So One Man


Kate stares at the slammed door and the only thing she can grasp, only thing that comes to her is He's forgotten his keys.

Bracken, the invitation, the sick sight of Alexis in her robe-

The cry leaves her lips and startles her back to awareness; she yanks open the door knob and flies out of the loft, running for the elevator but she's already missed him. She jabs the call button, her heart pounding, racing, tripping over itself, but it'll be too slow, too late, and she flings herself towards the stairs instead.

Kate pounds down the steps, skipping one or three here and there, turning an ankle in her haste, knee twisting as she rounds the landing. Gravity pulls her hard and she buckles, but she passes the second floor door and keeps going, keeps going; she has to get to him before-

Before he-

What will he do?

Anything. He's a father who would do anything, and that scares her like nothing has. Ever. In her life.

Kate slams her shoulder into the door and bursts out into the lobby, has to scramble to keep her balance on the slick marble floor.

She forgot her shoes.

Kate grunts when she hears the click of the door and she darts forward, around the bend towards the elevator but it's open and empty. She turns towards the front door and Eduardo is still in that half-bow he has when they leave.

"Ms Beckett?" he sputters, even as she pushes out past him. "Your shoes-"

She barrels through the doors and stops dead on the sidewalk.

Castle slides into a cab.

"Castle!"

He doesn't even pause; she can hear him grit out something to the driver even as he slams the door shut and her guts twist painfully as the car slips out into traffic.

No.

X

Her hands are shaking at the delay, but she's got to figure out where, where, what the hell he's going to do.

She shoves her feet back into her shoes and curses her phone's slowness, but how did Castle fly out of here without even checking?

The photo. The envelope, return address. Kate runs for the counter and slams her hip into the side, grunting with pain, but she snatches the envelope and runs back for the front door. Her shoes slap against the wood floor, heel sharp and clacking, but she doesn't take the time to adjust the fit.

She takes the stairs again, can't help the burning need to go, and her hand crunches tightly on the envelope. In the lobby once more, her breath catching in her lungs, she finds Eduardo has already held her a cab, the door open and waiting on her.

"Thank you," she breathes out to him, kisses his cheek as she passes. "Thank you."

"Mr Castle..."

"He's fine. He's going to be fine," she murmurs, sliding into the back seat. Eduardo shuts the door after her and she closes her eyes a moment.

But there's no time.

"Take me here," she says finally, showing the driver the envelope. "I'm a police officer. Extra if you're fast."

X

Kate untangles herself from the long line at security, shoving her shoes back onto her feet even as she heads for the directory. Distinguished offices of Senator William Bracken.

She can practically feel Castle close by, that fury seething in him, the deep and wounded hurt she'd seen in his eyes right before he walked out the door. She heads for the elevator - she'd lose time trying to run up fifteen flights of stairs - but the wait is excruciating.

She scrapes a hand through her hair and shuffles inside with the crowd, lets the friendly older man with the goatee push the fifteen for her. She shifts from foot to foot, the elevator filling slowly, and finally the doors close and the lift begins its ascent.

She just needs to make it. She just has to make it before Castle...

Whatever he wants to do, whatever he's got in mind, she can't protect him if he goes off. She can't save him if he-

The elevator stops and opens, third floor, and she groans to herself and tilts her head back, bouncing on the balls of her feet. Hurry, hurry, hurry.

Fifth floor. Sixth. Seventh. People file off and now the elderly man in the goatee steps off, a sympathetic nod towards her, and she can't even find a polite smile in response.

Castle. What the hell does he think he's doing?

Finally the elevator opens onto the fifteenth floor and Kate slides out, walking quickly down the hall, searching for a sign, a suite, something to indicate the senator's offices.

She finds a broad door, ornate and imposing, a chrome plaque with the man's official title beside it, and through the wood she can already hear him.

Castle. She can hear him.

Kate flings open the door and rushes inside. Castle doesn't even notice her as he's pressing forward, trying to bypass a couple of secretaries and a staffer who attempt to hold him at bay. But the same moment Kate hurries on scene, she sees Senator Bracken open up a door opposite her and step into the elegant reception area.

Bracken sees her. His smirk, the curl of amusement and self-satisfaction in his eyes is so thick, so suffocating that time breaks, stuttering to a stop. Trapped.

But then Castle, in his furious and towering rage, turns on Bracken. "You bastard." And he lunges.

Kate darts forward between them, shoving Castle back with her whole body, the team of secretaries fluttering around them, squawking imprecations and threats to call security, the staffer looking nervously to his boss, but Kate can barely keep Castle in place. It takes every ounce of effort to keep him from Bracken.

She twists until she can't see the senator, can't see the two women or the staffer, until all that fills her vision is Castle's murderous face.

"Stop, Castle. Don't. Please," she begs quietly, gripping his biceps hard. "Please, don't."

"You have no right," he thunders, lunging for Bracken once more, his eyes not even seeing her. "That's my daughter. My daughter-"

"Castle," she hisses, shoving on him hard and finally breaking the connection. Castle stumbles back, but his hands come up to grip her elbows.

"Kate," he growls down at her.

"Not this. Not now. Castle. This is not the way," she whispers fiercely. She nudges her hips into his, their bodies clashing, and his eyes drop to hers once more.

Oh God. Oh God, so much grief. She's caused him so much hurt.

"I'm sorry," she murmurs. "I'm sorry. But you can't. You can't."

"Is there a problem here?" Bracken says with a snark to his voice that makes Castle stiffen.

Kate pushes back, using his own momentum to knock him off-balance, and he's driven back another step. She twists her fist in his shirt, her knuckles hard against his stomach, and his nostrils flare, his mouth opens.

"No," she says quickly, not even looking at Bracken. "No problem." She dips her forehead to Castle's chest and closes her eyes. "Please. Castle, for me. For me."

She feels his impotent rage vibrating through his chest but she nudges him back another step, finally. Another step back. And then another. Another.

"Please," she whispers, lifting her head now, imploring him with everything in her.

He's still staring at Bracken.

She refuses.


The sharp trill of his cell startles him awake, the senator's eyes snapping abruptly open to the pale light streaming through his bedroom window. He lets it ring several times, blinking at the bands of sun that streak over the undulations of his comforter, tries to remember the last time that he woke up with daylight streaking through the room.

He doesn't check the number, just reaches out blindly and accepts the call just before it would have gone to voicemail. His reaction is a hair slower than it should be and he almost misses it – he's still running off maybe three hours of sleep due to the daisy chain of delays that impacted his usually dependable shuttle from Reagan to La Guardia.

"Good morning," he says, smoothing the touches of morning roughness into a low and dependable lilt.

"Senator Bracken," he hears, her contralto bumping uncomfortably over the words. "It's –"

"Detective Beckett." He pauses for an instant, reveling in her sharply indrawn breath, letting her soak in the knowledge that he can recognize her voice from two uncomfortable words. "What a pleasure."

He realizes as he says the words that unlike the countless other calls he's made over the past few weeks, obligation after obligation, this really is a pleasure. He's started to push himself up, ready to move toward the bathroom, but he relaxes his arms, lets himself fall back against the pillows and close his eyes, lets the softness of the bed underneath him and the sharpness of the light around him drift slowly away, lets everything dissolve but the sound of her.

In his ear, he can hear her softly breathing.

"Yes. Well," she says, stuttering for a heartbeat over a response. "I seem to have misplaced your initial invitation."

He feels a strange stretch at his lips and cheeks, the first totally genuine smile he's produced in ages. "Misplaced, or threw away sight unseen?"

Another strangled noise, barely audible, a tiny protest at his guess that is simultaneously a confirmation. "Irrelevant," she says, her voice still slightly strained.

He tries to picture her – starts with her in bed, a delicate camisole, the strap starting to slide off one bare shoulder, highlighting the sharp line of her collarbone and the messy curl of hair that brushes against her throat. But he knows before the picture even resolves from the haze that he's wrong, that she never would have called from anywhere but her office, battle-ready in a button-down and five-inch pumps and a fierce scowl. She never would have called if she'd thought he'd have been anywhere but the office as well.

He sinks back against the pillows a little more deeply, his eyes still closed, feeling slightly more charitable toward the series of delays that caused him to still be in bed at this abnormally late hour.

"I'll have a new one to you by this evening," he offers charitably. "In the meantime, mark your calendar for the twentieth. My assistant can take care of booking you on a shuttle to DC."

"DC," she echoes flatly.

He loves how little she gives away. "That won't be a problem, will it?" he asks, letting a hint of his happiness leech into his tone.

"It's not entirely convenient," she says, her voice just slightly harsh over the hard c.

"If you need a place to stay, I have a lovely apartment."

In the darkness created by his closed eyes, the sharpness of her inhale fills up his senses. "No. I'll book my own shuttle," she rushes out. The call abruptly ends.

He taps into the calendar app on his phone – first meeting of the day's not for another hour.

He'll spend the extra time in bed.


Castle keeps to the shadows of the cavernous ballroom, his muscles hard and tense. On alert.

His collar and tie are digging into his throat, cutting off his air. Or maybe it's rage he's choking on. It's hard to tell.

He keeps his eyes fixed on the door so he won't miss her, ignoring the dull ache above his eyes and in the back of his neck, the way his head is buzzing from too much caffeine and practically no sleep.

Kate's going to be pissed. She's going to be fucking furious the moment she's sees him, but Castle has weighed the thought of a Kate who's not speaking to him against a Kate at the mercy of an obsessive madman, and Castle will take angry Kate every time.

It's been a shitty week. A week of stilted silences, the air awkward and heavy with everything he's not saying. Except for those moments when he can't keep his mouth shut.

Castle doesn't know what more she can expect of him. He didn't kill Bracken the day the picture came in the mail, didn't rip him apart where he stood for threatening Alexis.

He listened to Kate, to her frantic voice in his ear telling him this was not the way, to the urgency of her hands on his face. Let her lead him away from Bracken's office without a word, leaving the senator staring after them, the bastard smirking like Christmas came early.

It killed him, but Castle went along with Kate and didn't beat the shit out of Bracken, but only because he didn't realize at the time - so stupid – that she was going to insist on this.

On giving Bracken exactly what he wants.

The next morning Kate made the call from work while he was standing in line for their coffee, exhausted from pleading with her, from trying to find another way, from butting his head up against the wall of her fear, her determination to save Alexis, him, everyone, no matter the cost to herself. He wasn't even there when she had to talk the bastard, agree to his manipulations.

"It's the only way, Castle." He came into the 12th an hour later and found her hunched over her desk. When he sat in his chair, her fingers dug into his thigh, her body angled towards his as he stared straight ahead and shook his head, everything in him locked down. "I have to go with him, and I have to go alone."

Castle took a deep breath and carefully turned to look at her. "You can't seriously think I'm going stay here while you go to DC with that bastard by yourself? That's not how this works, Kate."

Kate shook her head, weary but determined. "We've been over this a thousand times. I'm not going to DC alone, just the dance. Bracken has to believe we're complying, we can't risk him realizing that we're not meekly doing his bidding."

"I'm not risking you. You'll be alone with him at the dance – "

"You guys will be in the surveillance van the whole time, and we'll be at an official event, surrounded by people."

"Bracken's people; he can have you out of there so fast – " Castle fisted his hands so he wouldn't grab her wrists, but his words were loud and hard, calling too much attention to them. "You know there's more to this than just a dance, Kate!"

Kate threw her hands up in the air as she jerked to her feet, away from him, her voice rising. "I can take care of myself, Castle, you know that."

His stomach bottomed out as the guilt - the familiar guilt that had been with him for months, ever since the warehouse where she'd been willing to sacrifice herself to save him - whispered that maybe what she really meant was that she could take care of herself as long she didn't have to also take care of him.

Well. Fuck that. Whether Kate wants it or not he's here with her, he will always be here with her, and this time he won't be a liability.

He's not waiting in the damn surveillance van. He has connections; he knows a guy. He's standing right here with her.

There's a commotion on the other side of the room and Castle slowly straightens. He peers through the crowd and sees Kate's standing by the door. She's obviously just arrived, and Castle feels like he's been punched in the solar plexis. He has to fight not to bend at waist and gasp in air.

She's so fucking beautiful.

He's not the only one who thinks so. Bracken stands behind her, so close his body has to be brushing hers, and even from the other side of the room Castle can make out the expression of calculating obsession on Bracken's face. But it's what's behind the senator's expression, a hint of an obsession no longer just calculated but consuming, that twists Castle's guts with fear.

As he watches, his stomach twisting in knots for every breath they all three breathe, Bracken takes Kate's hand and pulls her onto the dance floor, his other hand wrapping around her waist. In his arms Kate is straight and stiff, her gaze flat over his shoulder as Bracken angles his head to try and catch her eyes.

Castle swallows back bile and clenches his fists to stop the shaking. Carefully in control, he steps out of the shadows and starts across the ballroom.