Swimming
for Cartographical, whose idea it was. if you want a happier post-ep for Pandora, read hers or read Sandiane Carter's.
Your songs remind me of swimming,
Which I forgot when I started to sink -
Dragged further away from the shore
And deeper into the drink.
-Swimming, Florence + the Machine
The light swings around.
The light goes out.
The light-
Water rushes in, overeager and bubbling with glee, filling the spaces between them.
Water - up around her stomach, swirling, even as her hands fumble at the safety belt, even as her panic squirms out from under her tight control.
She can't see him, but she can feel him. She can feel him at the back of her seat, the tug, ripping at the frame, the harsh and sudden jarring, the rattle of her teeth with his desperation, the jerk, the-
Nothing.
And then nothing.
Water evilly gleeful and filling up, rising as her panic rises up.
"Castle?"
She twists her head, slowly, afraid to look, and the water in the backseat is a bathtub, higher, filled up but-
no Castle.
"Castle?" Her voice cracks at the end so that she can't get anything else out. There's the flashlight, submerged, the light a blue in the grey-green, filling water-
Oh God.
Oh God, Castle.
She stops her frantic tug on the seat belt, drags her hand through the water, back and forth, ever widening searches even as the level rises, the car becoming one with the river.
Nothing.
There can't be nothing.
He's back there - he has to be back there. He's just - there's no room to be elsewhere.
This can't be how he-
Not the Hudson River. No. No.
She searches the rear view mirror for a sign of him; he can't be that far under, can't have - or maybe he got stuck, maybe he's -
But it's her own wide eyes staring back at her as the water rises, clambering higher up her body, racing up her throat.
She arches her neck, lifts up, realizes this is her last breath - her last breath-
Oh God, God.
This can't be the end. No. Castle-
She thrashes, yanks on the seat belt, no good, slams the full force of her elbow into the side window, again, one, two, three, again. Her arm grows brittle with each frantic jolt, she bites her tongue and has no air to gasp, her lungs fight water, burn, oh God, it burns-
Castle. Castle. He'll - he can - Castle-
is gone.
Whispers in the mute water.
She jerks as the water engulfs her, fills her ears, can't breathe, clutches the steering wheel and arches against her restraints, adrenaline pounding so fiercely that she can actually feel the slight give of the belt-
her lungs burn-
the water black-
a tunnel through that isn't a tunnel, just the collapse of her vision.
Castle. She can't - what is this without - she has to get him - she can't do this without - without him.
The feather of her fingers, bloodless, drifts away from the steering wheel without her okay, and she breathes - she has to breathe - she breathes it in, but she's drowning.
How did this happen?
The drift, a tide going out, drags her with it, swift as current, pulling her away.
At least,
she thinks,
at least they drown together.
The light goes on.
A solar flare in darkness.
The percussive hits her ears, muted but stirring.
She opens her eyes and the water is so cold it burns.
His cheek close, his hands at her waist, the float of water as their drowning selves bump into each other, a ricochet of once-colliding bodies.
She brushes her lips to his cold skin in good-bye.
Lets go.
A mouth. Lips to lips. A seal, unbroken.
She fills up with it.
Warm and soft and lovely, mouth to mouth, heaven.
She fills up with it.
And then a drum beat to her chest that draws the warmth - burning now - up her throat like fingernails, expels from her mouth in a wretched torrent of water and air.
Kate chokes, arching, her body rolling to one side, and opens her eyes, feels the heavy, soaked clothing, the press of hands to her sternum, and she knocks them away, tries to breathe-
His form blocks out the light. She sees the sharp outline of his head, the spark of eyes, and the relief of his lips breathing her name.
Kissed awake.
The silhouette shifts and reforms, the light blinds her.
"Did we die?" she rasps.
He lets out a low, urgent laugh and slides his fingers under her neck, tugs her upward.
She sucks in another breath, the air like drowning, and tries to figure out where she is, what she is.
"No. Not dead yet, Beckett."
When he's got her propped in a sitting position, he lets go of her; she finds herself canting towards him uncontrollably, her body refusing to work. Castle catches her. She lets her forehead stay resting against his shoulder as she tries to remember how to breathe.
"You gonna make it?" he says roughly.
"I don't know yet."
"You gonna make it?" she says roughly. She watches him move down the hall of the 12th, not sure what that look on his face means.
"I don't know yet."
She nudges him again and he stumbles, as if he wasn't expecting it a second time.
"We didn't die," she says, and finds herself wanting to wrap her fingers around his.
"No, not dead yet, Beckett." He doesn't laugh back, doesn't lift his eyes from the floor.
They step into the elevator as one; she hits the button for the lobby. The silence inside the lift is granulated with the abrasive of Sophia Turner - her life, her death, her betrayal, her lies. Beckett shifts a little closer, close enough for the warmth of her body to meet the warmth of his, the friction she wants and not the one that destroys unit cohesion.
And then because there were moments (two in one case, honestly, isn't okay anymore) where she knew his life was over and she could do nothing, she does something now.
She threads her fingers through his, the backs of their hands brushing, their knuckles tangling, an inverted handhold.
He catches his breath and turns his head to her. "Did we die?"
She breathes out a choked laugh at his surprise and shakes her head, moves to let go, but he snags her back, takes her hand towards his stomach. Her fingers are wrapped in his fist now; her fingertips brush the material of his dress shirt, catch on the buttons.
He doesn't say anything as the elevator dives down, a slow and and inevitable descent.
They didn't die. They haven't died yet.
Next time?
The light in the elevator flickers and his fist tightens, his stomach clenches; she feels every movement in the space of darkness between the floors, the pitch black before illumination.
When the elevator doors open, disgorging them into the lobby, he drops her hand and steps out first - two things she never thought he would do.
So this time she follows.
He stops and turns around when she's still there at his back. He lifts an eyebrow in askance, halfway down the block towards the place where they part ways. She doesn't want either of them to get there.
"Let's go another way," she says and holds her hand out to him.
He stumbles but comes back, takes her hand.
"Where're we going?"
She doesn't know, but it might not be a good time to admit that. "Someplace better."
"Than?"
"Than not."
He seems confused and that's okay, because so is she. This isn't what she intended when she got in the elevator with him, not inscrutability, not obfuscation, not even subtlety.
So what happens now is up to her; she's leading him by the hand even though he's the one who stepped off the elevator, he's the one who found her gun and shot her seat belt and shot out the back window of the car and never gave up.
She had one job, stuck as she was, unable to get free. She had one job - to wait for him. He was going to find her gun, her weapon; he was going to set her free.
And she panicked.
She stopped waiting.
So now she's got to make up for that.
"Uh. Beckett? I'm supposed to get dinner with Alexis when she gets off work - or well, whenever Lanie lets her go."
Oh.
She stops, pivots on her heel to face him, the long walk back down to their crossroads. She was wrong - she can't avoid the corner where they're supposed to take their separate streets. There isn't something better than not - there is just the decision to part ways or to stick together.
"You want to come?"
His hand tugs her closer; she holds her ground.
"Have dinner with me, Kate."
She nods, even thought there wasn't a question. They head back the way they've been, just a few steps back really, and then past that to the same long sidewalk that leads to that final decision.
This time when they hit the corner where she should leave him, she doesn't. She won't.
She turns with him, bumps into his shoulder as they make their way.
. . .
A/N: I have no idea what this is or where it's going, but it's not over?