Treading Water
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Always 4x23 - Part Two
"I just want you."
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She loses her grip.
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Castle launches forward and grabs her. Forearm skinny in his hands and yet slipping—
Terror on her face—
"Castle," she gasps. Eyes dart down and up to his face again, twist of emotion. "I lo—"
"No," he demands. "No." Can't look at her telling him good-bye. Bellows over his shoulder: "Ryan!"
They're already right there, Ryan leaning over the side of the roof to grasp Kate's other wrist, one of the SWAT team at his back with a death grip on his belt, another grabbing a fistful of her shirt, her hair caught between the other man's fingers. Captain Gates barks the command haul her up, and they heave as one unit.
Her boots scrape on brick. Her eyes are still wild, locked on his face. He wants to weep. He wants to strangle her. Instead, they pull her back over onto solid ground and he crushes her in his arms, pinning her to his chest, unable to speak.
"Enough," Gates demands. "Detective Beckett."
Oh. Right.
Castle releases her abruptly; she staggers. His throat works. "I went to Gates," he confesses under his breath.
Ryan shoulders in beside him. "We went to Gates. For your own damn good."
"Javi?" she rasps. "Is he—?"
"Okay. No thanks to you," Gates hisses.
And she proceeds to furiously dress down the barely-standing Detective Beckett.
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He sits on a bench normally reserved for those awaiting Interrogation 1. He wasn't allowed in the captain's office with her, wasn't allowed to even be right outside. Esposito stayed on his feet and rode in with her—in the back of a squad car, like they were two perps—both refusing the ambulance, despite obvious concussions and multiple bruises.
He has to stop thinking about subdural hematoma or internal bleeding.
Ryan ducks around the corner and spots him, hurries down the hall. "They're getting reamed," he says. Sinks down beside Castle. "Do you think we did the right—"
"She would have died," he rasps. Thousand yard stare he can't break. "She was falling to her death."
She chose that.
He glances once more at his phone. Mother has texted him fifteen different times, giving him updates. "I... how long do you think... what comes next for this case?"
"Oh, we are off this case," Ryan mutters. "She'll never forgive me."
"Yes, she will." He scowls. "I know from experience."
Ryan looks at him, shakes his head. "He will never forgive me. I'm a rat."
That might be true.
Castle picks at the hole in the knee of his dress pants. Tore against the side of the building as he held her full body weight— "I have to go," he says, standing abruptly. His chest tightens. "Will you tell her—"
"You're going?"
"My daughter—it's Alexis's high school graduation. She's giving her valedictorian speech. I—"
"Oh God, Castle. You didn't tell me that when I called!"
"You said it was life or death," he growls. "And it was." He glances down the hall as if he can see through walls, see her. See if she's okay.
He's not okay. He wonders if that would matter to her.
"I have to go."
The wild terror in her eyes. The final I love you on her lips.
He shudders and takes the stairs, just to keep moving.
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"Hand over your badges and guns," Gates snaps.
Esposito goes first, all dark thunder on his face, mulish. Beckett can't understand how they got here, how she got here, so far off course.
When did she choose this? What fork in the road?
"And you too, Detective. On my desk."
She leans forward, breath shallow in the tight confines of her ribs (her body hurts, all over, everywhere). She glances toward the windows of the captain's office but the woman has the blinds twisted tightly closed.
She stares down at her badge and gun.
What do you have to say for yourself? Gates asked her. She couldn't find her voice; she has been mute throughout her captain's tirade.
And now that she has found the words, there is no heat in her voice, no fire.
The fire extinguished going over the side of that roof and she hasn't found it again. She might never. But taking her badge and gun off her hip has lit a spark; setting them both on the desk is the flame. "Keep it," she says firmly. "I resign."
"Detective Beckett," Gates sputters.
She gives Espo a chin nod—it's final—and exits the office. Gates does not call her back.
Her heart sinks when she rounds the corner and sees only Ryan.
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Burke's secretary says she has to make an appointment. It's raining and she's soaked by the time she's turned away, so why not go back out into it?
It comes down to a choice. She sees that, wandering lonely through the city in the rain. It's no drizzle, not a mist, nothing but a storm, it's a storm inside her, a watershed. She told him, my mom's life or mine. She told him it's a black hole I can't dig out of. She chose her mother's life.
And nearly lost hers.
So she makes another choice.
Sorry, mom, I can't keep digging.
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Castle stands in applause as his daughter finishes her speech, the whole audience following his lead. Well, perhaps, they did it as one, and it wasn't just his overwhelming fatherly pride forcing the rest of the parents to rise to the occasion. However it happened, they are all on their feet now.
Mother grips his arm, sighing and cooing over the whole thing as she is wont to do. He applauds until his hands are stinging, goes on clapping until he has to stop as the whole thing breaks up. Alexis's speech was the end of the ceremony; she's a graduate now. He's smiling ear to ear as they file down the row and out to the aisle, his mother's arm hooked through his, Castle patting her hand.
Shuffling like sheep to exit the auditorium. His daughter texts him, meet you near the diploma table. It seems she has to return her cap and gown and in exchange they'll give her the real diploma—the one handed on stage was merely a prop. "It's all about theatre," his mother proclaims loudly, hand lifting to the sky, melodrama.
He's mid-chuckle when he sees her.
"Beckett," he croaks.
The crowd is giving her wide berth, likely due to the wild look in her eyes and the water pooling at her feet.
Or the livid bruises at her neck, flashing dark on her jaw. "Rick," she says. Eyes only for him.
He steps forward.
"Ahem," Mother says, tugging on his arm. "Darling, we have an appointment with Alexis. Picking up her diploma."
Kate rouses, as if coming awake, her eyes flashing to his mother with a pink flood of her cheeks. "Yes, I—I saw. I stood at the back, listened to her speech, I—" She gives up. He can see the explanation die on her lips, the shrug of her shoulders.
"You came?" he says.
"Of course, dear," his mother says lightly. "She's here isn't she?"
He swallows. "Mother, can you please give us a minute?"
"It's hardly the place for a heart-to-heart—"
"Mother," he growls.
She throws up her hands in surrender, follows the crowd towards the tables where the diplomas are stacked up, awaiting their respective students. The Beacon Theatre lobby is all velvet curtains and alcoves, and Kate turns as he approaches, leads him to one of those half-hidden spaces. "Rick." She draws in a shallow breath, her fingers unfurl from her fist and touch his tie. "I... her speech was wonderful. Did you help?"
"Not in the writing," he murmurs. "Are you okay? Shouldn't you have let the paramedics take you—"
"No, I'm not okay," she says. Another short breath, as if she doesn't want to move much. "It's like she said: Endings are inevitable. Everything dies." Her hair hangs wet and tangled, her mascara has thickened as it begins to run; it makes her look drowned, desperate. "But you... I don't want us to end."
"No," he whispers. "No, me neither. Not at all."
She nods, the corner of her mouth twitching. Her fingers curl around his tie and she steps closer. "Solid ground," she says. "I needed you, like I never have before, and you were there."
"I ratted you out," he husks.
She tilts her head. "You did." She fists his tie and leans forward. "But I quit." Softly kisses the corner of his mouth. "I love you."
"Wait, you what?"
"I said I love—"
"You quit?" he gapes. Grabs for her hips to put her away—just to see her face, see what's alive in her eyes—but she whimpers and tenses in his grasp. "Kate? You're not okay."
"I said that," she gasps, unmoving.
"You quit?"
"I said that too," she echoes, a strange whine in her voice.
"You need medical attention." He eases his grasp, drifting his hands up the backs of her arms. "We can talk about the quitting later." Obviously she has a concussion, making muddled decisions because she's been thrown around and off a rooftop—
He shudders. He still sees the wild terror on her face as his hand closed around her forearm, right as her fingers slipped.
"I'm not confused, it's not the concussion talking. I made a choice. I choose us."
His head comes up, his eyes darting to hers.
She leans in once more, pushing past his bracing hands, touches her lips to his jaw. "And I do hurt, quite a lot. But this is your daughter's graduation."
"But you—"
"Go," she murmurs. Her fingers around his tie loosen. "So long as I'm still invited to the private after-party?"
He takes a deep breath, filled with the actuality of her standing before him. He reaches into his back pocket and finds his keys, pinches his thumbnail in the keyring.
"Castle?"
"Give me maybe a couple hours—there's a reception—but you need a hot shower and a mound of ice packs." He flourishes his key, holds it up to her.
She stares at it for a moment, then him.
"Unless you'd rather our after-party venue be moved to the emergency room?"
"No," she rasps, closes her hand around the key to his loft. "A hot shower sounds perfect. Don't rush on my account."
He kisses her cheek, softly, because he's tempted to do so much more. "You know I will anyway."
She steps back, his key in her fist, her eyes as wet as— "Go."
He turns—he has to, or he'll simply put her in a cab and go straight home with her (and it's a toss up whether he'll devour her or tend her like a mother hen). But he halts mid-step and half turns back. "And Kate?"
She hasn't moved, her eyes on him.
"I love you too."
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