Two Casualties

For ten days, Rick Castle refuses to let Beckett out of his sight.

Between the time of Montgomery's death and the morning of his funeral, Rick has spent only a handful of hours apart from her. She was adamant that he should spend time with his daughter, that he should go home.

The thought of her, alone and grieving in an empty apartment turned his stomach. And it took very little persuasion on his part to convince her to come to the loft with him. They haven't talked more about what this is between them; he still hasn't been brave enough to tell her that he loves her. But she's spent every night with her bare skin plastered to his and he has to hope that says enough for now.

Pacing in front of the coffee machine as he waits for the damned thing to just start working, God damn it, Castle vows to himself that he'll buy her a new one after today is over. Kate is still in her bedroom, having ushered him out to find a way to make himself useful.

They haven't spoken much since the night in the hangar. Fractured sentences offered up to each other like olive branches and a whole lot of silence. But even so, he's grateful. He had always thought, based on plentiful hard evidence, that Beckett wells her grief up inside and doesn't let it come spilling out until she reaches breaking point.

So yes, she hasn't spoken much with him. But she's clung tight to his hand, she's cried against his shoulder, she's curled into the warmth of his body in the bathtub. Not once has she tried to hide her grief, the ragged ache of her heart from him. Largely, he thinks, because he feels it too and she knows it.

The coffee machine finally, blessedly starts to work and Rick sinks onto a barstool in gratitude, bowing his head almost to the counter. Today, they bury their captain. It hasn't seemed to be a real, tangible thing yet. His loss. But after today there will be a grave to visit and tend to.

This limbo they've been ensnared in will let up. Proceedings will start to find a new captain. Life will go on, crime scene tape erected around the gaping hole of Roy's absence as a reminder to avoid it. Just. . .don't think about it.

From her bedroom, Kate appears dressed in her uniform and Castle's heart thrashes wildly, his mouth going dry at the sight of her. She looks so young, so vulnerable, nowhere close to the photograph that Royce showed him of a uniform-clad Beckett beaming at the camera.

Rick struggles upright and heads towards her, settling his hands at her biceps and tugging her in against him for a fierce embrace. His mouth finds her cheek and he kisses the hard edge of bone, stroking his fingers at the space between her shoulder blades like collecting cobwebs.

"Can you help me?" She murmurs, stepping away and then turning so he's met with the powerful strength of her spine. "Can't get my hair to stay."

"Yes, yeah." He rushes to agree, taking the cluster of bobby pins she passes him and securing the strands that escape from her bun. When he finishes she turns back and lifts up on tiptoe in her flat shoes, pushes her mouth to his.

"Thank you."

The coffee machine beeps at them and he falters, torn between wanting to fix her drink like everything's normal and wanting to hold her close to him forever. She solves the problem, taking his hand and drawing him with her over to the machine.

She fetches mugs and gestures for him to pour while she hunts around for milk, vanilla syrup. They fix their coffee together and stand, side by side leaning against her kitchen island to drink it. Kate nurses her drink slowly, both hands wrapped around the mug as if she's trying to leach some of its warmth for herself.

Carefully not looking at him, until the moment when she does. "Will you stand up there with me? When I give the eulogy."

"Of course. Of course I will, Kate." He gets out, grasping for her hand and squeezing too tight, he knows. But God help him, he loves her. He needs her.

Kate lets him have it for a moment and then she untangles herself from his grip, leaning in to kiss him almost as an apology. After today is over, Castle promises to himself, he'll tell her. She looks at him and she must see it all over his face, how desperately he loves her. He can't hide it from her. And then she turns away.

"We should go."

It has been years.

Well, no. It hasn't. It just feels that way.

He has been irrevocably damaged by watching Kate Beckett bleed out in his arms, changed in a way that should take centuries but in fact was done as quickly as Kate's body shut down in protest of the scalding metal that tunnelled its way through her chest.

With the woman he loves dying in his grip, Rick had let the raw truth of his heart spill out and offered her something to hold on to, even as the threads of unconsciousness wove around her and pulled her up into the cobalt mist of sky.

Please don't leave me. I love you.

Rick is in the cafeteria, struggling through a cup of coffee that somehow, impossibly, tastes worse than the monkey pee and battery acid precinct combination he'd been subjected to in his first few weeks there. Largely to give Beckett's father a turn to keep watch over this woman they both love more than their own selves, some precious time alone with her even as she sleeps. In this, he feels a sort of desperate companionship with Jim. To be apart from her is unfathomable, torturous.

His phone vibrates against the table top and he snatches it up, accepts the call and pushes it to his ear, already standing up.

There's only one reason that Kate's father would call him. "She's awake?"

"Yes. Asking for you."

"I'm on my way." He chokes out. Halfway to the elevator, he gets diverted by the gift shop and heads there instead, somehow manages to pick out an enormous bunch of flowers without actually seeing anything at all. By the time he's made it to the front of the queue and paid for the bouquet he's trembling with anxiety, desperate to get to her.

In the corridor outside of her room, Rick hesitates and fixes his hair, tries to avoid seeing the rest of his reflection. He looks haggard, a wreck, but he has to be okay for her. He has to make her see that he meant it, what he said. That he loves her.

When he steps inside of the ward she looks up at him, tearing her gaze away from her father, and her whole face floods with light. Jim stands up and excuses himself, slips out of the room past Rick to give the two of them a little time alone. "Hey, Castle."

"Hey." He grits out, arrested by the sight of her. So damn beautiful, even like this. Even when he sees the hum of barely held back agony at the corners of her eyes. She's on the good drugs, the nurses said. Not really feeling it yet.

"You're staring at me. I must look really bad." She murmurs, lifting a hand to scratch her hairline and hide her face from him all at once.

He can't stop himself from blurting out the truth, his mouth apparently running without any sort of consent from the rest of him. "You're gorgeous. And I. . .never thought I'd see you again."

She doesn't say anything, but her cheeks pinken up. That same delicate flush he's seen when she's above him, beneath him, rolling her hips and gasping his name. Suddenly, he remembers the flowers in his hand and starts, heading towards her to set them down at her bedside. "I heard you were opening a flower store, so I thought I'd pitch in."

"They were all here when I woke up. I think they're mostly from the precinct." He wants to say I know. It was him that accepted most of the deliveries, him that arranged the dozens of bouquets around her so she'd see the bursts of vibrant colour when she opened her eyes, instead of the clinical steel and white of the hospital. "I don't think I'm gonna live this one down, Castle."

He chuckles, reaches for her hand where it rests, limp on top of the covers. Her fingers curl around his and he kisses her knuckles, has to swallow back the stupid rush of grateful tears. She's here; she's alive and joking with him. The least he can do is not cry right in front of her. "Oh, probably not."

She groans, but he knows it's false. Knows because he's been here, heard her cry out in pain while she slept. He knows what it sounds like when Kate is hurting, now. And he would give anything, do anything to return that knowledge. To protect her.

"You tried to save me."

"Yeah I uh-" He cuts himself off, stares at her. When he walked into her room and she didn't mention what he said, didn't mention that he loves her, he had just assumed that she doesn't remember. "You remember me tackling you?"

"I remember all of it, Rick." She says it so quietly, as if that can diminish any of what it means. Here is where she tells him that she can't do this, can't love him back. That he has to go. "You love me."

"I. . .yes. I love you."

And then she smiles, wide and bright and beautiful and she curls her fingers in his collar, tugs at him until he shifts from his chair to sit on her bed, right beside her hip. Kate's other hand comes up to cradle his cheek and she leans in to him, kisses him with so much tenderness swelling between them.

He thought she wouldn't be ready to hear the truth of his heart. Not yet. But here she is, kissing him and smiling and looking at him like maybe, someday soon, she could feel it too. When she breaks away, she gentles him with the touch of her fingers to his jaw and smoothes her thumb over his bottom lip as if to erase the mess she's made of him.

"I'm really tired, right now." She murmurs, leaning back into her pillows and letting her eyes slip closed. "But please don't go."

"Where would I go?" He says, leaning in to kiss her cheek and then moving back into the chair by her bedside and cradling her hand in both of his.

The boys are at the precinct, battling their way through barrier after barrier to try and figure out who the hell did this to Beckett, but he wouldn't be useful there. He'd only mope, yearning to be close to her. And she needs him, even if she can't come right out and say it.

He's not going anywhere

"Hey there." Rick beams as he heads towards her and Kate cranes her neck to see him, pushes her sunglasses up to the top of her head.

Late August, and she can finally move with only a tug of awareness. No agony, no fire to ripple through her limbic system and leave her frozen in place and gasping. After six weeks of gruelling physical therapy at the best rehabilitation centre in the city (her father didn't say how he was managing to pay for it and she didn't ask) she came out to her family's cabin for the rest of her recovery.

A little over two months, now. Her father was here with her for the first couple of weeks, but then he went back to the city. So for a lot of the time, it's been her and Castle.

She wouldn't let him stay the whole time, wouldn't let him abandon his daughter and his mother and his life in the city. Fed him some excuse about needing him to keep her up to date with everything that was happening back in Manhattan. So they reached a compromise.

Castle has been driving up to the cabin each Friday morning and going home again late Sunday, and she's so grateful for it. Him. In the week, nothing to do but listen to the swell of communication between the crickets outside, she's been slowly going nuts.

Might have completely cracked if she didn't have Castle's visits each weekend like a beacon to hold on to. "Hey. You just get here?"

"I made lunch. It's inside if you want it." He says, coming to lie at her side on the blanket she spread out on the grass. Already the leaves are turning; she wanted to grab a hold of summer with both hands while she still could.

Kate turns in to him, sliding a hand under his shirt and to the bare skin of his abdomen. He looks delicious, in shorts and a t shirt, the hard edges of muscle in his calves and his biceps so inviting. "I don't want lunch. I want you."

"Kate." He breathes, holding her off with a hand splayed in the curve of her waist.

Damn it, Castle. She feels good, finally. Yes she's too thin, and yes the scars are still angry and red and all she sees in the mirror, but even so. She wants him. It's time for things to start to get back to normal. This Sunday, when he leaves, she's going back home with him.

Back to work, back to a world that's still slightly off-kilter, still tilting around Montgomery's absence, but nonetheless better than this.

"Rick." She says, her voice low and smoky in that way she knows he likes. He groans, his face crashing into her shoulder and his mouth opening against her skin. Kate sifts her fingers through his hair and grins, rolling onto her back to ease him down on top of her. "I'm okay. I'm strong enough. You're not going to break me."

"Are you sure?" He rests his weight on his elbows either side of her head, staring down at her and the lust is so rich on his face that for a moment she hardly recognises him. Wow. He's had to work harder than she thought to keep himself in check.

Arching her neck, Kate manages to get her mouth against his and kisses him, hot and sweet and crackling energy between them. "I'm sure. Please, Rick. Show me you still want me."

"Of course I-" He growls, rocking his hips hard into the cradle of her thighs and stroking his tongue inside of her mouth.

They've kissed, and touched, since she was shot. Those first few weeks he seemed terrified to touch her at all, as if his love could ever be anything but a soothing balm to the fire of a bullet in her heart. He's helped her dress, taken baths with her, but he's been overwhelmingly chaste.

Not anymore. She won't let him. "Castle, make love to me. Right here, right now."

"Oh God. Oh Kate." He groans, going for her mouth again and again as if he still can't believe that she's here. Sometimes, neither can she.

Kate fists her hands in the hem of his shirt and draws it slowly upwards, peeling it over his head and tossing it onto the grass. Her father's cabin is isolated, no one else for miles around, so doing this right here on the lawn is all thrill without any danger of actually getting caught.

It feels so wonderful, the warmth of the sun licking over them both, the quiet murmur of the forest at their backs. She has always loved it out here, even though her mother's absence is particularly tangible at the cabin. Kate skims her hands over Castle's bare skin, delighting in the noise he makes when she circles his nipples before she comes up to cup his cheeks, her mouth still hot and feverish against his.

She's wearing a dress, thought it might help with her seduction of him, and Castle breaks their kiss to peel the whole thing up over her head and leave her, squirming below him in just her underwear. There's no shame in it, either thing. Her body or how very much she wants him.

"God, you're so beautiful." He breathes, kissing the puckered circle of skin nestled between her breasts with so much reverence that she could weep. His hands splay at her ribs, wide enough to hold her together and he works his way out from her scar to the peak of her breast, his mouth open wide over her nipple.

His skin is warm under her fingertips and Kate traces the shell of his ear over and over, lets him have as much time as he needs to worship at the font of her breasts. "Castle. Rick. You're beautiful, too."

He laughs, and at least it breaks some of the tension between them. With their fight and then Montgomery's death and then her shooting, they haven't had much of a chance to laugh together recently. But she's dreamed of it, imagined what it would be like to laugh with him in bed until their mirth turned to breathy desire and a gorgeous unmaking of one another.

"You're sure you want to do this outside?" He asks, his fingers hesitant above the line of her underwear.

Smirking, she presses a burst of a kiss to his mouth and pops the button on his pants, dragging down his zipper and slipping her hands inside to palm his ass. "What's the matter? You scared?"

"No." He huffs, his fingers suddenly underneath her underwear even while he pouts like a little boy. The dichotomy of it makes her head spin and she kisses that kicked-puppy look right off of him, pushes his shorts down his hips and waits for him to kick them the rest of the way off.

They're in their underwear, rocking against one another on top of the picnic blanket her family have been using for years and she wants so badly to laugh. Until his fingers curl in the slick heat of her and she gasps, dropping an open mouthed kiss to his neck.

"That feel good, Beckett?" He grins, so god damn smug that she palms him in retaliation. His hips jerk and he growls and all of the arrogance drops right off of his face, leaving behind the man who loves her. "Shit."

Suddenly, her desire opens like a hungry mouth in the pit of her stomach, gnawing at her, and she can't wait anymore. "Rick, it's been four months since I've had you inside me. That is entirely too long."

"Fuck, Kate." He groans, a clumsy mess of limbs as he struggles to free himself of his own underwear and then pulls hers off as well, unhooks her bra and tosses it somewhere over his shoulder. Kate lifts her hips in invitation and he moans, loud and uninhibited at the feeling of her against him.

And then he slides inside of her and she chokes on a gasp, hooking a leg over his thigh to earn herself some leverage and encourage him to just move, damn it. Breathing his name against the edge of his jaw, Kate rocks frantically against him and his hands come to her hips, hold her still.

"Whoa, hey, slow down." He murmurs, kissing her gently and rocking into her so achingly slowly she thinks she might actually just combust right here. "There's no rush. We've got all the time in the world."

She whimpers but lets him have it, lets him set the pace. Their kiss is deep and languid and it sets her alight from the inside outwards, makes her tremble in his arms.

He breaks away from her mouth to press his forehead against hers, smiling down at her as if he can't believe they're really here, doing this. "I'm so glad you didn't die, Kate. So glad."

"Me too." She grins. And then, drawing courage from the feeling of him inside of her, the slow coil of tension already starting low down in her gut, she finds it takes almost nothing at all to just say it. "I love you."

His thrusts get harder, his kiss more desperate and then he reaches down between them, seeking out her clit with two fingers and carrying her right over the edge with him, both of them lost to the haze of pleasure. When she catches her breath again, Kate pushes on his shoulder to roll him off of her and curls up at his side instead, her cheek pillowed on his chest.

"You love me."

"I do." She hums into his skin, kissing the smoothness right over his heart and looping an arm around his waist. Casual, like they do this every day and oh God, they are going to. "Castle, I don't know what happens now. With my shooting or my mother's case. I don't know where I go from here. But wherever it is, I want you with me."

"I'm with you. You're not in this alone." He says against the crown of her head, his hand trailing a lazy pattern up and down the column of her spine. The sunlight comes dappled through the widespread fingers of the trees that fringe the edge of her father's property, laying over them both. Their bodies smooth like river stones and the light bathing them and she knows, whatever happens, it will be alright.

Thank you for sticking with me in this foray into the fanciful. I hope you've enjoyed reading as much as I did writing it.

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Twitter: seilleanmor