Close Encounters 3

Agent Castle had set his phone to receive his alerts - his regular work and updates on Ryan's progress, as well as the biofeedback monitor's automated reports on Maddox's condition. He kept the phone on the bedside stand so he could read it without moving her much, her body so compact and drawn in against his.

When he'd shifted to first reach for a call, she'd moaned in her sleep and roused long enough for tears to fill her eyes, still unseeing and caught in the layers of confusion from the drugs. So he quit trying to do anything other than be the body pillow she needed, his mouth against the top of her head and his hand curled warmly at her neck.

She seemed to sink deeper into sleep when he had a grip on her like that, like she needed to be weighed down. He didn't think the painkillers were agreeing with her too well, and he wanted to talk to her doctor, or maybe her friend - the ME, Lanie - find out if she was having some kind of reaction to the drugs.

Another alert flashed on his screen and he glanced at it - Ryan again, saying he was going home and would return tomorrow. It was getting to be late; Castle couldn't remember how long he'd been here. The nurse on shift kept coming in to check Kate's vitals, record her blood pressure and heart rate, once to change the IV, and even though she shot him dirty looks for flagrantly violating hospital protocol, all he'd had to do was show his CIA credentials and the administration hadn't said another word.

He was staying.

Speak of the devil. The door opened and Castle braced himself for another silent staring contest, but it was a new one - dark-skinned, wide hands, blue scrubs.

"How are we doing?" she asked quietly, scratching something down on Beckett's chart.

"Good," he answered shortly, tried not to feel like he was doing something wrong.

"You know, that's gonna hurt her in the morning."

He stiffened. "What?"

"How'd you like to spend twelve hours sleeping on a sack of bones?"

Castle felt the grin lifting one side of his mouth, went ahead and let it loose. "You have a point. But she said she was cold-"

"I'll get her another blanket. Shift her off and lower the bed. She shouldn't be upright this long anyway, not with her blood pressure being so low."

Her blood pressure was low? Why hadn't the other nurse said anything? Castle gripped the back of Kate's neck in one hand and her thigh in the other, slowly eased his body out from under hers.

"That's good, better. I'm gonna lower the bed so she won't be cramped up like that, but you can stick close, Handsome. She's gonna want to see you."

"Yeah," his voice graveled. "I'll stick close."

He felt the head of the bed lowering and kept a careful hold on Kate, made sure she eased down into position. It stopped just short of lying completely flat, but the nurse was right. She looked a lot more comfortable.

"She's been waking up every now and then," he confessed, studying Kate's profile in the light coming from the sink. He stroked his hand to her shoulder and finally looked at the nurse. "She's - it's not crying. Not exactly. But-"

"It's normal. Anesthesia can make our reactions a little whacky."

"She's not sad?" he asked quickly. "I mean. It's just the drugs?"

"Handsome, I think you gotta give her a chance to come out of it. She was on the vent just twelve hours ago."

He glanced back down to Kate, but still- "She was joking with me. But she was in pain, and she had tears in her eyes. And then it happened again, but she was sleeping. She was crying in her sleep."

When he looked up, he could tell by the nurse's face that he was getting pathetic.

"It's just the drugs they give to put people under for surgery. It's supposed to depress the system."

He nodded, but damn it, the tears were catching; his throat was closing up and his vision was starting to swim.

"She's gonna be just fine," the nurse said, and one of her large hands came to his on the railing, patted him. "Give her some time to breathe on her own, though. Okay? Get her bearings."

"But I can stay?" he said gruffly, cleared his throat again when his voice wavered.

"You can stay. Let me get her another blanket. You should sleep too, you know. I'm here all night. I won't let her go."

Something eased, as if the broken edges were no longer rubbing against the soft places in his chest, and he gave the nurse a grateful smile. "I'm Rick."

"Amesha," she answered, winking at him. "Nice to meet you, Rick. I hear you're CIA."

"Don't let it get around, huh?" he said back, giving her a slow smile. He should never have done it, but he couldn't care less anymore. Let them all know. "Thank you, Amesha."

"Any time," she said quietly, already backing out of Kate's room.

Castle laid back down on the bed and propped his head up with his hand, drew up the thin blanket to her lower back. Her arms were pressed in at her sides, her hair falling around her face, so he reached out and stroked it back, couldn't help cupping her jaw and resting his fingers at her neck.

Where her pulse beat, slow and steady.

"Kate," he whispered, putting his head down beside hers so he could watch the pale pink pearl of her lips, the dark stain of her eyebrows. "I love you, Kate."

He pressed his forehead to hers, nuzzling close, and when the nurse returned with a blanket, he was too tired to open his eyes. He felt it being spread over them both, the gentle hand at his shoulder, and he thought this was what it was like.

That's what it was always supposed to have been like.

No wonder Kate wanted it back, so very badly.

Her mother.

Kate woke to the night nurse brushing cool fingers at her wrist. Her chest ached, her back ached, and then her confusion cleared and she realized the woman was trying to get at her IV.

"Sorry," she slurred and made the mistake of rolling to get her arm free, felt the agony stab through her like a pitchfork. "Ah, shhhhit." The solid bulk of Castle was in front of her, and she leaned her head into his shoulder, pulled her knees up as if that could help.

"Painful, I know. I changed your IV bag, but honey, I'm afraid the line has come out. Let me see."

"Can't move my arm," she groaned, the rapid flutter of her heart making her skin break out in sweats, clammy and sick.

"Yes, you can. I'll help," the nurse answered, already untangling the IV line from the covers.

She nodded into the pillow and let the nurse rock her to her bad side, untrapping her arm and drawing it out so the woman could look at it.

"There we go, good job. Look. It's gotten pulled out. Let me-"

Kate grunted but it was just the tape being ripped off her arm, and the way her body moved side to side shot pain up through her shoulder blades and into her neck.

"There we go. Didn't even feel it, did you?"

Right.

"Now I'll tape it down a little better and let you get back to sleep."

When the nurse was done, Kate sucked in a ragged breath and kept her body tightly curled, her left arm mostly immobile, the right now with the IV freshly attached. It was awkward, having to lie on her stomach with her arm out, but after that contortion, she couldn't imagine moving.

"I see you got your man here," the nurse said, a smile in her voice that Kate couldn't see. Not with her face practically hidden in Castle's shoulder.

"Yeah," she scraped out, shifting her head so she could watch the nurse wash her hands at the sink. "Yeah, I wouldn't let him leave."

"He's worried about you."

She hummed and tried to swallow past the thick, dry feeling in her throat. She turned her head back to Castle and curled her hand around his bicep.

"All right, honey. I'll let you sleep. Press the button if you need anything."

When the room was quiet again, she fought to open her eyes, a thick desolation sweeping over her in a wave. She clutched Castle tighter, pressed her nose deeper into his skin so she could breathe him in.

It didn't help. She was laid out on a hospital bed with a GSW in her back, she didn't know who or what, she couldn't move to save her life, and her mother's murderer seemed further away than ever.

This might never end. She might never know.

And it might kill everyone she loved.

Kate choked through nightmares, curled in at the agony, felt hands pulling her apart, ripping her apart, and she yelled and came awake to his face hovering over hers.

"Kate, you need to wake up, love, just breathe and-" He stopped, stroked her hair back from her face. "Hey there, hey. A dream, just a dream. Amesha told me the anesthesia will probably give you some bad ones."

She blinked and swallowed, tried to clear her head. "Am-what?"

"The night nurse, Amesha. She's good - I had a lot of questions and she helped."

"She came in," Kate gruffed. "During the night." She jerked as the pain stabbed hard in her back. "I need to sit up. Castle, I need-"

"Got you, I got you," he said, his fingers gripping at her neck. He was strong enough to ease her upright, and he also raised the head of the bed. Her breath caught in her chest at the pull in her muscles, but he settled her on her side and it seemed marginally better.

"Thank you," she whispered, her arms pulled into her chest. "Thank you."

"Don't," he said, fingers brushing her cheeks, in her hair, at her shoulder as he stood at her bedside. "Don't thank me, Kate. Don't thank me. Is there anything you need? Anything I can get you?"

She pressed her hand into the thin hospital mattress, tried to swallow down the sense of overwhelming exhaustion. "Tell me what's going on. Have you caught the shooter?"

"I got him, Kate. We got him at the cemetery."

She tracked her eyes to his, and he reached out and touched her again, scraped her hair back over her ear. She blinked. "You got him."

"He's in CIA custody."

She sucked in a long breath that hurt, it hurt, but it was the first clean breath she'd had since. . .since Montgomery had been shot.

"Kate-"

"What else?" she said quietly, unfurled her fingers to him. He caught the tips, drew her hand slowly towards him as if he was testing her range of motion.

Oh. He was. Look at that. Sneaky bastard.

He gave her a flickering grin and pressed the back of her hand to his chest. "Doing good."

"What else, Castle?" She flicked her finger out at his shirt, catching the buttons. "I thought I told you to change this shirt."

"Didn't want to leave you."

"That's sweet but kinda disgusting."

"You're feeling better."

She grinned and bit her bottom lip. "Yeah, actually. Your nurse came in last night and fixed my IV. I'm not sure how long I went without drugs, but long enough to hurt."

"Without?" he said, fingers clenching around hers. "What happened to the IV?"

"Came out. You never finished telling me what happened, Agent. Stop trying to change the subject."

He was still standing at her bedside, regarding her like a fragile thing, so she tugged on the button of his shirt, trying to catch his attention, and it popped open.

Castle huffed out a laugh, glanced down to his open shirt. "Well then. Either you're hot for my body or you really want me to change."

"Your choice which it is," she murmured, managed to get her finger tucked into his shirt, her nail against his skin.

He choked and pulled her hand away, a little too fast for her, but she kept that off her face.

"Castle. What else."

"Nothing so far, Kate. Just - trying to get answers. Working on him."

"But you're here."

"All part of the plan, sweetheart."

"Like hell."

He laughed and came closer, stroking his hand through her hair again. She sighed at the movement, knew it had to so dirty by now, couldn't believe he still wanted to touch it. Couldn't believe how much he touched period. Always touching, his lips at her forehead, fingers in her hair, hovering. He'd never been so. . .tender before. So cradling. Like she was precious, made of glass. She hated it; she adored it. Hard to know how to feel.

"It is the plan, actually. Maddox won't break, but I might be able to read him."

"Yeah?" Maddox. She rolled the name around on her tongue.

"Cole Maddox. That's his name - the sniper. He's ex-Special Forces-"

"Like Coonan," she broke in, meeting his eyes.

"Same unit. And the man who killed Montgomery - Lockwood? Him too."

"The NSA and Special Forces," she said softly, curled her arm tighter into her chest. He still held her other hand trapped in his. "Castle, sit down. Making my neck hurt."

He huffed and came closer, put his hip against the bed. She debated pushing herself back, but no. She couldn't.

"Move me," she said. "So you can sit."

He shook his head but did as she asked; it hurt, a lot actually, but she let out a long breath as he settled in beside her. He pulled one leg up, left the other on the floor. His hand came to the top of her head, scratched her scalp.

That felt good. Let him be always touching. Just a moment of pleasure in the ache of her body.

"Cole Maddox," she said, moved her arm slowly to rest her hand at his thigh.

"I'm working on it, Kate."

"Don't cut me out of this again," she said quietly. "Castle, not now. I need-"

"You need to get better."

"Don't cut me out. This is exactly why-" She growled and closed her eyes, felt his fingers work through her hair.

"Why we fought," he said finally. "I know. And I'm not trying to keep anything from you. I just need you to get better, focus on recov-"

"The best way to help me recover is tell me what's going on. I need to know. I can't rest if I don't know, Castle."

"My little control freak."

She was startled into a laugh, tilted her head back to look at him. "You drive me crazy."

"I know. And you love it."

"I hate you," she sighed. "You're going to dole it out, piece by piece, aren't you?"

"Basically. You gonna get up and walk around? Nurse said you should try to move."

"Will you tell me what I want to know?"

"Deal," he said, leveling a grin on her that made his eyes crinkle, the blue lighting up again. "So come on, Kate. We'll shuffle down the hall and back before breakfast."

Every breath was agony, every step a knife's edge down her spine.

And Castle kept clutching her. Clutching her. "Castle, would you just stop grabbing me every time-"

"You're going to fall-"

"If I fall, catch me. Until then, stop bruising my arm with your panic attacks," she growled. She couldn't yank her arm out of his grip without tugging at the very core of pain that rippled across her back and through to her sternum. The slow, creeping walk down the hall had her half bent but not broken; she was not broken.

He carefully let go and she felt the weightlessness of her arm now, the ease in her side from where she'd been tugging against every grip of his fingers.

"Kate-"

"I'm okay. I won't. . ."

The dizziness hit her in a rush. She blinked slowly and stopped, her vision tunneling, sounds receding, her knees turning to water.

"Kate?"

"I'm okay," she insisted, swallowing hard. "I'm okay, just. . .give me a second."

He hovered, but he didn't touch. She closed her eyes and fought to keep from slumping to the floor, not at all happy with the rebellion of her body.

"Kate, I-"

"Shut up. Just. . .give me a moment."

He quieted, but he was breathing right at her neck, his hands somewhere close to her waist, his body heat breaking over her in a wave of anxiety and attentiveness that made her want to scream.

"Maybe I should-"

"No."

And then he finally shut up and she could concentrate on herself for a moment, on the sway of her body towards the ground, concentrate on fighting the pull and lure of gravity. She closed mental fingers around that core of steel that had dragged her through terrible grief and the police academy and her father's drinking, through her training officer's betrayal only earlier this year, through all of that and then-

She opened her eyes.

Castle's deep blues were drowning, but she was not.

He looked guilty, and ashamed, and she was surprised at how much she could see of that when he usually-

and then it was gone.

The hard shell of his discipline and training came down over his face and it was gone.

Kate slowly put her hand out to his forearm, brushed her thumb over the soft hair there. "Thank you. For not. . ."

He didn't look happy, but he nodded.

"Castle, I'm going to be. . .so bad at this," she said honestly, that swift look into his sadness had practically burned into her. "You're going to hate me when this is all done."

At that, his smile came back - a grimacing and chagrined thing, but there nonetheless. He shook his head and leaned in, feathered his lips at her forehead.

"No. Never, Kate. Never."

They met her father coming off the elevator and she bit furiously at the inside of her cheek to keep him from seeing it.

"Dad."

"Whoa, look at you. Up and about. Katie, sweetheart, you look like you've been shot."

She grunted on a laugh, squinted one eye at him. "You're incorrigible."

"One of your team sat with me last night, instructed me in gallows humor. Did it work?"

"You and Castle have the worst puns."

"Hey, why are you dragging me into this?" Castle said, a tinge of indignation in his voice that was completely faked.

"Rick, son. I brought you a shirt from home. Getting tired of seeing that one." Her father held up a plastic bag, finger pointing at Castle.

"From home," he murmured at her side. "Thank you, Jim."

Castle took the bag but seemed entirely unwilling to go anywhere else than right there at Kate's side. She frowned and nudged him with her elbow.

"Go change, Castle."

"I'm fine. I'll change when we get back to your room."

She grit her teeth and glanced away, but she knew her father saw it. He was smirking at her: Look at that, a man who won't say yes, dear to your every demand. Kate relaxed her fists - the grip of her fingers actually made her back tight and pushed pain into her chest - and she tried to turn to Castle with a half-smile on her face.

She wasn't sure she succeeded.

"Rick. If I have to walk back with you for the length of the whole hallway, we are both going to regret it. So you go change."

Castle huffed at that, part indignation, part amusement - hurt too, she saw - but he stood back from Kate, let her father take her elbow instead. "That could be true. Me more than you, I think."

She sighed, the ripple of pain in her chest maybe not entirely from the rigid stress of her body. "Castle."

"I'll go change - we just passed the men's room."

"Rick," she said softly, and it stopped him, made him turn his eyes to her. Hadn't she just warned him she would be bad at this? Did he think she was exaggerating? "Rick, come here a moment."

He frowned but stepped back to her side, the shirt in its plastic bag clutched to his torso like he needed something to hold on to.

"Kiss me," she said softly. "I need you to kiss me."

In a rush, his eyes melted into tenderness and adoration, all so clear and available for her to see, and he leaned in to brush his lips so lightly over hers, his hand caressing her jaw.

"You can do better than that," she murmured against his cheek, eyes closed at the warmth of him.

"Not in front of your dad."

She chuckled and felt his answering smile, and then he was moving away from her again. Reluctantly, yes, but he looked more at ease as he did. The bathroom door swallowed him up and Kate rested her hand on top of her father's arm, started that slug-like movement down the hall to her room.

"Rick. . .?" her father started quietly.

She turned her head and watched him struggle with whatever he needed to say.

"Dad?"

"He found the guy."

"I know. He told me."

"The CIA won't let him. . .do it alone, will they, honey?"

She licked at her chapped bottom lip, leaned against his shoulder. "I don't know. They might. But Dad - I don't think Castle would do it like that."

"You don't."

She thought about that a moment and then sighed. "No, I - no. He's not like me."

Her father gave a dry chuckle, patted her hand. "Not many like you, sweetheart."

"Sorry, Dad. I never meant-"

"Of course not. Hazard of the job." Her father had it memorized, but she thought maybe he really meant it or had learned to mean it.

Or didn't want her to worry about him.

"Come on, Katie. Let's get you back to your room. You're starting to get heavy."

In the bathroom, Castle carefully folded the dress shirt with its stained cuffs, realized that her blood had soaked through and painted his abs, his chest. He stared at himself in the mirror, swallowed hard, and then reached forward to turn on the warm water.

He snagged a paper towel and began cleaning himself off, felt his hands trembling again. He squeezed a fist and leaned against the sink, bowing his head, taking deep breaths.

He lifted his head, stared himself down in the mirror.

He was fine. She was fine.

She was fine.