For the Dead Travel Fast


—-xxx—-

She didn't like that it was all on tape somewhere, a recording of what they'd done, what they were (future blackmail). She didn't like how avoidant Dr Harris was when it came time to answer the harder questions—like when might they get out of here, how would they know Kate was out of the woods, in just how many more phases did Harris think Castle would be a danger to others?

She didn't like being in this weird bowl of an exam room, though she had finally sliced the lap belt near her left side so that she was no longer truly tied down to the bed. She didn't like the ease with which Harris came in and out of that fishbowl of a nurses' station where apparently the feed from those cameras went to a couple monitors, and she didn't like not knowing where or how to get to this mysterious clinic on the other side.

The moment Harris approved of the bandage they'd done on Castle's wrist, plus the garlic pads they'd used to keep it open for next time (which Kate was not happy with either, but Castle was insistent that he be both available to help and available to be taken down, weak enough that she could prevent a tragedy should he be unable to control himself), the moment Harris was gone again, Kate slid off the hospital bed and began reaching for her jeans.

"What are you doing?" Castle hissed.

Her jeans had been sliced. Shit. "We are getting out of here. Did you bring in the duffle bag? She confiscated the gun, I remember that much. That was my service weapon, Castle. We need that back."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa—"

"We need to collect everything," she said calmly, forcing her voice to remain even. To not scare him. To not scare herself. "Get everything in place, ready for when we can make a break for it."

"Make a break for it. You're serious. Look at you, Kate. You're wobbling where you stand."

She scowled and stopped trying to put on jeans that were clearly beyond repair. "Only because my balance isn't steady on one leg, Castle. Listen to me. I'm already 70% better than I was, and every minute, better than before. I'm fine to drive. I'm fine to be in the passenger seat. And you—look at you. You went through phase without much more than batting any eye."

"Barely," he muttered, scrubbing both hands down his face. It was the frustration of a man who knew he often lost to her, and she didn't love to see it. No.

But they couldn't stay. "I know it feels like she has all the answers, that it feels so good to look to someone older and wiser who will make everything easy. But Castle, that is not reality. And if you start paring down her answers, you realize, she isn't giving us shit."

"She is though. She's told me more in one hour than the whole of your little black book. Kate. Come on."

"She won't let us leave. She has tied us both down. She took all my clothes, and yours, shredded them—"

"She was saving your life in emergency surgery!"

"She separated us at first, until I pitched a fit and walked out, and every time you show the least bit of strength, she knocks you out cold."

"The phases are dangerous to other people."

"She's not a person; she's a vampire. A vampire who is likely a hundred years old or more, Castle. They're not immortal, but a damn long life can make you cannier than most. She's playing us."

His face was mulish, his jaw snapping shut.

She pushed herself right into his body, forcing him to accept her, embrace her in return. Because she had to have him in this, he had to have her back or they weren't getting out of here alive. "My... therapist, the one whose name is all in that book?"

"Eva."

She nodded. "She was also... we were lovers for about six months, before she was fatally wounded."

"You said by someone she had wronged in a former life. A victim?"

"More than a victim, Castle. She'd been selecting people for experimentation in Germany. During WW2. She was apparently some high up—"

"She was a Nazi?" he croaked. "Holy shit, did you say her name was Eva Braun?!"

"Yes?" she said, pulling her head back, a shadow cold over her heart. "Why do you ask it like that? Dr Harris did too. What's that got to—"

"No, nothing. Just." His face wiped clean. "A Nazi. Wow. I mean, I'm once removed from a Nazi lover."

"Oh God," she muttered, rolling her eyes. Then she winced. "Yeah, actually, that's pretty horrific. I don't know that I've processed that quite like I should—"

"No, of course not, and this isn't the time either, clearly—"

"But it did teach me not to trust those who say they're helping—"

"And I do understand that," he said carefully. There was a flash of something on his face she didn't understand, but he gripped her by the shoulders and squeezed so hard she nearly came up on her toes. "That does not mean you should generalize that distrust to every medical professional who is trying to help you, Kate."

"It's not just medical professionals. It's vampires. She has a long life behind her, and ahead of her, and she's likely done things that skirt the... ethical line."

Castle paused a beat. His mouth opened, the intake of his breath as if about to speak but changing his mind. And then again. And then—

"Spit it out, Castle. This isn't a dictatorship here."

He grinned. "Okay. Yeah. I was just going to say… the assumption that she's not going to be above board, or that she's compromised her morals due to longevity of life? That seems both brutally pessimistic but also—speciesist? Okay, based on some admittedly terrible experiences—I mean, fucking a Nazi can't be great—"

"Castle," she whined.

"Sorry, I'm relieved in some ways because I have quite the sexual history, one that includes Meredith plus an actress who was using me for a role, so the idea that we're even—"

"Eva makes us even?"

"Yeah, you're right. A Nazi is definitively worse—"

"Castle, can we please stop talking about the Nazi and get back to what's at stake here?"

"Kate," he sighed softly. He cupped her cheek in a sudden bout of tenderness that entirely took her off guard, and her traitorous yearning body leaned right into it. "You've had two encounters with less than desirable outcomes. But my experience with vampires has so far been pretty epic."

"Deputy Dave is hardly—"

"Not Dave. You."

She ground to a halt, tears springing into her eyes.

"Despite all the obstacles, you really are an epic, extraordinary woman, Kate. Also a helluva vampire."

"God, Castle, you really don't pull the emotional punch, do you?"

He slowly slid his arms around her, bringing her against his body—her trembling, stick-legs in this stupid hospital gown—and the longer he held her, the harder it was to ignore the delicious way he smelled.

She could taste him on her tongue and it was life.

She groaned.

He patted her back affectionately and loosened his hold. "Okay, so you and I have had different experiences. I can respect your point of view. But what concerns me is that we just don't know what we're doing here. Both with healing you of whatever this thing is that's infected you from the beginning, but also with how the transitioning is supposed to work."

"You said yourself we're out of the woods."

"Did I say that?"

No, he hadn't exactly. She bit back the urge to snap at him, instead stood on her own feet, spindly legs and all. Tried another tack. "Have you noticed she's not allowed us anything to eat or drink?"

Castle looked taken aback.

"No water. No snacks. Not even peanut butter crackers, Castle. She's on the clinic side, and she can't hit up the vending machines? She can't raid the employee fridge? She can't put some damn ice chips in a cup?"

Now there was trouble. His brow creased.

"What kind of emergency care doesn't, in some way, include the offer of a bottle of water?"

"I… that is strange. Is that a vampire thing? Like, would water somehow make—"

"Every living thing needs water, Castle."

He nodded slowly, rubbed his jaw. "Yeah."

"I don't even know how long we've been down here," she husked. The hitch in her voice was noticeable even to her, but he didn't try to comfort her. She'd break into pieces if he went all tender on her again. "How many hours have we lost, how long have we been out of communication? Not just because your mother and Alexis are going to be worried sick, but the Twelfth Precinct is going to require some explanation."

His face blanched. "What are we supposed to say to them? There's a dead man in our apartment—not only dead, but drained dry."

"I know," she said slowly. "Which is why I thought we could call from time to time and check in, blame a lot of this on the CIA conspiracy, say we just got out of there, we don't know why he's like that, they must have cleaned up."

He gave her a dark look. "By exsanguinating the man?"

"It's a working theory, Castle. My point is, we need to be thinking about these things because we are going to have to go back at some point. I mean, don't you want our life back?"

His jaw worked, and she knew that hadn't been fair.

"I know you want nothing more." She took a deep breath, a full hit of the cologne of his radiance. She winced. "After you're out of phase, when you've transitioned, that is."

"And that comes back around to our first issue—how are we supposed to hide until then? This is the perfect place for that, Kate. The negative pressure room means the spores don't get out there."

"Neither do we," she said softly.

He huffed. "Look, we need evidence before we voluntarily leave a place with the right medical equipment and a doctor with the right knowledge—"

"Okay," she said quickly. "Yes. Evidence. Build our case. That's what we need to do." She gestured towards the fishbowl, the doors beyond. "Out there. We can't do that in here. All we'll get is what she wants us to hear."

He set his jaw, and for a moment, she thought he was going to cry foul.

But he surprised her. "Okay," he said softly. "Let's investigate. But slowly, Kate. We're not opening back up that wound."

"I can do slow," she agreed immediately, spinning for the door.

"No, you definitely can't," he muttered. But he followed.

—-xxx—-