Chapter Seven - Motionless

They were all in dire need of a drink. The last couple of days had been intense, for all of them, and the team needed to decompress. Castle happened to know just the right place, and it wasn't just the average cop bar.

"Talk about not the average cop bar!" Espo exclaimed as the writer had them sit on one of the booths in the far end of the place. "How long has this place being around?"

"Way before prohibitionism," he explained. The Old Haunt had been a staple of New York for over a century, a classy place that had seen a lot of shit in its days, its walls held the knowledge of thousands and thousands of secrets. "After I was discharged I found out it was going under and… considering I wrote big chunks of my first few books right here, I loathed the idea of it disappearing from New York, so I bought it."

"So it's yours?" asked Ryan.

Castle nodded. "Yep. I did some refurbishing, some advertisement… and now it's thriving. What can I get you?"

He returned about two minutes later with all their drinks. For a long while, they all remained silent and deeply engrossed in their poison of choice. They had a lot to process, both as a team - although the addition of Castle made the attempt of collective processing a bit harder - and as individuals.

Coonan's arrest had added a lot to the platter, turned their investigation from the inside out, twisted it right at the core. If up to that moment they had been looking for ghosts, ideas, suspect of a paranoid war veteran with an official resume as long as the grocery list of a college student. Now? They were on the hunt of something more palpable.

They even had a name.

"I can't believe we caught Anderson's killer because he murdered his own brother for a drug affair," commented Ryan. "It seems so… petty, in the end."

"Don't tell me, all in one we also got my mother's murderer!"

"And the guy that tried to kill me in Alaska…" added Castle. He took a small sip of his scotch and sighed. "Took him a good while to recognize me, I had to disarm him the same way I did last time."

"Did you look so different at the time?"

He fished in his pocket for his phone and started flicking through the gallery. He had to scroll a bit, but when he found the right picture, he turned the phone towards them. "Roughly like this. Only the sneaking suit was in shreds and covered in mud, the bandana was soaked in blood and the face paint had worn off a little."

The photo came from an Halloween party he had participated a couple of years after Alaska. The invitation from one of Alexis' friends for a big party for the teens as well as the adults had come late and he hadn't had the time to buy a decent costume, so he simply pulled one of his old suits from the back of his closet, one that the military didn't use anymore and he had been allowed to keep, added a couple of props bought at a store the same afternoon and the facepaint, and he was good to go. A perfect Sam Fisher from Tom Clancy's books. Except for the black bandana. That was his out addition to the mix, a quirk he had picked up during the Army training to keep sweat and other liquids out of his eyes.

"Oh look, Sam Fisher!" said Kate, confirming the good job he had done, even four years too late.

Castle smiled. "More or less… what Sam Fisher does in his books isn't too different from what I did in real life. I'm not a fan of his firearm though."

"What gun do you prefer?"

"I'm pretty flexible, but I have a soft spot for the H&K Mark 23 that I have used for a while after it came out, at FOXHOUND we were testing the prototype and I have to say it works wonders in extreme environments. And give me a good old 1911 and I'll be forever happy. It's actually my go-to gun," he explained.

"So I guess the holes you put in your wall the other night are all .45s," joked Beckett.

"They are," he murmured, quite embarrassed.

"Wait what?" snapped Ryan.

"Some nights ago I woke up in the middle of a panic attack… I have issues with paranoia and for the last couple of weeks I've been sleeping with a loaded, silenced gun on the nightstand and… it didn't end well for the wall."

"Man, your PTSD is bad! Ever considered seeing a therapist for it?"

"And tell him what? Guys, you've all seen my file, there's enough on there to make any therapist catch up with my PTSD! Nah, I can deal with it just fine."

"You certainly have seen more shit in one mission than most soldiers see in their whole lives and you seem to hold on through but…" Esposito paused for a moment as he picked at the corner of the label of his beer bottle. "How long do you think you can hold on like this?"

"Why do you think I came to you with those files after the bomb?" he asked. "I saw an opportunity to find out who these men are and what they want and possibly tear them down to pieces, with or without your help. I saw an opportunity for closure, to find out the reason why my hands are covered in so much blood."

Ryan shook his head, a rueful grin twisted his face. "What if we find these people, then? What will you do?"

"I'm not scared of going rogue, if at a certain point you decide to pull back. And I'd be the first to tell you to pull back. This is my battle, not yours."

"Like hell this is your battle. My mother died because Coonan was ordered to kill her by the same guys!" Beckett didn't sound too pleased with his plan for the future. "And by going rogue what do you mean?" she added, her voice filled with even more spite than before. "You have a daughter, you can't go rogue!"

"Beckett has a point…"

"This is so much bigger than me, or my daughter. When I enlisted after college, I swore to serve my country from all threats, and these guys… Coonan called them LokSat… they are more than just the guys that fucked up my missions. Who knows how many times these guys have messed up with the world's affairs. For how long. I know only of their dealings with my missions. And I am supposed to do nothing, when finally I do have the evidence that there's something bigger than just normal fuck ups during black ops missions?" He shook his head. "No, that's not what I enlisted for. I may not be a fan of the war policies the US government have undertaken in the past ten or so years, but… I can't watch as some power-hungry bastard destroys the world with endless wars. I can't just remain motionless because… because I'm too scared of a ghost. That's not how I work."

He took a long pause and downed his drink in one single gulp. The strong spirit burned his tongue and throat. "Have you noticed how small-scale conflicts have multiplied ever since the end of World War II?" he asked them.

"There have always been small scale conflicts, Castle, it's human nature, we destroy each other," added Ryan.

"I know, but think about it. After World War II, we've had all these teeny tiny wars, all over the world. I'm not counting Korea and Vietnam, those were full blown conflicts, I mean things like everything that has happened in South America, and we know that there's the CIA behind many of those military coups. Then we've had the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The Lead Years in Italy… Munich… all the tribal wars in Africa, the Falklands… and guess who always had a personal profit from all this instability?"

"CIA?" proposed Beckett.

"I told you, you wish it was CIA. They don't send US Colonels in battle dress to foreign battlefields to discuss genocidal plans."

Ryan seemed interested. "Clarify please."

The question he had dreaded ever since he had explained them about Alaska.

"We'll need more booze for that." He stood up and walked behind the bar.

Samuel, the barman on duty that evening, smiled as he moved to let him pass. "Having a good night, Mr. Castle?"

He shrugged. "Yeah, good friends, good drinks, good talking… definitely a good night. How about you?" he asked, picking the bottle of Scotch and three more beers.

"Same old. Got a couple of numbers from two very hot chicks, again…"

"Ah, I doubt Seth will be happy about it."

"At this point, he collects them. He has a nice sense of humor, in the end."

Castle patted the young man on the shoulder. "Good for you. Now, it's probably going to be a long night for us, if we're still here when it's closing time, I'll close up shop, OK?"

"Sure boss."

He shuddered. He hated being called boss. He was nobody's boss, he was barely his own boss, considering how his agent and publisher loved to push him around so he would write more books and faster. "Have a good night Sam."

When he returned to the booth, he set the drinks down. "If Alaska wasn't a nice tale, this is even worse. You remember in the middle of the nineties, the war in the Balkans?" They nodded. "Well, there were a lot of NATO troops deployed all over the area, as well as undercover agents from Intelligence agencies all over the world, to keep things under closer surveillance. Those agents reported rumors of someone planning on killing as many Muslims they could. Someone in the high hierarchy of the army and a paramilitary group were planning an ethnic cleansing, they wanted to wipe out all the Bosniak muslims they could."

"And you were sent there to prevent it."

"And the hacker in angel's clothing is right, that's Operation Intrude N313. The moment I set foot there though, I knew they were way ahead with their plans than what intel let us understand. They had already gathered a large number of people, I saw the busses running up and down the area, all packed with people, all male, and… I was left with only one way to stop it, I had to kill General Mladic. It may have not prevented it completely, but if I took out the man giving orders, maybe I'd have time to gather more intel to present to NATO and make things happen the legal way, you know..."

Beckett nodded. "I remember seeing things on TV when I was in high school, but we only got very vague expositions at the end of the news so things are a little fuzzy in my memory."

Esposito chuckled. "There's not much to say. Soviet block crumbles, people claim their cultural heritage after being compressed in huge state composed of a number of nationalities, and each of those nationalities want their own nation to be independent. War ensues. Slovenia manages to hold its own and in twelve days they manage to become independent and be recognized as so. The rest? Not so much."

"Those were three bloody years," added Ryan. "Then came Kosovo and Albania… the nineties were a bloodbath."

"It happens, when something like the Soviet Union breaks apart. Anyway… I manage to infiltrate in their headquarter, a bombed school they were using just because it still had a roof… I was hiding beneath a broken jeep, waiting for the sun to go down so I could move better as they didn't have many portable lights and at a certain point I hear a vehicle come down the dirt road. Mladic comes out of the school and welcomes the newcomer. Like they're friends, or at least partners in business."

"Did you recognize him?"

"That's the problem, I didn't recognize him at the time, but I could see that he was wearing a total black battle dress uniform, which is weird on its own, with the grades of an American Army colonel well displayed on his chest. They spoke, in Serb, for a long while. I report it via radio… and suddenly I'm ordered to pull out. The moment I report the presence of this man, I'm forced to pull out or be put on martial court for treason. And I did, I…" He poured himself another good dose of scotch and downed it, like the proverbial liquid courage. "I ran. The arrival of that guy moved all security around him and Mladic so I could safely run away from the compound."

"What happened next?"

"I was ordered to go to the nearest extraction zone and I did. It was roughly six hundred meters from the school and… they started shooting around thirty minutes later. All the men and children I had seen, lined up, shot down like infected cattle." He closed his fists on the table, as if to strangle someone. "All because I was ordered to pull out. I had Mladic already in my sights, I was ready to pull the trigger and… someone high up decided the lives of more than eight thousand men and children were a good price to pay for… something."

"And that something would be?"

Sighing, he slouched on the padded bench, flipping the tumbler in his hand. "I have a theory but… it's far fetched and kind of dumb."

"Let us hear it," added Ryan.

"Drugs. In the end… it all goes down to that. Drugs make people rich and being rich makes you powerful, almost immune to the law, if you play your cards right. By controlling the conflicts around the world, they keep certain routes open or closed, at their wish. When the demand for cocaine is high, they make their moves in South America to open up new routes and ensure a steady supply. Need for heroine overcomes coke? Wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan open the road there. Need a trusty intermediary? Make a mess in Italy, so the Mafia down there can smuggle cargo easily to the families here. With their constant flow of drugs, money is almost infinite and with money, as I said, comes power."

"With power come more opportunities to influence politics. I wouldn't be so baffled if these guys dwelled in the black marked of weapons and intelligence."

"Good call, Beckett."

"So? What do we do? We follow the drug?" asked Esposito.

"Seems like a good idea," she replied. "But… Castle, can I ask you something about Alaska?"

Castle shrugged. "At this point, I'm willing to tell you how many times I stunned a guard so I could take a leak in their restrooms and not in my pants."

The three detectives stared at him as if he was made of gold. "What? It's normal! Come on, Espo, don't tell me you never peed in your pants because you couldn't leave your sniping point!"

Espo suddenly averted his gaze. "Guilty as charged."

"So, what did you want to ask?"

Beckett took a deep breath. "Coonan… after you had disarmed him, he called you Snake. Why?"

"It was my codename. Venom Snake, to be fair."

"Isn't it a bit of a tautology?"

"Not all snakes are venomous. I have to say, my first real codename was Solid Snake. We changed it after my first mission. My handlers couldn't stop giggling when they called me via radio. At some point I might have responded something in the lines of you might as well call me erect cock and the whole team started laughing in the microphone."

Beckett giggled. "Well, you have to admit it's kind of funny."

"Yeah, but in the end no one has ever called me Solid Snake. Or Venom Snake. It was either Snake or the idealistic idiot. They tried to transfer my original codename to another guy, someone younger, back in 2001. Didn't work for him as well."

"He didn't live up to the original?"

"No, absolutely, he was great. Jack was, and still is from what I know, one of the best black ops agents FOXHOUND ever had in its ranks. It just didn't fit. He was one of the first few agents to be equipped with the optic camouflage that rendered him nearly invisible and that made him really fast at infiltrating. So they just changed the codename from Solid Snake to Raiden."

"Isn't that Japanese for Lightning?" asked Ryan.

"Ten points to Ryan. Exactly. I have to say, he kinda looked like a character from an anime, tall, slender, blonde and blue eyed, almost feminine in the physique but a damn good fighter, I tell you. And with the optic camo… he was great. Still is, I hope. Last I heard, he had a kid on the way."

"Black ops agents with kids…" mused Esposito. "How do you even even make it work?"

"Having someone to come home to makes you fight harder to get out in one piece."

The rest of the night went on on a lighter atmosphere, with happier chat and more laughter. The team of cops let Castle in some of their best cases from the past couple of years, like the psycho with a fixation for Beckett that challenged her to solve a streak of murders and nearly blew her up with her apartment. Or that other time they had to investigate the murder of someone who looked like a CIA spy but turned out to be the participant of a highly immersive roleplay game.

Castle, a little high after the fifth scotch, felt a burst of hilarity course through him as they talked. He had almost forgot how it felt to be out for drinks with people he could consider friends, and it felt good. To avoid the nasty effects of hangover on the job though, they all switched to soft drinks after a while, yet the happy vibe still hung upon them.

"And then what? A copycat killer of my books?"

"We've had it!"

"Oh no you didn't!" snapped Castle. "And you didn't call me?"

"Call you for what? We solved it in like… three days?" added Ryan. "Beckett here, she has encyclopedic knowledge of your works! She noticed all the details the killer got wrong and that led us to the real killer. Boom, case solved, paperwork done and I'm out with my girlfriend for the weekend!"

"Which books did the guy pick?"

"Hell Hath No Fury, Flowers For Your Grave and Death Of A Prom Queen," replied Kate.

Castle cringed. "Oh my god my worst books!"

"Oh come on Castle they're not that bad," she reassured him. "Just a little… over the top?"

"A little?" he cried. "I wrote them all while deployed in Kuwait between a guard shift and patrol duty, no research, no editing, no nothing! They suck!"

"I've read worse. I mean, they are not Patricia Cornwell's The Body Farm, but they're not that bad."

"Still, crappy books. Storm's books are way better."

Esposito nodded. "I can vouch for that. I'm not a fan of thrillers and those books are good. Tell me, how much of yourself have you poured into Derrick?"

Castle scratched his chin, the stubble itching a little, as he thought. "Well, not much to be honest. The gadgets, yes. Most of them come straight from my old days in FOXHOUND, minus the optic camo because that's a military secret that cannot be divulged. Let's say that Derrick is the agent I've always wanted to be. The one that saves people, the valiant soldier that saves the princess. Everything I've always aspired to be but I never had the chance to."

"Sort of expiation for your sins?"

"Sort of. I just… I just needed a happy ending after all those botched missions, you know?"

"You really think all those people have been killed because of you?"

Castle nodded. "Yes. Because if I had been quicker, or if I'd have the guts to defy orders and work for the greater good instead of saving my own skin, thousands of people would be still alive now."

"Castle, you didn't pull the trigger."

"No, I didn't pull it. That's the point. If I had… things may be different today. I still hear the gunfire, late at night, when everything is silent. In the back of my head, I'm always in the woods waiting for the extraction helicopter. Every time I walk close to Central Park after it rained, I the scent of the wet grass and mud mixes with blood. I can't let those memories go, no matter how hard I try. I can't let those people go. In my books though, I can save them. In my books, they're alive, I can rewrite the ending as I please."

"Your books are your therapy," muttered Beckett.

"As much as becoming a cop was yours."

Around midnight, they were ready to go home. Sam, the bartender, was already closing and they decided to call it a night.

The brisk air of winter in New York felt like a slap on his face when Castle set foot outside the bar.

"Going home, Castle?" asked Beckett.

"I was thinking of going for a walk before going home. Clear my head, you know. I'd hate to be caught by my daughter or mother in this state, I mean… I'm still a little drunk and they don't exactly like me when I'm drunk. I get moody."

"Why don't you crash at my place? It's closer, the couch is comfortable and I won't judge you for your slight state of intoxication. Nor will I judge your moodiness. And I keep all my guns in a locked safe, so there's no risk to blow holes in my walls if you wake up during a panic attack."

"You're tempting me Kate, but only if you allow me to offer you a full breakfast tomorrow."

Smiling wide, she shrugged. "Coffee and a bearclaw are more than enough, Castle, I'll be fine with it. Come on, it's getting late and usually bodies drop at ungodly hours."

They had been working together for a month. Never in his life he would have imagined that kind of invitation from her. He accepted, glad to have an alternative to the inevitable walk of shame at home.

But the surprises didn't end there. Beckett was tired, it had been a stressful couple of days. The emotional storm of having to handle her mother's murder, all the risky moves they had pulled, the crisis in the interrogation room… they all took a toll on her, as well as him. And the five pints of beer she had downed like a pro? Those were just the icing to the cake, he could see she was exhausted and in dire need to lay her head on a pillow and sleep for twelve hours straight.

She had sat one moment on the couch to rest a moment before giving him what he needed to crash on her couch, and she fell asleep mid sentence. She was explaining to him where the bathroom was, closed her eyes for the briefest second, and suddenly she wasn't talking anymore, completely taken over by the need to rest.

Shaking his head in surprise, Castle did the only thing he thought was right. He gently picked her up from the couch and walked down the corridor to her bedroom, then he lay her on the bed. Struggling not to wake her, he pulled her boots off, then her tight jeans. He wondered if she'd be angry if he pulled her shirt off too - no one would sleep well wearing a tight, crumpled shirt - until he noticed she had a tank top beneath. He dared to at least unbutton it so she'd be free to move in her sleep, then he tucked her in.

It felt like taking Alexis to bed all over again, only this time he wasn't handling the sweetest girl in the world who wouldn't wake even if someone shot a cannon blast beside her ear. This was Detective Katherine Beckett, badass down to her very core, the woman who soldiered on and didn't give in and never accepted anything but the truth. The detective that wouldn't believe him but accepted him in her precinct anyway, allowed him to express his crazy conspiracy theories that, in the end, turned out to be true.

The only person able to help him through one of the worst panic attacks he'd had in years, asking no questions unless he wanted to talk. And if he didn't want to talk, she'd simply change subject.

A wingless angel with a gun.

Sighing, he stood up and turned to walk out of her room, let her sleep the efforts of the day in peace, when she grabbed his wrist and pulled, gently.

"Bed is more comfortable," she mumbled, half asleep. "You can stay."

"You sure?"

She nodded. "It's big enough for two, I'm sure we can respect each other's space."

Next morning, when they woke up with Kate snuggled into his chest, her cheek resting over his shoulder and his arm wrapped around her back to keep her even closer, they laughed like teens, surprised at their own unconscious bravado.

That was a good way to start the day.

Word count: 21877