Close Encounters 10


Hours. Hours without even a twitch from Kate.

Castle parked the jeep in front of a rusted sheep shed, hopped out and headed for the gate. The lock was new though and he yanked at it, but the chains held fast.

He glanced back to the still-running Jeep, debated getting back behind the wheel, but they had to hide out for a little while. A few hours at least where he could stop worrying about who might see them, who might discover them in the stolen military vehicle.

Castle studied the fence carefully, running his fingers over the rusted portions of the post, the cross bars. He felt it give and wrapped his hand around the gate, started yanking harder. When he felt the twist and grind of metal, Castle lifted a foot and pounded on it.

The cross bar popped out with a groan and the metal of the chain lock slithered off. Castle could force open the gate now, and he swung it wide so it would accommodate the jeep. He pushed into the sheep shed and checked out the interior. It smelled of feces and wet wool, but it was serviceable. Dark shadows and piles of farming equipment.

Plus the shed was directed away from the road and once they were inside, the jeep's camouflage would keep them from being seen.

Castle hustled back to the vehicle and hopped up, hauling himself into the seat with the steering wheel. He was beginning to feel his injures again, his lack of conditioning, but he couldn't stop long. He'd eat a meal, try to wake up Kate, and then he'd make a plan for the border crossing.

They were close.


He couldn't face her wakelessness and so he got out of the jeep and started poking through the stacks of old equipment. A tarp was spread over a bulky shape in the back corner and Castle took one edge and whipped it off.

A motorbike.

Fuck, yeah. A motorbike.

Castle climbed over a complicated looking wooden plow to get to the bike, smoothed the dust and grime off the seat before glancing at the engine. Well-greased despite having been parked here for a while, and the components looked to be in place. The gas tank was housed within the frame and he poked his fingers through the metal to twist off the cap.

He leaned in and sniffed, jerked his head back with a wince. Diesel. And a little stale, but the tank was full.

Yeah. This was perfect. Perfect. The body was wider than a normal motorbike and if he could just get Kate conscious...

Shit.

Okay. He'd just - give her a chance to rest for most of the night while he worked on the motorbike, got it up to speed again, and then he'd tie her to him if he had to.

They couldn't get close to the border in a stolen military vehicle but an old motorbike?

No problem.


He tinkered with the bike and checked the engine block thoroughly, going section by section. Intake. Compression. Combustion. Exhaust. Like most engines made for a number of years, this one was a V-twin with two cylinders that formed its letter's namesake. The vibrations would be worse than in the sleeker four cylinders that the CIA often used, but it would work just fine.

Castle checked the chain final-drive system and made certain that everything was in place; he dragged out a can of engine grease from behind a workstation and lubed the metal chain, his fingers going black, getting grimy.

He worked until he built up a thin layer of sweat and had to take his shirt off, tossing it back towards the jeep's hood. In the cool air of the night coming in through the sheep gate, Castle went back to the motorbike, focused entirely on getting it running.

He revved the throttle and gave it some gas, held his breath.

The engine kicked over, rattled so hard that the entire frame shook, but it didn't catch. A whine sounded, a strange hitch in the normally throaty purr, and Castle stopped.

He'd just gotten the battered metal casing off the V-twin when he heard the door of the jeep creak open.

Castle spun around and saw Kate sitting up in the back, sliding her legs out and letting them hang over the edge of the seat. She was leaning her head against the doorframe and studying him.

"Hey," he rasped, lifting to his feet.

"Mm, time's it?"

"Late," he said back. "Nearly one."

"In the morning?"

"Afraid so." He lowered the borrowed tools back to the floor and came towards her slowly, watching her as she uncurled her arms and held out a hand to him. He started to touch her and then hesitated, showing her his blackened palm. "Sorry."

She slid her hand in his anyway, a soft squeezed that lifted his heart.

"Sorry too," she whispered back.

He leaned in and kissed her cheek softly, felt her fingers unfurl from his hand and stroke across the bared skin at his ribs. He shivered and dipped his forehead to hers, breathing hard even as she canted into him.

"Slept hard," she murmured.

"Yeah, love."

"Still tired."

"Can you try to eat something?" He kept his hand carefully at her shoulders, trying not to get her dirty with grease even though he wanted to bury his hand in her hair and crush her against him.

"I can try," she nodded. "You eat anything?"

"I'll eat with you," he promised. "Gotta get this stuff off my hands."

"Wash up then, sweetheart," she sighed. But she didn't move away from him; she stayed pressed against his chest, her fingers stroking up and down his sides like she didn't know what she was doing.

So he stood between her knees and eased her closer, brushing a kiss to her temple, letting her touch, letting her wake slowly, come back to him. Her warm body against his bare skin made him ache.

"What're you doing?" she said finally. "All that." Her chin dug into his shoulder as she nodded towards the motorbike.

"Found us some transportation. Less conspicuous than the army jeep."

She was quiet.

"You can do it," he murmured. "You can sit in front of me on the bike and I'll do all the work."

"Might have to tie me to it," she muttered, rolling her head on his shoulder so that her cheek was pressed to him.

"Love, I will totally do that. Tie you up? Not a problem."

She laughed softly, humming as she turned her head back to him, a kiss at the corner of his mouth in reward.

"You are so very good at it," she whispered.


The thought of another nutrition shake made her mouth sour, but he was right. She couldn't handle a meal-ready-to-eat kit, freeze-dried and preserved and engineered as it was. So she camped out in the backseat of the jeep with him, her feet in his lap and her back against the door, and she sucked down the strawberry shake.

Castle ate two of the MRE's under her watchful eyes - like a peace treaty or a hostage negotiation. Each of them compromising because of the other.

When he was done, he shoved the containers into one of the packs and pulled out a thick army coat, shook it out.

"You should wear this when we ride," he said. "It'll be cold with the wind."

She sighed softly but took the coat from him, tucked it down beside her. He frowned but stroked his hands idly down her legs, tunneling under her sweatpants to brush skin.

Ug. Not shaved. She lifted her foot and shook him loose, making a face, and he startled out a laugh, wrapping his fingers tighter around her ankle. She huffed at him and tried to kick him off, but shit - she did not have the energy for that.

"Ew. Castle."

"I like it," he shrugged.

"Liar."

"Feels strange." He coasted his fingers up her shin and she squirmed, barely able to stand it. Still, the sensation curled tendrils of heat around her spine, made her restless.

She pulled her legs up and twisted in the seat to lay her head in his lap, the rush and bump of her heartbeat reminding her of how weak she still was. His hands fell to her head and shoulder, stroking, and she closed her eyes again.

"You didn't finish the shake," he said quietly.

"Wake me in an hour," she said back. "I'll finish it then."

He sighed but she pressed her fingers under his thigh and curled up, closing her eyes. After a long moment trying to settle down her breathless, mad heart, she felt Castle draw the coat up her body, layering it over her with a gentle touch.

And then she fell back asleep.


He really had tried to wake her.

But he hadn't tried that hard. He told himself she should be allowed to rest as long as possible, that she'd need to conserve her strength for the ride, but he knew that it was more because he was afraid.

Afraid that if he tried harder, she still wouldn't wake.

And he didn't want to know that.

So Castle had laid her out in the backseat and softly closed the back door to muffle the sound of him working on the motorbike. He'd taken the motor apart and cleaned everything and then put it back together, and now he was screwing the last bolt on the casing.

He wiped his fingers off on the hem of his tshirt, stood up to test it out.

Castle straddled the bike and shoved his heel into the kickstart, twisting the handlebar to give it gas. Slowly. Slowly. And then the engine growled and caught, thrumming and shaking the bike under him. Motor growled like a beast but it worked.

They had transportation.

Holy shit.

He was getting them the hell out of here.


She jerked awake but he had her; he was holding on to her.

Kate grunted and released her grip on him, slowly sat up. "I feel drugged," she muttered.

"I let you sleep," he said. His face was a tight mask.

"How long?"

"It's nearly six."

She shivered as the coat dropped off her shoulders, felt the aches in her ribs and back and hip from being in one place for so long. "Are we leaving?"

"Yeah. I got the bike to work. I've put everything we need in my pack. Time to get you on."

She wanted to take a second, but she wouldn't. She was already having trouble with zoning out in the middle of his words; she didn't know what else he'd said other than time to go.

He reached up for her, his hands strong on her waist, and he lifted her down from the jeep. Kate stumbled as she tried to right herself, clutched at his shirt as she shifted.

"I got you."

"I really hate this," she sighed out.

He let out a soft and startled laugh at her temple, drawing his arms around her. "Good to hear, Kate."

"What?" she muttered. "This drives me crazy. Being so damn weak."

"Yeah. Really good to hear."

She huffed at him and moved to straighten up, but she swayed again and had to dip her forehead to his shoulder, take slow breaths.

His hand came up to her neck, warm and rough, his fingers stroking at the ridges of her spine. "Let me tell you the plan. Okay? Give you a second to get your legs."

"Okay," she sighed, but she let her body list into his, gave him a bit more of her weight.

"We'll drive the motorbike over some rough terrain, right up to the border where I crossed. It's a weak spot where the fence isn't well protected. It's razor wire, but I cut out a section when I came through."

"Grassland?" she murmured, trying to keep up with all those words.

"No. There's a ridge of rock and stone and dirt. It's not a hill exactly, but pretty close. There are farming communities to the east and west, but it's a pretty barren stretch. Might run into some goats, a guy with his sheep. Biggest worries."

She nodded against his shoulder and lifted her head. "I'm good."

"Well. Debatable," he said, gave her a tight little grin. "But we've traveled more than half the way to the border."

"A hundred miles," she said automatically. The information came from the scant preview they'd had with his father back before this all started; she'd stared at the maps of the Russian steppe, memorizing the features until it had been burned into her memory.

"We've made it sixty of those," he said then, his fingers gentle at her neck. "Forty to go, though the last ten are really the most difficult."

"It feels like we've been here forever," she choked out, wrapping her arms tighter around him. She didn't think she could sit up on that motorbike, didn't think she could ride without passing out, but bigger than that, she didn't want to be here anymore.

He let out a dry laugh that sounded more strangled than amused; his fingers gripped her neck and his lips pressed hard into her cheek. "We're going to be fine. You can do this. And if you can't, I'll damn well do it for you."

She swallowed the tight, relieved grief that closed up her throat, pushed it back down. She wasn't going to let it overwhelm her. She was done with this place, done with being so decimated she couldn't even stand up on her own. Her body might be weak, but not her mind. She refused to let it.

Kate lifted her head from his shoulder and took a shuffling step back, her fingers trembling as she released him.

"I can do it," she said. "Whatever it takes."

Castle stared back at her, his eyes two hard points, unrelenting.

"I can," she insisted. "Let's go."


He didn't like it, but she sat behind him on the bike.

He'd fashioned a kind of harness made out of the straps from the other Army packs in the jeep, and it held her securely and belted around his chest. It kept her upright, and it kept her on the bike, but if she passed out and her legs dropped-

But she'd said she couldn't do sitting in the front. She'd been afraid she'd get sick. He understood, and honestly the feel of her draped along his back was reassuring because he didn't have to see how bad off she was. He just had her, warm and bulky in that coat, snug against him.

His pack was saddlebagged at their right, awkward for her, but she'd insisted it would help keep her legs up if she did get weak.

Bottom line was - they had to go. They were doing the best they could with what they had.

She twisted her cheek at his shoulder and her fingers gripped his jacket. "Ready," she said, her voice strong.

He kicked the bike to start it, felt the shiver and shake of the engine under him, and then gave it gas, nudging the wheel forward. The bike surged with more power than he'd expected and she rocked at his back, giving him a breathless sound and a tighter grip of her fingers.

He couldn't ease up anymore or he was afraid the engine would stall out, but he angled them out of the sheep pen and into the still, quiet morning. The sound of the engine against the pavement and the cyclical thump of a weak spot in the back wheel made a strange concert as they rode away. The sun was on their left and straggling through an overcast sky, the road ahead of them was a wash of grey, cracked and pitted. The grasses shimmered and waved as they passed, stirred up by their wake.

At his back, Kate's thighs eased up a little at his waist, her fingers grew less stiff; he felt her lift her head from his shoulder and put her face to the wind.

She'd never hear him over the roar of the earth flying under them, but he didn't try to speak. There was nothing to say.

They were going home.


After a few miles she realized that she wasn't going to be able to keep her legs up. She'd hold out for as long as she could, of course, but in the end she wouldn't have the strength.

So Kate slowly lifted one knee and inched her foot over his thigh; she felt his jerk of surprise, but he was too good to spill them out. The bike righted and she relaxed, slid her leg over his and hooked her shin behind his knee.

He was strong enough for both of them.

Kate clutched his jacket hard for balance and then worked her other leg into the same position, having to go slowly so she wouldn't tip herself over. When she had it, she realized it tilted her back pretty far, but she could still curl her body over and lean against him.

He reached back and stroked her thigh, her knee right there at his ribs, and then he lifted his hand to the bike and didn't say a word.

This would work, she thought. She could sit huddled on the back of his bike for a thousand years if it meant going home.


The motorbike chewed through the miles. Castle could ignore the weight and shift of Kate at his back now; he could focus on skirting the clustered towns and avoiding the roaming sheep-herders by taking back roads. And despite everything, she was paying attention too.

At one point, when Castle had been forced to go off-road through the steppe to detour a large farming village, she'd been the one to point out the dirt track back to the main road after he'd gotten a little turned around. He'd have found it eventually, but at least they weren't wasting time.

Her legs were still twined with his and it ached - it actually bruised his inside thighs and torqued his knees as she clung to him. But no way in hell was he letting her know that. He could relax a little with her like this; it meant she wouldn't fall off, wouldn't get her feet caught in the wheel or burned on the engine.

He was grateful.

And he really did quite like the warmth of her surrounding him; he loved the reassurance of having her so tightly against him. So of course, he felt it the moment she passed out unconscious.

But she stayed on, secured by the harness, and he tried to tell himself that she'd just fallen asleep.

Right.

It made it harder to keep the bike steady because her weight shifted at the slightest turn, but she was strapped to him pretty securely. Her legs were so wrapped around his that there was no way they'd drop either, and she'd at least tucked the fingers of one hand into his waistband. He didn't have to worry too much about flailing limbs or sudden tumbles.

It was going to be okay. It was fine.

He nudged up the bike's speed and ignored everything else. Just the road and the bike. He had to focus.


She gasped awake, flailing, and then the bike weaved dangerously, rocking to one side, and she yelled as she felt it nearly out of control. Castle cursed and righted the bike violently; she felt the pitch and whine of the engine and then they straightened out.

"Sorry, sorry, sorry," she chanted into his back, felt the struggle he still had to control it after she'd jerked awake and had nearly made them crash.

She trembled with the surge of adrenaline that had dumped in her bloodstream, tried to calm the racing of her heart. She would need that energy later; she couldn't waste it now.

His hand came back and gripped her thigh for a moment, a brief but tight squeeze, and she pressed her face hard into his shoulder in relief.

After a few miles, she felt their speed decrease, and the wind stopped beating at her cheeks; the tension in his body eased. Castle made a slow turn off the road onto a dirt track that meandered through the grassland. She watched as they startled a family of goats, the animals leaping away as they made a run for the rockier sections, a line of hills that stretched to the sky.

He brought the motorbike to a stop and she lurched into his back, felt the hard line of his ribs at her hands. He put his feet to the ground to keep the bike steady, dropped the kickstand, and then he was working at the straps that still bound her to him.

"Where are we?" she said, her voice strange in the sudden quiet.

"About a hundred yards from the border where we cross."

She felt the slack in the line and her body tilted sharply, suddenly untethered. Kate threw her arms around him to keep from falling off, her legs still hooked over his knees, and he caught her, chuckling.

"I got you. Here. Slide down, sweetheart."

He half turned, his arm reaching back for her, and she eased down the side of the bike until her feet were planted. She clutched at him, fighting the lure of gravity and the fierce bruises at her knees, and Castle dismounted as well, easily, still holding on to her.

"I gotta sit down," she breathed out.

"Okay, okay," he murmured, already controlling her descent. She thumped hard on her ass but shoved her head between her knees, tried to breathe.

She heard him collecting the pack from the side of the motorbike, and then he was wheeling the bike away, presumably hiding it in the scrub brush. She finally lifted her head, feeling stronger for the moment; her thighs had stopped trembling even though her legs felt torqued out of joint.

Castle came back from the trail and stood over her. "Can you do it?"

Home was just a hundred yards away. "Hell, yeah. Help me up."

He reached down with both hands and she lifted hers to grab him; Castle hauled her to her feet and more, drew her right into his body.

She gave him a soft laugh for that but she let him have it. He cupped the back of her head and kissed her cheek, brushing his fingers along her jaw. "We're gonna make it, Kate. Right here. A hundred yards."

"I know," she nodded against him. "I've never doubted it."