Close Encounters 6
"Kate, you're bleeding. You're bleeding, love," he was saying, all against her skin even as she pressed tighter, closer, needing closer.
She bit his shoulder to prove the substance, to taste the ghost, and sucked at his collarbone, pushing off his shirt until it tangled with his jacket at his wrists. He groaned and arched into her, but she twisted the material in her fist and drew his arms behind him, painful and awkward, and maybe, maybe she was punishing him.
She thought maybe she was. He deserved it.
She rocked her hips against him and kept one hand in a tight fist in his shirt and pressed her kiss against his sternum, skirted away from his questing mouth so she could go for his belt.
"Kate," he shouted, his body jerking into hers and his eyes slamming shut. He ripped his hands free of his shirt and jacket, gasping and hauling himself up, dislodging her from her work at his pants. "Kate, shit, you can't - your hands, you're bleeding. Please."
She just - wanted him. She'd been certain she'd never have this again and now here he was, dream or devil, at her mercy on her kitchen floor, and she curled her fingers around his ribs and skimmed her palms up his back and touched her tongue to his neck.
His hands cupped her cheeks, his breath loud in her ear, but he pushed her back, resolutely back, and stared at her like he was drowning. She knew the feeling.
"Kate. Let me get the glass out of your knees, check your hands and your wrist."
"The glass?"
His fingers dropped to her thigh and feathered behind her knee, and it was like his touch brought the feeling back to her body, all of it aflame and singing with pain.
"Ahhh," she hissed, closing her eyes and gripping his arms. "Fuck. I broke a glass."
A laugh tore out of his throat and she opened her eyes, found him staring at her, his hands too tight and squeezing, and the look of desperation on his face made her want him. So bad. So bad.
She pushed a hand between them and fumbled for his belt and zipper, heard his breathless curse against her forehead. He hiked her knee higher around his waist and she bit back the sting of pain that laced through her blood, instead rocked her hips harder against him.
"Kate," he groaned.
"Take me to bed, Castle. Or just fucking take me here. I don't care."
She pulled away just enough to see his face, finally unzipped him, and he growled, low and dangerous, and then he wrapped his arms around her and stood in one forecful movement.
"I'm taking you," he muttered.
"Fuck," he groaned out, heart ragged and wild and still unable to come down. Damn it, he hadn't even gotten them to the bed, just a sloppy, pathetic mess against the door and she was still gasping his name against the bite mark she'd left at his shoulder.
What the fuck had he done?
"We gotta go," he grunted, felt her teeth score his skin and her breath bathe him in shivers. "We gotta get out of here, Kate. I don't know who saw me, but I turned the cameras off and they'll notice. Fuck, they'll notice soon."
She stiffened and her legs dropped from around his waist, and he thought maybe some sobriety had been shocked back into her. But she swayed and dipped towards him.
"Kate? Love, come on. Gotta get out of here."
"Castle?" Her voice was keening even as she said his name, and her fingers were bruising his biceps, nails cutting him as she pressed her face hard into his neck. "Castle. Castle, don't leave."
He tangled his hand in her hair and pushed his forehead to hers, fighting back the intensity of his need for her, cycling up again like a beast. "We have to, Kate. We have to get out of here. There's a contract out on you, sweetheart, and I just fucking walked right back into this. I've put you in danger again."
She was shaking, and he felt like the worst asshole, fucking her against a door when she was drunk and bleeding and clearly not at all with it, but it had felt so damn good to have her, to push every terrible image out of her head and make her cry out his name, make her believe in them again.
Castle gripped her harder and stepped away from the door, but she came after him, and he saw her eyes were squeezed tightly shut.
"Kate," he muttered. "You gotta get some clothes on. I gotta find my clothes. Come on, love."
She lifted her head and stared at him, and damn it - damn it - he was going to rot in hell for this, for all of this, every idiotic, selfish decision he'd made since her apartment blew up.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, his throat closing up with it, fingers coasting up her neck.
"Don't go," she gasped, nails digging into him again.
"Find some clothes. We needed to be out of here an hour ago."
He tugged on his pants and boxers, got himself zipped and the belt buckled again, and she was still just staring at him. So he took her by the hand and led her to his closet, discovered it mostly empty but for the black dress and a pair of red lace underwear dropped on the floor. Had she worn red lace underwear to his memorial service? Shit. He was turned on again just standing there.
He was a sick fuck.
He pushed her back so he could kneel down; she was naked and bleeding and the shame was burning in him like fire. Her knees, her palms, even that one place at her wrist, slowly and steadily bleeding, and it was worrying him (but obviously not enough to keep him from taking her against the damn door). Still she put on her underwear and stepped into the dress as he guided it up her hips, zipped her in the back.
She was staring at him and he saw her lashes - heavy and exotic - slip closed before she fluttered them open again.
"This is real," she said suddenly.
"Kate," he sighed, gripping her by the back of the neck. "This is real and we have to leave here."
"We have to," she echoed, blinking again, and then she groaned and lifted a hand to her head. "Castle."
"Yeah."
She swayed and pushed her hand to her mouth, eyes widening, and then she was jerking away from him and heading for the bathroom.
Fuck. No, the glass.
He caught her the second before she plowed back through all those broken pieces, but she retched, vomiting on the floor even as he held her. She sobbed and seemed to collapse, but he held her up with one arm, managed to gather her hair out of her face, hold it off her neck as he sank down in the doorway.
"It's okay," he murmured, putting her against his chest as she shivered and tears leaked from her eyes. "It's okay, baby. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. You're gonna be okay."
She breathed in and out against him, stuttered breaths as she seemed to zone in and out, and then she pushed off his chest, swallowing hard.
"I feel like shit," she rasped, the back of her hand over her mouth again. She closed her eyes and swayed for a long second, but she lowered her hand and slowly looked at him once more.
"I'm sorry," he offered helplessly.
"Where's your shirt?" she said, her voice toneless and dull.
"I'll find it," he said, untangling from her, standing them both up. "You have shoes?"
She nodded.
"Can you go get them?"
She walked away from him, still so flat, and he watched her a moment, but no - she was gathering her stuff, a little mindless, a little wooden. But she was better. He thought. Maybe.
So Castle ran back for his shirt and shrugged it on, the jacket as well. He picked the army jacket up off the floor and came to find her in the hallway, held it up for her. She turned and slid one arm in, then the other, and he laid it flat over her shoulders, couldn't help rubbing his thumb at the base of her neck, into her hair. When she looked at him again, she was crying, soft and quiet and inescapable.
"You're really here," she frowned, her voice breaking.
He wrapped his arms around her and held on.
While Kate sat on the bed, shivering and bowed over with her head in her hands, Castle popped open the hollow side of his closet and pulled out his go-pack. After Eastman had died, he'd confiscated the man's forged identities and reused them for himself - why let the good work go to waste? He knew Eastman would've wanted to help, just as he had so many times before.
He wrapped the ID packets in a tshirt and shoved it into a duffle bag, gathered as much of Beckett's stuff as he could find and added that as well. The credit cards and license he placed in his own wallet, tossing the official stuff into the hidden compartment in his closet. He found Beckett's keys and wallet and phone in the kitchen, and he did the same there - replacing her stuff with the new go-pack information, popping out her sim card and installing the clean one. He'd had her cover ID made after she was shot at the funeral; he'd been afraid they'd have to run sometime and he'd wanted it all ready to hand.
When it was safe for them again, he'd come back for her real stuff. She'd need it.
"Okay, Kate," he said quietly, coming back into the bedroom. She was slumped against the headboard, but her eyes were open and she shifted slowly forward. When she was standing, he wrapped his arm around her waist and kissed her temple. "I got what we need. You good?"
"Far from," she muttered. Her words weren't slurred, but her pupils were dilated and her hands trembled. He could feel her body threatening to give way.
"We're gonna hole up somewhere and figure this out. Okay? We'll figure it out." He guided her down the hallway and she wasn't weaving or anything, but she wasn't steady and he noticed her wrist was bleeding again. He snagged the kitchen towel from the floor and wrapped it around her wrist in a triage move, using rubber bands from the junk drawer to keep it in place.
Jeez, they weren't at all inconspicuous.
He didn't like it, but he walked outside with her and covered the three blocks back to his vehicle in broad daylight. There was just nothing to be done for it. She seemed to be less aware, less able to coordinate her movements as they got farther from his building, but when they finally reached his car, she climbed in without a problem.
The CIA cars all had GPS, but Castle dismantled the thing before they started out, threw the pieces in a dumpster. Since everyone had probably seen their awkward, slow stumble to the car, he definitely didn't want to make following them any easier.
When he glanced over at Kate, the kitchen towel he'd wrapped around her wrist seemed to be doing its job, the blood clotting, her arms up against her chest as she stared at him, fighting sleep, and her bare toes were curled up in the seat. She looked small like that, in a way he didn't like to see, but she was with him now, she was here.
He'd figure it out.
Castle maneuvered through traffic in the Bronx and aimed for Connecticut to avoid the toll roads and their cameras. Kate passed out, the car reeked of alcohol, and even though he wanted to get her somewhere safe, he had to be careful. The drive was monotnous and endless, the stop and start of late afternoon rush hour and then the deepening of twilight outside the car making him restless. He frequently exited the interstate and backtracked, parked in out of the way rest stops and watched the roads, stopped at gas stations but didn't buy anything.
He checked Kate's breathing and she seemed to be sleeping it off, her hair damp and plastered to her neck, her hands in fists against her chest. At one point, he realized she was clutching the chain with his wedding band, so he took it from her and slid the ring off, pushed it on over his finger where it belonged.
It took hours longer than it should have, but by the time he stopped at a bed and breakfast just past Stamford, he was certain that no one had followed.
Castle got out and checked his shirt in the reflective surface of his car window. He tucked his tails in, straightened his collar, skimmed his fingers down the buttons to be sure. When he went up the front porch and stepped inside, the woman behind the desk gave him a tired smile.
He handed over the credit card from his go-pack, had that trepidation in hist guts that always came anytime he used a fresh ID, but it went through without a problem. The woman handed him a bunch of stuff to sign and asked after his companion - asleep in the car, long drive - and then he had a key.
They could rest.
The room was narrow and sparsely furnished, and Castle let out a short breath and shut the door with his heel. Kate was heavy with unconsciousness, but he laid her on the bed and stroked the hair back from her face.
Let her sleep it off.
He unwound the rubber bands from the dish towel, but the blood had dried and was sticking to the material, so he had to wet a washcloth in the bathroom down the hall and then soak the kitchen towel until it loosened.
The bleeding had stopped at least. And he'd been right the first time - the wound was shallow. He washed her other cuts and the abrasions on her hands, realized she still had glass in them as well. And her knees. He had to throw on the overhead light but still his fingers were too fat to get everything alone.
Castle went back down to the common bathroom, rooted through the cabinets until he found tweezers and hydrogen peroxide in a first aid kit. He doused the tweezers liberally in the solution, took those as well as a couple of paper towels and a package of sterile gauze back with him to the room. She was still unconscious in the bed, for which he was grateful, and so he kneeled down at her side and started on the puffy skin of her hands.
The wine glass had apparently splintered. A thousand tiny slivers irritating the sensitive pads of Kate's palms. His heart clenched with each one, but he ignored the panicky sick feeling that kept asking did she mean to do this? and instead concentrated on patching her up.
He washed her hands again with the washcloth, gently massaging the skin to be sure the glass was gone, and then he pressed moist gauze over the area, doused it with the hydrogen peroxide.
For the next part, Castle sat on the bed and draped her legs over his lap to see better. He picked the glass out carefully, had to blot at her knees with the washcloth as the blood ran again. It took an hour until he was finally satisfied, and he layered damp gauze over the cuts as well, skimmed his fingers down her calves and stretched her out in bed once more.
Castle cleaned up all the supplies, put everything back where it belonged, disposed of the bloodied washcloth to avoid any questions. He ran water into a glass and brought it back to the room, set it on the bedside table, and then he locked the door behind them, shutting them up safely inside.
Kate was unconscious on her back, so he slipped into bed beside her and carefully eased her onto her side, in case she got sick again. He curled his arm at her sternum and brought her back against his chest, framed her body with his, finally let himself blow out a long breath.
Her hair caught in his mouth but he petted it down, pressed his lips to that spot behind her ear. He couldn't possibly sleep, not after this, but he could keep watch over hers. He could do that at least.
It was the throbbing ache of brutal reality that woke her; grief had set up a drum beat in her head and she groaned with the sensation of her own blood pounding in her heart. Too much wine. No - vodka, wasn't it?
But then it was the warmth and the scent that dragged her out from under the heavy lid of her grief. Coffee and winter woods, a heat that melted every knot in her body and held her up.
Her hands clenched and then ached because of it, but she struggled in the grip of too-strong arms and turned her head and it was him.
It really was him.
She swallowed against the dry feeling in her mouth, unfurled her fingers against his cheek. He was watching her intently and she realized she'd - what had she done to make him look like that?
"Rick," she breathed out, scratching her nails against the scruff and shivering at how real, how good the sensation felt. Her head was pounding agony, but it meant - it meant it was real.
"I'm so sorry," he gruffed, closing his eyes and brushing his lips over her fingers. Her hands ached, fiercely, and she turned her palm to look.
"Oh, the glass," she sighed, flexing her hand experimentally. "Ouch."
He huffed and his forehead dropped down to hers, a little laugh that sounded more hysterical than truly amused. All real. Real sounds. She'd never hallucinate something so broken, would she? She was the broken one, not him.
She feathered her fingers through the hair at his temple, rejoiced at the touch of his lips at her neck, something heavy and dark breaking open in her chest.
"You were - you weren't here," she murmured, unable to say the word dead, unable to put that reality back into form, to recreate it at all - because just let this be a never ending dream if it was a dream.
"I'm sorry," he murmured again. His fingers stroked her hair back and her mouth tasted funny, her stomach like it was leaden, her head too heavy for her neck.
"How did you live?" she asked finally, bracing herself for a cold plunge back into reality.
"I spotted the bomb in your oven moments before it went. Dove in your bathtub."
Her hand shook as she pressed it against his neck, felt the regular and fast pulse of his blood. "In the bathtub."
"I'm so sorry, Kate." He nuzzled into her hand and there was the scrape of his stubble again, reminding her of what was true. "I knew it was a bad idea, but it seemed the only way to keep you safe."
"By leaving me?" she cried, withdrew her hand and pressed it over her eyes.
"I'm so sorry," he was murmuring and his body seemed to encompass hers, everywhere at once. "I'm sorry, Kate. I didn't want to, I hated every - but I made a deal with my father to protect you while I went after Bracken. And, God help me, I'm sorry, but it's not worth it, getting Bracken's not - he's not worth watching you fall apart and doing nothing - doing nothing."
Kate felt the sob catch in her chest, part furious and part pathetically grateful, but she growled and held it back. She had to get control of this, had to force out the hangover - fuck, she was desperately hungover - and make sense of this. Had to make sense of this.
He was alive.
"I saw your bones," she gritted out. "Bones."
"Black set it up. I left the ring there so you wouldn't have to ID the body-"
She scrabbled at her neck and the chain scraped her skin, but it was gone. It wasn't here; she'd lost-
"I have it, Kate. I got it. You kept it for me, but I don't want you carrying it too, love. You shouldn't have to carry it."
Her fingers released on the chain and she studied the wedding band now back where it belonged, lifted her hand to it and stroked the warm metal. Warm from him. He was here.
"Kate, I have to know. I have to ask. Did you - did you mean to do this?"
"Get black out drunk? Hell yes," she grit out, closing her eyes once more. "I gave myself one night, one night to let it be - I can't believe you. I can't believe what you did to me. You left me. After we said - after we said it was so much worse when we split up."
"I meant - Kate. Kate, did you mean to - hurt yourself?"
She wanted to kick him out of the bed; she wanted to hurt him. She wanted to cry. She wanted to cling to him and sob everything out and then for it to all go back to what it was and not remember the way the ash got in her lungs and the ring spinning empty and forlorn on its chain and the dark severity of his apartment, the lack of his things, lack of him.
"Kate, the glass. In the bathtub and you - you drowned?"
She stared at him. "No? I don't - did I mean to break the glass? I got drunk, Castle, and fuck, I don't remember - I don't even care - how can you even judge me on that? You left me." She smacked his shoulder as she said, felt better and worse at the same time. "You let me think you were dead, you bastard. You have always been a bully and if I weren't so fucking grateful you're alive, I'd hit you harder. I'd do you serious damage."
And even though she was seething, even though she hated him so much her head hurt, she realized she was also clutching his shoulders and back and holding him to her, now speaking into his neck even as she skimmed her lips along his skin. She was at war with herself.
"Are you laughing?" she muttered.
He gasped. "No. Yes. I'm sorry. I love you. I love you, Kate, and I know that doesn't make up for it, but I was - you just don't give up, do you? You never give up, and please just don't give up on me either."
"You gave up," she said back. "You quit-"
"No," he insisted, and his hand flexed against hers and pushed to her face, holding her tightly. "No. I had to - I hate this job and what it does to us, Kate. And I'm so sorry. I'm sorry, just - just please let me make it right. I was trying to do the right thing."
Her body was a flame and he was so heavy and real over her; she wanted to light them both on fire, have them go up in smoke and ash and burn everything to dust.
"I cried for you," she muttered, felt her cheeks flush with the inadvertent confession. "I hate you for that. I hate you."
"But the good kind, right? The kind where I get to make it up to you all night?" he whispered back, his mouth at her collarbone and his kiss nudging the line of her black dress to one side. She felt his hand at the inside of her knee, gentle and smooth, and his fingers trailed upwards, shifting her dress.
"Make it up to me for weeks," she whispered back, hating even more the break in her voice. "And we'll see."
"Weeks. Months. The rest of my life, Kate Beckett."
"Better be a damn long life, Rick. Or it means nothing. A long life."
"I promise," he murmured into her mouth. And even though he couldn't possibly, she took it as a vow and helped him draw the dress up over her head.
"I need some clothes," she said suddenly.
Castle shifted and loosened his arms even though he didn't want to, and she rolled onto her back and stared up at the ceiling.
"Clothes," he sighed. "I like you without."
She huffed a little at him and her hand came up between their bodies, fingers wriggling, and even though he knew that wasn't what she meant, hold my hand, he took it anyway and squeezed, careful of the scrapes.
There was so much he should explain, so much they had to clear up between them. They were in a time crunch here too, with the price on her head and the elimination assignment falling into place. The CIA would be looking for them and they'd be found, eventually; he'd bought them maybe 48 hours at the most.
But he wasn't entirely sure that explaining everything while Kate was hungover was such a great idea. She still seemed unable to believe he was here, and alive, and he didn't fault her for that. But it made him restless, knowing all the things they should be doing.
"Clothes," she repeated. "I don't want to wear that dress again."
He brought the back of her hand to his lips on a sigh and turned over to lie against her, their joined grasp caught between their bodies. She lifted her knee to his hip and used her other hand to paint his lips with her fingers.
"I brought what I found in the apartment," he said softly.
She shook her head. "Didn't fit that well. I just grabbed the first things on the rack."
He sighed and untangled their fingers so he could prop his head up on his hand. "I'll go out and get you-"
"No. We'll go together," she interrupted, clutching at his neck.
"Kate, you don't have anything to wear."
"I'll-" She stopped and swallowed hard. "The ones that don't fit. I'll just - wear those. I don't care. I'm not letting you out of my sight."
"I"m sorry-"
"Stop being sorry," she growled, lifting up suddenly and flipping him onto his back. "Just be - real. Just be here, and not a lie. I can't. . ."
He apologized with his mouth instead, with his fingers and his touch and his body, giving her himself even though her furious and insistent need frightened him with its depth, its darkness. He'd broken her, in some way he hadn't yet found a way to heal, and he wasn't sure how to get her back, how to make it right.
She allowed the kiss, bit him back for it. He hissed into the scratch of her nails down his arms, and then he pushed her over and took her again, made her know, made her believe with the force of his love.
She sat on his chest, laughing at him, and he was just - so damn grateful she was laughing at all that he couldn't even care that it was at him. Still he untangled his fingers from the empty chain around her neck and finally tugged it up and over her head. Her hair snarled in it and she laughed again, worked it free herself. He watched the way her body moved and then she laid back down at his side, dropping the chain over the side of the bed.
She caught his hand up against her chest and kissed his fingers, began playing with the ring, pushing it around and around on his finger. He let her touch, her body restless and shifting against his, her knees pushing between his, her sigh still catching somewhere in her lungs.
"Kate, you're still my wife," he said, and he wasn't trying to make it into a question, but he thought maybe the question was there.
She curled her left hand around his left hand, the metal of their rings hitting together, and she nodded into the grey-lit darkness of the room.
"I want to get a license," he said then. "Make it official here."
She lifted her head and gave him a look he didn't understand.
"I thought you had to get - permission," she said.
"I'll get it."
"Under what name?"
"My name," he said fiercely. He didn't even care. Let them all know-
"Is that safe?" she said.
He grunted and squeezed her hand reflexively, had to let go when she winced and her fingers fluttered. The scrapes were raw, he knew that; he knew that. Pay attention, Castle.
"I don't know that it's safe for you, but as - as a Rodgers," he said finally. "Richard Rodgers marries Kate Beckett. The name I used to get the dog."
"Is it safe for you?" she said quickly, drawing his hand closer to her, her head coming to rest on the pillow beside his. She'd never been one to hover, to cling, and the lack of space between them now was disconcerting.
"Why wouldn't it be safe for me?"
"Don't they all know that Kate Beckett is attached to a spy?" she murmured. "And if you use that name, Rodgers, then how will that cover keep you safe after that? We're using it right now, aren't we? And it'll be blown the moment anyone looks up the marriage license in the public record."
He nodded painfully, saw the damn logic in it too. "But marrying the spy-"
"I've already married you," she said suddenly. "I don't care who you are - son of a spy or son of an actress-"
"Son of a bitch?" he inserted quietly, and he meant it seriously. All he'd done to her. But she laughed, almost a giggle, her forehead coming to rest against his collarbone.
"Don't call Martha that," she murmured.
He laughed back, a relieved thing that was more sigh than amusement, and he realized his hand was pressed between them, his fingertips right at her neck. He stroked her skin and leaned down to kiss where he could reach, tracing the line of her temple to her cheek and then to her jaw as she lifted up to him.
"This is the only real thing in my life," he murmured. "And I'll get a marriage license and make it official, Kate. You deserve that. You deserve everything."
"He wouldn't let me go to your CIA funeral," she said quietly. "Are we not official to the CIA?"
His hand tightened in hers, his body stiffened. "What?"
"Your father. He wouldn't tell me where - when it was, the CIA service. I just wanted - I don't want to be the lie, Rick."
"You're not a lie," he rushed out. "I swear. You're not a lie."
"Then why - did you not think I could do it? I went with you all over Europe; you saw me put on an act for the crowd. Why did I have to be in the dark for so long? Why couldn't you tell me that you were really alive?"
He groaned and drew his arm around her, pressed his mouth to her hair. She said she didn't want another apology from him, but he was running out of ways to explain. "I didn't have a choice, Kate. The contract is out on our lives - the bomb had just shown me how far he'd go. And Black showed up to deal with the aftermath and I didn't - it was either stick with his plan and play dead, or he'd pull all our security. Without the CIA watching our backs, Kate, we'd have been dead. You'd have been dead."
"So you died instead. And I - I had to suffer."
"No. No, I - it wasn't supposed to. . ." He trailed off into nothing, but she was still so pliant against him, so warm and giving and soft. He'd expected fury, and he didn't know how to react to the pleading, quiet desperation. The confusion.
"Why did you make me part of the lie?"
No. No - surely he hadn't? Surely that wasn't it.
Castle hitched in his breath and blinked back the urge to cry, drew her tighter into his chest. "I didn't mean to. I didn't have time to think. It was either stick to the plan or see you in the crosshairs, and Kate. . ."
"Stick to the plan," she echoed dully. "Yeah, you're good at that. He's always had a plan for you. And it's not me."
She withdrew from him, slid out of bed and reached down for his shirt. He watched her shrug it on in silence, buttoning every last button, and then she was heading for the door.
"Kate," he grit out, panic making him sit up straight.
"I have to go to the bathroom."
And then she left.
