He wakes her up when threads of dawn light are just starting to spin through the window.
They don't manage to make it out of bed until nine thirty.
He can tell she's trying to relax - her slow and steady motions as she brewed the coffee, the way she didn't even twitch when he carried their bags out to the car and she sat back the bed and drank the dregs, the suppleness of her body as she let him press her down yet again against the scratchy sheets.
She drifts nearer to him as they walk toward the car, and with each easy bump of her elbow into his forearm he feels another small piece of himself ease, uncoil in the morning light. They'll figure it out. They'll be okay. She'll be okay.
That's why he almost ignores it when they reach the hood and a flash in the distance catches the corner of his gaze. It's nothing, he tells himself, but no, there it is again, it's not –
"Down," he's shouting as he flings his body into hers, pressing her into the ground, and as they fall he senses the split-second angry rigidity of her muscles, the instant where she's poised to ask him what the hell he's doing, and he feels for a heartbeat a wash of embarrassment and relief. But then there's a soft pop and his arm is stinging and Beckett, just as she hits the ground, is already shouting at him.
"Get up, get off, let's go."
He props up on his elbows and wriggles toward the driver's seat; she moves toward the passenger's, and shit, shit, they are going to get shot to death in the parking lot of a dirty motel and they're not even going to be next to each other; he won't even have the brush of her hand against his as his final moment of consciousness.
There's another muffled pop and a crack, a shatter, some glass from the car, he thinks. He curses quietly, but it could be worse, the sniper must have a bad angle, must have something preventing him from getting a perfect shot. He gets to the handle, reaches up, opens the door. The driver's side window is immediately shot out, raining down small pieces of glass on him.
"Castle?" he hears the hushed whisper from the other side of the car.
"I'm okay." He clutches his keys tightly. "Count of three, get in the car and I'm driving."
"You have to stay low, Castle. You hear me?"
"One," he says.
A sharp crack – Beckett firing off a round in response, a hopeless, angry, desperate round that has no chance of reaching its target.
"Two."
Another sharp sound, and then the harsh clatter of more glass hitting the pavement.
"Three," he says, launching his body up into the driver's seat, flattening himself as low as possible, hunching against the steering wheel as he slams his door shut.
He glances over as he jams the keys into the ignition, and there she is, pressed flat against the passenger seat, back heaving in gasping breaths, and okay, okay, he can do this, he can do anything with her alive and whole beside him.
He throws the car into reverse. The tires screech as he whips around and the hood catches and careens off something, another car or a tree or a rock, he can't tell, can't see well enough, but right when he goes to lift his head up a bit more a bullet shatters through the side view and he decides the increased visibility isn't worth it.
"Okay?" Beckett asks, voice high and strained. It must be killing her, killing her to be flattened in the passenger seat right now, to be hunched over and waiting and hoping that he'll save them.
"Good," he grits out, swerving out of the parking lot, skidding onto the two lane country road and slamming harder on the accelerator, straightening up enough to peer over the wheel, because it would be absolutely ridiculous for them to die in a head-on collision one minute after escaping what he is absolutely going to call a hail of bullets in the retelling.
"Castle," he hears her whisper, voice sharp with horror, and his whole body jerks, turns toward her. The car fishtails violently and he has to suck in a breath, ease off the accelerator and swing violently back into their lane, force himself to suck in air and straighten out the wheel because suddenly all he can picture is her sitting in the seat next to him, quietly bleeding out from a carefully-aimed bullet.
He gets the car cruising steadily in the lane, twenty miles an hour above the speed limit. The road is straight enough. He glances to her, prepared to swing onto the wide shoulder, prepared to surrender any cover and bring her to whatever hospital she needs, to go in carrying both their guns, to immediately find the biggest team of private security he can buy.
But she's sitting ramrod straight, no wound that he can see. Her face is deathly pale, her eyes fixed on his torso.
He glances down.
His arm is covered – covered – in blood.
It doesn't hurt. "Wow," he says. "I am so badass."
At the sound of his voice, she finally unsticks. She has a short sleeve sweater on over a tank top, today, a pairing that makes her chest look wonderful, which he can't help but notice anew as she drags the sweater off her body and pushes up the sleeve of his t-shirt to see the middle of his bicep.
"Do you think I'll have an awesome scar? Is it a through and through? Beckett, I've always wanted to say I've had a through and through."
He can't feel any pain in his arm, but he can feel his heart thumping erratically at his ribcage, the wash of adrenaline pulsing hard through his veins. He keeps his eyes on the road, but when he blinks he can still see the shadow of the stream of blood down his arm.
Her fingers brush along his flesh. "Ouch," he hisses. He finally feels the sting, an ember of awareness that's quickly kindling into a fire. He can tell her hands are trembling faintly, a low vibration that just translates to his arm.
"It's grazed," she finally says. "But, Castle, it's just deep enough – I don't know, it would be good to get it checked." Without warning, she pushes her sweater up against his arm, wraps it tightly, tugging it down onto the wound.
"Damnit, ouch," he snaps.
"Sorry, sorry," she whispers, her voice low, full of grief. "I'm so sorry."
"No, it's fine," he murmurs, not so overwhelmed by the hot trickle of blood down his arm that he can ignore the hurt in her tone.
"Pull over," she says. "We can switch."
He's been watching the rearview, there's nothing he can see behind them, but like hell he's doing that. "I'm good," he says.
"You were shot," she grits out.
"Grazed," he clarifies. "Although – do you think I'll still be able to say I was shot at poker games?"
"Damnit, Castle," she growls, pressing the sweater down even harder onto his arm.
"Hey," he says, jerking away. She moves with him, fluid, keeping the sweater pressed against his arm.
He grimaces. "You are never this sadistic when I fantasize about you playing nurse with me."
"Castle," she hisses. He chances another glance over at her, the clenched angle of her jaw, the bloodless pallor to her face. She seems like she's halfway to a PTSD episode and he's overcompensating and it's an absolutely terrible combination.
"Okay, okay," he murmurs, concentrating for a moment on the slight shake of the steering wheel underneath his fingertips, on the rapid shallowness of Beckett's breathing, on the sharp sting lancing through his arm.
"What are we going to do?" she murmurs, her voice tremulous, hoarse, he imagines, from keeping tears and panic at bay.
"Keep driving," he answers.
She pins him with a glare that's far shakier than he wishes it were.
"I'm not being flippant. I just… what else?"
"You could have died," she breathes, her breathing shallow and harsh.
He squeezes the steering wheel, flexes his bicep up against her, lets the pain threading through his arm focus him, channel his scattered thoughts.
The last time one of them was this close to a bullet it wasn't a graze. The last time one of them was this close to a bullet it almost broke her, almost broke him, almost broke them both and she's right, she's right to be pale and shocky and trembling against him. There is still someone gunning for them and they've been found and it is suddenly all too likely that they are going to die an abrupt and bloody death.
"You're right," he says, his voice low, rough, too close to tears. "You're right." He presses a little harder on the accelerator, eases the car up to 80. The steering wheel vibrates, makes the bullet wound thrum and throb, but he can't, won't ease up now.
They're both silent for a long time. He wants to say something, comfort her, ease the pallid panic in her eyes, but the words are snarled and he has only one pulsing, relentless thought – she's right, she's right, she's right.
She reaches over awkwardly with her free hand, the one that's not pressing the sweater against his arm, and thumbs on the radio. A voice crackles to life through the silence, and of course it's some country singer whining the lyrics about losing his life, losing his everything. She stabs at the power button violently, and they're enveloped again in quiet, the only sounds her too-fast breathing, the harsh rush of wind against the car, the squeak of the chassis as he tries to ease a few miles an hour faster.
He doesn't know how long it takes before her fingers to steady against him, before she draws that first deep breath. "If you need a hospital," she starts, but he's already shaking his head sharply.
He doesn't know. He's never been shot before. It burns, fire coursing through the blood of his arm. If they go to a hospital, she will be in even more danger. "No. I don't. It's fine."
She drags in another deep breath of air. "We'll travel further," she murmurs. "Switch the car again."
He steels himself against it, but the thought still rolls over him in a wave that leaves him breathless. "No more burner phone," he says. No more talking to Ryan or Esposito or anyone at the 12th. If the Dragon is found, they won't know at first, but at least they'll be alive to not know. No more talking to Alexis. If he can't speak to his daughter, he can at least pretend she's safe.
She hums, disagreeing, in the back of her throat. "We'll just keep the SIM card out for now. For a while."
It's useless. They're being hunted by people far more prepared, far more trained than they are. He knows it. She knows it. They're on a clock, have always been on a clock, and their time is slipping relentlessly away from them.
"Beckett," he murmurs, his voice thin, cracking.
"Just drive," she whispers, pressing the sweater tightly against his arm. "We'll be fine. Just drive."