Chapter 22

Beckett was sent out on a new case that same day, following her lead detective. She followed instructions exactly, and by late afternoon, they'd found a good lead, largely because they'd worked in parallel. She was pretty pleased about that: it meant that she was no longer being supervised every minute of every task. Progress in the job that she loved.

Their warrant came through without a problem – another win: she'd done it all and only had it quickly checked by the lead – and they went off to follow up their suspicions by way of a search of the suspect's apartment for both a gun and some rather nasty chemicals. They took along some nice big burly uniforms, in case of trouble, and knocked, identifying themselves.

At that point the shit hit the fan – or more accurately, the bullets went right through the flimsy front door from the apartment behind it. The uniforms dived for cover, Beckett and Pawlowitz stayed firmly on each side of the door. One of the uniforms called for back-up.

"Ask for backup to cover the fire escape," Beckett said, "Or you go down, now. Make sure he can't sneak out."

"Good thought," Pawlowitz agreed. "Okay. We're gonna have to break the door – what's left of it. You go high. Vest tight?"

"Yep."

"On my signal." He raised his hand with three fingers extended, counted down silently. "Three…two…one" – they hit the door together, guns raised, and it tore like perforated paper. She saw him, aiming straight at them: time seemed to slow and she could see his finger tighten on the trigger: she went left, Pawlowitz right; the perp followed Pawlowitz and she caught Pawlowitz's eye and he nodded and she fired.

She hadn't hesitated for an instant when Pawlowitz nodded, and there the perp was, dead on the floor. She stared at the body.

"Beckett?" Pawlowitz said. "Beckett, you did good." He took a good look at her. "Was that your first shooting?"

She nodded. She couldn't speak. "Okay. Look, procedure says we need to call the Captain and report this. They'll take it from there, but we need to get the team out. They'll take your gun. Then we can get you back to the precinct so you can write up your report – you have to have a breathalyser test, too." He made the call. "After we've got through the process, you'll be on three days admin duty." She was white. "It'll be okay. He was about to shoot me. You did good. Now sit down there on the floor. We can't do anything more till they turn up." He smiled a little ruefully. "We can't even execute the search warrant."

"Shall we play I-Spy?" Beckett said weakly. She wanted to throw up, but rigorously controlled her stomach.

Pawlowitz laughed. "That's it, Beckett. You'll do. No reason we can't look around, as long as we touch nothing. We can't disturb the scene."

The shooting team took possession of Beckett's gun, secured the scene, and generally did (so Pawlowitz reassured her) everything they normally did. Pawlowitz took her back to the precinct where the breathalyser test was administered – stone cold sober – and then dismissed her to go home and rest, telling her he'd make it okay with Montgomery so that she shouldn't come in the next day; he'd text her to confirm. She left, still just about holding it together.

By the time she got home she was shaking, and the sheer enormity of her act had landed. She ran for her toilet, and threw up till she half-expected to see her stomach lining in the bowl. She'd killed a man. Lawfully and on duty – but she'd killed someone. She retched again, acid and painful.

Finally, she staggered out to her couch, and fell on to it. She couldn't contemplate dinner, and she wouldn't drink to blot out the memory of blood spreading on the perpetrator's chest, his eyes dulling in death, body lax.

Her phone cheeped with a text. Expecting it to be Pawlowitz, she checked, and found it to be from Castle. They said you were out on a hot case. Call if you get time. RC. Suddenly, all she wanted was Castle's large, comforting presence. She texted back Can I come over? He wouldn't be able to leave his daughter: although she didn't want to have to move, if she wanted him, she'd have to go there. The reply was almost immediate. Sure.

On the way, she sent, and left, taking with her a small bag containing her wash kit and a change of clothes. She caught a cab, too shaken to drive safely, too shaken to take the subway. The doorman gave her a friendly wave, which she just about managed to return; she leaned, drained, against the elevator wall, and finally knocked on Castle's door, almost on the point of tears.

"Hey," he said, and then – "What the hell happened to you? You look dreadful." She fell against him.

"I killed someone," she said, and he caught her as she finally collapsed.

Castle didn't waste time or energy on the thousand questions in his brain, but simply half-hauled Beckett to the couch, tucked her into the corner, and then found a cosy blanket to wrap around her shivering form while he made her hot, sweet tea. She was obviously in shock, still – this must have happened hours ago, but if he knew his Beckett, she'd bottled it up until she'd reached him and now the whole thing was crashing down over her.

He put the tea into her hand and left his fingers curled over hers: scared she'd let it fall. "Drink it," he said. "You're in shock."

She shook her head, but she drank. "Can't be in shock. It was hours ago."

"You're sheet white, you're shivering, and you look like a truck hit you. Drink the tea, and snuggle in. I've got you." He slung a warm arm around her shoulders, and kept her nestled into his side as she drank all of the tea. He saw, with considerable relief, that she was less pallid, though she still shivered. He pulled the blanket closer around her and stayed close. "Wanna talk about it?" he asked gently, "or do you just want to stay quiet?"

"I shot him," she wavered. "I didn't hesitate. Pawlowitz gave me the nod and he was going to shoot him" – Castle translated the muddled pronouns to mean that the dead man would have shot this Pawlowitz – "so I had to shoot and then he was dead and the blood ran on to the floor from his mouth and it wasn't like the movies at all." She hid her face in his shirt. "I killed him." She dragged in breath. "I never killed anyone before and most cops never do and why me? I didn't want to kill anyone and I just shot him dead without even blinking."

"He was going to kill your partner."

"He'd already tried. He shot through the door at us."

Castle's blood drained. "He shot at you? Are you okay? You're not hurt, are you?"

"No, none of us were hurt but he had his gun pointed at Pawlowitz and was going – I could see him pulling back the trigger like it was in slow motion and I just shot him. And then the shooting team came and they took my gun and I had to do a report and then I went home and saw your text."

"And you came here," Castle said.

"I just wanted you," she admitted, though Castle thought she hadn't meant to say so out loud. "You're safe."

On balance, that was flattering, Castle supposed – and then realised that with a murdered mother and hopelessly alcoholic father, Beckett didn't have a safe place outside herself. Definitely flattering, then. He cuddled her, and didn't try to talk for a while.

"Do you want to have dinner?" he asked. "I had something with Alexis, but I could make you something now."

"No, thank you." She gulped. "It wouldn't stay put."

"Okay. More tea? I don't think coffee would be a great idea right now."

"Please." She sounded utterly pathetic. Castle rose to make it, trying to process this miserable, unsure Beckett. He'd have thought that cops would be used to shooting: after all, they trained for it, and had to qualify…

But not on live targets. There was the crucial difference. She'd shot a living man, and then watched the life that she had taken drain from his body. He couldn't comprehend that: all his extensive imagination unable to show him how it would actually feel to commit so final, fatal an act.

He brought the tea back, along with a coffee for himself, and watched as she sipped: a faint trace of colour returning to her lips and cheeks, though her eyes were haunted. She checked her phone, and breathed out relief.

"I don't have to go into work tomorrow." She hesitated. "Please…I don't want to be alone in my apartment tonight," she rushed out. "Please can I stay here? I'll happily sleep on the couch just so long as I'm not on my own."

"Don't be silly," Castle said softly. "You can sleep in my bed with me, and be easy. I'll be there if the nightmares come."

"You sure?" She flopped against him. "Yes, please."

"Yeah, I'm sure. For now, just stay here next to me, and relax."

"I wouldn't sleep now anyway. I keep seeing him fall…" She faded out. Castle hugged, and placed delicate little pats on her shoulder, subtly encouraging her to come closer.

"If you want to talk it out of your head, talk. If you don't, don't. If you wanna write it out – like as if it was your diary – I'll find you a pen and paper and you can write – promise I won't read it. You can even use my desk."

"Write it out?" she repeated, dazed by the sheer simplicity of the idea. "As if I had my diary?"

"Just like as if you had your diary."

"Yes," she said, sitting straight up. "Yes. Let's try that. I need to get him out of my head."

Castle thought that in other circumstances, he could have emptied her head quite effectively, but she still looked half dead herself, and it didn't seem appropriate. "I'll find you something to write on," he said, and bounced up to search out paper and pen. He ushered Beckett into his study, settled her at the desk, and went to make coffee for them both.

Having made and supplied coffee, Castle ensconced himself in an armchair and, Beckett being oblivious to everything except the scritch of her pen on the paper, thought his way through the differences between how Storm would react to shooting an opponent, and how his new detective would, totally informed by Beckett's shocked state. He started to scribble himself, and was almost immediately lost in his own creativity.

Dear Diary, Beckett wrote on the pad of paper. Today I shot a perp. She stared at the blunt, cold words. It wasn't how I expected. I thought it would be like training, where you just get on and do it, and that's the end of it. Move on, solve the next crime.

It's not like that at all when it's real. It's much, much worse. Seeing the light in his eyes going out and him falling, dead…and then the blood from his mouth. It's not like the shows or the movies. It's just…not. I never expected to be so affected. I thought if it was a criminal I…wouldn't. I'd be okay because it was duty. Right. Legal.

Fuck, no. Death is…horrible. Even if I'm in the right, it's killing. I don't ever want to get used to it. I hope I never have to do it again – but if I do, I don't want to be able to brush it off like it was nothing. It's not nothing. It can't be nothing.

She looked up. Castle was scrawling at breakneck speed in a small notebook, balanced cross-wise in an armchair with his legs dangling over the arm. He hadn't noticed her movement, and she watched him for a moment or two, a lock of floppy hair on his forehead, being brushed back with a quick flick of irritation, the pages turning and the black scrawl filling them.

"You're writing," she said stupidly.

"Yeah. It's my new character," he said – and then sat up straight. "Did it work?"

"New character?"

"Never shot anyone before."

It took her longer than it should have to catch on. "You're using my reactions for a character?"

"They won't be your reactions, though. They'll be theirs." Some small shred of self-preservation grabbed his brain through his writing haze. "It's not like copying you. It's just…coloration. If I wanted to copy you I'd read what you just wrote, but I won't, because… well, it's personal."

"You read my diary."

"Before I knew it was yours."

She nodded, conceding that point. "I don't want to be a character," she said.

"I know."

She yawned. "I think I could sleep now," she said, looking at her watch. "It's past ten. Can I wash up?"

"Sure. My wonderful shower is at your disposal, as are my thousand thread-count sheets and the most comfortable bed in the world." He leered. "I'll even wash your back, if you like?"

"I don't think that would get me to sleep," she managed with a semblance of her usual snark.

"Probably not, but you'd enjoy it."

She didn't dignify his flirting with an answer, but went through his bedroom, tucked her writings into her bag, and continued on to the en-suite, where she stopped. She hadn't remembered that, but…

"Castle? Could I run myself a bath?"

"Sure."

A bath would soothe her further. She always had a bath at the end of a really stressful time, and this surely qualified. She began to run the water, spotted some muscle relaxant, and despite its masculine fragrance, added a good-sized slosh. It smelled deliciously like Castle. She slipped into the hot water, thinking vaguely that she shouldn't fall asleep in the bath. Her toes just nicely reached to the other end, balancing her; she rested, collarbone deep, warmed right the way through and finally feeling better.

"Beckett, Beckett!" No. Stop shaking her. She was lovely and warm and cosy and comfortable and just leave her be. "Beckett, you're asleep in the bath." She was hauled out, which she did not appreciate, but then wrapped in a huge, warm, fluffy towel, which was nicer. "You can't sleep in the bath. You'll drown, or when it goes cold you'll get chilled and hypothermia and freeze and then you'll be ice-Beckett which would be no fun at all."

"Wouldn't," she grumped. "Wasn't asleep."

"If you weren't," Castle said, with an intonation that made it perfectly plain that he thought she had been sound asleep, "then you were about to be, and it all still applies. Now get yourself dry, and then hop into bed where it's comfortable and just as warm and cosy."

"Okay," she drooped.

Castle left her to dry herself and get ready for bed, and returned when he heard the noise of someone slipping into sheets. "Fixed up?" he asked, and when she nodded, smiled. "I'll be there in a few minutes. Snuggle down."

He briefly washed up and got ready for bed, pulling on a pair of pyjama pants but leaving his chest bare. If Beckett didn't think of it for herself, he had an idea that might keep any nightmares (he was fully prepared for nightmares, which was why she was sleeping in his bed not the guest room or, heaven and Castle forbid, the couch) at bay.

He took the precaution of taking his laptop and a book to the bedroom with him: he wouldn't normally sleep till much later, but the chance of snuggling in bed with Beckett was absolutely not to be missed. He didn't have to sleep. Nor did she, of course, but he thought she would. She was already curled down among the pillows, though her eyes were open.

He slid in. Immediately, she wriggled over to him and dropped her head on his chest. He made a questioning noise.

"I can hear your heart." Oh, thank God. She'd worked that out herself. "If I can hear a heart then I won't think about death and silence." His arm went around her slim shoulders, as he watched her neck relax and felt her body soften. Shortly, he heard the deep, slow breathing of sleep. Rather later, he stopped reading, and nestled down, keeping her firmly against him where, even in her slumber, she could hear the steady beat of his heart, proving that she was next to life, not looking at a dead man, made lifeless by her hand.

She woke, disoriented, and momentarily panicking that her alarm had failed to go off, before she caught up with the fact that she was at Castle's loft, in Castle's bed, and that she wasn't to go to the precinct that day on Pawlowitz's instruction. Then she remembered why, and shuddered. However, it was, since light was streaming in around the curtains, morning, and she had slept peacefully. The dent where Castle had been was still faintly warm, and she could hear low-voiced discussion coming from the family room or kitchen. She stayed put. Appearing from Castle's bedroom to any of his family – but especially his daughter – felt uncomfortable.

Some several moments later, Castle's head poked round the door, and on finding Beckett awake, the rest of his fully dressed body followed. "I'm just going to take Alexis to school," he said. "Don't go anywhere, and when I get back we'll have breakfast and then you can decide what you want to do. I guess you're off today?"

"Yeah," she replied. "I'll be on desk duty for a few days, too. But they gave me today, so I don't need to go anywhere at all."

"Tell me about it when I'm back. I need to run." He disappeared and shortly the sounds of fuss, bustle and closing door were heard. Beckett thought about getting up, but then she thought about how comfortable the bed was; how soft the sheets and plump the pillows were – and didn't. She curled back down, and luxuriated.

She was still luxuriating – which had the happy effect of coating her brain in a pink fluffy comfort blanket for neurons – when she vaguely heard the front door open and close. Shortly, Castle's sunny face peeked around the door.

"Are you awake?" he asked.

"Nope, I'm talking to you in my sleep," she said, and hid under the pillows. She felt the bed move as, presumably, Castle sat down, and shortly the pillows were removed.

"Found you," he teased. "Stop hiding."

"Not hiding. Sleeping."

"Your eyes are open."

"Still sleeping."

Castle acquired a suspiciously mischievous smile, leaned down, and kissed her full on the lips. "Wake up, Sleeping Beauty." He pulled her up to sitting, and kissed her again. "Now you're awake."

She shut her eyes firmly, and accompanied it with a full-lipped, sulky-flirtatious pout. "I'm not."

"No breakfast, then. Shame. I was going to fix some bacon to go with the pancakes, but I guess you won't want any."

"Bacon?" she said hopefully. "I could wake up for bacon."

"You only wake up to eat?" Castle said, and then smirked evilly. "That could be really interesting if you woke up in the middle of the night." She blushed furiously. "So do you want bacon?"

"Yes, please. Can I get a shower while you're cooking?"

"Sure, though what if you need help washing?"

"I've been showering since I was a kid. I think I know how to do it by now."

"But it's so much more fun with two…"

"Nope."

"No fun at all."

"Nope." She grinned, and eased her legs out of bed. Castle's eyes locked on to them with missile-guidance-like precision, and watched them every step of the way to the shower. She'd have sworn she heard a disappointed sigh as the bathroom door shut.

Thank you to all readers and reviewers. I really appreciate all of you and all of your comments.

Timing of chapters will be a little off the usual 2pm EST for the next three chapters (right to the end of the story) as I'm travelling. Same days, however.