Chapter 17

Suddenly, Beckett relaxed. "Thank you," she said. "Most people don't tell me the truth first time out." She bit her lip. "I don't like what you said, though."

"You didn't like it earlier, either." Sandvag said. "You look pretty shook up." Beckett stared. "So let's get this party started, so you can get home and rest. You're going to need a lot of that. PT's going to be rough."

"Start," Beckett ordered, through clenched teeth and knotted hands. She would get through this. She'd had her meltdown moment, and now she was going to get back on track.

"Okay. Key thing today is that you don't do anything except what I tell you to. You don't try to move, you don't try to help me move your arm, you don't do anything at all but what I say. You got that?"

"Yeah."

"Okay. Come sit here, where your arm is supported by the sling and it can swing freely. Not that you're going to do any arm-swinging for a while. Leave your NYPD pompoms in the box," he laughed.

Beckett smiled in return. It was just what Espo might have said. "Too tall for cheerleading," she said. "I prefer martial arts and yoga."

"Not for a while," he noted. "Okay, here we go. Yelp if you want to. If you don't feel anything, tell me right away." He sat down by her. "We're going to start with forward flexion to tolerance. That means, if it hurts – as soon as it hurts at all, even if you've hurt worse from a tiny splinter, you have to tell me. If you don't, we'll damage the repair and this will take months longer."

"Got it." Beckett wouldn't normally have mentioned pain until most people would define it as agonising, but she sure wasn't going to make matters any worse. "I'll say as soon as it hurts."

"Right. We're going to lower you till you're supine – on your back, lying flat." He did. Beckett tried hard not to tense. She didn't like the feeling of vulnerability. "I'm going to lift your arm, very slowly."

Sandvag carefully began to lift. He'd got to maybe two inches when Beckett said "Hurts."

"Okay." He lowered it. "We'll do six, no higher than that."

By the sixth, Beckett was exhausted, mostly from stopping herself trying to help move her arm. Sandvag elevated the treatment chair to sitting.

"A minute or two rest, with ice" – he put a pack over her shoulder – "then we'll do some elbow, hand and wrist work to keep the blood moving, then an external rotation, and that's it for your first time. You'll be back here Tuesday for the same again, and we'll see how we go with adding some other stuff if the surgeon thinks it's indicated. Plan on being here for a couple of hours so the surgeon can take a good look." Beckett frowned for a moment. "Something wrong?"

"Uh, Mrs Tousa is expecting us at the library Tuesday afternoon – and Thursday."

"Oh. Right. Well, I really don't wanna annoy Mrs Tousa. Not a good plan. Tuesday morning. Then have a nice lunch and keep that shoulder iced as much as possible."

"Ugh," Beckett said gloomily. She wanted to cry already, but she was going to get through this. Somehow.

Ten minutes later, her elbow, wrist and hand had been carefully moved, squeezed, circled and wriggled. More ice was on her shoulder.

"For the external rotation, you'll need to be lying down again. I'll do all the moving. Same as before, as soon as it hurts, yelp."

Beckett yelped pretty quickly.

"Okay, we'll stop that."

"But" –

"But?"

"But I have to get back full mobility."

"Yes, but you won't do that by ripping your rotator cuff again." Sandvag scowled at her while raising the back of the bed. "I already told you this. You have to do what I tell you and only what I tell you. And since it's clear that you need it knocked through your head, you don't do any off the book exercises. For the next two weeks, you only do these exercises in here with me and under my supervision, with your surgeon's input. Anything more than that will set you back and probably ensure that you never get back full mobility."

"Oh."

"We're done for today. I'll see you Tuesday at ten till twelve. I'll get the surgeon here for the first part." He didn't say maybe you'll take it better from them, but he was sure thinking it loudly.

"Okay. Thank you," she said awkwardly, slipped off the bed and departed.

Castle wasn't in the reception area. Beckett shuffled over to reception, and found that he'd asked how long she'd be, been told it would be around an hour, and had said he'd go get coffee and come back. "So he should be here any time now," she was told.

"Okay." She sat down on a hard chair and waited. It took her less than fifteen seconds to be wishing that Castle was there. By the time he arrived, no more than two minutes later, she could barely control her emotions. She wanted to slump into his arms and never, ever move again.

"You're done already?" he said, and pouted. "I wanted to be back before you finished. But I brought you coffee." He handed her the go-cup, lid already off, and then wrapped his arm around her. She stifled a sniff, and sipped the coffee. "Drink it, and then let's go home. I wanna snooze in the sunshine." She nodded, and downed the cup in several long swallows.

"Can we go?" she asked.

"Sure."

Beckett trudged out to the car, installed herself, and only then realised that she could and should ice all the way home. "Castle," she asked, "could you get me an ice pack out of the cooler in the trunk?"

"Yeah." A few seconds later a pack arrived on her shoulder. "Better than doing it later?"

"Yeah. PT…hurt."

Castle assessed the dragging notes of Beckett's tones and decided that home, sleep, and painkillers were the order of the rest of the day. They'd barely breached the town limits before her eyes had closed.

"I'm not asleep," she muzzed. "Just tired. PT is a bitch."

"Yeah. What did they do?"

"Hardly anything," she yawned, but there was an acid edge. "Tried to lift my arm. Got two inches. Tried to rotate it. Got two and a half inches. I'm not to do anything."

"Huh?" Castle said.

Beckett's eyes opened. "If I do anything, it'll tear again. They can't promise full mobility now, and he was really clear that if I try to move it it'll mean likely worse mobility." She swallowed. "I've got to get it back. I wanna do exercises and move it but I can't take the chance." Her eyes closed again, but not before Castle's quick glance had shown the liquid shimmer across them. While he approved of the tack the PT had taken, being the only one to which Beckett would listen, he hated to see her so upset when there was nothing he, or she, or anyone else could do about it.

"Rest now," he soothed, "and when we get home I'll ice your shoulder again and settle you comfortably and you can talk about it." He forced a grin. "I bet you terrorised the poor PT. He's probably plotting his underground escape to Canada. The whole town'll turn out for his public execution if you so much as hint that he's hurting you. Mrs Tousa'll wield the axe."

Beckett managed a damp twitch of lips.

"No, she would. She runs everything. If she doesn't approve, it doesn't happen – or you move out. She's related to everyone somehow, and she's right in the middle of the town in the library. Second in command, Annie at the radio station. So if she likes you – and she does, because you saved her relative – then you are untouchable."

"Better be nice to me," Beckett managed, with just a touch of her normal snark.

"I'd love to be very nice to you, but you went and got yourself" – Castle abruptly changed his wording – "hurt. So it's your own fault I can't be as nice to you as we'd both like."

Beckett made an odd noise.

"What is it?" Castle asked.

"Nothing," she replied. "I hurt. Can we just get home?"

"Sure," Castle said, not believing her at all. Her words had the same feeling as I'm fine. He sped up a little, and got them back to the cabin in pretty short order.

He didn't hesitate to help Beckett out of the car, or inside, or up the stairs.

"Why" –

"You'll feel better if you're in something cooler and comfortable. Try a loose shirt and some soft pants" – he smirked – "or no pants. I won't mind." The smirk became wolfish. "Or no" –

"Shut up, Castle."

He continued to smirk as he left.

Beckett sank down on her bed, then had to creak up again to remove her pants and rather sweaty shirt. She wanted to wash. The PT had left her feeling sticky and horrible. She tucked the shirt around her, dragged to the bathroom and started a bath.

Castle came barrelling up the stairs. "What are you doing?"

"I feel horrible. I want to be clean."

He thought for a millisecond about a smutty comment, then scrapped it on seeing the pain lines around her eyes and the dark circles below them. "Okay. You sit down and let me find the bubble bath, though."

"'Kay." She sat down while Castle finished and left, then dropped the shirt, took off her remaining clothes and sank gratefully into the hot water. Sadly, it didn't cure her emotions. It's your own fault I can't be as nice to you as we'd both like. She knew that. She'd known that since Gina arrived at the precinct and Castle waltzed off with her.

It didn't stop it piercing her unhappy heart. If she hadn't…then she wouldn't have started taking risks…and she wouldn't have been here, throwing herself at armed robbers. Her disobedient eyes began to blur. She blinked furiously, but they weren't co-operating. After a few seconds, she stopped trying to stop crying, and just let the tears run down, and down, and down. If she didn't get back her mobility…

…it would be all her own stupid fault.

Castle amused himself downstairs by preparing an easy-to-eat dinner, and then shooting evil aliens, all the while listening for Beckett emerging from her bath. He set the table, shot some more aliens, and listened again. No noise. No splashing, though no sounds of pain either. He shrugged, and put out bread and salad.

A few further moments having passed, in which he continued to hear nothing, he sneaked upstairs to listen. The bathroom door was unwelcomingly closed, but he wasn't shy of eavesdropping in a good cause. He couldn't hear anything. He considered knocking. Then he scrapped that idea, because – unworthy though it was – he was perfectly certain that there was far more to the day's emotional rollercoaster than Beckett was telling him, and maybe if he, well, sneaked up on her he'd find it out. Or get himself shot – no, she didn't have a gun. The universe was on his side, clearly. He turned the handle and silently opened the door, padding in as quietly as he could.

Oh. Oh, no. Beckett was crying. He couldn't stand it when she cried, and she'd done nearly nothing else since that morning. He gave up secrecy in favour of comfort, hurried to the tub, knelt down on her good side and at the cost of his t-shirt, hugged her. "C'mere," he soothed. "What's up? You've been upset all day, and it's not just the shooting or your shoulder mobility. What's wrong?"

"My fault," Beckett dripped, which meant nothing to Castle. "It's all my fault and now I'm losing everything."

"What do you mean?" he asked softly, encouraging confidences.

"If I hadn't…"

"Hadn't what?"

As he hugged her, twilight began to fall outside, the bathroom becoming shadowed. Somehow, the gathering gloom hiding her face, the atmosphere became intimate, private; the darkening space containing only them, only the moment.

"If I hadn't dated Demming…"

Castle became agonisingly aware that if he hadn't given Demming the green light, Demming would never have made a play for Beckett.

"If I'd never…if I'd only ditched him earlier, you wouldn't have gone."

He swallowed. "If I hadn't told him he had a free field, he'd never have dated you."

The air temperature plummeted faster than opening a door to the Antarctic in winter. "You told him he had a free field? So you told him you weren't interested. I see. Okay. You can go now. No need to feel guilty. I'll see you in the fall." She separated herself from him. In the gloom, he couldn't see her face clearly. "I'd like to finish my bath now, thank you."

Castle didn't move.

"I want privacy to finish my bath. Please" – the word dripped icicles – "give me it." He still didn't move. "Get out!"

"Not until you promise you'll come back downstairs when you're done. I'm not leaving but I'm not having this discussion in a goddamn bathroom."

"Fine. Now go."

He went.

Beckett stared at the bath in the dim light, and forcibly held her eyes dry. So. Castle had actually given Demming the green light. Okay. Right. She didn't know what he was doing here, then, or why he'd invited her to the Hamptons and then got into a snit when she hadn't accepted, but it was clear that he'd preferred going off with Gina to her. Dog in the manger, in fact. Hadn't wanted her till he'd seen her with someone else, but perfectly prepared to replace her with the nearest available pretty woman. Fine. Just peachy.

She struggled out of the bath, managed to dry herself, and then went to her room and dressed as best she could. She'd have put on her make-up, but she needed both hands for her eyeliner. Anyway, she didn't need make-up to be Detective Kate Beckett, terror of the NYPD.

Castle could hear the hard notes of Beckett's shoes on the wooden stairs. The sound didn't fill him with any confidence that this was going to go well, but he wasn't letting her hang on to mistaken impressions for any length of time at all. As she came down, his confidence decreased further. Despite the sling, the lack of make-up and the lack of heels, this was one hundred percent, Force Twelve Intimidation, Detective Beckett. She sat down at the table exactly as she would have – had, and did, and would again – sit across the interrogation table.

"You gave Demming a clear field," she said coldly. "Why?"

"You weren't interested."

"Nor were you, obviously. So why are you even here?"

"You weren't interested first," Castle snapped.

"I wasn't the one playing tonsil hockey and hunt the sausage with a two-bit actress. You weren't interested. That's why you gave Demming the okay." She looked him dead in the eye, and there wasn't a hint of softness. "If I'd known that, I'd have thrown him out on top of you. Trading me off like a piece of meat? Well, at least I've found out now. I'll manage by myself from now on. The town'll be happy to help. Officer Dermot will call each day, and I'm quite sure he'll take me to PT."

"He will not," Castle yelled. "I'll be taking you to PT because I'm not going anywhere."

"Oh?" Beckett said, in tones guaranteed to freeze the fires of Hell. "You and what army are going to force me to let you stay here?"

"I don't need an army," Castle said, proving that he'd taken all of his bravery pills that evening. "You can't do anything with one working arm. So I'm staying and taking care of you just like you wouldn't let me after you got blown up."

"Why? You're not interested so why bother? Or is this just because Gina ditched you and I was the first female you thought of? Get a dog. Or go find Ellie Monroe. I'm sure she appreciates your enormous assets." Castle choked. "Money, loft, ego. And your contact list so she can go star in your movie."

"It's not like you would," Castle hit back. "Someone has to. Or did you want to and you're just jealous that you can't?"

"Jealous? Of a third-rate actress who can't keep her panties on when she sees an opportunity? Can't you do better than that?"

"Like my ex-wife?" Castle stood up and walked out, sheet white and furious, before he said or did something irrevocable. The cabin door slammed hard enough to shake the walls.

Beckett stared after him, dead white herself, and then struggled to take all of her pillows upstairs, where she propped herself up as comfortably as she could manage – not at all – and tried and failed to calm down. What had Meredith got to do with – oh. Oh, shit. Meredith was an actress and – oh, fuck – surely not? Surely, surely not. Her eyes began to leak again.

Outside, Castle stormed as far from the cabin as his legs would carry him, heedless of the dark and the possibility of injuring himself. He dropped on to the ground and swore vilely for a good five minutes, then switched to swearing in every fragment of every language he'd ever encountered and continued that till he returned to Anglo-Saxon English and began to repeat himself. When he finished there was silence around him – every small animal for miles had probably run for cover – though he could hear his heart pounding and the blood thrumming in his temples. He undertook one of his mother's breathing exercises, and slowly calmed himself down.

Beckett didn't know. Beckett didn't know. She'd never asked. He'd never told her. Beckett did not know.

He had to believe that. Because if she had known… if she had known, then she'd deliberately struck a blow so low that there would be no return.

Beckett did not know.

Everything he knew about Beckett, everything she'd done, every way they'd snipped and sniped and hurt each other – she did not know. Because if she had known…she'd have behaved differently. Certainly in the beginning, she'd most likely assumed both divorces were down to his bad behaviour – though he'd never cheated, his page six PR wasn't exactly helpful.

He swore extensively again. It didn't help. When he'd finished, he realised that it was close to full dark, and he was a good fifteen minutes away from the cabin. He put his hand in his pocket, and was unutterably relieved to find his phone, which not only had a flashlight app, but also a locator linked to Beckett's phone. (She'd agreed, under prolonged protest, if only because it meant she didn't have to waste time telling him where to turn up.) Therefore he could find his way ho – back.

It wouldn't be home unless he could clear the air with Beckett. He swore some more. Admitting his real reason for Ellie Monroe was toe-curlingly, excruciatingly embarrassing, and would undoubtedly provoke another fight.

He began to plod back towards the cabin, following the small dot of Beckett's phone and using the flashlight to light his way.

Thank you to all readers and reviewers, especially guests whom I can't thank directly.