Chapter 3
The vapours swirled, and retreated. Beckett made herself yet another coffee, considered spiking it with vodka, and then decided that the only thing worse than explaining sober would be explaining drunk. However she put this, there was no good way to explain that Castle would spend the rest of his life surrounded by the dead. It was certainly going to put a serious cramp in his playboy existence.
The wind whistled around her windows. She went to stare out of the window, her eyes searching the dark, the waning moon and the thickening cloud. All Souls' Day was no less eerie than All Hallows Eve. She hadn't lit more than a single small lamp. It might be easier to explain in the dark. Dark to dark.
Blood to blood.
"Or he would die, there in the cemetery on Hallowe'en. I know that." She stared deeper into the night. "You drive a hard bargain."
We had no choice. We have rules.
"But you're not the one living with it. Why me?" she said to the darkness. "Why me?"
You had eyes to see and strength to look.
You wanted justice more than anything. We give you that.
"I wanted justice for my mother."
Justice is justice. You do not get to choose for whom justice is done.
Her shoulders slumped. They always gave her the same answer. There was never any hope in their words, and yet she couldn't help hoping. One day, maybe, they'd give her a better answer...one day.
A knocking on the door jerked her from her melancholy. She went to open it, surefooted in the gloom, and found Castle: less suave than usual; a hint of fright in his eyes.
He stepped in.
"It's dark in here." His voice wasn't shaking, but Beckett could feel a strange suppressed trembling, as if there were a tension in her own shoulders. She switched another lamp on, and felt it ease. "Do you normally sit in the dark?"
"Reading light," she said briskly, pretending she couldn't feel his pulse hurrying. "Coffee?"
"Please."
He didn't sit down, but followed her to the brighter light of the kitchen, where the tendrils of mist which had arrived alongside him faded.
"Go sit down."
"It's okay."
She switched the kettle on and turned to face him. "I can make coffee without scalding myself."
Castle shifted uncomfortably. "Yeah."
"So stop hovering."
"It's light here," he said pathetically.
"You've never been scared of the dark. Sit by a lamp."
"Beckett..." He trailed off, and didn't move. She continued to make coffee, and was very careful not to touch him. "What happened last night?"
"Let's sit down."
She led him to the couch, and curled into one end.
"What happened?" he repeated. "I thought it was just a bad dream but it wasn't, was it? Because sitting here I can feel your heart beating and earlier someone was talking to me about blue vans with Pennsylvania plates and then you went out to ask Ryan about finding it but I never said anything so how did you know and what is going on here?"
Finally, he remembered to take a breath.
"What happened to me?" he asked, once more, miserably. "What were you doing in a cemetery with your wrist opened? Did I really see ghosts?"
She'd have thought, if asked, that Castle of all people would have been thoroughly delighted to find that he could see ghosts. He didn't seem delighted at all: his big frame slumped, his normally cheerful face lined and unhappy. She took a breath.
"You weren't dreaming." For the first time in her experience he was completely silent. "It was real." Her voice hardened. "You should never have followed me."
"I..." Castle started, and stopped, failing to find a good continuation for that sentence.
"Was it curiosity or jealousy?" Beckett jabbed, far too accurately for Castle's currently non-existent peace of mind.
"Er..."
"Both, then." It was flat and heavy. "I hope you think it was worth it."
Around them, mist became fog became blurred shapes, crowding around the couch, listening intently. Castle shuddered.
"Just tell me."
"These are the dead," she said bluntly. "Get used to them. You'll be seeing them for the rest of your life."
We're your dead.
You saw us. You looked, and saw. We can't be unseen. Now you're ours.
"What about the rest of it, though?"
"What rest of it? Isn't that enough for you?"
"Yes! No! What about the blood? You slit my wrist and the blood mixed. You're hiding something more. I can feel your heartbeat and there was more" – he grabbed her hands and held on very tightly. She tried to tug away and failed. "Don't. You haven't touched me since you slashed my wrist in the cemetery – and you haven't explained that yet. There's a reason, isn't there?"
She struggled to remove her hands, and failed. Castle hung on, and gradually his face changed. "I can... I can feel you. You're in my head."
She knew. He was in hers.
"What did you do?" he cried.
"Saved your ungrateful life, you idiot! Would you rather have been dead?"
He dropped her hands. "No! But you're in my head. I have enough people in my head. Why'd you think I write? But I can't write you out of my head."
"You think I want you in my head? You're not even touching me right now and I can feel how much you hate me. Well, it was that or let you die but I don't have to put up with this. Get out of here so that you don't have to be troubled with my feelings. I damn sure don't want to have yours."
She surged up and away from him, surrounded by the ghosts.
"Isn't it bad enough that I have to have you following me everywhere I go and poking into matters that aren't your fucking business without having you in my head too? Don't I get any privacy? Get out!"
She hammered upstairs, and a door slammed. Castle simply sat, too devastated to move, utterly miserable. He'd frequently wished he knew what Beckett was thinking, never believing he would.
It wasn't anything like he'd imagined. He'd thought – when it was an impossibility, a fantasy, a silly idea from science fiction – that it would be fun; that there would be no misunderstandings, no difficulties. But she was upstairs crying and he was downstairs and might as well be crying because this whole fuck up hadn't solved anything at all.
No.
We solve our murders.
"I didn't want you," Castle said bitterly to the ghosts.
You have us.
He ignored them. Upstairs, Beckett was still crying, miserably furious.
Hold on. How could he possibly know that?
Because he was close enough to sense how she felt.
And...she had...oh fuck...thought she'd sensed how he felt...oh fuck.
It seemed that whatever had happened was just one more way for them to misunderstand each other. He'd meant...the same as she'd yelled. He wanted privacy inside his own head. He had too many fragments of people in his head: characters, acquaintances, enemies...friends; the only way to stay sane was to write them out of his head and into his books. He detested the idea that there might be someone else who could sense his emotions, know his inner thoughts: who'd be in his head and couldn't be evicted.
The fast beat of her heart in his veins was one step too far. He buried his face in his hands. His life was never going to be the same.
In her bedroom, Beckett had flung herself on to her bed, face down in her pillows, and wished passionately that she'd never met Richard Castle.
We are stronger with both of you.
"Why should I care?"
You didn't have to save him.
She didn't have an answer to that. She couldn't have let anyone die. But now she could feel a heavy, torpid heartbeat in her veins, and feel a sluggish, horrible hatred in her head.
She could hear a slow, inexorable tread ascending the stairs, and knew it for Castle. She could sense him, and had no way to block it out. She'd need to learn, fast. Of course, he wouldn't be around much, so maybe it wouldn't matter. The dead gathered around her, leeching from her locked-down emotions, chilling her skin. They were always there. No doubt she would soon be as cold and emotionless as they: the search for justice her only passion.
"Beckett?" came uncertainly from the door. "Can I come in?"
"Why not?" she said coldly. "I'm sure you can bear my presence for another few moments, though I have to say I thought you'd be long gone. I don't need to guess what you feel any more. It's right there."
"You're wrong. It's not you" –
"It's me? Yeah. I think I got that."
"No. I hate the situation."
"And I got you into it so you hate me too. I got it. You don't need to say it. You don't need to say anything any more. I can't get away from you."
We...
We are sorry.
Both of them heard it.
"And what good does that do?" Beckett snapped.
None. But we are.
We...
"We what?"
We are sorry.
Castle finally stopped hesitating in the doorframe and came in, to sit on the bed. He reached for her, but she pulled her hands out of the way.
"Don't," he said. "I didn't finish. It's not you. I don't hate you. I couldn't."
Good.
"Shut up," Beckett snapped at her dead. "You have nothing to add here."
"I always thought that things would be easier if I knew what you were thinking," Castle continued, ignoring the dead. "Or if you knew what I thought. But all that's happened is a whole new bunch of misunderstandings."
"I can't misunderstand," she spat, "that you hate me."
"I don't. I hate the situation because it's making both of us unhappy. But I don't hate you. I never could." He reached for her hands again, and this time caught them. "Look. Look properly." But some things were to be private. He shut them away.
Look, said the dead in chorus. See the truth.
You say you want the truth. So look for it.
Her fingers gripped his, and she deliberately allowed herself to feel.
After some seconds of silence, Castle dared to raise his eyes. Beckett's gaze was turned inward, sightless. He waited, terrified: the dead clustering around them, smothering.
Patience.
"I see," she finally said. It wasn't encouraging. It wasn't, yet, discouraging. "How do you live in that head?"
"Uh?"
"It's chaotic. It's like being inside an exploding firework."
"It's creativity. Inspirations. Ideas," Castle said, offended. "And it's my head, not yours."
There was a ghostly snicker.
"Shut up," they both snapped.
"Don't worry. I wouldn't want to be in your head."
She didn't want to be in his head. Because now she couldn't dismiss him as a here-today-gone-tomorrow playboy. She'd seen more than she expected. More than she could handle, right now. For an instant, she wished for the same lack of emotions as her dead displayed: their only passion justice for themselves. That found: they dissolved, or, if one had faith, moved on.
"You just were. My turn."
"What?"
"My turn. You got to see the truth, I get to see the truth."
She held his eyes, assessing, then ducked her head sharply in assent. So might she have accepted the guillotine.
She felt nothing: some minimal consolation. She kept her thoughts private, but now... Now, they'd never be private again.
There is no hiding from the dead.
"I'm not dead."
Are you sure?
Those who can see us, share in us.
"We're dead?" Castle whispered.
No. Just...different.
"Seen what you want to?" Beckett gritted.
"Enough." He didn't drop her hands. "You're all little sealed boxes. Locked down. But they're leaking."
She scraped in a breath. "I think you should leave. Now."
"I think you're lying. You don't want me to leave. Earlier, you wanted me to leave because you thought I hated you. That's not true and now you know it. You were upset because you didn't want me to hate you."
"I'm not having this conversation now." She yanked her hands free.
"If not now, when? Or are you just going to ignore it like you ignore everything else? How are you going to manage that when we're in each other's head, huh? How?"
"I can shut you out of my head."
No.
You can't.
Once you mixed your blood, there was no way out.
You chose to save him.
"How could I do anything else? 'What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?'" she quoted bitterly. "But I didn't agree to this price. Haven't I paid enough?"
You chose.
"I didn't choose you. You came. I never chose you. I didn't choose any of this."
You chose him.
"I" – she stopped.
The ghosts waited. The room was dark, the pall of pain palpable. Moonlight gleamed faintly on the wooden floor. Harsh breathing scratched the air: the only sound in the silence. Castle barely twitched.
He chose to trust you.
You know he did. You saw it.
He let you slash his wrist and make the blood flow. He trusted you wouldn't kill him.
"It was tempting," Beckett muttered, but the ghosts and Castle heard the lie. He took her hands again, but they lay limp in his as she argued with her dead, deep in the shadowed room. So far, telepathy was excruciatingly painful.
You trusted that he would obey when it really mattered.
"I don't want this."
A sentiment with which Castle was entirely in agreement.
The shades of the dead were silent.
"What do we do with them?" he asked. Anything, to break the strain around them.
"Listen. Solve their murders. Nothing I wouldn't be doing anyway."
She was hunched over, and if he hadn't been holding her lax hands she'd have had her arms around her knees, head down, locking him out. For once, he took the hint.
"I'd better go," he said.
"Yes."
He went back downstairs, and collected his coat. As he left, the shadowy mists gathered around him.
At home, he shut himself in his study, laptop open but no words on the page, and contemplated the disaster into which curiosity (and jealousy) had led him. The tot of whisky didn't help. His study was full of shades, lurking in corners and half-seen at the edge of his vision. No matter how many lights blazed, they remained.
No matter how he tried to ignore it, Beckett's heartbeat pulsed alongside his, and her misery seeped poisonously into his mind. Abruptly, the misery cut out. He panicked for a second, and then realised that her pulse had slowed: she had fallen asleep. At least, he thought spitefully, his dreams would be his own.
Beckett's dreams – or nightmares – were most certainly her own. When she woke, the slow heartbeat of another was still in her veins, and her dead were still clustered around her. The only improvement was that she couldn't feel Castle's sullen hurt. She had no idea what to do.
Get used to it.
"That's not helpful."
Talk about it.
"We did. You were there. It didn't help. Has this ever happened before?"
Yes.
"And?" said Beckett into the ominous silence.
They both died.
"What?"
They couldn't cope. They both died.
After that, there was a protracted silence. Beckett buried herself in her work, and knew instantly when Castle woke from the change in his pulse. The sensation of sullen dislike was gone, however, which had to be an improvement. Insensibly, she eased.
When he produced coffee, she eased further: and as she accepted the cup, she also felt a surge of relief that wasn't hers.
Better, the dead whispered. Better.
"We need to talk," she said quietly, and felt his pulse kick up and terror flood through him. "Not like that," she said swiftly.
"Not now."
"No. We've got a blue van to find. Let's see what Ryan's got."
Ryan had a blue van, and was happily tracing its journey and ownership. Espo was enthusiastically helping. The dead peered over their shoulders, unnoticed by the two detectives. So passed the day, culminating in an ID, an address, and a particularly satisfying interrogation resulting in a confession. A shade disappeared, much to Castle's bewilderment.
"Later," Beckett murmured.
"It is later."
"We need to finish the paperwork. You don't have to stay. Come round after dinner."
Beckett had been much reassured by the lack of sullen resentment, though she had found the constant flow of Castle's uncontrolled emotions and the strangely doubled, out of sync pulse rate extremely...difficult. Not – quite – annoying. Certainly not comfortable. Knowing that he was most likely feeling the same did not improve anything. She trailed home and made herself a comforting meal of mac'n'cheese with added bacon. For once, the meat hadn't gone green in her fridge. A glass of wine did a lot to help. Unfortunately, it did nothing to block Castle.
It's not that easy.
You'll need to co-operate.
Trust each other.
Beckett downed her wine in three mouthfuls and refilled the glass. After some thought, she put out a glass for Castle, in case he needed a drink too.
He was late. When he finally knocked, Beckett had had plenty of time to think that he'd bailed.
"You're nervous," were the first words from his mouth, which didn't really help anything.
"Don't do that."
"I can't help it. Your heart's going at a hundred beats a minute and it frightens me."
"We need to fix this."
"Yeah."
"Want some wine?"
"Definitely, please."
Half of Castle's wine disappeared before he'd even sat down. Beckett refilled his glass, and then her own.
"Um..." he said, "I have a theory."
She raised an eyebrow.
"Well...um... they" – it was very noticeable that Castle hadn't yet called them dead – "kept saying trust each other" –
"They said that to you too?"
"I don't know, okay? Maybe they said it to you and I heard it through your ears. I don't know what's me any more and what's you. Anyway, they said it. So...um...if we held hands and actually opened up...um...it might be easier?"
Thank you to all readers and reviewers.
By way of warning, the final chapter contains M-rated content.
