"In the dead of night, your eyes so green
And I know for you, it's always me"


Elephants parade through her dreams, Montgomery making an appearance as well, back when she was still a rookie and his words held no meaning to her at the time, but now… Smith had spoke of a recording made by a former associate. Montgomery fits the role of that associate and he had spoken of a cassette recording all those years ago. It all adds up.

There's a box of her mother's belongings at her old apartment, maybe moved into the loft by now, but nothing in that box would help her. Not when she's been through every item inside of it a thousand times over.

But there is one item of her mother's she never kept inside a box. A parade of ceramic statues she keeps on her desk, a figurine that has a secret compartment.

The elephants.

"Castle," she gasps, trying to sit up while the revelation is still fresh amidst the cobwebs of her clearing mind, but groaning when the upward motion has her side flaring with heat and agony.

He jerks to her side, hovering with brightened panic in his eyes and a gentle hand at her shoulder, easing her back down.

"Hey, hey Kate, don't try to move yet," he instructs softly. "Just try to stay still, okay?"

"Where are we?" she breathes, gritting her teeth through the ripples that burn and blaze through the entirety of her side. "What happened?"

"You don't remember?" Castle murmurs, his voice too grave, and she squeezes her eyes shut for a moment, ignoring the way those words send her spiraling backwards three years and forcing herself to think past the pain coursing through her veins.

"Bracken broke in," she rasps, the memories flooding in and making her wince. "Tied me up and-" Her eyes fly open, the hand unrestrained by an IV tripping down to her stomach.

"The baby's fine," he promises her, catching her hand before she can touch the bandages embracing her torso. "The doctor did an ultrasound and he can't see much, but - but our baby's still there."

The tears leak from the corners of her eyes and Castle uses his thumb to wipe them away, careful to avoid the pounding skin of her cheek, the bandage she can feel stretched just below her cheekbone, where she knows a scar will threaten to form.

"Bracken stabbed you in your left kidney," he continues to explain, one of his thumbs still stroking along her bruised flesh. "But the cops arrived with an ambulance quick enough to treat you before you lost too much blood. Before it became fatal."

His delivery is hollow, eyes lifeless and unseeing, as the depiction of her injuries and how they came to be seems to take him back to the horrific moment.

"How?" she croaks, because the last thing she remembers is his face and the river of blood coating his hands just before she fell into the painless sea of black.

"When I called the police, they tracked my phone," he explains, sweeping his thumb back and forth over her knuckles, still so soft and attentive for a man so ragged with grief. "It took awhile for them to find us considering our location, but they made it. You made it."

"Were you hurt?" she asks, greedily scanning her eyes over the body sitting in the chair at her bedside, searching for bloodstains that are not her own.

"No," he says quietly, his voice low, dark, and she clutches harder to the hand still tangled with hers.

"Castle," she murmurs. "What's wrong?"

His eyes fly up to her, incredulous and angry and glistening with unshed tears.

"What's wrong?" he chokes out. "You're lying in a hospital bed from a stab wound with a baby I didn't even know about inside of you-"

"I was waiting to tell you," she whispers, breathing past the lump in her throat. She knows how he feels about secrets, but her pregnancy was never supposed to be something she kept from him.

When she had begun to suspect the change after nearly two weeks of telltale signs and managed to sneak a pregnancy test into their basket during their trip to the local market only days earlier, she had been terrified. Bringing a baby into the world, into their unconventional life together, would have been a disaster. The last few months spent looking over their shoulders and expecting the worst at every corner have been rough, but to add another, more vulnerable person to the mix would have been a nightmare. A beautiful nightmare.

She had taken the test last night while he was sound asleep and the thin white stick had confirmed her fears. She was pregnant with his child and after a mental count of the days, she could even pinpoint when it must have happened, during their last night in France when they'd been a little desperate and a little too careless.

"I found out last night," she continues, watching some of the accusation in his eyes fade away at the news. "I - I'd wanted to surprise you," she chokes out, trying to get ahold of herself and work past the stupid drugs she knows have her emotions in even worse shambles. "I knew it was the worst possible timing, but I was still - I knew you'd be excited, just like I was when I found out."

The conflicting emotions shine bright in his eyes, the longing to show happiness at the news alive and thriving, but the pain, the sadness, still conquer.

"I shouldn't have left you," he murmurs, voice edging into a growl as he stands from the chair, pulling his hand from hers. "I left you alone and you nearly bled to death because of it. We're supposed to be partners and I-"

"Stop it," she growls back, clawing for the hand closest to the bed, relaxing just a fraction when he puts it back within reach and allows her to tangle their fingers, reclaiming the lifeline of his touch. "They would have killed you if you'd been there, don't you see that?"

But he looks away, just as stubborn and as stupid as she's always been.

"You had the element of surprise, Castle, and it saved us both. You got there in time and that's all that matters."

His gaze is trained on the wall, but his lip starts to quiver, his face threatening to crumble, and she uses what little strength she has to tug on his arm, wanting so badly to invite him into the bed with her, but she isn't sure she could move to make enough room for him.

"I killed those men," he whispers suddenly, collapsing onto the hospital bed near her hip. "Killed Bracken. And I didn't even care. I didn't care, Kate."

He looks so helpless when he turns to her, so lost and afraid, like a confused little boy, and she wants to weep for him, for everything she's put him through, because no matter how many times he reassures her, they both know his life would be far less difficult, far less traumatic, without her.

"Am I - what does that make me?" he questions, rasps, barely audible. "What - what are we going to tell our baby? That his or her father is a murderer?"

"No," she snaps, but her eyes are burning. "You were protecting me," she argues, vehement, but her voice is hoarse with her sorrow for him and how desperate she feels to defend him, even from himself. "You were protecting our life and our family. You shot a man who put a knife in me and then shot the two others who would have killed you without hesitation. It was self-defense, Rick, and anyone could see that."

He nods, but the tears still cascade down his cheek and a noise of grief escapes her mouth. Castle leans forward, dipping his forehead to rest against the shoulder of her left, uninjured side, allowing her to cradle his head with her good arm. Allowing her to hold him as he cries, finally cries, silent tears into the skin of her neck.


"Did you call your lawyer?" she murmurs once he's fallen still and silent beside her. He tried to move from her bed, return to the chair, but she had dug her fingernails into his forearm and he hadn't fought her, finding comfort in the bed instead and allowing her to do the same.

Castle nods, twirling a limp strand of her hair around his index finger. "He doesn't feel confident handling this over the phone, so he's going to fly out tomorrow."

"And you haven't said a word to anyone? The police?"

"Kate, I can't even understand what the police are saying to me without a translator present," he huffs, the hollow hint of a laugh accompanying his words. "They tried to take me in-"

Her fingers clench around his arm, but he soothes her with the stroke of his hand through her hair, the locks turning oily by now she's sure, but she won't ask him to stop.

"That's when I got Barry on the phone and remembered there were security cameras in the house this time."

Her eyes snap towards him, absorbing the rueful smile.

"I turned them on before I left, just to be safe. The police are reviewing it all now."

"The whole - you got all of it on tape?" Beckett whispers, her yearning to view the footage herself flaring bright, but he gives her a look of reproach before she can even ask.

"We can use it in court, if we need to. We can use it to finally clear your name and plead self-defense if they try to convict me for murder."

"Shit, Castle," she breathes, the relief spreading through her bones, easing the throb radiating from her side, the mask of pain consuming her swollen face. They had evidence – real, solid evidence – and the evidence would finally set them free.

But Castle still looked chained.

"Rick," she murmurs, knowingly, and he glances down to her. "We're going to get past this. All of it."

"It just - it wasn't supposed to happen like this. I wanted - all I wanted was to keep you safe."

Her brow furrows, even though the action hurts. Her entire face hurts. "And you think you didn't accomplish that?"

"He was never supposed to touch you, never supposed to find us. And that fucking paper-"

"Was not your fault either. Castle-"

"I saw it on a newsstand on the way home," he mutters, rubbing at his eyes. "I bought all of them to get them off the shelf, and then I called Paula on the drive back, tried to get it under control, but there was little she could do. It was too late anyway. They were published nearly a month ago and it gave him enough time to sic his bloodhounds on us. More than enough. I let us get too comfortable."

"You couldn't have predicted there would be press at the airport," she tries to placate him, remembering the blurry image Bracken had thrown in her lap of the two of them. She hadn't been recognizable with her head down, face shielded by a curtain of blonde hair and blocked by the broad wall of his shoulder, but although grainy, Castle's identify had been decipherable despite his disguise of a baseball cap and sunglasses.

"I should have put more effort into changing my look too, I should have-"

"Rick, it's done," she states, going for firm, but sounding just as weak as she feels to even her own ears. "We're equally to blame, now shut up."

He huffs a laugh that is choked with tears and she uses their joined hands to urge him in closer.

"Kate," he murmurs, a warning, but she growls in response, tugs harder.

"Please," she tries, and she doesn't even care how pathetic it makes her feel to resort to begging him. She's tired and the agony consuming her side is flaring up again, radiating from the stab wound to set her insides to flame; she just wants her husband curled around her so she can sleep. So they can both rest.

He sighs, unable to deny her, and scoots in closer on her hospital bed, but one of his legs still hangs off the edge and that just won't do.

"Move me."

"No," he says, stern, but still wavering. "I could make it worse and-"

"Castle," she groans with impatience, listening to him huff in frustration. "Just ease me over a little so you can have enough room."

There's a moment of quiet contemplation before he relents once more, slipping an arm under her knees, the other beneath her neck, and transferring her a few inches closer to the opposite side of the bed.

She hisses at the hot rocket of pain that shoots up and down her side, but then he's lying beside her, pressed to her good side and infusing her with warmth, whispering soft words into her temple that penetrate the dull roar of pain rushing through her.

"It's really over now," she catches him murmuring into her hair while he strokes the layer of long bangs from her forehead. "We can go home soon."

"Home," she echoes on an exhale, turning towards the sound of his voice and peeling her eyes back to meet his. They still carry such weight, flecks of indigo clouding the beautiful cerulean, but the darkness doesn't overpower his irises any longer. The light is slowly breaking through.

"Sleep, Kate."

She shakes her head even though it costs her, the dull throb of a headache circling her skull like a vice, and squeezes the fingers resting near her hip.

"No, no, wait," she groans, fighting against the fog clouding her thoughts and weighing down her body. "What happened to the stuff I used to keep on my desk? From the Twelfth?"

Rick's brow furrows, but he answers her nonetheless.

"I - the boys packed it up a long time ago, Alexis picked it up, stored it at the loft for us. It's likely in our old bedroom." His head tilts in confusion. "Why?"

"The evidence. Evidence to convict Bracken," she rasps, clutching his fingers, willing him to understand. "It's in the elephants."

Castle's eyes fall, a flame of guilt spreading through the tired irises.

"Kate, we can't convict Bracken. I shot him, remember? And I'm - I'm not sorry that he's dead, but I'm sorry that I took that from you. The justice you wanted."

She wants to shake him, if only to disassemble the ashamed expression from his face.

"Castle, I told you," she mumbles, forcing the words to exit clearly from her lips despite the effort it takes. "I want you more, want this more."

She eases her hand down to rest delicately upon her stomach and the tiny life cushioned beneath.

She moans in a delighted change of pleasure rather than pain when his mouth touches her, careful but insistent, hopeful. She wishes she could drag him down on top of her, arch into the encompassing heat of him and convince him with something more than words that they're going to be okay.

Castle brushes another kiss to the corner of her mouth before drifting back to lie comfortably beside her, bracing his cheek on the hand elevated by his propped elbow and gazing down at her.

"We may not be able to convict him, but we have the truth," she slurs, blinking rapidly when she realizes her eyes have slid shut. "We can still expose everything. When we get home. When do we go home, Castle?"

"As soon as you're further into your recovery, love," he mumbles, his voice dropping into that soothing, low tone he always uses to calm and put her to sleep.

"Still your wife?" she pushes out, finally allowing her eyes to flutter closed and giving up on her attempts to force them open again.

She feels Castle's hand encircling one of hers again, dragging it to his lips, and dusting a kiss over the ring still on her fourth finger.

"Of course, Beckett. Can't get out of this marriage that easily," he teases her and she knows the grin that spills across her lips is loose and dopey, but she can't help it.

"Don't want out," she hums, curling her fingers at his lips when he presses them to her palm, trying to catch his kiss. "Want you forever."

He chuckles and she grunts at him for laughing at her, but then he's moving in closer to her again, blanketing the uninjured side of her body with warmth and lowering their intertwined hands to his chest, her knuckles resting above the beat of his heart.

"I want you for forever too, now get some sleep."

"Mmkay," she yawns, turning her head to bump her nose to his chin, ignoring the lingering scent of blood and regret on his skin, inhaling the aroma of home he still carries instead.

She drifts to sleep with him at her side, his free hand tracing patterns over her stomach.