The Director strode down a long corridor in a secure hospital outside New York City, stopping at an open recovery room with a white-collar security guard standing nearby. Less than two hours before, he had been pacing the situation room back at Langley, white-knuckled and terse as the extraction team detected an explosion and honed their search for Felix and the two hostages. Hardly had the words cave, bodies, and alive crossed the air before he ordered them to the nearest security-cleared medical facility and charted his own chopper for the same. His career, identity, and personal future teetered upon one pivotal question: exactly how much did the writer know?
He rapped his knuckles on the door frame and passed into the room, focusing on the single gurney in a corner across the open floor. The room was more of a transient holding area for low-priority patients than any sort of equipped hospital room; it was windowless, bare-walled, and washed out by fluorescent panel lights. The woman lying on the gurney had her back to his entrance and he hesitated, wondering if he should leave her resting for a while longer - but she was already shifting to face him, one slow movement at a time, and he wanted to talk to her before the writer came out of surgery.
"Detective Beckett," he said gently, "It's good to see you safe."
She gave him a tired stretch of a smile that sharpened her cheekbones beneath her dark lashes. "You don't look like a doctor," she said. "And it's just Kate Beckett now. I resigned."
He stepped closer, and her shoes sunk into the mattress as she struggled to push herself upwards.
"Please - don't exert yourself; I won't be here long," the Director assured, finding a tiny stool and dragging it a comfortable distance from her bedside.
She ignored him and inched herself backwards until the wall supported her spine braced her into a decent sitting position. She wore a boxy blue scrub top, but her jeans and shoes were part of her original outfit and left dry flakes of blood and grit on the starched sheet beneath her. Except for an IV line running into a needle in her left arm, no medical accessories suggested serious injury.
"Were you the one who got us out?" she asked, grabbing the fabric of her jeans and drawing a knee to her chest.
"Yes," he lied; he'd negotiated for Castle and left her to the wolves. "I oversaw the operation."
"Thank you," she said, eyes unwavering and serious.
He nodded. "I just have a few questions, if you're up for it."
"So do I," she replied, and he was suddenly struck by her body language - the raised knee between them, her hands hidden behind her thigh - all signs of distrust.
Did she know?
"I'm sorry," he offered. "I didn't introduce myself. I'm a Director at the CIA-" he flashed the credentials hanging from the inside of his jacket, "-and I aim to have you home by five."
"Director...?" she trailed, fishing for a name.
He smiled. "Just Director."
"I see," she nodded, but the questions swirled behind her eyes.
Leaning forward in sincerity, he held her gaze. "You're safe now. I'm not with them."
"Them?" Her eyes shot to his.
"They've haunted you for a long time; I know. Your mother, your captain; bodies are everywhere around you. But not you."
She opened her mouth and took a breath, frowned heavily and lifted an uncertain hand to her temple. "I don't understand, I'm sorry - my brain is..." she squeezed her eyes and exhaled slowly. "I assumed...you were here for other reasons." Her hand dropped to her throat, fingers searching along her collarbone and down her sternum. A cloud passed over her features and her hand curled in on itself, empty. "How do you know about my mother's case?"
The Director clasped his hands between his knees, forearms on his thighs. "Organized crime is a smaller world than you may realize," he said. "Little ripples go a long way."
Her gaze dropped to his hands and lingered a moment too long - he glanced down and saw only his thumbs, working over themselves in repetitive circles. Glancing up, he found her eyes back on his face, searching, darting, catching subtle details. He knew an investigation when he saw one. Whatever she'd been told, he needed to neutralize it, convince her the whole abduction was a mistake.
Except that it wasn't, and traitorous thoughts prompted him to just give in to the opportunity fate had dealt him.
"What other reasons did you think brought me here?" he asked.
"I think you know." She met his gaze.
He waited.
She closed her eyes briefly with a soft inhale, and he saw the decision to trust him play across her face an instant before she spoke. "Castle said they taped him for a ransom video. I assumed it landed in your department and brought you here."
Dead on. The Director nodded, mind racing. How could he ask 'did they tell you his father's name?' without raising her suspicions? If she was as good as his research indicated, she'd read through such a transparent question in a heartbeat. "It did," he admitted. "Landed on my desk yesterday morning. Vales claimed Castle's biological father worked for us." He might as well get it out there.
She didn't seem surprised. "Vales is well-connected," she remarked.
"And he was either misinformed or bluffing. We have no record of any agents with the name mentioned. It may have been a cover name used by one of our people, but - desperate criminals will go to great lengths for a power play. We're investigating, but it's possible this whole scenario was a fabrication."
She stared at him for too long and said nothing. He needed to keep going.
"Did they mention any name to you? Refer to any nicknames, a description, position - anything?"
"No. Maybe to Castle, but..." She shook her head.
"How long have you known him?" he asked, feeling suddenly very raw. He should have let Carson handle the whole debriefing. He was leading himself into dangerous, vulnerable territory.
"Castle? We've worked together for about four years, off and on."
What's he like? Do you know his daughter? The questions shot through his mind and he dismissed them as fast as they came. "You...work together," he droned. "A cop and a writer."
"It's complicated," she said, her tone both warning him away and revealing too much.
The Director felt snarled inside - almost jealous of their relationship. He squashed the emotion before it could do any damage...but it squirmed beneath the surface. That damn crack in his armor. "Has he ever mentioned investigating his paternity?" he continued, fighting the tightness in his throat and dreading the answer. "Criminal organizations are very opportunistic," he explained. "They often watch people with influence for blackmail exactly like this. It's possible he inadvertently set himself up by leaving a trail during a misguided identity search." The emotion was building up beneath his diaphragm and leaving no room to breathe. It was his fault they were here; he'd left a trail years ago with that foolish paternity test. And that mistake had nearly killed the only bright spot in his life.
She was pensive for a moment before replying. "No, not to me," she said. "He didn't really think-" she abruptly stopped and looked away, seeming to grapple within herself. He wondered what issues simmered beneath their relationship. "He likes mysteries," she finally said. "And I think he likes having his own."
The Director started spinning his thumbs again, one on top of the other. He didn't know what that meant for him; didn't know how he should feel about it.
She abruptly angled her head, adopting a curious tone. "Do you always do that?"
He froze his thumbs, looked up at her. "Yes - old habit," he dismissed behind closed teeth. Surely she was just curious; surely genetics didn't encompass such things. What was he thinking, going down this road with a detective? He switched tracks. "Regardless of who had sex with who some forty-odd years ago, I'm more interested in the fact that you are here, alive and slightly toasted. Which tells me they were after something."
She frowned and seemed to draw into herself; a brittle shell forming over her delicate features. "Do you fight them?" she finally asked.
Not as much as he should. "Yes," he said, putting a heavy measure of emotion into his words. Her eyes weighed his, and he was caught off-guard by the sudden vulnerability, hope, and trepidation mixed in their depths. She needed an ally. Desperately.
"They wanted a data chip," she said softly. "They said my mom was ready to prosecute and hid the case files. I didn't even know she had built a complete case." She wasn't looking at him anymore; she was rubbing at the weave of her jeans, a strange, self-incriminating smile directing her tone.
A complete case against the Initiative? A loose end dangerous enough for them to risk a dozen suspicious deaths to keep it all quiet?
"Do you think it's true?" he asked. "Do you think her case is out there?"
The detective swallowed and shrugged. "I saw some convincing proof it existed." Her tired countenance shifted and the Director caught a spark of light in her eyes. "If it does, it's the best damn case in New York against these monsters. Airtight, locked down, evidence and paper trails for everything. That was my mom. No stone unturned."
He crinkled his eyes in a genuine closed-lip smile.
She stared at him.
He relaxed his features and she fluttered her eyes quickly away. Adjusting his seat on the stool, he restlessly extended a leg. "But you have no idea where this microchip might be?"
"No," she said, looking defeated. "Maybe if I had some time to go through it all again, sit with her belongings for a while..." She grimaced, shifting in discomfort. "Castle's going to hate me," she murmured.
He looked inquiringly at her.
"I told him I'd give it up," she said softly. "It's...we fought about it." She drew a breath and sealed her lips; held it all in her chest.
"It's alright; you've had a hell of a week."
She steepled her fingers and pressed the tips into the space between her eyes, closing her lashes. "God - he came back for me," she whispered, the words muffled behind her palms. "Oh, god."
The Director looked down briefly in discretion; heard her sniff twice and let out a slow breath.
"Do you know how it's going?" she asked, clear and steady again, one hand resting at the junction of her collarbones.
The Director checked his watch. "He should be coming out of surgery soon. Just a shoulder wound, broken nose...all out-patient, nothing major. I wouldn't be too concerned."
"I know," she said, but her voice said otherwise.
There was a small pause, and the Director leaned forward and cleared his throat. "There was a body-" he started, then stopped and rephrased. "There was an inside man who helped you escape," he stated.
"Did you know him?" Her tone was soft, apologetic.
"How did he die?"
She pressed down her lips, eyes compassionate. "I don't really know. Castle said he threw himself into the line of fire to return a grenade."
The Director bit down lightly on the tip of his tongue and rubbed a hand over his hair. "Bastard," he muttered softly.
"Who was he?"
"A freakin' saint," he answered, then abruptly stood. He had a lot of questions unasked and unanswered, but the room felt too small and her presence too large. It was her voice and her eyes and her manner - and the fact that she was intimate with his only child. The real questions he wanted to ask were far beyond reason.
"You're getting low on juice," he noted, raising his eyes to the IV hook. "I'll call a nurse to replace your fluids." He started to turn away but caught himself and turned back. "Thank you. You're not alone in this."
Walking out, he felt her eyes following him into the corridor.
Carson found the Director perched in the waiting room, a wooden rosary running a continuous loop through his fingers. The Director glanced at him and glanced away, still spinning the rosary.
"You aren't going to bury him in it?" Carson asked, twitching a finger at the moving cross and beads.
"I don't think he'll miss it," the Director replied curtly.
Carson regarded him a moment before speaking. "He'd want you to have it, anyway," he said, seating himself beside him.
The Director grunted and stopped the endless motion, his fingers reaching to capture the cross. "He used to be an artisan, back in Mexico. Made little figurines for market to feed his ten-year-old daughter." He held up the cross for inspection, but any tool marks had worn off with age.
Carson flicked his eyes over the Director's face, surprised by the spontaneous sharing. There was a difference in his demeanor, something visceral that was welling up beneath the surface.
"Took him five years to work deep enough into the drug cartels to exact vengeance on the boys that raped and murdered her," the Director added.
Carson was silent, taken aback. He'd spent a lot of hours talking with Felix, enough to develop a friendship, but none of them had detailed his past. Most of the time, Felix called him for personal favors; he had another boy that needed transportation and a work visa to some migrant farm for good, honest work. How he turned the boys moral in such a base lifestyle without being found out was a mystery bordering on miraculous. That was the Felix he knew.
The Director tugged up his sleeve up with his free hand. "This is how we met," he said, exposing a fine white scar on the back of his wrist. "Back when Vales was just dealing small stuff across the border. I only beat the flames off him and stopped the bleeding because I wanted information. Thought Vales might have been smuggling terrorists."
The pieces started making sense; Felix had mentioned, once, that the Director had saved his life. Carson cleared his throat. "He once told me you caused him to believe in redemption," he said, pausing momentarily. "That doesn't make sense to me."
The Director chuckled. "Me neither," he agreed. He let the rosary tumble down and swing against his leg. "But he damn well redeemed himself," he added quietly. "A damn martyr."
"I think he'd already found his redemption. He did this for you."
"Bullshit Carson; don't put this on me." The Director edged firmly.
Carson held his eyes steady on the Director's face. It had flushed slightly. "When he called me, during that last conversation, he told me he had your son."
The cross stopped swinging; it hung, quivering, against the crease of the Director's pants. "He only knew what Vales told him," the Director said, shaking his head. "I never told him about the paternity test."
"…that came back negative." Carson added.
The Director nodded his head slowly for too long, staring studiously ahead.
A nurse stepped up to them, her eyes watery with exhaustion yet warmed by the smile on her face. "Sir? Mr. Castle is out of surgery now. If you'll just come with me–"
"Is he awake?" The Director asked.
"No, not yet," she replied.
"Just give me his room number. I know my way around."
She looked dubious, but he flashed his credentials for effect and she shrugged, scrawling the number onto a note before handing it over. "Don't wait too long. It's always nicer to wake up with someone around," she hinted, retreating back to the nurse's station.
Carson looked at him. He was about to offer to go in his stead when the Director leaned forward and braced his elbows on his knees, his hands in his hair.
"How does a man redeem himself?" The Director asked, his words muffled as he spoke into the floor.
"First, know how badly he needs it," Carson replied, mind spinning with the implications.
The Director was motionless for several heartbeats before he straightened, reset his hair, and started down the long hall, the rosary still clutched in his fingers.
A/N: Guys I am so sorry this took so long. I must have re-wrote it five times...there was a lot I felt I wanted to say, but I couldn't decide whose perspective to come from, how to say it...uhg. First real brush with writer's block, I guess. But I kept writing anyway, like they say, and now I've rewritten it so many times I feel like it is just mush and I can't get an emotional read on it at all.
So, I hope it didn't fall too flat...whoooo oooo - does Beckett figure it out first? Or does the Director confront Castle with the truth?