kate."
"I can't see anything. How can you go so fast and not see anything?" she growled, the frustration so deep in her voice that it sounded like tears.
He ignored that and helped her upright. "I don't know. It's not - I can't see anything really either." He didn't want to say what it was. His feet were sure-footed and hers were not.
"I'm wasting all my strength straining to see," she said quietly. But she was already on the move again, pushing him forward as well, their pace much slower, but Kate the one driving them ahead.
"Tell me what to do to help," he said quietly.
"I don't know," she said bitterly. "Never mind. Just - hey. The goggles?"
He cursed himself for not thinking of it before and ripped them from around his neck and off his head. He could barely even see her in the darkness, and it wasn't going to let up any time soon. He should've tried this.
Castle paused and fumbled at her neck, helped her adjust the goggles. "They make me feel trapped," he said softly. "So I don't use them much anyway. How's the fit?"
"Little loose," she breathed out.
He tightened the straps and gave a soft chuckle. "Sexy, Beckett."
"Shut up."
"I'm serious. Never seen a woman work the night vision goggles quite like you."
She slapped his shoulder but the lack of force behind it only sobered him. She was pretty weak; it'd been a long night.
"Hey, you want to take a break? Maybe have a nutrition shake-"
"No," she said intently. "We don't have time. You said five miles."
"Yeah," he breathed out.
"We've gone maybe two. And we don't have much darkness left." And I'm only getting slower.
He winced. "Come on then. The goggles good?"
"Good."
"See any better?"
She sighed. "Some."
Yeah, that was what he thought.
She hadn't realized just how exhausted the mere act of seeing could make a person. But now that the night vision goggles had turned the formerly black landscape into flares of green, she didn't have to strain quite so hard to concentrate.
She still missed the occasional outcropping or misshapen rock, but she saw the divots and dips in the ground before they could upset her balance. She wasn't going that much faster though; the goggles made her neck ache and her eyes throb, and she wondered if it was just the heaviness of the contraption or something else.
Dehydration? Could she be dehydrated already?
"Castle," she scraped out.
He stopped immediately, and she felt one of his hands come to her waist, holding her there even as his other hand rooted around in the pack. "Water?"
"Yes," she answered, swaying a little. Her thigh muscles were quivering, shaking so badly she didn't think stopping was such a good idea. "Can we - keep moving?"
"Yeah, yes." He pushed a shake into her hands. "Mix it up with your fingers while I look for the knife."
They walked slower now but it kept her from feeling the exhaustion in her limbs. Three more miles of this. Or maybe a little less than three, but enough to be bad news for her. At the beginning of this trek, twelve hours of darkness had seemed like so much time to do this, plenty. She'd never thought it would be this bad.
Kate worked the foil packet with her fingers, her energy sapped right out of her. But then Castle took it from her and she heard the stab of the small swiss army knife and he was handing it back.
She sucked it eagerly and felt the cool relief at her throat, the pulsing of her heartbeat in her thighs and behind her eyes, making everything rough. The landscape still arched green and vivid in her vision but she was stumbling more now.
Castle's hand came to her jacket and made a fist in the material, gripping hard.
"I got you," he murmured. "Just keep walking, Kate."
Maybe she could really do this.