Whether it was the pain, the exhaustion, or the sorrow – or some combination of all three – Castle is grateful for whatever allowed him a couple more hours of sleep after the sunlight had first awakened him; he hadn't been ready to find out whether Kate's willingness to let go of her mother's case had been enough to set her free. It's selfish of him to want her to stay where she doesn't belong, but he begs some higher power for the chance to see her one last time.
In the end, he isn't left to wonder about Kate's presence for long, nearly colliding with her when he hurries to answer the persistent chirp of the cell phone he'd left in his living room the night before, ignoring every injury demanding his attention along the way. He stumbles when he sees her, wants to stop until he's tipped his heart upside down, but she offers a subtle shake of her head and looks toward the sound that has started up again.
Their investigation has brought more than a few unexpected conversations, and the latest comes about when a sheepish Kevin Ryan asks for a few minutes to talk. Castle puts the phone on speaker for Kate's benefit and forgives the interruption by the man who'd helped save his life the day before.
"Hey, Castle. I'm sure you're at home recovering after your fight with Maddox, but I need to talk to you about everything that's happened since," Ryan blurts, the weary way his words are slurred together suggesting he's slept very little in the wake of yesterday's events.
"It doesn't sound like good news," Castle mutters. "And I assume it goes way beyond Esposito being suspended and me possibly being out of a job."
"Good guess. We went through the stuff you found in the place Maddox was renting and we've been able to track down the guy he was after."
"Montgomery's friend."
Ryan hums, the unhappiness in his voice remaining. "Yeah, Michael Smith, an attorney. We figured out where he used to work and got lucky that one of the calls he made to me was rerouted through a wireless network. Then we traced that IP to a yacht club, compared the member list to his former firm, and pulled all his personal info after that."
"Put on some damn pants and go get him," Kate hisses from behind him.
"Great," Castle says, doing what he can to hide his annoyance as he throws a scowl over his shoulder. "So we pay him a visit and get past the bullshit deal Captain Montgomery made. We get details about whatever is in the file and figure out who is at the top of this thing. Gates is involved now, whether Espo wanted her to be or not, so we can throw some real weight behind it."
"Well, paying him a visit now will require a trip to the hospital and the hope that he regains consciousness."
"What happened – oh, no." Castle pauses, realizing why Ryan sounds so bothered. "Maddox found him first."
"And there's more. Some uniforms and I actually got to Smith's place early this morning, found him there and called the EMTs. There was a file burning in the fireplace, but then Smith tried to talk, managed part of an address."
"Because there's another copy of the file out there."
"There was," Ryan confirms
"There was?" Beckett growls.
"So Maddox got there first, too," Castle guesses. "And we have nothing."
"In this case, it was better that he got there first. Smith had the second file rigged to blow, so both Maddox and our best lead are now in a billion tiny pieces."
"Well, you had one hell of a morning," Castle says, beginning to pace alongside where Beckett started just a few seconds ago. "What are we supposed to do now? Sit around and hope for Smith to wake up?"
Ryan groans, his tone dropping lower than before. "I have no idea. And I'm sure it looks like I've been a lot of the problem here, but with Javi suspended and Smith half-dead, I'm really all alone on this now. Maybe we could've convinced Montgomery to work with us, but he's gone and we've barely coped with that. And Beckett?" He pauses, and Castle can hear the deep breath he takes. "I honestly don't know how to do any of this without her. I mean, aside from the fact that this is has been her case all along, she made us better detectives. Without her leading us – leading me – I'm completely lost. And I miss her."
There's no way Castle will chance a look at Kate now; he caught something that sounded like a muffled whimper and he isn't prepared to face her again until Ryan is done.
"Well, we don't have much choice. We hope Smith pulls through so we can get answers that way, but if he doesn't, at least we know who he is now and can try to dig into his background. We can find out if he knew anyone involved in this other than Captain Montgomery. We can also try to learn more about Cole Maddox, find his military connection and where he went rogue. There has to be something that will lead us to the top, and I'll be here to help until we find it. From everything I know, Beckett deserves nothing less."
Ryan hums again, not trusting his voice to be steady enough for anything else, and eventually mumbles something resembling a goodbye when he realizes Castle has nothing else to say. When the call is ended and the phone tossed aside, Castle turns to where Kate has finally stilled in the living room. She doesn't speak, so he makes an attempt to offer something reassuring.
"I meant what I said. I'll be here to help for as long as it takes."
"How great for you," she retorts.
"Whoa, Kate, what's with the attitude?"
She flinches at the tenderness carrying her first name, but her glare is unwavering. "I just think it's nice that you actually have a choice about it."
He knows she's frustrated, or probably somewhere far beyond that, but it still hurts to hear the bitterness in her tone. And as much as his body is begging him to collapse onto the couch, Castle remains standing, facing off against the woman seemingly set on fighting the one person she still can.
"Look, I might have a say in whether I keep helping Ryan and Espo, but I didn't ask to share my apartment with a goddamn ghost. I've risked everything and I'm not sorry about that, but I don't need this turned around like you being stuck here is my fault."
"I'm not saying it's your fault," Kate argues. "But no good has come from the two of us working together and it doesn't look like things are going to get better any time soon. I thought swearing I'd let go of the case might be enough, but it wasn't. I thought maybe some closure with you last night would help me leave, but –"
"Wait a minute," he interrupts. "Last night – everything that happened between us – was just a way for you to disappear? It meant nothing –"
"More?" she finishes, crossing her arms in front of her. "How the hell could it mean more, Castle? I'm dead. 'A goddamn ghost' as you so eloquently put it. Not. Fucking. Real."
"Yes, thank you so much for reminding me. I haven't spent any time thinking about how fleeting this is, how you and I will never really stand in front of a murder board and exchange theories and finish each other's sentences until we figure out who the killer is. How we'll never get to have a late-night drink with Ryan and Espo after a crazy case or dodge the glare of an annoyed captain. Or how we'll never get to share the intimacy we imagined last night because it was just that – imagined. I haven't tossed and turned every single night thinking about how unfair any of that is, so thanks for reminding me that none of it is fucking real."
There's a touch of fury in each of his words, but spitting them at her isn't enough to make him feel any better. The rest of his anger is unleashed a moment later in a kick to the coffee table, his bare foot managing to catch it at an angle that upends the table and sends the few things resting on the surface flying toward the wall. A couple of file folders he'd left there are now a mess of papers scattered on the floor and Beckett's family of elephants lies as broken as he feels.
Cracked. Empty.
Empty now, at least, though a small cassette tape rests just inches from what he assumes was the mama elephant. Castle's anger thumps in his chest and he can't tear his eyes away from the floor while he forces himself to make some sense of what just happened.
"Castle? What is that?" Beckett croaks, the stunned silence gone.
"A tape."
"Thanks, detective. I know what it is, but where did it come from?"
He's staring, still humming with the pain of their fight, almost afraid to touch the tape, so sure that it's everything they need and nothing he wants.
"They're your elephants, right? Where did you get them? Why do they mean so much to you?"
Kate reaches toward them uselessly and her answer is no surprise. "They were my mom's."
"Okay, first things first," he sighs. "Let me find a way to play it. For all we know, it's nothing important at all. Maybe the tape's not even hers."
"You don't believe that," she says. "You've been at this job for too long to miss the moment everything in a case changes."
And of course, she's right. When they're finally able to listen, they hear the voices of Roy Montgomery, before he became Captain at the 12th, and William Bracken, a sitting U.S. Senator who had once been the Assistant District Attorney, as the two men discuss blackmail, conspiracy, and murder. The mention of Johanna Beckett's name causes his heart to clench, a chill holding him still for several seconds; he can't imagine what effect it's having on the woman by his side. And after replaying the tape enough to quell the nauseating surprise, Castle tracks down Ryan and meets up with him to hand over the evidence.
Several hours pass while a team at the 12th works with the DA's office to figure out the preliminary charges against Senator Bracken, and Castle and Beckett grow tired of simmering in the silent stress while they're left to wait for an update. They manage to kill some time exchanging stories of high-profile cases they've solved over the years, but eventually, they decide to spend the afternoon recording some personal thoughts Kate wants written down. Castle's pen flies over the pages of a moleskin notebook as she speaks from somewhere deep inside, a lifetime of wounds open and bleeding freely. Now the two of them are recovering from the emotional release, standing side by side as they look out the window at the busy lives carrying on in the city below.
"Why haven't we heard anything from Ryan yet?" Beckett asks softly.
"Even with Gates pulling every possible string, which she's already agreed to do, they still need to be meticulous with this one. These cases – even yours – have been cold a long time, so while the tape broke it all wide open this morning, nobody is going to risk screwing it up by moving too fast."
"But there's time to build an even stronger case in preparation for the actual trial," she argues. "And with the miracle of Smith regaining consciousness this afternoon, they've got even more evidence coming. There's no reason they can't arrest Bracken now."
"And I'm sure they will." He pauses, shifting just enough to watch Kate's profile as she gazes at the bright sky. "Listen, I'm sorry about everything I said earlier. I know this has been harder on you than it could ever be for me. And as much as I want you to stay, I know you're ready to go. I want you to be able to go."
"No," she replies, shaking her head. "It will be harder for you because you're the one being left behind. It's always harder on the ones left behind. And I'm sorry, too." Her eyes brim with tears, but she doesn't let them fall, even as her voice shakes. "I just wish this were a book so someone could rewrite the ending."
This has been out of his hands from the very beginning and out of hers for longer than that. He hesitates before saying anything else, any confession meaningless in their faux reality; in the end, the words are all he has.
"In another version of the story, I think I could have loved you," Castle whispers.
"And with my mom's murder behind me, I think I could have loved you back."
It's late when the call finally comes, but Castle has just enough time to join Captain Gates and Detectives Ryan and Esposito at the end of a fundraiser being held by Senator William Bracken at a nearby hotel. Esposito's suspension has been at least temporarily lifted, and while Castle's position within the NYPD is a bit less certain, there is no denying his right to witness the arrest firsthand, Beckett's boys adamant that he be there.
Kate is there, too, the emotion in her eyes far too varied and raw to be interpreted by anyone wishing to give her the privacy she deserves. Castle keeps his distance and focuses on the triumphant takedown of a man whose arrogance is only marred by flashes of fear when he realizes what has happened, handcuffed in front of a once-supportive crowd and dozens of cameras. It's chaos once Bracken is in custody, Ryan and Espo off to handle the overwhelming responsibility they face and Castle jostled by a hundred people on their phones trying to share the excitement of a political scandal most have never seen up close.
By the time the hotel ballroom is mostly clear, Kate is nowhere to be found and Castle realizes he has no choice but to meet her back at his apartment instead; they'll have to say their goodbyes there.
It's only when he kicks his front door shut behind him that his body tingles with the sixth sense that failed him so terribly the night he first met Kate, his intuition heightened now and his chest left hollow. There's little reason to chase someone he knows isn't there, but he can't help it.
"Beckett?" he calls. "Kate?"
The responding silence is no surprise, but he doesn't give up, letting the sound of her name echo in each room before he returns to the living room window – her window – and looks toward the sky that has turned stunningly dark. It becomes difficult to swallow and there is nothing left to say, not tonight anyway, so he simply offers the slightest nod and a smile.
Maybe it's not the ending he would have written, but it's an ending just the same.
A/N: We're almost at the end and I am so grateful for all of you. The final chapter, an epilogue of sorts, will be posted this weekend.