For the Dead Travel Fast

—-xxx—-

With her knees curled up in the seat and the open road dark and yellow-lined before them, Kate felt as good as she'd felt in a long time. Westward bound. She knew it was relative, that the condition of 'good' was based on the context of being out of that lab, and not necessarily that she was actually physically or mentally better off. Sadly.

She spread the pamphlet on her knees and rested her head on the seat. Castle punched the overhead light and slung his fingers at the bottom of the wheel. "Go for it. But not word-for-word, because we don't want to accidentally indoctrinate ourselves."

"Shut up," she muttered. But the smile sneaked out. She was damn tired, but it felt good to not be in that glass-walled prison. "And you're not afraid that by me reading it just to summarize for you, I won't get indoctrinated?"

"You? Naw. You're too skeptical. You have no tolerance for bullshit."

"I'm going to assume that's a compliment."

"You go ahead."

She grumbled, but she just felt too relieved to be upset. He was escaping with her when she knew he wanted far more certainty, and he wasn't being a dick about it either. "How much gas do we have?"

"We'll have to fill up in another forty miles, but I figure it's middle of the night. If there's a phone booth, I want to try calling Alexis."

"Of course," she murmured. "And might as well use a credit card, if so? Save the cash for when we'll need it."

"It's a plan," he said, and she hated the relief in his voice that she hadn't put up a fight about calling home.

She pushed her knees into the center console to face him, glanced down at the pamphlet across her lap. "Okay, this one is about nutrition, specifically about garlic and onions." She skimmed. "Basically, the idea is to eat those anti-fungals regularly, just to keep it in check and give the algae time to do some cell rebuilding. This says put onions and garlic into every other dinner. Huh, that's oddly specific—every other."

"Wasn't there something about the iron every other day? I wonder if you take them alternating days."

"Maybe," she said. "Iron?"

"If you take iron supplements, wasn't that what she said? You don't absorb as much because your body is primed to not take it in."

"Oh right, because it's easy to get toxic." She rubbed her fingers over the cartoon kid. "But not for vampires."

He chortled.

"What?" she said.

"You just said it. Vampires. We're vampires, Beckett. It's amazing."

She worried her bottom lip. "Yeah." Was it?

"I knew there was more out there. More than just what we see. As a writer, you know, you have these worlds inside, the sense of other people in your head. I guess it makes it easier to believe in fairy tales and folklore, because those worlds are just so alive for a writer."

She stared at him, all those restless worries evaporating. "Yeah?"

He drummed the steering wheel with his thumbs, head nodding. "Yeah, and it's not—I know it's not how it works for other people—" He glanced at her briefly and then back to the road. "I was gonna say normal people, but that's kind of out the window now."

"You have worlds in your head," she nudged, wanting to go back.

"Yeah, they fade, you know, over time. But if I was going to write a sequel to something, all I have to do is go back and read it again and it's all right there."

"Every book is a world?"

"Yeah. Well. Nikki Heat is its own world, so each series might be more accurate."

"And the world… is in your head."

"Yeah. Characters talking to me. In me? Through me. They talk through me, to get their voices heard, their story."

"Huh. Crowded in your head."

"It's really not."

She laughed, and he smiled, so she figured it was a purposeful joke. "What happens when you need a plot point to happen but the character doesn't want to do it?"

"New plot point," he chuckled. "Go where it leads." He glanced at her. "We've talked about this before."

"I know." She brushed hair away from her cheek, the dash light casting his face in harsh relief. "What happens if the new plot point doesn't work?"

"Keep writing," he said. "Write it out. That's why things get cut. I've had to cut half a novel before. It kept not going the right direction, for hundreds of pages, not the way it needed to go."

"Well and then what?" she asked. Her fingers stroked over her knee as she watched him talk. "Half a novel isn't a full story, but the story they wanted to tell wasn't right."

"Ha. I wound up scrapping everything but the opening scene. Stop me if I've told this one before."

He had, but she wouldn't stop him. She loved hearing about his process. She didn't have any writing skill herself, and listening to him was like hearing about magic.

"So this was for Storm Watch, which was really not coming to me. Partially because I wasn't in good headspace, but also I think I was already feeling tapped out with Storm."

"Mm, that wasn't too far into the series."

"Not considering how many I wrote, no."

"But it felt like a lot, back then," she nudged.

"It felt like a drag by that point. So I cut half the novel, then cut everything but the first scene, and I had basically nothing. So I put Jefferson Starship's 'Winds of Change' on repeat and for two weeks, I listened to those songs and forced myself to type." He scoffed at himself and shook his head. "I can never not hear Jefferson Starship without feeling grateful for how it pulled me through."

"God, I love you," she rasped.

He startled, a hot glance in her direction, back to the road, back to her. Obviously wanting to look at her but wanting more not to crash them.

The electricity between them didn't dissipate, didn't fade, and she knew he felt it too, that it was because they had almost died—they had died—and it all felt fragile again, new. Like that night she'd forced her way into his apartment in a thunder storm and he'd been angry, and she had felt it in every drugged touch, every hard kiss. Fragile, and so they both ran hard at it, to prove something.

He reached over and grabbed her by the hand, crunching the pamphlet on her knee, and she hung on.

They both squeezed tight. She glanced down at the cartoon of the kid eating his onions and liverwurst, and her heart pressed as tight as her hand in his. "Does this… change our conversation about having kids?"

His hand spasmed in hers. "What?"

"Take a second. Think about it." She could see the knowledge on his face. "I know I've dropped a bomb on you, that there are a lot more moving parts—you didn't even know I was like this—"

"But you did."

She paused. Tried to reassess. Couldn't bring up what… that meant. Was he upset?

"You knew about the vampire stuff," he said. "Well, you knew very little, but you still knew. And you still wanted kids with me."

She clutched his hand. "It's not past tense. For me."

He flashed her that goofy sweet smile, tender-eyed. It made her liquid, as it lately did whenever she shyly brought up something about babies and he eagerly fantasized with her. It was such a reassurance to still see that fantasy in his eyes.

He rubbed this thumb across her knee. "We had that conversation already, and being a vampire doesn't change the conversation. Only what conversations we will have. You know. The ones explaining to them that they can't bite their friends. Actually, I had that conversation with Alexis anyway, it's a kid thing; they all do it."

She blew out a breath, chuckling. "Mm."

"Hey, we got helpful pamphlets for the kids anyway."

"The kids. Huh."

"It's too exhausting to entertain one. Gotta have siblings to do the playing, keep each other busy."

"Old man," she smiled, sliding her hand up his arm. "I'm not reading my kid these brainwashing pamphlets."

"Plural."

"We'll see."

He was smiling, the darkness couldn't touch him. She curved her fingers around the top of his bicep, into the crease of his shoulder, the warmth of his armpit. She nudged her nose into his arm and took in a breath, scenting him.

He smelled so good to her. Teeth-sinkingly good. She even thought maybe—

He clamped his arm down on her fingers. "Babe, you have a weird thing about sweat," he said.

She wrinkled her nose and wriggled her fingers in the vise of his arm. "You should be grateful, means you're sexy all the time." She nudged into his shoulder, her ribs pressed only a bit painfully against the console. "And it's not weird. It's my vampire sense."

"No, nope. Not gonna buy it. You knew nothing about your vampire senses before we met Doc. You're just a weirdo."

She laughed. Sobered as she realized. "That might… change things for us, though. Because you're right. I didn't know, I still don't know much. I pushed it away, because it was traumatic and because Royce had been so important to me."

His fingers pressed into her knee. "I know."

"I do that. I just compartmentalize, shut it all away, pretend it doesn't exist. Like that makes it not happen."

His hand came up, touched her chin. She fell silent. "I know, Kate. I know you do. That's not new to me; that's just you."

She pressed her cheek to the cup of his palm.

He rubbed a thumb over her lips. "And in case it's not obvious, I love just you."

—-xxx—-