This chapter covers the take down at Gowanus, part II.

Disclaimer: Characters are the property of Andrew Marlowe and the team.

Chapter 52

Outside a car door slammed, and Kate jumped, gripping on tighter to Castle's arm. They both froze when a second door slam was followed almost immediately by the sound of footsteps running somewhere further inside the building off to their left, the thud, thud, thud bouncing and echoing off the old, tiled walls. Kate leaned in to whisper urgently in his ear.

"I need you to go back outside and stop the boys from barging in here. Can you do that? Just retrace your steps," she said, her hands on his vest, pushing him back the way they had come.

"What about you?" he protested, holding onto her wrist.

"O'Conner's obviously further down that way. I'll go in after him. Get the boys and then back me up."

Castle hesitated, unwilling to leave her.

"Please, don't argue. I need you to do this, Castle. I'll be fine," she said, trying to reassure him. "Now go. Go!"

Finally Castle nodded, acquiescing to her request, though he couldn't have felt worse about leaving her if he'd tried.

Kate turned away from him and proceeded to head in the direction of the echoing footfalls, hugging the wall as she did so.

A patch of sunlight was hitting the floor up ahead and Kate's eye was drawn to a tiny, gold object glinting in the sun's benevolent spotlight. She reached down, her fingernails scraping at the dirty, old floor, to dislodge the small item from between two wooden boards. When she got back to her feet she was holding a gold hangman's noose in between her thumb and forefinger. Yes, he was definitely here.

Kate slipped the earring into the front pocket of her vest, taking care not to brush off the dried blood that she could see crusted around the hook at the top. Valuable DNA evidence they could use later.

She had taken no more than a dozen steps when she was shaken to the core by an earsplitting crack; sharp, like a gunshot, a loud report that echoed off the walls and ceiling, followed quickly by a dull thud. She dropped to the floor and covered her head, listening for follow up shots. Her heart was racing, but she managed to get to her knees, her gun gripped strongly in one hand.

Her first thought was for Castle, who should be halfway to the door by now. But when she looked around he was nowhere to be seen. Her blood ran colder than ice water, her scalp prickled with sweat, and her mouth went dry.

Kate stood up, pressing her body back against the wall. She swept her gun from side to side, making sure the immediate area was clear, before she slowly edged back the way she had come to look for her partner. When she reached the point where they had parted ways, she picked up an irregularity about three meters ahead - a break in a pattern that her eyes registered before her brain could compute what it meant. And when she finally understood, her hand flew to her mouth to stifle a cry. Because what she was looking at was a dark hole in the floor a couple of meters wide, where the old, rotten planks had obviously given way under Castle's weight, and that meant…oh god, please no!

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She ran towards the hole, falling onto her knees, oblivious to the danger she was putting herself in, driven only by her desperation to see over the edge.

Lying on his back, roughly six feet below her, in some kind of basement level, was Castle; pale, dusty and unmoving. His left arm was twisted at an unnatural angle, and there was a trickle of blood running from the side of his mouth.

Kate was seized by blind, bloody panic and a chill so powerful that it wracked her body with tremors. She was pulling out her portable radio, fumbling to turn it on, when Ryan and Esposito appeared in through the same door she and Castle had used. Ryan jogged over towards her, and she managed to yell, "Watch your step," to warn them, before they could get too close.

"What the hell?" said Esposito, looking down into the hole at Castle. "You call it in? Where's O'Conner?"

Kate shook her head, staring down at her partner, who had started to moan. She nodded down the hall toward the direction of the running footsteps, "Somewhere down there. I think he has Dupre. We have to hurry. But, Rick…" she said desolately, pointing at Castle, who was now mumbling something repeatedly.

"Go. Beckett, go," he said, through gritted teeth.

Kate felt sick. She ran a hand through her hair, her hand shaking.

"Castle's not going anywhere. We need to get this guy, Beckett, before he finishes the job he started," said Esposito, pressuring her to make a decision.

Kate stared at both of them dumbly, and slowly shook her head. Then she shuffled to the edge of the broken boards and swung her legs over the side, jumping down the final six feet, and rolling onto her side. She crawled over to Castle on her hands and knees, speaking breathlessly into her radio when she reached him.

"Dispatch, this is One-Lincoln-Forty. We've got a 10-13 at the Gowanus Canal, intersection of 10th and Hamilton Place. Old USPS site. Officer down, repeat, Officer down! Urgently require a bus and backup. Floor collapse. Possible spinal injury. Need FDNY support. Suspect still on site." She spoke quickly into the small portable radio. Finally adding, "Please hurry," as panic seeped into her voice betraying her thin grip on control.

She tenderly stroked Castle's cheek with dusty fingertips, her touch tracking through a tear (hers?) to leave a dirty streak on his skin.

"Officer down," he repeated, smiling woozily up at her, obviously still dazed by the impact of the fall because his expression was one of pride.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, carding her fingers lightly through his hair. "Don't move. Help's coming."

She wanted to ask if he could wiggle his toes, but the thought that he might not be able to terrified her. So she settled for holding his one good hand, breathing out a sigh of relief when he squeezed her fingers in response.

He tried to talk again, and Kate tried to shush him, but he reached up and put his fingers to her lips.

"Have to go help them," he ground out, teeth clenched against the pain. "Espo's right. Not going anywhere," he said, closing his eyes and wincing.

"Espo needs to…" But Kate bit back the angry, fear-filled retort she was about to make.

She knew her team needed her, that Michale Dupre needed her, but if Castle needed her, then this was her place - in an ancient, stinking, rat hole, six feet under an old warehouse by the toxic waters of the Gowanus Canal. Where you go I go. That was it. One and done. No contest.

But Castle wasn't giving up. "Bus gets here, promise me you'll go?" he asked, squeezing her fingers hard to show her the strength he had left, even if he couldn't sit up or move more than that one hand.

"We'll see," said Kate noncommittally, trying to distract him with a weak smile, as she dabbed at the blood leaking out of his mouth with a crumpled Kleenex.

"I could feel he was here. I told you – destiny," muttered Castle, his eyes falling closed again as more blood dribbled down the side of his face.

"Yes. Yes, you did. You were right," acknowledged Kate, rubbing his arm to keep him awake. Then she tried her knuckles on the bony back of his hand, hoping the pain response would rouse him. "Rick, stay with me. Baby," she whispered close to his ear, "keep talking to me. Tell me about our vacation plans," she suggested, blinking back tears, as Castle smiled a little drunkenly at her, his eyes glassy.

"Baby," he repeated, squeezing her fingers and grinning like a fool. Kate laughed and sniffed. Typical.

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Somewhere in her periphery, Kate caught the sound of a siren...no two, she realized. The wails got louder, closer, until tires skidded to a halt outside on the gravelly dirt. She got up off her knees and stood to her full height, anticipating the FDNY and EMS teams' arrival. At the sound of running footsteps she yelled out.

"Unsafe floor. Watch your step. We're down here."

A large, serious face appeared over the edge of the hole, dark eyes framed by big, bushy eyebrows. Firefighter John Cusack of Rescue Company 2 had wriggled on his belly to the edge of the crater to look down at them while a buddy held onto his legs.

"Ma'am. Sir," he said respectfully, as if they were meeting at a company picnic. "It'll just take a minute, but we're gonna get you out of there," he said, his voice calm and reassuring.

"I'm Detective Kate Beckett, and this is my partner, Richard Castle," said Kate, indicating the injured 'officer' at her feet. Castle's Kevlar vest gave the game away – the two-inch high letters spelling out Writer across his chest.

The men worked quickly. They slid metal plates across the floor to stabilize the old, wooden boards to give them something solid to work off. A second firefighter in full bunker gear appeared at the edge of the hole, preparing to lower a ladder down to the basement level.

Kate stepped back out of the way, giving them room to work, and as she did so she caught sight of her off-duty piece lying a couple of feet away from Castle's injured arm. She quickly scooped it up, checked the safety, and tucked it back into the waist of her pants. No point breaking anymore rules today if she could avoid it.

Firefighter Ramirez climbed down the ladder, quickly followed by EMT, Bobby Little. The two men brushed Kate out of the way to begin assessing Castle's condition and formulate a plan to get him out of there.

"We're gonna need a spinal board, neck brace and head imobilizers, Tommy," the EMT called up to his co-worker. "Pass me down my bag. I'm gonna give him 4mgs of Ativan to keep him calm while we get him out of here. Get me an oxygen supply, and a pulse oximeter."

The EMT turned to Kate. "You his partner?"

"Yes," she nodded, wanting to tell the guy more, something like 'at work and in life', but the words died on her lips.

"Okay, I'm gonna give him a high doze steroid. We're going to treat this as a cervical spinal trauma until we know otherwise. Has he moved at all since he fell?"

Kate shook her head.

"Been talking? Making sense?"

"Yes, no more than usual," Kate laughed, watching Castle grinning up at her.

"Hey, I'm wounded, but I can still hear you, Kate," he chided.

"Kate," repeated the EMT, taking a closer look at the pair as he picked up on their easy, intimate interaction. "You next of kin?"

"No," she replied, shaking her head as she held Castle's gaze. "I mean we're…but he has a daughter and his mother. His daughter's in D.C., but I can call his mother, Martha Rogers. Get her to meet us at the hospital. Do you need sign off on something right now?" asked Kate. "Because I'm sure he'd give me his proxy if…Rick, stay still," she said, watching Castle try to nod his head at the EMT.

"That's okay. But you might want to call his mom, and let her know what's going on just in case he needs surgery."

Surgery. Kate nodded gravely, crouching her head a little as she moved to clear space for the spinal board that was being lowered down the ladder towards them.

She felt useless standing there, surrounded by efficient professionals, busy doing their jobs. Castle drew her back to the present.

"Kate," he slurred, the drugs obviously starting to take effect. "Time to go. Get this guy," he said, urging her back to work.

"I don't want to leave you," she said, blushing at having to admit this in front of a burley firefighter and the neat, preppy EMT.

"In good hands. Please. Go," he forced out, as his eyelids drooped. "Get him…for both of us."

Space in the hole was limited with the extra bodies down there, time was running out for Dupre, Castle was being well taken care of, and she was running out of excuses to stay with him. So Kate reluctantly nodded in agreement, giving him a small wave, before she turned and accepted the large hand that reached down from the floor above to help her up the ladder. Castle's pale, smiling face was the last thing she saw before she took off at a run down the outer wall of the building.

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Joists were tied to walls, floorboards were fixed to joists, so Kate figured if she hugged the wall she'd be on the safest part of the floor. She followed the scuffed footprints of her colleagues down the hallway, pulling out her radio to find out their exact location.

"About three hundred yards down from where we left you. This place is huge, Beckett. Too many rooms," said Ryan, his voice crackling over the shortwave.

"Any sign?" asked Kate.

"No. Still clearing room by room."

"Meet me in the hallway," instructed Kate, hurrying towards their location.

Thirty seconds later the boys emerged from a room off to Kate's right, flashlights sweeping the floor.

"How's Castle?" asked Esposito, and Kate raised an eyebrow at him, tempted to say 'like you care', but she choked back the angry reply and muttered, "EMS are getting ready to lift him out. They're treating it as a spinal injury," she said grimly, struggling not to add 'I'm just praying that it's not'.

She needed to focus, and they needed to find O'Conner before time ran out.

"I requested backup from Dispatch. Where the hell are they?" she said instead.

"They got the request. I checked already. But we're on our own for now. There's a three alarm fire at a school over in Park Slope. Police are on scene assisting with the evacuation so they're kind of short handed."

"Castle said this was going to be a bad day. I should have listened to him," said Kate, shaking her head to clear it. "Right, we have to find this guy. He knows this site better than we do judging by the little squatter camp he has set up back there. If he's got Dupre in here he can't be far. Looks like he dragged the guy in. Dead weight's got to be exhausting after a while, so we'll stick with the ground floor."

"We've swept one half. Some of the rooms are interconnected. The internal ones have no light, so you'll need a flashlight," said Ryan. "Take a side each, Espo can back you up?" he suggested thoughtfully.

"No, you guys go on. I'll work this side by myself. Shout out if you find anything, and for god's sake, watch that floor."

Kate made to turn away, but then she called the boys back, a thought occurring to her.

"Hanging is this guy's specialty. It obviously means something to him. Check behind every door, just in case he's rigged something up. The ceilings are too high to do it any other way."

With that macabre thought ringing in their ears the three detectives headed off on their manhunt.

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Ryan had been right about the rooms. The building was an interconnected warren of spaces, some with old, broken furniture still littering the floor adding to the hazard they faced in the dark.

Kate came upon what looked like an old-style sorting office, the walls lined with small wooden pigeonholes, now rather fittingly home to nesting birds if the scraps of twig and leaves were anything to go by. She swept the walls with her flashlight, searched behind a wooden countertop, and in all the various nooks and crannies around the room.

The sign over one wall read 'South Brooklyn', the Zip Codes ranging from 11231 for Red Hook, to 11224 all the way down in Coney Island. The whole effect was ghostly, one of time stood still. Kate quickly cleared the rest of the room and moved on, feeling her muscles stiffen up as the earlier surge of adrenalin left her body.

She'd gone about another hundred yards when she stopped abruptly to listen, cocking her head to one side as she picked up on a noise close by. The sound was a creaking, like leather being twisted and stretched, accompanied by a scuffling, and the panting of effort being expended. She checked her weapon, listening intently for the source of the noise all the while.

Over to the left. Yes, definitely, to the left. She edged closer on silent feet, creeping cat-like along the hall until she reached the next open doorway.

Light streamed in through the broken window, lighting up one corner of the room and spilling out into the hall, leaving the other corner in shadowy gloom. Kate peered around the doorjamb and quickly pulled back again. Because she'd found him, and just in time if what she saw was anything to go by.

"Freeze, NYPD!" she yelled, bursting through the doorway, and leveling her gun at Joey O'Conner's chest.

"Ryan! Esposito!" she screamed, "Get in here!"

The two detectives came flying across the hall, feet pounding on the springy, wooden floor. They skidded to a halt when faced with the shocking sight of Michael Dupre; suspended, with a thick leather belt around his neck, from a metal hook on the wall.

"Quickly, get him down. Grab his legs," yelled Kate, keeping her gun trained on O'Conner. "He's choking."

Ryan grabbed hold of Dupre's legs, and tried to hoist him upwards to relieve the weight of the man's own body which was threatening to crush his trachea, forcing the life out of him, and robbing his lungs of oxygen. His face was turning purple, and his legs jerked wildly, as his feet scrabbled to find some purchase against the wooden floor. His hands were tied behind his back with a grubby scrap of bandage.

Esposito tried to reach the hook, part of an old suspension system for the borough's mailbags, but he was just an inch too short.

"Boss, switch. Can't reach," grunted Esposito, waving Kate over, while Michael Dupre continued to struggle for breath.

Kate's eyes briefly left Joey O'Conner so she could assess the state of emergency in front of her. O'Conner was swaying, glassy eyed, his hands flexing open and closed at his side, running high on adrenalin. He looked jumpy and on edge. His face was streaked with dirt and perspiration, and his clothes were stained and grubby. Kate could smell him from where she was standing - the ripe, rank odor of stale sweat, unwashed clothes, and the sour, chemical taint of booze leaching out through his pores.

She motioned for Esposito to take her gun so that she could help cut down Michael Dupre, and in the split second it took for them to perform the exchange, Joey O'Conner sprinted for the broken window and threw himself through it.

In that moment, the three detectives threw all their efforts into saving the dying Michael Dupre, and once he was down on the floor, a limp, gasping body in a bundle of expensive clothes, Kate took off through the window after Joey O'Conner.

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Jagged pieces of broken glass, stuck in the ancient, dried out putty of the window frame, snagged on Kate's clothes and tore at her hands. She grit her teeth at the sharp pain and jumped to the ground.

Ryan ran down the hallway to fetch a paramedic for Michael Dupre, while Esposito followed Kate out through the window.

They sprinted along the canal-side after the perp. Kate gained on him when he tripped and then skidded on some broken glass. She ran harder, the hot, chemical-filled air burning her lungs as she realized that O'Conner was heading towards the DRP van. He reached it ahead of her, rattling fruitlessly at the locked drivers' side door.

Kate closed the distance between them, with Esposito still hard on her heels.

"Give it up, Joey," she yelled. "There's no where to go. It's over."

He whirled round at the sound of his name, eyes wild and crazy, edging from side-to-side like a cornered animal.

Kate slowed down, her gun raised to chest height as she advanced towards him, aiming just above his sternum.

The sound of sirens approaching from the near distance seemed to rouse O'Conner, and in a bewildering flash of movement he turned at right angles and sprinted for the canal. Kate watched helplessly as he took off into mid-air, hanging for a second or two until he landed with a loud splash in the toxic waters of the Gowanus.

"Jesus!" cursed Esposito, catching up with Kate just as a fleet of squad cars skidded to a halt behind them throwing a dry cloud of choking dust into the air.

"Javi, get some of the FDNY guys from Rescue 2," yelled Kate, running towards the side of the building. "Fish the bastard out before he drowns in there."

There was a lifebelt hanging on a hook by the wall. Kate grabbed it and ran towards the water, throwing it out to O'Conner like a Frisbee. It bounced on the surface of the water and then floated over towards him while Kate kept ahold of the rope on the other end. He was spluttering and flailing, frantically trying to keep his head above water, the alcohol in his bloodstream slowing him down. But he clearly wasn't ready to die just yet, because Kate could see that he was still fighting.

"Grab the belt, Joey," she instructed. "Drowning's a horrible way to go.

Esposito jogged up to her side with Firefighter Ramirez. He was carrying a long, metal pole with a hook on the end. The two men guided the pole out over the water, steadying it until they were able to catch hold of the life belt, dragging the exhausted O'Conner over to the canal wall to pull him ashore.

Kate stopped at the man's feet, staring down intently at the wretched, sopping wet figure of this disturbed serial killer, disgust rising in her chest.

"Cuff him and read him his rights," she said to Esposito. "Then get him sobered up, and for god's sake somebody find the him a change of clothes. He stinks," she said coldly, as toxic canal water seeped out of Joey's clothing and pooled around him in the dirt.

Kate turned away, and walked back towards the Post Office building accompanied by Firefighter Ramirez.

"We got your partner out," he told her, addressing a sympathetic look Kate's way. "He's in a bit of pain, but he keeps asking for you," he told her, indicating the EMS truck where she could just see Castle being loaded into the back.

"Thank you," said Kate, hurrying over to the ambulance before the EMT could close the back door.

"You gonna ride along, Detective?" asked Tommy. "We're about ready to go."

Kate hopped up inside the rig but asked the EMT not to close the doors just yet.

"Richard?" she said quietly, a soft smile blooming on her face when Castle's eyes flew open.

"Kate," he breathed, tugging off the oxygen mask, the fingers of his uninjured hand dropping to curl through hers, squeezing tight. "You get him?" he asked, eyes hopeful.

Kate nodded, smoothing her fingers gently through Castle's hair, "Yes, we got him. Got Dupre too. Just in time"

"That's my girl," said Castle groggily, undisguised love shining out of his eyes as he watched her hover over him. "Kate, you're bleeding," he said with concern, a frown wrinkling his brow when he noticed the blood smear on the heel of her hand.

"Just a scratch. Nothing to worry about," she reassured him, leaning down to kiss his forehead.

"Ma'am…sorry, Detective," said the EMT, startling them both, and reminding Kate that the ambulance was ready to depart and that she was the one holding them up.

"I have to finish up here, Rick. But I'll get to the hospital as soon as I can. Until then…be good, okay? I'll call your mom. Maybe leave Alexis until we know…know what's what," she said, not wanting to let her mind wander too far in that direction.

"Someone will call you as soon as there's any news, Detective," said the EMT, squeezing her shoulder.

She touched her fingers to Castle's cheek, mouthed, 'I love you', and backed out of the ambulance. Then she waved her partner off with a reassuring smile. His condition worried her enormously, but there was still work to do here, and she needed to finish the job.

A/N: Before anyone panics over procedure, I plan to address that in a later chapter.

Thank you for all the wonderful reviews.