Chapter 11: Caught in the Riptide

When Castle travels to Big Sur in hopes of renewed inspiration for his writing, he meets a woman on the beach and spends the remainder of his vacation learning Kate Beckett's story. This chapter is set between the final chapter of the original fic and its epilogue.

The panic attacks are becoming unbearable.

Kate slips from his bed as quietly as she can, stumbling through the darkness and into the bathroom. She shuts the door behind her, tries to breathe, inhale and exhale, but the sob shudders out of her, echoes in his gorgeous en suite. She collapses in the farthest corner from the door, burying her face in her knees.

It's fine, it was a dream. But the scent of blood like copper is still sharp in her nose, the scar between her breasts twisting with agony and clawing at her chest with the cold, and her hands tingle with the impending promise of a panic attack she doesn't need.

She doesn't know how much longer she can handle this, how much longer she can hide it from him. If she's hiding it at all or if he's just being gracious enough not to say anything. It wouldn't be his first time noticing the signs of her PTSD, but after witnessing the worst of her nightmares, staying over at her apartment too many times to count because she just couldn't handle the paranoia of being alone and he refused to let her, after sitting with her through every panic attack and holding her once they were over and she couldn't help but cry, she wouldn't blame him if he wasn't necessarily enthusiastic about enduring all of it again.

She thought she was okay, stable again after that sniper case in November elicited a week of hell for her mental state, but with Christmas closing in and the frigid temperatures tugging at her bullet wound, she can feel the darkness threatening to consume again.

It's their first Christmas together and she doesn't need it to be special, she won't even be spending the majority of it with him, she just wants it to be untouched by grief and trauma.

The gentle knock on the door has the pounding of her heartbeat stumbling to a pause, her head lifting just as Castle eases the door open and slips inside. It's only been a couple of minutes since she left him in the bed they often share, surely not long enough for him to look so coherent and alert, so awake.

So heartbroken on her behalf.

"Kate," he whispers, the sheer sound of her name on his lips enough to drag another tear down her cheek.

She nods to him in the darkness, watching his chest expand with a breath as he comes towards her. He was waiting, she realizes, waiting until she gave him the okay.

He approaches with too much knowledge in his eyes, not saying anything more until he's descending to his haunches in front of her.

"What happened?" he murmurs, his concern present but not overbearing, his voice a comfort that calms the sea of anxiety crashing through her chest in violent waves. "Nightmare?"

"I just - I don't want him to come back," she confesses, the words strangled in her throat, choking on their way past her lips. "The sniper who shot me - I don't want them to come after you."

"No one's going to-"

"As long as I'm alive, they will," she persists. Because that's what it is - her persistence, the drive to find her mother's killer, to investigate, to keep living, that's going to get her killed. Get him killed. "Rick, I love you. Too much to let you-"

"Kate," he growls, quiet but firm. One of his hands rises to cover her bare knee, his thumb brushing in soothing strokes across her patella. "I love you too. It's why I'm not going anywhere."

A breath shudders past her lips and she drops her forehead to rest against his knuckles. He's an idiot, an idiot to stay with her, to want someone so damaged, but this is the same man who had her falling in love with him in less than a week last summer. What they have isn't something so easily given up on.

And no matter what may be best for him, safest, she doesn't want him to give up on her either.

"Esti al meu," he murmurs, the rich sound of his voice in Romanian a natural caress to her senses. Her eyes automatically sting. "Și eu sunt al tău."

She sighs as the words register, lifting her chin to brush her lips to the veins running like rivers along the back of his hand.

He's been practicing his Romanian since she returned home from their summer in Big Sur, since he fell in love with the language like he fell in love with her, hard and fast. Since she pressed her beat up dictionary into his hands one night, when he wouldn't stop pestering her for a translation of the foreign words she sometimes whispered to him in bed.

"Why don't you learn the language yourself," she prompted, smirking while he frowned down at the book she's had for years now, since her first visit to the language's origin. "Surprise me."

He took the book, but shuffled out of her bedroom to her home office, muttering under his breath about purchasing Rosetta Stone instead.

He did surprise her though, picking up a handful of words and phrases with each self taught lesson, like the one he just whispered to her. It was one of his favorites, still a little choppy, but the smoothest phrase he knows aside from I love you. He reserved it for moments like these, when she needed to be reminded of the raw and simple truth.

You're mine. And I'm yours.

That's what it always comes down to.

"I don't want to be afraid anymore," she confesses, the tightness in her chest loosening just a fraction, allowing her to unfurl from the trembling ball her body has become against the wall. "I want to be more than this, Rick. More for myself, for us."

"Kate," he chastises, but she covers the hand at her knee with the curl of her fingers. She already knows her eyes are bloodshot, dark with dilated pupils , but she lifts them to his anyway, meets his gaze with the desperation unhidden in hers.

"I want us to have a life," she whispers, wanting it so badly it aches. "One that exists outside of the shadows. But I can't even - I need to be okay. I need this to stop."

"Let me take you away for a little while," he suggests automatically, leaving one hand on her knee while the other ascends to the gritty surface of her cheek, streaked with the salt of tears dried. "Somewhere we'll be safe."

Safe. Safe with him.

It sounds like heaven.

"But I - work," she rasps, swiping at her eyes. He finally talked her into letting him shadow her a couple of months ago, using his connections with the city's elite, with the mayor, to weasel his way into her precinct despite her new captain's protests. He knows how strict Gates is, knows that the woman is hardly a fan of favors or bribes, or him. She's completely immune to Castle's charm, much to Kate's amusement and his chagrin.

Not that she's a big fan of Kate, the headstrong lead detective who has the tendency to dive down cases like rabbit holes, either.

There's no way that Gates would let her take any time off, not now, not after all the vacation days she once had saved up that were sacrificed to the summer that followed her shooting.

"Christmas is a week away, you're still working those shifts?" he asks softly, grazing his thumb along her cheek with a tentative touch, so careful with her. Too careful. She hates this.

Kate turns her face into his hand, traps his palm between her jaw and her shoulder with the drape of her cheek. "Yeah."

"Then she can let you have your Christmas early."

When he says he wants a beach getaway for Christmas, she expects the house he's been raving about in the Hamptons, the gorgeous mansion right on the beach that he just knows she'll love.

What she doesn't expect is for him to let her find the two plane tickets to California in his itinerary once they're already packed and in the car.

She puts up a fight on the drive to the airport the second she realizes that's where they're going, insisting that he and his plan are crazy. Christmas was a week away, Alexis wasn't coming with them, neither was his mother, and they couldn't just leave.

But he has an answer for everything. Always does.

They'll be back before Christmas, Alexis is too dedicated to her part time job at the college bookstore to miss her last few shifts, his mother is busy performing her final showings of her Broadway Christmas play, and yes, they can, because Gates granted her the time off and he's his own boss.

She gets on the plane, but she's not happy about it.

Well, not openly.

But it starts to leak out of her as the plane ascends from the tarmac, their destination announced over the intercom, and Kate relents with a sigh, resting her head on his shoulder and letting the excitement seep through her. It may be an unorthodox way of coping, it may be too great of a gift for him to give her, but she could never be upset about returning to her second home, to the sanctuary where she found him.

She can't be upset that they're going back to Big Sur for an early Christmas.

It's as if the farther away they fly from New York, the lighter she becomes. The pain and panic from nights before dissipate from her eyes, draining from the lines of her face and left behind in the clouds the plane soars above. Ever since the weather began to change, temperatures dropping from the cool air of fall to the bitter chill of winter, he's noticed that Kate changed with it. December doused her in darkness, coaxing the harsh symptoms of PSTD that finally began to recede back to the surface.

She's so ashamed of it, he sees it in her face every time he manages to catch her in a panic attack, but he doesn't want her to feel shame. He just wants her to be okay.

When she confessed that she wouldn't be accepting his invitation to join him and his family for Christmas, when she revealed the reason why (my dad and I, we buried Christmas with my mom), her noble tradition to keep watch over the city so families like his could celebrate without fear, he understood, accepted. But it didn't stop his disappointment at the idea of their first Christmas being spent apart, or the heartache that took up residence in his ribcage at the fact that Kate was no longer able to celebrate at all.

The point of this trip, though, was not for celebration. Not necessarily.

She told him not to get her anything for Christmas, but he can give her this, peace of mind and hopefully the same sense of home and belonging that he found when he discovered her amidst the beauty of Big Sur. He can give her a way to recover from the panic and paranoia that's been ripping her to shreds with the holiday sorrow.

Kate's arm snakes through his and her head turns away from the window. She was furious with him on the way to the airport, even throughout their check in and boarding, but she's softened with the distance. It was all for show anyway.

She hates when he goes out of his way for her, does something she considers extravagant or inconvenient for himself or his family, but he would give Kate Beckett the world if she asked and she's just going to have to get used to it. The price of being loved by a clingy best-selling author.

"Thank you," she murmurs, the corner of her mouth curling with the first real smile he's seen in days. "You knew."

His brow dips just slightly. "Knew?"

Kate leans into his side, draping him in warmth that spreads from everywhere she touches. "That I needed this. Missed it. You knew before I did."

"We aren't even there yet," he teases, but he's sliding his hand along the inside of her arm to fit his palm against hers, twining their fingers.

"Yeah, but I - I already feel a little better," she confesses, her smile growing and his heart expands with it. Kate feeling even a little bit better is all he could want this Christmas.

"It's going to be warmer too," he adds belatedly, dumbly. Oh, he totally let her pack for the Hamptons, didn't he? He's going to have to force her to let him take her shopping, buy her some more appropriate clothing for the climate. But Kate hums, not bothered by the dilemma that isn't really a dilemma at all. "Better for the scars."

She sinks a little deeper into his side, her head coming to rest on his shoulder again. No, definitely not bothered. If anything, the reminder seems to be a comfort.

"Oh, and I read that December is the best time to visit if you want Big Sur to yourself, since the weather is cooler and rainy. So, even though we'll already be secluded, we definitely won't be bothered," he lists, all the facts of his last minute research springing to the surface of his mind all at once. "It's also the best time to see the gray whales migrating south. I read that there are plenty of places to watch, but if we hike our trail, I think that cliff that overlooks the coast would be perfect. Oh and it's the perfect month for stargazing too. December's increase in rainstorms keeps the skies clearer, so we can-"

"I love you," she mumbles, lowering her cheek to his clavicle, causing his heart to stutter. She's said the words plenty of times, but his heart never stops soaring because of them.

Rick lowers his lips to the top of her head, sighs softly into her hair. "Love you too, Kate."

He almost forgot that it's a two mile walk to the cabin from the parking lot.

"I'm going to die."

"Castle," Kate huffs, rolling her eyes at him no doubt. Of course, even with a nagging gunshot wound and her body starved and sleep deprived from trauma (two things he will be sure to remedy in the next few days), Kate moves through the forest as if she never left, hiking the trail to her dad's cabin like it's a walk in the park.

It took him days to adapt the last time he was here, to even begin getting into shape, and while Kate definitely keeps him active at home, he should have spent the week prior to this impromptu trip preparing on the treadmill, building up his stamina.

But she looks so free in the forest, home amidst the towering Redwood trees and the thriving brush, he can't help but smile despite his shortness of breath and heaving chest.

Kate slows from her strides ahead of him, backtracking to snag his hand and draw him along after her.

"C'mon, baby. We've got an hour until sunset and I'd like us to get there before dark," she teases, grinning as he drops the bags he insisted on carrying to catch her by the waist.

"We're more than halfway there, I need a break. And stop calling me baby," he mutters, reeling her body in closer. But Kate comes willingly, lacing her arms around his neck.

"You like when I call you baby," she smirks, sinking a little further into him when he eases a thigh between hers, propping her up.

"I'm accepting of it," he grumbles, bridging his hands at her spine. "But don't tell anyone."

She chuckles, lovely and content, and smoothes her fingers to the scarf around his neck. "Secret's safe with me."

"Feeling better?" he asks with a quirk of his lips.

Her eyes flicker to the woods around them, to the strips of blue sky between the branches and the dying dance of sunlight dappling in her hair through the leaves. The contrast of salt and sunshine mingling with cold air is strange, especially after he grew to associate nothing but the heat of summer with this place. But the chill isn't so biting here, doesn't slice through his sweater or numb his senses like the brutal winters of New York so easily can. The California coast still holds a touch of warmth in the winter.

Then again, maybe it's just Kate that's keeping him warm.

"Yeah," she murmurs, unwinding her arms to slip her hands down to his chest. One curls over the site of his heart, a small frown flickering at the corners of her mouth. "Are you sure Alexis was okay with this?"

His brow furrows. Definitely not the kind of question he was expecting.

"Yeah, I talked to her about it a few days before. I begged her to come too, but like I said, she has that job at the bookstore she's so dedicated to and they still have a few more days until they break for Christmas," he explains, shaking his head at his daughter. "Plus, she favors California in the summer."

Kate hums, but still doesn't look pleased with the answer.

"Kate, you know Alexis adores you, right? She liked you before she even met you and you guys get along great from what I've seen-"

"No," she sighs, meeting his eyes once more with her bottom lip between her teeth. "It's not that. Alexis has been great and we do get along, I love hanging out with your kid." His heart swells, wonderful and breath stealing, like it always does when Kate talks about his daughter but never lessening in its intensity. "I just don't want her to think that this place - Big Sur - is only ours. I want - the last time we were here, we said that the next time we came, she would come with us."

He blinks, impressed by her memory, touched by it, but hating the troubled look in her eyes, the guilt.

"Then again, I guess we never planned to come back so soon," she reasons, more to herself than him, but Castle braces his hands on the sharp bones of her hips, squeezes.

"No, maybe we didn't," he shrugs, brushing his thumbs to the knit fabric of her sweater. "This trip was last minute, but I'd say it was necessary. Sure, we could have got through everything in New York, we've spent the last three and a half months back home together and I'd - well, I'd like to think our relationship is as strong as it can be."

"It is," she confirms, the conviction in her voice solid, reaffirming. It crushes any doubts and fears that may have been threatening to bloom on the spot.

"But this month has been hell for you, Kate. For reasons I understand," he reminds her, watching the whites of her teeth reappear to pierce her long abused bottom lip once more. "So I talked to my daughter, I told her I wanted to surprise you with a trip to Big Sur for Christmas, and I told her she should come with us. And she wanted to. She wants to see Jade Cove and the purple sand and explore all the places you showed me the first time we were here, and she will. In a few months from now, when we come back again and stay longer than a week."

He touches her chin, brushing his thumb to the trapped flesh of her lip between her teeth until she releases it with a sigh.

"We should bring something back for her, for Christmas. Another piece of jade or a jar of purple sand," she murmurs, her lips quirking in the corners, triggering the curve of his.

"I think she would love that." Rick leans forward to press his lips to her forehead. "Thanks for caring about my kid in all of this."

She huffs, draping her palms at his biceps. "She's a good kid, Castle. A generous one too, letting me have you to myself for the next four days. Then again, that does give her extra time to spend with Max..."

"Wait, Max?" Kate smirks and he lets her reclaim his hand, threading their fingers and tugging gently, signaling the end of their break. "Who is Max?"

But he doesn't mind, allowing her to tease and untangle from him, starting back towards the path that leads to her father's cabin with him in tow.

New York will always be home, but she can't deny that she loves California, loves Big Sur enough to toy with the temptation of wishing they could stay here forever. Not go back.

She's a detective, she loves her job, and she would have no idea what to do here aside from lounge around with Castle and catch up on reading material, spend her days with him on a beach of purple sand. But it's a lovely daydream, an easy one to indulge in while she's laid out under the stars with Castle at her back.

They arrived at the cabin before the sun set, painting the sky in its usual blend of breathtaking oranges and pinks. They took their time unpacking, Rick dragging their two bags to her bedroom while she stocked the kitchen, but her attention is riveted to the kitchen window, to the indigo blanket of night draped over the forest.

The stars look so much brighter in the wintertime, illuminating the darkness to a rich shade of blue, probably lighting up the entire ocean in an ethereal sapphire. She can't recall ever spending any time here in the winter, never really thought to ask her father how beautiful Big Sur could be during the holiday season. It has her craving a night on the beach with Rick, under a star speckled sky, the Milky Way over McWay Falls.

Oh, Castle would love that - camping near the famous waterfall with the most glorious view of the ocean, the shore, and the stars.

But for tonight, she settles for finding him in the bedroom they'll share, dragging him outside to make good on his talk of stargazing.

Of course, Castle needs a few minutes to prepare, grabbing a blanket from the closet and requiring that they acquire hot chocolate to stay warm in the cooling temperatures. She rolls her eyes, but doesn't stop him as he earnestly mixes the milk and chocolate, the giant marshmallows he insisted upon at the grocery store. Such a child. But she finds it was worth it when she takes her first sip from the thermos he places in her hands while he folds his legs beneath him, sits down in the grass with her.

"This is amazing," she hums, cradling the warmth of the thermos to her chest and savoring the rich spread of chocolate and marshmallow across her tongue.

"It's Alexis's secret recipe," he grins, pleased with himself. "Double chocolate, double marshmallow. She thinks I don't know."

Kate inches closer to him in the small clearing of her backyard. He automatically wraps his arm around her shoulders, fits her into his side, and she sighs, couldn't fathom feeling more content than she does now. And it's selfish, letting him drag her across the country for the sole sake of solitude, but it's been over twenty-four hours since her last panic attack and the noose around her heart, her throat, has gone limp. No snipers will come for them here, the freezing temperatures of the city can't drill into the bullet scar between her breasts or the incision scar sliced into her side, still only a few months old and fresh with pain.

She'll never truly be safe, not until the Dragon is slain and the target from her back is burned, but for tonight, for the next few days, no one can touch her or the man she loves. Not here.

"What are you thinking about?" he murmurs, his lips grazing her crown. Kate lifts her head, craving the look on his face, the blues of his eyes that rival the brilliant sea she can hear roaring in the distance and the crooked smile that mimics the crescent moon overhead. The face she fell in love with in this very spot, where he called her salvation not knowing the part he played, is playing now, in saving her.

She loved him then, as horrified as she was to admit it, almost as surely as she loves him now.

"I think this is the closest thing to Christmas magic I could have hoped for," she confesses, the smile on her lips shy, because she's certainly not one for sappiness, but they aren't just silly words to Castle.

The way he looks at her, with such awe and adoration, the way he's always looked at her, is everything. Everything she wants, everything her mother would want for her, and she vows in that moment that she wants to try harder for him, for both of them. Her mother needs justice and Kate will find it, but not at the risk of losing this.

"I know I'm already scheduled to work, but next Christmas I'll find a way to compromise," she murmurs, curling her hand at his knee and squeezing.

"Or we can just do this again," he shrugs, as if it's all so easy. She's never associated relationships with a sense of ease, has never had to not work so hard just to feel remotely happy with the other person. Even amidst the onslaught of her PTSD, the gut-wrenching memories Christmas tends to drown her in, she doesn't have to try to be happy, not with him. "It can be our tradition."

Her heart clenches.

"I haven't thought about traditions since Dad and I quit ours," she admits, something he already knows. "It'd be… nice to have some again."

That lopsided smile returns, beaming back at her bright enough to light the sky.

"We can have as many as you want," he murmurs, covering the hand at his knee. "And we can include your dad too."

"I'd like that," she hums, hiding the curl of her lips against his shoulder. "Traditions for us, our family. More possibilities for magic."

"Kate, you are my magic," he murmurs and she almost scoffs at him, but his voice is serious. He means every word. "I know I'm the guy who believes in aliens, Bigfoot, ghosts, all the myths and mysteries that make for the best stories, but I never believed in love at first sight. Not anymore. But then I met you a few months ago on the beach just a few miles from here-"

"And stalked me until I gave in," she adds, but her heart is skipping beats, no longer matching the timed crash of waves to shore.

"Hush," he grumbles, tightening the arm around her and she grins, nestles a little deeper into his side. "I've never wanted someone so much. Not like that, in a way that felt like it could last."

She shifts in his arms, her heart in her throat.

"I still don't know how," she admits. It'll never make sense to her, how he knew so fast, how he could fall for someone he never met, who scowled at him on a beach and essentially told him to get lost. She felt the sparks of course, the second she shook his hand, but she refused to love him until the feeling itself overwhelmed her, forced her to let it roam and thrive through her system.

Rick shrugs. "Neither do I. But you were everything I didn't know I was looking for and falling in love with you, that's been the true magic for me, Kate. The most magical thing I ever experienced, second only to holding my little girl for the first time."

She cranes her neck, brushes a kiss to his mouth before he makes her cry, and cradles his cheek in her palm. "It's mutual."

He's her magic, but he's more than that.

"Tu esti casa mea," she adds in a whisper, feeling his brow scrunch against hers, already doing his best to decipher the phrase.

"Tu and esti means you're," he mumbles, rolling the foreign words around on his tongue, picking through the studied phrases he's memorized from countless lessons. "Casa is - that has to be home, right?"

Kate hums her praise, strokes her thumb along the bone of his cheek. "Yeah. You're my home, Castle."

That crooked smile returns, grows.

"It's mutual," he echoes, burying his fingers in her hair and tilting his head to graze his lips over hers once more, earning the flutter of her lashes and the sigh of contentment into his mouth, the drift of her body. "Kate," he breathes when she slips so effortlessly into his lap. "Let me take you inside, where it's warm-"

She shakes her head, cups his jaw and kisses him until he's letting her ease them onto the blanket at his back.

"I'm plenty warm here, Castle," she mumbles, her lips spilling into a smile against his as her heart finds its rhythm, wild and free and unstoppable. Indomitable when she's with him. "Stay under the stars with me."

A/N: I apologize if any of the Romanian was incorrect. Google was my translator for this one.