"Loose lips sink ships all the damn time
Not this time"
Castle comes home from the market while she's still slumped against the glass door, tears still trekking steadily down her cheeks, and he doesn't even have to ask why.
Esposito had phoned him while he was in the village, broke the news to him while he was buying more of the addictive bread from their favorite bakery. He'd had to stop in front of the display case of baked treats, clutching at his chest, scaring the staff that feared he was having a heart attack.
He thought he might be.
Bracken is rising to greater power, posing a greater threat to Kate, and they have to move. Just to be safe. But it kills her to run and he knows it, knows it grates against her every instinct to take flight over fight, but it's the only way he can keep her.
She doesn't like being carried, coddled, but he drops the bags of food on the floor of the foyer and comes for her, scoops her up instead. And she lets him, showing him just how bad it really is.
Castle carries her out onto the patio, arguably her favorite place of the entire property, and eases down onto the lounge chair she often drags out into the rows of flowers to lay beneath the sun. He doesn't speak, merely keeps his arms around her quivering body in his lap and watches the sun descend below the horizon.
"Your hair's turning brown again," he notices, thoughtless as he strokes a hand through the growing locks that have steadily become darker over the last few months. It's an interesting blend of subtle blonde, streaks of chestnut that he knows have come from her extended time in the sun, and the natural shade of chocolate brown all mixing together in the mane of her hair.
Kate sighs and captures the hand trailing through her hair, tangling their fingers to rest at her shoulder.
"When should I dye it back?"
It's been easy living in France, too easy. With the meager population, the lack of media and modern day society, neither of them have had to worry too severely about hiding their appearances and concealing their identities as they had in New York and Canada.
That has to change now. From what Esposito's told him, Bracken is turning his search for Kate into a full on manhunt. She's no longer a simple blip on the senator's radar, she's a target marked for inevitable death.
He won't let Bracken kill her. He's vowed to himself since the beginning of all of this that he would keep her alive and he doesn't care what he has to do, but it's a promise he refuses to break.
"Probably tonight. I booked us a flight for tomorrow morning."
Her free hand curls into a fist she presses into one of her eye sockets, a way to force the tears back, and he hates himself for it, hates the situation, hates Bracken.
God, how he hates William Bracken.
"Where to now?" she murmurs after a few minutes, once her breathing is under control and she no longer sounds so sorrowful, but still not quite accepting either as she wipes at her eyes. He knows she's grown to love their home here in France, but they've known from the start it was only temporary. He hadn't expected her reaction to leaving to be so… visceral, but then again, he knew none of this is solely about leaving their home.
"You know we own this place, right?" he says instead, cuddling her closer in the cooling night air, pressing a kiss to the top of her head when she curls in against him, and oh, she must be hurting. She only curls against him like this when she's truly breaking apart inside. "We'll come back."
"I just thought we'd have more time," she rasps, sighing as her eyes flutter closed. He feels it when she steels herself against the wave of her emotions, turning them off, compartmentalizing. "Where are we going now, Castle?"
"I thought I'd let you choose," he shrugs, stroking his fingers through her hair, huffing and curving his palm at her nape instead when she shakes him off.
"Give me some choices," she mumbles, lips brushing his collarbone through his t-shirt, and he shifts, thoughtful.
"Well, I have safe houses set up in three other countries so-"
Kate sits up, staring back at him with surprised eyes and a hitched brow. "Three? When did you-"
"As soon as we settled in here," he answers, strumming his fingers along her thigh. "I didn't know how long France would last, so I wanted to be prepared."
His wife rubs at her eyes, the simple band on her left hand shimmering in the light from the kitchen window before it comes to rest against his neck.
"If those places are anything like this, Castle… God, I can't imagine how much money-"
"That is the least of our concerns," he promises her, squeezing the muscle of her leg, still so strong and built. She goes for runs almost every single morning, scaling the edges of their property and always returning sweat soaked but with a refreshed smile on her lips.
It had terrified him the first time, sent him into a panic when he woke without her in the bed, only to scramble down the stairs to find her walking through the front door dressed in drenched exercise gear. She started leaving him notes on the nightstand after that, playful words in her elegant handwriting informing him of her whereabouts. He's kept them all, silly as it seems, has each little post it note tucked away in the inside cover of his notebook.
"We have enough and then some. Besides, once this is all over with, we'll have so many nice vacation spots, Beckett."
She laughs, but he can tell that it's pained, that she doesn't believe their current game of cat and mouse with Bracken will ever come to an end.
"Okay, so give me the list," she murmurs, shifting back against his side to watch the final traces of light succumb to the darkness of the night.
"Italy, Russia, and Prague."
"You know me well," she hums in appraisal and yeah, he does. He chose each place with her in mind, pictured her in each country, in each home he purchased before making each decision. She made every country, every space, seem appealing, but he knows Europe intrigues her and despite the circumstances, he's always hoped to make their forced travels somewhat fun for her. Or at least a little less miserable.
"I think I already know which one you'll pick too," he quips and Kate glances to him with a challenge flickering to life in her eyes.
"You think so?"
He nods, trying a little too hard to appear smug and teasing. She'll see through him, she always does, but he's trying, trying so hard to eradicate the sadness etched into her features and make her feel better. To make her happy, even if just for a moment.
"I know you're just dying to use your Russian accent again, Beckett."
Crowds never bothered her much in the past, but after so long in seclusion, with no one but her husband and the occasional trip through the marketplace to suffice for human company, after being a target for too many months, anxiety crawls up her spine, wraps around her throat.
"Hey," he murmurs, brow creasing when she flinches at his voice. "Talk to me, Kate."
She sighs and turns her back on the mill of people roaming the airport, tucking a strand of blonde hair behind her ear. She dyed it again it yesterday, back to the soft color of honey, erasing the strands of caramel from her locks.
"It's just - a lot," she shrugs, allowing him to take one of her jittery hands, twining their fingers tightly.
"I know what you mean," he nods, taking a deep breath as his eyes dart around the terminal lounge and it's then that she notices how tense he is, how his shoulders are hunched high and how he purposefully towers over her, defensive like a shield while his gaze continuously shifts from face to face in the crowd. Like foxes running from the wolves all over again.
The yearning to take him home, to hide away with him behind the stone walls of their French castle flares to life, beating against her chest like a ferocious beast needing out. She just wanted to go back to the place that had become home, to unpack their meager bags of possessions and remain in seclusion for the rest of their lives. The want almost crawls past her lips onto his cheek where she rests, breathing in the scent of his skin, just like it had when she had watched him lock their front door for the last time. She had almost begged to stay, almost tried to convince him and herself that it would be just as safe here as it would be anywhere else, but she knew it wasn't. Too many had memorized their faces and if Bracken or his men came looking and managed to find the small village, showed the people their photographs, they wouldn't have a hard time hunting them down.
"We're okay," Kate whispers, stepping in closer to him, urging him to straighten up even as she tugs his baseball cap down low over his eyes. "We're still safe, Rick."
Castle swallows, thickly, like there's a lump in his throat, and squeezes her fingers.
She wonders if this really ever does end, will the paranoia ever actually leave them?
As Castle jerks at the harsh sound of the intercom rattling to life, she finds that she already knows the answer.
He's in line to board when he spots the familiar face in the crowd. He almost doesn't recognize him, but... but yeah, that has to be Richard Castle. The man has been out of the press for months now, yet here he is now, standing in a tiny airport in the south of France with a blonde model on his arm. Mystery solved.
He's surprised the author is making such an obvious attempt to hide in the shadows, to elude attention when he once sought it so often. He used to be on Page Six of the New York Ledger every other week.
Well, not since he'd begun dating that detective the tabloids had been speculating about his romantic involvement with for years beforehand. But after the engagement, it's like the guy had dropped off the face of the planet. No books, no appearances, and definitely no time in the papers.
The media had rumored that he ran away with the fugitive detective… what was her name? Beckett, he thinks, Detective Beckett. His family had remained silent on all of it, his daughter speaking out only once and claiming that her father had needed time out of the city to focus on writing, but he hadn't bought it, no one following the story had. But the woman at his side, whispering into his ear and pressing in close to his side looked nothing like the detective he remembered from the papers and the news reports.
It really wouldn't be too surprising if the writer had moved on, he had been an unashamed playboy once upon a time and after his fugitive detective went AWOL, it would make sense he'd seek another muse. Maybe Richard Castle really had disappeared for the sole purpose of focusing on writing, and apparently finding inspiration. Maybe the author is even starting a new series, forgetting all about Nikki Heat. Black Pawn, his publishing company, hadn't released a word about him since his disappearance from the social scene though, and talk of him in the papers had died down after a few weeks too.
Well, he could change that right now and earn a huge sum of money for it too.
Percy lifts his phone at a subtle angle, the professional camera in his carryon far too attention drawing, and snaps a couple of photos of the author with this new woman at his side, hands interlocked and whoa - is that a wedding ring?
Richard Castle ditched the detective, flew to another country, and got married? Percy may not write for the gossip column, but he's definitely found a story to take home with him.