Close Encounters 3.5
She felt good, riding on her own. Castle had ridden a demonic looking beast beside her, sticking really close, but she'd had a twenty or thirty minute ride on a horse alone, and even though she had a few spasms in her back, she still felt good.
She'd been following the program for three months, and this was where it had led her. She wondered how much faster she'd have healed if she'd submitted to it from the beginning.
Not only did she feel stronger again, but Castle had explained the plan - how they were going after Bracken - and while it was low level stuff and nowhere near as close to being over as she needed it to be, she knew it was a place to start.
And with Castle on her side, she felt like she could do this. She could work her way back to a healthier involvement with her mother's case, the case against Bracken. Castle wasn't always here, of course, and she knew she couldn't depend on him to be her crutch, her lifesaver. She had to do it alone. But.
She had found her center again while cooped up here at Stone Farm, and with Castle as a reminder, a place to get back to, she could keep that balance.
She could.
When the barn came into view, she felt better - not just in her body, which was healing - but also in her soul. A kind of hesitant truce had fallen over her. Not yet peace, but a truce. A surrender to the time she'd needed - and still had in front of her - to gain strength.
Still. Three months.
She'd missed him. She hadn't realized it until he'd shown up on the path to the barn, but she craved him. His presence, his body, his touch. Maybe she'd been too self-absorbed, too focused on her injury to notice before, but she'd missed having him.
She'd maybe even missed his bullying, his sense of dominating pride and his intensity.
Maybe.
Hm. Maybe not.
Castle dismounted before they even made it to the pasture, and then he reached back to lead both horses towards the barn, the sunlight on his hair, his forearm thick.
Beckett dismounted to the block without his help, but when Castle brushed down their rides in the stalls, she only watched. Repetitive movement still hurt too much and she couldn't lift her arm over her head for long. But Castle. In his flannel shirt and dark jeans, the flare of his shoulders and the afternoon light spilling over his face, Castle looked beautiful, ripe. The hum he had to soothe the horses as he worked made her body vibrate in concert.
She loved him.
Castle. So broad and with his shirt sweat-stained in a line down his spine, darkly at his waist. His arms flexed as he worked and the sharp smell of horse and hay made her blood pulse in her thighs.
She came up at his back when he hung the brush on the hook outside the stall, slid her fingers around to his abs, let her touch trail under his shirt. He sucked in a breath and went still, so she pressed her body against him.
"Beckett," he choked out.
She wanted him, so badly, wanted that connection they had when they were together, the way she created something with him, the way he made her feel like she could be more than just. . .broken.
She could be more.
"Castle," she breathed, pressing herself hard into his back.
"Don't be cruel, Beckett," he muttered.
She put her teeth to his neck and he was jerking her around his body and searing his mouth to hers. His tongue was forceful, widening her, stroking deep until she thought she'd choke, and his fingers gripped her hips and drove them closer together.
She moaned and clutched his shirt, tried to tug at it, but her manual dexterity was shot and his buttons were too much; her mind was spinning. His hands were at her thighs now, bruising, and he brought her body against the wall with enough force to make her cry out.
"Beckett," he gasped, sounding horrified. He was stepping back, an arm sliding around her neck and the other skirting at her spine, investigating what damage he might have done.
"I'm okay, I'm fine," she moaned, trying to wrap her leg around his. "I just - I need you."
"But I don't want to hurt-"
"That wasn't pain, you idiot. Rick Castle, you better stop worrying about my back and just go for it." She bit at his bottom lip and tried to force every bit of strength into the grip of her hands at his shirt and the need in her eyes. "Now."
"Hayloft," he muttered. "Up, up, up."
"I can't move," she moaned. And she meant it. She couldn't move. Her back had seized up too tightly for her legs to work. She was stuck up here in the stupid barn. Sated and weak with it, warm and burrowed down into a bed of hay with him - the hay only slightly scratchy - but still.
"Are you serious?" he groaned back, his body still heated under hers. She curled her toes to the back of his calves to take out the chill.
"Serious. And the sun is setting and it's getting cold," she muttered.
"Didn't hear you complaining a few minutes ago."
"Few minutes ago you were keeping me warm. Now you're just a lumpy mattress."
He laughed and wrapped his arms around her, but instead of snuggling in, he moved her to one side, draped his flannel shirt over her. "I'll go get you some warmer clothes, a couple blankets. Don't move."
He was already disappearing down the ladder. He was going to leave her here? She couldn't even shift position to reach for him, let alone get down. "Castle."
He stopped, his head at her eye level, his face somehow boyish and shy and happy.
Her panic melted away in a moment. "Maybe a couple pain relievers," she said with a soft sigh.
He nodded. "Got it. Be right back."
And then he was thumping to the barn floor. She tried to curl up, but she couldn't manage even that.
He'd been gone for a long time when she roused, shivering, and realized the sun had set. Her back was still a mass of knots and she tried slowly to curl her legs up towards her chest but she was hopelessly tense. Spasms fluttered in her back and down her legs.
She swallowed and drew her arms into her chest for warmth, her cheek scratching against the hay. He'd left his flannel shirt over her back, but the thin tshirt she'd worn was little protection. She hadn't even gotten her jeans back on, only her underwear.
At least there was that.
Beckett pushed against the loft floor and felt her back spasm hard, dragging her down. She grunted and let out a breath but wouldn't unlock her arms, wouldn't give in to the shaking that kept her from rising up.
A clattering in the barn below caught her attention and collapsed her back to the hay; she groaned and closed her eyes, but already she could hear him thumping up the ladder.
He'd come back.
Of course he had. Why had she-
"Hey, Beckett. Look what I got. Regular camp out. I - oh. Kate? Kate, are you-"
She opened her eyes and waved him off, realized she was trying to draw her knees up to protect herself and still couldn't. "I'm fine. Fell asleep. Woke cold."
"Yeah. I took too long. I was afraid of that," he muttered, and his fingers drew through her gnarled hair. "But I brought food. And blankets. And pain reliever. You still can't walk, can you? I wear you out, Beckett?"
"I hate you," she muttered, but she opened her eyes and smiled at him. He was only a foot away, and his palm came warm to her cheek as he leaned in to kiss her.
"You don't have any pants on, baby."
"The hell you say-"
He pressed his mouth to hers again, cutting her off, and then leaned back in the hay beside her, still in his dirty, horse-smelly jeans. He'd pulled on another shirt though, sometime when he'd been gone, and he stroked his fingers down her back as he put a hand behind his head to look at her.
"Cold, Castle."
"Oh, yeah. Oops. Let me get that blanket." He jerked up and pulled a blanket out of a bag he'd brought with him, settled it over her. It was fleece and immediately warmer, and she felt the knot at the base of her spine release. She slowly slid a knee up and felt infinitely better for the movement.
His fingers brushed the hair back from her face and she managed to shift to her side, curled up under the blanket. "What about that food, Castle?"
He grinned at her, the concern slipping out of his eyes, and he turned back to his bag. "You want me to help you get your pants on?"
She huffed and wormed upright while he pulled stuff out of his bag. "No. I can get my pants on-"
"You certainly got them off," he smirked.
"And yours as well," she shot back, lifting an eyebrow at him. He grinned, that eye-crinkling smile that made his whole face beautiful, and she pulled the blanket up to her neck. She couldn't actually manage getting her jeans back on, but soon. Soon. Just had to warm up enough to loosen her muscles.
"Okay, here's cheese and crackers. And wine. So the pain pills are just the little ones, but I could-"
"Perfect. Wine might do more to help me than those horse pills anyway."
He lifted an eyebrow pointedly and it took her entirely too long to realize they were right above actual horses. She laughed and leaned her head back into the hay built up behind her, uncurled her fingers from the blanket, wriggled them at him.
"You want something, Beckett? Your super spy perhaps?"
She bit her bottom lip until he got closer, then hooked her fingers at his ear. "No, baby, your wine. Hand it over."
He chuckled and brushed his mouth over hers, made her eyelids flutter shut with the soft, tender way he touched her. And then he was passing the bottle to her hand and closing her fingers over it.
"You gonna open the bottle for us, Castle, or what?" she muttered, eyeing him.
He grinned. "Knew you needed me for something."
She handed it back and he worked the cork out of the bottle; apparently it'd already been opened and all he had to do was twist it a little. When it came out with a soft pop, she sighed and grinned up at him.
"You first," he said, giving it to her with a salute. "No glasses."
She took a steady pull of the bottle and nearly choked, the burn more than she expected, the taste overflowing in her mouth. He took the bottle from her and handed her pain reliever instead. She tossed two back and grabbed the wine again, washed it down.
He took the bottle from her for his own sip, then nudged the cheese her direction; she realized she was starving.
"This what you were doing? You were gone ages, Castle."
"Picnic in the hayloft. Thought it'd be fun."
She scraped her fingernail over the edge of a cracker and brought it up, then she lifted her eyes to look at him. She caught the crooked smile he was giving her, the hope that suffused his face.
"Fun," she mused. "Well. Hand me more wine then, Castle."
Already the knots in her back were easing up, unraveling, and she pushed a cracker into her mouth, licking her thumb.
"More wine," he murmured, giving it back, and then he shifted to sit beside her, his shoulder to hers. He was propping her up and she let her head rest against him. When she curled her fingers around the neck of the bottle, she realized she didn't want it as much as she wanted this.
Him.
His arm came around her to tug the blanket up and his thumb caressed her cheek. She closed her eyes, realized she could relax.
He was here.
The look on her face when Castle had finally gotten everything up in the loft had broken his heart. She'd had her eyes closed, hopelessness etched into every line. Like a lost little girl. Like she'd never-
He sighed and stroked his fingers over the edge of her eyebrow, watched her push another cheese wedge into her mouth. She hummed and turned into him, her leg tangling between his, her hand clutching at his shirt.
He'd made them a little nest out of blankets and a couple pillows, had yanked sweatpants out of his bag for her when she looked morosely at her jeans, and then had the privilege of watching her squirm into those for a good few minutes. Then she'd curled up at his side again and they'd eaten cheese and crackers, finished off the wine, and he was familiarly buzzed and happy.
Apparently the wine and her pills made Beckett a little handsy but also a lot tired. He turned her towards his chest and cuddled her on top of him. She rocked her hips over his thigh even while she yawned and pressed her cheek to his shoulder. He drew the blanket up a little higher and tried again to comb his fingers through her hair as she fell asleep.
Hopelessly snarled. Had she not brushed her hair? Could she?
When he'd gone into their bedroom for her sweatpants, he'd seen their dirty clothes were piled up in the corner again. Hadn't Logan helped her take it to the laundry room, helped her wash them? Castle had meant to when he'd been back before, but. . .
Her face was shadowed in the twilight; fine lines cracked the corners of her eyes. Her phone had been on the bedside table, he remembered, the white case now dirty with wear. Like she'd repeatedly held it.
Her hair. The more he petted through it, the worse he realized it was. He picked out the hay, one by one, each piece of straw as she slept. But more than that, she had knots in her hair that came from the wild way it dried, like she couldn't managed to comb it out.
Thinking about it now, he hadn't seen her arms go over her head for any length of time, hadn't seen her lift her right arm to hook around his neck or put the flannel shirt on. She was still limited. And so - what? She'd stood in the shower and let the water run over her hair, but what then?
He'd seen the way the pain flashed over her face when he'd caught her hand and pushed it to the floor, his body over hers. But he hadn't thought about what it meant. Had she struggled in the shower to wash her hair, using one arm until it shook, until she growled in frustration and gave it up?
He wouldn't ask. But tomorrow, he'd stay a little later, no matter what Black said, and he'd help her shower instead of her doing it alone. Why had he ever thought that Beckett would ask Logan for help? Anyone for help at all? She'd been doing her hair all alone - everything, all alone.
Once she'd started feeling better, she had pushed him out to reestablish their normal boundaries, and he'd been hurt and stupid and focused on saving her in the only way left to him - her mother's case.
But she'd been right, hadn't she? She'd regained her dignity and her strength these last three months and he'd started to see her as a woman again, not just the partner who'd thrown herself in the path of a bullet for him.
Tomorrow morning. He was going to stick around, pay attention like he should have all along. He'd wash her hair and brush it out, get rid of the tangles and maybe braid it again. She had liked that, right? She would let him help.
She'd let him stay.
He tried again to work his fingers through her hair, but it was almost impossible. And he didn't want her to wake. After their round in the hayloft, she would need her sleep. He didn't want her to regret the. . .ride.
He pressed his lips to the top of her head in a smile and she hummed against him, curling a little tighter, and he realized her fingers were hooked into the buttons of his shirt, as if to keep him with her.
He liked them there.