A/N: URGH I'm so sorry this has taken so long, I've just been so bogged down with life and crap and bollocks and eurgh yes anyway. CHAPTER FOUR. Honestly, it's rubbish and made up of a crap load of dialogue and I honestly apologise.
And Jess might seem a tad out of character, BUT SHE'S GROWN UP SINCE THE END OF SEASON FIVE and yes. She's not the giggly girl she used to be. She's still just as upbeat and positive about everything (and still completely in love with Becker, but honestly, who isn't?) SHE'S JUST GROWN UP OKAY.
Disclaimer: I WASN'T SHOT IN THE CHEST AND I DON'T REMEMBER EVERY SECOND OF IT.
It's not the first time they've woken up lying next to each other. And he's reasonably sure, hopeful even, that it won't be the last. Granted the first time they had just been kidnapped by some secret government agency and drugged. And the second time was after being drugged (he's hoping this isn't going to be a recurring theme) and handcuffed together. But now. Now it's because they needed sleep. Sleep and warmth. And with Danny keeping guard by the fire, there was really no option other than for the two of them to curl up on the softest bit of ground they could find, close their eyes and attempt to sleep. Which is easy for Kate to say, she's used to catching sleep whenever she can. Whether it be in the break room at the precinct or half an hour in her car where they're taking turns in keeping an eye out for a suspect. She lies down, closes her eyes, and he's pretty sure she's out like a light. Or something. Castle finds it a lot harder. He keeps hearing the crackle of the fire, the sound of some form of animal outside, and really he can't help but stare at Kate. He's seen her asleep before. It's not anything new. But he rarely sees her as relaxed as she does when she's sleeping. Though, really, he'd hardly class it as relaxed. She's still as tense as ever, her hand tight around her gun. But she's resting, and that's probably something she should do more of. He lies on his back eventually, hands behind his head, staring up at the rocky roof of the cave. The light from the fire makes shadows on the roof and he lets his imagination run away with him, stories of princes and princesses, an evil witch (isn't that always the way?) and daring rescues, and before he knows it he's jerking awake a few hours later to Kate shifting against him. She's waking up, and he's tempted to tell her to go back to sleep, but she's already telling Danny that he needs to rest too. It's on and off dozing after that, and it's only when he wakes up to find the cave filling with early morning light did he decide it was time to get up.
"Morning." He says, stretching upwards and feeling his back crack.
"Hey." She replies, turning to look at him. "You sleep well?"
"Yeah. Surprisingly. How long have you been awake?"
She shrugged. "Three hours, maybe. It wasn't fair on Danny to make him sit there all night."
"But according to you, Danny's just a figment of our imaginations. I don't think figments of imaginations tend to get tired."
Kate sighed. "Castle."
"Sorry. You should have woken me up. I would have kept you company."
"Right, and have you miss out on valuable sleep? You're grumpy when you haven't had your eight hours."
"I am not!" Castle exclaimed, nudging her with his elbow. "Take that back."
"No!"
"Take it back or I'll tickle you."
Kate laughed. "Right. Tickle me and I will not be held responsible for any injuries that you acquire."
"So, Kate Beckett is ticklish."
"I never said that."
"But you might as well have. Why would it bother you otherwise?" He grinned at her. "Only the ticklish don't like being tickled."
"I swear, you use it against me and I will kill you." Kate replied, only half glaring at him. Really, she was too amused to be that annoyed at him. And there wasn't anything to be annoyed at, to be honest. "But only after we get home."
"You think we will?"
Kate didn't really want to think about what would happen if they were stuck here for the rest of their life. She didn't want to be ninety and be living with dinosaurs. If she even lived to that age. She might have been eaten by a Tyrannosaurus Rex by then. Still, at least it would be quick. "I'm not thinking anything at the minute. Don't want to get my hopes up."
"I don't think we're going to spend the rest of our lives here. I mean, Danny's been home once, hasn't he?"
"Yeah, but he was here for like two years. Do you really want to live here for two years? You're going to be reported missing. Your daughter is going to think you're dead. Everyone is going to think you're dead."
"Kate."
She winces. He rarely snaps at her. "Sorry. I am, I just… this whole thing is crazy."
"You keep saying that. It doesn't help."
"You're not helping."
"Do you two always argue like this?" They both turned, finding Danny looking at them out of amused eyes.
"Yes." They replied simultaneously.
Danny was still on the hunt for some form of water source, and as soon as possible they were up and back on their feet and walking away from the cave. Danny wasn't sure if they'd come back to it, and it wasn't long before both it and the cliff were out of sight. It wasn't that he didn't like their arguing, because he was used to it. The number of arguments that had broken out back at the Arc were frankly ridiculous (most of them were not between himself and Becker, obviously) but these two… it seemed everything the other said meant a snide comment from the other. Granted, it was usually Beckett doing the back talk and Castle batting it back with some other come back. Back and forth, back and forth. It was like Wimbledon with sarcasm. And apparently he was referee. Fan-bloody-tastic. "If you two are going to keep being mean to each other then I'm going to split you up." Danny said eventually, turning around after hearing what must have been the fiftieth shut-up-or-I-will-make-you sigh from Beckett.
"We're not being mean to each other." Castle replied, somewhat defensive. "This is how we work."
"Yeah, well it's bloody annoying."
"Well no one asked you to be here." Beckett grumbled.
"Well you'd be dead if I hadn't."
"Oh, really? Cause so far I haven't seen any form of danger whatsoever. I think we would have coped just fine without you."
It's the perfect spot really. A large pool that doesn't seem to be inhabited by anything resembling danger, and a cave just a stone's throw away. Danny doesn't waste any time in pulling off his clothes. All of his clothes, which leaves Castle gaping a bit and Beckett turning around with a slight blush on her cheeks. They decide to leave him to it, making their way up the slight incline and to the cave. "You not going to have a swim?" Castle asked Beckett as she shrugs off her jacket and leaves it on a rock.
"Maybe later. When there isn't a naked man in there with me."
"Wouldn't have thought you'd have a problem with naked men." Castle asked her, barely managing to keep his face straight.
Beckett fixed him with a glare and he laughed. "I'm kidding. Don't shoot me."
"Maybe not yet. If I'm going to shoot anybody, it'll be Danny."
"Oh, he's not that bad."
"Ha! You would say that."
"You're just jealous that there's another alpha in the mix. You're too used to leading. And here's Danny. He's elbowing in on your patch."
Kate turned on him, one finger poking him viciously in the chest. "I am not jealous, Castle. He's not putting his elbows anywhere."
"Well, for someone who says they're not jealous, you are very defensive about it." He replied, pursing his lips with a smile. "It's okay to admit it, you know. Jealousy is a very human emotion."
"Shut up, Castle."
"How do you think they're doing back home?" he asks her once they've sat down outside the cave. It's far too hot to not sit out in the open air.
"Well, I can't speak for Alexis and Martha, but I expect Gates is tearing her hair out. Blaming you, of course. Ryan and Esposito are probably still trying to ID Patrick, or Ethan, or whatever the hell he's called. Interpol will take forever to look through, and I don't know if Missing Person's from the UK are at all broadcasted in the US. And I think that dinosaurs are probably the furthest thing from their minds. Nobody expects dinosaurs to be roaming around New York in the 21st century."
"I can't wait for Gates to hear this one." Castle said with barely suppressed glee. Beckett could practically see him bouncing.
"I am so leaving you to explain that one. I wouldn't even attempt it. It'd be like poking a bee hive with a stick. You're actually asking for her to section you."
"Your concern is touching."
"I think what Gates doesn't know can't hurt her."
"Yeah, but she thinks dinosaurs are extinct and look what happened there! Patrick gets mauled to death! In the 21st century! In New York! By a dinosaur!"
Beckett shook her head. "She is not going to believe you, Castle. Not when it comes to dinosaurs."
"I could always videotape one. Phone still works."
"She'll find a way to dispute it. You know she will. And don't say anything about kidnapping a dinosaur and bringing it back with you. That will not end well."
"Can you kidnap a dinosaur?"
"I forbid you to try."
"But I'd be famous!"
"Wait… you're not the world famous, best-selling novelist Richard Castle?" Beckett said, raising an eyebrow at him. "Or was all that a joke just so you had an excuse to follow me around?"
"Oh, ha ha. So funny."
"If you even attempt to bring a dinosaur home with you then I am banning you from the precinct. For all of eternity. It's never, ever going to happen."
"What if I use my puppy dog eyes on you?"
"No, no, and definitely no."
"Just a small one!" he turned himself to face her properly, eyes all alive with excitement.
"And where would you keep this small dinosaur? I don't think Alexis would want to share."
"I could convert the spare room. No one uses it anyway."
"And your guests would sleep… where, exactly? I don't think they'd appreciate being forced to sleep on the sofa because of a dinosaur."
Castle shrugged. "I could always move. Get a proper house, you know. Out in the suburbs. Lots of room. Big garden, so it could run around. Train it to fetch the newspaper. It'd be so cool."
"You are not moving to the suburbs, Castle. It'd take you about five hours to get to the crime scene."
"And there was me thinking you'd be happy at me being absent. I wouldn't mess up your crime scenes, or provide you with crazy theories that keep you guys so entertained."
"Yeah, but who's going to bring me coffee now? Free coffee every morning is the only reason you're still here. Haven't you learnt anything by now?"
Ryan threw his phone down onto his desk with an exasperated sigh. He couldn't even be bothered putting it back on the hook. He was fed up, tired and irritated. "There's nothing. Absolutely nothing in any database in the US." He growled, leaning backwards in his chair. "The guy doesn't exist."
"Have you tried Interpol?" Esposito asked from his own desk, tired and grumpy himself from looking through hours of airport footage.
"It's running now, but it's a massive database. It could take a while. How's the airport footage?"
"Pointless. There's no evidence to even say that he came in on a plane, and even if he did it could have been months ago. But we've got nothing else to go on."
"And still no sign of Beckett or Castle?"
"Nothing. No camera footage outside the scrap yard, phones are still going straight to voicemail. They're not at home. They have literally vanished off the face of the earth."
"Abducted by aliens again?"
"It wouldn't be the first time they've disappeared."
"Yeah, and every time they nearly die. Which isn't at all reassuring, but we've got nothing to go on. They could be anywhere."
"They'll turn up eventually. Castle's like a bad penny. He gets everywhere."
Ryan sighed. "Yeah. We hope."
Half an hour later Ryan's phone was ringing again and he picked it up with a dejected sigh. "Detective Ryan."
"Detective Ryan, NYPD?"
"Yeah, that's me."
"Hi, this is Jess Parker. I work for the Anomaly Research Center in the UK."
"The… wait, what?"
"It's not important. Official Secrets Act, whatever. I understand you're currently looking for someone? We have his file tagged here, in case anyone ran a search on him and your search popped up on my screen this afternoon."
"Are you serious? Who is he?"
"Well, his real name is Patrick Quinn, but he also goes by Ethan Dobrowski. Can I ask why you're enquiring into him?"
"He was found dead in a scrap yard yesterday. His chest cavity was torn out."
There was the sound of somebody trying not to wretch on the other side of the phone and Ryan grimaced, leaning backwards to get Esposito's attention. "Sorry. That's… kind of disgusting. But he's dead? Definitely dead?"
"Erm, yes. Dead as a dodo."
"Oh, thank god."
"Why?"
"Oh, we had a bit of trouble with him a year or so back. Caused us a lot of trouble. I don't suppose there was any sign of anyone else around? Another guy? Ginger hair, walks around like he's a chimpanzee?"
"No. Nothing apart from a blood trail that stopped mid-trail. Don't suppose that means anything to you, does it?"
"Ohhhhh. Oh, bloody hell. There haven't been any reports about, urm, animal attacks have there? Like, vicious ones?"
"Not that I'm aware of…"
"Right. Okay, okay good. Listen, I'm gonna need to send a team out to New York. Would it be possible to get your e-mail address so I can send you details? They're going to need to be shown where the crime scene is, and that trail of blood."
"Woah, woah, hold on. This is our crime scene. Our investigation. You're in the UK. How do you expect us to wait for you to send a team here? We need to catch a murderer!"
"Yeah, you may not actually have a murderer to catch." Jess said slowly, as if gauging Ryan's reaction. "But I can't talk over the phone. The team will explain when they get there."
"Look, thanks for the information on our dead guy, but-"
"Look, Detective Ryan. I know this is hard to believe, but if you don't let us help then you might end up with a seriously bad, um, pest problem. And I don't believe that you are at all equipped to deal with the kind of animals that you may or may not encounter while you are investigating this murder. I wouldn't even call it a murder. By the sounds of it, it's an animal attack. Just… not an animal you're accustomed to. Connor and Becker and Abby will explain all, I promise."
Ryan closed his eyes, counted to five, ran through all the options that he didn't have and sighed. "Fine." He replied eventually, giving Jess his e-mail address through gritted teeth. "Though my boss isn't going to like this."
