Thank you everyone for taking the time to review this story. Your words are appreciated and doted upon and awaited with an eagerness that is borderline unhealthy.
Kate Beckett was an only child from a family that had had been cruelly broken, it didn't take a genius to guess her approach towards commitment and relationships. But then she was also a cop, commitment and fellowship was the creed. So she observed with painful trepidation while her one brother tortured himself over the death of another as Javier watched over and over the clip that showed his partner get gunned down.
The large man standing a little more than a few feet away from the slumped figure of Kevin wasn't recognizable behind the mask he wore. Even after watching it more than eight times, Beckett still flinched when Kevin fell to his side.
"Our people are trying to identify the terrain," Detective Vincent said.
Beckett nodded; she wasn't surprised when Javier stood up with a jerk and stalked off. There was no chance that anyone could have survived those bullets. She thanked Vincent for his help and stared at the white board where they had clipped Kevin's face in the place of victims.
A lingering touch at her elbow told her that Castle was there, she didn't even know that she was shivering until the man pulled her to her seat and handed her a mug of coffee. A smile flashed on her face although her eyes dropped to her mug and the heart drawn in the coffee foam reignited the prickle in her eyes; it was childish and romantic and so much like the man before her.
"He's alive," Castle leaned forward and gripped her knee.
She looked at him in wonder; this man wasn't a stranger to hardships, he'd seen disappointments in his past and yet his furious hope blazed when her own had sputtered out. It was the best thing about him she decided, his unrelenting optimism.
"How?" she asked barely above a whisper.
"I won't believe otherwise until I see him not breathing with my own eyes."
This time her smile didn't disappear, she nodded and stood with renewed vigor to meet Javier and the three of them turned together to face the whiteboard.
"Looks like the traitor got what was coming for him, right Esposito?"
If looks could kill, Detective O' Donnell would have been dead three times over where he stood. With her own blood boiling, Beckett didn't have the presence of mind to stop Javier when he lunged towards the smirking Detective.
It was Castle who stepped in.
"No, Javier think about it." He grabbed the man with both his hands, "You don't want to get suspended, not before we solve this case."
"What're you insane?" Detective O'Donnell stared wide eyed, "I'm on your side man, even let that backstabbing idiot know that. Pounded it good in his brain –"
A loud sound of knuckles connecting with a face echoed in the bullpen. Beckett collard the man with the same hand she had punched him with and brought him down to her eyelevel.
"Never lay a finger on the people I care about," she told him in a voice dangerously soft, "And if I were you O'Donnell I'd watch my back from now on."
She shoved the man away when someone pointedly cleared their throat behind her. She turned to find Captain Gates deeply engrossed in the open file in her hands. She snapped it shut and handed the folder to Beckett.
"Detective Vincent sent this for you," she said.
The thick folder sat heavy in her hands and Beckett waited for the other shoe to drop. She had never been more surprised in her life when Captain Gates turned around to leave without another word.
O'Donnell shoved past Beckett and hurried after their Captain.
"Captain Gates didn't you see Beckett just assaulted me?"
"I'm sorry Detective O'Donnell I must have missed it while I was reading the file," she nodded and her voice raised several notches, "Did anyone here see Detective Beckett assault Detective O'Donnell?" she asked.
People suddenly turned back to their work and busied themselves into the first menial task they found. The general white noise of their office began anew and O'Donnell cursed under his breath as he stalked off to tend to his split three of them glanced at each other in muted amusement before Javier dropped in his chair and pulled it closer to his desk to start his research. He frowned at the new email in his official account that simply said: 'Watch me'
It was something that would have him waking up in cold sweat for many years to come. Later he would find out that he wasn't the only one who received the email, it was a video forwarded to every cop in the twelfth.
That time it was Castle who found him in the men's room staring into the cracked remains of the mirror as the trails of red flowed down into the pristine white washbasin. Jagged glass fragments, flecked with red were strewn across the dark vanity.
"Javi," Castle came forward slowly, his eyes moved from the Detective's blank face to the bleeding knuckles that gripped the edge of the washbasin.
Javier didn't respond to the hand that came to rest on his shoulder but the gentle squeeze may as well have been a shockwave from a bomb. His shoulders sagged, his head dropped and a ragged breath escaped him.
"He said he has no partner," it came out wrangled and torn.
Castle, the man who could come up with convoluted theories at the drop of a hat, could turn making coffee into sounding like a secret mission, was at loss for words. Javier had never been more grateful of his silence. Because with all the jabbering the man was capable of, the Detective knew that when the writer actually talked it meant a whole lot more than the entire running commentary he had going on.
"He was under the affects of a truth serum," Javier shook his head.
Because wasn't that a blow; his partner had denied their brotherhood in truth.
"He hardly gave any sensible answers," Castle shook his head.
"Exactly," Javier thought he might just break the washbasin in his hold, "He honestly believed that he had no partner."
"This is Kevin we are talking about," Castle said, "In his mind he may be protecting you,"
"Protecting me?" Javier nearly snarled as he turned around and shook off the comforting grip, "Protecting me from what?"
"From this gang, from whoever it is in this department that had ratted him out."
Javier frowned, his tired brain snapped alert as it focused on something that he had picked up on in that nightmare of a video. He had noticed it but hadn't thought anything of it. Standing there with Castle who was implying that Kevin's thoughts had been lucid enough to try and protect him it appeared to him in a new light. What if it wasn't an instinctual act to manage the pain but something else?
"Five and four," Javier whispered, "five and four, what does that make?"
"Uh, nine?"
"Nine what?"
"How am I supposed to know?" Castle frowned.
Javier swung his head from side to side in an effort to shake lose a memory. Five and four he repeated in his mind, they were important, significant and he was now surer than ever that Kevin had been trying to tell him something. He wracked his brain until it was on the tip of his tongue yet not coming forth when Castle's cell phone rang.
Javier glared at the object for its misdemeanor and Castle hurriedly answered the call for the fear that the other man may just throw the piece of technology on the ground before stomping on it for good measure. It was a legitimate fear and Javier glared until the writer had backed off into a corner.
He was still chewing over the numbers when Castle ended his phone call. The writer looked pale but there was a hard gleam in his usually merry eyes.
"You wouldn't believe who had come to visit me today." He said.
Something tickled in his ear.
"Sleeping on the job Kevin?"
"G'away."
The soft fluttering in his ear didn't ease.
"Come on Kevin, you don't give up this easy."
He groaned and managed to peel his eyelids a fraction. Light; glaring and piercing greeted him and he closed his eyes again with a low moan.
"We have to get out of here," this time it was urgent and painful.
It was the gasp at the end of the sentence that pushed his eyelids back up.
Smell of wet earth and the magnified glades of grass had him frowning. He was lying on his side in a lawn it seemed but that wasn't right. Last time Leo had talked to him they were in a warehouse, pinned down by gunfire while his partner bled out in his arms.
Kevin's eyes opened further and darted around wildly.
"Right here you idiot," Leo crouched before him so that he was in his line of sight.
Kevin's frown deepened; there was something wrong, though he couldn't put his finger on it.
"You're going to lie there all day or will we be moving sometimes this century?"
He licked his cracked lips and tasted the copper tang of blood. His breath hitched softly and he wished Leo would go away and just let him sleep. It was comfortable here and he felt like he had just pulled his partner up on the roof after the maniac had tried to jump buildings; Kevin decided he needed to be paid better if this crap was to become a regular thing.
"Like it here..." He managed to breathe out.
"And that right there shows how much sense you have," Leo shook his head, "Get up Kevin if you want to live."
Leo could scream at him till he was blue in the face; Kevin may not remember what had left him feeling so drained but he felt it alright, and that meant he had earned his rest. He closed his eyes again only to find himself back at the warehouse.
Their tight corner is almost compromised; his hands are sticky and slippery at the same time as he counts his last five bullets while the weight of his partner in his lap hovers between unconsciousness and death. Kevin curses a blue streak that the nuns at his school wouldn't have believed he was capable of.
He slaps his friend and the head lolls slightly before the glazed over eyes blink open.
"You stay awake," he growls.
"...tired."
"Yeah? So am I." Kevin ducks as another spray of bullets comes too close for comfort, "You don't see me napping."
He shot off two rounds and dipped back behind the cover on the wall. The gash in his side made itself known and so did the bullet in his leg. Kevin decides not to think about it, the bullet grazes and dubiously severe gashes he could survive, the bullet in the leg he isn't so sure about.
He looks down at the red pool he's sitting in and knows that this much blood should not be out of the body, but he'd be damned if he knew how much of it is his partner's and how much of it is his own.
He gasped and opened his eyes again.
"Serves you right for ignoring me," Leo snickered from somewhere beside his head, "Now if you don't want to be buried alive, MOVE."
That shook the numb cocoon around him and as the pain hit him like a malevolent bolt of lightning it cleared up the dire reality of his situation. He lifted his head up as the low sound of dirt being shoveled reached him. The exertion drained him of the remaining energy and he thumped his head back down.
"I don't think I can hold on much longer." He confessed as his vision threatened to black out again.
"One step at a time bro,"
"Who said that?" he frowned.
"What?" Leo frowned too.
Kevin shook his head; he was too tired for this. Here he was about to be buried alive and Leo thought it was funny to play games with him. The two of them had been undercover for almost three months now and he was too tired to hold on to this anymore.
"Just one more day bro, hold on for one more day,"
She didn't seem more than twenty years old. Clutching the mug Martha had offered her, she sat like one who wished to dissolve into a corner. As it was, she was pressed against the armrest of Castle's ridiculously comfortable sofa and nearly hunched over the bag in her lap. The only thing remotely identifying about her was the smell of jasmine.
"You know something about my partner?" Javier had had enough of the silence.
The girl flinched and curled further, Javier felt bad for her but he didn't have the time to spare feelings. He stepped closer to the girl and she shrank back, the mug in her hands shook and a few drops of lukewarm tea escaped over its rim.
Beckett's hand on his shoulder worked as a silent order to back off. He didn't look away from the dark head bent too low as the writer crouched before the girl.
"Hi I'm Castle, you told my mother you had to meet me," he said.
The girl looked up, her big eyes roamed over the face of the man before her gaze skittered away. She clutched the mug tighter as her back straightened a bit.
"What's the first thing you always do when you come to the precinct?" she asked quietly, looking anywhere but at the three rather intimidating people before her.
Castle frowned and Javier shifted his weight where he stood.
"That I always do? Well, make coffee for Kate and myself I guess,"
The girl looked at him again, this time her voice wavered only a little bit.
"Mr. Castle?"
"That's right,"
"I'm Anastasia," she left the mug on the floor and pulled out a hard drive from her bag, "Sean – no – Ryan said I have to give you this."
The three stared dumbfounded as Castle held the hard drive that they were sure their friend had been tortured over. The girl dropped her gaze again.
"He said to go to Mr. Castle, gave me your address." She shrugged, "Don't go to the police go to Castle,"
"The princess in the Castle," the writer stared wide eyed, "You're Anastasia, of'course you're Anastasia, the lost Russian princess."
"Wait, why not the police?" Beckett frowned.
It clicked in Javier's mind as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. It was all clear now and he feared that it had come too late.
"Five and four," he said, "Fifty-four. I worked out of the fifty-fourth and what did we find when Ike resurfaced?"
"The IA agent..." Castle groaned.
"Someone close to this case is in on it." Beckett nodded.
"I saw the man, the policeman talking to Cortez and told Sean," Anastasia spoke up, "He said he was Ryan, he said to take this and go to Mr. Castle."
"Anastasia do you know where Ryan is?" Beckett asked.
The girl wrapped her arms around herself with a frown and gave a barely perceptible nod.
"I was there, until they took Sean – Ryan out for execution." She said.
The room spun a little as Javier clutched the back of a chair to keep at bay the dizziness threatening to overtake him. It was true then, his partner, his best friend, his brother was dead.
"Sean – Ryan is a good man," Anastasia went on, "He is kind. I help him. I change the bullets."
"You what?!" three voices asked, six eyes stared.
Anastasia curled into herself a bit further. She gave a small shrug of a single shoulder.
"Plastic bullets," she murmured, "Cortez uses them sometimes."
He stopped breathing all over again. There was a chance; there was still a way that Kevin might be alive. He had one bullet wound to the shoulder and three shots to the chest, even plastic bullets could be lethal at such a close range but Javier wouldn't think about it. Life couldn't be so cruel as to give him hope again only to yank it from under his feet.
He inhaled sharply when black spots began dancing in his vision. After the blind faith that had kept him going, the shore of hope steady under his feet left him all kinds of wobbly.
He only caught snatches of Anastasia describing where she had come from and only paid attention to Beckett when she ordered him. He got ready for the raid on autopilot and let adrenalin guide him through the action. When he stepped onto the lawn where his partner had been gunned down Javier had never been more terrified. He didn't know whether to laugh or to cry when they found a large man lying dead beside an open grave, a blood stained shovel tossed carelessly over the upturned earth.
They found blood where he knew his partner had been but there was no sign of the man himself.
"He's not here!" Javier snarled as the house was cleared, "Beckett he's not here!"
He couldn't understand it, where the hell was his partner. Javier was on the brink of starting to shoot down the men they had captured until one of them told him where Kevin was. He was only stopped by Beckett's hold on his arm.
Her phone rang and she answered it with a snapped "What?"
Javier watched the color drain from her face but had to admire the resolve of the woman before him when her composure didn't break. She gave a sharp nod and tugged Javier after herself.
"What? Where are we going?" he hurried to fall beside her long strides as Castle did the same.
"We're going to the hospital, they found Kevin."
Silent tears and pursed lips, the woman didn't even make a sound, not even a sniff. Javier wished she would, this silent grief was killing him. But the wife of his best friend refused to be coddled, so Jenny sat in one of the blue plastic chairs clutching her wedding ring in her hand, the same one that often rose to wipe at her increasingly red face. Beckett was a silent presence besides her, offering her a warm hand to hold once in a while.
Castle sat across the two women with his elbows braced on his legs and head bent low. From time to time he took to walking down the hallway, past the long line of doors but never too far from the double doors they all glanced at every five minutes.
Besides Castle was Mr. Patrick, the man who had found Kevin. Rather the man Kevin had found, Javier couldn't wrap his mind around the idea how his partner had made it all the way to this man's house being in the condition he was. His eyes often strayed to the bent white head from where the detective stood leaning against the wall.
Javier couldn't tell if the man was praying or humming or freakin reciting Shakespeare. But his soft monotone paused after a while and the blue eyes caught him staring.
Mr. Patrick got up from his spot and came to stand beside Javier.
"You're his partner." It wasn't a question, "He talks a lot about you."
That was a surprise, because Kevin hadn't mentioned this man to him, only that his partner back at the Narcotics was a man named Leo. He had taken the lack of detail about his friend's old partner as a sign that there was nothing to tell. Apparently, he was wrong.
"Told me he was glad that you're a different brand of insanity then my boy was," Mr. Patrick chuckled, "He hadn't quite forgiven himself you know. I keep telling him that what happened was always a possibility since my boy got his badge."
Javier nodded; he hadn't the presence of mind to utilize the skill called talking, one that he had mastered at the grand age of fourteen months. His brain was still fumbling over the fact that someone could just walk out of those doors and announce that this entire search had been for nothing. That they were really sorry for their loss but there was nothing they could do more for his friend.
He'd been on the receiving end of such news a lot of times during his time in the military, it had hurt every time but this was different, this was his brother. The guilt and desperation were boulders on his back that threatened to drop him to his knees right where he stood.
They both watched the orange-brown doors in silence.
"He hated it in the beginning," Mr. Patrick said, "being called Leo; but warmed up to it in a matter of weeks. And he always said that was because he was partnered with the most stubborn twerp this side of the coast."
An old bony hand patted his shoulder.
"That tenacity brought him to my door after all the hell he'd been through," the old man said, "Don't give up on him just yet."
All of them turned towards the wide double doors at the sound of footsteps and blinked when they saw no one. Javier turned his gaze around to the other end of the corridor and saw Lanie coming towards him. For the second time that day, he went into her arms like child out of the cold.
It came to him in flashes, his journey to Mr. Patrick. He had to tell him that he was sorry for Leo's death, had to tell him that he firmly believed no father should have to bury his son, that he was so so sorry that he couldn't save his partner. The last thing that he remembered was the white door of the Patrick house. He had knocked, he had waited and then he had fluttered off, like a leaf on the wind.
Dark and light, pain and relief, danger and safety, past and present, Leo and...
Kevin couldn't remember. There was someone he was supposed to remember but the pain wouldn't let him think straight. Someone slapped his face, ordered him to open his eyes. He was thankful when the wind came for him again.
"You're not supposed to be here!" Leo huffs as he bends over with his hands on his knees.
"Excuse me?" Kevin arcs a brow.
His partner straightens and plucks at the sweat soaked shirt that's clinging to his skin. The frown on his face tells Kevin that he is not pleased to find him here during the man's run. But it's not like just because Leo comes to this park that Kevin can't come here to enjoy the morning.
"Let me rephrase that, you're not allowed to be here,"
"And who revoked my permission?"
"I did," Leo rolls his eyes and wipes the back of his hand over his sweaty forehead then pushes his fingers through his drenched black hair until they stick to his skull.
"You bought the park?"
"Maybe I did," Leo reaches forward and pulls him up to his feet with a hard jerk on his arm.
It jolted his body from the tip of his hair to the edge of his toenails.
"Wait I think I got a beat, OK bag him."
"Ready?"
"On the count of three," the voice was too near but it was not the voice he was looking for, "Come on let's move."
There were too many hands on him, searching and prodding. Fingers poking him in the eye of the pain radiating from so many places that Kevin couldn't really keep a track of it. But he knew one thing; they were not the hands he was looking for.
"What? You're back again?" Leo glares at him with his hands on his hips and looks up at the sky as though hoping for divine intervention, "You're determined twerp, I'll give you that."
It's Kevin's turn to roll his eyes. He maybe a newly promoted detective but his partner treats him like he's a kid out of high school.
"Don't you have a better place to be?" Leo smirks, "Aren't there better people to be with than sitting here alone?"
"I can think of a lot of people who're a better company than you," Kevin smirks up at him.
Leo simply grabs his shoulders and hauls him up to his feet. When Kevin gives a stare both confused and surprised his partner simply grins, turns him around and gives him a shove that is not gentle at all.
It left something heavy pressed on his chest but he hadn't the strength to shove it off. The world zoomed past him and a jumble of voices ebbed and flowed in its wake. Interment flashes of fluorescent light left him dazed and Kevin squinted up at the blurred faces. He couldn't remember who he was looking for but he was sure the face was not in this crowd.
As the world picked up an even more frantic pace, he let the wind blow him away again.
"You don't get it do you?" Leo asks from where he had sat down beside him.
"I'm sure you'll enlighten me," Kevin raises his face to the sun.
Still he can't stop the shivers that travel up and down his spine. He wonders why he's this cold when his partner is sweating like he could melt into a puddle.
"You've gotta go back Kevin,"
"Back where?"
Leo looks back and taps him on the shoulder until he does as well. Kevin stares wide eyed because it wasn't there before, he's sure of it. He glances to his side and notes for the first time that there are no other people in the park aside from the two of them.
"You want me to go into that sink hole?
"I'll shove you in if I have to,"
"Is this some sort of a payback?" Kevin snorts.
Leo looks at him with sincerity in his blue eyes and the sinkhole suddenly appears in front of them, it's edge is crumbling under Kevin's toes.
"Yeah it's payback for all the times you saved my life." Leo says and pushes him in head first.
He slammed down onto the scratchy padded surface feeling like a sweater vest hung out to dry, heavy and limp. A shrill monotonous beep broke into a jerky rhythm somewhere far away and a distant murmur of voices reached his ears.
White light, white walls and white pain skirted the edges of his consciousness; there was movement in his periphery he could tell, though he couldn't see. The world stopped around him and buoyed by the drugs in his system he settled like he would on his back in a lake somewhere in a far off land.
Clear, soft blue lapping under him and clear bright blue lulled above.
Soft footsteps and precise touches invaded his serenity but he refused to pay them mind. He waited for a shore that would lead him back to the park, back to Leo.
It wasn't until he felt a warm touch on his forehead that he realized again how cold he was. He frowned up at the blue sky and focused on to that touch until he heard a broken voice.
"You'll be ok bro, ya hear me Kev? You'll be ok; you just gotta hang on through this."
He couldn't tell who this was, but Kevin was sure it was the voice and the touch he had been waiting for.
I was going to write a grand rescue, heartfelt reunions and the works but then this sort of happened...
TBC