The sound of the coffee maker pulls him out of a tumultuous doze. Beckett's standing over it, a purple dress clinging to her waist, the hem brushing the middle of her thighs. He blinks, scoots up onto his elbows. She hasn't put it on since he made her buy it at Target what seems like a lifetime ago.
A hint of light flashes off a band on her finger. Sometime in the early morning he'd woken up to use the bathroom and stumbled over his pants, thought of her battered rings still nestled in the pocket, taken them out and put them on her nightstand. He's not sure when she put them back on.
She turns to him, her eyes glancing over his face and torso, her face crinkling into a tired smile. "Morning," she murmurs.
She's trying. He knows how hard this is for her. "Hey," he says, pushing himself up toward a sitting position, his arm twinging with the motion. He finds it's easier to smile back at her than he thought it might be, easier to lose himself in the upturned quirk of her mouth and the soft lines at the corners of her eyes than he ever would have imagined yesterday.
"Don't get up," she murmurs, whirling back around to pour the coffee in a mug, then turning quickly to him. Her movements are too edgy for first thing in the morning.
She leans toward him, handing him the steaming mug before perching carefully beside him on the edge of the bed. Like she's ready to stand right up, to bolt away in an instant. He swallows, chokes down the bitter train of thought with a sip of black coffee. "You sleep at all?" he asks, passing the mug to her so she can drink. After she'd agreed to stay with him, they'd tangled into each other in the bed, an exhausted mess of limbs and jagged feelings. He'd drifted in a haze, hyperaware of her every shift and turn, consciousness flaring through him with a too-hard thump of his pulse whenever he edged close to sleep, but every time his eyes snapped open she'd been there, sometimes her body quiet and heavy with rest, sometimes her eyes dark and solemn and flicking over his face.
"Mmmmm," she hums equivocally.
"Beckett," he says, his voice sharp. The shadows beneath her eyes are just as dark as they were the day before. Dark enough that they twist at his stomach, clench at something deep inside him.
"A little."
"Beckett," he murmurs again, can't quite keep the worried rasp out of his tone. His gut clenches tighter.
"You?" she asks, shifting toward him. His eyes catch on the low neckline of the dress, stick on the smooth line of her sternum, the swell of her chest. She huffs a short laugh at him.
He drags his gaze up to her face. "A little," he echoes, conceding.
Reaching back, she sets the coffee mug down on the nightstand. She rubs a thumb down his cheek, and he can imagine the circles underneath his own eyes, can see his own worry reflected back at him in the scrape of her teeth over her lower lip.
"I wish…" he starts, but it's useless, pointless, hopeless wishing.
"We have to keep moving," she murmurs, catching his thoughts before they've coalesced into coherency in his mind. She drops her hand back to her lap, lets it brush along his lips on the way down. "We should – let's call Espo. Before we go."
He can't help the flutter in his chest, the same stupid, pulsing hope that precedes every phone call to Esposito – maybe this time, they'll have found something. Maybe this time, they'll be able to pack up, drive to the nearest airport, and fly home, unafraid for her life.
She must feel something similar, because she snatches the phone off the nightstand with surprising speed. Shifting, she crosses her legs as she thumbs the power on, dials the number of Esposito's burner phone, flips on the speaker. He shifts closer to her, bowing his head over the receiver. Her hair tickles against his cheekbone.
Esposito picks up after half a ring. His voice is short, abrupt. "You're a day late."
Beckett exhales. "Sorry. We had some – interesting times."
"You're gonna make people worry." Castle hears his unspoken words – I thought you were dead.
"We can't stay on long," Beckett starts, but Esposito cuts her off.
"Look – I can't – I'm not saying anything over the phone right now. But I'm off suspension. And we've had some recent… developments."
"What?" Castle snaps.
"Everyone's safe. We've amped up protection everywhere." Again, everything he doesn't say hangs in a silent beat – We're safe. Your family is safe. Everyone is safe but you. "Just – we might be able to get you home soon. But watch your backs." He weights every word of his last sentence.
"Espo," Beckett exhales, her voice heavy.
"I gotta go," he says. "But damnit, you two, call when you're supposed to. Day after tomorrow at the latest."
The line goes dead. Beckett slowly thumbs the phone off, then clenches it too tightly, her knuckles white.
"There's nothing we can do," Castle tells her. He sees everything he needs to in the firm and bloodless flex of her fingers.
"There's always something," she says, voice low, eyes fixed on the screen of the phone. Her words choke him.
"What are you saying?" His voice rasps just enough that she tears her gaze away from the phone, looks up at him.
"Nothing," she says, reaching out, running her fingers lightly over the line of his jaw. He closes his eyes at the contact, can't help it, doesn't want to see the desire to fight in her face.
"You said you wouldn't," he whispers, hardly aware he's saying anything until the words have left him. Said she wouldn't leave him. Said she wouldn't fling herself headlong into the abyss anymore.
He feels her other hand brush over his jaw, her fingers sliding up and over his cheekbones, then skidding down along the lines of his neck, her mouth sweeping oh so softly over his. "I know. I did. I won't," she murmurs against his lips.
His desire to believe her is a visceral thing, beating against his chest, clawing at his lungs. "I'll follow you anywhere," he says. Her lips are parted and he can feel her inhaling his words, can feel her fingers digging into his vertebrae as she curls her hands into the back of his neck. She's leaning over him at such an awkward angle that is has to be painful, but she doesn't draw away.
"I never wanted to hurt you," she breathes. Her fingers ghost down over the wound on his bicep, less painful today. It's her apology and explanation both.
"I know." He ducks forward, slants his lips over hers in a brief kiss before pulling back.
She chases his mouth with hers, sighs into him, "I meant it, you know." She doesn't need to tell him what she's talking about.
She must feel the stutter of his inhale - her hands tighten on his neck, pull him closer when all he wants to do is draw away to look into her eyes. Her mouth hits his before he can cobble together a coherent reply, and then she's sliding a leg over him to straddle his lap, sinking down until her hips bump into his. "Thought we had to go," he growls as her mouth and tongue work a trail of heat and warmth along his throat.
"Hurry up, then," she says into his ear, her voice rocky, scraped over gravel.
He slips his hand up the inside of her thigh, hits nothing but skin and then the smooth slick of her. "Beckett. Why aren't you wearing underwear?"
"It was on my to do list." She sinks her teeth into his earlobe, groaning as he tries to circle his hand, not quite getting the leverage he needs with her on his lap, so firmly settled against his hips.
"Don't talk about to do lists right now," he says, mouthing along her jaw as he draws his hand up slightly and rolls his hips into her. He feels the heat of her pressing down against his boxers as he thrusts up again to meet her and they slide into a silent, jerking rhythm.
And then his breath catches in his throat because she's pulled away to give herself another inch of space and her hands are through the slit in his boxers, stroking with firm fingers, and then she's flexing her hips forward, sinking slowly down onto him.
"I love you," she growls into his ear, the words setting him on fire, burning away the ice of her bold pen strokes on a receipt crumpled underneath a set of car keys.
He's almost past words already, but he finds he can just get it out as she breaks around him – Me too, me too, me too – and he's a stuttering, uneven moment behind her.
He collapses back against the sheets, wrapping his arms around her shoulders and pulling her with him, their legs tangling together awkwardly. She folds into him, pressing her nose beneath his ear, and he feels her laugh softly into his neck. "Was it good for you, then?"
"I am buying you a thousand more dresses," he murmurs, unable to open his eyes. He pauses, considers. "And then I'm burning all your underwear."
It's not a good day.
The jagged tension. The slow burn of exhaustion. The feeling of eyes on them. It's wearing on them both, slowly eroding them.
He glances at the line of the horizon, just turning dark, in the rearview.
"You won't see anything," Beckett tells him – again - her voice just this side of snapping.
"But you feel it," Castle prompts. He hasn't pushed her, yet, hasn't asked, but she's gotten more tense throughout the day, more willing to swing her gaze around at a flash of light, more ready to twitch at a sudden crackle from the radio.
"Castle. We're tired. We've had a God-awful couple of days. And then that call from Espo."
"Yeah," he murmurs, checking the rearview again, feeling the odd contradiction pulling in his chest, the thrumming tension from the day, the overwhelming swell of love for her. It's hard for him, sometimes, to put into words how much he adores her, how glad he is that she's here with him instead of anywhere else, instead of lying boneless and satiated in Josh's bed, instead of crumpled in a coffin from a long plummet off a high roof. It's even harder now, exhaustion and anxiety edging at both of them, pressing away all the words that matter.
She reaches over, draws a hand up to trail a finger over the back of his knuckles. He blinks, realizing his hands are planted at 10 and 2, his spine ramrod straight. He never drives like this, always slouches back against the seat, fingers from one hand resting lightly at the top of the wheel.
"We're just tired," she says again.
It's true. They are. He forces himself to drag in a deep breath, to stop glancing desperately in the rearview, to loosen his tight clench of the wheel. It's a gorgeous night, all slowly-shadowing grass and flickering fireflies and the first of the stars starting to wheel upwards into the darkening sky.
She drops her hand to his denim-covered knee, squeezes sharply. "We'll be okay."
"Why do we have to keep moving?" he asks abruptly. The question's been rattling in his brain since she first spoke the words that morning in their hotel room.
"What?" Her fingers twitch on his knee.
He gestures widely out the windshield at the vast stretches of space that surround them. "We could stop. Live under the radar. Buy a little bit of land. Some cows."
The sharpness of her exhale makes him flinch. "Castle. You were shot the day before yesterday."
"I know." He flexes his fingers unconsciously, feels the burn and pull all the way up through the wound. He's been able to distract himself from it, distract himself with his exhaustion and his paranoia and the vibrant force of the woman sitting next to him in the car, but sometimes the pain rolls over him in a great wave and he has to grit his teeth and breathe through it. "Believe me, I know."
"And all day…" she waves her hand, trails off before she puts words to the stifling sense of foreboding that's been weighing on them.
"But that's just it," he breathes in a rush. "Of course we feel like that. This isn't – this isn't sustainable, Kate."
He glances over to see her shaking her head in protest.
"We could be so careful. And we could be less of a target if we were a stable presence somewhere. We could be less easy to find than when we constantly show our faces to a string of different people, day after day, night after night."
When he glances back at her, her eyes are less determinedly resolute. She's staring out at an immense, dark field, at the moon just edging onto the horizon. "And the case?" she whispers. "Your family? Even if it was safe, Castle, what happens to everyone else?"
"Just – not for forever. Esposito said things were moving."
"Could be anything, Castle," she says, and he can't miss the tension in her voice, can't miss how frustrated she is that they have no information at all.
"Maybe we can think about it," he murmurs.
She's too slow to hide the hint of wistfulness in her eyes when he glances over at her next. "Okay. We'll think about it."
Her hand tightens on his leg when he shifts to brake for a three-way stop, the first road sign they've seen in so many hours. Her fingers dig into his muscles, then dig in harder when he moves his foot back to the accelerator. His skin prickles under her tense grip.
It would almost be a relief, to have something happen, to have a valve for the near-explosive strain of it all.
He flicks his eyes over to her. "Kate," he starts to say, wanting again to find some words to tell her how glad he is that she's with him, how, no matter what, he wants to be by her side. But he doesn't have a chance.
It's not a relief.
The screech of metal, the crunch of the car frame as it buckles, the squeal of tires as they're plowed across the road.
It's not a relief at all.