Close Encounters

She was absurdly grateful for the group surrounding them at the Old Haunt, for the arrival of Lanie right behind her which put off whatever questions Castle might have had about the 'meeting' she'd been at. When he came back to the table, the other empty chair had been taken by the medical examiner, who only batted her eyes at Castle and ordered a martini.

"Just like the one in your hand, baby doll." She snagged Kate's drink with a deft maneuver and shot Kate a quelling look. "I need it more than you do."

Kate hadn't really wanted a martini anyway; she'd been teasing Castle. She gave up the drink easily and stood as well, gesturing Castle to sit back down. His fresh glass of scotch was waiting at her spot - she'd taken one smooth swallow - and she pushed it towards him.

"I'll ask for a pitcher and get something else. You stay." She let her fingers trail over his shoulder and ruffled his hair when he wasn't looking, made him growl at her. Distracted by teasing from the table, he let her go without another comment.

At the bar, she snagged their waitress and asked for another round and a couple more glasses of scotch. She wasn't looking to get Castle drunk, but happy was good. She felt the need for that bold burn of single malt, the way it seized her lungs like a fist and cleared everything right up.

She couldn't forget, no. She didn't want to forget. She needed to remember the way Dr Saber had snarled at her, the mockery that twisted his face. He wanted nothing to do with her, but he hated Black more.

She didn't want Castle to end up like that; she didn't want herself to end up like that - so obsessed with Black that it ate them up. Black colored everything in Saber's life and Beckett wanted more for her family. More.

But they needed the regimen. What had been done was done. No going back, no way to change it now. Saber could be broken, she was sure, given time. It hadn't ended pretty, but she'd taken her moment on the subway, no tears, just a long hard look at herself and what she'd done.

She didn't know that shooting him hadn't been the wrong thing. Saber thought of her the same way Black did - a woman of no use to the CIA, and worse, dangerous to the good male agents who risked their lives. He was in enforced detox due to the surgery and rehab, and she'd seen the trembling in his hands, the agitation and confusion, the sharp burst of excitement when she'd told him that Castle had recovered after receiving the injections. His mood had been unstable, his skin pale and sweating, and even though her father's sobering process hadn't been that severe, she knew what she was looking at.

A wrecked man, desperate for a drink.

And for revenge. But on all of them, not just Black. He hadn't wanted to give up his secrets, if he even had them.

But she'd work on him. Saber had all but demanded she come back next week, his haughtiness and pride the only thing that kept him from asking. She'd be back and she'd find out what he knew.

This time she wouldn't shoot him, but she wasn't above making it agony on them both.

The waitress handed her two fresh glasses of scotch and Kate came back to the present, flushed when she realized she'd been hanging out by the bar. She followed the woman back to their table, smiling as cheers erupted for the new pitcher, and she sank gratefully into the seat Castle had wedged between his own and Lanie's.

He took a scotch from her but didn't drink, settled it at her place instead. His arm came around the back of the chair, warm against the chill wind from the door opening and closing. She canted towards him, laid her hand on his thigh under the table because she knew he liked it when she kept in touch with him. She eyed the two glasses in front of her and sighed.

What the hell. She could use a second.

And maybe a third.

The night was dripping with lights, neon and car brakes and office floors, bakeries and coffeehouses and the ends of burning cigarettes. He wrapped her hand in his and pulled his shoulders in against the cold, felt the yawn starting in his chest before it broke out.

She laughed and slid around him, her body like sinuous heat, warming him up, and Castle grinned back at her, loved the way she got so silly, so easily amused. Her laughter was a bright thing in the city's darkness, a lure calling him forward, and he couldn't help the way his hands reached for her hips, wanting part of her.

She stumbled and he caught her, his fault anyway, and she hummed something and hung on to him by his tie, dragging him after her, keeping him just as close as he wanted to be anyway. They'd said good night to Lanie and Esposito back at the front door of the bar, the only other two who'd stayed so late, and Castle was sure that Javier would be taking his CIA calls from Lanie's place.

Carrie had gone home hours ago, Mitchell following after. He'd had a brief conversation with Beckett that Castle hadn't been privy to, something about old case files. Castle had no idea what that was about, but Mitch didn't seem concerned, so he wasn't either. Not much anyway.

"Stop thinking," Kate laughed at him. Her hips nudged his. "Remember when I took you mechanical bull riding?"

He grunted and narrowed his eyes at her - tried to anyway. "Hell, yeah, I remember."

"You've got that look on your face now. A little bit of sex, a lot of deviant planning. What're you planning, baby?"

He grinned back at her. "Wasn't even thinking about the mechanical bull. But we could go. If you wanted."

"I got my own bull," she said, her leer not even sexy, just clumsily adorable. "I can ride all night."

"Got that right," he growled, feeding her ridiculous lines. She was leaning back and kissing him, breathing hotly into his mouth, and then she tugged him hard by his tie.

"Get me home, Castle. I'm a little too drunk to be out on the street much longer."

"I got your back," he said easily. "You can walk, can't you?"

"You're not sloppy?"

"Sloppy drunk?" he laughed. She was giving him that not-quite-sober narrow-eyed look, the one that kept slipping because she'd thought of something else or his laughter had distracted her. "No, sweetheart, not sloppy."

"But you're aware?"

He sobered as he realized she was concerned about their safety on the street. "I'm aware."

"You're still super?" she said, and then clapped a hand over her mouth. Her eyebrows went up in horror and then - when he started to speak - she clapped her other hand over his mouth, halted them in the middle of the sidewalk.

She stared at him, eyes wide, lashes trembling, something both terrible and comic in her gaze.

He touched his tongue to her palm over his mouth and tasted peanuts and beer, the crease of her lifeline. She shivered and he caught her by her hips, pulled her gently towards the shelter of a closed bank, ducking them into the covered doorway. When he drew her hand down from his mouth, he kissed her fingertips.

"I'm aware. I won't let anything happen to you, Kate."

"Or you," she whispered, her hand dropping from her mouth and her body leaning into his. "Nothing happens to you. I'm not - I shouldn't have drunk so much."

"I'm super enough for the both of us," he said, nudging his nose into her forehead and kissing her. "Look, I'm not even cold, baby, and you're freezing."

She shivered again and drew in against him. "You have goose bumps," she sighed. Her fingers played at his neck and he realized he did. Had since they'd left the bar.

"It's only because you're touching me, love." He kissed her again, a reckless thing, trying to prove himself.

She bubbled up with a laugh, tilted her head back. "You got chills?"

"What?"

"They're multiplyin'?"

"Is that a song? Are you singing?" He laughed at her and she laughed back, gave a little shrug of her shoulders.

"It's from Grease." When he still looked clueless, she sighed. "Gotta educate you, baby. You've missed out."

"You gonna do the educating?"

"No one else better be educating you."

"It's electrifyin'," she whispered, her hips rocking back into his as the subway train went around the corner and flashed into darkness. The lights flickered once more and then went out again.

He breathed out at her nape, both of them standing in the uncrowded car, so close, everything brushing, her neck under his lips, the backs of her thighs to his knees, her fingers at his fingers, tangling.

"Touch me," she whispered. "We're alone."

He slipped his hand around her stomach and flirted with the line of her dress pants, nudged his fingertips under. He could feel the silk of her panties, the black thongs she'd pulled on in a hurry this morning, hopping on one leg because they'd overslept.

"Remember that first case when the Chinese agents came to your apartment and we had to ditch out the fire escape?" Castle spoke near her ear, letting the sway of the car bump them together. "We took the subway to my place."

"I remember," she murmured.

"I wanted to touch you like this."

"I might have broken your fingers if you had," she chuckled. She smelled like blueberry martinis and Lanie's perfume, but under all of that was the rich scent of her skin - something like almond milk and honeysuckle, something deep and blooming. Earthy and alive.

"It'd have been worth it," he sighed. "Though I doubt you'd have been fast enough to break my fingers."

"Oh." She sounded artless, buzzed, her body vibrating within the framework of his. He dared to slide his fingers lower, touching close, and at that moment the train lights zapped back on, flaring white.

She stiffened and he blocked her body from the flash of the platform as the subway slowed, inched his hand out of her pants. She shivered and twisted around, pushed herself into him like she could barely take it.

"Okay?" he murmured. The doors opened to no one, a platform mostly empty, and the low hiss of the public address system crackled on and off again.

"Okay," she nodded. "You make me feel electric."

"That's not a line from 'Grease' is it?"

"It's electrifyin'," she repeated tonelessly. She shivered again and clutched at his tie; he hadn't changed out of his work clothes because she hadn't either. She really seemed to need that tie. "The line is electrifyin' - but this isn't lightning, Castle. This is a constant current running through my bones."

"Sorry?"

"It's the best feeling I've ever had."

He dropped his arm from around her in stunned disbelief but had to quickly embrace her again as the doors closed and the subway jerked away from the platform. She rocked, didn't even falter, moving easily with the motion.

She'd been born here; she'd grown up riding these subway lines, he knew, and it showed. Even buzzed, she was naturally graceful.

"Best feeling you've ever had?" he said lightly, tried to skip over what that did to his guts. His soul.

"When I touch you... it's a closed circuit."

"I love it when you nerd out on me," he grinned. But his smile felt tight; she was too truthful, too raw, too honest for him to play it off.

"Everything is connected like this," she went on. Her eyes were bright and sleepy and she ran her fingers along his sternum. He felt it too, the spark and startle of static. "Your mouth on mine and I just - all that power."

He nodded dumbly because he couldn't say she was wrong and he wouldn't deny that being with Kate - touching or not touching - was... He didn't know what to call it, but a closed circuit was as good as any.

They were electric.

"I can't lose you."

"You won't," he promised, nudging closer so their hips bumped and their foreheads as well. She sighed and her breath was sweet and sharp like her profile in the bar tonight when he'd first seen her arrive, and it kicked hard in his guts.

"Everything else seems so dull and flat without us, without our current crackling through me. Nothing is the same. It's not worth it if it's not us."

"Okay, okay," he gentled, drawing his hand up to cup her skull. "No more scotch for you, sweetheart. It makes you sad."

She sighed again and her lips twisted. "Oh, it does. It makes me sad. I'd forgotten that."

"The martinis were nice, though, weren't they?"

"Vodka makes me sleepy," she murmured.

He stroked his thumb along her cheekbone and tilted her head back to him in the harsh lights of the subway. Their stop was drawing close and he wished he hadn't encouraged her to drink so much. She wasn't drunk, but the sadness made him ache.

"You can sleep when we get home," he promised. "It'll be better in the morning."

"Oh, good idea. I need to be quiet."

"Quiet?" he chuckled. "You can keep talking. I just wish you weren't so sad."

"I need to stop talking," she said, shaking her head with a little grunt. "Stop saying so much. So many things. They're not supposed to come out."

"Like asking if I was still super?" he asked, curious about the sad, truthful Beckett.

"You are, you are," she said hastily, like she had to reassure him. "I know you are. All this electricity sparking up, right? Power." She drew her head back to give him a crooked grin. "Animal magnetism."

He smiled back slowly; he finally understood. The closed circuit, the power, the electricity - she meant now. Now they had it back because of the injections. The regimen. Because he was-

"My super spy," she murmured, her nose nuzzling in at his ear and her mouth open to kiss. "You wouldn't let anything happen to us."

"I wouldn't let anything happen to you, Kate," he promised again, wrapping his arms tighter around her and burying his face in her hair. Super or not.

"Us," she insisted. A sharp thing, like a plea, her body taut and trying to hold on to him. "Us, to us. Protect us."

"I am. I am. I promise you, I am."

The doors swished open at their stop, cold air rushing through the compartment, and he hustled her out, wanting only to get her home, break the cycle of sorrow that dragged at her.

No more scotch and vodka together. Sad and sleepy didn't go well. He'd work on making her happy again, seduce her a little, romance her. Whatever it was that weighed on her tonight, he wanted to banish it.

Castle kept her hand in his and headed for the escalators back up to the night-bright city lights.

"You gonna talk to me or what?" he murmured.

Kate roused in their bed, skin flushed with the last of love, and curled into his side to listen to his heartbeat. She'd found herself addicted to the sound, as if she needed the reminder.

"I took a pregnancy test last night," she admitted. Though it wasn't the thing that pressed heaviest on her, the thing that bruised. "It was negative."

"Why do you keeping doing it alone?" he sighed.

"I don't want both of us going through that," she said honestly. "I know it's keeping you out of the loop and it feels isolating to you. I know. I'm sorry. But I can't - I just have to do it. I have to know."

"Are you upset?"

"Not... no." She closed her eyes but felt his fingers trailing up her spine to spread her hair over her back. Her skin was cooling; his touch made her shiver. "Everything in its time, Rick. We're in the middle of a heavy caseload right now."

"Yeah."

"Are you upset?" she asked. His heart remained steady though.

"You didn't give me a chance to be," he sighed. "Nothing's changed."

"I'm sorry."

"Can you not to do it alone next time? I just - I want to be there."

"For nothing?"

"For you, Kate."

She felt the shame flush her cheeks and turned her nose into his chest. His hand came heavy to the back of her skull and he scratched through her scalp. He didn't feel condemning, just tired, and she thought maybe that was worse.

"Okay," she mumbled, putting her ear to his heart again. "Okay, Castle. I'm sorry."

He turned on his side and wrapped his other arm around her then, his heat stinging her skin. Still so strong, so solid against her. Super. The idea of him losing it again, of that slow decline into collapsed lungs and weakness and drowning - she couldn't.

No. She refused to do this without him.

He sighed at her temple and nudged in for a soft kiss. "You cold?"

"Hm?"

"Let me pull the covers up," he whispered. She shivered when he untangled them, moving away, and the bleakness of the moon outside seemed to press hard against the window panes, wanting inside.

And then Castle's heat came back with the long line of his body next to hers and the cocoon of the sheets and blanket and comforter and he drew up at her back, his knee sliding between hers. And it felt good, it felt like a wall between her and that despairing moon.

"You okay?" he murmured in her ear.

"I'm okay."

"You said it, Kate. Everything in its time."

She just wanted to make sure they had the time.

Saturday morning was cool and clear when he woke, sunlight without filters, an endless blue sky. Omens of a better day. Castle turned in bed and brushed his hand over her shoulder, leaned in to press a kiss to her forehead.

She woke easily, like slipping into a pool, her eyes liquid and warm as she shifted closer to awareness.

"Want to go for a run?" he offered, voice raspy with sleep. She flinched but her fingers came up to press against his lips. His breath dampened her skin and she smiled, slow and pleased.

"Yeah."

"It's eight," he said. She nodded and her eyes stayed on his, like she'd woken from an upside down dream and now she was trying to be certain that everything was back in its place.

"Yeah, let's go for a run. Roosevelt Park? We could take Sasha with us."

"Sounds good." He drew his hand to hers over his mouth, his words reverberating still, and she smiled as she curled her fingers at his lips like a peculiar kiss. "Up and at 'em, Beckett."

She lifted in bed and drew her hand away, leaned in over him to dust her mouth against his. "Brush my teeth and put on workout clothes and I'm ready."

"Get going then," he smiled. She hummed something and made that cat-eyed face, content and pleased, even as she slid out of bed.

He watched her leave, body relaxed and easy in the morning, and then he got up to follow her.

Her sweat steamed as she entered the house, the dog exuberant and tumbling in behind her. Castle brought up the rear, shutting the door with a too-loud slam that made her turn. His shoulders were hunched in surprise.

"Don't know your own strength?" she laughed.

"Something like that." He turned back to look at the door like he really couldn't understand it, and she patted his shoulder, her nose drawing up at the sweat clinging to her fingers.

"Sasha." She called the dog to her side as she headed for the kitchen, set out clean water for their puppy. She shoveled a cup through the plastic bin of dog food and poured it into the dish, being sure to keep her fingers out of Sasha's way. She was a careful dog, but it was never a good idea to get between her and her food when she was excited.

"Want breakfast before shower or what?" Castle asked. He'd come into the kitchen and was pulling out a pan, clattering it against the stove.

"I'm going to shower," she said. "I want to eat clean."

"I'll make you something. Eggs?"

"One egg. With toast maybe. Light, Rick. Make it light, remember?"

"Yeah, I know. I will," he promised. He offered a kiss to her cheek as she passed him at the stove, and she leaned into it for a moment, despite the dampness of his t-shirt.

"You're good to me," she murmured, smiled at the way his eyes lit up at something so small. She scratched her nails at his nape like he was Sasha and he nudged her away.

"Go. Before I come after you."

After breakfast, it was just time spent together around the house. Kate was downstairs in the living room working on some kind of project while he messed around in the office upstairs, cleaning out old files and shredding them. He moved some assets into offshore accounts, rifled through his aliases to make sure they were still viable, and checked the whereabouts of some of his confident informants in Ireland. He liked to keep his hand in, even if his operations didn't include that struggle any longer.

He wondered if this was what normal people did. Puttering around on a Saturday. Taking the dog for a run. If they had a kid, how it would be different? He couldn't imagine not being paranoid, not moving money around for easy access in case their cover was blown - in case their lives were blown.

Now that was an interesting point. He needed to look into having documents made for a baby, a boy. A girl too, of course, because it wasn't like he had any say in it. And the kid over the years - shit. This was getting complicated. Maybe a couple of passports, and a few blanks in which he could insert the appropriately aged photograph when it came time.

If it came time. He didn't want to have to break cover and run, never wanted his son to live a life like that. Kate - he knew - would be fine. She'd probably, on some level, enjoy it as much as he did.

Well, and what rules said they had to have a normal family too? If they were chased back home to New York, why couldn't they all hide out in Rome? That gorgeous villa in Cyprus? The safe house in Paris? Even Copenhagen had friendly places available to them if they needed it.

His son would have an international life, and maybe that would make for a better man, a man of character, a man who would be sympathetic to the plight of the world.

Who said they couldn't raise their children exactly as they wanted to?

He needed documents, papers, passports. He needed birth certificates and a significant amount of cash squirreled away. Right now they had access, but if they were blown, then he'd have no way of getting to those resources.

So he had to prepare for it now. All the possibilities. His son or his daughter, a life overseas or in hiding.

And there was Black. He didn't know how his father would react, didn't know what would happen there.

Castle swallowed hard and rubbed a hand down his face.

Yeah, he needed to get on top of this now. Before they got pregnant.