A/N: I love New York but I know Manhattan only a little, so if the geography is off just go with it – Castle is filmed in LA at the end of the day. I hope this is what you've all been waiting for, and if it is – tell me. Also, I know this took me an age to write – but on the upside this chapter is frakkin huge. And no this is not the last one - still a ways to go to wrap it all up nice and neatly.
Chapter Thirty: And tonight, you won't need your wings to fly.
Present day.
Kate steps out of her cruiser in the fading late afternoon sunlight. A cold wind blows across the back of her shoulders, ruffling her hair around her angelic face and it catches in her fingers as she moves to tuck it behind her ears. Summer is coming, she can feel it – but the end of the June day has suddenly turned a little chilly and the brunette detective shivers slightly, her autumn eyes dancing around her as she takes in what maybe the roughest area of the upper east side. Since her mother's murder she's never been able to feel anything but a growing dislike for this part of town and Slaughter getting gunned down here certainly isn't helping any.
"Where-"she begins, before Esposito anticipates her question, nodding his head to the right of her he indicates an alley on the eastern edge of Rucker Park.
"According to the incident reports, the area where it all happened is down over there," he says, leading the way. Kate and Ryan fall in behind and follow him.
The alley is unremarkable, but as the three partners begin to make their way down it – towards a slew of abandoned warehouses at the Harlem River end – a strange feeling makes its way slowly and almost purposefully down the line of Beckett's spine.
She tries to place the feeling, but can't decide in the moment what the hell the sensation is, or why it feels almost familiar to her. But the longer it persists the more she realizes - it feels like she's being watched, like she's being . . . stared at.
And it's creepy.
Oh God.
Nervously her eyes begin to scan the windows set high into the brick walls on either side of them. Walls that seem to suddenly rise up further as they encroach on them and Kate mentally shakes herself – there's nothing and no-one there – she tells herself sternly. This place is just rundown and eerie, that's all. And besides, no-one knew they were coming.
But for a moment it almost felt like . . .
Her shoulders tense and she has to stop in her tracks and pause while she takes a deep breath, it helps but her pulse is racing, so she quickens her pace in order to flank Ryan once again.
Crazy, she berates herself. Plain crazy. She's being ridiculous over nothing.
Esposito has stopped at the far end of the alley where the space dead ends at a chain link fence that separates them from deserted train tracks along the water on the far side. He pulls his cell phone from his jacket pocket, double checks on the address they're looking for, before he turns to Kate.
"This one," he says – pointing to an almost derelict structure, its windows are all blown out and a faded sign with its paint peeling off in layers proclaims the place, 'Reynolds Self Storage'.
It's a depressing place to die, but a fittingly cliché venue for a shootout between rival drug-gangs. Kate can picture it all already. She steps closer to the building, planning on checking out the inside but Ryan's hand closes tight around her right elbow and he pulls her back.
"What?" she murmurs to him.
Uneasy blue eyes meet hers.
"Nothing . . . everything," he whispers back. "Look, this place is creepy if you must know, and I guess I'm just trying to understand what exactly it is that you're hoping to find with this Beckett. I mean all evidence from that day is long gone . . . "
She nods. "I know. But I still need to see it Kev, if I'm going to be able to picture it. Where was Slaughter standing when Valez shot him? Where Valez was hiding in wait? Could he have been seen by anyone in that location? Because the Cazadores and the Westies were lured here every bit as much as Detective Slaughter was. Valez set them against each other to hide his own crime – so is there any chance that he could have been seen? I mean, I'm just trying to form a complete picture here."
Ryan smiles releasing her arm, "Okay," he replies.
"None of us cared," she states suddenly, passionately. "A cop died in a hail of gunfire and because he was so disliked his death got put in a box and left there. And we have to put that right, and not just for Castle guys – we have to put that right period, and that starts here. It starts by us figuring out all the mechanics of how that day really went down. What the picture looked like, what the real story was that day."
Her gaze travels between them pleading her case.
Esposito bites his lip, then silently pulls a flashlight from his pocket and leads them inside the derelict storage facility without further comment. Ryan repeats his earlier 'okay' and follows him, Beckett guards the rear.
Once the three cops have entered the building, shadows pass across the windows two floors above them and in the alley at their back four men in dark clothing gather, before they follow them inside.
Castle goes to move past his father on his way to the door but the CIA operative immediately moves to block him.
The two men have been waiting and watching the alley below them for the past two hours, wondering when Beckett and her team would show up and Gabor has new respect for his son now. He's still unhappy that Castle insisted on coming with him, believes it's too dangerous for his son to be here, but at least he's feeling more confident in this moment about Castle's ability to hold himself in check.
When the novelist's beautiful partner had come into view moments before, Gabor had felt himself start to panic. He almost expected Castle to call out to her, blow their position, but his son had instead merely gone rigid – as if in shock – his face stunned and his eyes simply riveted to every move she made as the detectives from the Twelfth Precinct headed past them and towards the abandoned storage facility at the far end of the alley where Ethan Slaughter had been killed.
Neither Castle nor Gabor had been able to hear the conversation between the partners before they finally headed inside the derelict structure, and Gabor had been content to simply keep a watch out for them, until Valez' men began to appear.
"Stay here," the operative instructs the writer firmly, baring Castle's exit from the room two buildings closer to the park end of the alley where they've been holed up and waiting.
Castle shakes his head slowly, his expression like granite.
"No," he says, deceptively softly. "Kate's in danger. And nothing you could ever say Gabor will keep me here."
Richard Gabor's hands fist in frustration.
"But I've got this," he says with total confidence. "And she's a cop Richard, she can handle this. Between myself and her two partners I assure you we'll be able to handle this without you. After everything there is no real need here for you to risk yourself in this."
Castle smiles grimly, his eyes as stony as flint.
"Like I said, I don't care what you say." He steps into his father's space as if to intimidate him. "My partner needs me and it's this simple - I watch her back. That's just the way it is Gabor – always."
The operative still doesn't move from his position blocking the writer's exit through the door but he studies the younger man's face assessing him. He reads the tense line of Castle's jaw, the wild committed light in his son's eyes and realizes not for the first time just how insanely proud he is of this man his only son grew up to be. The man he's still so terrified of losing to this. For forty years he's watched from the sidelines somewhat sporadically, just keeping tabs and occasionally covertly assisting when he could. But firmly on the very fringes of Castle's world is where he's always remained. It kept his son safely anonymous, kept his son's mother from ever being used against him, and it was – Gabor admits this only now, in this moment – it was easy. The easier path that he trod - knowing that the only two people he loved existed but so separated from him that he didn't have to ever carry around the kind of fear he would have been forced to live with every day - if he'd stayed with Martha and raised Richard as maybe he could have. If he'd engaged into a life with them.
Well he's engaged now. He's completely invested and his son is blatantly telling him he's walking into danger whatever Gabor thinks about it, not because he's forced to – because there is no other choice - but because he's choosing to, and it hits the operative so hard that he doesn't have any right to get in Castle's way. How he wonders, how in the hell does Martha live with this fear for their son every single day?
The operative blows out a breath he didn't know he was even holding, finds himself nodding even as he doesn't yet move to step aside.
"Incognito then," he says his voice heavy, graven with the sheer force of the inevitability of all this.
Castle's eyes narrow. "I'm sorry?"
Gabor reaches into his black cargo pants pocket, pulls out first one and then a second thin black nylon skiing balaclava. He hands one to the writer.
"We don't need to advertize who we are – not yet. If Valez is here he doesn't need the highly useful information that you're alive or that his CIA liaison is working against him. Now does he?"
Castle grins - agreeing, and grabs the proffered headgear. He pulls it on over his distinctive handsome face, hiding it completely from view. His father does the same.
At the door to the stairs that will allow them access to the alley the two men pause, and each pulls from an ankle holster the guns they're wearing. It's hard to read or telegraph an expression with your face covered, but Castle can see the residual fear residing in Gabor's vivid eyes. He speaks to ease it.
"Hey, I've taken you down hand to hand old man, and when I shoot - I don't miss," he says seriously. Behind the dark concealing fabric the writer senses the tension in his father's face erase. Gabor nods his head.
"Follow my lead and at least try to do only what I tell you," he pleads.
"No promises," Castle replies firmly, his deep voice hard. "Now we go."
The inside of the long vacated 'Reynolds Self Storage' is littered with garbage, leaves and random pieces of its original construction materials. Bits of re-bar have been ripped from the walls, there are holes in the plaster and chunks of what looks like ceiling everywhere – the building should by all rights be listed as condemned. It's an old-fashioned storage space, a huge central hall and four stories of locker bays connected by rusting iron walkways above them. It affords plenty of places to hide and a maze of corridors and gantries, if you wanted to ambush someone – it would be hard to pick a better place to do it.
Beckett and the boys pick their way carefully through the debris as they look around them; CSU must have had a nightmare of a time going over this place six months ago.
"Esposito, do you have the photos from the file on your phone?" Kate asks him.
Her partner nods, pulling the information she's requested up quickly. Kate leans into his space assessing them; she flicks through the file and then looks around the space again, pointing at length to the southwest corner of the hall beyond them.
"Over there," she says quietly. "That's where they found him."
The three partners make their way through the building to the spot in the far corner where their colleague died. Six months and little in the way of crime scene clean-up in a building no-one uses, and the dark brown stains on the concrete that denote a cop's spilled blood are still visible. Kate crouches before them, running her fingertips gently across the dirty floor. No-one, she thinks – no-one's life should end here. Kate closes her eyes for a moment, sends a silent prayer up for Ethan Slaughter's soul.
"I will get you justice," she vows to the memory of him. "Somehow I will make Cesar Valez pay."
Their quiet exploration of the murder scene is interrupted violently when a bullet pings loudly off of the concrete right next to her, sending a small cloud of dust swirling immediately into the air and startling the crap out of everyone.
Esposito and Ryan immediately close in around her, and Beckett pushes to her feet as horribly exposed the threesome pull their weapons arming themselves, while they scan the huge space around them for their assailant. Trying to make themselves a harder target as they move together as one unit until there's a wall at their backs. At least it cuts off one direction for someone coming at them or shooting, but the area around them is still too open – and in all truth there is really nowhere for them to hide. Not one of them is wearing a vest either, and recalling Castle's stringent warnings to them, Kate feels truly foolish that even though this shouldn't have required them - they took a risk.
"Where did the shot come from?" She hisses at Esposito.
Frowning, his face like thunder her partner's eyes dart all around them. For Christ's sake – they're sitting ducks.
"I'm not sure," he whispers apologetically. My attention was focused on you, but seeing as I can't actually see anyone, I'm guessing from above us - somewhere on one of those old walkways if you press me."
Ryan nods in agreement.
"The shot came from above, definitely," he says frowning. "Just like the shot that killed Slaughter did."
There is no exit close to them, but when a second shot doesn't come Kate indicates that they should move along the wall some, up ahead there is an alcove that might shelter them.
With Kate in the middle, Ryan is closest to the direction she thinks they should go, he takes but a half shuffling step before another shot pings off the wall a few scant inches beyond him.
"NYPD," Kate yells into the cavernous space. "Put down your weapon and show yourself."
Laughter greets her declaration, and then she sees them. Emerging from the shadows beside the door through which they entered - four armed Mexican gang members in dark clothing. Footsteps echo on the gantry overhead, and more laughter follows.
Esposito shares a quick glance with Ryan before he aims up and Ryan continues to keep his weapon trained on the men approaching them with Beckett.
"Hold it right there," Ryan commands, before he fires past them into the wall – making it clear that he isn't fucking around. The gang-bangers hold their ground as if they're waiting, but they don't actually come any closer. Effectively they're acting to just keep the three cops there.
"Put down your weapons," Kate repeats again.
Instead of laughter a voice she recognizes drifts down towards her from the gantry and Cesar Valez himself comes into view. His arm is wrapped securely around a hostage, a woman it looks like but it's hard to tell because the hostage has a sack cloth draped over their head. The drug lord has a gun pressed tightly against the person's skull.
Shit.
"Now, now. I would suggest under the circumstance that it would be advisable if you were to put down yours instead," he says smugly. "Unless of course you'd like more spilled innocent blood on your hands, Detective Beckett?"
Heart hammering in her chest Kate shakes her head. She knows Ryan and Esposito won't leave her, but Valez has a hostage, plus a man on the walkway with him and four more of his cohorts with guns trained on her partner's heads. And that's just the gang members she can currently see, Valez controls a virtual army and there is no way for her to know how many others there may be. Somehow Valez knew they were coming and they've walked into an ambush in much the same fashion Detective Slaughter did – Kate's mind scrambles frantically, searching for a way to get everybody out of this.
The trouble is – she's got nothing.
"You are not innocent," she yells impotently up to him as the standoff continues.
Valez inclines his head, "Maybe not chica," he growls derisively, before he whips the sack cloth off of his hostages head, "But we both know that she is," he adds overly dramatically.
Kate hears her partners' twin gasps beside her, but she's dumbstruck, rendered mute in horror.
"Oh God, he's got Mrs. R," Ryan says swallowing convulsively, and Kate can see Esposito's hands shaking from here.
Martha stares down at her, meeting Kate's eyes and appearing unafraid. Maybe it should, but it doesn't surprise her – Martha hasn't coped well with it, but since Castle went missing his mother has maintained that she has little left to fear. There's a huge bruise purpling the side of the actresses' lovely face. Traces of blood mix with the vivid copper of her hair at her temple above it and Kate can see her hands are bound somehow behind her.
Beckett shifts her gaze from Martha to Valez; the drug lords' eyes are dark and empty, cold but somehow pleased.
"Insurance plan," he announces, smiling broadly, smugness all over his evil face.
Yeah, she gets it. How and when he snatched up Martha – that's just another mess to unravel, and another avenue of attack against her that Beckett hates herself now for failing to anticipate. She'd figured leaving Martha out of all the recent events that have occurred would be enough to protect her – this she just did not see. She shifts her gaze back to Castle's mother, horror and apology written starkly all over her tortured face. Martha's lips quirk ever so slightly and the actress gives just the tiniest shake of her head. Kate reads the message clearly – 'better me any day darling, than Alexis', and the detective nods back at Martha slightly, she does not, and could not ever, disagree.
Beckett feels her heart fill up with despair and the leaden weight of responsibility she feels because this is all her fault. From Castle's disappearance, to Slaughter's murder, and the deaths of Valez' wife and children that started it all falling – all of this hangs on one set of careless actions and loose words, and she cannot let Ryan and Esposito or God forbid Martha, be added to the growing casualty pile as a result of her errors. She won't allow that, not if she has any power left within her to prevent it.
He comes to her then, the crystal clear image of Castle's beloved face in her mind and greedily she holds onto it for her courage. She sends him a silent litany of apologies that she will not make it through this. That she's failed him in what he's asked of her – failed to make it safe for him to come home, failed to protect the others that he loves so fiercely.
She'd give anything at all to change it.
'I love you, Rick'- she tells him under her breath, hoping that wherever he is he still knows it. 'Please forgive me for leaving you like this.'
And then she pushes past her partners suddenly, stepping out in front of them all alone and completely vulnerable as she drops her weapon from trembling fingertips, fighting for composure when it clatters loudly on the ground.
"Beckett, NO." Esposito yells instantly. She throws him a glance full of apology over her shoulder.
'I'm sorry. I'm sorry - I have too.'She mouths to him.
"Kate, don't be reckless," Ryan hisses. "We'll get out of this."
"Get Martha out of this," she tells them both quietly, her eyes heavy and her decision certain. Unwavering. "And tell Castle . . ."
"No," Ryan interrupts, shouting. "No Kate. You can't possibly make me tell him that you gave up."
She shrugs.
"Tell him I'm very sorry. And tell him that I love him Kev – that I always loved him. That I did right from the beginning. You tell him that I'll always be with him."
Angry tears have gathered in the young Irishman's bright eyes.
"Pick up you gun Detective Beckett, and step back here," he orders. "Javi – tell her."
Esposito nods. "Listen to him Beckett. Do as he says."
Kate shakes her head, "He's got Castle's mother. His mother," she pleads in a whisper. "I won't let him lose his mother because of me."
Beckett takes a further step away from the shelter of her partners; she turns her attention fully back to where Valez is watching her gleefully – the bastard is completely enjoying this.
"You're right," she calls up to him. "She is innocent, and we both know that your quarrel is not with her but with me."
Valez inclines his head in agreement. "Then I don't have to explain to you. You should all put down your weapons though Detective, and then just maybe I'll let the lovely lady here go free."
Beckett shakes her head. "You let her walk out of here with my partners." She offers instead. "You do that – and you get to keep me."
Laughter once more echoes all around them.
"Oh that's not how this works I'm afraid," Valez responds. "No cop is leaving here, and there will be no evidence against me. You don't understand any of the power I hold here do you Detective? You have no idea how bullet proof you've made me."
Kate swallows, she knows far more than he realizes because of Castle's novel – but none of that knowledge can help her right now, right here. Her eyes dart to Martha's and suddenly she sees it in the actresses face - a clear and certain knowledge glows boldly there in the older woman's eyes. Martha knows, maybe she's overheard what Valez has planned for them, but regardless of what Valez might promise her, he plans to wipe out everyone one of them – Castle's mother included - and leave no trace of it behind him.
It hits Kate hard – that knowledge, and her stomach plummets with the realization that she can't think of a single way out of this for any of them. They can start shooting, but it won't save their lives.
Valez has them – and with the Feds in his pocket, he'll most likely walk free.
She's lost.
Except she isn't, luckily for Kate, deliverance is already here.
Gabor and Castle slip inside the storage facility soundlessly, finding a Mexican standoff in progress two hundred feet or so in front of them. The writer gasps inside but holds it rigidly in, he looks to Gabor for instructions and the operative makes a simple hand gesture in lieu of a reply. Castle nods and the pair split up – his father's instruction was clear, 'I'll go low ', and 'you go high'. Gabor is playing the numbers game; there are two bad guys up on the gantry and four here on the ground floor – he's given Castle the lower number to deal with.
The writer sticks to the shadows, climbing the metal staircase to the first floor silently. He hugs the walls as his father has taught him, the gun in his hand a comforting weight as his focus narrows rigidly – his mission crystal clear. Take out the two men on the gantry, and trust Gabor to handle the others. Adrenaline surges throughout his body, his muscles tighten with anticipation – Castle is ready.
He reaches the very edge of the gantry before he sees that Valez has his mother, and his heart begins literally triple timing in his chest. He's close enough now to everything to hear the words that Kate is so softly saying down below him. He hears her giving up, handing her life over as a sacrifice, offering everything to get the others out of this.
At first his heart just breaks.
And then all he sees is red.
The situation changes in a few short seconds that later recall feels like complete slow-motion.
Two black-clad whirlwinds strike almost simultaneously.
On the ground floor of the storage warehouse Valez four cohorts don't even see what hits them as Gabor comes out of nowhere and with a few lightening quick moves of his body he takes them all down. The last one to get knocked out gets a shot off into the air, but it isn't aimed at anything and he's down on the ground unconscious before he can even think about firing another one.
On the gantry overhead however shots are fired, and Gabor looks up in fear – terrified by what he might find.
The steel walkway is somewhat narrow and Castle can't get to Valez or free his mother without removing the man who stands in the way. He fires a single shot that hits the gang member center mass and as the man drops like a stone Castle sees Valez turn in the direction of the shot through a red haze. Valez fires in Castle's direction, eyes wide in astonishment at the appearance of an armed masked stranger interfering in his careful plans. Castle has already moved like lightening, his body no longer in the path of Valez' bullet and he runs the man down before the drug lord can re-aim. He doesn't dare to simply shoot at Valez when the man is holding Castle's mother in the way.
The writer collides with them hard, knocking Valez gun from his hand and sending Martha flying. Castle winces when her head bounces on the metal walkway and she lies still and pale in a crumpled heat, then all he sees is Valez' face. All he feels is the five terminally long months without Kate and his family that this asshole has cost him – his fists and elbows, his knees even - fly.
On the floor below Esposito and Ryan recover the quickest. Kicking the gang members' guns twenty feet or so away, they cuff the four fallen men together before they turn to check on Kate and find out who the hell their masked savior is?
"Beckett you okay?" Javier asks in clipped tones before he trains his weapon on a silent Gabor (just in case) who waits motionless now next to her – his eyes still trained up.
Kate shakes off the daze and meets her partner's concerned dark eyes.
"Yeah," she mumbles. "Yeah Javi, I'm okay."
She turns to Gabor.
"Who are you?" She asks the silent operative, but he makes no immediate reply, his attention remains riveted upwards now that the threat that was his responsibility is no longer in the way.
Following Gabor's gaze, Kate and the boys also focus their attention on the gantry.
"Richard you can stop now," his mother's gentle voice penetrates the angry fog surrounding him, and Castle drops his raised fists to his sides. Cesar Valez is unconscious – maybe dead, on the walkway below him. Nose clearly broken, blood smeared completely across his face, he lies motionless with his head at an angle.
The writer hears his mother speak to him again.
"Richard? Richard that is you – isn't it?"
Castle pushes from his knees to his feet to find Martha clutching the railing but at least she's upright. Thank God. Her knowing blue eyes staring at him lovingly and it occurs to the writer that even though his face is covered, his mother still knows who he is. He glances below him, sees Gabor has taken out all the threats downstairs and is silently watching him. Kate and the boys seem to be waiting on him also.
Castle rips the balaclava from his head.
Gabor catches her before her partner's can, when Kate's legs give out beneath her. All the air in her lungs has disappeared, and her heart is skipping beats erratically inside her chest – she can't fathom the situation properly, doesn't quite believe her own eyes and what they are telling her they see - she's deathly afraid she's hallucinating now.
She desperately needs who she sees up there to be real. Helplessly she stares up into vivid eyes before she starts to cry with relief.
"Castle?" She calls out weakly.
The writer nods, leans over the railing slightly his bloodied hand stretching out towards her. His eyes are as full as Beckett's as he smiles down into her lovely face,
"Hey baby," he answers softly. "It's me."