Close Encounters 8


He had thought she was asleep, but her voice came out of the darkness. Strong, quiet, serious.

"He didn't get very far," she was saying.

He kept still, tried not to breathe, to break the spell of the night and their love that seemed to release her words like a bird from a cage. Tentative, distrusting the wide world beyond, but ready to go.

"He liked torturing more than touching," she said then, wryness in her tone to mask whatever else was under it.

Castle spread his fingers out over her shoulder, pushed a kiss to her temple. She was his; she was going to be fine. She had to tell the story.

"I'm bruised but I could've broken his fingers myself. If it had helped."

"You were pretty feisty," he gave.

"He liked that too." She snorted at his neck like it was amusing, but it wasn't. "Every shot I got in, every smack he took, every time I had to knee him in the groin - he liked it. And that - seemed worse."

So she let him. . .?

So she let him.

He skimmed his palm down her back and she snuggled closer, strong and yet so delicate at the same time. Her scent in his every breath, every inhale belonging to her.

"Torturing him back was easy," she said then. "I just didn't - I wouldn't let him touch anything fun, he said. It made him crazy, he wanted me all the more, and so-"

He waited but she didn't fill that in.

"And so the factory," he finished.

"Yes. That."

Her body was still warm and fluid against his. He'd made love to her in this bed with the intent on worship, to bare every secret thing, and she'd made him a believer in the power their connection held to heal, to cleanse, to make everything right.

"And tonight?" he asked, because she still needed to say the words.

"Tonight sucked."

He let out a startled laugh, his arms tightening around her, and she smiled against his neck. Her felt her fingers at his waist, coasting up and down, a little artless. She was tired.

"Tonight sucked until you," she murmured then. "When you showed up, everything was fine."

"Yeah?" He skated his hand up to tangle in her still wet hair, kissing the side of her uninjured face. "Just showing up?"

"I knew it would be fine."

"Is it?"

"It is," she breathed out. "It's fine now."

"Then sleep, Kate, sweetheart. Sleep."


She woke to his grunt of surprise and the screech of car tires, doors being slammed.

"Castle?"

"Get down," he rasped.

She scissored her legs and rolled out of bed, following him over the side and naked, reached back into the sheets for a tshirt, something, but there was nothing. Just the clothes she'd worn in Mayak, skimpy and torn stripper clothes.

Fuck.

He was naked as he crawled across the room, snagged his weapon from the dresser top, the keys. She could hear the sound of voices, the pissed off language and the roar of quarry hounded to its hole and she knew the voice. She knew the voice.

Vadim.

Castle threw his tshirt at her; it hit her shoulder and she grabbed for it, her heart pounding. She crouched and put it on even as he scuttled to the window, barely moved the curtain aside to look out.

"Fuck." His shoulders hunched. "Vadim doesn't even care about the element of surprise, does he?" He said this as the trucks revved their engines and shined their headlights into the motel's windows, clearly illuminating the room, the huddled furniture.

"I should've let you smash the other hand," she muttered, shivering in the tshirt. At least with the curtains drawn, Vadim couldn't see inside. For now.

"Get in the bathroom," Castle said over his shoulder.

"No."

"Yes. You don't have a gun and-"

"They have fucking automatics and they will shoot this place apart before they even try the door. You said it - they didn't care about the element of surprise. If I'm going, you are too."

He narrowed his eyes at her but when he turned back to the window, he must have seen something, because he dived back for the other side of the bed and crashed on top of her. The place erupted, gunfire so loud it sounded like it was right at her ear, and Castle flinched and pushed off the floor.

She snagged him back down, tugging on his arm even as she crouched there, and she was hauling him towards the bathroom in the next instant. Thank God he wasn't acting the macho idiot and firing back with his meager Sig; save the bullets for when it mattered.

They fell into the bathroom together, plaster exploding around them as she jerked her foot inside, scrambling over broken tile, pieces of ceiling, the wall. Heat seared her hip and she grunted, but Castle was scooping her up and dumping them both into the bathtub.

They hunkered down as the place exploded around them, automatic fire tearing through the paper thin walls, the cheap plasterboard, chipping the porcelain. Castle had his back against the side of the tub, but it meant he also had his back to the room, shielding her. She could kill him for it, but she was afraid to move him, afraid that if they didn't lie side by side, they wouldn't see Vadim coming.

"When it stops," he yelled in her ear. "When they stop to look-"

"We fucking kill them," she growled back.

"Yes, ma'am."


He felt the grim determination rise up in him so hard and so tight it nearly choked him. Her body was tense against his, one of her hands had closed around his bicep like a lifeline.

Vadim.

He was going to dismember him. Piece by piece. Or let Beckett do it.

The flash of gunfire halted, but he stayed where he was, kept Beckett at his side. Sure enough, after a moment's sweet but too-short silence, the automatics rattled again, spraying the place anew.

No one in this godforsaken place was going to lift a finger to help, to intervene, not against Vadim. The nuclear industrial complex at Mayak had its clutch on this river basin; no one would be calling the police.

And then it went deadly silent.

She was breathing hard at his neck and he was still naked, his flesh scored with a hundred small cuts, the bathtub gritty with blood and water and debris, and he curled his arm at her neck and lifted his head slightly.

She was bleeding.

"Kate," he hissed, his hand going to her hip.

She flinched and arched away from him. "No, no. I'm okay. Just - grazed me. I'm okay."

"Fuck," he growled and propped himself up on his elbow to lift the tshirt and look. His shirt was ragged, black with blood in the near-darkness, the headlights from the cars shining through holes in the plaster and highlighting her pale face.

"I'm okay; I'm okay," she said, pushing him back down. "Where's your weapon?"

He showed her the gun, and at that moment, the door to the motel room shook violently under a brutal force.

"They're trying to get in," he muttered.

She lifted up on her elbows and looked at him. "Didn't think the door could withstand that."

"I flipped the privacy bar," he grinned.

She laughed, a sound so alien and and yet so beautiful in the strobing darkness, her face made blue by the car headlights and her body shrouded in shadows.

"Let's get ready," she said then, shoving on him. He crawled out of the bathtub silently, found the tattered remnants of her miniskirt at his feet and handed it over to her. She grimaced, but it was better than his current nothing - although the nudity didn't bother him. Her nudity? With Vadim out there, yes, he wanted her covered up.

He eased open the bathroom door and put his bare shoulder to the frame, watching the progress at the door. He felt Beckett at his side and then saw her creep forward to one of the gaping holes in the plaster by the toilet. He didn't like her exposed like that, but at least they weren't shooting.

How many had Vadim brought with him? His hand broken, probably in a great deal of pain, roaring drunk it sounded like too, and he'd come after them with friends. A posse. Castle had counted two other cars beside Vadim's, but he couldn't know how many bodies were inside.

"I can see outside," she breathed.

He jerked his head towards her, saw her perched on the lid of the intact toilet, straining to see out a hole high up.

"What do you see?"

"Four guys total. That's it. Can he be so fucking stupid?"

Castle grunted. "From what I've seen-"

She gave a little laugh and climbed back down. "Good point. Fucking stupid is right."

"I'll shoot them as they come in, but I'll probably only get two before they realize and come up with a better plan."

"Let the first one come in a little ways so I can take his gun when he falls," Beckett said, breathing right at his shoulder. "Okay?"

She was amazing. He was in love. If he hadn't been before-

"Got it," he murmured and then he cupped her face and kissed her hard.


Beckett tugged the shirt back up her shoulder and poised on the balls of her feet, ignoring the crunch of plaster and the chips of porcelain that seemed to dig deeper the longer they waited. Castle, squatting naked at the door, must be sliced to ribbons, and she saw a thin line of blood tracking down his tricep.

And then it was on.

The door snapped open and bounced back, smacking the lead guy in the forearm as he came through. He had an automatic rifle slung over one shoulder, finger on the trigger guard, and Castle shot him in the head before he had a chance.

The man fell at the foot of the bed, a bloom of gray matter spattering the bullet-ridden television, and then his body was right there, crumpled on the floor. Beckett waited but the second guy came on in as well, morons all of them, and Castle took him out before he even passed the threshold.

The bodies made an effective barrier.

"Good shot," she murmured to Castle and then nodded towards the man nearest their position. He nodded back and duck-walked forward, and despite herself, Kate felt the giggle bursting out of her lips - somewhat hysterical, mostly surreal - but she bit it down and followed him out of the protection of the bathroom.

Castle fired a burst towards the door as another guy advanced; Vadim's men fell back when the bullets flied and Kate lunged for the fallen comrade on the floor. She untangled his fingers from the grip and unsnapped the strap, fit the stock to her shoulder as she scurried back to their position at the bathroom.

Castle's hand was at her spine and pushing her inside before she realized what was happening and then the motel room was exploding around them, another frenetic volley of automatic weapons fire as they dived into the bathtub once more. Castle grabbed the barrel of the rifle and she gave it over, switched weapons with him.

"Fucking moron," he growled. "I'm going to enjoy this."

He lifted up only enough to sight the gun and then fired back.

From outside, she heard the clatter of their automatic weapons, the rev of engines, and then silence. A piece of the inside wall fell in a chunk, causing one of their guys to fire indiscriminately, and then glass was breaking.

"Coming in the window?" she murmured.

"I can't see. Hold on," Castle replied softly and then leaped like a cat out of the bathtub towards the hole in the bathroom wall.

"Shit," she hissed. "Castle. You're naked. Get back here."

"So?" he said, rather cavalier and careless, and she crawled out of the tub herself to perch on the toilet seat. Vadim's men had breached the front picture window and were smashing out glass in hurried chops of the butt of their weapons, ducking back to avoid whatever crossfire might come from inside.

She watched, counting distinctive hands, and then turned to Castle. "I think five more. Must've been in the car."

"My count too," he agreed. "Well. Let's get on with it. I want to take out this lot before someone calls in the military."

Oh, good point. With the nuclear plant so close, even if the local police couldn't be counted on for rescue, the military might send people in.

Castle checked the weapon once more. "Whoever Vadim belongs to - and you know he's someone's pet - they might come looking to clean up his mess."

"Shit," she breathed out.

"No, this is good," he said, something like relish in his voice. He was looking forward to this. "Now everyone will know it was a fight over a woman. There'll be nothing tying it back to that processing plant. Just Vadim being his usual stupid self."

She breathed out in relief and nodded. "All right. So what's the plan now, super spy?"


When the first man came in the window, he was already in position below it. Castle reached up and twisted the man's neck, breaking it cleanly as the body fell over him. The man coming in behind him didn't have the chance to stop, and Castle drew the knife from the dead man's sheath and plunged it into the exposed jugular of the second henchman, spraying blood as he twisted the blade.

The man didn't even scream.

He glanced to Beckett - acting lookout from behind the bed - and she held up two fingers. He stayed poised beneath the window, shattered glass under his feet, blood slicking his hands, and he waited half a beat before the third man came in as well.

Fucking idiots, every last one.

Castle stabbed the knife upwards into the vulnerable part of the man's inside arm, jerked the blade downward into the chest cavity. The guy screamed, a violent and gurgling thing as his lung was punctured, and Castle used the handle of the knife to bodily throw the man over into the room.

He looked to Beckett. She shook her head and flicked a finger back; the last man had retreated. He scrambled to one side, over a groaning body, and she tossed him the Sig once more. He caught it easily, his hand gritty with blood and debris, and then he cleared the doorway in a crouch and went on the offensive.

Finally.

Two men, clean shot for the first, the second required some treachery. The idiot was ducked behind the car door of his SUV, so Castle blew out his kneecap and the man fell with a scream, allowing Castle the headshot.

And then there was only Vadim, drunk and raging from the front seat where his last man had died.

Castle stood from his crouch, felt the thick paste of blood and dirt and plaster over his body, every cut and scrape that stung as his muscles rippled in movement and behind him - behind him - Kate.

Vadim had come for Kate. Even now, even now, Vadim was wrenching open the door and shouldering a weapon, some bulky automatic rifle with modifications that looked ridiculous and too heavy for him, one-handed and rageful and drunk.

Vadim squinted one eye and tried to aim.

Castle was going to savor every moment of this.


Beckett stood in the doorway of their destroyed motel room and watched Castle advance. She had the automatic in her hand, but she didn't expect to need it.

Only she didn't know what to do. Couldn't stop Castle now. Not after all this. Not when Vadim had shown he wouldn't stop either - his pride too damaged, his stupidity too massive - and even though this was the very thing Kate had joined the CIA to stop, she could do nothing.

Nothing.

Castle, naked and sheened with sweat and blood, strode out into the parking lot like he was a Titan. The gun was at his thigh, not even aimed at Vadim, and his sheer, relentless march forward seemed to be scaring the shit out of Vadim.

Beckett shivered in the whip of cold Russian wind but Castle reached the SUV and yanked the weapon out of Vadim's hands.

"You and that bitch-" Vadim started, but Castle backhanded him across the mouth in a blow both vicious and completely, frighteningly sterile.

No malice was in Castle's face, no spite in the movement, no rancor in his voice when it came. Vadim dropped to one knee and Castle hauled him back up to his feet.

"I told you once already." Castle spoke calmly, almost good-naturedly, and Beckett took a half-step forward, something dark thrashing in her chest.

"Fucking whore. She-"

"Be careful how you speak of her," Castle said quietly, his face close to Vadim's. He reached in and closed his hand around the splinted and mangled wreck of Vadim's left, crunching and shifting the bones so that Beckett could actually hear it. Vadim screamed and raged, spittle flying from his mouth, falling back against the vehicle.

"Your girlfriend is a fucking hellcat, and I hope she cuts off your dick, you ugly son of a bitch!"

Castle lifted an amused eye to Beckett and Kate's stomach flipped unexpectedly at the fierce possession on his face.

"She is a hellcat," he said, eyes sharp as his gaze raked over her. "Beautiful." And then his eyes cut back to Vadim and he twisted the man's arm behind his back and shoved him to his knees. "And she's not yours."

"I brought you in on this," Vadim snarled. "I took care of you, you asshole, and this is how you repay me? Stealing what's mine-"

"I don't think you heard me. She will never be yours. She was mine from the moment I laid eyes on her, no matter what you think or believe. Not matter how many fucking black eyes she gave you or bruises you gave her. Do you understand?"

"And so what? You will shoot me over this bitch?"

Castle's face hardened in the parking lot's security light; his grip seemed to tighten because Vadim snarled again and writhed on his knees. Kate came forward another step, but she found she didn't know what to say, didn't know what she wanted from this either.

"Shoot you? Too good for you. I will carve you up, Vadim. I will make you live the rest of your life with it."

And then Castle shifted and she saw the knife in his other hand, alive and sentient it seemed, waiting for the thrust.

"No," she got out. "No." Kate had to bite back the urge to call his name, his real name, and her hand squeezed around the butt of the rifle.

Castle looked up at her and shook his head. "I'm sorry. Not this time."

"No," she insisted, the certainty of it rising up in her. "Shoot him. Instead. Just shoot him."

Not torture him.

Castle held her gaze steadily and then dropped his eyes back to Vadim. "You're lucky she has compassion. You don't deserve it."

And then he shot Vadim between the eyes.


Castle came back to Kate who was standing just inside the doorway; she lifted her hand and pressed her palm to his stomach, her head bowed. He waited, gun in his hand, and her fingers skimmed a line of blood across his abs and then down to his waist.

"You need clothes," she said then.

He nodded, cupped his hand at her elbow as his eyes drifted over her. The tshirt was ragged and drooping down one shoulder; her feet were bare and her knees skinned as they poked out under the skirt. "It's over," he said finally.

She nodded back to that and lifted her head, gave him a smirking little twist of her lips. He'd thought - he had guessed she'd be shaken, horrified, something, but he'd forgotten this was Kate Beckett.

"Castle, you really need clothes," she murmured, and then he realized she was laughing at him. Held back, pent up, but laughing.

He narrowed his eyes and glanced down his body. "Could be."

"As wonderful a specimen as you are, super spy, I think clothes can only help our cause."

"We've got to - uh - scavenge some. Just to be presentable."

"You, sweetheart, are hardly presentable," she laughed. Her chin was tilted up towards him, her body slight but so strong, radiating heat, and he couldn't resist lowering his mouth to hers and claiming her kiss.

She wrapped her free arm around his neck and arched up into him; he dragged her body against his and fought her for control of the kiss, perfectly willing to lose. Kate growled in his mouth and nipped his bottom lip, something about show you hellcat and he held her tighter to him and gave her everything he had.

"We need to get going," she whispered after a time, her forehead pressed to his. "Before we attract any more attention."

"One of these guys is still alive," he said then. "If he survives, he'll let them know it was just a fight over a woman."

"Well, Agent Castle," she murmured in his ear. "Now that you've got her, what do you plan to do with her?"

He chuckled darkly and nudged closer for another kiss. "I've always had her. No change there."

She sighed, a little laugh falling from her lips, and then she pushed him away. "Don't get excited, Castle; you're not wearing any pants."


They used the company car to put the miles between them and the wrecked motel, and Castle was keeping his eyes peeled for a drug store along the outskirts of Samara so they could get supplies. Her phone had been shot to pieces on the television stand, but thankfully his was intact. Other than that, they had next to nothing.

Clothes, first aid, food, shit, even soap.

They couldn't drive too far; the CIA safe house was a flat in Samara just off the M5 but to show up within the city limits looking like they did was asking for trouble. Castle was wearing a hooded sweatshirt he'd found in one of Vadim's SUVs and his own ratty pants, and they'd loaded the company car with Vadim's cache of ammo and weapons, unwilling to leave it behind.

"Castle," she murmured as he cruised the lonely highway west of Samara. She was still in his tshirt and that miniskirt, and he wanted very badly to look at that 'graze' wound on her hip again; she'd bandaged it herself and he hadn't seen it close up yet.

"Yeah." He read the signs carefully, realized that he was losing focus as sleeplessness and strain and combat took their tolls on his body. He wasn't a twenty-six year old fresh from the Farm any more; he was fucking forty years old and married and why the hell was he still doing this?

"Castle," she said again, sharply.

"What?"

"You're bleeding."

He glanced over at her with a surprised laugh. "Well. So are you."

"No, I mean. . ." She leaned in and her fingers skimmed his thigh; he yelped and glanced down, saw the blood soaking through his pants.

"Shit."

"Look, up here on the right. It's a gas station. Stop here."

"I don't like gas stations," he muttered.

She snorted. "We held our own. Come on. We need to triage that leg, Castle."

"And your hip. What about that? Are you bleeding?"

She made a noncommittal noise that he knew meant yes and he growled as he jerked the car into the parking space just in front of the doors.

"Let me see it, Beckett."

She shook her head. "I don't - don't think it's a good idea to take the bandage off until we get somewhere we can do something about it."

"Shit."

"Just go inside and get us supplies. Okay?"

He was going to have to stitch up her hip, wasn't he? She hadn't let him see it, the stubborn little-

"Go, Castle."

He jerked open the car door and shoved his battered hands into the front pocket of the sweatshirt to hide the blood at his thigh, and then he hunched his shoulders as he went inside.

He didn't like this at all.


Beckett tilted her head back against the seat and let out a shaky breath. It really hurt. More than she'd thought back when they were standing in the wreckage of their motel room and trying to find clothes and the keys and everything else. She'd just wanted to get out of there.

She had her arm pressed tight to her hip, trying not to think about it, but it was throbbing now, a flame of heat deep in her bone.

And Castle. She hadn't noticed how bad it was, that laceration on the top of his thigh. Not until a moment ago, when she'd looked over at him and seen the grey shade to his face near his temple, the way his lips looked parched. She'd raked her eyes over him only to discover the blood seeping through his pant leg.

She shivered as the winter wind battered its way inside the car, the heater off now and the warmth receding.

She needed to look at this before Castle came back, just so she could prepare him. Just to see how bad it was. It'd be stupid to make him drive another thirty minutes to the safe house if she was going to bleed to death before then.

But she didn't think she would. Just. A steady trickle. His leg wound had to be worse, right?

Kate glanced at her right hip and eased her elbow away from her side, licked her bottom lip as she studied the makeshift bandage. Just that damn shimmery top, strings really, and it had crusted over now. She got her thumb under a wad of material, but it started to pull at her skin where it was stuck.

She stopped.

She'd have to soak her side in water to loosen the bandage without breaking the clot. She hoped it was a clot. At the time, it had felt like her flesh had been seared with the path of the bullet, so she'd assumed it was basically closed up.

Hopefully that held true.

She leaned her head back against the seat once more and closed her eyes.

Did it never end?