Chapter 21

With the wounded suspect, the paramedics, and police guard it would have been crowded in the back of the ambulance so Castle had volunteered to catch a ride to the hospital with Beckett instead. After fifteen minutes of the silent treatment he was starting to wonder if it wouldn't have been more comfortable in the ambulance after all.

All his attempts to engage her in conversation had been met with monosyllable answers, so he'd given up after the first ten minutes. Beckett was staring straight ahead, all of her concentration seemingly on the traffic in front of them. He would have to be totally insensitive not to pick up on the fact that she was angry, but what she was angry about was a complete mystery.

His hand strayed up to play with the field dressing that one of the medics had applied to his scalp wound. The crepe bandages wrapped around his head made him look like he had escaped from some Egyptian mummy film. Although it hurt he couldn't help but play with the dressing, kind of like a little kid who keeps worrying at a loose tooth. "Ow, that still hurts."

Normally this kind of foolishness would have earned him some comment from her along the lines of 'leave it alone' or 'stop being such a baby' but this time, nothing. She didn't even bother to turn her head to look at him.

Rick knew that it would probably be better all round if he just let it lie but he couldn't resist giving it one more try. "Look Kate, I understand if you're upset because we didn't manage to nab Tyrone but there'll be other chances."

"I'm not upset about that," her wall cracked enough that she answered him in a full sentence. Admittedly her tone had been flat throughout but he still felt like he'd achieved a minor victory, she'd been the first to blink.

"Aha, but you are upset about something though," he pounced on the way she'd phrased her answer, like the writer that he was. "Just tell me what's bothering you," he pleaded.

"No," was her curt reply. Rick wasn't sure if it meant no she wasn't upset or no she wasn't going to tell him. He would have quizzed her further but they'd finally reached the hospital. Beckett pulled up into the designated parking space for on-duty cops next to the ambulance bay.

A flash of her badge managed to get them past the triage area where the average person waited with varying degrees of patience for medical care. At the central hub area she corralled a harried looking doctor who seemed to be in charge.

"Hi, I'm Detective Beckett," she flashed her badge again, "and this is Richard Castle. Can you help me? I'm trying to find out what's happened with my suspect, Shakeel Jenkins. Black male with a GSW to the shoulder, the ambulance guys would have brought him in just a few minutes ago."

"He's over in trauma room one," Dr Abbas, according to her name tag, pointed over to one of the curtained areas. "They're taking xrays at the moment. It's nothing serious but it looks like he'll probably need surgery. There's an entry wound but no exit wound, so my guess is that the surgeons will want to fish out the bullet."

"Damn, that will mean an overnight stay at least, won't it?"

"Yeah, sorry. You'll have to wait until tomorrow to talk to him, unless it's something very important?"

"No, thanks doc."

"You're welcome. Your partner here looks like he could do with some medical attention himself."

"It's just a scalp wound," Castle explained. "The paramedic put a dressing on it for me but he said that it would need some stitches."

"Ok, one of our interns will be able to deal with that for you," Dr Abbas glanced at the ER whiteboard. "Looks like cubicle four is free at the moment, why don't you take a seat over there and someone will be over shortly to stitch that up for you."

He turned to walk over in the direction the doctor has pointed, expecting Kate to follow him but she made no move to do so. He glanced back over his shoulder at her. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. I'm just going to talk to the uniform who came in the ambulance with Jenkins, I need to organize someone to keep an overnight guard on him until they discharge him and we can get him into the cells at the station."

"Oh, ok. I'll see you after they're done with me." He was talking to thin air, she hadn't even bothered to wait for his reply before she'd turned to leave. He shook his head in confusion, before he remembered that doing so would only cause more pain. Ouch, this was not his day. Something was up with Kate, but he'd have to wait until later in order to wrestle the answer out of her.

Very keen, very thorough, and very slow would be how Castle would describe young Dr Mueller. He'd wanted to do a full neuro exam as well as a CT scan, despite the fact that Castle kept telling him that he hadn't lost consciousness. No doubt the stitches were perfect, Castle didn't really know because he couldn't see that part of his head (at least not without the help of two mirrors), but they had taken a frustrating forty minutes.

Finally he'd put his foot down and refused to have the scan, which had earned him a lecture from the doctor about possible delayed cranial hemorrhages, coma and death. He'd only been able to escape after signing an indemnity waiver saying that he'd self-discharged against medical advice.

He wasn't really too worried about that, the blow hadn't knocked him out and, as people kept telling him, he had a pretty hard head. What he was worried about was the fact that he hadn't seen Kate at all since she'd disappeared. Maybe she'd ditched him and driven back to the station, it would be out of character for her but she'd been acting oddly ever since he'd gotten hit.

His fears proved unfounded when he tracked her down to her car which was still parked in the same spot.

"…still at the hospital. Looks like Shakeel Jenkins will be fit for discharge tomorrow so I'll interview him then. You and Esposito should head home after you're done with the paper work. I'll see you guys tomorrow." She hung up her phone as he got into the front passenger's seat.

"Sorry it took so long, the doctor wanted to do all these extra tests."

"Hmm." Enough of a reply to say that she'd heard him, but not enough to imply that she was interested in hearing any more details. She started the car up and pulled out of the parking bay.

"So are we headed back to the station then?"

"No, you're going home Castle."

Ok, she was back to calling him Castle again so obviously he must have angered her somehow.

"Kate if you're mad at me, at least tell me why."

"No, leave it alone Castle. I'm not doing this now."

"That's not fair. I deserve to know why you're so pissed off with me."

"If you're so dumb that you can't work out why I'm mad at you then you don't deserve to know crap!"

He was taken aback by both her words and the vehemence of her tone. His own emotions were swinging between confusion and a rising anger at the unreasonableness of her actions. He took a deep breath and counted to ten, and then counted to ten again. It didn't help. Kate was retreating into old patterns, trying to lock him out rather than dealing with whatever the issue was. He might have let her do that in the past, but now it was different. If their relationship was going to get any further then she would have to learn to be more open with him. He could deal with her anger and her prickliness but he wasn't going to accept this.

The rest of the car ride was spent in silence, both of them wrapped up in their own thoughts. She still hadn't said anything further when she pulled up into a parking spot near his building.

He sat there for a moment, making no move to get out, unsure of what to say. They needed to have it out but this was probably not the place to do it, and he knew that he had no chance of dragging her off somewhere private to talk, she'd kick his butt for sure. He'd have to do it by deception instead of force.

"See you later then," he opened the door and got out. As he stepped onto the curb he faked a dive that a soccer player would be proud of.

"Rick! Are you ok?" Her concern was enough to push back the anger that she'd been displaying up until now.

He made a show of leaning heavily onto the car door. "No, I feel really lightheaded at the moment."

She was out of the car and by his side in a second, her arm snaking around his waist to support him. "Maybe you should get sit down in the car and I'll take you back to the hospital. It was a pretty hard knock that you took."

"No, no. I think that I'll be ok. But maybe you could help me get inside?" He draped one of his arms around her shoulders and leant so that she took some of his weight, effectively trapping her in. Kate didn't look all that convinced that this was a good idea but he just started walking, giving her no other options. He kept up the act all the way into his apartment.

"Martha! Alexis! Is anyone home?" Kate called out as she manoeuvred him over to the couch, hoping that there would be someone else around to help her out with him. Only silence answered her. "Rick I think you should lie down. Do you want some water, or some pain-killers?"

"No, I want you to tell me why you're so angry," he dropped the pretence, moving quickly to put himself between her and the door. He wasn't going to let her leave until they'd resolved this.

Like that, concern gave way to anger again as she realized that she'd been duped. "You bastard, get out of my way before I hurt you."

"No, you can punch me if you like but I'm not letting you leave until we talk about this like adults." She could take him in a fight, easily, but he was betting on the fact that she didn't really want to hurt him….probably.

"Fine. Let's talk like adults then shall we?" sarcasm dripped from every word that she said. "Shall we talk about how you promised me that you would stay in the car and then broke that promise? Is that adult enough for you?"

"My god Kate, you're angry about that? Yes I promised but he was about to shoot you, what did you want me to do? Just sit there?"

"Yes, that's exactly what I wanted you to do. You could have gotten yourself killed. The guy had a gun! It says 'Police' on my vest, do you understand what that means? It means that I am trained for those kinds of situations. You are NOT!"

"Here's a newsflash for you. You're a cop, NOT a superhero. Bullets aren't going to bounce off you."

She continued talking right over the top of him. "What does it say on your vest Rick?"

He was getting pretty angry himself now. "Is that what this fight is about? Because I'm not a cop?" He was practically shouting by now. "I might not be a cop but I saved your life! If it had been Ryan or Esposito who'd tackled that guy you wouldn't be angry at them."

"Yes, but I'm not in love with them!" she shouted back at him. There was a split second as she realized what she'd said, and then horror flooded her face.

A/N: Sorry it's been while. I've been busy but the next chapter is half written so hopefully it won't be as long to wait for the next one.