Esposito comes with her inside the school to retrieve Lily, but they don't speak. They wait wordlessly in the principal's office until her daughter is escorted inside and Kate exhales in relief.
"Momma," Lily greets with a pleased smile, skipping over with her backpack bouncing against her shoulders. "You're here early."
"I know, baby," Kate sighs, nodding her appreciation to Principal Knight before taking Lily's hand. She leads her daughter out of the office with Esposito stepping forward to flank Lily's opposite side.
"And you brought Uncle Javi!" she notes with delight, latching onto his hand with her free one.
"I begged to come," he tells Lily with a grin, even as his eyes are scanning the halls, the sidewalks once they're outside. The black suburban is parked only a few feet away along the sidewalk, steps from the building's entrance. "It's been too long since I've seen you, little chiquita."
Kate slides into the backseat first and Lily follows after her. She notices Gates and LT at the front seats while Kate buckles her into her booster seat, both offering her easy smiles and soft greetings.
"Mom," Lily murmurs as Esposito climbs in last, closing the door with a firm slam. Apprehension is invading her small frame and her anxious brown eyes lift to search her mother's face. "What's going on? Is Daddy okay?"
"Yes," Kate promises without missing a beat, wrapping an arm around Lily's shoulders. "He's waiting for us back at the station right now. We're going to go on an adventure for a couple of days, all three of us."
"But… don't you have to work?" Lily asks, her brow knitting.
"Your mom's been working so hard lately," Gates chimes in from the passenger seat, meeting Lily's curious gaze in the rearview mirror. "I thought she could use a few extra days with you and your dad."
"Oh." Lily leans into Kate's side, still not necessarily convinced, and damn, her kid is too smart for this. She can probably sense the tension filling the car, humming in Kate's bones no matter how hard she tries to quell it.
She just needs to get back to Castle, needs to have all the people she loves in one place where she can protect them, just in case-
"Hey Lily, want to hear a joke?" LT's low voice carries from the driver's seat.
Lily instantly perks up, recognizing instantly what a treat it is to have the normally solemn and silent LT speak.
Kate curls an arm around her daughter's shoulders, relaxes back against the seat with a soft sigh of relief.
"Thank god for LT," Espo mutters under his breath. Her lips quirk, echoing the sentiment as LT begins to ply Lily with knock-knock jokes.
Only when they're back inside the Twelfth does Beckett's chest finally loosen. She's carrying Lily in her arms, Esposito at her side like a bodyguard, but their stride towards the elevators is intercepted by a team of familiar faces waiting for them in the lobby.
"Aunt Rachel!" Lily squeals, squirming from Kate's hold to jump to the floor. She races up to Agent Rachel McCord with open arms and Kate can't help but grin.
She should have known.
"Hey, kiddo!" Rachel greets with her best smile, one Kate remembers as having been rare in the office. Her once-fellow agent bends to accept Lily's excited embrace. "Look at you, so grown up!"
"I know! I grew like four inches since you last saw me!"
Kate chuckles and steps up behind her six year old to loop an arm around Rachel's shoulder in a hug the other woman returns. "I owe you for coming."
"Only the best for you, Beckett," she murmurs, squeezing Kate's bicep before pulling back. "You remember Hendricks, Smith, and this is our newest agent, Franklin."
Beckett shakes hands with each agent, sharing a fist bump with Hendricks, before Gates and Esposito step forward. They go through their introductions, re-acquaintances, and start for the elevator as a group.
"How's Rick?" Rachel inquires quietly during the ride up, but Lily looks up from her place between the two of them, a bright smile on her face.
"You heard about Daddy coming home?"
"I did," Rachel nods, her blue eyes gleaming for the girl, but Beckett can read the worry in her gaze too.
"He's okay. He'll be a lot better once we have these assholes in custody," she mutters, keeping her voice low, running her fingers through Lily's hair.
"We'll get them, Kate. In the meantime, we're going to keep you and your family safe," McCord tells her with confidence. But Beckett merely purses her lips, manages a nod just as the doors slide open to the Homicide floor.
"Daddy!" Lily gasps, running out into the bullpen.
Their daughter snags Castle's gaze immediately, catches his attention with the call of his new title that has been shown excessive use all week.
"Peanut Butter Cup!" Kate hears him exclaim, catching Lily as she leaps into his arms. She smothers her smile, savors the fleeting moment of joy flickering through her at the sight.
"So not just a peanut, but now a butter cup, huh?" McCord muses.
"Couldn't stop him from turning her into a piece of candy," Kate sighs while they exit the elevator, hearing Rachel chuckle at her side.
Castle's entire body visibly exalts as he catches sight of Kate following Lily's footsteps. Beckett hooks an arm around his neck, breaths out her own exhale of gratitude against him in the middle of the bullpen.
"And you brought the cavalry?" he asks, extending his hand to McCord. "Long time no see."
"Good to have you back, Castle," Rachel returns, eliciting a genuine curve of Castle's mouth. "I owe Lily a few favors, so I'll be the head of your protective detail until… for now," she catches herself, taking Lily's listening ears into consideration.
Castle arches an eyebrow in surprise, glances over to Lily.
"You're friends with Agent McCord?" he murmurs.
She nods with a proud smile. "Yep."
"She's only six and has more connections than I ever did," he huffs, keeping Lily propped on his hip while their team migrates to the break room.
Throughout the remainder of the afternoon, Kate strategizes with her old AG team, studying the route to the safe house until she has it memorized, and going over Jerry Tyson and Kelly Nieman's history like a power point presentation. She spends an hour on the phone with Stephens as night begins to fall over the city, listening intently to the agent who has dedicated his entire afternoon to interviewing Tyson's old cellmate, Marcus Gates.
"It's not a sure thing yet, I'm heading to check it out as we speak, but Beckett, we think we may have found the place where Castle was being held," Stephens reveals and her blood runs cold, ice threading through her veins. "I'll call you the moment I have more information."
"I - yeah, please do," she manages, sucking in a deep breath to melt away some of the chill once the line disconnects. She cuts her eyes to the open blinds of the break room, where Castle sits on the couch with Lily in his lap, watching cartoons on the TV overhead.
"Beckett, we've got the van all loaded. Ready to go?" McCord asks.
Kate quickly blinks away the threatening loss of composure, nods her assent, and agrees to meet Rachel downstairs in five minutes. She raids her desk for her backup piece before she goes to retrieve Castle and Lily, strapping the gun to her ankle. Her fingers pause at her top drawer, but she reaches for the knife she keeps there, flexing her fingers around the handle before slipping it into the sheath of her holster. She notices Esposito's eyes on her when she straightens.
He offers her a solemn nod, a wordless assurance that he'll be working tirelessly here, Ryan too, and she returns the gesture with a tight-lipped smile.
When they come back from the safe house, she'll talk to with Esposito, make him fix things with Castle if she has to, and hopefully find their rhythm as a team again. But for now, she can't afford to focus on anything other than the man in the break room and their daughter dozing against his chest.
Castle carries Lily to the black (stereotypical) SUV outside of the precinct, grateful for Kate's closeness at his back. She rests her cheek to his shoulder in a moment of reprieve on the sidewalk before they have to load up.
McCord's team is split into two vehicles - herself and Hendricks in the front seats of theirs, Smith and Franklin driving ahead of them in an identical suburban, willing to take the risk of a threat first in order to protect the second SUV. But the noble information fails to provide him with any comfort.
Lily sits snugly in her booster seat between them once they're all settled inside the vehicle, buckled up and fighting to stay awake. She drifts against Kate's chest, one of her fists curled at her mother's stomach while the other clings to the arm she's stolen from his side, looped through hers. The light nighttime traffic thins out into nothing the farther from the city they drive. These quiet roads would lull him to sleep too if the darkness didn't feel as if it were on the verge of swallowing them whole.
Even after driving for half an hour, his anxiety has yet to calm, his gut continuing to stir with a sense of wrong. And while Kate hasn't said anything, has made no indication of it, he can tell that she's struggling with a similar dread. He notices it in the looks she continues to throw over Lily's head.
And when the SUV in front of them swerves once before it screeches to a stop, he knows instantly why.
It's no more than a second before Franklin and Smith's vehicle bursts into flames.
"Son of a bitch," Hendricks curses, slamming on the breaks.
Castle jerks an arm out in front of both Kate and Lily, his hand colliding with Kate's elbow as she's quick to do the same. Lily holds onto them both, her fingers digging into his arm as Hendricks shifts gears.
But just as they begin to reverse, they hear the roar of an engine approaching. Castle jerks his gaze over his shoulder, catches the glare of headlights growing brighter by the second.
Rachel draws her weapon and Castle catches sight of her rolling down her window, maneuvering her upper body through the slot of space.
"Lily, ears," Kate commands just before the shooting begins.
Their daughter covers her ears with her hands, buries her face, her scream, into Castle's side. Hendricks is speeding forward, past the charred SUV, but Beckett is already mimicking McCord, unfastening the gun from her waist. Despite the lurch of their SUV, he sees her reach for her ankle. And then her determined eyes seek his through the glare of approaching headlights.
"Do you remember?" she shouts over the noise. He holds out his hand in response. The familiar weight of her Sig is in his palm again feels right.
Castle lifts his head, ready to defend them, noticing the foreign van lining up alongside theirs as he does.
"Hendricks," Rachel yells.
Beckett swears under her breath and grabs for Castle's arm, wraps her other around Lily. She tugs him towards her, away from the door he sits against just as the other SUV rams into their side. It repeats the move even as Hendricks attempts to accelerate, edging them off the road while McCord struggles to get a steady shot to their enemy's tire.
"Castle," Kate chokes out, gripping his arm hard enough to bruise, staring back at him through the panic swarming her gaze. He wants to tell her they'll be okay, to just hold onto him, to Lily, and not let go no matter what.
But there's no time, only a split second of locked eyes, not a chance to even open his mouth and let the words spill free.
"We're going off the road, brace yourselves!" Hendricks shouts, the van already beginning to edge from the shoulder. They run over bumpy terrain of gravel and dirt, debris from the surrounding woods, and Kate curls around Lily while he curls around her.
McCord's gasp as she's yanked back inside the vehicle by Hendricks is the last sound Rick is able to register over the crunch of metal and shatter of glass, Lily's screaming and Kate's grunts of pain, his own-
Until it all finally stops.
Their van rolls once due to the help of one final slam from the assaulting SUV and plows into something hard enough to force them to an abrupt stop.
Castle tries to see past the pounding in his skull, the black spots in his vision. His ears are ringing as he attempts to raise his head.
"Kate, Lil," he rasps, flexing his fingers around Kate's shoulder, earning a muffled moan in response, a whimper from between them. He needs to move, save his family, but - but he can't feel anything, can't see, can't stay.
"Castle," Kate groans, unbuckling her seatbelt with shaking hands. Lily is huddled against her, crying against her chest, but her little girl - thank god - was mostly shielded from the blows of the crash, tucked tightly between them. Her worst injury is likely a knock to the top of her head against Kate's chin.
"Beckett," McCord coughs from the front seat, her voice wavering. "You okay?"
"Yeah, I think me and Lily are okay, but Castle's unconscious. Hendricks?" She yanks on Castle's seatbelt despite the searing pain in her shoulder until the buckle finally gives. She brushes her fingers to his slackened jaw, follows the structure of bone to the bloodstained skin above his eyebrow.
"Someone's coming," Lily whispers and McCord lets out a sharp breath, reloads her weapon.
"Stay here."
"Rachel," Kate protests, but she's already opening her door, slipping out of Beckett's sight and into the darkness.
"Momma, why did they blow up the other van? Why did they crash into us?" Lily questions, her voice trembling, sounding so scared. Kate pauses to cradle her daughter's terrified face in her hands, presses a kiss to her forehead.
"Lily, the bad people that took Daddy are trying to hurt us and I have to go help Aunt Rachel stop them, okay?"
"No, Mommy, no!" Lily cries, scrambling in closer to cling to Kate's chest. And for a moment, Kate holds her daughter as close as possible.
"I'll be right back," she whispers into Lily's hair. "You have to stay here with Daddy, can you do that for me?"
She feels the hesitation in Lily's arms before they loosen from her neck. Her little girl sits back on her knees, her red-rimmed eyes glittering in the dark.
"Please come back, Momma. Promise you'll come back," she whimpers.
Kate stains one last kiss to her forehead, bites back her own tears, and takes a deep breath.
"I will," she gives in, even though she knows better, hates to ever make a promise she can't know she'll keep. She has no intention of dying. But Castle is unconscious, and she has precious cargo to protect.
Kate turns to the passenger and grips the handle. It's stuck, bent into the frame by their rollover. She has to ram her shoulder against her door for it to open, hissing in pain as her bone sings with agony, dislocated from the feel of it. She steps out onto the grass with wobbly legs, but the crackle of gunfire sharpens her senses. Beckett finds her center, raises her weapon and circles around the back of their mangled vehicle. She spies Rachel first, shooting at the driver of the enemy van from behind a tree.
The man is perched behind the mangled door of his vehicle, but he doesn't notice her, his focus intently on McCord.
The second he steps out from the cover of the SUV, Kate fires.
He goes down, collapsing to his knees before falling face first into the dirt. McCord cuts her eyes back to Beckett with a terse nod of gratitude.
"Still a good shot."
With that threat neutralized, Kate begins to scan the area. Her heart is pounding hard as she fights to maintain focus, keep it from straying to Castle, to the image of blood flowing from the nasty cut he sustained to the tender flesh above his eyebrow, to Lily and her fear of Kate not coming back.
Her whole life is in that fucking van and she'll protect it at all costs.
"I can get an ambulance on the way," Rachel adds, edging backwards towards their SUV with her weapon still raised. "Let's just clear the area first, make sure there aren't any more-" Her gaze snaps back to McCord just as she jerks her gun in Beckett's direction. "Beckett!"
Kate feels the sharp jab before she can even sense the presence at her back. A needle in her arm, the muscle already going numb. She doesn't have to look to know who it is, dragging in a breath of Kelly Nieman's harsh perfume.
"Rachel, get - get them out," she yells, her voice breaking as her knees begin to go weak.
"Oh, Detective, I hate to tell you," Nieman sighs at her back, controlling her descent to the ground. "It's already too late."