Close Encounters 23
Mitchell came back and dumped two sleeping bags on the floor beside the interior wall, sank down, and fell asleep before Castle could ask him another word. The sudden burst of movement had collapsed into a suffocating silence and now Castle was alone on first watch.
He stood up from the red chair and moved to the windows, closing the half nearer to Kate and leaving open the ones on Mitchell's side of things. The man hadn't zipped up in the sleeping bag, but those insulated bags could still get hot.
Castle locked the two windows carefully, then moved to the doors in the center of the room and stepped out onto the balcony, gazing into the just-dawning sky. The fog still clung, but it seemed to be thinning, and Castle could see the buildings across the narrow alley. All brick, flat-faced, but with these same windows - decorative with complicated inside shutters, thick-paned glass.
It was a beautiful place, charming and old world, and Kate would love it. If she got a chance to see it. If she even got the opportunity to stand up and walk out onto the balcony under her own power, she would love to breathe this place in. Experience it.
But it wasn't home.
After six days of struggling and battling to keep her alive, they hadn't gotten even an inch closer to going home. Cologne was gorgeous, but John Black was in the next room and Mitchell was running himself ragged just to get them supplies and safety.
Castle kept making her these promises that he had no right to make her. I'll get you home, you're going to be fine. He was used to declaring martial law on the universe, and it always went exactly as he intended it to go, but lately the universe had begun to retaliate.
The universe didn't appreciate Castle dictating terms. The universe was going to fuck him over for years of dumb luck, altered genes, and optimistic bluster.
Well, too fucking bad, because Castle was taking this one too, claiming victory. He was demanding it. Kate Beckett would live, even if Castle had to brutalize the universe to get her home.
Stark and bleak as it was, he saw his deficiencies. He knew the man he was, what his father's program had carved out of him, these necessary but faulty pieces, but he couldn't do anything more than he was already doing.
He'd purged his grief last night, humiliating and awful as it had been. Every time Kate passed out from exhaustion on this trip, yeah, the grief bubbled up again. But he absolutely couldn't forget - not even for a moment - what they were to each other. Even if he wasn't the man he was supposed to be, he was the man she'd chosen. He was going to work fiercely to be worthy of it - of them.
Maybe he'd never be more than he'd been built to be. Maybe he couldn't be anything more than a broken machine. Fine. He could live with it so long as he had her. He didn't care; just call him a sentient machine and give him her. Give him Kate Beckett and he'd strive all of his damn life to be more, even knowing he was built to fail.
His father's program had crushed the humanity right out of him, but Kate had brought him life. Whatever life it was, it was something. And he wanted it.
Castle came in off the balcony and shut the French doors, locking them as he felt the last of the fog brush his skin. And then he turned and made for the lone bedroom, and a talk with his father.
Black was standing at the window of the bedroom - a window that was also a balcony - when Castle came inside.
Well, that wasn't entirely true. The window was just out of the reach of a chained Black, which held a wealth of symbolic significance, and Castle didn't doubt that Mitchell had done it on purpose. A look at freedom but no touch of it. Mitchell could be passive aggressive like that.
"Black," he said. His father didn't turn to him, but he definitely knew Castle was there. "You want to know what happens next or you want to be in the dark for the rest of our time here?"
Black's shoulders came up and then smoothly back down again. When he turned, his face was composed with more control and skill than Castle had previously seen - which only meant that Black could do it, and whatever lapses he'd had before had been for show.
Fine. Hunt had claimed that they had looked at him like a snake in the grass. But Hunt wasn't the snake. Here was their biggest deceiver. Here was the man who whispered lies into their ears and insinuated his agenda into their dreams.
"Well then, Richard. What is the rest of the plan? Since your plan has been so wildly successful."
"I don't even know what that's supposed to mean," Castle muttered, drawing a hand down his face. "I know you've talked to Kate. She's told me. Maybe not word-for-word, but you've made her our go-between. I'm here to tell you - that won't work."
"It is already working," Black smirked. He gave a little laugh after it, like he'd had no sleep and was plunging off the edge. It sounded somewhat staged, for effect.
Might be true, might not be. Castle wasn't going to take anything at face value. "I don't think you get the situation here."
"Richard, you're here, are you not? It's already working. I poke her, you come out like the proverbial bear. It never fails."
"So then we have this unfortunate detente, and you get to email my wife telling her she has to come to France for a meet of your choosing? You get the power to pull strings and make us dance? No. No, that's not how this goes."
"Oh, Richard. You have so much to learn," Black said, shaking his head. "She gets it. She understands this game far better than you do. It's mutually assured destruction. And it works. Here you are. Talking to me. Probably without even talking to her about it first. I fuck with her and you come fuck with me. Crass but true."
Castle's body flared violently with rage, but he was super, he was still riding high on the serum and the stabilizers working in concert, and it kept him cool. It dampened his emotional irrationality, and it kept him in control.
He stayed very still and he looked past his father to the window, to the fog burning off outside.
There was truth in these things. Poke the bear's wife and the bear comes out to deal - but that was exactly the reaction Black was going for. The only option would be to leave Kate to deal with Black alone, never coming out to meet him, and that wasn't - at all - a real option.
Castle coming when Black called her name was what kept Kate alive. If he didn't come, Black would remove the obstacle standing between him and his son - Kate Beckett.
But Castle could work that to his own advantage as well. He could.
He just needed to sit down and figure out a way, form a strategy, and that was something he usually did with Kate. So he'd keep cool for now, he'd chill the fuck out, and he'd come back with a battle plan when Kate was able.
Until then. "We stay here," Castle answered. "And you with us, just like this. If an emergency arises with Kate, you have enough length of chain to the door and you will be able to see into the living room to her. You'll advise me from that position. But I don't see needing you. Not now. She's recovering."
Castle studied his father's reaction, but he detected no trace of apprehension. He was very good, though, had been good since before Castle had been born. If Black didn't want Castle to know what he thought of the plan, he wouldn't know.
"We're keeping you for 'just in case'. You'll get food and water. You talk to Mitchell when you need something - neither I nor Kate will have contact with you unless I require it. When Kate can travel again, we leave you here. The apartment caretakers will be informed and they will have instructions to call the police and inform of your whereabouts within 48 hours of our leaving."
"Just like that," Black said, voice dripping with contempt. "You'd give me over, let the Collective-"
"Don't be stupid. You'll be given means to free yourself before those 48 hours are up, but should you not make that window of time... honestly, I don't really care."
"You should. What happens to me if Interpol takes custody? Interpol is inundated with Collective men."
"I don't know," Castle sighed. "You'll figure it out, I'm sure."
"Katherine won't-"
"What?" Castle insisted. "Kate won't what? Let me? Kate won't have the energy to protest. She's basically letting me do what I want right now because I'm fucking falling apart and she sees that if I can control something then it keeps me together. So I'll get to do what I want with you, especially if I give you a head's start. You know she's all about it being fair. It appeases her sense of justice."
Black stared, apparently taken aback. Like Black hadn't been his damned father for all these years, training Castle to be exactly this.
"If you can do it, if you can fuck around and play games," Castle hissed. "Then you - of all people - shouldn't be surprised that I can do it too. I learned manipulation from the master. So don't fuck with me - you'll find I'm fucking with you too."
Black's lips thinned. "A 48 hour head start while you two - three, I suppose, though four isn't out of the question either, knowing Hunt. Your merry band of thieves will sneak over the border or hop a plane or board a train and eventually go home. Is that it?"
"This isn't Dr Seuss," he mused. James had those books in his low shelf under the window, just beside the baby mirror. He liked to be read to at night, usually Hop on Pop or Go, Dog, Go; Castle wondered if Jim knew that. He couldn't remember if he'd told her father about those books, and it wasn't like James could ask for them.
"I don't understand your reference," Black intoned. "But you do realize you're leaving a trail a mile wide here. Diane Jolin - the shooting and kidnapping in the park. The stolen vehicles. The-"
"This is what you've left me with," he muttered. "It's been a clusterfuck from the beginning and it started with you."
"No. I always said leave no trace behind, Richard. There's a damn good reason for it. You want the Collective to follow you all the way home? To that cozy family scene?"
"Leave no trace behind meant killing witnesses and destroying damning evidence. Leave no trace meant never making an impact, never having relationships, never caring. Leave no trace meant no trace inside either - no human feeling, no sympathy, no conscience."
"There's a reason-"
"It's a bogus reason," he shouted. Immediately his training kicked in and he clenched his teeth, backed up, caught his breath. This wasn't the place or the time, and Kate was asleep in the living room and absolutely needed to stay that way. For as long as she could rest.
"It's this very reason right here," Black said softly. His voice was whisper quiet but that only demanded a keener attention; he was quite brilliant at manipulation. "This is the reason, Richard. Look at what you've done. You've been corrupted to your core, son. See the ripples it's had? See the effects? Your wife is dying, you've made your son motherless - and in doing that, also made him fatherless - because you won't be able to exorcise that woman even in death. You'll binge on vengeance, leave him without a father, all because your emotions have been allowed to rule."
At any point in his father's soft, quiet speech, he should have spoken up. He should have defended them, defended himself, negated those accusations.
But his throat was closed, the words weren't there.
Instead, Castle turned and left the room, shutting the door after him, and he stood alone in the middle of the living room, trying to breathe past the knot in his windpipe.
You've made your son motherless.
Kate watched Castle open the port and hook the IV line into her arm again. She thought she was imagining the burn when the fluid began to gradually snake its way into her veins, but that didn't mean it was pleasant either.
"You okay?" he murmured.
"I'm good," she got out. "Feels weird."
"This is a chelation day," he apologized.
"So let's get our plan straight before it knocks me out," she muttered, trying to sit up. "Help me to the chair?"
"Kate-"
"I'm tired of lying down. Just hook the IV bag on the floor lamp." She waved her free arm towards the darkened light and he sighed, but he did as she asked.
Mitchell cleared his throat and Kate glanced at him; he softly shook his head at her, a reminder that she needed to ease up. It stung.
Kate caught Castle's hand as he reached in to help her up, and his weary eyes came to meet hers. "Thank you," she said softly. "The chelation makes me restless. Feels like - things under my skin."
His face blanched - there was a moment of horror - and then he was in control again, shifting to help her to her feet. "I understand," he said. "But let me know when you get dizzy."
"I will," she promised. And she would.
Castle helped her to the red chair, even lifted her legs so that she could draw her feet up, prop her chin on knees. He stroked a hand through her hair in a thoughtless gesture of love, and she turned, caught his palm with a kiss.
He smiled back and sank down to the bed she'd just escaped. Mitch came in and sat beside him, a little distance, both of them on the edge of the mattress.
"So what's the plan?" she said, starting things off. She had to push her hair back behind her ear again, the short locks skimming her neck and falling into her face with her head at this angle. She couldn't make it stay; she had to give up.
"The plan is to wait here for the chelation and Threkeld's concoction to do its job," Castle began. "Mitochondria byproducts."
She blinked. "What?"
His lips quirked. "That's what they call it. Mitochondria byproducts in the blood do the repairing of damage and cleaning up of the regimen's - uh, well, Logan kind of made it sound like waste."
"Waste?" she muttered, wrinkling her nose. "The regimen's waste."
"Yeah," he sighed. "Threkeld said it was like a new class of immunization. It's like making antibodies in one person and giving them to another, bypassing your immune system entirely. Never even turning it on."
Kate could somewhat understand, in theory, what it was. When they got home, she'd sit down with Threkeld and have him make her understand. It sounded rather a lot like magic, which was ridiculous. It was just science that had - for a while now - gone over their heads. They had to get a handle on it.
"Black is the one who is up on all this," she said finally. "He's had decades, Castle."
"You've said that."
"It's obvious that there are things he hasn't even begun to tell us. This chelation therapy - advanced therapy, with dialysis thrown in for good measure. Whatever it is, he used it twenty years ago on those guys who served with you."
"They weren't with me. They were-" Castle stopped, regret swimming up in his eyes and then drowning. Coonan. She knew, they both knew. But there was nothing to be done.
"Castle," she sighed.
He shook his head. "Well. Anyway. Black told me that Coonan was the only one to survive. And that - scared the shit out of me, leaving your life to that, still scares me. So I went to Threkeld and Boyd and Logan and I told them to do whatever it took to get me - get you - an alternate solution. And this was it."
"I'm not second-guessing you," she said softly. "It's not like that reassures me either. Coonan became a contract killer, Castle, and he - you know what he did." She took a deep breath and struggled to keep her head up. "I'm only trying to say that Black has had a huge head start on us. Huge. Decades of work. And all of it centered around making you the best you could be."
Castle rubbed a hand over his jaw, stubbled with growth so that his face seemed shadowed. "I know. You're always arguing to let him live. Well, you were right. Is that what you want to hear? If he hadn't been here, you'd have been dead."
Goose bumps raced across her arms. She glanced to Mitch but he was being carefully quiet. "I guess, more than that, Rick, what I'm saying is I think - I think we should unchain him."
Mitchell gaped at her.
She expected Castle to absolutely lose it, but instead he just seemed to shrink. His shoulders hunched, his elbows came to his knees and he stared at the ground, breathing hard.
"It's all a matter of perception, Castle," she said quickly. "He has to think I'm on his side. That I've got a measure of control over you - even to the point that I'd convince you to let him have some freedom."
Castle pressed his thumb and forefinger into his closed eyes, still silent.
"That's the very last thing he'd expect you to do willingly," she went on. "He thinks he can drive a wedge between us, using me to get to you. But we know better, Castle. Don't we? We know better. I don't control-"
Castle laughed, his head coming up. "Babe, you do control me. Look at us. I want you in this damn bed, not sitting up in a chair. And I'm actually considering letting the damn man go free. Fucking hell, you're too weak to stand up, and yet somehow you do exactly what you want."
She flinched.
Castle sighed. "That's not how I meant it, Kate."
She shifted her eyes to the windows, the raining sky beyond. "I'm not looking to control you."
"It's just love," he muttered. "It's not - not like that. But you know what he said in there? That you knew how to play this game. And fuck, he's right. You really do."
"Is that a bad thing?" she asked, her chest aching.
"I don't know," he answered. "It's keeping us alive, though. So - what's the game plan, Kate? You tell me. Tell us - me and Mitch will do whatever it is you think we ought to do. Within some reason."
She swallowed, not sure she wanted carte blanche on this. "If it - if it looks like I can control you, if he sees that you're willing to go against your better judgment just because I said so, then that - that keeps me safe."
Castle blinked. "Safe? With him loose, Kate, you're not safe."
"But I am. Protected by the very fact that I can - summon you up."
Castle rubbed the top of his head, hand scraping roughly through his hair.
Mitchell spoke up. "You're not actually thinking about doing that, are you?" He turned to Castle, completely ignoring her. "Castle. Don't be a fucking idiot. You let him loose and you are asking to be knifed in your bed."
"No," Castle said and Kate answered, "He wouldn't."
Their eyes met. They knew Castle was safe. But maybe not Mitchell. Mitchell would be an inconvenient obstacle.
"He should leave," she whispered, her heart already fluttering like a scared bird. She had to clench her fists against the look on Castle's face. The desolation.
"Mitch. She's right. You have to leave us," Castle said finally. "You wouldn't be safe. I can't guarantee your life once we let him go. But Kate and I - she's right. She's actually safer if he thinks he can get to me with her."
"No," Mitchell hissed. "I am not leaving."
"You can stay in Cologne, but not here in the apartment. Let him think you're gone completely. We'll make it sound like it's Kate's idea, like she sent you away because you're so antagonistic or something."
"She is sending me away. I am fucking antagonistic."
Kate felt the smile threatening despite Mitchell's fury, buried it against her knees. She knew Castle would deal with this, make Mitchell see how this worked. Black was not to be trusted, but the one thing she knew - he was obsessed with Castle. Castle was safe, though Black wouldn't hesitate to kidnap him if he could.
She thought, though, that Black had learned his lesson about that. Castle couldn't be separated from her, and Black had seen that up close and personal with Kate's failing health, with her almost dying. So his attention had turned to her, completely and without mercy, and that would keep her safe.
Mostly safe. She couldn't be certain, but they had some assurance that the more they made it look like Kate was the one in charge here, the more Black needed her.
She couldn't forget. Black had saved her life. Was saving her life - even still. Black thought he needed her alive to win out in the end, as crazy as that sounded.
And yes, they had the added gift from Threkeld, but Black didn't know that. Black thought he was their only resource.
Give Black some freedom to move, give him some of that status he craved when it came to Castle, and she had an idea that they could predict him. It would be safer, in the end, for all of them if Black thought things were going his way.
Don't back him into a corner. That was the game plan. Just don't back him into a corner, don't create a situation that forced Black to use deadly force to escape.
Like being chained in the room next door, dismissed and degraded by his own son.
The fight they orchestrated in the living room was loud and not entirely untrue; it ended with Castle 'forcing' Mitchell to the door and ordering him home.
He knew Black had been listening.
Kate had been too, and she gave him a deeply disturbed look when he came to her at the chair. Did we do the right thing?
He had no idea anymore.
Castle scooped her up into his arms, ignoring her movements towards standing on her own, and he carried her to the bed again. When she settled into it, she didn't make a noise of complaint, merely lowered her head to the pillow and closed her eyes.
She looked so brittle. The chelation did that to her, though it was supposedly for the good. He'd done a lot of research in those cold, dark hours when they'd first started this, and it seemed legitimate, but seeing her sucked dry by the infusions made him question it.
Doubt. He was plagued by doubts. He didn't have any answers.
"Go," she murmured. Eyes were still closed, but she flicked a finger over his wrist in encouragement.
Castle leaned in over her and kissed her temple. "Sleep. You sleep, Kate. I'll do the rest."
Her body seemed to sink into the mattress, so he stood, headed for the bedroom. He had to detour to the kitchen to scoop up the keys to the chain, and he took those to the door. When he opened up the bedroom, Black was standing close to the window.
Castle ignored him, moved instead to the radiator where the chain was locked. He kept his body perpendicular to his father so he could still see the man, and then he dropped one knee and fit the key into the lock.
"What are you doing?" Black said in a low voice.
"What does it look like?" he snarled. It was a show, but it also wasn't. He was sick with it, but Kate was right - only way to truly be safe with this man. Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer. Exactly what they were doing.
"You're unlocking the cuffs?" Black said, suspicion in his voice. "And I heard you throw out Mitchell."
"Mitchell wanted to fucking slit your throat," Castle growled. "And I just might do it anyway if you don't shut the hell up."
Black eyed him.
Castle turned the key and the attached padlock popped open, freeing the chain. Black didn't move, and Castle unthreaded the chain from the radiator, realizing how lucky they were. There were signs of tampering on the radiator, places where it looked like Black had been going at it. His father could have done real damage in here, with access to the radiator, could have worked a connection free and angled a pipe with all its steam, could have funneled water to a light switch-
But instead of sabotage, they were redirecting Black's energies to this new development.
Kate was right. Kate was usually right when it came to playing Black's twisted game.
Castle stood up and came to his father, yanked the chain out from between the links of the handcuffs. "And no. I'm not unlocking the cuffs. Not yet. This is a conditioned release. You do well - you act smart - then you get the cuffs removed. Kate - she's the only one I'd do this for, you understand me?"
Black didn't answer, only stared at him.
Unchained. Step one. Now for step two. "The chelation makes her - it's not good. I don't think it's working. It's just making her worse."
Black's face cleared, that ah, now I understand look in his eyes. "I see."
"You need to check her blood," he said. "You need to make damn sure this is doing the job, because it looks like it's fucking killing her."
Black nodded. "I will. Take a sample; we'll look at it. We'll do that right now, Richard."
Castle turned his back on his father and heard the man following him out the door. It made the hairs rise on the back of his neck, but so far the plan was working exactly as Kate had said it would.
Cooperation from Black. Make him see what he wants to see.
He hoped to hell this worked.