Close Encounters 23

"She tell you what happened last night?" Mitch said quietly.

She was asleep at his side, had been all morning, like only now could she fully rest, now that he had back-up in Mitch. They spoke quietly, but Castle kept glancing down at her to make sure. Make sure she was still asleep, make sure she was still breathing, make sure he hadn't lost her while he hadn't been looking.

"What happened was more of the usual. He twists things around to make people believe the worst." Castle tried to shrug like it was nothing, but he felt his jaw working, tense. "Though what he said isn't completely untrue. Something happens to her and I'm - shit."

Mitch nodded. "We all know that." He was unpacking the bag he'd brought with him, risked his neck to bring them. "Here's the pills, and another injection from Boyd for you. Modified, this one, to pull out some of the addictive agents that Black's version brings. And, most importantly, these are for her."

Mitchell held up a silver case, laid it on the bed. Castle didn't move from his spot as Kate's human pillow - she had bruises down her back and he wasn't going to shift her off of him - but he wanted to snatch up that case and cling to it.

"Open it?" he asked his friend.

Mitchell leaned forward, unsnapped the two latches. Four vials were nestled in the foam. Precious stuff, that cargo, and Castle had been counting on Mitch arriving with it. He hadn't breathed a word to Kate, not sure how she'd feel about it.

"Did they say when she should-"

"First one as soon as she starts taking food."

"She had bananas and pudding - soft foods today."

Mitchell nodded. "Yeah, so you should give her the first one. And then a vial through the IV each day after chelation. Not too close together though. Logan said give a healthy space of 12 hours on either side."

So every other day. Castle leaned slightly forward, barely disrupting Kate's sleep. He tugged the little clear vial from the foam, wrapped his fingers around it. "They tell you what it is, what's in here?"

"James's immunities," Mitchell answered quietly. "From the blood they drew."

Castle let out a long breath and nodded. Threkeld's idea, and cautiously broached via Logan. But Castle would do anything - short of draining the kid, of course. It had been more than a pinprick though, more than just a little blood taken.

"You tell her that you took her kid's-"

"No," he said sharply, eyes snapping to Mitchell. "And don't you dare say it like that either. Not to her. I know what I did. If it works, I don't care."

"I saw him," Mitchell said quietly. "I held him before I left. And Jim's good; he was glad to see me, and I told him I was coming to pick you guys up. He's worried. I did my best on that front."

"Thank you." Castle eased out from under Kate, the vial in his hand and warm now. He had to diffuse this in a bag of saline, hook her up to the IV. But his chest was tight and when he was finally on his feet, he glanced to Mitch. "You held him?"

"Yeah. He stuck his fist in his mouth and blew spit bubbles at me. He was talking too - chatty little sounds. I guess no real words."

"Yeah," Castle roughed, nodding briskly to keep it down. He felt old, hearing about his son but nowhere near that place.

He took a sterile needle from the first aid kit and a bag of saline they'd mixed themselves, and he drew the precious solution out of the rubber-topped vial. When it was in the bag, Castle hung it over the headboard and inserted the line into the port, started the IV.

His heart was racing, but it was hope. He hoped this was one more weapon in their arsenal, and something his father had no control over whatsoever. If it worked, he wouldn't have to rely so heavily on Black's being willing to do the right thing.

James was a closed loop, they'd said, James's systems had worked to correct the deficiencies on their own.

It might help Kate. It might. It couldn't hurt her either, which was lightyears better than the chelation treatments.

Mitchell patted his shoulder. "This will do it. She looks good, man. She looks better than I expected; she's hanging in there. This will be the one good shove she needs to climb out of the hole and then we'll get you back home in no time."

Castle turned to his friend. "Thank you for coming. Thank you for doing this."

"Any - and every - time," Mitch said seriously. Then his smile slipped across his face. "Though I did it for her. She's the hot one."

Kate woke pissed off. So very angry that her blood rushed under her skin and her face felt like it was lit up. She struggled to get straight, fighting off a heaviness that she only then realized was Castle.

She shoved on him and he grunted, withdrew his arm. "You okay? You need something?"

"No," she said. "I want up. Let me sit up, Castle."

"Okay, okay," he mumbled. The room was dim but the light was trying to break in around the cracks in the shades. She was weak, and unable to push herself up, but Castle helped her, propped the pillows at her back, unwound his limbs from hers.

She sat there, breathing hard, but so angry. Probably some damn dream, but it clung to her still. She was done with being broken, done with being jerked around by Black. "I'm furious," she spat out.

Castle recoiled, but she grabbed his forearm.

"Not you. I'm - fuck. I'm really fucking pissed off at him. He's an asshole and he's using me to get to you and that's not - why are you laughing?"

His mouth snapped shut, but his eyes were still roaming over her face with amusement. "No. Not laughing, Kate. Not at all."

"It's not funny."

"It's not," he said, but his intonation was all wrong. His face broke into a smile. "You feel better?"

"No, I feel fucking angry." She glared back at him, not at all pleased with his condescension. "I'm weak as a damn kitten, as you like to say, and he's using me to hurt you, to control you, and that is the last fucking thing in the whole world that I-"

He kissed her, and she was so startled that she swallowed her breath, his tongue sliding quick and full along her bottom lip and back out again.

She blinked, he grinned, and his hands dropped.

"Hey," he said. "Guess what?"

"What?" she whispered, her whole body in a riot.

"He can't use you to control me. Not as much anyway. Mitchell brought something for you from Threkeld and I put it in your IV and I think it's working."

She stared at him.

"Don't be mad," he said belatedly, his face falling. "Don't be angry, Kate, I-"

"I'm not-" She was. "Not mad," she lied. "Not mad. What did you do to me?"

"An infusion. This one has some antibodies in it," he answered. He was smiling, but it was so very hesitant now. That she could read the subtleties on his face made her aware of just how much better she actually was.

"And?" she prompted.

"It's... derivative," he hedged. His eyebrows knitted together and he picked up her hand, thumbs drawing in the cup of her palm. "It's from James."

Her heart flipped. "What's from James?"

"The infusion. It's - like the reverse of breastfeeding, I guess, in some way. Threkled had this idea that if they could replicate his system's immunities, it would contain the repair agents that have kept him..." Castle trailed off, closed his mouth.

Alive. Was that it? Whatever kept him alive despite their mishandling of the whole thing, despite how desperately inadequate she'd been for him.

Her chest ached.

"Don't look at me like that," he husked. "It's okay. He's okay. I'm sorry but you didn't want to talk about-"

"No, I-" Kate shook her head slowly, hanging on to his forearm. "It's not that. I'm just - blindsided. A little. I didn't expect..." She trailed off, silence thick and fraught with meaning between them.

"But it looks like it's working," he said, a question in his voice.

She did feel - not better exactly - but different. "That's what Mitchell brought with him?"

"That and some stabilizers. I - uh - asked Black to inject me with the serum. The usual. Which I haven't had in about a year. So Mitchell brought the pills with him."

She took a breath and smoothed her thumb along the hair over his forearm. It scared her a little, all the decisions Castle had made just to keep her alive, impetus, impulsive, and while she trusted him to the death, of course she did, he was gambling with his own health by doing it.

"Are you upset with me?" he murmured. "It wasn't a lot, Kate. They drew blood only twice, and your dad told Mitchell that he only cried at first."

She lifted her head. "I'm not upset with you. I'm - upset, but not you. You're only doing what you have to. I... that's something I understand, and after Tunisia, I can hardly hold it against you."

"But."

"But I'm - I'm furious with this whole thing," she bit out. "It's my own damn fault, not paying attention, and I knew better. Holy shit, did I know better. But what - I thought it couldn't affect me? I thought it couldn't hurt me? I knew better."

For a moment, Castle didn't answer, and she knew it was only because she was trying to frame his response exactly right. She waited, because she was a powerful kind of angry, but it was all pointless. There was no where to put it, and being pissed that John Black had once again gotten to her didn't help either.

"We make mistakes," Castle started. "We both do. We're doing this for the first time, all of it, and just like we cut ourselves some slack with the parenting, we cut ourselves some slack with the regimen. It happened, it's a learning curve. And now we know, Kate."

She didn't like that either. "The learning curve on this is too steep for mistakes. There's such a slim margin for error - there's no margin for error, and I did this to myself."

"You had help. I was the one who got you pregnant; it was my idea, hey, let's have a kid despite the fact that we're spies and life is completely unstable for us. Let's do something impossible, let's fuck with the universe and see if it doesn't fuck us-"

"Please don't," she said tightly. She drew in a narrow breath, avoided his eyes, avoided the bitterness she heard in his voice. "Don't. I can't - can't do this if you regret us-"

"I don't regret us."

She shot him a glare. "Then what? What, Castle? You regret our son?"

His face washed flat and he turned his head.

She was going to be sick. She needed to get out of here. She couldn't-

"What are you-" he started, but she was shoving past him, pushing past him for the bathroom. He barked out a harsh Kate but she was already on her feet and rushing to the toilet. She wasn't going to make it. Oh God, she wasn't going to make it.

She hit her knees at the tiled threshold and crawled to the bowl, vomiting so hard that she collapsed against the porcelain. Castle was right after her, holding her up, trying to get a handful of her hair off her cheeks, and she threw up again, choking on it, tears streaking her cheeks.

She felt him at her back, his arm around her to give her the leverage, and she threw up once more, gagging as the stomach acid burned her throat. Her cheek fell to the rim and she closed her eyes, gasping, trying to catch her breath through tears.

After a moment, she realized Castle was babbling into her neck, his body pressed so close he might as well be skin to skin. He was whispering, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I don't regret him, I don't, I love him."

She fell asleep hunched over the toilet. He hadn't realized all the ways his heart could be shredded inside his chest until this day. He washed the sweat off her face and carried her back to the bed.

Mitchell was waiting on him, and he wordlessly pulled the covers down on the bed and helped him get Kate settled. Castle gripped the sheet and put a fist into the mattress, glanced up at Mitch.

His voice was rough when it came. "I gotta check the - uh - catheter, where it's - it might have come out after that and I don't want to... It might take a while."

Mitchell gave him a nod and went to the door, left them alone. Castle took a shaky breath and skimmed the t-shirt up Kate's thighs, gingerly exploring the skin around the indwelling catheter. It'd been dislodged, he could tell, which only told on his skill at inserting one. The balloon had half-collapsed under the pressure of her heaving stomach, and so he figured it was time to remove it.

It was clear she could walk, though that had been a rather violent way to prove it. She'd said she felt good enough to have it out, so they'd see how well it went.

He washed his hands first, made sure he got under his fingernails and the dry, cracked places at his knuckles. He went back to Kate in the bed and opened a few packages, and then he untaped the bag from where it lay on her inside thigh. Then Castle used an alcohol wipe to clean the connection between the drainage tube and catheter, concentrating to keep his hands steady and his mind off the last few minutes' horror.

No, no. He wasn't thinking about it.

He'd made her sick. He had-

Castle growled and pulled out a 30cc catheter tip syringe from the package and put it to the bright red balloon port. He slowly pulled back on the plunger, drawing fluid into the syringe until nothing was left.

Gently, trying not to wake her for this, he pulled the Foley cath from her bladder.

Kate didn't even stir.

Castle let out a breath, realized his hands were shaking and sweat had run into his eyebrows. He wrapped everything in the plastic bag from the first aid kit and dumped it in the trash, then came back to her and checked, just to be sure.

She was fine. It was fine. He pulled the sheets up over her again and left her alone, moving back to the bathroom to clean up. Castle washed his hands again and ran cool water over his face, then leaned hard against the sink as it caught up to him.

Did he regret their son?

He wished, desperately, that it hadn't come to this. To killing her. If he'd had it to do over again, he... wouldn't. He wouldn't do it.

No wonder she'd looked at him like that.

Saliva pooled in his mouth and he harshly swallowed it down.

It was starkly clear now. As a father, he just - he didn't have the pieces necessary, he was missing some crucial coding; he was a broken machine. As a father, he was no better than John Black.

Maybe he'd never be more than he'd been built to be.

Maybe he was fooling himself, and worse, killing her doing it.

Mitchell was waiting outside door. He took one look at Castle and swore, jerking forward.

"I'm fine. It's fine," he croaked. "I just - gotta get her out of here."

"She's okay?"

"She's asleep. I think the new stuff is helping, but what the fuck do I know?" he said wearily. "Could be the chelation. She threw up a few times, but her system has been through hell, and Black mentioned it was a possibility. Plus, I'm an asshole and I don't know. Fuck. I don't know."

Mitchell straightened up. "Hunt is getting a few things we need for the border crossing. She can sit up?"

"Yeah," Castle said. "At the moment, yeah. Don't know how long that will last."

"I had a conversation with Black. I thought about running a play on him, but he invented the fucking book, so I didn't. I just told him, straight up, that he was with us to Cologne and then after that, we parted ways."

Castle nodded, realized after a moment that Mitchell was pale and lean, that hungry look of a man on the run. How much sleep had Mitch gotten last night on the damn floor? And then guard duty after that. Castle hadn't been paying attention and Mitch had been cut deep.

"You said barbed wire," he noted. "Last night I wasn't looking too closely, but now I'm thinking..."

Mitch shrugged.

"You got a knife wound," Castle said quietly. "And what else, Mitch? What did you hide?"

"Shallow stuff, Castle. I owe you, and this is how I repay a long list of debts. I owe her, you know. For Russia. That I don't think I'll ever pay off. So let me do my thing, trust me to know."

"I can't have you fall."

"I won't," Mitch said. And suddenly the man was clapping a heavy hand on Castle's shoulder. If he weren't super, his knees might have buckled. "And you, brother. You can't fall either. You hear me? So I want you to go back inside that room and lie down, get in bed with your wife and know I got you covered."

"How much sleep did you get?" Castle said instead, frowning at Mitch.

"Enough. You were up every two hours checking to see if she was breathing, man. I saw you."

"Which means you were awake too."

"Means you woke me, asshole. Go back in there. Hunt and I have got this; we're getting everything ready. All you'll have to do is carry her downstairs in about - eight hours. Got me?"

"Eight hours," Castle repeated. He wanted to - he'd needed to do something, work with his hands, accomplish something positive after all this twisted up shit, but now Mitchell was taking that away from him.

"Eight hours. Go get some sleep. Or just fucking - I don't know - fucking hold her, man. Until you get that kicked-puppy look off your face."

Castle shook his head, but his shoulders were hunched up, his body so damn tense that he was practically vibrating. He had wanted to fucking throw things, wanted to get in a nasty dirty fight, and he'd been settling for doing something to get them out of here, but now-

Now he wanted to crawl into bed with his wife and hold her, as if holding her would erase all of this sick, terrible grief.

He wanted to beg forgiveness but he wasn't sure he deserved it.

"Go," Mitchell said, punching his arm. "Just go. You're bringing me down."

So Castle turned back around and went into their room once more, even as he felt himself coming completely undone.

She woke suddenly, thinking earthquake, but heard him rasping somewhere close, "No, go back to sleep. Sorry, go back to sleep."

Her eyes flared open and she saw Castle sitting up in bed with her, and the mattress was shaking, little hitching movements and she was confused, because they should-

Oh, God, he was crying.

Kate shifted to her side and drew a knee up, managed to drag her wrung out body up along his hip and into his lap. He huffed, a choked noise, and caught her, fingers wet from where he'd been trying to swipe at tears.

"Castle," she whispered, drew an arm around his neck.

"You should - should lie down," he rasped.

"Castle," she murmured, closing her eyes and pressing her face into his shirt, taking a shaky breath. She'd broken him somehow, and she hadn't meant to, but she knew what it felt like, grief just swallowing up everything, blotting out the sky.

"Have eight hours," he muttered. "Lie down."

She completely ignored him, shifted against his side until she realized that the catheter and the bag were out. She felt curiously lighter for it, and at the same time she was horrified - it meant Castle had been the one to take it out.

Damn. Completely not sexy. She was so far down from sexy that it was pretty pathetic of her to even try to hold things back from him. She'd just passed out from vomiting, hadn't she?

But she'd broken him doing it. And there'd been some kind of conversation about James and she'd just been pushing hard to keep it out of her head, keep it from settling heavy over her heart, and she might have pushed him instead, too hard, hurt him somehow.

He was crying in bed with her. His head tilted back against the headboard and he was gulping it down. She could feel the work of his throat against her arm where she clung to him.

His fingers splayed at her back, his palm rose up her spine and seemed to hesitate before smoothing back down. She didn't know what to say; it was cruel to make promises. She'd felt better earlier but now she was dragged down again and she didn't have assurances for him.

His arm pulled her a little tighter and then released suddenly, as if he'd only then realized what he was doing. She nudged her nose down into the ridge of his collarbone, getting comfortable, trying to be of comfort. Her knee was pressed to his hip; it felt awkward and yet so good like this.

His fingers stroked slowly at her spine, and she realized what was missing.

"Play with my hair?" she murmured, wriggling down against him. "It's short, I know, but-"

"Yeah," he rasped, which wasn't really an answer. But he shifted his arm to brace her back and his fingers pushed into the hair at her nape, immediately warm and weighting her.

She sighed and slowly, slowly, Castle scratched at her scalp and combed his fingers down through her hair.

She kept her mouth shut now, her eyes closed, though she knew he could hear her - feel her really - the hum of pleasure building in her chest with every breath.

Castle wrapped a strand around his finger, curling it tighter and tighter before letting it spring free. His thumb touched that spot behind her ear that made her melt, and then he found his rhythm, soothing her with the stroke of his hand through her hair.

She was awake at the end, when their time ran out. He didn't want to move; he wanted to stay right here in the darkness, his hand cradling the back of her head and his fingers in her hair.

"Eight hours," she murmured, reminding him, forcing him to act.

"Time to go," he admitted.

There was a brief knuckle-knock at the door and Kate was the one who called out. "Come in."

Mitchell opened the door. Castle sighed and leaned over, flipped the bedside lamp on, a pool of warm light. Mitch didn't say anything, just nodded, and Kate shifted to her knees first, and then back onto her heels, blinking like a night animal caught out in the light.

"You good?" he asked her.

"Good. Feel good. I could walk."

"No," he said immediately.

"Give me a shot, Castle, and if it doesn't work out, then you get to be the hero. Okay?"

Some of his shaky confidence crumbled, but she crawled into him, hovering on her hands and knees in a position that made him blush, a quick glance to Mitch still standing in the doorway. Kate touched her lips to his cheek and he was having trouble breathing.

"I can do it, and showing you I can do it is what you need. So let me walk to the car, easy, slow, my own speed, and you'll feel better for it." Another kiss, this time on the other cheek. "But you can help me get dressed." This time her lips glanced the top of his eye and when he closed them reflexively, she pressed her mouth to his eyelid. "I'm giving Mitch a show, Castle. So get going."

He choked on a laugh, eyes popping open to look at her, but Mitchell was actually getting something, though the t-shirt was long - one of his - and she didn't seem to care all that much. Sickness did that, destroyed privacy until it was nothing.

Castle leaned forward and drew his arm around her ass, toppled her down against him while glaring at Mitch. "Give us ten minutes to get dressed and packed."

"We're already packed," Kate said at his ear, turning in bed to curl at his side. "Mitch came in while you slept. I pointed things out imperiously and demanded the utmost care-"

"Yeah, you're packed," Mitch interrupted, shaking his head and chuckling. "And Queen Beckett didn't do all that. I'll give you five to get dressed, and be back up here to guide you down."

Castle opened his mouth to say guide where? but Mitchell was already leaving them and shutting the door. He narrowed his eyes at his wife and she only smiled serenely.

"Already packed, huh?"

"I think you were very tired, love." Her lips dusted his jaw and she slid over, just to the edge of the bed. "Now help me. I don't want to wear myself out just trying to wrestle on some panties."

Shit, Mitchell had probably gotten a show. He'd forgotten she wasn't wearing any underwear.

She was dressed, she was moderately-still-freshly showered, she was walking under her own power down a midnight-shrouded corridor to the servant stairs. With only Castle's hand around her upper arm for support.

She was pretty damn proud of herself, but she in no way let it go to her head. She was still weak from days of chelation and dialysis and no solid food, and she knew she had this tendency to vault herself into untenable physical situations, but Castle.

Castle.

Watchword for the week, month, year. For the rest of their lives. Castle. She had to consider him, she had to. And he'd told her that, time and again, most recently, most brutally in Tunisia, and she had heard but she had also said to herself, he doesn't know what I've been through.

But he did. He knew now, and as terrible as that was, to have the intimate knowledge of your partner's death - breathing and sleeping and waking with you - it put them on equal footing again. He knew the darkness of his own grief, and she knew hers, and now it was mirrored when their eyes met.

They knew. They knew what it did to them. How very bad, and that wasn't even close to putting words to what it was to sit watch over the bedside and know death was laying hands on the only thing that mattered.

She'd told herself, he has James now, he has our son and that's enough. But it wasn't. It wasn't for her, so why had she thought it would be for him? Because he was different, because things didn't stick to him like they did her. That was unfair of her, and condescending, haughty, to say that her love was more than his.

So she took her damn time down the hallway. She was slow. Slow as Christmas her mother used to say. Yes. Slow, steady. She let Castle be a little obnoxious with his help, and they made it to the stairs.

For a second, she hesitated. Eyed the narrow, steep stairs cut into stone and the darkness as it plunged down in a spiral. Mitchell waited with them, waited on her.

Castle was holding his breath.

"Carry me down?" she said, turning her head to him. "And let me walk once we get to the bottom. If you can manage it."

"I can manage," he huffed. But there was a relief tinging the edges of his words. "I'll carry you."

Castle bent and had his arm under her knees before she knew it was coming; she clutched his neck, along for the ride, dizzy at the sudden change in position. She had to lean her cheek against the top of his shoulder, close her eyes.

"Mitch," Castle murmured. She felt his arms flex around her and then the drop to the first step. Her feet brushed the center stone column around which the stairs spiraled, and Castle kept adjusting to avoid the walls.

She opened her eyes after a moment and saw the back of Mitchell's head before them, the blue beam of his cell phone light playing over the next few steps before extinguishing.

Good idea, to be carried. She'd have been miserable going down these steps, trying to memorize the layout like a good spy so that they wouldn't have to use the light. And balance. Hers was in and out, and she'd have most likely brought them all falling down with her.

Castle wasn't even breathing hard. "You good?" he murmured softly, right at her ear. She nodded, but her arms were getting weak, tired from holding on to him.

"You won't drop me," she said, and it wasn't a question, maybe just a warning. She slid her arms down and pressed one palm to his chest, the other to his back, clenching a fist in his t-shirt.

"I will never drop you," he said.

She knew that. Her bones ached in their joints with each thud of his foot down the stairs, despite how graceful, leonine he was as he descended. Her head was pounding.

At the bottom, the light went on for a half a second and then out again and she realized she hadn't seen anything at all.

Castle moved to put her down.

"No," she said, a tightness in her chest. "I can't."

He let out an explosive little breath, pressed his mouth to the top of her head. "Thank you," he whispered.

Well, shit, that felt awful. He was grateful that she was being honest. Like he hadn't believed she would be, or hadn't believed that she would know when to stop.

He didn't put her down, didn't even pause, just followed Mitch down through the darkness of a hallway he knew and she couldn't see, and she trusted him because he was Castle.

She wished he could trust her.