Chapter 5

After an excellent dinner, Castle – over Beckett's objections – paid the check. Trouble started when she stood. Or rather, tried to stand, and sat down abruptly.

"Ow."

"What's wrong?"

"Ow," Beckett said again, and tried, cautiously, to stretch. Then she massaged her ankle – for a millisecond. "Ow!"

"Ankle?"

"All of me. Ow. But yes, my ankle." She tried to move her foot, and stopped. "I think," she said with an acid-bitter twist of her mouth, "I'd better go get it checked out."

"Gio will get us a taxi." He spoke briefly to Gio, who hurried off to oblige.

"Us?"

"I'm coming with you," Castle said. "You can't walk properly and I can balance you – or carry you as far as the taxi and then from it to the ER." He batted his lashes at her. "You'd prefer company, wouldn't you? And I can help you to get home afterwards."

"But…"

"Nope. I want to. Otherwise I'll be bored and lonely."

"An ER is not a social occasion," Beckett pointed out.

"Nope," he said again. "But you can't walk – or you would be walking – so it's not sociability but helpfulness." He acquired an aura of innocent helpfulness. Before Beckett could raise any more objections – what was with her: didn't she want any help? – Gio returned to tell them that a taxi was waiting outside. Castle helped Beckett up, slung a firm arm around her waist, and, wincing in sync with her at every halting, painful step, managed to install her in the taxi without her emitting more than a modicum of sub-vocal cursing.

The ER was, unfortunately, busy. Beckett, who hadn't wanted to be there in the first place and had only gone because she needed to check whether she could walk the next day, regarded the heaving mass of people with distaste, and curled into herself, ignoring the considerable number of people who were most likely drunk, drugged or dumb. Or all three. She managed a small smile at an unhappy child, held protectively close by its mother, but otherwise she remained completely closed-off.

Castle's arm snuck around her. She ought to have argued, but she was too tired, sore, and heartsick at the sight of so many drunks, just like her father was a drunk. Castle's arm was ridiculously comforting, and she could surely need the comfort right now. She snuggled closer, and allowed him to cosset and pet, which soothed her immensely.

It soothed her right up until a group of carol singers entered the ER, full of enthusiasm and in loud, but not always tuneful, voice. She didn't want to listen to Christmas songs. They weren't even singing carols, but cheesy Christmas pop songs. She tensed instantly, and tried to pull her scarf up over her ears under the guise of a faked shiver.

"Don't you – of course you don't," Castle corrected before he'd even finished the sentence. "You don't like Christmas, for plenty of reasons." She winced. "Anyway," he whispered mischievously, "nobody could enjoy that many bum notes." He paused. "Can you sing?"

"Uh…" Beckett refocused on the earlier point. "I like carols. Not cheesy pop."

"But can you sing?" Castle pressed.

"I can hold a tune," she admitted. In fact, she could do a good deal better than merely holding a tune, but she wasn't going to blow her own trumpet.

"So can I," he said happily, and fell silent. He seemed to be thinking deeply. Beckett buried herself in her scarf and tried not to listen to the singers. Before she arrested the lot of them for crimes against music, she was summoned for treatment. Castle propped her up as her ankle folded again, and then more or less carried her through to the treatment room.

"Hmm," the doctor said, regarding Beckett closely. "What did you do?"

She explained. The doctor stopped regarding Castle as if he were a wife-beater and eased off his glare and aura of I'll talk to you without this man around, about the point she showed her shield and, since it was still on her hip, her gun.

"Okay," the doctor eventually said. "We'll do an X-ray to check, but I think you've sprained it. If I'm right, we'll strap it up, take care for a few days, don't wear heels, walk as little as you can – and try not to run after any more criminals, not that you'll be able to do more than hobble anyway. Let your partners do the running for you."

"Thanks," Beckett said, as the X-ray was taken.

"Nope, no breaks."

"Good."

The doctor strapped her ankle, at which point a problem became evident.

"I can't get my boot on," she said, regarding the innocent boot with annoyance. "How'm I going to get home without a boot on one foot?"

"You have a companion standing right next to you," the doctor pointed out, "and you're asking me?"

"I'm taking you home," Castle stated. "You'll never manage it alone."

Beckett growled, but conceded. She knew she wouldn't, and she wasn't risking frostbite in her toes by trying.

Being picked up and carried across the sidewalk was, Beckett concluded, exceedingly embarrassing, especially when hanging on to one boot. On the other hand, she could think about the muscle Castle was displaying, which was exceedingly, um, hot. He put her on her foot – the one that would support her – in the elevator, but left his arm around her by way of support. She liked support, she decided, if the alternative were to fall over.

Another few awkward moments later, she'd managed to open her apartment door. Castle swept her up into his arms, and carried her (again) over the threshold, grinning evilly. He set her down on the couch with some care, and let his evil grin spread even wider.

"Well, Mrs Castle" –

"What the hell?"

Castle dissolved in laughter at her appalled expression. "I couldn't resist," he managed.

"You rat!"

He plonked down beside her, and patted her shoulder. "Now you've cheered up a bit, I had an idea."

"Ye-es?" Beckett asked suspiciously.

"Well…" Castle squirmed under her stare, and then recovered his grin. "You said you could carry a tune, and you said you liked carols – not Christmas pop songs – so…" He paused, significantly, waiting for encouragement.

"Yes?" Beckett cautiously stretched out her strapped foot, and took off her other boot. Now the ankle had been seen to, all her other bruises were making themselves felt. She wanted a lovely hot bath with a ton of bath salts, and then her lovely comfortable bed.

"Come to the Christmas Eve midnight service with me?"

Beckett choked. "Say what?"

"Come to the midnight service. It'll have all the carols." He smiled. "I'm going anyway, but company would make it even better."

She stared at him. "Go to a Christmas service?" she exclaimed.

"Yep."

She produced a smile, though it drooped around the edges. "Which one? I usually go to the Trinity church."

Castle boggled at her. "You do? You – you made me think I'd really messed up! That was mean of you."

Beckett smirked. "You were mean to me first. I couldn't resist," she echoed his words.

He growled gently, and then carefully cuddled her in: resisting his first instinct to haul her on to his knee and kiss her soundly. She was still creaking, he could tell. Something about the tension in her spine, the furrow of her brow.

"I'd stay, but you don't look up to more than a wash and bed."

"No," Beckett agreed. "I just want to sleep. Where'll I meet you tomorrow night?"

"I'll text. Dinner first?"

"No. I'll need to rest this ankle, so I don't want to be going here and there." She scowled at the offending joint. "Getting into the precinct's going to be bad enough."

Castle managed not to say I'll stay tonight and take you in tomorrow. He was pretty sure it wouldn't be welcome, given that she'd already turned down his tacit suggestion to stay. "Is there anything you need before I go?" he asked instead.

"Thanks, but no. I'm just going to go to sleep."

Castle succumbed to his instincts and hugged her – but not too hard – plopped a kiss on her nose and, when she looked up at him, a more sensual kiss on her lips, and then departed, leaving behind a whiff of cologne and the warmth of his final hug.

It wasn't really enough to make up for the ache of her bruises and the irritation of her sprained ankle, especially when she discovered that even moving as far as her bathroom was excruciatingly painful. She started the bath running, eschewed bath salts for massive doses of muscle relaxant, unwrapped her ankle, and carefully undressed while sitting on the edge of the bath.

She surveyed her bruises, which were horribly green and purple against pale skin and the reddened swelling at her ankle. She'd watched carefully as they bound up the damaged joint, and she knew how to redo the bandage after she'd soothed herself in a lovely hot bath. Hot meaning just this side of scalding. She eased into it with an enormous sigh of satisfied relief. Gradually, her aches subsided, and she could think about Castle.

She didn't necessarily want to think about Castle, but she couldn't stop. He'd been sweet. He hadn't needed to come to the ER with her, or stay, or bring her home – and certainly not pick her up and carry her as if she weighed no more than a child. Not that he'd treated her like a child. Oh, no. Not in the slightest. She merely wished that she hadn't ached so much that anything more than her comfortable bed would be painful.

Rick Castle, she thought. Quite the surprise – not the arrogant celebrity she'd expected, but surprisingly kind.

Which, annoyingly, led her to the real reason for her thinking about him. His invitation to the midnight service. She went as her one concession to the season, and because for that time she didn't think about the wreckage of her family and her life. Afterwards, though…afterwards, she hurried home and wept her heart out, purging all her emotions, then fell into drained sleep and awoke able to face the days ahead with a calm visage. The less said about her hidden feelings, however, the better.

She'd agreed to go. He'd looked so adorably inviting that she simply hadn't thought to refuse, especially when she would be going anyway. She couldn't turn him down and then arrive, separately, without appearing to be a total bitch; and, well, um, she didn't want to lose him.

Which was ridiculous, because she'd known him for two days. Two. Days. The scorching physical connection was great, but that didn't mean she should be thinking long-term. They barely knew each other. She sank a little further into the hot water, her aches receding as she did. They barely knew each other – but they were spending every other non-working moment together. She'd agreed to go for dinner at his apartment – she didn't even know the address, she realised: she hadn't been paying attention on that first night. Too busy crying pathetically. She reached for her phone, and tapped in a reminder for the next day.

She stopped thinking. Thinking didn't really help. She'd just…let it happen. Something good at Christmas. Maybe it would ease her ever-present pain. Maybe he could.

She levered herself out of her now-cooling bath, dried herself on a delightfully fluffy towel, and limped to bed, where she crashed into sleep but, for the first time in five years at Christmas-time, didn't have nightmares.

Thankfully, from Beckett's point of view, very little happened in the precinct on Christmas Eve. Even the criminals seemed to be taking vacation, which, since she'd hobbled in, been greeted with a chorus of teasing and commentary, and had had to sit down before she over-balanced, was just as well. She wouldn't be much use today. She wouldn't be much use tomorrow either, she thought irritably, since her ankle hurt more today than it had the previous day. The precinct was unpleasantly full of tacky Christmas decorations, too, and fretful cops who hadn't finished their present or food shopping. Beckett, who hadn't bothered with either, was silently unsympathetic – right up until she remembered that she had nothing to take to Castle's as a guest. Hell. She couldn't even go out to get anything, because she couldn't walk.

Well, dammit. She couldn't care less about Christmas, but she did care about looking ungrateful and rude. Now what?

She had an idea. "Ryan?" she asked.

"Yeah?"

"Ryan, I hate to ask you but I need you to do me a favour," she said hopefully.

"Sure – what?"

"Can you go out and get some really nice chocolates for me?" She handed over $50. "Really nice."

"Sure." He grinned at her. "Forget, did you?"

"Late invitation, and I can't walk out myself, can I?"

"Guess not. I'll go now."

"Thanks."

Half an hour later, Ryan had returned with a really nice box of chocolates, which relieved Beckett's mind immensely.

"I'll make it up to you," she said.

Ryan smiled happily. "No problem."

The rest of the day passed quietly. The three of them cleared paperwork and studied cold cases, but at shift end Ryan and Esposito helped Beckett out of the precinct so that she could go home. As she went, her phone beeped with a text: Castle, telling her that he'd collect her at ten-forty p.m. for an eleven-thirty start to the service.

So, at ten-thirty, she was sitting nervously, ready to go, coat beside her, trying to tell herself it would all be okay, with an extra pack of Kleenex in her purse. She wished she'd never agreed, and bit hard on her lip to stop its quivering.

When Castle – it had to be him – rapped assertively on her door, she was almost tempted not to answer at all. She forced herself to limp across the short distance to open it.

Castle simply picked her up off her aching ankle, wrapped her against him, and dropped a tiny kiss on her head, balanced on his shoulder. "You've been walking on it," he tutted. "I can see it's hurting."

She sniffed. "Yeah. But I had to work."

He patted her. "I'm here now. Lean on me and it won't be so bad."

"'Kay."

He helped her to stand, then balanced her while she slipped on her coat, scarf and hat. His arm didn't leave its position around her waist for a moment until they reached the waiting town car and Beckett was safely inside.

A good few moments later, Castle helped Beckett hobble the thankfully few steps to the church, and ushered her inside. The verger's attention was unobtrusively drawn to the bandage, and they were shown to an easily-accessible seat. Castle lowered her down, which was totally unnecessary but comforting, and slid in beside her, wrapping his arm back around her slim shoulders.

"There," he said. "All cosy and comfortable."

Beckett gave a tiny inward snuggle, and didn't say anything for a moment, tamping down her emotions until she could speak without her voice breaking. "Yes," she eventually managed, and pretended to read the order of service, head down.

"All my favourite carols," Castle said happily. "Traditional." He fell silent as the organist began a voluntary, listening attentively. Beckett was only too grateful that he wasn't concentrating on her: she was having a hard enough time controlling herself in the warmth of his embrace and affection. She hadn't thought how strongly simple affection would affect her, at a time when she didn't, any more, expect it and hadn't, in the last five years, received it.

Castle wasn't so lost in the music that he hadn't noticed Beckett's misery-tinged silence, but since he'd also noticed that she was desperately preserving self-control, he left her to do so in peace. He was ready to step in if necessary, but even on two days' acquaintance – two days? Was it really only two days? He felt as if he'd known her for much longer – he'd learned that she wasn't exactly keen on expressing her true feelings. He'd simply cuddle her, and let that be enough for both of them for now.

The church filled up, and shortly the organist played in the minister to begin the midnight service. Castle helped Beckett to stand, wishing that she wouldn't try, but knowing that she wouldn't listen to him suggesting it.

Three bars into Hark the Herald Angels, he was practically propping himself up on Beckett to avoid fainting in surprise. I can hold a tune, she'd said. Yeah, right. She couldn't just hold a tune, she could sing. Oh, boy, could she sing. It fired his not-so-very-latent competitive instincts, and, for the first time in years, he opened his shoulders and sang in the way various theatre types had taught him to, many moons ago. He was quite unreasonably pleased when Beckett flicked an astonished glance at him, and then managed a beautiful, though still sad, smile.

The service came to an end with a rousing rendition of O Come, All Ye Faithful, the minister exited, and Beckett sat down again until everyone else should have left and she could hobble out without delaying the entire congregation. Castle took one step out of the pew, then realised his mistake and sat down again. When everyone else had gone, he hoisted Beckett to her feet and walked her out of the church to the waiting town car, to take them both back to her apartment. She didn't say a single word from one end of the journey to the other; didn't comment when Castle dismissed the town car; didn't say anything as he followed her inside and into her apartment. He could hear the jagged edge on her breathing, and when he looked, he could see the liquid gathering in her eyes.

He sat down, hurriedly, gathered her back into him, and pushed her head on to his shoulder, patting her back and murmuring soothing, silly nonsense words into her hair. Her shoulders convulsed, and Kate Beckett sobbed her heart out on Rick Castle's broad shoulder; now a soaking wet shoulder. He supposed it was an improvement on sobbing her heart out while running away from him, or sobbing her heart out while throwing harsh words at him, but he'd prefer that she weren't sobbing at all.

It took a while for her to stop sobbing. Castle spent that while cuddling, cossetting, and generally petting, which soothed his soul but not his disobedient back brain and lower body. He ignored them, and eventually she ran out of tears: cried dry.

"I'm sorry," she snuffled. "You're all wet."

"Don't worry. It'll dry. Or clean. Or dry clean." Castle didn't vocalise his first, naughty, thought, which would have been that's my line, swiftly followed by Beckett's this is my gun. Leave or be shot. "Come here," he murmured. "It's only a coat, and if you move for a second I can take it off and then cuddle you back in."

"You don't have to stay," she dripped.

"Nope, but I want to. Cuddling you – even cuddling soggy you – is better than any other option." He demonstrated. "See. You feel better already."

She sniffed, but it carried more irritation than misery. Castle petted, and occasionally dropped tiny kisses into her dark hair, until she relaxed.

"Better now?" he asked.

Beckett took a breath, which filled her nostrils with the scent of Castle's cologne, or possibly just Castle. She curled in to his big body, and let his warmth, size and comfortingly possessive grip ease her through the last of her emotional maelstrom. Her eyelids drooped. "'M tired," she yawned.

"Bedtime." He slipped her from his embrace, stood and swept her up to carry her to her bedroom. "I'll see you tomorrow. I'll come get you from here."

"'Kay." She blinked sleepily at him, tousled, mascara staining under her eyes. "Thanks. You…you helped."

"Any time, Kate. Till tomorrow."

Thank you to all readers and reviewers. The next chapter is M-rated - and is the final chapter.

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