The Castle is Breached
Chapter 13
Disclaimer: See chapter one
Kate didn't know where she was going, only that she needed to move. The pleading in Castle's voice, the distraught and confusion she had seen in his eyes, it breached the defenses she was sure she had continued to fortify over the last three years. The first time she had seen the distraught look in his eye's was during the case where their suspect was killing people he thought had taken the forged passport he was trying to get his brother into the country with. She and Castle had been at the apartment of a woman seen on video buying a knockoff designer bag that said passport had been smuggled into the country in.
The suspect had tracked the woman and while they had been questioning her and finding the passport, the man appeared at the door. Castle had seen him first, reacting quicker than Beckett had thought possible as he grabbed her and they both fell to the ground as the man started shooting. Once they had reached cover they had argued a moment as she wanted to get a line of sight on the guy, but Castle was fussing at her to stay down so she didn't get shot. In that moment she had seen something in his eye's that unnerved her, she had never thought of him being able to take very much serious, but this was possibly the most serious and scared she had seen him up to that point, but it wasn't fear for himself that she saw, but fear for her.
They had come out of that encounter fine, him boasting later that is was his first 'gun battle', she'd remarked that it would be his last, little knowing how hollow those words would prove to be as he continued to follow her into dangerous situations. Yet, that is when her defenses started, she couldn't let him get that close to her, to where he would put himself in danger for her, but here they were. It had become second nature to her to have him around, trusting him absolutely to watch her back, even giving him a gun a couple times. She had grown complacent and now that complacency had lead to her walls crumbling, the emotion she didn't want to acknowledge coming at her full force and she just didn't know how to handle it, so she ran.
Martha had seen the change in her son a couple months after he had started shadowing Detective Kate Beckett. He would talk about her constantly, he wasn't going out much in the evenings, he had spent them writing and waiting for the young woman to call about another murder. She had watched her son fall in love years ago, with Kyra, but she had also watched as he let her walk away because he wanted her to be happy regardless of how he felt. It was during that time a couple of his darker novels had come out, but those were the ones that launched him into the stratosphere of crime novelist.
When Meredith came along, it had started out as a good time. She had helped pull him from the dark place he had slipped, but Martha never saw that same look in her son's eyes when he looked at the carefree red-head. But then she became pregnant with Alexis and Rick did the right thing and married her. Once Alexis arrived he became the devoted father while Meredith never really took to motherhood. It had hurt Richard when Meredith left, but it was more of what Alexis was losing than him, so he took full custody and never looked back. Meredith would pop into their lives from time to time, just long enough to disrupt the flow, then she would be off again.
When Richard had started dating his publisher, Gina, Martha wasn't really sure what he was doing. Gina was the total opposite of her son, buttoned up, always on a schedule, never looking at the fun in life if it didn't fit into her neat order of things. But they had gotten married anyway, for a time Martha thought that her son had married Gina to give Alexis a stable mother figure, but he soon realized that in Gina's view of things a preschooler was not her cup of tea. Though the woman was never mean to Alexis, she just never seemed that interested in what went on in the child's life. If Richard blew off a meeting to do something with his daughter, Gina would argue with him about it, telling him it was his career he was screwing up, never realizing that Richard was putting Alexis ahead of everything, like any good parent should.
That led to more and more arguments between the two and Richard had finally called it quits when he found out through someone at the publishing house that Gina was seeing someone else behind his back. Again Martha saw the hurt, but she knew it was more from Gina breaking his trust than any real depth of emotional commitment. After Gina there had been a few women in her son's life, but not nearly as many as the tabloids played at. Then came the encounter with Detective Kate Beckett at the book launch party for the finally Derrick Storm book. Within days he was writing again, and over the months the changes had started to show. Now when her son would speak of Kate, he had that same look in his eye's he did with Kyra and the 'it's not about the books anymore' statement just a few months ago confirmed it, her son was truly in love with Kate Beckett. But he wanted her to be happy and if that had meant stepping back while the detective dated other men, then Richard would do that, all because he wasn't sure if Kate felt the same about him.
But the look in Kate's eyes in the hospital room had given Martha a view of the young woman's soul and in that moment she knew without a doubt that Kate had finally realized just how much she loved Richard Castle and it had scared her. So like any woman with confusing, overwhelming emotions she needed time to figure them out. And that is what had Martha searching the hallways looking for the upset woman. It was the mother in her that drove her to look for Kate, the girl needed a mother right now.
Kate Beckett couldn't think clearly, so she searched out the quietest place she could find on the fourth floor, it was a waiting area at the opposite end of the hall where Castle's room was. The furthest she could get without actually leaving the floor, which for some reason she found she could not do. She had told him she wouldn't leave. The room was unoccupied, so there was only a single lamp on in the corner, she picked the couch in the opposite corner to sit on, pulling her knees to her chest, burying her head as sobs shook her body. This was so unlike her, she was always the strong one, always in control, but the last few days had shaken that control and the last few minutes shattered it completely.
The fear in his eye's, the pleading in his voice, that lone tear that she had wiped away as he drifted back to sleep, she knew he cared about her, but did he really care that much? So much that even as he lay in the hospital from a gunshot wound that he would call out for her in his nightmare, fearing she was the one hurt. Then his words, words he had used in the past few months, both during times their lives had been in danger and his only thoughts had been of her. How did she miss it? And why did it take him literally dying in front of her to realize how much she cared about him?
All the images flooded her mind, their first meeting, his over the top flirting. The funny quirps, outrageous scenarios about cases that sometimes didn't turn out to be so outrageous, him watching her back, saving her life more times than she could count. The looks she overlooked when she was going out with Demming, then the bomb. Three different times in two days they had thought they were going to die, but each and every time Castle had been right there with her. Listening to her lament about her absentee boyfriend, about how she wished she had someone who would be there for her and her for him, never once pointing out that he was always there for her and her never once making the connection.
Then the freezer, she still had nightmares about the freezer, she would find herself shivering even on the hottest days, never noticing that Castle would occasionally wear an extra overcoat on days that others would gladly shed unneeded clothing. Finally the bomb, face to face with the last two minutes of their lives and it was him that was standing there with her, grabbing her hand to let her know she wasn't going to have to die alone. However it was in the precinct later that she really saw something different in his eyes, her heart had skipped a beat a moment, though at the time she had written it off to surviving a near explosion, but then his posture changed ever so slightly as he said he was going home to rest and turned to leave. Her mind didn't put everything together fast enough before Josh's arms encircled her, but as she watched the elevator doors close on Castle's form leaning against the back of the lift she felt her heart break just a little.
A week later Josh was gone to Haiti after they broke up, he just wasn't there for her the way she needed him to be, yet Kate never told Castle. And now, now she knew the man she had been talking about while in quarantine, the man she had always wished would be there for her and she could be there for him was now lying in a hospital bed having nightmares that he had lost her and it was her that could have lost him without even realizing it.
Kate didn't know how long she had been sitting there, but she didn't even flinch when she felt someone sit down next to her and put their arms around her. She allowed the person to pull her over into a comforting hug as she was slowly rocked. "It's okay dear, you let it all out." Her comforter whispered. It never occurred to her why Martha Rodgers was holding her, comforting her as she cried. It never occurred to her why the woman wasn't in the room with her only son instead of being in the waiting room holding her while Kate finally gave in to the feeling she had for the woman's son. All Kate knew was for the first time since her own mother had died she felt the safety and love only a mother could provide and she clung to it like a life preserver.
"I love him…" Kate whispered through the tears and hiccupped breaths, never looking up, as Martha rubbed comforting circles on her back.
"I know dear…I know." Was all Martha said as she continued to comfort the younger woman, thinking now if these two crazy kids would just tell each other a lot of heartache could finally be put to rest.