Layers

Post ep for 5x05 Probable Cause.

Disclaimer: I bow to you AWM, these are your characters, I just borrow them for inspiration.

Layers

His fingers traced down the side of her face, whispering over the nasty cut that was beginning to bruise on her cheek bone.

He had double-checked all the windows, pulling the blinds and curtains extra tight so that not even a sliver of light could filter through. Logically he knew that there was no point. Jerry Tyson would have left the city already. He had gotten what he wanted: freedom, anonymity. A free pass to kill again, on his own terms again. But still he checked, like a ritual, going from window to window. She watched him, protests going unvoiced. She had left it on the bridge.

You shot him. He's dead. It's over.

But there was a look in her eyes, a hesitation, a want to believe: to believe that it was true, Tyson was dead, but they both knew better. It had been too easy. All of it: near death experiences and all. He had been wearing a bulletproof vest. That much was certain due to his reanimation act in the car. So, she watched, silent, as he drew all the curtains, blocking all light from the outside world.

Kate had dropped him off at his apartment after the station; the pile of paperwork finished for the ADA who had been looking sheepish of not still slightly skeptical over the whole situation. She said she wanted to give him some time alone with his family, tell them the whole story; reassure them that he was all right. She had said that she was just fine, would call him, but her knuckles, white against the black of the steering wheel of Ryan and Esposito's sedan, told the real story. She was going to go home and break down in the shower where no one would see her. Her tears would wash away with the harsh pellets of water and then it would be like it had never happened in the first place. But she had shown up at his apartment a couple of hours later, eyes red rimmed, fists clenched at her side. Mumbled words forced past her lips.

"I had to make sure you were all right."

Fine. All right. Okay. Good. He hated all of the words. They were meaningless, a way to wave off true emotion in order give a placating answer to a stranger's question.

How are you doing today?

Fine. Good. Okay.

He hated them all.

I'm fine Castle. Go spend time with your family. I'll call you later, okay?

And then she was standing in the entry to his apartment, traces of fingerprint powder still on the door jam beside her. Her eyes flickered over to his mother and daughter sitting on the couch. So many words, emotions she still wouldn't show in front of them. She always needed to be strong for others, but not for him. When they were alone was when he saw the truth: the layers peeled back, tears stinging at her eyes, emotion painted on her face. But not now. Not yet. Here, now, in front of his family he had to be strong too.

"I'm here. I'm okay."

Her eyes flickered closed as she let out a shaky breath. She hated the words too.

"I'm, ah, going to go."

Castle made to protest as his daughter gathered up her coat. They had been all sitting in the living room for the past few minutes, comfortable and awkward at the same time.

Layers.

"No, sweetie, it's okay. You can stay here tonight," Castle protested.

Alexis shook her head. "No, it's fine, I have a test to study for. Study group."

Castle stood, engulfing his child in a hug, squeezing her a little too tightly against his body.

Watching you and your daughter go for a walk.

He clutched harder as she tried to pull back. He hadn't told them the whole truth. Not about that. They didn't need to know that, to be looking over their shoulders constantly.

Alexis disappeared through the doorway, back into the world and he watched, the only thing he could do.

"Well, I believe that is my cue," his mother declared as she pushed herself off of the sofa, gathering up her wine glass as she made her way to deposit it in the kitchen before excusing herself up the stairs with a wave and a series of "good nights".

Then they were alone, with bruised faces, red eyes and the weight that had been hanging over them for the past three days.

But still it remained, the wall; layers of brick and mortar. The act of impassivity, of being okay. Fine. All right. Good.

He reached for her, grabbing her hand in his and pulled her towards his room, stopping at every window along the way before double-checking the door.

She stood in the middle of the room while he pulled the blinds, shoving them as tightly closed as possible. Then he was standing in front of her as she swayed from foot to foot, eyes gazing past him before locking onto his, reading him like she always could.

"How are you really?"

Her hand came up to cover her mouth, trying to suppress the choked sob, push it back in but it was too late and she fell into his body, his arms coming up to wrap around her, pull her smaller frame into him. It never ceased to amaze him how small she really was, so thin yet strong against him. He would forget when he saw her interrogating a suspect, pulling her gun, pacing the squad room working out a lead. She always seemed so larger than life, super human. She could leap tall buildings in a single bound. But not here, here she was fragile too.

"Yeah, me too," he sighed into her hair between small kisses.

She pulled back to look up at him, her hands running down his face, fingers tracing the line of his neck before starting in on the buttons down his front, popping them open one by one until she could push the shirt off his shoulders. Her hands ran down his front, ending on his belt.

He followed her silent request, lifting the hemline of her sweater, pulling it over her head in one fluid motion before reaching behind her to unlatch her bra.

Layers between them falling away.

She stepped back, all of their clothing lying in piles around them, leading him towards the bed by the hand.

"Make love to me, please."

Watching you and Beckett make love…

He gulped, his mind racing as it had that night in the cell. How long had he been watching. Did he have pictures of her, of them together in the most intimate of ways? Had he been there that first night when it had been only the two of them, the rest of the world falling away?

She was watching him as he gazed past her to the bed. The cloud where they were together, safe and alone; sharing secrets spoken and unspoken they would never utter in another place. A sacred space now corrupted.

"Castle?" She stepped towards him, her naked body brushing up against him. "What's wrong?"

The words were meaning less. She knew what was wrong. He was in his head. Tyson. Tyson was in his head, his thoughts and Castle was in Tyson's, a strange symbiosis. It was like he had made him in a way: a writer and his sick twisted creation. Frankenstein's monster.

"He saw us. I don't know if it was here or at your place, the Hamptons, all of them. But he watched us."

She blanched at the information, her arms coming up to wrap around her bare frame, her eyes coming back up to meet his. "He's gone Castle…"

"Kate…" His fingers traced down the side of her face, whispering over the nasty cut that was beginning to bruise on her cheek bone. "We both know that's not true…"

She nodded, drawing in a breath, finally acknowledging the truth that she had been denying repeatedly for hours. "He may not be dead but he's definitely gone. That's what he wanted, right? To be free, to not be looked for? He wouldn't stick around the city."

He pulled her back into him, needing to feel her against him, to get the image of Tyson holding her, utterly helpless, with the gun pressed into her gut out of his minds eye. Her arms wrapped around him, holding him against her just a tight. Her head resting against his chest, ear pressed against his heart.

"What are you thinking about?" He whispered after a moment for selfish reasons. He wanted to hear her voice.

Her fingers ran down the side of his neck, petting his pulse point.

"I don't want jewelry anymore."

Laughter bubbled up through his chest, making him shake with the force of holding it in. His arms tightened around her as he backed her towards the bed, the layers of tension falling away as he felt her smile against him. Silently laughing at her own little joke, which was not at all funny, yet hilarious at the same time.

Words he had uttered to her about her own dark looming shadow, that she had parroted back to him echoed through his mind.

We'll get him. We'll make him pay, just not today…

"I'll buy you a Humvee instead."