Close Encounters 13

Beckett's heart was pounding, her palms damp with sweat. Ryan kept giving her funny looks, but she merely pressed her lips together and fought against it.

"All right, here's where I've been," Ryan said quietly. He opened the door to the server room with his key card and Beckett had a flash of guilt for it, but it wasn't like what she was doing was illegal. They were inside the CIA Office's server room and she was only doing what had to be done.

"Which one have you been working on?" she asked.

"Right here."

"I won't bother that one," she told him, bypassing the stacks of humming computer CPUs. She pulled out the tray that house the keyboard and station monitor for the server on Ryan's left. "I'll use this one. Thank you."

"We're going to get Bracken," Ryan said in a low voice. He gave her a quick nod and then left Beckett to the room. But it wasn't Bracken she was worried about.

She pinched the bridge of her nose and her hair fell forward, a curtain of momentary darkness it the cool server room. She shivered and brushed it back with one hand, looped a rubber band around it to put it in a bun. She didn't need any distractions.

Beckett logged into the server with the admin code and routed the programs on top to run in the background. Ryan had been doing regular checks, but she didn't want to interfere with his work. All she needed was the secure station and some privacy to make this phone call.

She opened the application that the CIA used for station to station calls and entered her identifying code words into the message box. Her fingers left damp halos on the keys as she typed, and she hunched her shoulders as she waited for the North African listening station to confirm.

She still didn't know who was in charge down there. Castle had gotten in touch with the kid - a guy named Reynolds fresh out of the CIA training camp - but it'd been hit and miss with recent communiques. They'd taken Reynolds out to dinner once and Castle had known him since he'd been on the surveillance team tasked to follow her around. If Reynolds wasn't answering regularly, she didn't know what was going on over there.

After an agonizing thirty seconds, the message flared back bright green on the screen.

Confirmation code and ready status.

Beckett pressed her headphones into the jack and dialed the station, breathless as she waited. The call went through and the line - as it always was down here - was crystal clear.

"This is the Station Keeper," the voice said quickly. "Please confirm submission." It sounded like Reynolds. She thought.

"This is the Station Master. ID Mermaid. Is the package still unopened?"

The hesitation made her fingers go numb, but then Station Keeper was rushing to respond. "Mermaid, the package remains unopened."

"I need you to open it," she scraped out. "I need to speak with Captain Ahab."

"Mermaid, please confirm. You want to speak with Captain Ahab?"

"Confirmation code Bravo-Kilo, 41319."

"Confirmation received. I'll go open the package."

Beckett held her breath as she waited, felt the pinpricks of danger across her back like she was being hunted. She'd felt the same that moment in the alley when Black had pushed her to her knees and she'd known the end was coming.

The voice on the line came entirely too soon - not just for her state of mind, but also for how long it should have taken the Station Keeper to let Black out of a secure cell and walk him, chained and with proper precautions, towards the communications room.

"This is Ahab," the voice intoned. "Mermaid, is it?"

"You know who this is," she said back. She stiffened her spine and reminded herself he was in North Africa. "And you know I wouldn't be talking to you unless it was important."

There was silence and she let it play out, let him imagine the worst, let him wonder about his son. She had no problem playing the damn mind games. She could do this all day.

"Important," Black finally said. "So. Get on with it."

"He's... he needs the stabilizers. He got sick and we had to give him an infusion of those shots-"

"What shots? Where did you get the injections?"

"From his freezer," she admitted. "He'd saved them."

"You are a damn fool," he muttered.

"He was dying. He couldn't breathe. He caught pneumonia and it mutated because of the damn regimen you've had him on." Beckett gripped the edges of the keyboard to keep from throwing it. "It's your fault he's like this. We didn't have anything else - and it saved his life. Only-"

"Only now he's insane, is that what you're telling me? You've had to lock him up."

She couldn't help the way icy terror dumped straight down her spine and sloshed in her guts. "N-no," she choked out. "No, he's not - is that what happens?"

"If he's not deranged, then - my dear - how ever are you calling me?"

She heard it now, the delight in his voice because he knew she'd gone behind Castle's back for this. "I'm calling you because eventually he's going to need those stabilizers, because already those injections are wearing off. I'm calling because I assumed you had an interest in saving his life."

"I have an interest in a great many things, Ms Beckett."

"It's Agent," she said carefully. She debated for a moment, but she knew she had nothing to lose. "And I don't want him to die. Please."

The silence was damning. Kate closed her eyes and wondered how she should have played it, what else she could have possibly done or said to make him help her.

"Agent," his voice came clearly. "You get my son to see me. And I'll do the rest."

Her stomach dropped. "To... see you?"

"He comes here to me. He asks me for my help. Not you. I want him."

When Beckett finally texted him back, Castle pushed his phone into his pants pocket and stood from his station, heading for the break room. He found her inside with the refrigerator door open, her hair pulled back in a loose bun that made him want to trail his fingers along her neck.

"Hey," he greeted her. She turned around and her face had resumed that careful blank detachment he absolutely hated.

"Hey," she said back. She pulled a water bottle out off the bottom shelf and shut the door, turned arond to him. "Can we talk?"

"Of course," he answered, taking a step towards her out of reflex. She didn't exactly flinch but it was so close that a fist closed around his spine and made him jerk to a halt. "Kate?"

"Maybe not here," she said, her eyes casting up towards the ceiling. There were cameras - of course there were - but he didn't know what she could possibly want to talk to him about that they couldn't say inside the CIA.

Except... once. One time they had said, they had promised each other that they'd shut themselves up in the panic room and hash it out, the plan. The plan to assassinate Bracken. Surely she hadn't...

"Kate? We're making good progress," he said quietly. "The Joint Task Force has the lawyer buttoned up. He'll talk - he'll tell us what he knows about the Senator's extracurriculars. We're getting there."

The confusion slid behind her eyes without purchase, there and gone again. "I know."

He shifted on his feet and kept his breathing even, tried to figure out where and when they'd gone so wrong this time. He didn't think they were talking about the same things, didn't think they even had the same things on their minds. Whenever she looked at him, it was like it took her a long time to reach where he was.

"But we can't talk here?" he prompted her again, trying to nudge a confession or memory or anything that would give him a clue.

"No," she said. A strand of hair fell from her bun, sliding right down to frame her cheek. It made his chest hurt.

"Not here," he agreed. "Okay. Want to go right now or... when we get home?"

"Home is... home's fine," she nodded. Her fingers were twisting the cap off the water bottle, but she looked like she'd received a body blow. A fatal shot. She looked blank and gone and he hated it.

"Let's go now," he said. "We'll go home."

"No," she startled, eyes coming back to him. "No, I've still got research to do on the lawyer. Mitch and I are looking at his Harvard connections. It's a solid lead. We've got hours of work to do."

He couldn't understand her. For the life of him, nothing she said made any sense. He'd thought she wanted to convince him to do something permanent about Bracken, but now she was adamantly defending the work towards justice they were doing.

"Okay," he said finally. "I've got a few things here left to do too."

She nodded. "At home, then. I... there are some things we need to - figure out," she finished lamely.

"Kate," he said quietly. Her head came up, that curl of hair getting in her way so that she pushed it back. She looked absolutely consumed with whatever it was, so gone, so removed, so remote. "I love you."

That did it, that brought her back.

She unwrapped her arms from her body and embraced him instead, taking the last four steps between them so fast that he didn't even see it, only felt the impact of her tension against him. Castle hugged her back, a sigh of relief in his chest, and stood holding her for as long as she'd let him.

"I love you too," she whispered at his ear. "I love you so much."

Castle settled the bag of takeout on the kitchen counter and started removing the contents methodically. His fingers ached after the long walk home, but he'd made her go on ahead of him so he could get his shit together.

Whatever was going on, she hadn't run from him. She'd stuck out the day at the Office and they'd even had a few moments of collaboration that had made his blood sing and his heart race, the spark and thrill of working with her momentarily eclipsing whatever knot of tension still tangled in his guts.

She was upstairs, he knew; she'd called out and let him know when he'd opened the door. Even now he could hear her walking around over his head - the empty bedroom? the hallway now - and finally on the stairs.

"Rick?"

"In the kitchen. I got your favorite."

"Oh, I love you," she hummed. He glanced up in time to see her come in through the doorway, hair damp from a bath or shower, arms crossed over her chest. One of his black t-shirts was dipping off her shoulder and the yoga pants looked new and appealingly tight. Her smile was in place, and not even false, and he smiled back in a rush of relief.

"Get us plates," he told her.

She leaned in first and kissed him, wrapping her fingers around his bicep for balance and stroking at the material of his dress shirt.

"You look better," he couldn't help saying.

"It's fine. It'll be fine. I let it... mess with my head, but I'm good now."

He nodded, assumed all of this was part of the conversation they needed to have.

And then it struck him. What this was about. Why she hadn't wanted to talk to him at work, why it didn't even have anything to do with work at all.

They weren't pregnant. And she had gone to the doctor sometime last week and he'd wanted to ask Boyd to test him out but maybe she'd already done that when he was at Stone Farm and battling pneumonia. Maybe she already knew.

"I can't have kids," he said, feeling it drop in his guts like a stone. "That's it, isn't it? It's damaged-"

"No," she blurted out. Her arms wrapped around him. "No, God, Castle. No, love. I haven't checked you or even me beyond... No. It's not that. I'm sorry. Have you been thinking that this whole time?"

"I don't know," he sighed, sinking his face down into her neck and hanging on. "No. Just. Just now. I thought..."

"I didn't want to check," she whispered. "I didn't want to even... so I don't know, Castle. I don't know why I'm not pregnant or what's going on except just everyday life and stress and maybe my body just won't-"

"Enough," he grunted. "Stop. We won't - we said we wouldn't worry about it or do anything one way or another. Not until after all this."

She nodded against him, and he felt it drop off his shoulders, melt away from her as well. They'd agreed that they wouldn't stop it, but they weren't really trying. A couple of negative pregnancy tests didn't mean it was impossible.

Her hand gripped the back of his neck and pulled him away from her. She gave him a determined look. "Let's get our plates, set up on the couch, and then we'll talk. Okay? Because I think I've made you sick with worry over me and it's not about me at all. I didn't mean to get you tied in knots, baby."

"I'm okay," he insisted, but yeah, it had been churning up his insides. "But dinner sounds good."

She kissed him again, promise in the taste of her tongue, and her humming nudge against his nose made him wrap her harder in his arms. She caressed his nape, fingers in his hair, and the touch did wonders.

"Hey," she whispered. "I love you. We're going to be okay, you and me. We're always going to make it."

"I know," he got out, choking on it.

"You better not be crying," she murmured.

He grunted a laugh and finally released her, grateful for her, for this, for knowing without a doubt that whatever it was, they could handle it.

She'd mapped out ahead of time what points to highlight and which arguments to make; she had sat down on the floor of the empty bedroom and gone over her notes so she'd be prepared for this.

She'd thought she had a strategy, but strategy deserted her the moment Castle - with that broken-hearted, little boy look on his face - had asked if he was damaged.

Gone. Just like that.

And now she had no idea what to say or how to say it.

Castle had inhaled three plates of Chinese, which made her believe once more that he really was stable, despite not having the full spectrum of the regimen, and while she hadn't been able to eat much at all, she'd forced down what she could just to keep him from worrying about it.

There had been a time not long ago that she wouldn't have been able to do that, no matter how much she'd wanted to ease his mind, and she was grateful she was able to give him that. Grateful for her health now because she'd need it - not only as a weapon against Castle's bullying nature, but also as a tool to convince him she was right. She could hold her own and she didn't have to worry that he was going to fall all over himself trying to 'protect' her.

"Okay," Castle said suddenly, taking her half-eaten plate from her hands. "Man up, Beckett. Just tell me. I'm done with waiting."

She stared at him, entirely speechless.

"Come on. Right now. Just say it."

It burned inside her and she found the words bursting out before she could stop them. "I think we should ask your dad."

"No."

"You haven't even heard-"

"First of all, he's never been my dad. He is - unfortunately - my father. But your father? That's a dad. You know the difference. Don't make the mistake of thinking of Black in terms of parental responsibility or filial love."

She swallowed down her thundering heart and reached for his hand, gripping him hard. "Please don't interrupt me. I need you to listen."

His fingers flipped and laced with hers, a tight squeeze, and she looked up to see the chastened look on his face. But he didn't open his mouth. He had a tendency to use words like a weapon - for good or bad - and he'd always had more of them than her, more of the right ones. At least therapy had taught him how to pause for her, to stop and really hear what she tried to say when the words were finally there.

"I need... I need to know what's been done to you," she started, choosing those words carefully. So carefully. She had to do this right or he'd never agree. "We promised each other that we'd be responsible for ourselves for the other person. I promised to stick to the program so that I'd be strong again, healthy again, because I mattered to you. I've tried to keep that promise."

"You have," he said quickly, interrupting to curl his hand at her hip, warm and dangerous. "You've done so well, Kate. You're good."

"Now it's your turn," she said, drawing her hand down to his and removing it from her waist. "I need to find out if you're going to be okay, if shooting you full of those injections hasn't done something irreparable, if you're going to experience side effects unless we find the rest of those meds."

He stared her, no words.

Kate gripped his wide palm and stared down at his hand cradled in her lap, the flush of pink to his skin and the curl of his fingers. She'd seen him flexing a lot today in the cold; he'd worn a jacket to cut the wind. Normal stuff, yes, but not normal for a guy who was supposed to be above normal.

Supposed to be extraordinary.

"Kate," he said quietly. She lifted her head and his eyes were so tender. "Sweetheart, I'm going to be fine. I've got the docs looking at me on Friday, and they'll keep on top of everything. I haven't had any symptoms or side effects. What you did - those injections - you saved my life. I'm not going anywhere. I promise you. Just like I promised we'd get Bracken - and see how close we are?"

Oh, Rick. It had nothing to do with Bracken. If Castle's body shut down on him because he didn't have those stabilizers, there was absolutely nothing a promise could do about it.

"The only way to stay on top of it," she said carefully, "is by knowing as much as we can about the full regimen. The injections worked when it came down to the wire, but we don't have any more of that serum, no more magic silver cases. We need a supply on hand; we need to know what to do with it when we have it. And we need the stabilizers. Based on everything I've found, what I've been told and seen with my own eyes - Rick, you need it."

"If I can... if I can survive without it," he said. He stopped and shook his head, mouth deep with frown lines. "Kate, don't you understand that I don't want to be that guy? That was the guy who was involved in his father's plots and machinations. The guy that agreed to fake his own death because he couldn't break free of his father. The guy that let him nearly murder you because-"

"No, you didn't," she said fiercely. "You didn't let him do anything. You saved my life and nearly beat him to death doing it. So, no. No more of that. You don't want to be that guy, I understand. But part of who you are, the man I love, is that super spy. How do you think you managed to haul us both out of Russia?"

He lifted his head and the bleak acceptance on his face made her realize it was more than that, more than just not wanting to be his father's experiment.

He didn't want to be his father's son.

Kate wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled herself into his lap, her mouth at his temple. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry for how he treated you, what he's done to you, Rick. But this is who you are and I wouldn't change you, I wouldn't have you be any other way. I love you. And I want to keep you around a little while longer, okay?"

He nodded against her.

"That's why we need to talk to him. He has all the answers - he's the root of this. You understand? He's where we can get more, find out how to keep you here with me. All we have to do is talk to him."

Castle stiffened.

"Rick?"

"No," he choked out.

"No?"

"I'm not - we're not talking to him. I don't want him to have anything to do with me. With you. With us. Nothing. He wants to kill you, Kate. We'll find another way."

But there wasn't another way.

Beckett woke with a sharp and total awareness in the pitch black of their bedroom, flat on her back, heart pounding.

Her ribs ached, felt sliced open, and she mindlessly drew a hand over her chest and probed the skin, searching for the wound.

But the feeling faded as she laid there, touching the curve of her ribs where they caged her lungs. A knife or a claw mark, but that impression was fading as well.

A dream.

And a dream, also, the fight she'd had with him and his leaving on a plane for Sydney, Australia for no reason. A dream, also, the sense of being abandoned and out of place, since the reality of things was the man sleeping beside her in the night.

But Kate couldn't move, still locked in the blended time between dreams and wakefulness, and she watched the pattern of lights on the ceiling as the street lamps made designs through the bare branches and cast their shadows above her.

When the thud of her heart matched the scrape of trees against the window, she could finally turn over and lay against him. It was hot in the close confines of the covers, the pocket of air near him as blazing as his skin, but it melted the last vestiges of a dream she didn't want to remember anyway.

She tried to remind herself that Castle was alive, and healthy, that his body had recovered from the pneumonia and his lungs were clear. More than that, he was back to some of his old ways again - striding around coatless in the winter like he owned the world and assumed he could always take up his rightful place in it. Confident and assured, the grace of a majestic animal - and the cunning.

But the heart of a poet, a bard, a storyteller. And the story he wanted to tell meant letting go of his old life in every way.

There would be no sit-down conversation with his father about the regimen.

She had to respect that. Because that was the soul of her husband - the determined, unstoppable man who loved her.

She didn't know how exactly - her dreams, though turbulent and strangely vivid, hadn't given her that answer - but she would find some other way.

It looked bleak, but she loved him. That would have to carry her through.