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Chapter twenty-one
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Cops and Robbers AU (three month time jump after chapter one), and my entry in to the NaNoWriMo
- which means this was all written back in November.
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The branches of the trees sag underneath the snow; the light dusting that's falling at the moment is nothing compared to what they had last night, and Bracken breathes it in, lets the frozen air clear the passages of his nose, delights in the sharp sting as the air slides its way down.
He enjoys these moments, the peace, the solitude. He has worked hard to achieve his station in life. He relishes the position that he holds, the ladder he has climbed - intends to keep on climbing - and as the ex-soldier walks toward him, he allows his lips to tug higher in a small but hopeful smirk.
"You have news, I presume."
"Yes, Sir. The target was identified through the Montgomery's family albums, and he's been eradicated. The file that contained your information was reportedly burned on site."
He nods, the smirk expanding, his eyes widening in excitement. He can feel it coming together; all the loose ends are being tied nicely into a bow; all he needs is the last one to be brought into the knot.
"And our escapees?"
A large clump of white falls onto the footpath in front of them, halting their momentum as it sprays flecks of white snow onto his newly polished shoes, tainting and marring them, and he sees the symbolism. The detective has been nothing but a surprise, nothing but a stain that has spread itself across his life, and he wants it gone. Wants the cleanliness back.
"They are… unaccounted for."
He doesn't like mess; he has a team to deal with that situation and they are usually effective in cleaning matters, making his issues vanish. He is usually content to stand on the sidelines, watch from afar. For the detective, though, he would happily make an exception.
He kicks the pile of fallen snow, a sharp snap of his foot, and he can picture her head, the damage his foot could do as it cracks her skull. He can imagine the bright red spray of blood as it cut across the pristine white snow. He can almost smell the metallic tang in the air.
"But we do have a lead, Sir. A burner was caught making a call to Detective Esposito's cell. We've tracked its location and are sending the team there right away while the signals remains active."
Bracken doubts that she would be stupid enough to make a call and keep the phone on her; she's probably left it on so that he is again forced to chase his tail like a rabid dog. The news has taken some of the shine off his good day, but he looks forward and he begins his stroll once more; she can run all she wants, but she can't hide forever. She will need to come back home eventually.
Alexis watches her dad, the worry hanging over them all as he leans against the diner's table; elbows taking the heaviness of his head, his hands barely holding him upright. The weight of the world seems to be pushing down on him, and he hasn't uttered a word since ending the call to Detective Esposito. No one has.
The silence is scaring her. It leaves her stomach in knots more than being chased, more than fleeing has, and she has to break the tension. She has to say something.
"What are we going to do?"
Kate lifts her head at that, slowly comes back to them; her dad had ended up trading places with the detective to get them back on the road, and even as they'd pulled up and entered the eatery, she has not seemed to really take in what was happening.
"You guys should go back home. Go back to your lives. Go back…" Beckett's sentence disintegrates, her head flopping forward, the chocolate curls bouncing with the sudden movement. Alexis can't recall ever seeing the older woman so deflated.
"Enough." The harsh whisper of her father crashes into his partner, and Kate responds in turn, twisting in her seat, eyes slicing into his. The air is heard rushing into her lungs as she inhales sharply through her nose.
"What else can we do here, Castle? We're out of options. There's nothing left. No leads to chase. No clues to follow. They've won."
Alexis really wants to listen to the little voice that tells her to remain quiet, leave it up to the pair of them to work out what to do next but she needs more pieces of the puzzle than she has. So she takes a risk.
"I don't understand what's changed. How is everything different now?"
Her dad pushes his seat back slightly so he can concentrate on both of them; as much as he directs his explanation to Alexis he obviously wants Beckett to hear it as well.
"You know about the deal. Kate stops investigating and she stays alive. You know about the fact that when they found out she was pregnant they took that deal off the table. They wanted her out of the picture." Alexis nods, nothing he is saying is new, and she waits; watches one of his hands settling on top of Beckett's legs, sees the detective take hold of the peace offering.
"When we left we naively thought that it would all blow over, that we could just wait for it to sort itself out. In hindsight it seems… stupid, but we, I couldn't see any alternatives at the time, couldn't think of anything else to do but run."
She knows how that turned out; she was there as the consequences played out from that spur of the moment choice. The men after Beckett hadn't let it go, had followed them instead, had tried to drive them off the road, had tracked them to their second motel, and who knows what would have happened if they'd been discovered there.
"And now?"
"Now it seems like they're cleaning house, getting rid of loose ends. Inside the file was information that was supposed to be damaging to some powerful people- it was our insurance policy. But whatever was on that file is now burned, gone, and..."
It's her turn to suck in a breath. If there is no deal, no file as leverage, then Kate is as good as dead. There is no reason for whoever is behind this to stop hunting her.
"I'm sure that it's just me who they are after. If you and your dad go home, you'll be left alone. Until now it has always been about me, getting rid of me. There's no reason to think that if we parted company they would go after the two of you."
Alexis is already shaking her head, even before Beckett finishes. No one can guarantee that they will be safe; they could come after her dad thinking he has information about where Beckett has run off to, or assume that they are still keeping in contact long after they have parted ways. And then there's the biggest reason of all.
"What about the baby? If we go home and you stay out here? It could be forever, it could mean…" Never seeing what that little heartbeat is going to turn into, never finding out if she has a brother or a sister out there, never getting to know her sibling, and her horrified stare turns on her father.
He hasn't moved, his hand still clasped against Kate's leg and he regards her carefully.
"You have a life in New York, Alexis. Your Gram. Your friends. School. There's your Mom in L.A."
He lists the aspects of her life like they mean something, like they will mean anything if he is not included, and it hits her. He didn't include himself in that list. Left himself out on purpose.
This is up to her; he is giving her a choice, and in some way all she can see is the decision he has already made.
He isn't going back.
He isn't going home, even if she decides that's what she wants. He has chosen Beckett and his unborn child over everything. Their home, Grams, his friends, the lifestyle that they have. She can't work out how he would be able to write while hiding out, or how they would survive moving from one motel room to the next.
"You're asking me to decide, Dad? To pick?"
Kate stands abruptly, the legs of the chair scraping loudly as she pushes back, turns and walks away, the tears cascading like waterfalls, splashing her cheeks regardless of how much she swipes angrily at her skin.
"Kate?" His call after her is half-hearted at best, is ignored as Beckett hurriedly rushes toward the restrooms, and he slumps further into his chair, his head lolling sideways to look at her. "She feels guilty. As if she were the one to put us in this position."
"Isn't she though?"
"If you blame her, Alexis, than you need to place the blame onto me, too. I was the one who kicked a hole wide enough for us to fall down. I was the one who started this, opened her mother's case up again. If I…"
Hindsight is all well and good but it doesn't help her. Doesn't clue her in to what she should be choosing.
"How long? How long until you can work out who is behind this? Until it's safe to return home?"
Her dad shrugs, dejection leeching from him, his rounded shoulders barely lifting, his reply a low mumble. "Weeks? Months? Years? I really don't know, Alexis."
"I have a name." Kevin tries to control the excitement that wants to burst free; he could jump for joy that all his hard work is beginning to pay off, except that would attract the attention that they're trying very hard to avoid at the moment.
Espo twirls in his seat, a hand already flapping between them, indicating for him to calm himself down, and Javi is right, God forbid Gates sense happiness inside of the bullpen.
"What?"
"Okay, so I've been looking in to all the names on the document, the fragments of names really, as none of them were a whole string of lett-"
"Yo, baby Castle, I saw the burnt file, too. I don't need a god damn novel, just tell me what you found!"
Ryan swallows nervously; he does have a tendency to ramble a bit when he gets nervous. It's just if what he has found is true, this could be the name that they'v been looking for.
"Sorry, okay. So I created a database was using first and last names as a point of reference to the letters that we had, so if it was looking at Ka and kett, it would give me possible first names with a Ka and last names ending in a kett."
Esposito nods and Ryan sees the admiration in his partner's eyes and he puffs out a little broader. Would give himself a pat on the back if it wasn't for everyone else in the room. He has been nothing but good ideas lately.
"And you found one of importance."
He gives the room a quick glance, checks to ensure that no one is in hearing distance, before continuing.
"William Bracken."
Espo's eyebrows rise, confusion evident, his shoulders hitching higher for a second.
"William H. Bracken? The Senator? Supposed to be a big up and comer for the democrats? Do you involve yourself in politics at all?"
"Get over it, and no, but I take it you do."
Huffing a sigh of annoyance, Ryan's thankful that he took charge of looking at the names.
"I did some discreet digging. He was the ADA for New York from the late eighties to early nineties, does that period of time ring any bells?"
His partner swears sharply under his breath, connecting the dots between Raglan, McCallister, and Montgomery's kidnapping spree of mobsters and the lawyer who would have been in the perfect position to hear whispers and rumors from the street.
"It makes sense, bro. He could have been a fourth man, or maybe just helped from the sidelines. That link is too much to write off as a coincidence."
They sit quietly, the information running rampant, as everything that has happened spins through their minds; all that has happened in the past, what it means for the future.
"This doesn't help us, Javi. It sure doesn't help Beckett and Castle. If the man after them really is Senator Bracken, and all we have for proof is a couple of letters scattered within his name, they are…" Kevin doesn't need to finish the sentence, the expression that has frozen on Esposito's face is enough.
Without any proof, with nothing solid to tie the Senator to what has been happening to the other half of their family, this isn't going to end. They have nothing to stop him and his attempts to take Beckett out of the picture; and he is most likely targeting Castle as well now.
"Kevin, how are they supposed to come home with a target on their backs?"
"How are we supposed to tell them that they can't?"
Castle fidgets with the key ring, twirls the metal object around and around; it's hypnotic, the way the metal captures the sun peeking through the winter clouds. A glint that comes and goes as he keeps looping it steadily. Like life, it comes and goes, ebbs and flows, starts and st-
"Dad?"
His fingers snap suddenly, he fists the sharp jagged lines, the car key digging into his palm and he stands up. He'd been slumped against the hood of the car for the last five minutes or so, waiting for Kate's return, holding his breath. His partner's swirling dark thoughts are contagious and have entangled themselves inside of him; he's more worried than he's letting on. Not that he's even contemplating the idea of leaving without her, it's just her leaving without him has become a very real fear all of a sudden.
Attempting a smile that he knows doesn't reach his eyes, he waves his daughter back into the car, is grateful when she takes her seat again, the door closing softly against the cold wind that is beginning to pick up. The chill is creeping its way under his coat, edging along his collar, and he sees signs in the atmosphere, foreboding for his future; a bleak, frozen, barren plain where nothing will ever be warm and loving again.
"Castle?"
This time his body jerks to attention, his shoulders a ridged line of tension, his jaw painfully clenched. Holding his breath, he stares into the haunted eyes of his partner and waits. He has become an expert at waiting.
"Are you waiting for me?"
Her question is ludicrous, and if he had air in his lungs it would have been expelled in a huff of annoyance. What else would he be doing except waiting for her? Where else can he go when his heart and soul are split equally between her, his daughter and the child that grows each day inside of her?
"Always, Kate. It's not just a word that I throw out there for kicks. It is… it means everything to me."
He wants to explain that it's what his dreams are now made of, that the future he envisions is his family together, safe, regardless of town or city.
"I'm here." She says the words so softly, a quiet oath, but there is no hesitancy, no strain. Whatever internal battle that's been waged, whatever war that played out while she was in the bathroom, she seems to have made a decision that in his favor.
Stepping quickly, unconsciously worried that if given time she may change her mind, he wraps himself around her; one arm heading low so his hand can press against the small of her back while the other buries itself deep in her hair, his fingers gripping the strands firmly. His actions are mirrored, her frame fitting gracefully against the crevices of his body, fitting them together, molding them as one.
His nose nudges its way along her cheek, ghosts skin over skin until he finds the curve of her ear, and his lips dot tender kisses onto her exposed flesh. He breathes her in; life, hope, his future - their future - are all carefully inhaled. The sensation fills him, shoulders expanding as he stands taller; her love lifting him higher.
"Can't walk away, Kate."
It's not a question, not even a statement; it's his promise to her. That wherever they may be; he is standing by her side.
"Can't walk away, Castle."
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The end (kind of)
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We clawed, we chained our hearts in vain, we jumped never asking why.
We kissed, I fell under your spell. A love no one could deny.
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Don't you ever say I just walked away, I will always want you.
I can't live a lie, running for my life, I will always want you.
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(The song that started and completed it - appropriately)
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Thank you for all your words of support, the encouragement and for the flails you have bestowed on me as this journey went through all that it did.
Each time I read a review I get the biggest thrill knowing that someone is out there enjoying it.
The smiles and jumps of joy that they create are truly cherished! XOXO
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Thank you to those on twitter, you left me overwhelmed with your birthday love, my apologies for not responding individually.
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Thank you to Jo for being my support beam throughout this entire rollercoaster ride, I would never have finished and met the Nano target if it wasn't for you! And of course for all the beta-ing that was then required once it was done!
And
Thank you Jamie for always getting this back to me covered in feels and four letter words!
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo
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THANK YOU!