Close Encounters 13

His voice was close when it came, intimate. Like he was speaking right in her ear. "This was my holding cell, you know. Where my son dumped me after everything in Russia."

Beckett struggled in the darkness but her arms were hopelessly behind her back, thrusting her chest forward and her knees into an awkward position perched on the thin mattress.

"This was where he left me," Black said again. Only this time she realized he really was close. He was inside the room with her. "This is the narrow Army cot that I had to sleep on."

Her skin crawled but she fought to hide her revulsion, instead pushed against her knees and away from the voice. In the darkness, she caught a sudden flash of shadow against the deeper black, and she knew it was the space where he wasn't; she knew he himself was the deeper black.

"Do you like it, Kate?"

And just like that, her fear broke. Shattered in a thousand, unrecoverable pieces so that all that was left inside her was weary and final fatigue. "I don't care," she sighed.

"I think you care quite a lot."

His hand came to the wound at the side of her head, and she gasped, felt the ricochet of pain rattling in her jaw.

"He was not supposed to do that. He tells me it was a warning shot but you moved."

It took her a moment to get her breath back, the pitch black of the room pressing into her lungs, but the fear was gone. There was just exhaustion and pain and the futility of fighting against him. She didn't want to fight against him; he had what she needed.

"I don't care," she said finally.

"I care. I require him to fulfill his job to my exacting standards."

"Fine," she sighed. "Can we get on with this?"

The lights burned on, and she winced, closing her eyes against it. She heard him moving back to her but couldn't bring herself to look. A touch of wet cold against her neck and then burning heat and she gasped, jerking backwards and falling to one shoulder on the cot.

"Hold still." She opened her eye and saw the gauze pad in his hands, his fingers shaped so like Castle's that it made her stomach flip. The alcohol burned as it cleaned, a deep burn, and then he was running the guaze around her eye where the blood had crusted.

She squeezed her lids closed tightly to keep the alcohol out, but still it stung and made her eyes water, tears leaking down her face.

She wondered if that was the point.

"There. At least now I don't have to look at that."

She opened her eyes and they ran, and even though it was just the alcohol fumes, there was something about the release that made the tears begin to be real, and furious, and unstoppable. Crying on her knees in front of his father.

Power games. It was always about him asserting some kind of power over her - but that was because he had no power over her. "Can we get on with this?" she said again. Even through the tears as they ran down her cheeks. Her tone was flat, her voice held none of the breaking. "You know what I'm here for."

He remained standing over her, dressed impeccably as always, and she saw that whatever rehab he'd been in these last six months had begun to help. His face was no longer so twisted, his eyes both closed correctly. She wondered if the handicap had been put on in Russia, if that had been part of the act.

"He left me here to rot because of you," Black said then.

"Right, well. Can't say I'm sorry for that. So do whatever you need to do to feel like the big man again. And then after that can we finally start talking about how you can save your son?"

Black's face torqued, and she saw now how carefully he'd been controlling it, how the muscle tics came back when he was agitated, how he couldn't quite achieve the affable, unaffected man of power around her.

She had him by the balls and they both knew it. She might be the one handcuffed to his bed but she had all the power here because she had Castle.

Black growled and jerked around for the door, slamming it shut after himself.

But he turned the lights out as he left and she was swallowed in darkness once more.

She might have had Castle once, but coming here to Black knowing full well the man wanted her dead... she wasn't sure she still had Castle.

She might not have him at all.

"We've piggy-backed the taxi company's networks and we're tracing it now," Mitchell said over the phone.

Castle played back through the last few minutes of the digital recording. "Her dad got Sasha," he replied. "So she knew she wouldn't be here for at least the night. It shows her with a bag too."

"Yeah. Okay, let's see. That cab clocked in at... oh. JFK."

"The airport?" he growled. "What the hell is she doing at the airport?"

"Getting a flight?" Mitchell deadpanned. But it wasn't funny. "Look, I'll run her name and aliases into the passenger lists and see what we get."

"Do it now," Castle said. "While I'm on the phone."

But even as Mitchell got to it on the other end, Castle was heading out of the panic room and up the stairs. Aliases. He hadn't thought to check; he'd assumed something had happened to her.

Upstairs on the second floor, Castle opened his office safe and rifled through the contents. All her aliases were intact though.

"Castle? No hits," Mitch said. "We got nothing. She may have just been throwing someone off her tail."

"Would she have gone to Warsaw?" he asked, staring into the box where he kept their aliases. "Because of Mason."

"You think? Let me eye-scan those myself. Hold on."

Castle pushed the top back on the box and slid it inside the wall safe. Beckett knew he wouldn't leave Mason to swing. And Mitchell had gone there himself to clean up the mess Mason had made; he'd thought the whole thing was closed.

He sank down to his desk chair and stared at the flat expanse of the secure laptop. Castle had a nagging suspicion it was more than that - or something altogether different. Hadn't he thought they'd been talking at cross-purposes for weeks now? Every comment was shaded with new meaning; her demand for a kiss in the command center...

Castle jerked to his feet and jogged down the hallway, phone gripped tightly in his hand. He pushed into the empty bedroom and yanked open the closet door to get at his safe.

His guts spilled out.

On the shelf which hid his second safe - the one that included their go-bags and their new names should the need ever arise - lay three items.

Her detective's notebook, the necklace he'd given her for Christmas, and the baby elephant. All things he wanted to give her - had given her - and she'd left them purposefully behind.

"Castle?" It buzzed from somewhere around his chest where he was gripping the phone so tightly. "Castle, man, you there? I didn't find her."

He put the phone to his ear and breathed. "I - I have to let you go."

"Did you find something?"

"I don't know," he rasped. "I have to let you go."

Castle's hand fell to his side as he stared at those treasures, and his nerveless fingers dropped the phone. He heard it bounce and clatter on the wood floor and turned mechanically to look for it.

Only to be confronted by a flurry of multi-colored index cards and a murder board painstakingly erected on the inside of the closet door.

No. Not a murder board, but a timeline.

Castle's timeline. These were - every story he'd told her, every detail of his life - holy fuck, she'd even photocopied pages from that detective's notebook and pasted them up in chronological order, his own words echoing back at him, names and places circled in red or highlighted in yellow.

Everything he'd told her, just notes on a timeline.

He swallowed hard and turned back to the closet, mindlessly fumbled at the safe, pushing past the too-soft elephant to get his fingers around the dial. He yanked it open and put his hand into its dark recesses, felt the edges of his passport.

But only his passport. Not hers.

He let out a groan and pulled everything out, all of it, causing the necklace to drop over the side of the shelf, the links clattering one after another at the edge. The packets were compromised, the tape peeled back but she hadn't taken any money, hadn't taken the birth certificate and license and other things. Just the passport.

Everything else was still there.

She'd also left the baby elephant, and his stories in the notebook, and his mark on that coin necklace - she'd left those pieces of him here for safe-keeping.

Oh, God. Kate.

What had she done?

She had thought her fear broken beyond repair; she had thought she'd been pushed out past the reaches of that icy terror.

But with the phone to her ear and the darkness still around her and Black so close, so close, in that creeping stillness, she wanted to scream.

The phone rang and rang and she hoped he wouldn't answer. She had no idea what time of day it was or even which day it was, and maybe he was still at Stone Farm, maybe Logan had his phone while they did the tests, maybe it was at the Office and he'd gone to-

"Who is this?"

Castle. Oh, God.

"Me," she croaked, heard the blood in her voice. "It's me."

"Kate. God, where are you - what did you do? Where-"

Black yanked the phone away. "This is your father," he said quietly. "Guess who showed up on my doorstep to borrow a cup of sugar?"

Kate closed her eyes and didn't know what was worse: the idea that Castle would come for her or the thought that he might not.

He might not. She'd done - unthinkable. Unforgiveable. She'd put herself here and now Castle was having to deal with his father, deal with her consequences.

Suddenly she heard his voice through the dark air, realized Black had put it on speaker so that she'd hear his response.

"-you even fucking touch her-"

"Richard," Black interrupted smoothly. "Your wife came to me. She did this."

"You don't touch her. You hear me? You don't-"

"Can we dispense with the idle threats? I've got her and you don't."

The silence made her ache.

"Much better," Black said. His voice was oil in the darkness. "Now. You need something from me which I am prepared to provide. So long as I get something from you in return."

"If you hurt her, you get nothing from me. Do you understand?"

"I understand more than you know. I have Beckett. I have the power here."

Kate could hear Castle breathing, could feel his rage from thousands of miles away. It was like he was in the room with them, like his fingers were gripping the back of her neck.

He was furious with her. He was never going to forgive her for this.

"Your wife came to me," Black said fiercely. "She chose this. I didn't force her; I didn't even blackmail her. I didn't have to do anything at all."

"Castle," she rasped, trying to lift her voice over his. "Castle, don't-"

"She came to me, Richard. Because I have what you need."

"I want nothing to do with you," Castle growled. She heard his impossible rage, heard every word directed at her because she had done this to him. She had put Black back into their lives; she had brought him to the wolf again.

"You need me."

"All I need is my wife. You let her go, you let her go."

"You need me. Not her. I made you who you are. I made you. But then you took up with her - and you see what happens? See how it destroys you, unmakes you? You need that regimen."

Kate swallowed and bowed her head. True, it was true. He needed it and Black had it, and what else was there to do? There was no other choice. This wasn't how she'd intended for it to go - she'd meant it to be a deal between her and him, but now he was bringing Castle into it. Tormenting him because of her.

"As a sign of good faith," Black continued. "I'm going to release your wife."

Kate jerked her head up and strained her eyes through the darkness. She gasped when the touch came, expected but soft, the feel of his fingers at her wrists laid over with the sensation and impression of her husband. Their hands were the same, so much the same.

"Beckett. Tell him."

The cuffs fell off and the lights came on. Kate worked her throat and brought her aching arms around, wrapped her fingers at the raw place where the metal had bruised.

"Kate," she heard from the phone. Black was holding it out to her.

She raised her hand and took it, and Black stepped away. The door buzzed and clicked open and she put her foot to the floor, unsteady.

"Kate? Kate, baby, please-"

"I'm here," she rasped. Her voice sounded like she'd been screaming.

"Kate, Kate, God, what's going on? Where are you? Why-"

"Tell him, Kate," Black said to her. Knowledge was fierce and triumphant on his face.

She tested it, taking another step towards the door, but the way was clear, the cuffs gone. She hesitated in the doorway, looking down the hall, and heard Castle in her ear, begging.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, closing her eyes. "I need you."

"Kate."

"I need you to come. He won't give us the regimen until he talks to you. Face to face. I need you, Castle."

"Why are you doing this?"

"Please," she groaned. "Please."

"Did he hurt you? Is he making you say this? What-"

"I'm not - he didn't hurt me. I'm not - I'm free to go," she croaked. She took another step down the hall and glanced at the phone, took it off speaker. She took a breath and lowered her voice to give him the all-clear code - that there was no gun to her head - the lines of poetry she'd picked out herself. Like a joke. But this wasn't a joke. "The splendor falls on castle walls And snowy summits old in story. Lord Tennyson."

"Kate," he moaned. "No. No."

"It was just supposed to be me. I came for the regimen but he won't give it to me without you here. I'm so sorry."

"Kate."

She turned her face into the wall, pressed her forehead against its smooth, cold surface. "Please don't leave me," she got out, tears pushing at the back of her eyelids. "Please come."

"I'd never-" Whatever he'd meant to say was cut off in a curse. The unsaid pierced her to the core. She pressed her skull harder into the wall to keep from shaking.

He growled at her from a thousand miles distant. "Why would you do this? Are you trying to kill yourself? Do you want to kill me too? If he touches you-"

"No," she groaned. "No, please don't - you need the regimen. And he has it. You have to come, Castle."

"God damn you," he choked out.

And then he hung up.

"Very good, Kate." She felt the touch at her shoulder as Black reached past her for the phone, the slide of his fingers under hers as he took it from her.

She gulped in deep breaths, her eyes closed, but he was turning her around.

"It's nearly lunch. I suggest you eat or I don't think my son will be very happy with you."

Kate groaned and pressed her hand to her eyes, her jaw and cheek aching, the bullet graze just at her ear making itself known.

"Oh, that's right," Black said. "He's already not very happy with you. Let's hope you're right about him, though. Let's hope he really will come for you. Even after you did this."

She bit on the inside of her bottom lip and used the fresh pain to straighten her spine. She turned to Black and forced herself to breathe normally, act normally, not let him win.

She did know. Castle would come. That's what killed her.

"He'll be here," she said stiffly. And then she walked off down the hall at a faster pace than she knew he could keep up with, heading where she didn't even know.

Food, yes, fine. And then? No idea. She had no idea what happened next.

She hadn't really thought this far.

Castle was never going to forgive her.

So ends Close Encounters 13: Quantum of Solace. Stay tuned for Close Encounters 14: A View To a Kill