Castle was gone.
One minute, her husband was sexting her about their planned liaison at home after his Black Pawn meeting finished, and the next, his phone was off.
Hours later, when Kate came home to a dark, empty loft, there was no sign he had ever been home.
Paula had no idea, claiming negotiations had finished early, and her client had disappeared as soon as the final "i" was dotted on his signature.
Now, Kate sat in the middle of her living room, one redhead beside her and another pacing in the kitchen, uniforms milling, forensics sweeping.
Two days.
There had been no sign of him in two days.
Not a ping on his financials, not a signal from his phone.
She would not cry in front of Esposito.
"Did he say anything that would indicate something was wrong? Maybe someone made contact from last summer? A meeting?"
"The only meeting was with Paula, and you already questioned everyone who was there," she answered, her voice a little too shrill.
"Look, I know you don't want to believe he would do it again, but after last time, we can't ignore the possibility that he just left."
She had recited some version of that speech hundreds of times before from the opposite perspective. People just leave. Hearing it from Esposito made the fine hairs at the nape of her neck stand on end.
"He didn't 'just' leave last time. He was taken against his will. And for all we know, those same people could have him again."
The long look from Ryan said more than anyone else's carefully-worded assurances.
Castle was gone.
That night, she slid between their sheets, cold and slick but still clinging to his scent. The images of those empty nights last summer streamed in an unending loop: scrubbing mascara-stained pillowcases until her fingers were numb from the frigid water, going through the motions at the espresso machine only to realize there was no one to drink the second cup, waking in the grey dark of city lights, wrapped in the feel of his massive arms tight around her, to find only the tangled mass of these same sheets.
As she stared at his empty pillow, a new ache burrowed in her chest.
They started trying.
Two weeks ago.
The box of tests sat untouched in her drawer in the bathroom.
# * # * # * #
He woke to sunlight.
A beam streamed in through the gap where a smooth manilla shade was raised just an inch above the metal sill. Dust motes roiled, trapped momentarily in their tortuous descent in the confines of the ray.
Stretching his limbs through stiff joints, kinked muscles, he turned away from the glare.
And rolled into bars.
Silver metal, and attached to his bed. His heart rate kicked up inside his ribs as he became more aware of his surroundings.
An itch beneath the sleeve of his white shirt made him yank up the cotton fabric to show a soft wristband, "Richard Edgar Castle, 4/1/1969, 1002347," printed across the white panel on one side. A line of goosebumps prickled up his arm and radiated out along his spine.
No restraints. The wave of adrenaline chasing through his veins pushed him to act.
His fist wrapped around one of the bars, smooth, ice-cold. He lifted, shoved hard, and the railing gave way, sliding down below the edge of the mattress, the unneeded force sending his arm off the bed, his nose into the pillow.
The rough white of the sheet beneath his cheek smelled of bleach as he took a deep breath, expanding his ribcage and filling his lungs until he spasmed forward in a fit of ragged coughs, the sound echoing off the flat, beige walls.
This place was too quiet, the furniture too carefully arranged, the colors too neutral. Subdued. Or subduing. His eyes narrowed as the pound of his heart ratcheted up another notch.
Prison? Hospital? Wherever 'here' was, his instinct screamed it was time to leave.
Swinging his legs to the right, he sat, immediately lifting the balls of his bare feet when they touched the cold tile floor. The movement provoked a twinge from the left side of his stomach.
With fumbling fingers, he raised the hem of his shirt high enough to see the spot that hurt.
Castle gasped out a curse, the rasp of his voice foreign to his ears, as his body jerked to stand, trying fruitlessly to distance himself from the sight.
A bandage covered a six inch square over his stomach, the white surface slit in the center. A clear plastic tube poked through, the end snaking back on itself, trapped beneath a taut layer of clear tape.
The pad of one index finger probed the device that pierced his skin, causing it to sink deeper into his abdomen. A small amount of yellow fluid seeped out inside of the tube, and he felt his insides roll. Wrenching down the edge of his shirt, he squeezed his eyes shut, pressed his tongue hard against the roof of his mouth and tried to breathe.
When he could open his eyes without emptying his stomach, he scanned his surroundings.
The room was empty. No guard. No nurse. But a call button sat on the bedside table, flanking a cordless telephone, green display marking the time 12:47. A small widescreen television observed him blankly from the opposite wall, mounted above a whiteboard with "5/10/2015" and "Jenny" printed in neat, blue block letters.
Through the closed door, he heard a muffled voice.
"Dr. Ledger, please return to unit Three Northeast, Dr. Ledger."
A hospital.
If this were a hospital, where was Kate? Where were his mother, his daughter?
Blinking hard, an image of a conference room, the slick cake of Paula's brick-red lipstick, the perpetually downturned mouth of Black Pawn's legal counsel, flashed before his mind's eye.
"YOU are what I want to do for dinner, Mrs. Castle."
It overlayed with the sharp, hot awakening in another hospital bed, sunburnt and confused, nine months earlier.
Another hospital room? Had he been taken again? Breaking out of the rush of memories, he acted on his instinct to get as far from here as possible.
His first steps elicited a series of creaks and pops from every joint, but he gathered himself enough to cross the short distance to the door. Clutching at the knob, his left hand fumbled, too weak to grip and turn it. Switching to his right, he pulled it open a crack, peered out on the mauve carpeted hall.
Through an inch-thick pane of glass across from his door, a woman in green scrubs stared at a computer, eyes intent on the screen, fingers plucking at the keyboard. He was almost directly in her line of sight, so he ducked back behind the wooden edge.
Curiosity shortly getting the better of him, he peeked again, and found an empty chair.
"Dr. Burke, please report to Three Northwest, room 347, Dr. Burke."
Footfalls, muffled by the combination of rubber soles and carpet, closed quickly on his location. Shuffling backward, he tucked himself into the corner behind the door.
"Mr. Castle, we're so glad to see you up." The bright alto sounded as the door was nudged gently open.
Through the gap at the hinges, he noted a smiling brunette had joined the woman from behind the glass, both methodically stalking through his room.
"Mr. Castle? Are you in the bathroom?"
The first nurse rapped on the door in the nearest corner as he held his breath, sure they must be able to hear the racing pound of his heart against his ribs.
"Oh there you are. Why are you hiding? It's just Jenny and Paula. You remember us."
Paula or Jenny smiled and swung the door closed, leaving him exposed, pressed as far back into the corner as he could go.
"No." He had to clear his throat around the hoarseness that croaked out with that one syllable. "I don't remember either one of you."
Both ladies' faces fell.
"Now don't you worry, Dr. Burke is on her way over right now. She'll go over everything with you. But for now, can we get you anything? How about something to eat? Some water?"
They had slowly advanced on him, taking advantage of his position, trapped in the corner, and now each one held a hand out to him, as if to take each of his.
He took a handful of careful steps out, holding up his own palms to indicate he didn't need their help to cover the distance. As he cleared the edge of the door, both women broke into identical grins.
And Castle lunged for the door.
He was halfway down the corridor before a large gentleman also wearing green scrubs stepped out into the hall ahead of him and stood unmoving, hands clasped, linebacker-sized muscles bulging.
Ten minutes later, he sat on his bed across from a blonde woman, Dr. Burke, though that name was equal parts familiar and wrong.
He was cooperating, for now. His attempt at escape, punctuated by his cries of "Kate!" in the hopes she might be in a waiting room down the hall, had resulted in the threat of medication. As he had struggled with the linebacker in the hall, Castle had caught a glimpse of the needle Paula had pulled from her pocket: it was already labeled with his name. He had backed off before she had uncapped it.
The walk back down the hall to his room, flanked by the two nurses and the linebacker, had revealed a row of closed, numbered doors. Just before he had reached the one he recognized as his own, he heard a click and found a pair of blue eyes peering out from the nearly identical door next to his.
Jenny had smiled at the tiny woman and veered toward her room.
"Don't worry, Mrs. Parish, everything is fine."
The unblinking eyes had fixed on his as his neighbor cowered back, allowing the nurse to pull the knob to.
Since then no one had told him anything. In the time it had taken for Burke to arrive, he had asked - very calmly, as Paula still periodically slid her hand into the scrub pocket containing the syringe - where he was, where were Beckett and Alexis and his mother, why was he being held. Their only response had been pleasant-faced deflection.
Now that Burke was here, maybe he could get some answers.
"I'm so glad you're awake, Mr. Castle. Do you know where we are?"
The green sleeve of the linebacker was just visible at the crack of his door.
"A hospital."
"That's right. And the date?"
His eyes flicked up to the whiteboard.
"May 10, 2015."
Leaning in slightly, she nodded.
"Correct. Can you tell me the last thing you remember before waking up here?"
"Beckett. I was texting with my wife, from a meeting with my publisher."
A crease formed across the woman's brow.
"I've answered your questions; how about you start answering some of mine? Like for example, where is Beckett? What is this place? Why am I here? Where is my daughter?"
The woman pressed her lips into a tight smile.
"I'm going to go call your daughter right now, Mr. Castle, to let her know the good news. I'm sure your family will be excited to see you, to answer all your questions."
# * # * # * #
"Hello, may I speak to Alexis Castle, please?"
"This is she."
"This is Dr. Burke, at Bellevue."
"What happened? Is my dad OK?"
"I have good news - your father has just woken up again."
"Is he - what did he say? Does he remember?"
"Alexis, he is awake, and lucid, wants to see you, but I'm sorry, it sounds like he doesn't remember why he's here."
"He asked for her, again, didn't he? Just like this time last summer, and the summer before that."
"I'm afraid so."
"Do you think it was the new medication that brought him back? Maybe there's a chance it could work longer than a few months this time. Keep him from slipping back under in a few months?"
"You know we can't know for sure. We've never been able to predict the recurrence of the catatonia."
"He always says it's time to go back to Beckett."
"Alexis, there's something else. I'm not sure it will mean anything different for his prognosis, but this time, he called her his wife."
# * # * # * #
Author's note: To Dia (fembot77) and Alex (caffinate-me / aspen_musing), thank you for the best beta psychiatry ever.