Castle wakes in his cell that morning with a crick in his neck, the muscles of his upper body aching and throbbing from a night spent uncomfortably trying to sleep on the cold, thin sheets of his tiny cot of a bed. Ryan had managed to pull some strings when they arrived and got him held separately from the rest of the thugs down in holding, fearing for the safety of a man of his stature. It didn't take long for word to spread around that millionaire novelist Richard Castle had been arrested, and for assaulting a female cop no less, and it unnerved the both of them as they walked the halls early in the morning, listening to the other imprisoned men shouting and calling out to him with thinly veiled threats and suggestive remarks. If he had been tossed into a cell with anyone else down there, there was no doubt in Ryan's mind that Castle wouldn't be coming back out unscathed. For his own safety, and both of their peace of mind, Castle was led down a corridor to a solitary room meant to hold the most dangerous of arrested criminals before their arraignment, or those at risk of harming themselves whilst in custody.
It took him hours to fall asleep in the small, dank room with it's white walls and musty odor that rivaled even the worst smelling days on the homicide floor. Thoughts of Kate, and the events of the night, plagued his mind all night long and only added to the already present physical discomfort he was feeling from his surroundings, and the soreness of his body from his fight with Kate's masked assailant. Each time he was close to dozing off at last, his head tilting and eyes falling shut, his body would jolt back awake with the slightest of noises, or from a single thought crossing his mind. If only he had been able to stay with the homicide division, the unit of the 12th that had become his home away from home, instead of two floors down with unfamiliar surroundings and even more unfamiliar people in charge of his care...
He supposes he should be thanking the universe though, because he realizes that had he been locked up in homicide, it would have been because he found Kate dead, not alive. He'd have been arrested for murder then, not whatever they were charging him with now. Domestic violence? Assaulting a police officer? He can't even remember what they'd said to him now. Part of the night feels like a blur.
But the thought of Kate coming so close again to death, and in his absence from her, makes him shudder, and almost weep. The fact that she's beaten, but still alive, pulls forth bittersweet, but grateful tears. But he won't shed them. Not now.
He's well aware of the evidence they're likely piling against him now; was running the possibilities through his mind all night long of what they might find, if no trace of the other guy was to be seen. Sure, he'd gone to Remy's to grab them food, but that wouldn't rule him out as a suspect. If it were him and Kate figuring out a timeline of the crime here, even they would have to look at the possibility of someone having ample enough time to come back and commit the act before calling 911. His alibi was worthless without Kate to corroborate it, thin on it's own at best.
If they weren't able to find any traces of her attacker in her home, naturally everything would fall back on him. In the past three months, he's made himself at home in her apartment, so they'd find traces of him everywhere. They've spent nights curled up on the sofa together, watching the television shows he's programmed into her DVR, or the occasional Netflix movie. They've cooked and eaten meals together in her kitchen. On more than one occasion, she's surprised him with a candle-lit bath for them to wind down in at evening's end, and the left side of her bed has become his side of the bed; she always curls up with his pillow on the days he leaves early in the morning so that he can make it home before Alexis or his mother notices him gone.
No matter how he looks at it, it's either going to look really good, or really bad for him, depending on what they find of him and where. But telling the cops that they're together, and having Gates inevitably find out? It could destroy their partnership, possibly even result in Kate losing her job. She about had a heart attack the last time they almost got found out. Even in a situation like this, he doesn't want to make it worse for her.
...but will he even have a choice in the end? If there was ever a time for their friends and family to figure out that they were seeing each other, this would be it.
God, he wishes he knew what to do. It's either throw himself, or the both of them under the bus, and Kate's already been mangled enough physically last night.
Kate.
He didn't even get to see her before they led him away and told him his rights. Didn't get to hold her hand, run his fingers through her hair, or brush his lips across her cheek. Nothing. Not a damn thing. He's been stuck in this cold, miserable confinement, unable to find out what's going on outside.
He looks down to his wrist instinctively, not remembering that he was stripped of his watch upon booking. A slight tan line on his skin stares back at him in the absence of his Rolex. He hasn't the slightest idea what time it is now, but he can tell it's still early if only from how exhausted he feels. They hadn't gotten him settled until at least an hour after he was brought in, and he doubts he even passed out until close to two or three hours after that.
As if on cue, he hears the sound of a closed fist hammering on the outside of his cell door, followed by the gruff voice of an officer he doesn't recognize.
"Castle," the cop says upon opening the door, and the writer bolts upright into a standing position.
"Got someone to see you."
"Who?" he replies, despite already lunging for the door. The other man holds his hand up to stop him before he can exit the room, lifting up a pair of handcuffs from his belt. Castle lets out a ragged breath.
Right. He's still in custody.
"Sorry, man. Rules are rules," the officer tells him. Richards, his nameplate says. He'd find it funny, were he not feeling so completely wretched.
Richards cuffs him with a pitying look. Obviously everyone working in the 12th Precinct knows the relationship between Castle and the NYPD, even if they haven't personally crossed paths with him before. Some are friendly, some not so much. The detectives questioning him last night weren't among his fanbase, that's for sure. Then again, he and Beckett have railed against plenty of innocent men and women in their own line of work before. It's just how the job goes. Everyone looks like a killer to them, just as everyone must look like a scumbag who'd snap and beat the hell out of a woman to these cops. Even Rick Castle and Kate Beckett aren't exempt, regardless of their notoriety and perhaps, at times, mismatched but impeccable case closure rate.
They walk along a corridor that Castle vaguely remembers, or maybe it just looks so similar to homicide's floor, just with different decor, before Richards leads him into a cage built almost exactly like the ones up in homicide. His own personal holding cell. Fantastic, he thinks sarcastically.
"Must have been occupied last night, huh? Since you guys threw me in solitary like the crazies instead." Castle tries for humor but it falls flat. Richards doesn't bother answering.
"Guys'll be in in just a few. "
"Guys?" he asks, as Richards turns to walk away.
"Sit tight, Castle," the cop answers instead. It doesn't make him feel any better about it. He has to wonder if Richards is a fan, or just doesn't plain care one way or the other.
"Long day ahead of you."
"Javi, will you just—"
"You tell me to calm down one more time, Kevin, and I swear it'll be your face connecting with my fist, bro."
By some stroke of luck, Ryan manages to make it to the 12th before his partner does in order to head him off. They get as far as announcing their arrival before Ryan leads him down the hallway and tries to get him to cool down before Castle's brought in. It's not working so much, if the threats of physical violence are anything to go on. Ryan feels like they're back to the days after Esposito and Beckett took off after Maddox all alone, and how long it took for them to finally bury the hatchet.
"Look, I know you're upset, and you have every right to be. We all are. All I'm saying is, let him explain. There has to be an explanation that makes it all make sense, right?"
"The guy spins stories for a living. How are we supposed to know fact from fiction? And say he says he's with Beckett...why didn't he tell us? Why would they keep quiet about something like that? We're friends. Family. You don't keep that from people you care about!"
Ryan lets out a breath, almost relieved that his partner has turned to that line of questioning.
"You do hear yourself, right? How long did you keep you and Lanie a secret from us? Hell, I didn't even let you guys meet Jenny for months after we started dating," the blue eyed detective placates.
Esposito frowns, opening his mouth to retort but it falls closed again, silent. His furrowed brow gives a little twitch as he thinks it over.
"Let's tell him what they found and give him the chance to explain. We're detectives, man. If he's lying, we'll be able to tell."
He gets a hard look from his partner, but then Javier nods and seems to be satisfied, even if only slightly. He'll take it though. It's something compared to the rage in which he'd left Bellevue in.
Castle looks up when he hears the two sets of footsteps approaching, and his eyes light up when he sees who's come to see him. He stands up from the bench and quickly steps closer, hands on the bars, grasping on desperately for what, he doesn't quite know.
"Kate." It's the first word out of his mouth. He can't think of anything else in this moment, nothing else he cares about, nothing else that he'd rather know more about, than her right now.
"How is she? How's Kate?"
Ryan goes to answer, but then his partner steps forward, so close to the bars separating himself from the writer that they're breathing the same air.
"Did you force yourself on her?" he asks, and it feels like a punch to the gut to Castle. His blood runs cold. He feels faint, queasy.
What the hell kind of question is that?
"Javi," Ryan tries, but his partner goes on.
"Look me in the eye, Castle. Tell me you didn't lay a hand on her without her consent. Tell me that the evidence the lab found linking back to you doesn't mean that—"
"W-what?" Castle stammers, cutting him off. "Evidence? Without her consent? How can you even—"
And then something in the detective snaps, the interrogative side of him coming out to play as if he were in the box with him, with Castle sitting at the other side of the table, all bets off.
"CSU found traces of semen in Beckett's bed and everything's a match to you. We saw you fighting yesterday, Castle. All day long you were at each other's throats, and then this happens to her. So what happened? She turn you down again? You figure this is the last straw? Take it or leave it?"
"Javi, stop it!" Ryan yells at the same time Castle shrieks "That's not what happened!"
"Yeah, bro? Why don't you tell me then? What happened, huh?"
The look in the Hispanic detective's eyes turns wild, his ability to compartmentalize blinding him to the man who's worked beside them these past four years. Javier Esposito doesn't see Castle, the goofy writer who's become not only a friend, but another partner, on the other side of those bars. He sees the fire and burning rage within his very soul, feels the desperation to find out what the hell happened to his friend, his partner, the woman who is like a little sister to him, and who has undeservedly faced so much strife in her young life.
"What made you snap and do the unthinkable? You get tired of following her around with no incentive and she told you to get lost? So, what, you knock her around a bit and figured you'd just take her by force?"
"NO! How many times do I have to tell you?" Castle screams, furious. "I didn't hurt her!"
"Okay, guys, I think we need to just calm down—"
Ryans plea falls on deaf ears.
"What else is there to explain what happened, huh? You're the first one to say there are no coincidences, Castle! She had no clothes on when medics picked her up and you didn't say a word about that to any of us. And now come to find out, your DNA is all over her! Inside of her!"
"FUCK, JAVIER. I DIDN'T HURT HER! I LOVE HER, GODDAMNIT!"
"STOP IT, BOTH OF YOU! Her father's standing right here!" Ryan yells over them, and at that, manages to finally pull Esposito off the cage and back towards the wall. Espo shoves Ryan off of him but stays standing there, his breathing fast, heart pounding. Castle slumps back down onto the bench, his face in his hands, as Jim walks over to the three men.
As usual, he's straight to the point.
"There's an explanation for what they found, isn't there, Rick? One you haven't told us."
Castle nods his head, barely lifting his eyes to look at Kate's father.
"Yes."
Jim comes closer to the bars of Castle's imprisonment, grasping onto them.
"How about we hear it? The full truth this time of what happened last night."
Castle lets out a long, shaky breath, and runs his hands through his hair. He's sweating profusely, so riled up and stressed out. He wipes his hand down his shirt, stands tall.
"Truth is, Kate and I...we've been seeing each other. For three months." He looks to Ryan, catches the detective's sad blue eyes staring back at him. "Since the night you saved her from falling off the rooftop of the Rosslyn."
Castle goes on to explain how he and Beckett fought about her pursuing Maddox, leading him to walk away, and that after what happened to her on the roof, after she had turned in her badge and resigned, Beckett came to him that night. He tells them how they reconciled, finally stopped fighting their feelings and started their relationship that night.
"With everything that was going on, we just wanted to keep it between us for a while until everything calmed down, went back to some semblance of normal. Things were so sensitive when she came back to work, and we didn't want our relationship to jeopardize our partnership and her job."
Neither of the boys speak. They look to each other, and it's as though they're both thinking the same thing, going through the same memories of the pair's interactions in the past three months. How didn't we know? and That explains this, or That's probably why that.
"The fight yesterday morning...it was so stupid. My daughter, she's going to school at Columbia now, living in the dorms."
Jim nods, following along. "Katie had told me about that."
"Kate had made plans for us to celebrate our three month anniversary. She surprised me about it. We were going to fly out to Los Angeles for the weekend, spend a few days on the beach, just the two of us, no needing to sneak around since we'd be so far away. She'd gotten the tickets already and we were packed to go and everything.
"But Alexis came home unexpectedly the day before yesterday. She said the air conditioning went out in her dorm and that she was having trouble concentrating on her homework in the heat, so she just wanted to come home and do it at the loft. I figured it was no big deal, but then Alexis was spending more time just hanging out downstairs that night, and my mother had said she hadn't seen her studying at all. She didn't come right out and say it, but I realized she was just homesick. Missed her family.
"I told Kate about it and asked if she'd be okay canceling. She was completely understanding and fine with it, of course, until I opened my big mouth when I realized she couldn't get a refund. I offered to reimburse her the cost of the tickets and buy us new ones for another weekend to somewhere more exotic."
Castle pauses, curses himself inwardly for his stupidity, even if Kate's already thoroughly forgiven him for.
"I guess I did it to...to pay her back for the inconvenience." He gives a half smile to Jim, and the older man seems to understand where he's headed before Castle even gets there. He knows his daughter.
"That didn't go over so well with her, and I really should have known better. She thought that I felt like the trip to LA wasn't good enough, too cheap. We both said some hurtful things, and then went to work and continued saying hurtful things throughout the day." He looks over to Ryan and Esposito then. "And that's what you guys saw going on all day."
Ryan gives a nod of understanding while Esposito continues watching Castle with rapt attention.
"We went home separately and I tried texting and calling when I got back to the loft but she never responded to me. After a couple hours, Alexis had gone up to bed so I went over to Kate's apartment. I wanted to fix things. It was our anniversary, after all. I didn't want us to be fighting and it was all my fault. I didn't consider the thought she put into planning our trip and I hurt her feelings with what I said."
He pauses then, not really sure how to proceed on explaining the rest of the night's events to her father and the two men who are like overprotective older brothers to her.
"So...you kissed and made up," Jim offers after a moment with a smile and Castle looks horribly embarrassed when he nods shyly.
"That's why you found my...my DNA...at her apartment. But I swear to you, I didn't hurt her. I only left for ten, fifteen minutes max, to go grab us dinner. We went to Remy's on our first date. I thought she'd appreciate the sentimentality of it."
Jim's eyes soften, Ryan looks sympathetic and Esposito just looks somber.
"I love Kate. I love her with all my heart. She means everything to me, and I would never, ever hurt her. You have to believe me."
"I do, son." Jim says, and reaches his hand inside the cell to grip Castle's shoulder firmly. "I knew it couldn't have been you, especially from the moment she called out for you. She did it again just before I left her earlier. She used to do the same thing when she was recovering from her shooting last year; call out for you in her sleep. She's stubborn as hell when it comes to saying how she feels and what she wants, even when she's absolutely miserable, but the truth always comes out once her guard's down—or impaired by pain meds."
Both men share weak smiles. Hard to laugh, given the circumstances, but they know how she is.
"When you go back, will you...will you tell her I love her? And that I wish I could be there with her."
"Of course, Rick."
The elder man takes his leave and Ryan steps forward. He slips both of his hands through the bars to grasp onto his shoulders.
"I wish you would have told us all of this last night, man."
"I'm sorry, Ryan. I just...the NYPD rules and everything...and most of it I didn't even think about until I was left only to my thoughts this morning in that little room."
"Yeah. I don't agree with you guys keeping it hidden this long from us, but I understand. I do. Listen, we're going to do whatever we have to to find this guy," Ryan assures him. "He won't get away with doing this to Beckett. To both of you. I promise."
Esposito approaches at last, with a firm look and a nod of his head to Ryan. His partner takes his cue with a smile, and leaves ahead of him.
As soon as Ryan is out of earshot, Esposito apologizes.
"Castle. Bro, look...I'm sorry. What I said..."
"Don't," Castle stops him. "I get it. I may have done the same thing in your place."
Esposito looks uncomfortable for a moment at the implications of that and Castle quickly adds, "I mean if it was your partner, not if you were sleeping with mine." Okay, that might've been worse to say. "Girlfriend, I mean! If it was your girlfriend. Like Lanie!"
Castle clears his throat and grasps the bars tightly in front of him, fixes Javier Esposito with a pleading look.
"What I mean to say is...I'm glad she has you. You always have her back, and you're protective as hell when it comes to her. Thank you for that."
The detective nods his head affirmatively. Beckett said it herself, after Montgomery's death. They're a family. They may fight, and they may have their differences, but they'll always be bound together by the tightly woven bonds they've forged.
"We'll get you out of there, bro, and that son of a bitch that did this to our girl is going down."
Back at Bellevue, Lanie startles when her best friend begins to shift in bed, seeming to finally rouse from sedation.
"Kate?" she calls softly to her.
The detective's eyes slowly peel open to the morning light shining through her hospital room's window.
When she opens her mouth to speak, her voice comes out strained, but clear.
"Lanie?"