Author's Note: I tried not to write this, but I couldn't. I love the idea of Castle's dark side. Let me know how I did. Post 7x14-15.
He didn't usually wake when she did. His wife slept like a feral creature: up every few hours, awakened by some unfamiliar sound, some prickle of disquiet. The few times he did wake by her movement, he would tug her into the circle of his arms and assure her that the most dangerous thing she'd find in his loft was him, accompany his words by nibbling on her fingertips to make her smile and snuggle closer.
Some nights, though, they would be so aware of each other that they couldn't help it. The day he had been shot in that dentist office, she had been up whenever he was, smoothing his hair away from his face until his pained breath evened out. The night after Vulcan Simmons had grabbed her, he had wrapped her thoroughly in blankets and body heat and had rubbed her back through every coughing fit, held her tighter with every shiver.
The first night she had come back to his bed after he came back to her, they woke each other a dozen times, him from shadowy nightmares with elusive details, her to remind herself that he was really there.
That tonight would be one of those nights came as no surprise, though for all it's familiarity, it was different. It took him a long minute after his eyes opened to figure out that it was her breathing that had dragged him out of sleep. It was uneven and shaky, coming in sharp little bursts and hitching on the way out. In the darkness, he could see the outline of her shoulders, took in the way she shook, the way she had turned her back to him. She didn't want a witness to this, and he watched helplessly for several minutes until he realized that he didn't have to be one.
He rolled onto his side, draped an arm around her waist, and fit himself to her body like a puzzle piece, making a sleepy little snuffle in her hair before letting his breath even out to lick over the nape of her neck. She stilled the second he put her in the loose embrace and he waited her out, limp and pliant, but steady in all the ways that she wasn't, strong for her in the only capacity he thought she would allow.
The truth was that this was a grief he couldn't share, a reminder of how much better than him she was. He had walked into that house knowing full well that he was orchestrating an assassination. He had picked his words carefully, chosen them with the same dedication that he would have if it was for one of his novels, strung them together into a path that led him to his end game. He understood words better than he understood anything, knew exactly what phrases to use to elicit the response that he wanted. He could have chosen any phrase, any code to send his message to Esposito, but he'd chosen take the shot. He had wanted to say it exactly as he did: staring Tyson straight in the eye. He'd wanted to see the realization, watch the understanding dawn in that smug face. He'd wanted Tyson to know the it didn't matter who pulled the trigger, because his killer was before him. Watching the light fade from his eyes was just icing on the cake. He'd wanted Jerry Tyson to die.
She wasn't like him. She hadn't wanted Kelly Nieman to die, and she certainly hadn't wanted to wield the knife. She'd just been protecting herself, trying to stay alive. Nieman's death was not something that he was going to mourn. Two people had died today, and he would have slept well, if not for the fact that the woman he had married was a much better person than he. This was going to haunt her for a very long time to come.
He vowed that one day, he would point out the countless lives that she had saved at the cost of this one. He would take her to Central Park, sit her down on a bench and point out every jogger, dog-walker, and college girl he saw with blonde hair, remind her of what could have been. One night, he'd take the broken, jagged pieces of the woman he loves and fit them back together, just like he'd done before, just like he'd always be there to do.
But not tonight. Tonight, he'd let her hurt. Tonight, he'd hold her in the loosest sense of the word and let her believe he was still asleep so she could bury her face in her pillow and tremble and sob, bleeding the guilt from the wound. He'd feign sleep until the real thing pulled her under and she finally, finally relaxed, safe in his arms.
He fell asleep smiling.