Did You Hear What I Heard?

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: Do not own any of this, just borrowing them. I'll put them right back where I found them. Rating: K Time: During Killshot, but slightly AU.

Detective Kate Beckett hefted the rifle in her hands. It was nothing but a lump of steel. By itself it had no power to harm her. She had no reason to fear it. "Thanks, Espo." She mumbled.

"No problem. But we have something else to talk about."

"What?"

Espo slowly shook his head. "Not a what, a who. Castle."

Beckett felt her face flushing. "Espo, this is not the time or…"

"You don't know what I'm going to say, so how do you know whether this is the time for what I want to talk to you about?"

Beckett glared at her friend, who returned a level stare and a slight smile. Esposito continued. "Castle has good reactions. He spotted the sun glinting off of the sniper's scope and headed right for you. If he'd been a half second faster, he might have gotten to the bullet first."

Kate's glare returned. "If you think I don't appreciate everything…" she began coldly.

"Not my point, Beckett. Just listen, will you?"

Kate nodded, not a bit happy about where this conversation was going.

"I have pretty good reactions myself. As soon as I heard the shot and saw you fall, I headed for you as well. I got close enough to hear what Castle said to you, there on the ground. Something you say you don't remember."

Beckett dropped the rifle on the table and took a step back. "Esposito, now you are way out of line. You have no right to…" She suddenly realized she'd spoken too soon and felt a block of ice start to form in her stomach.

Espo nodded slowly. "I'm only out of line if you knew what he said." He shook his head. "Beckett, there may be some of Lanie's customers that don't know that Castle loves you, but that's about it. You may just have been the last person in the 12th to figure it out, but you know, don't you?"

Kate nodded slowly. "Espo, I can't handle this right now. I'll get through my current problems, I'll get a handle on whoever ordered my mom's murder, and I'll work things out with Castle. I just can't do all of it right now. I just can't."

Esposito held up his hands to stop her. "Again, not my point. I want to talk about Castle. This concerns you only to the extent you care for him. Okay?"

"Castle and I are complicated…" She stopped, unable to say any more.

"Demming lasted a couple of months, right? Josh lasted about a year. Castle's been here for almost three years. How complicated is that?"

Kate took a deep breath and let it out. She tried and failed to reply.

"You could get him out of your life if you wanted to, you know."

Kate snorted. "Like hell! He's here at the personal invitation of the mayor. How could I make him leave?"

"Just tell him whatever you told Demming and Josh. He'd be out of your life for good in five minutes and he'd never be back. But you don't want that, do you?"

Kate managed to nod. "He's my partner." Was all that she could manage.

"And I want to talk about your partner." Espo rocked back on his heels and stared briefly at the ceiling. "I learned a lot about stress in Iraq. It bothers everyone, Special Forces, Rangers, the airborne, straight leg infantry, all the way down to the over-age, pot-bellied, balding supply sergeants from the Ohio National Guard who never expected to be deployed to a war zone."

"Castle's not a soldier." Kate said softly. What was this about?

"No, he's no nineteen year old kid straight out of Ranger school, all full of adrenaline and testosterone. He's not a cop, either. He's a forty-something writer who's following the woman he loves down dark alleys and through busted doors wearing a protective vest that says "Writer" and not carrying a weapon. You'd think that'd wear on him after a while."

Kate frowned. This was getting worse. "Do you think he has..?" She was unable to finish the sentence.

Espo shrugged. "I don't know. He's as hard to read as you are. Harder, maybe. I've had years of practice reading you."

"Castle is a poker player. And his life revolves around telling stories, the line between truth and fiction with him is very narrow." The block of ice in Kate's stomach was now starting to twist. Could everything she'd done to protect herself now be hurting Castle? Could he end up like she was now? Was she causing this?

"I can't make him stop. You know that. He wouldn't stay in the car when I ordered him to, even when I handcuffed him. He won't stay away. He won't…" The block of ice was now twisting harder and harder. "So you think he's…got problems?"

Again Espo shrugged. "Like I said, he's hard to read. There have been times, after a hard day, when I thought he was about to lose it totally. Other times, I think he could walk the length and breadth of Afghanistan and make a new friend at every stop. Ninety nine percent of the time, I think he's somewhere in between."

Espo stopped and stared at the ceiling again. "Stress is odd. Combat stress, you prepare for. You do immediate action drills until you can do them in your sleep. You send rounds downrange until your M-4 feels like you were born with it. You know everyone on your team better than their parents do. You know their strengths and weaknesses. But sometimes the stressors that sneak up on you aren't from combat."

Kate was confused. "What do you mean?"

"You find out your son's grades have tanked. Your daughter's now dating some thug. Your wife's e-mails seem cold and distant. There isn't one damned thing you can do about it because you're on the other side of the world. You obsess about it. You think too much about it. You get careless, you get sloppy, you get dead."

Kate felt like throwing up. She couldn't let that happen to Castle. She couldn't…She couldn't what? What could she do? "If it's not the danger, what is it with Castle?"

"He's been chasing the woman he loves for years now, into one potentially fatal case and out of another. I don't think he has any idea if you think of him as anything more than the guy who brings you coffee each morning. Like I said, that's gotta wear on a man."

"Kate, I said you're hard to read, but I've had practice. He's a lot more to you than Mr. Coffee. He may even be the one you've waited your whole life for. I don't know, but you know he loves you. What do you want?"

Kate stared at the floor so that Espo wouldn't see the tears in her eyes. "More." She managed to choke out. The word was no sooner out of her mouth than she recognized how absurd that was. How could she ever be more to Richard Castle? She had been broken when they first met and she was far worse now. Could she ever get better? Then a thought sped through her mind. He said he loves me. He loves me. He wouldn't say that if he didn't mean it, would he? Even if he thought I was dying?

She shook her head violently. "Espo, I can't. I just can't."

"Okay, then let's worry about what you can do. You don't have to grab Castle and head for Dr. Phil to discuss your relationship over a long weekend. All you have to do is give him a little pep talk. Let him know you care. Not how much, just that you care. Make him feel better. You've done this before when other detectives have screwed up. You let us know that we wouldn't be cast into the outer darkness because we weren't perfect. You can do this."

Kate nodded, still not letting Espo see her eyes. "I can do this."

Detective Kate Beckett was tired. The adrenaline rush from the confrontation with Lee Travis was long gone. She stared at the computer screen, trying to cudgel her brain into completing the sentence she had begun minutes ago. Nothing came.

Castle sat next to her in his usual chair, playing with a new app on his phone. Suddenly, he put the phone away, "I should be going." He said as he started to stand. "See you tomorrow?"

Kate quickly grabbed his hand, clumsily grabbing his wrist between her thumb and forefinger. "No wait!" she said too quickly.

She had spent two hours the night before carefully composing her pep talk for Castle. It was as emotionally neutral as she could make it, but she thought it would work. At least for a while. But as soon as her hand touched Castle, she couldn't recall a single word of her prepared speech.

"Castle, I've been a mess since I got shot. You know that."

Castle sat back down, concern plain on his face. "No, I didn't. Sure, you had a bit of a problem on our first case when you got back, but you handled it. This case, being about a sniper, naturally upset you. It upset me, too."

Kate shook her head, trying to get back to her prepared talk. Not one word came to her. "I've been having trouble the whole time. It's on and off, but it keeps coming back. I'm hypervigilant, which isn't a bad thing for a cop. My startle reaction is way too strong. Mostly, I still have nightmares and flashbacks. Sometimes I drink too much to try to get to sleep. It must show the next day."

Castle shook his head. Kate could see that concern had turned to guilt on Castle's face. "Kate, I should have seen it. I'm so sorry. I can't tell you how…"

"Castle, don't you dare apologize." Beckett barked. She quickly looked around, but the bullpen was nearly empty, the nearest detectives were at the other end. No one had heard.

She released Castle's hand. "Having you to watch my back…" Kate tried again to remember some part of her prepared speech.

"I like to watch your front, too. It's equally spectacular." The look on Castle's face didn't match the flirty nature of his comment.

Kate rolled her eyes and then smiled. "Having you as a partner since the shooting has meant more to me than I can say. If it wasn't for you, I might be in some psych ward, all rolled up in the fetal position, sucking my thumb."

Castle grinned at her. "Okay, Detective Beckett, you no longer have a partner. You now get my extra special comic sidekick package. From now on, I'm going to pick you up in the morning and stay with you until I drop you at your place at night. If anything happens after that, you will call me at once and I'll be right there."

Kate smiled, but shook her head. "You don't have to do that."

"You're right, I don't have to do that, but I'm going to do it. We're partners."

Kate had no idea she was about to say what came next. "I'm going to beat this, Castle. And when I do, I'm going to do more than tell you how grateful I am."

Kate dropped her eyes. She couldn't look at Castle. Long seconds passed, but neither one said anything else. Finally, she spoke. "If you're going to stay here, you might as well help with the paperwork."

Castles' eyes narrowed. "I suppose."

Kate handed him a stack of reports. "These are witness reports. They're almost all the same. You should be able to reduce them to a few paragraphs." Castle took the papers with a sour look on his face, but he started looking through them.

Kate went back to her report. She finished the sentence she had been stuck on in seconds.

"Kate, have you ever thought of doing your reports in rhyming couplets?"

My God! What am I going to do when I am better?

Author's Note: I spent 31 years working for the US Department of Veteran's Affairs, but am by no means an expert on PTSD. This is just my take on that, which I will not write about again.