Close Encounters 3.5
He woke late - he had expected his body to get him up naturally at an appropriate time, but it was already eight and he could hear the shower running.
Castle hustled into clean clothes and dropped the growing dirty pile down the hall inside the laundry room. He needed to find Ragle and go over a few new security measures, and then he had to get back to the office for a nine a.m. meeting. After that, he was taking a team into the city to pick up another low-level lackey in Bracken's organization.
It'd only been a couple months, but they were making good progress.
He had to go. He couldn't wait. How long did it taken her to shower?
Castle snagged her detective's notebook from the stack of stuff on the dresser, pulled out a clean sheet and wrote her a quick note.
And then he left.
Beckett gazed across the pasture and sighed slowly.
Stone Farm was lonely as hell.
Beautiful. But desolate. And it was never more apparent than a morning on her own after he'd been hers for a night.
Beckett pushed a hand through her hair as best she could but her arms were shaky from therapy. She leaned against the fence and let it support her weight, tried not to wonder where he was today, what he might be doing.
She wasn't built to sit at home.
She'd called her father and spoken to him for as long as she thought was safe; he'd asked after Castle quite a lot, actually. She had the strange sensation that the two of them had talked - without her - that maybe they still talked, that maybe Castle was keeping her father up to date on things. It was both unsettling and also. . .sweet.
Esposito had taken her suggestions on a cold case and asked for a warrant, but he'd been denied on insufficient evidence. Beckett was working through it now, the case spread out like a map in her mind's eye. She probed the weak places, saw them unravel too easily, like rotting knots in a rope.
Of course, now she had all the time in the world to figure it out.
Beckett pulled out her phone and texted Esposito to send her the bank records they'd gotten two years ago. When five minutes had passed and she'd heard nothing, Beckett pushed her phone back into her pocket and leaned her elbows on the railing.
Her back pulled against the strain but she was so damn tired of wincing and readjusting, tired of not being able to move like she needed to, tired of being quarantined like a mouse who was let out only to run the maze. She loved the cheese, but damn it was driving her nuts.
Beckett couldn't keep upright; she had to move away and head for the barn instead. Her fingers trailed over the rough wood and soon she was inside the cool, dim interior of the barn. She could practically feel the quiet and the solitude, all the horses outside, and the wind that came in through the open door and rattled the tack.
She never saw the stable hands, or whatever they were called. Well, okay - she'd seen them a few times, leading the horses to pasture or back inside for the night. She'd been mostly too self-absorbed to really look though, and she'd never been close enough for conversation. It made the place seem all the more desolate.
She put her hand to the saddle slung over a block, felt the well-worn leather with her fingertips, the stitching and the straps of the stirrups, how it was made for a purpose.
Ragle was here somewhere. And Logan would be upstairs cleaning the room where the last patient had stayed - a man she'd never met and had never been allowed to talk to and who had been gone again in the blink of an eye. There were security guards that circled but never spoke, and a guard's gate at the start of the gravel drive.
Fezzik, her physical therapist, came every day and mostly grunted his disapproval. And then there was the woman who cleaned, but she'd apparently been instructed not to make conversation, and so Kate had given up trying.
And now her phone. But it was silent as the barn around her.
She wanted out of here. She wanted a way to escape.
If she could just ride. . .
He parked the Range Rover behind the house, angling it into the deeper shadows under the tree. Castle stumbled out, wincing at the moonlight that splayed across the lawn. His jaw ached and he had a nasty bruise at his back, but the field doc had cleared him to go home.
Home. Stone Farm was home?
Well, the woman inside was.
Castle went up the porch steps and opened the kitchen door, then tried to keep it quiet as he closed it behind him. The screen door bounced against its frame and he hunched his shoulders, but nothing stirred.
It was four o'clock in the morning and he just wanted to rest for a few hours. He needed to be back early.
The nights had gotten brisk, and the thin shirt wasn't really enough; he'd have to remember to find Kate a few long-sleeved shirts, a jacket, make sure she had what she needed. He thought about her constantly, but he couldn't seem to really focus on her, like she was a photo he carried around in his pocket.
His tread was heavy down the hallway, but he opened their bedroom door softly and tried to sneak inside without waking her. She was curled in a fetal position on the edge of the bed, her back turned from him, all on her own side. He stripped off his shoes and jeans, crawled into bed behind her.
She woke suddenly and startled, but he wrapped his arm at her waist and tugged her into him. Her body eased; he heard her sigh.
"Kate," he mumbled, pressing his nose into her shoulder and kissing the skin, being careful not to push too hard on the wound.
"You're cold," she mumbled.
Her fingers laced with his and drew him closer, and he huffed out a pained breath as he was dragged over her back. But she didn't even flinch, so he stayed, grateful and exhausted.
She was silent, and he didn't have time to wonder. He was asleep.
She had to get out of here. Really. She needed to be - not here.
Not here, waiting for him like he was all that mattered, all that existed in her life - but he was all, sometimes, lately; he was all. She seemed to be more when he was here and less when he wasn't, and she hated it. She wanted to be more. More always, with or without him.
He would come home sometime before dawn with more bruises and a cold nose to her neck as he crawled into bed behind her, and then when she was in therapy the next day, he would slip out again.
She slept hard at night - no help for it, really - but she had no idea how long he was here or when. It was always more of the same - secret missions and his body slowly healing only to show up with a fresh wound and those remote eyes. And usually she wouldn't care, usually it would be fine. She had spent six months with him before this, Castle living out of her apartment, running out in the middle of the night to catch a plane, and she was used to the way he came and went - even used to the random injuries and the secretive nature of his work.
But.
He'd been in and out for nearly three months while she'd been here alone. And okay, yes, she'd felt her body strengthening and healing, rebuilding; he'd been right that she needed to follow the program. The program worked.
But he was out there, no partner, no Eastman, and on her mother's case. Without her. And maybe six months ago, she'd still have been deluding herself into believing that the case was all that mattered - getting Bracken, getting justice - but she wasn't that foolish any longer.
It wasn't all that mattered. Castle had to come back alive.
"You're up?"
She twisted on the path to the barn and saw him standing in the afternoon sunlight, his chin scruffy with a two-day growth and his eyes a little more hollow than she liked.
"Castle."
"You look beautiful," he murmured.
She realized he hadn't seen her up and walking around in a month or more; he hadn't seen her really at all. He'd been there for portions of a therapy session or early in the morning before she woke, but not standing in full sun with the strength of a late fall day in her lungs.
"You look rough," she said back.
He grinned and sauntered towards her on the path, his hands coming to her hips and pulling her against him. She gasped at he ropy feel of his thighs, the tensile strength in his fingers, and she lifted her eyes to the blaze of lust in his.
She'd missed it. Him. She could let herself admit as much.
"Where ya been?" she murmured.
He grinned. "For a second there, with the barn right there and the sunlight, I thought you were about to say cowboy, and it nearly did it for me, Beckett."
"In your dreams, super spy."
"Actually, I have a particular fantasy that involves you and some hay," he smirked, lifting his eyebrows and leaning in to her mouth. But his kiss was soft and tender, too sweet.
"You haven't seen what I can do," she said throatily, rolling her hips into his. He grunted into her mouth and clutched harder. "Castle. Wanna ride?"
"Fuck, yes."
She backed away and turned to the barn. "Good, because I need help mounting."
"Shit, Beckett-"
"The horse."
She could hear him sigh behind her but he came with her to the stalls and stood there at the door. "The horse. You want to go riding?"
"Yes," she said with relish. Because she finally could.
And she thought she'd have to do it alone, but since he was here.
Better that he saw what she was capable of now.
When she looked at him like that, her eyes teasing, her body sharp and alluring in the dim light filtering through the barn, he couldn't say no.
"I'll saddle your horse and help you ride."
"You coming?" she said.
"I hope."
She laughed, her voice rich, and while he hadn't meant to seriously have her in a hayloft in the barn at Stone Farm, he was rapidly trying to calculate how much energy she'd have after a twenty minute ride.
Problem was - he actually didn't know. He had no idea. She was surprising him at every turn.
"Castle," she murmured, moving her body into his and pressing against him. His bruises woke, but they were healed enough that he could silence them with the vision and feel of Kate Beckett.
"Yeah?"
"Make my dream come true, and I just might make yours."
"What's your dream?" he croaked, breathing hard as she stared at him.
"I wanna ride."
"Me too."
She was amazing. Strong and tall in the saddle, her body moved in rhythm with the horse's walk, and even though it had to be hurting her, she didn't bend, she didn't break.
They stopped at a stream to rest and she let him help her dismount, her body sliding down into his arms. She couldn't move her right shoulder too much, but he wanted to press her against himself and absorb the vital and beautiful way she breathed before him.
"Castle?"
"When did you get so much better?"
She laughed. "It feels like ages, but I'm doing good. Finally. It's been three months since you've stuck around for any length of time. Stuff happens, Castle."
Three months. It was October already. His fingers feathered over her scar and she straightened her spine, but he saw she wasn't flinching. "How's this?"
"Pulls. But I'm okay."
"Yeah?"
"Been cleared, if that's what you mean. No more pelvic rest."
"Where've I been?" he growled and pressed his mouth to hers. She laughed into his kiss but her tongue darted out to touch his and his body went up like dry grass.
"What," she panted, pushing him back. "What was that dream of yours about hay?"
"I shouldn't-"
"Yes, you should. Not out here on the path, but inside that barn? Oh yes you should, Rick Castle. I want you."
He grinned and stroked his fingers through her messy hair, curled them into a fist. Had she done her hair on her own as well, showered and dressed all by herself? Had Logan done it when she needed help? He couldn't imagine Beckett would let anyone in on her weaknesses; he'd had to bully his way into her life to begin with. Today she had just let her hair go wild over her head. He liked it, liked that she wouldn't let anybody but him touch it.
"Your hair is sexy," he murmured.
Her eyes were laughing at him. He didn't even care.
"And your mouth," he went on. "Pink with that tongue and your teeth and how you smile at me. I love your mouth."
"I love your hands," she murmured, her eyes lifting to his and killing him where he stood. "I miss your hands on me, Castle."
He slid his palms to her ass and squeezed, brought her in closer so that he could press his body against hers, warm and flush. He'd missed her the past week, the past month, the past three months. He'd missed knowing how her day had been and what she'd accomplished in physical therapy and keeping track of how many scrambled eggs he'd managed to make her eat. He'd missed her.
"Get me back to the barn," she sighed, her tongue flicking at his earlobe and then her teeth. "Cowboy."
"Yes, ma'am."
"And while we ride, tell me what's going on with my mother's case. Three months, Castle. I'm tired of being in the dark."
She clenched her fist in his shirt and bumped their hips together and all he could think was - whatever you want, anything, yes.
Castle kept it short, tried to fill her in without making her anxious about his true intentions. Had he really not explained all this? Three months and he hadn't said a word to her?
"Black has begun a clean-up effort in New York City," he began. "Bracken's network is largely organized crime, with a few legitimate operations at the top."
She leaned into his words like she could actually physically hold herself up with them. That look was in her eyes again.
"So we've swept up a lot of low level stuff, Beckett. Some slave trafficking has been the worst of it, and of course, nothing leads back to him. It's all shell companies and mystery men."
She sighed and that sickly light finally dimmed from her eyes. "What about his ties to the crooked cops in the NYPD?"
He shook his head at her. "We're concentrating on today, not the past, Beckett. It's not - there's not enough there," he said quietly.
"So my mother's murder-"
"Is how we got here, yes. But I can't promise you that Bracken will face a jury for her murder."
"Castle," she groaned. Her voice had a catch in it that he thought was pain, the flare of her shoulder or her back, but when he looked, it was grief. It was just grief.
"Beckett. Kate. Look at me."
She struggled, her hands gripping the reins and her hair snarled around her face and hiding her from his view. But finally she lifted her chin and looked at him. Her eyes were like stone.
"Kate. I made you a promise that I would get him, and I will get him. I will. No matter what. I just can't promise that he'll see your mother's murder charge. There will be other charges, treason being one of them, but that one. . ."
"But he'll have justice," she said fiercely, her eyes glittering now. "He'll have to answer for his actions."
"I promise." He reached across their horses and gripped the material of her jeans right at her knee, clinging to her and keeping the animals close. "Kate. I promise I'll get him."
She set her jaw and swallowed, and he saw her working through that. "Tell me," she rasped finally. "Tell me about the low level stuff. The heroin. The slave trafficking. Who bruised your ribs this time?"
He eased back; that was something he could answer. So he gave her the story of the group running girls in from Kabul and keeping them as prostitutes in the city, and his shoot-out with their leader down by the East River.
And it seemed enough for her. She was satisfied.
But he didn't know for how long.