For the Dead Travel Fast

—-xxx—-

Castle drank the last of their Gatorade in the passenger seat, swallowed two of the sodium pills whole without chewing.

"Try the iron supplements," she told him, gripping the wheel at the bottom to keep her arm tucked in against her side. "They're gummies, so you have to chew those. Give me a couple, will you?"

He fished around in the torn plastic shopping bag until he found the bottle, shook out some and fed them to her one by one, popping them past her lips. It took effort not to bite his finger, but it was an effort she was used to, an act of will she had perfected. Habit. Not to bite. Not to drink when was tired and thirsty and just wanted to feel loved.

Ug, sometimes she hated this version of life. She'd ignored it for so long, and yet it was what might actually save their lives.

Had saved their lives.

"How do you feel?" he asked.

"Like hell," she admitted.

"Must be bad if you're telling me."

"I'm telling you because you deserve honesty from me, in all things."

"Unlike...every other time you've been injured and ran away?"

She ground the iron gummy with her teeth, tearing at it because she couldn't tear at anything else. "Yes," she got out. "Unlike every other time."

"I get it," he said softly. "I understand now why you hide."

Hide. It wasn't a nice word. It sounded like a crime, a charge of cowardice. "I had to."

"Like I'll have to."

She winced.

"No, don't," he murmured. "I have a thousand things buzzing in my head right now but my intention is not at all to take potshots at you, Kate. This is not blame."

She nodded, accepted that at face value despite the knowledge buried deep inside her that he would resent her, eventually, for this. When he realized how it separated him from everyone he loved in the world. "It's going to take some time to wrap your head around it, I know."

"Do you know?" he murmured. "I'm realizing there's a whole life to you I don't know about."

"But you do," she husked, her breath catching.

"Do I?" He was staring out the window. "You're my wife, and when you left me, I was so confused. It didn't make any sense why—"

"I told you—"

"No, I know," he said. A big sigh. "I understand now, in theory, I suppose. But after you were shot—I can't—it's a jumble. I don't even know what I should be asking now; everything is changed."

"It's not though," she whispered. "I love you, and that hasn't changed."

He looked over at her, there was a heartbeat of silence where her worst fears grew fangs and tore her apart, but then he smiled. "I love you too, Kate."

She swallowed back the urge to cry. "It's a lot, I know. And it wasn't that I intended to keep some major secret from you, or keep you out of some part of my life, it's more like I shunned everything that had to do with this since—" She choked on the volume of her words and sputtered out, squeezing the steering wheel to keep herself grounded. "I didn't want to have anything to do with this life. I never wanted to be this, not once I knew what it was. I guess you could say I was walling it off. I'm good at that."

There was a long silence to her pronouncement and she winced, her eyes fixed on the road, bracing herself for whatever questions might come next. He'd moved through the first few phases so quickly that she wasn't even sure where they were at in the transition, couldn't fix in her mind what might come next.

And was her own transition anything to go by? She was beginning to doubt the authenticity of her own experience, beginning to call it all into question, considering just how much Royce had been disgusted with himself and with her.

She had seen him spit out her blood like it was poison to him, and now that this deranged vamp had slashed at her, marked her territory so to speak, maybe her blood really had been poison. And if that was the case, could she continue to blame him?

The Letting with Royce wasn't at all what she'd had with Castle, in the brief moments when she'd allowed it, or let her guard down. So maybe Castle's experience of it was already different from hers.

Kate took a slow, steadying breath, though her shoulder twinged at the movement. She steeled herself to sneak a glance at her husband.

He looked lost.

"Hey. Rick? I know this is a lot of new details, and you're kind of getting the story in pieces." She craved the chance to build theory with him, toss ideas back and forth, because she hadn't been able to really sit and think, she had just been running. Maybe if she could show him her Little Black Book, have him read through the notes, his brainstorming would lead her to more solid conclusions, more likely scenarios. Maybe together they could get a handle on what came next. "Do you understand what's going on here?"

"I... don't know."

Kate winced. "Um, you look shellshocked."

"Sort of," he said. "It's just... it's taking a lot of work, and energy, not to open up your shoulder while you drive and try again to get rid of that stench. If I lean over, I can—"

"No," she flinched. Modulated her breathing to prevent the panic attack she could start to feel coming down. "No, please do not."

"I won't," he said quietly.

She believed him. Which seemed impossible. She had thrashed and writhed during phase; she had attacked Royce and snapped at him, dug at him with her teeth whenever he got close.

Of course, Royce had been drinking her dry. Maybe it had only been self-defense.

"But it is taking its toll," he said. "And I don't know what use to you I am right now."

She took a longer look, saw the haggard face, his bones making caverns of his hollow places. "Castle, it's taking resources, burning calories at a rate you can't even begin to believe—your metabolism is sky high right now, which is why you have to keep taking the supplements, the Gatorade, anything with electrolytes. You have to replace what you're losing." But not from me.

"We should get some Pedialyte," he said. "I used to give it to Alexis when she had a fever."

She heard the shadow over his daughter's name; she knew he was carefully not thinking further, the ramifications, the consequences. She didn't have answers he wanted to hear anyway, so she didn't say anything. "Pedialyte. Okay. Next stop, we'll switch it up." There were also energy drinks, Propel, Smartwater—the market had exploded since she'd transitioned, and for their benefit. (She tried not to speculate on what that meant about the world's vampire to human ratio right now.)

"Is it safe to stop?" he asked.

She gripped the wheel, her brow furrowing.

They both knew it wasn't safe to stop. But he didn't call her on it. How ridiculous this all was. How much easier it would be to stop and—

"If I fall asleep, poke me for my turn to drive," he rasped.

She wouldn't, not knowing how long his heroic willpower could last, but the fact that he was offering was an unlooked-for comfort.

She had never had a partner in this before. A partner in all ways.

—-xxx—-