For the Dead Travel Fast

—-xxx—-

She waited for him outside the bathroom door, a couple pairs of sunglasses, a bag of trail mix, a bottle of vitamins in her arms. To her chagrin, she couldn't carry much more; the pain in her side had started again, pulsing this time in a way that was very much a warning. She couldn't 'smell' herself, but she could feel it, couldn't she?

She ignored it. Shutting out the pain had been working so far. The vampire part of things was healing her even as the bullet shifted, right? For the most part. She just had to keep going. They had to keep going.

When he came out, his eyes held some blue in them again, but they were still startlingly pale. She gestured wordlessly to the cooler and he obeyed, grabbing as many Gatorades as he could stuff into his own arms. His automatic obedience was reassuring (and okay, yes, also weirdly gratifying; it felt like she was doing some of this right).

They approached the counter at the same time, together piling their items near the register, and the clerk came out from a back room to ring them up, evidence of his lunch on his face.

Kate subtly put most of her body between Castle and the counter, knowing that he might think he was under control, but that it could snap in seconds. A whiff of something he liked, even the damn sandwich and cheese puffs the guy had been eating, and Castle would be vaulting the counter and tearing at the clerk before either of them could blink.

She had not been there when Eva had been jumped by her former victim, and Kate still couldn't say for sure what she'd have done if she'd been there. Would she have fought off the guy, protected the therapist who had led her out of her own destruction? If she had, she might never have discovered the truth.

No, she hadn't been there when Eva had been attacked. Instead, she had come home one night, late from a shift, to that terrible reek of decay. It had filled the tiny apartment and sent her crouching, gun in hand, through the rooms. She had found Eva in her bathroom, still weakly trying to tear into her own flesh, but the gangrene had already set in. The rot.

What was left of Eva had been stripped of therapist, New Yorker, lover, woman—all the identities and layers which had made her civilized, made her human. Rot had taken over, traveled through her hyper-excited vampiric bloodstream, and poisoned her mind. She'd confessed to the horrors she'd performed in the war in a weird high voice, as if the transitioned man who had hunted her down had been nothing more than an interesting specimen, and laughable at that.

When it had been clear that Eva was both the worst of their kind and also beyond saving, Kate had put her out of her misery.

She didn't want to ever have to do that again. Even if the woman had deserved it. Demanded it. Goaded her into it.

(She didn't want Castle to have to face a similar choice either, but she wasn't there yet. It wasn't that bad; it wasn't the same kind of wound. She could handle some pain.)

Castle twitched when the clerk gave a discrete burp. Even though Castle swayed forward as if called, he also then stepped back, keeping it under control. His hand came to the small of her back as if he too wanted her as a buffer. Or perhaps the smell of her was strong enough to be distasteful.

They collected their purchases in the plastic bags and left the convenience store, Kate wondering if Castle was holding his breath. She definitely was.

At the car, as she dumped things into the backseat, Castle stopped her with a hand on her hip.

It actually made her fall against the car door.

He grabbed for her. "You're not good, Kate."

She hissed, pushing his hand away, but he shook her off and gripped her by the wrist. Their eyes met, clashed.

"Let me try it again," he said firmly. "The shoulder." His voice brooked no arguments, but—

"It won't work," she growled. "Get in the car."

"No. We don't have to keep going like this. We stopped here, look, we're at a damned gas station again, unmolested, for how long?"

"That could change at a moment's notice."

"There's a Dairy Queen across the street, Beckett. If we'd been flirting with disaster, it would have come already, and with Buster bars and blizzards." He stepped into her. "You need to get her out of you."

She avoided his eyes, took a slow breath. "It wouldn't work. I can't heal completely when—"

She didn't want to admit it. Exposing the truth between them felt like she was starting an avalanche that would bury what remained of their marriage.

"When what?" he insisted.

She caved. "There's still a bullet inside me."

"What."

"When we were shot—" She squeezed the bridge of her nose, the headache building painfully behind her eyes. "Two had exit wounds. One did not. I kept it clean, best I could, but the bullet is still there."

His hand traveled to the place between her breasts. She shook her head, grasped his fingers—moved him down, just under her breast.

She saw the confusion, the way the events in his past, her shooting, were muddied in his mind. He pressed his fingers harder against her so that her breath caught, her spine stiffened.

He reached for her with his other hand, and before she could stop him, he had her shirt rucked up and his fingers tracing the angry new flesh. "I did this," he rasped.

She winced, the pain of his jostling her almost too much to stand up under. "You didn't shoot me." Did he even remember them getting shot? "It was—"

"Kate. I did this. This wound. There was blood..."

Oh.

"What did I do?" he choked out.

A heartbeat of terror lived between his memory and her pained silence.

She broke it because he deserved better from her.

"I kept it clean," she started. It sounded defensive, lame. But she couldn't be mysterious about this. "Yes, I kept it open. Because you needed it. I knew you would need it while you were in phase. So while you needed blood, what better way? I could guide you, keep you from using—"

"No teeth," he rasped, his eyes startling to hers.

"Yes," she breathed. "No teeth. An open wound meant I had some control, at least I thought I did."

"Where you were shot," he hissed.

She flinched. "It sounds bad, but the plan was to dig it out later, have you—help me."

"What—how?" His confusion was so plaintive that she stepped fully against him despite the danger, unable to hold herself away. His hand was still pressing against rather too-permeable flesh where the wound had closed up. "But it's not an open wound any longer."

"It's not really your fault. It was the second time. You were just beginning the phases, and well, we both know I'm not strong when it comes to you, you've always attracted me despite my best... I let it go on too long."

"Let... it go on," he husked. There was a blankness in his eyes that scared her.

"It felt good." As if she was reassuring him of some creative sex position he'd tried that had surprised her. "It felt so good that I let it go on. And before I could stop things, it was healed."

He was staring at her. She didn't know what that meant, what he was feeling.

She swallowed roughly and tried to fill up his silence. "You're very strong. Stronger than I ever was during the phase. Which is... of some concern. None of this has gone like I assumed; this wasn't my experience with the phase. I don't know what you could do, what might happen. I'm just trying to keep you safe."

"But what about you?"

—-xxx—-