Kate holds her breath at the return of footsteps, curling in on herself in the darkness, away from the splinters of light that seep through the paneling, the twin pre-paid phones, the go bag that had been tucked under his bed, and the jacket she had left in his bathroom this morning all clutched to her chest.
"Kate?"
She exhales, reaches up for the screws to the air vent paneling she had hastily twisted back into place, and pushes the metal shield forwards until it clatters onto the hardwood of the hallway floor.
The rush of Castle's footsteps follows and then he's appearing into her square view of focus, a lopsided grin on his face.
"You're brilliant," he whispers, kicking away the paneling and holding his arms out to her so she can climb from the boxed shape hole that she had squeezed into the second it caught her eye.
Most cops she knew would check every potential hiding spot, shine a light in every dark corner, but she had been banking on the fact that the Hamptons PD would be less than thorough, and she had been right. The two officers that had scoped out the upper half of Castle's home had done nothing more than a brief sweep of each room, bypassing the vent just big enough to harbor a human in the main hallway without a second glance.
Castle hugs her once she's free of her confinement, breathes out his relief against her shoulder.
"Did they suspect anything at all?" she murmurs, returning his embrace before standing with him to wipe the dust from her clothing.
"No, I told them I hadn't spoken to you in years, pretended I was shocked that they were even looking for you," he recounts, bending to arrange the vent back into place. "One guy was skeptical, probably didn't believe me completely, but they bought it."
"Martha would be proud."
Rick preens, jerking a quiet laugh from her lips, but the levity of their situation lasts only a moment before it's dissipating, his smile falling as he starts back towards his bedroom.
"We need to-" The phone lights up against her chest, silenced but cutting off his declaration, demanding their attention once more.
"Beckett," she answers, following Castle into the master bedroom and setting the phone to speaker.
"I'm going to take it this means hiding from Hamptons PD worked out well?" Ryan assumes, a wince in his words, and Castle huffs.
"A head's up would have been nice," he mutters, bending to his knees in front of the fireplace, working loose the paneling he had mentioned to her earlier, where he kept a gun she'd had no idea he owned.
"Hey, I'm doing my best here," Esposito growls from nearby.
"Any word on Bracken? IA's progress? Anything?" Beckett inquires, pacing at Castle's back and battling with her fingers' urge to grip the phone too tightly.
"No to Bracken, but we just learned about the contact with Hamptons PD. From the sounds of it, they don't think Castle's involved, but Marcus ordered that they're to be keeping an eye on him just in case," Esposito relays in a hushed tone, and Kate can just picture the two of them, huddled in the break room, risking their jobs for her.
"Wait, does that mean we can't make a move?" Castle questions, abandoning his work with the fireplace to stand with her, glaring down at the phone poised between them.
"You move, that's going to look suspicious," Esposito confirms.
"And if they think you're helping Beckett, they may combine their resources, send half the force after you," Ryan adds solemnly, sending the tension in Castle's shoulder ratcheting higher. "And that could tip off Bracken."
"So what are we supposed to do, just sit here? Hope no one finds us?" Castle demands, his frustration simmering to a boiling point, and Kate reaches out, hooks her fingers in his belt loop to tug him closer.
"Ryan and I are working on a plan," Esposito responds, his tone calm, always calm under pressure. "But for now? Yeah, the safer option for Beckett is to stay hidden. You two make a run for it, the risk sky rockets."
Castle scrubs a hand over his eyes.
"Someone is going to connect the dots and figure out Beckett is with me. They'll search my home, come here next, and the next person they send – whether it be Bracken or IA – is going to do a better job of combing through my place."
"It won't come to that," Ryan insists, his voice firm with belief, but she can see that Castle has no faith left, that the silver linings he once carried in abundance have now blurred into bleakness.
"And even if it does, we'll fight our way through," Kate murmurs, only for him, and earns the tentative slide of his eyes to her face for it. "We've been in plenty of bad situations before and made it out. This will be no different."
"Yeah, bro. You guys are magnets for trouble, but you always come out on top and usually in one piece."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence, Espo," Castle sighs, quirking his lips for her, and Kate releases his belt loop to skim her hand around to the small of his back.
"Just don't end up with hypothermia again, Beckett," Ryan throws in and Castle's smile immediately falters, his brow knitting with confusion.
"Or at the hands of another contract killer."
"Third time is not the charm."
"Guys," Beckett interrupts, shifting under the weight of Castle's gaze, his eyes burning blue and piercing her with questions that demand her explanation. "Call us when you have something."
The boys are both silent for a beat before murmuring their confirmation, seemingly aware of what they've done and adding their apologies before disconnecting the call.
"What are they talking about?" Castle asks, his eyes scanning her body from head to toe, as if searching for evidence of Ryan and Esposito's comments. "The last time you had hypothermia was when we were trapped in the freezer together, and the contract killer… are they talking about Maddox?"
Kate swallows and lowers the phone to her side. "No. A little over a month ago, there was this undercover mission. It… it went bad."
Horror washes through his face, an overwhelming wave of guilt splashing through the darkening hues of his eyes, and Castle cups her shoulders in his palms, desperation in the grip of his fingers.
"Tell me."
"Castle, it-"
Her stomach growls and her cheeks flush with embarrassment, but she's grateful for the interlude. They both need a breather from this heavy conversation before it can truly begin, from the stress the visit from the police and their call with the boys has added.
"Tell me while we have dinner," he amends, trailing his hands down her arms to place one to the small of her back.
"It's not a long story," Kate murmurs, descending down the stairs with him, taking the familiar path back into the kitchen, where she's noticed the dish of lasagna now sits atop the stove, ready to be served. Castle arches an eyebrow at her over his shoulder, waiting, and she sighs in defeat. "I had been recruited to infiltrate a drug ring. It was supposed to be a simple meeting, in and out, but-"
"It went wrong, of course," he assumes, scooping two squares of lasagna onto his plate and a new one he retrieves from the cabinet overhead.
Beckett takes a seat at the table, laces her fingers together atop the empty placemat in front of her. "It had been going okay until I met with the second in command of the ring. Vulcan Simmons."
She lifts her eyes to find Castle arrested between the kitchen and the dining area, their plates balanced in his hands.
"What happened?"
She waits for him to join her, slip into the seat beside her with both the need to know and the fear of knowing burning in his gaze.
"He tortured me, dunked my head in ice water for a while to try and make me talk," Beckett explains, staring down at the delicious meal he had prepared for them, still warm despite its time out of the oven, but her stomach feels knotted, her appetite gone. "Afterwards, he sent me with one of his men into the woods, ordered him to execute me, but the woman I had been there to impersonate showed up before he could."
"She saved you?"
Kate shrugs one of her shoulders. "Not by choice. It was an order from the head of it all. His way of paying off a debt."
"Who-" Castle stills, his brow scrunching with effort this time. "A voicemail, one you sent me last year," he murmurs, searching for the memory as a fresh wave of dread sweeps through her insides, claims her stomach with its vicious crash. Calling him after the case that had rattled her to her core, confiding into the messaging system while she had still been so raw, hadn't been her proudest moment.
It was the one voicemail she wishes she could erase.
"It was Bracken, wasn't it?" he questions, his eyes clear now, sharp with knowledge. "You told me you had to save his life, how sick it had made you to save your mother's killer… And saving you in return, that was his way of paying off the debt."
She lowers her gaze to the lasagna, but the nausea in her stomach has her pushing back from the table, has Castle looking up to her with concern outweighing the dawn of realization in his eyes.
"Kate?"
"I'm not – I just need some fresh air," she murmurs, striding through the few feet that separate the table from the doors and slipping out into the brisk air of the night.
The patio just outside his kitchen is well concealed from the outside world, from anyone who may be keeping eyes on them. He knows that no one except him can see her huddled up in one of the lounge chairs by the pool, that she's safe and that he should allow her the time to collect herself, to breathe through the leftover trauma he probably triggered forcing her to recount the event with Simmons, the mounting history with Bracken.
So he tries to give her the space she needs, picking at his food and placing hers back into the oven with the rest of the dish to keep his neglected meal warm. He manages four bites of his lasagna and less than five minutes before he's deserting his dinner and following Kate outside, approaching her with caution and an apology already in his mouth.
"I'm sorry," he offers, earning a bewildered glance towards him.
"For what, Castle?" she mumbles while he pads closer, patting the cushioned space beside her, and affection surges through his chest.
"For making you relive that, pushing you to tell me." Rick eases onto the chair, a tight fit with the two of them, but she wastes no time remedying the issue, draping her legs across his lap. "For not being there."
"Rick," she reprimands softly, touching her fingertips to the exposed skin of his chest, where the neck of the t-shirt he wears fails to cover.
Castle sucks in a shaky breath and curls an arm around her waist, still mystified by the give of her body into his. "Since we split up, you've nearly died on three different occasions and I wasn't there to have your back."
"See what happens when you leave me alone?" she muses, but his chest is too tight to laugh.
For over a year, she had called him, left him voicemails, given a clear idea of how severe the war with Bracken had become. And he hadn't even taken the time to listen to them, to prevent any of the hell she has been through.
"Rick, this isn't your fault. I made a choice to continue pursuing my mother's case, pursuing Bracken. I knew what I was getting into."
"Yeah, and what do I do when you choose it again, Kate? When you choose a case over your life, over being happy? What if this is never enough for you?" he questions, too sharp, surprising them both.
There are too many conflicting emotions swelling in his chest, grief and anger, guilt and betrayal, and the last thing he wants is a fight, can't handle another fight with her.
Their last fight is still fresh on his mind, the one before that, how easy it is for this case to leave them both raw and bloodied and divided. Without even realizing it, he's already mentally preparing his argument, steeling his heart against hers.
Beckett shifts against him, establishing space between them that sparks his nerves, the instinctive conviction that she's prepared to push him away. So he carefully disentangles from the cove of her body first, slips from beneath the weight of her legs and moves to the edge of the lounge chair.
"Castle-" She reaches for him, but he can't think straight like this, can't have a conversation that won't end the same as they always have with her.
They've had enough time apart to last a lifetime, but after the past 24 hours they've endured, maybe a few extra minutes is what they both need right now.
"I'm going to take a walk on the beach," he mumbles, rising from the chair, evading the graze of her fingers to his arm. "You should head back in, eat some dinner."
Kate abandons the chair, hesitating between him and the door as he starts past the pool, towards the stretch of sand that leads from his house to the ocean.
"Castle, wait," she sighs, stepping up behind him to grab his shoulder, but he catches her hand first, squeezes her fingers before he lets her go and watches her hand flop back to her side.
"Don't follow me," he murmurs, scraping a hand through his hair at the wounded look that claims her face, the step backwards she takes as if he physically struck her. "I don't want to risk anyone seeing you," he explains, but he knows how she's taken it, how he's hurt her in an attempt to heal himself when they've both suffered enough. "I'll come back, Kate. I just-"
"I get it," she replies, forcing a pained quirk of her lips, but no longer meeting his eyes.
Kate turns back towards the door, disappears back inside the beach house with her shoulders hunched, her posture defeated. He starts to question all over again if there ever will be a way to salvage what they once could have had, if destruction is all that's left to them.
