Close Encounters 3.5
She spent the rest of the night with a hole in her back that Dr West said would need to stay open. He'd gotten a better look at it after they'd washed it clean, and he packed it with strips of something that looked like gauze, but which the doctor had called alginate. He said it should be less painful in theory, but in practice-
In practice, she whimpered in her sleep and woke them both.
"Kate, let me get you another pill," he murmured.
"No, it makes me sick," she said, her teeth clenching. He saw her visibly try to relax, her jaw flexing and then loosening. "Makes me sick and if I vomit-"
"Okay, okay," he said quietly.
"I'll be fine," she answered to an unspoken question that tasted like ash on his tongue. "I'm okay. It'll be fine."
And after a few minutes, she did drift into sleep, but it wasn't easy, and she kept sucking in these tight, anguished breaths, and he'd wake to that pitiful, unconscious whine.
The drugs made her sick, the wound seemed to be burning her up even though he'd repeatedly checked her temperature and she wasn't feverish.
Couldn't win.
He'd have to change the dressing tomorrow night, unpack the wound himself because she wouldn't be able to reach it. The doctor could repack it, but the patient upstairs was in distress, Castle had heard. West might not be able to get back to them.
He could do it. He'd done it in the field on a fellow agent - dug out a bullet and packed the wound with saline-soaked gauze. Field trained to handle that kind of thing, Castle knew he'd be okay doing it, but the pain. . .
He laid there and stroked the hair back from her face as she mewled in her sleep, wracked his brain to figure out a way to help her.
She roused on a groan and startled in the bed; her eyes opened to him. "Woke you, sorry, sorry. . ."
"I'm not," he whispered, stroked his thumb at the weeping edge of her eye. "I'm not. Anything you need, Beckett."
It was a machine that kept cold water flowing to a pack over the wound.
"This is the most beautiful thing ever," she whispered, her arms drawn up under her chest in bed. She unfurled a finger and caressed the scar at his chin.
"Feel better?" he murmured back, his face so close, so warm and anxious as he watched her.
"Oh, yes." She closed her eyes and then opened them again. "You should sleep next door. I'm keeping you up."
"You are a little whimpery," he said with a soft smile. "But I can take it."
"Whimpery?" she muttered.
"In your sleep, Beckett. But that's okay."
"Why does it have to be open?" she muttered. She could hear the whine in her voice but she couldn't stop it.
"He said it has to heal from the inside out. They'll keep it open until it heals correctly."
"What's in there?"
"Some wound-packing gauze. It forms this gel and soaks up all the pus and stuff-"
"Ew."
"Yeah, it'll start to clump and come apart when it needs to be changed. I'll do that probably tomorrow. But sleep for now, Kate."
She blinked at him in the darkness, the ridged cavity of his scarred chin and the soft oil of his warm skin at her fingers. "I love you," she confessed, entirely without her permission.
Castle was grateful when she slept through most of the next day. He was able to get some work done on his ballistics requalification, put in some practice time with the sniper rifle, and finally catch up on his email.
His father messaged him and he wanted to ignore it, wanted to throttle the man still, but it was work-related. It was always work-related. When he called it up, he saw it was actually about the funeral.
He groaned and tilted his head back, gulping down the sudden urge to punch something. His hands clenched into fists.
He had to go see about the funeral.
Black was waiting for him.
Castle paused as he stood beside his Range Rover, saw again that night in the woods and Kate's torn stitches - all this man's fault, but he pushed it down, smothered it.
He strode carefully from the parking lot towards the office - a two-story warehouse in the middle of nowhere, just outside the city. It'd been a lonely drive, and this wasn't where Castle wanted to be right now, but it was necessary. He was doing it for Eastman.
Black stood in front of the metal door, corrugated and closed. Castle wondered if he'd need to undergo some kind of trial by fire to be back in his father's good graces. He found that he didn't much care.
"Were you followed?" his father said.
"No."
Black gave him a long, measuring look. As if he didn't quite believe him. Apparently Castle was on his father's list.
Fine.
"Where's his body?" Castle said, keeping his voice neutral, if a little clipped. He wanted to get this done, get back. It'd been a week. It just took the CIA that long to make up its damn mind.
"This way." Black turned and pressed his ID card to the flat matte-black panel. The light turned green and the door clicked as it unlocked. Black opened it and Castle went inside first, eyes adjusting to the darkness quickly.
The warehouse was - of course - made to look like it was in business. They had to skirt pallets of plastic wrapped auto parts and boxes labeled fragile before they got to the elevator. Castle, out of habit, had his key fob out and against the panel to call for the lift, but the light turned red.
He jerked around to confront his father. "What's this?"
"You're inactive. You know better. And while last time you had Eastman sneaking you inside, that won't happen this time."
His nostrils flared, but Castle kept himself in check, stepped back. His father made a production out of keying the elevator, swept his arm towards it as the doors opened, allowing Castle to go first.
He stepped into the elevator and purposefully kept his hands loose, his shoulders down. His father was looking for a break in his training, his discipline, but he wouldn't find it.
He wouldn't give Black the satisfaction.
"The coffins are all resting in state in the deployment area," his father said, leaning in to press B1.
So Castle was only allowed one floor down. Fine.
Fine.
He would see to the arrangements, pick up the official debrief packet that Eastman's wife would get, and then he'd say good-bye to his friend.
Castle called to check in with Logan at Stone Farm and heard that Beckett was still in and out of sleep.
So he started the Range Rover and put it in drive, clutched the wheel to focus his thoughts.
He needed to take this to Carrie Eastman; he needed to sit down with her and explain, as best he could, what had happened to her husband.
He maneuvered the vehicle out of the parking space and through the lot, keeping that moment forefront in his mind - the roof, the blistering sun, the hotel sign as the backdrop for Eastman's cover fire. Castle had made it; Mark had not.
Carrie was an accountant; he knew that much. No kids - and Eastman had told him once, why do that to a kid? and now he knew what the man had meant. But now Carrie was alone in that house.
It took forty minutes to reach Eastman's home in a small suburb of New York, a property set back from the road with no close neighbors. Good choice, Castle thought, and realized he and Eastman had probably seen it the same way. Easily defended.
He got out of the Range Rover and the screen door was already popping open, a dog pushing out and down the porch steps, coming to investigate with its owner right behind.
He lifted his hand to Carrie, saw only the silhouette of the woman against the sun, and then dropped down to let the dog sniff him. When the tail slowly wagged, Castle stood again and made his way towards Eastman's wife.
Her face had pink tones but was golden in the summer light, freckles ranged across her nose and cheeks. Her eyes were green and reminded him of Kate.
"Carrie," he said.
"Richard," she sighed, and he saw the tremor in her mouth that she fought to suppress.
He opened his arms and she held herself stiffly but came in for the embrace, her grip fierce.
"You have to tell me the truth," she said, her voice in a rasp. "You have to, Richard. I need to know how it really happened."
She poured him iced tea and they sat on the front porch with the dog at her feet. A black lab, old but wary, still eyeing Castle from time to time. He shifted forward to put his elbows on his knees and fingered the rim of the glass.
Eastman's home was sacrosanct. Castle had been once and knew it was an honor. He felt it still.
He couldn't lie to her here.
"You know what he was," he started slowly. "Despite what we've always said."
Carried nodded, her blonde hair swishing at her cheeks. "I've never cared. He did his thing, I did mine. It worked for us."
He dropped his hand from the glass, wondered if Kate would be getting this visit sometime in the future, if she'd be explaining them to a man who was practically a stranger to her. It made his whole body heavy.
"He had my back," Castle said finally. "But I failed to have his. He was shot, Carrie. And I couldn't get to him in time."
Her face was like stone as the tears welled up. She didn't cry though; she sat very still with her hands on her pressed together knees and she took slow, deep breaths.
It was all he could say. The details were classified; the case was an open CIA investigation into some serious and dangerous people. Eastman's home was sacred space and Castle wouldn't breach it.
"Did you get the guy who shot him?" she said finally.
"Yes."
Her eyes lifted to his. "Is he dead?"
"Yes."
She averted her eyes and looked to the dog; the lab had lifted its head and was studying her like he knew.
"Thank you for being honest."
"He deserves it."
And then her face twisted with grief and she pressed her fingers into her eyes, her head turning from him. He waited her out because she really was like Kate, and finally Carrie skimmed her thumbs along her cheeks and turned back to him.
"His funeral-"
"It's taken care of. It will be in two days. At a special place. You'll receive a star, and one will go on the wall."
She sucked in a breath, her eyes locking onto his. "CIA?"
Castle paused only a moment before denying it. "No." And it let her know.
"Oh my God. I thought-" She shook her head, then took another breath. "Right."
"The grave will be marked, Carrie, but as our tradition and for your safety, it won't have his name. Usually there's a public funeral-"
She nodded. "Yeah, I-" Her voice broke and her hands clenched into fists. "Another man came by, gave me information about it. It's already set up for the day after."
"I'd like to go," he said quietly. "If you'll have me."
"Of course," she croaked out, her soft green eyes filling as she looked at him.
He swallowed but she kept on, gaining strength, it seemed, the more miserable he looked.
"Of course, Richard. I want you there. He'd want you there. You'll back up his story," she laughed.
He grinned back at that, nodded. "I will."
Sports agent. That had been Eastman's cover - flying all over the place, long absences.
Carried grinned suddenly, a thing of beauty that made his heart catch. "He said you're terrible at talking sports."
He smiled back, felt it in him now, the beginnings of repair. "I am. I know absolutely nothing."
"So you'll just add more fuel to the fire," she said finally, shaking her head at him. "And he'll love that even more."
He really would.
"I want to go," Kate said.
"Beckett-"
"I'm going. I can walk."
"Barely. And there are two," he said, grilling cheese sandwiches on the stovetop for them. "An official one, and an unofficial one."
"Official for whom?"
His lips twitched. Fine distinction that. "One sanctioned and secret, one for the cover."
"Which one is his wife going to be at?" Kate asked, and he heard it in her voice.
Understood it too. It was the same grief in his own.
"She'll be at both."
Kate let out a long breath and Castle glanced over his shoulder at her. She was curled up in a kitchen chair, her head propped against the spindles, her back to him as she stared out the window. Twilight had crept over the farm.
"That's. . .comforting to me," she said softly.
"What?"
"That his wife wasn't a cover. She's part of the cover, but she's not the lie itself."
He froze, spatula half-turning one of the sandwiches and his heart flipping the rest of the way. "You're not a lie."
She only let out a little breath.
"You're not a cover," he said quietly.
"I want to go to the funeral. Not the secret one. Your father - not the one for your team. That's personal. I understand. But I can be part of the lie, Castle. I can do that."
Maybe she could. In the future. "You couldn't make it through, and you'd have to explain."
"I'm a police officer. My name's been in the paper and on the news, Castle. Esposito sent me a link to an article about it when I was still in the hospital."
"Oh. That's - yeah, we couldn't keep it all a secret."
"So. If anyone does ask about me-"
True. "But you're-"
"If you say too weak, I will cut you."
"With what weapon?" he snorted. "Look around, Beckett, think it through. I have the only knife-"
"I'm going to that funeral. Don't try to change the subject."
He fell silent, tried to imagine a scenario in which Beckett with a damn hole in her back might actually survive an hour long funeral.
"I'm going."
Damn it.
"Fine. But you have to let me take care of everything."
"You mean me."
He flipped the cheese sandwich onto a plate and turned around. She wasn't glaring; she was only determined. Her eyes were dark in the overhead light.
"I mean you," he admitted.
"Deal. Now give me my sandwich. I'm starving."
"I'm sorry," he whispered, and maneuvered the sterile tweezers a little deeper into her back to get at the last of the packing material.
She shivered but didn't make a sound.
"Almost got the last of it. Does it hurt?"
"Fuck, yes."
He couldn't help the flicker of a grin at that, and he could see she was smiling too, despite how awful it must feel to have him digging in a hole for the last threads of alginate.
"Can you - uh - go faster?" she said then.
"Sorry. The light is bad. I have to get it all out and then flush it with saline solution."
"Shit," she groaned, and he saw her hand clench into a fist in the bedsheets.
"After that, I'll repack it and put the ice on it."
"Ohhhh, yes, yes. That beautiful ice machine. Shit, I had wet dreams about that thing."
The laughter startled out of him and she tensed as his tweezers caught the edge of her wound accidentally.
"Sorry," he sighed.
"Just doing what you have to do."
"I'd do it a lot better if you didn't keep making me laugh."
"Laughter is the only thing keeping me going right now, Castle."
"True," he murmured, and finally teased the last piece of sodden material from the wound.
They both let out a long breath and then she chuckled; evidently she could sense how relieved he was that this part was over.
"Okay, time for the saline wash."
"Is it going to get all gross in the bed?"
"That's what she said-"
"Ew," she laughed, turning her head to look at him. He grinned back and she shifted off her side to lie on her stomach. "Maybe better like this?"
"He said on your side, so it runs out."
"Okay," she sighed and moved slowly back.
"I was going to put a towel under you," he said quietly. "But I'll just strip the sheets and get clean ones. The ice machine got everything wet last night anyway."
"This has got to be the least romantic messy bed in the history of our beds, Castle."
"We have a bed history?" he mused, uncapping the bottle of saline.
She grunted when he squirted in the wash, her back stiffening, but she kept up her end of the conversation. "Of course. Yours, mine. The hotel. The army cot at your office. My couch."
"You mean the connubial bed."
"Yes. Conjugal bed. The places we've fuc-"
"Don't make it so crude, Beckett."
"Sometimes it is," she murmured, and her voice was throaty. But probably with pain. He couldn't imagine she was anywhere close to aroused.
"Sometimes it is," he agreed, and began packing the wound with fresh alginate.
She jerked and hissed as it hit the ragged edges, her knees drawing up to her chest.
"I'm so-"
"If you say sorry-"
"What? You'll cut me? Right. I'd like to see you try, Beckett."
"Shit, have my threats lost - ah - lost all authority with you?" She sighed out a long breath at the end, her shoulders hunching.
He tried to do it quickly. "Completely unthreatening. I'm not afraid of you."
"That's too bad. I like a man who cowers before me."
"And that, Detective Beckett, is the most atrocious lie I've ever heard out of your mouth."
She snorted but didn't deny it. "Are you done yet?"
"Just. About." He sealed the alginate with the gel and dropped everything back to the tray at her bedside. "There. Done."
She sank to her stomach, her lashes fluttering, and he reached out to brush the hair back from her cheek. Her eyes were swirling green and gold in the lamplight as she fought to stay with him.
He leaned in and brushed a kiss to her open mouth. "Now I'll fulfill your every sexual fantasy."
"Oh, thank you. Ice machine."
"Ice machine."
She was awake, she was conscious and feeling some returning strength, but she wasn't going far.
She hated it. She despised it. But she needed it.
"Help me," she said quietly.
His help. Damn it all. She needed his help.
He came to his knees in front of her, his hands heavy on her thighs. She clutched the edge of the bed and tried to prove she could do it, upright, standing, all of it.
"Okay," he said finally. "What do you need?"
She let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding, lifted her hand to stroke up his forearm and clutch his elbow. "A dress. A black dress. Heels."
"No."
"Castle-"
"How in the hell are you going to wear high heels?"
"Flats then," she compromised.
His jaw worked. "Flats. What else?"
"I'll need eye liner, mascara. At least. I have chapstick with me, and even though I look like death-"
"You look alive," he interrupted. "And that's beautiful."
She rolled her eyes at him. "Despite the paleness, my skin's pretty even, so no need for powder or anything."
"All right. Eye liner, mascara, a black dress, flats. That all?"
She nodded.
He leaned in and pressed his lips to her mouth, his tongue suddenly teasing, and she opened to him in surprised pleasure.
He didn't take it far, just rested his cheek to hers with a sighing breath. "I'll be back in an hour, Kate."
And then he left.
Now with the warm lights of Stone Farm in his rearview mirror, he had misgivings. It was like the moment he was out of range of Beckett, he saw reality clearly once more.
She had no business attending a funeral with a damn hole in her back.
But he stopped at the first shopping center he came to and got out of the vehicle, then he went inside a Dress Barn.
He'd shopped for women before; he was a controlling bully, as she liked to remind him, so of course he'd shopped for women before. But standing in the middle of Dress Barn made his stomach churn.
He'd rather be at Intermix in Soho running his fingers over silk Helmut Lang; he'd rather adorn her in classy and sophisticated rather than. . .this.
There was a lot of paisley.
"Can I help you?" a woman said, approaching on his left with too much lipstick - like a slash for a mouth.
"You may," he replied, couldn't help the slight correction. "My wife needs a black dress for a funeral."
"Oh, my condolences," she murmured, and the strange honesty on her face made his shoulders relax.
He glanced around and noticed one other woman standing at the register, but he was the only customer.
"Sir, is your wife petite or-"
"Not petite," he said, shaking his head. "Tall. But thin - too thin."
Something flashed over the woman's face but she gestured towards the back of the store. "Right this way, sir."
He followed her through contemporary and faddish styles, grimacing to himself at the cheap material and poorly designed outfits. But then the merchandise began to calm, and strangely enough he found himself believing something could be found here that would be more than just suitable.
The necklines were all matronly, though - barely curved, coming up high. He flicked his eyes across the selection the woman was trying to extol and finally grabbed a simple sheath.
"I'll take this."
"What size do you think?"
He glanced at the one in his hand and read the tag, took a long look at the measurements. "Ah, needs to be - this is going to be difficult. She's tall."
The woman pulled out a ten.
"We'll make it work," he sighed.
He'd bought a sheath dress that zipped up the back. He had let it drop off the hanger to pool on the floor at her feet so all she had to do was step in, but still Beckett fought hard not to sway. She kept her knees locked as Castle bent down and gathered the dress to pull it slowly up her legs.
The backs of his fingers brushed her hips and made her belly flutter, but he drew the material up her torso and paused.
"How do you want to do this?" he said, lifting his eyes to hers.
So blue. So electric. She could see the conflict in him, the urge to hustle her back to bed mixed with some amount of pride that she had insisted on going. She wanted to do this for Eastman, for the sacrifice he'd made to hunt down Maddox and to protect Rick, but she also wanted to do it for the man standing in front of her, helping her dress. The man who had made her grilled cheese sandwiches and taken her riding, who had dug pieces of gross gauze out of her back and bullied her into doing the right thing.
For him. To stand by him for a change.
"Kate?" he said softly.
She nodded. "Good arm first, then the left."
Castle focused on the task with the same intensity she'd seen when he handled a weapon or stalked through a darkened room after a suspect. It was thrilling to be the center of his attention, but it also reminded her of where he ought to be, the job she'd pulled him away from, the danger he was in all because of her mother's case.
She chewed hard on the inside of her cheek to keep from wincing as he moved to her left side and manipulated her hand through the armhole. He drew the dress up her shoulders and then skated his fingers over her neck as he moved behind her to zip it up.
"Will this hurt you?" he murmured.
"Shouldn't," she said. She felt the grip of his fist in the material just at the curve of her spine, and then the tug of the zipper. "Is it zipped?"
"Yeah," he sighed. "It's kind of loose, Beckett."
"But the length is good."
"I was eyeballing it. But I thought maybe-" He circled around to the front to look at her and sighed. "Okay. Uh. Maybe you should look at this."
Kate stepped slowly towards the bathroom and stopped when she saw herself in the mirror over the sink. "Shit."
"I. . .what can I do?" he said from behind her. She felt his fingers pluck at the dress and draw it back, taking it in. "Can we. . .what do you do to make things smaller?"
"Maybe some darts in it. Do we have time for that? The funeral is tomorrow."
"Darts?"
"Sewing, Castle," she huffed, catching his eyes in the mirror. But she'd never actually sewed anything like this. Darts? Hardly.
He studied her a moment. "Or a belt?"
She cocked her head and looked the dress. "A belt?"
"Actually," he murmured, and suddenly his hands spanned her waist. "A loose belt. Wide. Too bad you're not wearing boots-"
"Boots," she breathed out. "Oh. Flat boots, knee-high. I. . ."
Kate bit her bottom lip. It wasn't a fashion show; it wasn't-
"Boots would pull it off," he murmured.
"How do you know so much about women's fashion?" she muttered suddenly, reaching out to catch his own belt. He looked good, she had to admit; he always looked good.
"I pay attention. It's a job requirement."
"Putting together an outfit is not a job requirement of a spy," she snorted. Ouch. That hurt actually.
"It can be." He shrugged at her. "Boots then. Brown boots, brown belt. I can do that. The flats were boring anyway."
Kate felt her lips tugging into a smile and bowed her head. It was a funeral. A funeral. Not-
"You're gorgeous, Kate," he said softly, and she felt his lips at her neck. "I want to show you off."
"Damn possessive bully," she muttered. But she turned her head to him, her mouth grazing his. He pressed a kiss into her, his nose nudging hers.
"Yes, I am. And Detective? Don't think I didn't notice that purple lace underwear you have on."