A/N: This is not the post-ep I had intended to write, but it was the idea that refused to rest. Hopefully it's not too disappointing.
For the sake of this story, Beckett was held captive by Nieman/Tyson for two weeks longer than she was in the actual episode.
When they find her, she's standing over Kelly Nieman's lifeless body, blood covering her hand and a gleaming scalpel in her grasp.
"Beckett," he breathes her name, the single syllable like relief that fills his chest as her head turns towards him. "Kate."
Her fingers tighten over the medical tool and he hesitates. She wouldn't hurt him, he knows that, but after what she's been through, after everything Nieman and Tyson have put her through within the last two and a half weeks, he approaches with caution.
By the time he reaches her, she's trembling, her head ducked and her shoulders hunched, but when he places a gentle hand between the wings of her shoulder blades, she flinches away.
"Kate," he rasps, because something must be wrong. She could be hurt, or traumatized, or-
"Don't touch me," she growls, the words raw and feral. They match her eyes as she finally turns to see him, backing away like a wild animal with the scalpel raised between them.
"What did they do to you?" he whispers, coming towards her with a hand he intends to slide across her jaw, cradle her cheek with, but she jerks back, nearly stumbling over Nieman's dead body in her haste to retreat.
"Stay away from me!" she practically shouts, the croak of her voice echoing in the small operating room, causing the entire squad of officers behind him to stiffen. "Just - just go away."
He watches helplessly as she flattens herself against the nearest wall, her knuckles white between the smears of blood as she stares him down, and all he can think is that this is not his wife.
"It's not amnesia," Doctor Thompson confirms, but Castle doesn't find any relief in the ruled out diagnosis. "Detective Beckett's memories are still intact, but from what I have gathered, they have definitely been modified."
"How?" Rick scrapes out, his eyes unmoving from the glass that separates them. Kate is still strapped to the bed inside the MRI scanner, her arms twitching occasionally beneath the loose bindings across her chest. They've been running tests on her since she was transported from Nieman's lair and aside from the obvious effects of being held hostage by a psychopathic surgeon, Beckett has been cooperating without issue.
Until she sees him.
"It's a tricky business, but it is possible to essentially alter memories to fit one's own satisfaction," the neurologist begins to explain, his tired blue eyes flickering between Castle and his patient. "Judging from this situation, my best guess is that her captor targeted you, turned you into a stressor. Perhaps this woman played recordings of you – vocal, video footage, something that would bring you to mind – while she inflicted pain upon her, essentially causing Detective Beckett to associate you with pain, suffering, or danger."
Castle has to clutch the edge of the glass screen.
"She wouldn't - Kate is strong. She would fight it."
The doctor nods in understanding, but Rick can see it's only out of mere courtesy. "The sheer force of strong will could have probably fought off the effects of the treatments for a while, but the brain is a delicate thing, Mr. Castle. After so long, one can only endure so much before the mind is forced to accept defeat or compromise in some way."
"So my wife she - every time she looks at me, hears my voice, all she'll feel is agony?" he chokes out, blinking back the tears, but unable to stop a few from slipping down his cheeks.
Dr. Thompson sighs. "For now, yes, but there is a genuine chance that the effects of the brainwashing, so to speak, are reversible. She underwent how many weeks of this?"
"Two, almost three," Castle grits out, berating himself for every second they spent looking for her in vain, every second she spent undergoing physical and mental torment, every second that was spent cleansing her mind of his love for her and turning him into her worst nightmare instead.
"That's not as long as I would have assumed, considering the state she's in," he murmurs, more to himself as he strokes at the short beard adorning his chin. "But they could have made the sessions hourly, perhaps-"
The doctor stops short at the strangled sound that tears past Castle's lips and the man quickly stands up straighter, offering Rick a glance of apology.
"My point is that even if they engrained these ideas that you represent the opposite of what you once did to Miss Beckett, I don't believe the effects are permanent."
"But how am I supposed to fix it?" Castle questions, scraping a hand through his oily hair and feeling his heart seize at the sight of Kate's shaking hands as a nurse helps her sit up on the examination bed. "Every single time she sees me, she's ready to either attack or run as far as she can."
"I'm not saying it will be easy," the doctor concedes, sympathy in his eyes that has Rick's stomach clenching. He doesn't want sympathy. He wants Kate back. "But if you're patient with her, I think you can slowly erase those false memories with new ones, or even resurrect the old."
"Can she even come home with me?" Castle whispers, a new wave of horror flooding through his system. He hadn't even thought about the fact that he expected his wife, a woman who cannot bear to be in the same room with him, to return to living under the same roof with him.
The doctor tilts his head in contemplation, mulling over the idea. "Do you have others residing in the house with you?"
"My mother, and my daughter, I doubt Nieman touched her memories of them."
"That's good," Thompson nods. "She seems to react better when there are others surrounding you, probably sees them as reinforcements that could protect her from you."
Castle knows Dr. Thompson is only stating facts, but each sentence is slicing through him like the scalpel Beckett held up to his neck three hours ago.
"I think she could return to her home with you, but she'll have to be transported separately and while I realize it will be difficult, you must keep your distance from her. She has to be eased into the idea that you mean her no harm," Thompson explains and Rick nods along, forces himself to remember the instructions, but all he can think about is how badly he had wanted to crawl into bed beside her tonight, to hold her close and forget the hellish two weeks spent without her, and how that likely may never happen again.
Lanie drives Beckett home from the hospital first, allowing her the time to become reacquainted with the loft and his family again before he follows after them. Alexis texts him updates after he's explained the situation to her in great detail over the phone and despite his own pain, he's comforted to learn that Kate embraces both his daughter and mother without hesitation, still viewing his family as her own. He warns Alexis not to mention him too much, to refrain from overwhelming Kate, but he knows his daughter, knows how she has the tendency to try and fix even the things beyond her control.
When he walks through the door, she's seated on the couch, his mother and daughter flanking each side of her.
Alexis notices him first.
"Hey Dad," she says with a cautious smile, but her eyes lift from Kate for only a moment before darting back to the detective.
"Alexis," he replies quietly. Kate's spine visibly stiffens at the sound of his voice.
"It's just my - it's Castle," his daughter tries with a strained smile aimed at Kate, but Beckett shakes her head, buries her face in her hands, and his mother glances towards him with worry like a tidal wave in her piercing blue eyes.
"She's stable," Lanie assures him, nearly startling him as she appears at his side from the kitchen. "She reacted well to both Martha and Alexis and I think it'll help to have them reminding her that you're… you."
Lanie's trying to be helpful, they all are, and he wants to be grateful, but he can't. He can't stand to see her surrounded by others, interacting with growing normalcy, only to tense the moment she senses him.
"Who exactly does she think I am?" he growls under his breath and Lanie sighs. They had asked her repeatedly not only at the scene, but in the hospital as well, why it was that she was so afraid of him, but her lips would only purse tight enough to blanch the skin surrounding her mouth.
"All she told me is that you're apparently just another clone," Lanie murmurs, curling one of her hands at his biceps in sympathy. More sympathy. "She didn't want to talk about it, so I didn't want to push, but my best guess it that Nieman somehow convinced her that the Castle she loved is gone and only an impostor who's out to harm her remains."
God, he wants to weep. Tyson and Nieman are both dead, their greatest pair of enemies finally conquered, but this is the opposite of victory.
"Don't worry, darling," he hears his mother coo as she encases one of Kate's hands in both of hers. "I promise, Richard would never hurt you."
But Kate doesn't respond.
"Thanks, Lanie," he mumbles, awkwardly patting the hand on his arm before drifting out of her grasp, towards his bedroom, sticking to the far side of the room so not to pose a threat to Beckett.
Kate's eyes lock on him as soon as he passes the couch and he spares a single glance to her before he can disappear between the bookshelves. Her eyes are angry slits, dark with not a trace of light, filled with fear and hatred instead, the opposite of everything he's come to recognize when she looks at him.
The unfamiliar gaze haunts his nightmares.
Over the next few days, he avoids her to make the adjustment of returning home easier on her. He still sees her, catching glances of her through the open shelves of his office walls, stealing glimpses of her as she eats breakfast or accepts a piece of clothing Alexis retrieves from his closet for her. Being in the same room as him is still a struggle for her, though, she's steadily getting better, able to handle his presence without flinching most of the time, as long as he doesn't come too close, but she still tends to avoid spending time alone with him.
Within three days, it's as if she's become a permanent resident of the guest room, never to return to her place in his room ever again. With regret that sits like a mountain of bricks on his chest, he slowly begins to let go of the hope that she'll be returning to their – his bedroom anytime soon and begins to pack up her things for her.
Until one evening, late into the night when she believes he's sleeping, she sneaks into his office. Sleep has become an elusive thing for him, nightmares and insomnia combining forces to keep his body awake for as long as possible until the only way he can find rest is through the crippling toll of over exhaustion. Writing is damn near impossible, but he tries, tries to channel the ache of missing her into words, and it's when he's sitting awake in bed at four in the morning with his laptop, struggling through a sentence that he hears the soft, familiar padding of footsteps on hardwood outside his door.
He has to refrain from leaping out of the bed, slowly easing from the sheets instead, abandoning his laptop in favor of tiptoeing towards the bedroom door. It takes every ounce of effort he has to slip the door open without making a single sound, observing her in silence while she peruses his bookshelves with curious eyes and fingers that dance over the spines of novels.
She pauses when she reaches the assortment of his books, her index finger lingering on his name as she encounters the Nikki Heat series.
"You could take them." Kate spins on her heel, the novel clutched in her hand and thrust above her head at the sight of him, ready to fight, but he remains in the cracked doorway of his bedroom, half of his body still shielded by the door. "You could take whatever you want to read to the guest r- to your room."
Her breathing is harsh, her chest heaving beneath the oversized sweatshirt he recognizes as one of his own. She can't stand him, yet she's still sleeping in his clothes. He's not sure whether to be comforted or frustrated further. But she slowly lowers her 200 page weapon to her side, still on high alert, but apparently giving him a brief chance.
One he'll take.
"Do you remember their story?" he murmurs, nodding to the book in her hand. Naked Heat, figures.
Kate glances down to the novel, biting her bottom lip for a brief moment before returning her eyes to him.
"Yes," she finally reveals, her voice unsteady, nervous but sharp. "You already know I don't have amnesia."
"You don't remember me," he points out, forcing his face to remain neutral, but hers does not. Kate's face flushes with fury.
"You aren't him," she hisses. "You're just wearing his face. Nieman, she - just like with Lanie and Espo. The real Castle is dead."
Castle releases his grip on the door at that, takes a step towards her, but she jerks back, the book tumbling from her grasp and falling face down on the floor.
He sighs, but stills just a few inches from his bedroom door, allowing the gap of space to remain between them.
"Tell me how to prove you wrong," he demands, pleads, and he's surprised when moisture glistens in her eyes and her jaw squares against the emotion fighting to break free.
"You can't," she whispers, but he won't accept that. He can't.
"Yes, I can. You know I can, Beckett. Ask me something only the real Richard Castle would know. Let me prove it to you, let me-"
"You're not him," she moans, pressing her hands to her temples as she shakes her head, repeating the broken words like a mantra while the tears leak from the corners of her closed eyes. "You can't be. You're not - not him, not him, not him."
"Kate," he rasps, taking a major risk and striding forward, grabbing her by the wrists. She tenses, the back and forth motion of her head coming to a slow, but she doesn't threaten to attack and he considers that a good sign. "Kate, it is me, I promise you. If I was a fake, someone working for Nieman, wouldn't I have done something by now?"
Beckett meets his eyes through the curtain of her hair, searching his face and scrutinizing his words.
"You've been living in my house for almost a week, sleeping upstairs, and I could have gone up there at any time, but I didn't," he continues, desperate to convince her, desperate to bring her back. "You've slept up there before, remember? Remember when - when your apartment blew up a few years ago? You stayed here for an entire week in that same room. I'd make you coffee and we'd have breakfast together before we went to the precinct and-"
"Stop, stop," she gasps, slapping the heel of her hand to her forehead and wincing through a ripple of something painful that engulfs her entire face.
"Kate?" And then she's keening, doubling over with her palms pressed tightly to her head, and Castle does his best to hold her up without confining her, still wary of her reaction to his presence, let alone his touch. But she looks as if she's on the verge of passing out and barely subdued panic is taking up all the space in his chest. "Should I call the doctor? Kate-"
Her fingers curl in the neck of his t-shirt, her grip like iron, but she doesn't answer, can only continue to mewl through whatever agony seems to be consuming her skull.
Castle carefully lowers them to the floor, cradling her hunched body in his arms while his hands cup her skull, his fingers tangling in her hair as he tries to massage the surface of her scalp.
"Castle," she cries against his chest, the choked sob of his name penetrating the fabric of his shirt and shredding his heart to pieces.
"I've got you," is all he can think to whisper into the top of her head as his body takes up a slow, instinctive rocking, attempting whatever he can think of to soothe her. "You're okay, Beckett. You're going to be okay, I promise, I promise-"
"I want it to be you," she gets out between gasping breaths. "I just want to go back. I want you back, please-"
A choked cry of his own breaks free, slipping into her hair and he places his cheek to the top of her head, tightening the arms around her ever so slightly and silently rejoicing when she doesn't retreat, but pushes in closer, crawling into his lap.
"I never left," he breathes, even though it's pointless. They may be making progress here, major progress, but he refuses to believe that so much damage can be repaired in a single night.
The tremors of her sobs eventually cease, her breathing steadies, and he expects her to jerk away the moment clarity has cleared the fit of grief from her mind, but she remains in his arms, her face buried in his chest, her fingers coiled in the cotton of his shirt.
"What are you thinking?" he dares to ask, his voice rough, raw, and her fingers loosen in his shirt, fanning out, the short edges of her nails skimming his Adam's apple, the touch both pleasant and maddening.
"I'm not," she sighs out, pulling her knees in closer, her toes brushing his pajama covered calf muscle, her outer thigh resting against his abdomen. "If I think, all the memories will come back and I'm tired of picking through what's real and what's not."
"Does this feel real?" She doesn't respond, not with words, but her head lifts from his clavicle, her swollen, bloodshot eyes rising to roam his face. Her hand relinquishes his t-shirt completely to graze his chin, two of her fingers climbing up to skirt across his bottom lip.
"Tell me a memory," she murmurs suddenly, her eyes growing almost frantic as they fall to the fingers tripping back down to rest in the hollow of his throat. "Every time I close my eyes, all I see is her and - and a horrible version of you."
He can practically feel her slipping away from him, succumbing to the false whirlwind of memories swarming her brain, and he clings to her in a useless attempt to make her stay.
"Prove it's real to me, Castle. Prove it's you."
"Our vows," he chokes, the first thing that comes to mind. "I'll start with our vows."
They stay on his office floor, crumpled bodies tangled together as he recalls as many chapters of their story for her as she can handle. Each one that penetrates her mind sends her spiraling into a state of neurological distress, as if a war wages within her mind, the truth fighting the lies Nieman injected, but with every passing hour, after each battle is won, she looks up to him with recognition blooming in her eyes.
By morning light, she's drifting to sleep with her cheek on his shoulder, but captures his hand in hers as the streaks of the sunrise bathe the floor, brushing her thumb over his wedding ring.
"Stay with me?" she mumbles as her eyes flutter closed and his breath catches for a second, treacherous hope seizing his lungs.
"Always," he whispers and he swears, even as consciousness leaves her, that it's the moment she truly believes it's really him.
When he wakes only an hour later, she's gone, but the length of his side she had curled into still lingers in her warmth, still smells of her distinct scent. Disappointment awakens inside his chest, but it's overpowered with the hope she planted in the quiet safety of their night in his office, and he rises from the floor sore but with a lightness he hasn't felt since she was taken from him.
"Hey."
He jumps at the sound of her voice, his eyes widening a fraction when he realizes she's sitting in the middle of what was once a bed they shared.
"Hi?" he answers, inching towards the bed, careful not to spook her. "How long have you been awake?"
She shrugs and lowers her gaze to the comforter, splaying her fingers over the tasteful grey bedding.
"Not long. I thought maybe if I explored this room… I thought something might come back. Something I knew was true."
He swallows, hesitating at the foot of the bed. "And did anything?"
Her bottom lip is pinned by her teeth again, her eyes still diverted from his, and she draws her hand up from the comforter to tuck a stray lock of her hair behind her ear.
"I remember the first time I slept here," she confesses, her hand slipping down to curl at her chest, over the round, fading scar he knows hides beneath her sweatshirt. "I remember the storm, remember showing up at your door that night. I remember you."
Her eyes flash up to meet his and oh – oh, that's his Kate staring back at him.
"What Nieman did to me, to my memories of you - it all felt real, it still does sometimes and it will for a while," she admits, and god, his stomach is twisting with the sickening sensation of hope and it needs to stop. It's too early to feel hopeful, to have even the slightest desire that the real Kate could be coming back to him. But the way she's looking at him now… for the first time, he actually believes she could be. "What you did for me last night," she adds, nodding her head towards the open doorway that allows them a clear view into his office, of the very place they sat together for hours until the sun rose. "Logically, I know only the real - only you could have brought back all of those memories of us. Only you could have made me believe every word you said."
"So you believe me?" he gets out, thankful for the edge of the mattress that supports his weakening knees.
Kate unfurls her legs from their crossed position and rises to her knees, eradicating the space between them rather than greatening the distance. She's not quite as confident as she would normally be, but once she reaches him, tentative hands cup his face, her thumbs skimming the wrinkling skin outstretched from the corner of his eyes as he watches her, waits for her.
She leans in close, her nose bumping against his, eliciting a soft smile from her lips. Her body doesn't tense when he places his hands on her waist, holding her steady, or maybe just holding on as she finally slants her mouth over his.
The sure press of her lips to his, the curl of her hand at the back of his neck, and the warm greeting of her body melting against his after starting to fear she would never be willing to touch him again is almost overwhelming. He can't help expecting her to rear back at any moment, to realize that she's making a huge mistake or decide there's no way he's really her husband, but she hums as she kisses him, a pleasant sound of satisfaction that reverberates against his lips, has him parting for her, allowing the tentative stroke and welcome heat of her tongue inside.
She doesn't push him away, she fists her hand in his shirt and holds him as close as she can, kissing him until they're both gasping and breathless.
"I believe you," Kate whispers, dropping her forehead to rest against his as she catches her breath and he tightens his arms around her. "I believe you."
He worries it's too soon for her to be doing this, but they crawl into his bed together, both still exhausted and sore from the hours spent reminiscing on the floor.
"I never thanked you," she states her realization aloud and his brow furrows in confusion.
"Thank me?"
"For coming to get me, for being so patient this past week, I know I haven't been - I know it's been hard on you," Kate starts once they're lying side by side, but he shakes his head, sharp and adamant as he laces an arm around her shoulders, savoring the delight of feeling her body roll into his side.
"You have nothing to thank me for. This past week… it's nothing compared to everything you've gone through. Having your memories altered, enduring all of that torture with Nieman, all because of me-"
"No," she cuts in, lifting on one of her elbows to stare down at him, looking so certain of herself, so different from the woman he had encountered in his office less than eight hours ago, the woman who thought he was just a poor substitute for the man she loved. "You don't get to blame yourself for this. For any of it."
"Nearly three weeks, Beckett. Three weeks, four if you count this last one. If I would have found you sooner…" He swallows around the traitorous lump that forms in his throat. "Nieman never would have turned everything you believed into a guessing game. I don't want you always having to wonder what's real or not real."
"I won't," she whispers, reaching forward to curl her fingers at his ear, caressing the soft lobe with her thumb. "I won't have to wonder, Castle, because I'll have you, right here to tell me the truth, to remind me."
Her palm comes to rest over his heart, protective, suddenly the one doing all of the reassuring, and Castle covers her knuckles, filling the spaces between her fingers with his own.
"No matter what happens, just keep bringing me back to you," she murmurs, her eyes clearer than he's seen them all week, but growing heavy.
"Always," he repeats the word, the two syllables that seem to blanket her body in peace.
She falls asleep in his arms, in their bed, for the first time in a near month and to the lullaby of her breathing, the steady throb of her heartbeat, for the first time in a near month, he finds rest too.