Close Encounters 12


Castle hissed into awareness, a terrible burning in his lungs, saw Kate's face over him.

"Oh, good. Good. Hey, love," she was murmuring. "You're with me."

"You crying?" he rasped, closed his eyes again.

"No, no, open your eyes. Castle, come on. I need your help."

He fought through the black sludge and found her above him, her fingers on his face. "Hands are cold," he groaned.

She snatched her hands back, but everything burned. Everything.

"You need to get warm," she said. Brisk, clipped. Her fingers combed through his hair and he realized she was soaking wet.

"Take a shower?" he slurred, opening his eyes again to look at her.

Her mouth pinched. "No, love. Stay with me, okay? Just don't close your eyes. I need you to stay awake."

"Okay," he croaked. His throat was raw. Everything was on fire. "Hurts."

"Yeah, sweetheart, it does. Blood coming back. Keep awake, okay? Keep talking to me."

"Yeah," he mumbled, felt the drag against his eyes that must be his eyelids. "My... I think..."

"Castle."

His eyes jerked open, and she was furious. She looked so angry. "Sorry."

"No. Don't apologize - just stay the hell awake. Stay awake. Okay?"

His arms were so heavy but he realized she'd wrapped them in blankets, his feet, no. No, a sleeping bag. He was in the subarctic sleeping bag he'd brought back with them from Russia.

Shit.

"Kate," he rasped. He fumbled against the material and found a way to clutch the back of her neck. She resisted but a shudder wracked her body and let him force her down over him, her damp shirt meeting his bare chest.

The lake. The ice. She'd been in it too.

"Get this off," he said, his throat dry and awful. He pressed his palm too hard against her back trying to ruck her shirt up. "Off. Beckett."

"You're-"

"Skin to skin," he rasped, his body rattling hard as a cough seized him, lungs burning. "Skin. Beckett. Skin."

"I'm trying," she whispered frantically.

He closed his eyes, tried not to restrict her movements, tried to untangle his fingers from the cold knots of her hair.

And then she was sliding down into the sleeping bag with him, burning heat of her skin against his, the wet trail of an elbow against his side. He shivered hard and sucked in a deeper breath, fought past the urge to roll over on top of her and bury himself in all the warmest parts of her. His fingers, his nose and cheeks, the skin of his arms was stiff with the terrible ache of cold.

"Kate," he gasped.

She shifted, but no, no, not that. He snaked his arm up in a slow and agonizing dance, found her body against his.

"Stay, stay. Please," he whispered.

"Fire won't stay long," she murmured.

"You stay."

"I will. I am. I'm staying, Rick."

"Your fingers. Ice."

"Sorry, I'm-"

"No, I... under my-" He trailed off and tried to find it again. What he meant. "Fingers. Put them here. Under me."

He fumbled to find her hand and brought it to his arm, pressed her fingers tightly against his side. She shivered and lowered her head to his chest but she seemed to catch on. Her other hand tucked in under his back and the little needles of her frozen skin barely made a dent in the chill sweeping through him.

"You okay?" he grunted.

"I'm okay," she whispered against his shoulder. Her mouth pressed into his skin and he felt the chapped ridges of her lips, the jut of her cold chin.

"Warmer like this," he told her. He wasn't yet, but it would get there. Toes and fingers, he was supposed to be doing... "Can't feel my feet."

"I heated towels and wrapped them, rubbed your toes for... God, Castle, you've been unconscious for an hour. My phone's dead and I..."

"Oh."

She took in another shaky breath and removed her hands, pushed against him in the tight confines of the sleeping bag. "I should-"

"No. No, no, stay. Warm me up faster like this," he pleaded, felt his skin tightening with the cold. The burst of panic made his arms clutch around her shoulders, the press of her damp skin at her back. "Kate, please don't leave-"

"I'm here, I'm staying. I thought I should get your feet. I thought-"

"No, like this," he whispered, closing his eyes, feeling himself sink towards the deep, exhausted with the effort of holding on to her. "Just like this. Sleeping bag. It'll do the work."

She laid her forehead against his cheek and he felt the dampness of her skin, the icy tendrils of her hair, and then he realized she was crying.

"Stop, no," he murmured. "You're okay. Promise, promise, prom-"

"Hush, you big idiot," she grumbled, a bite of a kiss at his cheekbone that broke through the ache of cold. "Worried about you. You're still freezing, Castle."

But the tears had stopped. He pressed his palm flat to her spine and could feel the resistance of her bones, the sharp edge of panic receding from him. She was okay.

He breathed and closed his eyes, drifted on the feeling of icy water like a movement inside him, and he tried. He tried to stay. He really did.

But it was too much.


Kate wasn't sure how long it'd been since she'd passed out on top of him, but the fire was out again.

She slithered out of the sleeping bag and fed the last length of wood into the flames, a small one, and debated going back out for more. It was getting late and the light was fading and they'd need it all night as well. But Castle...

She turned back to him and crawled into the sleeping bag once more, couldn't face leaving him just yet. He was asleep, she thought, not unconscious. His heartbeat was steady under her cheek, a solid thump that kept panic from pushing tightly under her skin.

She had an hour at least, before she needed to go back out there, before she was forced out for more wood. She should grab as much as she could, make a few trips. The stuff Castle had gotten earlier was gone and she needed the rest of it to dry out. Already the smoke was black and thick because the wood was still wet.

She was mostly naked against him - well, she was all naked against him - skin to skin like he'd insisted. And it was warmer, hotter; the sleeping bag redoubled their body heat and made her skin sweat with it. She kept his hands on his chest and between their bellies; she could still feel the stab of cold from his fingers.

Kate shifted and pressed her thigh between his, shivered as the switch in positions bared her hip. She felt like ice where she wasn't touching him, despite the sweat, despite the close warmth and the fire. She had pressed her fingers under his back but she withdrew a hand to coast a line up his shoulder, check his ears.

Cold, but she squeezed the shell of his ear in her fist, flattened her palm against the side of his head to warm him. She found that the movement kept her fingers from stiffening up as well, and dragged her hand back down to shift to his other side.

He groaned as she moved and Kate paused, stared down at his face.

His eyes opened. A caught breath and then he found her looking at him. "Beckett."

"Castle."

"I feel like shit."

She laughed, heard the hysteria in her voice. He must have as well, because suddenly he was rolling over her, sleeping bag twisting and bunching around them. He laid over her with a sigh and buried his face into her neck. Lips so cold, cheeks chapped.

She lifted both hands and cradled the back of his head, stroked through his damp hair, scratching at his scalp. He breathed, a whuffle that sounded like their dog-

Shit. The dog. Oh, God.

She struggled under him, gasped when his cold fingers clenched too tightly at her hip. "Castle, let me go. I have to get Sasha. And some more wood. Castle. Hey, come on. Rick."

He jerked awake and pushed up on an elbow, stared at her for a second.

"Castle. I'll be right back."

She slithered out of the sleeping bag once more and when she'd risen to her feet, she heard Castle's startled breath below her.

"Fuck, you're naked."

Kate groaned and pressed a hand to her forehead, shot him a look over her shoulder. "Are you kidding?"

"God, you're glorious."

"Castle," she hissed, bending down to grab the shirt he'd tried to tug off of her earlier. She slipped into it and the leggings as well, hustled for the kitchen door in bare feet.

When she opened it, the last of the sun was disappearing from the horizon and Sasha was just outside the door, head on her paws as she waited.

"Oh, honey," she cried out, dropping to her knees and reaching for the dog's collar. "I'm so sorry. Sasha, come inside."

The dog bounded up, no worse for wear, licking her face and trying to settle in Kate's lap as if she were a small puppy again. Kate dragged her inside and got to her feet, brought her to the living room.

"Stay with Daddy," she whispered. She heard Castle grunt as Sasha jumped on him, but he looked awake enough to handle it. "Castle. I've got to get wood."

"Don't-"

"I'm fine. We need more wood to dry out overnight. I'll be right back."

"Take your phone?"

"Mine's dead. I think yours is in the lake."

"Shit."

"I'm okay," she insisted, getting to her knees and wrestling Sasha to one side so Castle could breathe. She dropped a kiss to his forehead and felt his fingers in her hair, the hiss of his breath as the movement caused him pain. "I'm okay. I'll be right back."

"Yeah," he sighed. His chapped lips scraped her cheek and she winced at the bruise from her fall earlier, but she didn't say a word.

Kate stood and found the tennis shoes she'd dug out of their suitcase, pushed her feet into them without untying the laces.

"I promise I'll be right back," she said once more, and then she stepped out into the twilight.

It had stopped snowing.


Castle had propped himself up against the couch by the time she came back inside. Something released in his chest and he took in a deeper breath, blinked slowly as the relief washed over him. He didn't try to get up and help with the wood; he wasn't stupid.

Well, he was stupid. But he'd learned.

Sasha was laying over his feet, the sleeping bag bunched around his waist. Kate came to him first, kneeled down and kissed his temple.

"You look better. Skin's still cold."

"I don't know that I'll ever get warm," he admitted.

"Let me start the fire and then we can do that skin to skin thing."

"What?" he mumbled, giving her a look. She chuckled softly and all her old strength was in the dark and solid brown of her eyes.

She moved away from him and started feeding smaller pieces of wood to the flames; the smoke roiled and disappeared up the flue, and Kate built a nice a-frame to stoke a blaze.

"That should last us for a while, if it's not too wet," she murmured, turning back to him.

Sasha's tail thumped and Castle lifted the zipped side of the sleeping bag. "Get in, Beckett. You've got to be freezing."

"Yeah, but it's like warming up next to a popsicle." She gave him a flash of teeth with that smile, but she stood up once more and stripped her shirt right over her head, her body licked with red light.

"Beckett," he growled.

She laughed and yanked the socks from her feet, peeled her leggings down slowly, teasing him. "If you can appreciate it this time, Castle, I know you're going to be okay."

"I'm appreciating the hell of out it," he muttered darkly. But he was seriously tired and he doubted he could even feel that wonderful skin if he got his hands on her.

Fingers were burning with cold, clumsy and awkward. She came to his side and unzipped the bag, slid inside with him. He sucked in a harsh breath as she straddled his hips, but then she laid her head against his chest like she needed to hear his heart.

Probably he wasn't wrong.

Castle sighed and wrapped his arms around her body, their skins stiff and having to remember how to touch, how to be together. She traced soft designs at his back and he leaned his head against the couch, swallowed hard to keep the sensations, to hold them, though his body seemed unable.

"You okay?" he murmured.

"God, if you don't stop asking me that, I'm going to kill you. I will. Don't think I won't."

He grunted, felt the laughter ripping up his lungs, part pain and part relief. "Yeah. I - still wanna know the answer to that question."

"I hate you," she growled, pressing hard against his body. "Castle. I am fine. You are the one who fell through the ice and nearly died. I need to call an ambulance. I can't even - the landline is dead, my phone is dead, I can't even-"

"No. No hospital. No." He could hear himself, how he sounded; still, he clutched her tighter. "Can't do that."

"You need medical attention. You fucking drowned in a lake. Don't tell me no."

"Can't. There's - the NSA. Robert's dead. I don't - I can't guarantee safety." Her safety. He wasn't that concerned about his own, but if he was laid up in a damn hospital bed, then he wasn't where he could protect her. "Can't do it, Beckett. Direct order."

"Fuck that. Not happening. I'm - I should walk down to-"

"Like hell you are walking anywhere without me. No. Absolutely not."

She was rigid in his arms, but she didn't move away.

"I need you to keep me warm anyway," he added, not so smooth, and he heard her frustrated mutter against his chest. Her teeth bit his collarbone and he took it - he could always take it - before she gave a low curse and pressed her lips to the wound.

She wasn't tacitly agreeing, but it was a slight concession. He was right; they couldn't be public right now. Not after someone had followed her in the city, not after her PT was found dead.

"I feel like this is a little obvious here," he muttered, dropping his mouth to the top of her head and palming her back. "But I am so damn grateful you came outside."

"Dog barked."

He nudged his foot into their dog and she glanced over at him. "Sasha's looking out for me. Should've called her Lassie."

Kate snorted against his neck and lifted her mouth to graze his cheek. "I thought you were going to just... slip right under."

"I thought the ice would break and send you with me," he roughed.

She nodded, both of them struck mute by the terror that still wound around them. He couldn't help remembering the wild of her eyes as she'd stared at him across the cracking ice, the sheer determination that wouldn't be broken.

And even though he'd wanted her to get off the ice, go back and just throw him a damn branch or something, he had a singular, burning relief that she hadn't.

"You said you hate being cold," she whispered.

Well, shit, she knew anyway. "Could also say I hate you being cold," he sighed. His voice sounded terrible; no matter how much he swallowed, cleared his throat, his words scraped out like knives. "Hate you being out there too."

She shivered again and he felt the snowmelt in her hair drip to his shoulder.

"You okay?" he whispered again, couldn't help himself.

"I'm not so hot," she admitted, her body drawing up into his. Castle immediately shifted them down to the air mattress, laid his body beside hers for the warmth. She was adjusting the sleeping bag, pulling blankets in with them, and he tried to keep from tangling them both up in it.

"Oh," he said belatedly. "I see what you did there. Not hot."

"Yeah," she sighed. "It was supposed to be a joke. Kind of. Also true. I'm cold to the bone."

"Me too," he confessed. "But you feel good. Warming up."

"I think the adrenaline's wearing off," she whispered.

He palmed the back of her head and pressed his mouth to her cheek. "My hero."

She made a noise like derision, but he felt her body smoothing out next to him, easing into sleep, and he couldn't remember the last time she'd been the one to fall asleep first.

"Just want this day to be over," he whispered.

Her fingers clenched at his hip and then she was gone.


"There is absolutely no way I'm letting you outside," she threatened, squeezing his ear instead of the gentle stroke she'd intended. Castle whined and shook her off, but she caught the side of his face as she stood over him, stared him down.

"Fine," he growled. Or tried to growl. He had a wheeze to his chest she didn't like and she remembered vividly the way he'd thrown up lake water. She wished she could hear his lungs, see if they were clear.

"I'll be right back," she promised. "Sasha's coming with me. I have a flashlight. Just going to get the last of that wood you chopped, all burly and strong."

"Stop trying to flatter me," he mumbled. She stroked her fingers at his cheek, the broken blood vessels where his face had dragged against the ice. Her whole body ached and she didn't know if it was from cold or the way he looked.

She lifted up again and moved away from him, patting her thigh to get Sasha's attention. The dog came and followed her out the kitchen door and into the snow.

It was quiet again. All the violence from this afternoon had been blunted by the layer of snow that shrouded the earth. Overhead the sky was muted grey with clouds so that not even the moon shined through. Kate turned on the flashlight and stepped carefully through the fresh snowfall in the trench alongside the cabin.

Sasha slunk ahead of her, the dog's fur ruffling in the wind, and her nose lifted to scent. She had the look of the wolf about her tonight, ears perked and teeth bared, her steps light and graceful. Kate wished she felt half as confident as the dog looked.

She thought Castle was doing better; he'd been sitting up for most of the evening and she hadn't needed to force feed him dinner. Peanut butter again, but she'd also cracked open the fridge and pulled out their leftovers, both of them eating the chicken cold.

She was worried her father would try to contact them and be unable, worried he'd try to push through the snowstorm to get to them, worried that he wouldn't. If he did, she could get a second opinion about the whole no hospital rule that Castle had laid down. If her father didn't, then at least he was safely indoors.

The dog barked twice and Kate went still, scanning the treeline, but all she saw was the stark outline of the branches tossed by the wind.

She stooped over and grabbed a piece of wood, more of the stuff Castle had spent hours out here splitting before thoughtlessly walking straight out onto the lake.

It just - it didn't seem right. That wasn't like him. And while she was surprised by how quickly he was already bouncing back, the rattle in his chest and the persistent cold in his fingers made her think too much. About how he normally healed so fast, how he didn't usually need as much sleep, how he would never have walked out onto the lake for a damn piece of wood.

She had to lean against the boathouse to keep from shaking; she was so tired. Dinner hadn't helped much; her energy was shot to pieces, but after this she could sleep. She could crawl into the sleeping bag on top of the air mattress and have him lay over her like a blanket and sleep.

Sasha barked again and Kate lifted to scan the woods. She still saw nothing out here, and she hushed Sasha with a low voice, kept stacking wood in her arms. After a few minutes, she realized she felt eyes on her, greedy and watchful, and she stood up slowly, her breath catching.

Human or animal?

Sasha hadn't barked again; in fact, the dog was rolling in the snow and then standing up to shake it off, oblivious.

Kate turned slowly as her scalp prickled, the wood in her arms a poor weapon.

And then she saw Castle stepping out of the cabin, his shoulders hunched against the cold, his feet sluggish and uneven.

She was going to kill him.


"The dog barked," he protested again.

She looked furious, absolutely furious, and as she threw the wood into the corner of the living room, he had the intelligence to shut his mouth.

But Sasha had barked twice - their normally quiet, reserved wolf - and she had just told him how it was Sasha's barking that made her go outside for him. She couldn't be angry at him for that, for the not knowing; because he could see in her face how ragged she was with it too.

Castle decided that sitting down was probably his best bet, so he sank back to the air mattress in relief, his bones aching and his joints swollen. His fingers were still numb with cold but she seemed to be able to tell despite how carefully he tried to keep it from her. He flexed his fingers and stared at them in the light from the fire, listened vaguely to the sounds of her irritation.

His thumb was strangely purple. His fingertips were blanched. He didn't think that was a good sign, but he kept flexing his hand, working what he could, trying to get the circulation back. His heart rate was lower than average, he knew, so maybe that was part of the problem.

Wild guess.

"Fingers still numb?" she said then.

He sighed.

"Castle."

"Yeah," he admitted. "I tried putting them in my mouth to warm them up..."

"Worked in Paris," she murmured softly.

"Not working now," he confessed. He hated to let her know, and he braced himself for the flash of worry over her features.

But maybe she was too mad at him for that. She only set her jaw and finished laying out firewood to dry, and then she dusted off her hands and sat down beside him on the air mattress.

He waited for it, but it never came. Instead, she took his hand and cradled it in her lap, used her fingers to start slowly massaging his wrist. He felt the swollen tissue moving under her touch and then the blood swirled painfully to life.

"Ah," he sighed.

"Working?"

"Think so."

"Did this to your feet while you were unconscious and scaring the crap out of me."

He laughed, but it wasn't funny. She manipulated the muscles and tendons of his palm and knuckles, and it felt like the blood followed her touch, magnetic and seeking. Sensation burned through his hand, and he couldn't help flexing in her grip. She brought his palm to her mouth and kissed his skin and the fire flared hotly against her lips.

"I didn't mean to scare you," he gruffed. His throat hurt, his lungs still burned.

"I know you didn't," she said back, kept her hands around his. She rolled his veins between his bones and her fingers, and feeling popped sharply into his thumb. Like magic.

"I didn't see the lake - the snow made everything the same and I'd split a bunch of wood and was just trying to gather it up."

"I know."

"The waves made sheets of ice and I'd been crunching through it all morning; it didn't feel or look any different."

"You're protesting a lot," she sighed, and her head tilted to look at him. "You know."

"I... know," he admitted.

"I think you should find a doctor," she said quietly.

"Not a CIA doctor, you mean," he answered. And between them still was that darkness, that lack. "Do you think... it's because of me?"

"No," she whispered. Her hands clutched harder around his. "No. It's not you. It's just me."

"It's not you," he rasped. "You're-"

"Still have anemia," she said darkly. "Still not - regular. I have issues, Castle, obviously. But I would like for you to find someone we can trust. Especially since you just got dunked in the lake."

And he heard in her careful tone exactly what she wasn't saying - that he should have never been distracted enough to go under, never should have been tired and angry and uncontrolled like he had been recently. It should never have happened.

"I'll find a doctor," he said finally. "I'll - I'll use the alias." The one he adopted Sasha with, the one they married under. Too many people knew that identity already, but he'd have to carefully go outside his known circles.

"Can I ask Lanie?" she murmured. "She'd know someone."

"Okay," he agreed. Her fingers against his were pale, but she let go of him and reached for his other hand. He gave it to her, watched her work, felt the fizzle in his fingertips. "What if it's - something he did to me?"

"Castle, we can't think like that."

"What if the regimen... I don't know. I don't..." He closed his eyes and tilted his head back, a black pit widening inside him. But it'd been there a while now, had been growing like a beast, ever hungry. He was afraid. He was afraid he'd gotten this far and come so close and everything would be taken from him because he was - in essence - still the boy on the side of the road, no one coming to pick him up.

Her hands came to his shoulders and pulled him down into her; he pressed his face into her neck as her arms wrapped around his shoulders.

"Please don't," she whispered. "Please. Just one step at a time, Rick. Okay?"

"Okay," he rasped.

"I'm getting better and now I just want you to be healthy too. I don't want... we won't worry about having a baby until we straighten us out."

"But I-"

"It's not you," she said insistently. "Stop. This isn't the end of the world; don't be melodramatic. It's just some tiredness."

"Okay." Or at least, he tried to say it. But his throat burned and the word was mangled. He lifted his head to clear his throat and rubbed at his neck.

"And maybe a cold," she chuckled. "You did just fall into a frozen lake."

"It wasn't as frozen as all that," he mumbled. And then smiled at her because it was supposed to be funny - since the ice hadn't held his weight anyway - and she smiled back, stroking his shoulders and down to his biceps before she took his hands again.

"Let me get the blood flowing, baby."

"Can I lie down in your lap?" he sighed. He gave her his best sad face - it was mostly in the eyes - and she melted. All that strong and careful concern for him flowed right out into tenderness.

"Of course," she murmured, pulling him down to her thighs. He grinned and pressed his face to her stomach, nipped at her skin through her shirt. She gasped and laughed, twisted his ear.

"Ow, ow, woman." He reached up and rubbed his ear. "Ap-"

"If you say apples, I will hit you."

He laughed again and squirmed down into her lap, holding up his still tingling hand. "You still have to do this one."

"You're insufferable."

"I know. And yet you still love me. What does that say about you?"

She leaned over him and kissed his forehead. "It says I'm very lucky," she whispered.

And then she pressed her hand over his mouth and wouldn't let him say anything more.