For the Dead Travel Fast

—-xxx—-

"Well, I wasn't exactly conscious for the transitioning," he said cautiously. She seemed so triggered by his lack of consent.

But at the moment, it seemed Kate's lip-chewing was endearing rather than concerning, and though she blushed and dropped her gaze, she was trying to write a careful timeline on the white board in her lap. "No, true, but help me go back there, visualize the scene. We were up all night into morning, when we finally got back to the loft, you were going to make me breakfast?"

"Oh." In a rush, the details of their real lives came back to him—the flame on the stove, the furnace in the basement, the conspiracy in the CIA, the man they'd thought was a friend, his father's disappearance from the scene, Vikram, the secrets she'd kept from him, their separation. "I've been suppressing it, like a big blank, stuck in the past." But he shouldn't tell her where, that he often woke from phase believing she had left him.

Obviously, he had some issues to resolve.

"Stuck? Oh, yes, trauma really does blank your memory. Pieces will come back or big chunks, or little fragments, and then it may hit you all at once," she said in a rush. Her eyes met his and held steady, and he was glad to know that wasn't an issue any longer. "You may never have it all come back, but you might remember some of the worst of it in excruciating detail."

"Was that it for you?" he asked lightly. The way she said excruciating detail. They'd talked about it that night, between the sheets and crashes of thunder, the lightning illuminating her face as she whispered confessions. They just hadn't quite gotten to the details. "Was it gone and then it came back?"

"Some of it was pretty stark," she nodded. "But when I woke in the hospital, it was hard to process around the pain of that moment, the trauma, I guess? Over the course of time, mostly at Dad's cabin, chunks fell into place and I just felt worse and worse about it."

"You said it got harder to admit the longer it went on."

She nodded. There was no hesitation on her face, not even that squirm of her hips she did when she was backed into a corner. She was just sitting in the hospital bed, the white board over her knees, regarding him as if he were a wild animal she had tamed and wanted to pet—so long as he didn't snap his teeth at her.

Okay, probably so. His teeth could do damage now. Wouldn't do to keep secrets, what with all this other stuff going on. "What I remember most clearly is the time right before we started investigating together," he admitted. "And it takes me a moment to orient."

"You mean when we were separated." Her eyes went flat. "That's the first thing you remember. My leaving you."

"Yes. But you're always here when I wake," he said calmly. "So it's a matter of a split second. And then the shooting is seared across my eyelids every time I blink. Caleb Brown appearing out of nowhere and shooting me. Hearing you come in—knowing I could do nothing—"

"Okay," she husked. "That's for another time. A therapy date, okay, Castle? Not right now."

"I should have—"

"No. Later."

He nodded slowly.

"Isn't your coping mechanism gonna kick in soon?" she joked.

"I'm a little too emotionally compromised right this second, but it will. Promise."

"Compromised," she whispered. "I've done this to you, brought you down here with me in this bizarre horror show—"

"No," he cut in. "No. I am glad you did. Not the least of which is because you saved my damn life. But also because you're my partner, my wife, and haven't we already learned that we're in this together? Life and death and, uh, beyond life? Huh, are vampires the undead? Or is that just zombies?"

"Oh God," she muttered.

"Wow, you realize what this means, right? If vampires are real, then so are zombies."

"No, Castle. They are not."

"So are ghosts! Oh wow, so are ghosts." He gave her a look of panic just to see her roll her eyes. "Beckett, ghosts are real. Demons are real. We gotta burn the sage when we get back to the loft. Every room. Especially the kitchen, because I am pretty sure you brought down Caleb Brown like a—"

"Oh!" Her croak of shock made him halt his rambling attempt at levity, and he waited for whatever revelation had just struck her to fully form.

He didn't have long.

She put the red dry erase marker to the board (haha, I see what you did there, Doc, blood red) and began scribbling on the timeline. The thump of the marker hitting the board was somehow painful to his ears, and he was just beginning to get a headache from the alcohol-laced smell of the marker when she capped it and flipped the white board around on her lap for him to see.

Next to the hash mark for Castle and Becket are shot, he read, Beckett exsanguinates the shooter, Caleb Brown.

"Oh," he rasped, an irrational and spiteful jealousy rising up in him.

"That's what happened, different I mean. Dr Harris was talking about what happens when antigens—"

"You drank from him?"

Kate blinked.

Castle scrubbed both hands down his face and growled. "You fucking drank from the guy who shot me?"

"You sound..."

"Because you drank from him."

"He was dead," she said flatly. "And I could barely move after I started you on transition. I had to drink from him. I... wasn't entirely in control of myself either, to be honest."

"I'd almost rather you didn't," he snapped. "I can't believe you drank from him."

She flashed him a hurt look and then suddenly her face cleared and her mouth dropped open. "Are you jealous of a dead man, Castle?"

He crossed his arms over his chest.

She poked his arm. "Get over it."

But he was jealous. And she should damn well know matter. "If drinking is as good as sex, Kate Beckett, then what the hell do you think—"

"God, Caste, you have to be kidding me. It's not as good as sex with most people. You and me, that's the first time I've ever felt it like that. Royce certainly didn't think so, number of times he drained me trying to reach some mythical ecstasy that I now see isn't quite so mythical—"

"Shit," he breathed. Just her bringing up Royce made him want to tear the man limb from limb and that just wasn't like him. "Oh no, oh not good. This is what happened last time too. Um. Kate? I think I'm about to phase again."

She blinked slowly, jolted when he grabbed her by the wrist.

"Kate," he grunted. The urge to bring her wrist to his nose and inhale, teeth bared—

Whatever hit him, hit him fast. He was shocked and she was wide-eyed by whatever had hit him, but already the world had turned dark at the edges and he was dropping.

You didn't have to do that, he heard her say. And then he heard nothing.

—-xxx—-