Close Encounters 3.5

He was half-ashamed of that performance, his inability to control himself when he'd caught sight of her stripping off her clothes in their bedroom while he showered. But she'd seemed as restless and ready as him, and well. . .

Castle swallowed hard and eased out of their bed, swaying on his feet as his arm throbbed with renewed circulation. They'd fallen asleep, but he'd woken some time ago, let himself be stupid and ridiculous and in love and just stare at her. Creepy staring. She would roll her eyes and shove him out of bed herself if she'd woken up and found him doing it.

So he'd pushed himself out of bed instead and now stood in front of the dresser and searched for clean clothes.

He'd had so many things he'd needed to do this afternoon and it was nearly nightfall. She'd be asleep until tomorrow morning, most likely; he'd seen what physical therapy took out of her. So he wasn't concerned about her waking to find him gone.

Castle pulled on cargo pants and laced up his boots, found a clean black tshirt to tug on over his head. Kate's clothes were still scattered in a trail towards the bathroom where just the sound of her voice-

He grunted and put that thought, that memory, out of his head.

He had things to do.

Eastman's will and estate had been settled quickly; the one advantage of working for the government was their ability to rush things through bureaucracy when it was to their advantage. Carrie had left him a message about wanting to give him something, and now it was late, but he went anyway.

She came to the door of the front porch with moonlight on her bare shoulders and shadowing her clavicles, her tank top and shorts rumpled.

"I'm sorry," he muttered, scraped a hand down his face. "I woke you."

She shook her head. "I've been sleeping too much. Can't sleep now. I'm all messed up, Richard. Come on in."

She pushed open the screen door and he saw the lines on her face, the hollow darkness under her eyes. Post-funeral and it was beginning to settle in, wasn't it? He knew that look.

"You called me, Carrie?"

"Hm? Yeah, yes. I did. Mark left you something," she said, running over his name quickly like she was afraid to say it.

He followed her through the creaking kitchen and she didn't turn on any of the lights. Just hunched her shoulders and kept moving, and he realized, knew the signs from Kate Beckett, that Carrie Eastman was crying and trying not to let him know.

He stood carefully behind her while she fumbled with an antique hope chest, her hair swinging forward and hiding her eyes. Castle made sure he wasn't close enough to see anything, made sure she kept her privacy until she was ready.

She messed around in the hope chest for longer than she needed to, but when she stood up again, her eyes were only red-rimmed. No tears. She was holding out a book, wrapped loosely in a kind of cloth.

"He left this to you. Did you know he'd written me a whole bunch of letters?"

"What?" he said dumbly, reaching out for the book. It was old, like a family bible, thick with dust and heft. "What letters?"

"They're beautiful. And funny, and sweet, and he dated them. For me to read in the future," she said, swiping at her cheek preemptively, but nothing fell. "I don't know if I'll be able to resist. I might just read them all tonight."

"He wrote you letters?" He'd never figured Eastman for such a romantic, but now that the idea was in Castle's head too, he wanted to write things for Kate, letters and stories and poems and beautiful things for her to have always. For her to have in case of a time like this.

"That's how I discovered he wanted you to have it. Well, he didn't say it like that, but he thought you'd get a kick out of it. It's his family's ancestry. All their stories."

Castle glanced down at the book, the cloth already slipping off and wrapping around his wrist. He opened the tome and saw it was even illustrated, that it was filled with ink and the stories were crowded on the page, marginless.

"Oh no," he breathed out. "I couldn't."

"You can," Carrie said quietly. "I don't have any interest, and he told me things about his family that have turned out to be lies, Richard. He didn't have much need for roots. But he said you-"

Castle swallowed and felt his fingers grip the book.

"He said you might need roots. And while these are his - and did you see? His name wasn't even Eastman, Richard. How was I ever-"

She cut herself off, shaking her head and running her hands through her hair, giving a dark chuckle. "He's telling me things in these letters that I just. . .I think he wrote each one after you two did some mission. There was something about a flight over the English channel and a bomb that wouldn't go off-"

"You probably shouldn't repeat that," he said urgently, stepping closer to her and bringing the book against his chest. "They'll take those letters if-"

She closed her mouth tight and stared at him.

He nodded. "Don't say anymore. Keep them somewhere only you can find."

She pushed on the book, nudging him towards the door. "Take his book of family stories. I like my mysteries revealed slowly, letter by letter."

Kate woke disoriented in the darkness, jerking and twitching only to hear the soft chuckle of a male voice that was not Richard Castle.

She froze, the movement of her muscles spiraling pain through her back, but the voice came out of the darkness.

"No, no. Don't get up, Ms Beckett."

Fuck, his father. Her heart was pounding so hard she could barely breathe.

"I came here looking for my son."

Castle wasn't? - she was alone with just this damn shadow of a man she couldn't even see. "Castle's not here."

"Imagine my surprise when I discovered that little fact. It's eleven o'clock at night, Ms Beckett. Weren't you supposed to be holding him here? Keeping him safe?"

Shit, her body ached fiercely. "No, I don't - how in the hell do you think I can keep him anywhere? He's a spy. He does as he likes."

"This was your only job."

She growled and turned over in bed, remembered too late that she wasn't wearing any clothes. His father took a long moment to peruse her breasts shining in the moonlight of the bedroom and she'd be damned if she covered herself up like she was embarrassed. The bastard.

"Ah, I see. Fucked you and left-"

And then suddenly from the doorway, the flash of a deeper shadow and movement. "You get the hell out of here," Castle growled, laying hands on his father and yanking him up.

She grabbed for the sheets and grit her teeth through the pain, felt the skin at her back stretching taut, but she ignored it to cover up. Castle was shoving on his father, pushing him back, and she got a leg out of bed and snatched the sheet tighter around her.

"Castle-"

"You fucking leave her alone," he snarled, standing at the foot of the bed with his father nearly to the door.

But Black stood his ground. "I don't plan on fucking her, Richard. I wouldn't have her. Sophia was a movement on a chess board, but it's not a play that can be oft-repeated if I want the same results."

"You get the fuck out of here-"

"You, Richard, need to stand down before you do something you'll regret. You never checked in this afternoon; you have responsibilities, even from your girlfriend's sick bed, and I won't allow you to forsake them."

"You don't get to come here. You don't get to touch her, or look at her, or talk to her. You wanna fuck someone up, you do it to me. I'm used to it."

"Check in when you're supposed to. Do your job. That, Richard, that is all I'm asking of you. I don't even mind you getting the bitch out of your system-"

And then Castle punched him.

Kate was naked and pushing against his chest and it was the only thing that drove him back, cleared the cold fury from his head and made him see again.

"Beckett," he growled, his hands coming to her shoulders.

"Castle, Castle, you have to stop, you have to stop-" she was saying, her body struggling against his.

He jerked back, bringing her with him, and saw his father panting in the doorway, fists up and a slick of blood down his nose, running from his lip. He had a ringing in his ears that meant Black had defended himself.

"Kate, you're naked."

"Shit, Castle. Least of my worries at the moment," she growled, but she shoved him back again and reached down for a tshirt.

His hands came up automatically to help and he saw the busted knuckles and blood, the places where his skin had split. His head throbbed, his ribs ached.

He'd punched his father and then-?

"Castle," she said quietly, shimmying into one of his tshirts and then pushing him down on the bed. He sank into it with a bounce, blinked hard to clear his head.

He glanced down at his hands and flexed his fingers, winced.

"You need to leave," Kate said sharply. He looked up and saw her stalking towards Black and his panic crested. He jumped up after her, looking to follow, but she was shutting the door in Black's face and turning to him instead.

He swayed and she grabbed for him, both of them grunting. "I'm hurting you," he muttered, even as he hurt himself, and she snorted and guided him back to the bed.

"Sit down and let me look at your hands, you big idiot."

She disappeared into the bathroom and the moonlight was playing havoc with his sense of space. He wanted to stand up and find her; he needed to tell her, explain, something.

Kate came back with a washcloth and bandages, the same sterile gauze he'd been using on her, and he blinked up through the beams of moonlight to look at her.

"I don't want him talking to you," he said quietly when she came close.

"Not much you can do about that, Castle." She spread out his fingers over his knee and traced the broken lines of his skin.

"You think I can't? Watch me," he growled.

"Don't act like a child," she muttered. "You didn't have to hit him. I'm a detective with the NYPD. I've been called much worse." Her touch was gentle though, her hands cradling his.

He swallowed down his fury and his indignation because she was right. She was right and he used to pride himself on never rising to his father's bait.

"He did it on purpose," Castle sighed, closing his eyes. "He wanted to see how far he could push me about you. And he's trying to prove to me that you make me weak. Fuck. How do I keep letting him get to me?"

"It's my fault," she said quietly, dabbing at his knuckles with the cold cloth. "It's because of me."

"No-"

"Yes," she insisted. "I'm not stupid. You'd managed to skate along quite nicely before I showed up; you stuck to his plan for you."

"Fuck his plan. You're my plan, Beckett. You. You're not just someone I'm getting out of my system. Not my cover story, my lie. You're everything."

She curled her fingers around his, the washcloth wet between them. "Let me finish talking, super spy. I don't care if he thinks I make you weak. I'm selfish enough to want you anyway. Even if I do make you punch out your father or get stabbed to save my life. Black can say whatever the hell he wants, I'm not letting you go. You're my plan too."

He clutched at her ministering hands and hooked an arm around her neck, brought her down into his lap. It wasn't really very fair, because she was exhausted and off-balance and her back was still healing, but he didn't care. He wrapped his arms around her and slid her leg over his thighs so that she straddled him.

"I love you too, Beckett."

She sighed into his neck but stayed close.

Her fingers traced at the edges of his jeans, ran along the bruises at his ribs just beginning to form. He shivered under her hands and she couldn't help rocking her hips a little into him.

"Fuck, you can't," he groaned.

"Makes you want me?" she murmured.

"All the time," he gruffed out, his breath hot and quick against her temple.

"Makes me want you," she murmured.

"I'd hurt you," he said quietly back, something mournful in his voice. "I wouldn't be able to control myself and-"

"I know," she sighed, kissing the side of his jaw and nibbling, unable to help it even though it made his thighs clench under her. "I'm sorry. I'll stop."

He pressed his forehead to her and she felt the thin edge of the scar at his back and side where the knife went in only five months ago - it had only been March, and then Montgomery's funeral in May, and now they were in August and the summer was nearly gone.

She ran her fingers over the scar, remembering the office building and the shattered glass around them, Coonan shot dead at their feet, and Beckett herself being dragged away from Castle's bleeding body.

The memory still woke her at night, shaking, voiceless in her anguish. She knew he dreamed of her being shot, but she had no memory of it really. It was the knife in his back and the glee in Coonan's eyes when he'd done it - that was what got to her.

"I'm tired," he breathed out against her. "I know you are too."

She nodded and stopped stroking the scar, brought her arms between them to curl up at his chest. She wanted him but she couldn't have him; her damn body wouldn't let her. But soon. Oh soon.

For now-

"Sleep," she murmured at his neck.

"Crawl in with me," he whispered back, even though she was already right here, even though she was in his lap.

"Yes," she answered, and he wrapped his arms around her shoulders and brought her down with him into the bed. Their legs tangled and his breathing hitched when her elbow got his bruised rib, but she managed to adjust them both until neither of them were in much pain.

He sighed, long and slow against her temple, his body easing at her side, half under her. She stroked his neck, the rough patch of scruff at his jaw, and then kissed his shoulder.

"You'll have to apologize to him tomorrow," she said softly.

"I won't," he pouted, and she heard that five year old boy in him again, abandoned at school and fighting against tears.

"You will," she said and nuzzled her head down against his side, took it for granted that he would listen to her and do what was necessary.

She knew what it was to be abandoned.

He woke up in agony with Kate Beckett sprawled over his chest, sleep-warm and breathing deeply, her arms curled tightly between their bodies. His ribs ached, and he had to turn so she wasn't pressed right against him.

Too bad, because she was beautiful and soft and he wanted her there, but he couldn't stand the thrumming pulse of his bruised ribs. She sighed, tender and small, and he ignored the pain to lean in and press his mouth to hers.

When he pulled back and opened his eyes, she was watching him.

He studied her as well, and then her fingers came up to stroke across his jaw and trip along his lips and she smiled, deep and forever and gorgeous. He lov-

"Marry me," she whispered.

He froze.

"Marry me, Richard Castle. Not a lie, not a cover. You're my plan. I want to be your wife."

He rolled into her and pressed his mouth against the suddenly serious line of hers, pushed his tongue inside to capture it, the words and the intensity, until she stiffened under him and his own ribs flared hotly in protest. He jerked back and held her up off the bed and on her side again.

"Your back, shit. I'm an idiot, your back-"

"I'm okay," she said lightly, and he thought it was pain but when he looked at her - when he really looked - it was uncertainty.

"And that's a hell yes, by the way," he growled at her, darting forward to kiss her mouth again, letting his teeth take her bottom lip until she moaned.

"A hell yes?" she panted, a red bloom over her cheeks that wasn't embarrassment, not at all. It was arousal and breathlessness and pleasure. "A simple yes would do."

"Nothing's simple when it's us, Beckett."

"No, it's not. But it's better this way," she murmured.

"I'm kinda pissed that you asked me now," he sighed. "When I can't get at you like I want to."

"Get at me?"

He narrowed his eyes. "You know what I mean." He scraped his hand down her sternum and hooked two fingers in her underwear, wriggling. She gasped and arched her back on a moan that wasn't sensual but painful, and he stopped teasing.

She panted and curled an arm around his neck. "Know what you mean. But still, you will - can you? even though you're a spy?"

"What? Marry you? I'll do whatever the hell I want."

"You need to apologize to your father. Mend that fence. And then-"

He growled again and flopped over onto his back. "Don't bring my father into this. Not when I want to touch you, do things to you-"

"That's exactly why," she muttered. "Keep us both from hurting each other."

"I hate him for how he's tried to manipulate you," he said flatly. "If it was me, I wouldn't care. Same old routine. I won't apologize when he's the one-"

"You will," she said quietly. "Because he raised you, for better or worse, Castle. And because he is, in his own twisted and deceitful way, trying to keep you alive. Doing what he thinks is best for you. And I can respect that even if I despise the way he does it."

"Kate," he sighed, but she kept going, curling at his side and sliding her knee over his thigh.

"You were the target of a sniper. A sniper. And we got lucky because I-"

"This isn't lucky," he hissed, gripping the back of her leg and wanting so very badly to shove that thought right out of her head.

"He would've killed you."

"He almost killed you," he growled back. "Fuck that. It's not - no. I'm not - you're in just as much danger as I am. More with me even than - we can't get married. I can't put you in more danger. What the hell am I-"

"Don't you dare take it back," she hissed, rising up over him with her hair spilling down one side of her face and trailing over his chest. "Don't you do that to me."

He gripped her thigh, brought his arm up to hook at her neck and drag her back down to his chest. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I don't - well I did mean it, but I don't. I'm a selfish bastard when it comes to you."

"Good, because I'm plenty selfish, and I'm obsessed as well. I win."

He didn't want her to win. He wanted her to live.

"Apologize to your father because we need him on our side," she muttered, her mouth rooting at his ribs, her teeth scraping at the skin before she kissed him. "Or on your side at least. Don't even care if he's on mine."

"I'll make him."

"No more punching."

"Can't promise that."

"If we're going to keep you safe, and by extension, me as well, then we need him."

Castle squeezed her tighter into him even though it hurt, pressed his mouth to the top of her head. "I don't want to need him."

"Castle," she warned.

"But fine. Yes. I'll apologize. But he's not to touch you, not to mess with you. I'll make him stop."

She shivered and her fingers curled at his sternum, flattened out again. "I'm okay. I can take it."

But she couldn't. He knew that too. And he would make his father stop.

"Kate," he said softly. "You're the best thing that's ever happened to me. I'm not letting you go."

He found Agent Black behind a desk at the local office, which meant his father had been waiting for him to show up or the man was simply keeping a close eye on Castle's movements at Stone Farm.

Probably watching Beckett as well.

But Castle stood at attention in front of his father and waited to be acknowledged. When it came, a slight lift of the eyes, Castle said what he'd come to say.

"I apologize for my behavior yesterday and for the disrespect I showed my superior officer. I will submit to any sanctions deemed necessary."

Agent Black stared at him for a long time without moving or speaking until finally, he stood from the desk and crossed his arms at his back.

"That woman has dragged you into something dark and twisted, Richard."

"Detective Beckett," he insisted. "And you do realize it falls under our jurisdiction. The NSA is being used-"

"Don't misunderstand me. I'm not suggesting this is a case we ignore. Corruption within our own government is not to be tolerated. And three of my men were killed - unsanctioned and off-the-books, but still my men."

Castle set his jaw and waited for it.

"This woman has put you in the crosshairs. It would just be her - and her alone - if she was the one leading this crusade. But you're a more powerful opponent. So they're going after you. I can't condone that."

"But it means we're close."

"She's made it personal, Richard. This is a case, not a war. You need to distance yourself from this woman-"

"I'm going to marry her."

His father took a step back, the most visible sign of surprise that Castle had ever seen him give out. But Agent Black shook his head and smoothed his features.

"You need permission for that."

"A committee will look at it, I know. I came by today to get the request form. She'll sign her okay to the background check and then that's it. You can't stop this."

"I am on the committee."

And just with that short sentence, Castle knew his father could postpone it indefinitely, could perhaps even overthrow the committee and make Castle's life hell. He'd marry her anyway, but he'd be put off active duty. Again.

And Beckett had said to mend fences.

"I'll have her no matter what you say, what you do," Castle said calmly, not letting the anger color his voice because he knew his father would disapprove. "She's mine. Partner, friend, lover. Everything. She's mine."

"Perhaps after this case, the two of you can revisit-"

"No," he said. He had no hope of this case being resolved soon. And he couldn't wait that long. "She's with me. Like you said, they'll be after her."

"They're after you," Black insisted, leaning forward somewhat as if to emphasize his point. But he had control, and he eased back, his eyes like two flat rocks. "You both - though you more than her - are in danger from this group. A source not even I can discover, have no way or method of crushing-"

"We know who it is," he said calmly. "Beckett was the one to figure it out. She put the pieces together. I just looked up the name."

Agent Black lifted his eyes to him, a tilt of his head to indicate he'd seen every report Castle had filed and not once had there been mention of a source. A name.

Castle and Beckett had kept it back. "We have no proof," he explained. "Less than none. Speculation and jumping to some wild conclusions. I couldn't put it in an official report."

"You have. . .a name. Tell me."

Castle swallowed and averted his eyes from his father, a flash of that cemetery and the sunlight, her body bleeding out.

"Senator Bracken."

And instead of censure, instead of a lecture on going through proper procedure to acquire information, his father nodded to the chair in front of his desk, and then he sat down himself. Black didn't even look surprised at hearing the name. "Continue, Agent Castle. Give it to me step by step."

Agent Castle.

So he sat down and explained how they'd arrived at the name.

"You do realize, don't you, that going up against a man like Bracken means serious work."

Castle lifted an eyebrow at his father's words. How could he not know that? Of course he knew that. "Serious work."

"Bracken has-"

"Don't you think I know that?"

Agent Black sat back in his desk chair, steepled his fingers under his chin and studied his son. Castle kept himself from shifting in his seat and endured the scrutiny.

"Then we dig in," Black said finally. "We go full throttle at this. You're marrying her, fine. Marry her. But just know that you're going to have a target on your back, and she will as well, until we get this done. We will get this done."

"You leave Beckett alone, and I'm all yours," he said quickly, leaning forward in his seat.

Agent Black scraped a finger down his cheek and then sat forward as well, his elbows on his desk. "We'll start at the bottom of the pile - the runts of his litter - and work our way to the top. It's going to mean at least three months of you being here, Richard. Three more months of fourteen hours days and more. You'll have to be committed to your job."

Castle made a fist, felt the the anger flash through him. It wasn't like he hadn't been doing his job. "I'm committed to my job," he said finally, gritting his teeth.

Black laced his fingers together and nodded. "Then that's it. We go after Bracken. I'll get your access reinstated."

Castle tapped his finger against the arm of the chair and wondered if he should-

"If we can't get him."

"Richard."

"If we can't get the evidence to put him away," he said quickly. "Then I'll have to do something about it."

His father was silent for a long time, his head bowed over his hands, and Castle waited. He wouldn't back down on this one.

"You come to me first," his father said finally.

Castle glanced up. Agent Black's eyes were just as cold, just as blank. But there was an intensity behind them that he'd never seen before.

"I come to you first."

"But you'll give me three months," Black insisted. "Three months."

He swallowed hard. He'd have to be away from Stone Farm for most of his days, probably nights as well - weeks if the work required it.

"Three months," he agreed.