A/N: Please note the M rating will come into play for the final section of this chapter.
Kate grunted as he tackled her to the ground, protectively cradling her body against his when they hit the snow sprinkled grass.
Panicked screams from the crowd filled his ears, momentarily muting his hearing until Esposito's shouts to find the origin of the shot were breaking through, and then a frantic yelling from Ryan – Beckett and Castle are down, both are down! – and no, no, no, Beckett could not be down. He refused to accept that.
"Kate," he gasped her name as he heaved himself up to refrain from crushing her. He felt the breath leave him at the smear of crimson along her cheek. "You're bleeding. Shit, you're-"
"Castle." She was trying to soothe him, trying to lift from the ground, but she shouldn't move yet. He didn't know where the entry wound was, if the bullet had gone through, or if it was still lodged into her flesh. He attempted to skim a hand along her side, searching for the source of the blood flow underneath her pea coat, but she captured his wandering fingers and squeezed hard. "Rick, it's not my blood," she insisted.
His brow scrunched in confusion, but her eyes were wide with terror as she forced herself into a sitting position and gently pressed her hand to his bicep, causing pain to shoot up and down his arm. Now he knew who had been shot.
He cursed and clenched his jaw as the adrenaline that had distracted him from the blooming pain receded and the searing throb of agony spread furiously along his arm as it collapsed under him. Kate called frantically for Lanie as she carefully rolled him over, keeping one hand hovering over his wound while the other cupped his cheek.
"I think it's just a graze," she was saying when the M.E. appeared at her side, but her words sounded muffled and he had to blink rapidly to keep his eyes from falling closed.
"Castle, hey, stay with me," Kate instructed from his side as Lanie ripped away the already torn sleeve of his blazer and began probing at the bloodied mess of his upper arm. He nodded, attempting to focus on his breathing and the way her fingers were combing through his hair as he watched her.
"Just a graze," Lanie confirmed. "Not too deep either, just needs some cleaning and some stitching. I can do it in the ambulance when it arrives."
"Yeah," Castle mumbled through gritted teeth. "No hospital."
Kate chuckled, weakly, but the small halfhearted laugh helped him breathe just a tiny bit easier.
Rick was trying not to wince as Lanie stitched up the skin the bullet had ripped through on the outside of his bicep. The wound wasn't bad, not as bad as it could have been, but he still had to grit his teeth and squeeze Beckett's hand through every tug of the needle and surgical thread through his sensitive skin.
Kate hadn't let go of him since he had been helped up from the cemetery grass, keeping an arm around his waist as she and Ryan had walked him to the nearby medical van and lacing their fingers when she sat down at his good side while Lanie worked on the other. Currently, his fingers were trapped between both of her sweaty palms, anxiously being tangled with and smoothed over until he stilled her nervous ministrations and made her meet his eyes.
He wished he could touch her, at least do more than simply hold her hand. He wanted to sooth her with his mouth and tuck her into his side, make her feel safe and stop looking like she was so damn guilty.
"We lost him," Ryan announced in defeat as he came bounding up to the open ambulance doors.
"How?" Kate questioned immediately, no defeat in her eyes, only a cold hardness.
"He had a head start on us, Beckett."
Castle watched her nod grimly, biting her tongue, and he was secretly glad she wasn't allowed back in the precinct yet. He could picture it all too clearly, see her spending every waking moment poring over files, searching for answers that refused to come. He knew she would insist she could handle it, but she looked absolutely unhinged beside him, and even though he knew she would never allow it, he wished he could take her away from all of this. Someplace safe.
"Don't worry, Beckett," Esposito said, flanking Ryan at the ambulance doors. "We'll find him and lean harder on Coonan too." His eyes slid over to Castle. "Glad you're not dead, bro."
It was the first time Esposito had spoken to him as anything other than someone who could cause potential harm to Beckett, and as he looked closer, he noticed there was gratitude in Esposito's dark eyes. Apparently, taking a bullet for Kate Beckett was how he proved himself.
"Thanks."
But Kate only looked grimmer, her mouth set in a tight line and her fingers clenching around his.
"Almost done, Castle," Lanie chimed in lightly. The M.E. was very diligent in her work and he had almost forgotten she was there, the painkiller she had given him subduing the ache in his arm to a dull roar.
"We'll keep you updated, call you the minute anything pops," Ryan told them assuredly before he and Esposito turned to leave.
Kate waited until they were gone to drop her head to his good shoulder.
Rick shared a look with Lanie as he carefully wrapped an arm around Beckett's hunched frame, the worry swarming her best friend's eyes matching his own.
"I'm going to assume you know how to handle at home care?" Lanie asked softly while she wrapped the bandaging securely around his arm and Rick nodded.
"Yeah, pretty sure I've given the talk on how to care for stitches enough that it's engrained into my brain," he joked with a lopsided grin.
"Then Beckett, you're free to take your man home," Lanie informed them. Kate did muster a thin smile of gratitude for her best friend, but the rigidity of her posture didn't loosen under Rick's arm.
"So, you still interested in playing doctor sometime?" he quipped after she had helped him down from the ambulance and they were shuffling across the snow-dusted cemetery towards his parked town car.
Kate stilled though, stiffening harshly under his arm and then slipping away from him, sending a reproachful look his way as she crossed her arms and kept a slow pace ahead of him.
So maybe lewd humor was not the way to fix this.
"Kate," he sighed after a few moments of walking in stifling silence. "Please talk to me."
She turned and Castle felt his heart snag in the cage of his ribs at the anguish weighing so heavily in her eyes, darkening them to a near black.
"You should have never allowed me to stay with you after the shooting in the hospital."
"I don't regret it," he answered quietly, shrugging his uninjured shoulder even as he ached with the regret he saw in her.
"It wasn't worth this," she whispered, but Castle shook his head vehemently.
"It was worth every second I got to spend with you."
A collision of disbelief and wonder spiraled in the pools of her eyes, the colors swirling like an angry autumn storm, and she instantly bit down on her lip to quell the hard quivering starting there.
"This is the second time you've nearly died for me, Rick. You just can't - how could you do that? How could you-"
"Because I love you," he said lightly, but he knew the admission was anything but.
She fell silent at the words, but didn't startle. Because she knew, had known. He had never been good at hiding it. He'd only been carefully holding the confession in, storing it away and fending off the urge to let it slip past his lips practically every time he saw her, knowing she wasn't ready to hear it.
"Rick-"
"I told you in the beginning, we would get through this together, and we will."
She shook her head, squeezing her eyes closed. "That was before. That was before I knew how serious this was. They killed my mother, they killed Montgomery, they're going to kill me-"
"No," he said, solemn but fierce, stepping forward to fold her into his arms instead. "Nothing's going to happen to you, Kate. We'll find a way."
"Don't, Castle," she sighed into his neck, brushing her lips over the skin she could reach. "Don't make me those types of promises. Just take me home."
He nodded, but continued to hold her, crushing her in his arms even as his newest injury violently protested.
They took the town car to his building and he had the driver let them out in the back. The interest in his identity as Richard Castle was slowly dying down, but there were a few reporters still lingering out front during the day and he was less than prepared to deal with that now.
Kate hooked her arm around his waist for physical support as they entered the lobby even though it wasn't needed and it made him nervous. She wasn't one to cling; she never minded his touch, welcomed it most days, but had never hung to him like this before and it was only one of the many indicators of how bad things really were for her, for them.
But in the elevator, she wrapped her arms around him, cautious of his injury, but engulfing him in her grief, hugging him tightly and pressing her forehead to his clavicle. Castle snaked his good arm around her neck, buried his fingers in her hair, causing more of the dark strands to slip free from the up-do that had been mostly devastated when he had tackled her to the ground. She was no longer sharing strength with him, she was losing it, letting it seep out of her with the tears.
She hadn't cried. Yesterday, when the boys had come to his home and delivered the news of Montgomery's death, she had remained dry-eyed and stony, forcing it all to remain inside. But now, he felt the tears stain his neck where she dropped her cheek.
They didn't stop as the two of them walked down the hall and she unlocked the loft, but once he had her inside, they started to increase and her face slowly fell apart. She slouched backwards into the door, slid down the hardwood until she was a crumpled mess on the floor, sobbing into her hands. Rick carefully knelt beside her, removed the black heels from her feet, and using his uninjured arm, hauled her into his lap.
The intensity of her cries grew, eventually she was sobbing so loud he was sure his neighbors could hear and his building was pretty well soundproofed, but he didn't try to console or quiet her. He had been expecting this and the more heartbreaking her weeping, the tighter he held her.
"I'm sorry," he whispered after a few minutes, when the sobs had turned to whimpers and the shudders wracked her body like aftershocks. "I'm so sorry, Kate."
"He shouldn't have had to die for this," she said hoarsely. "It should have been me."
"Stop," he growled, trying to keep his voice steady, but the hand on her back fisted in the soft material of her dress. He knew she had lost a lot, so much all at once, but so had he, and if he lost her too, again, he couldn't – not her. Not Kate. "Let's go lie down," he murmured softly, gently extricating himself from her and holding his hand out to her when he stood. But panic flashed in her eyes at the suggestion and she rose with intent.
"I won't sleep," she whispered, the despair rolling off her in waves, and then she was pressing into him, practically climbing him as his back hit the door.
"Kate-"
"Please," she was whimpering, knee at his hip, mouth fervent as she trailed hot, biting kisses along his neck. "Castle. Make me forget."
"Not like this," he argued halfheartedly, his concentration divided by the treacherous rock of her hips and the burn of her tongue over his skin.
His hands slid down her sides to curl at her thighs and he hoisted her into his arms, more to control than to encourage, and spun them, trapped her against the door even as his arm ached and throbbed with the effort.
"Careful, please be careful," she murmured, the soft brush of her fingers over the bandage around his bicep contradicting the desperation thrumming so frantically through her body.
"Beckett-"
She undulated her hips, hard. "Make me forget, just for now - make me forget everything but this, Castle, please, I just need you. Only you, just-"
He fused his mouth to hers, unable to handle anymore of the tearful begging, but he gentled her with the slow stroke of his tongue when she attempted to quicken their pace once more. She growled and he squeezed the supple skin of her ass under her dress, broke their kiss.
"If we're going to do this, we're doing it my way."
She hesitated, but nodded, tightened the legs around his waist as he carried her to the bed and took his time making her forget.
"Rick," she choked out as he laid her down on the bed, peeling her stockings from her legs with ease and pushing her underwear aside to find her clit with two fingers.
She cried out as he teased her, clawed at the dress pushed up around her waist.
"No, no, you," she keened, giving up on the dress and closing her fingers around the shoulder of his shirt. "I need you."
He slid her underwear down her legs, let her kick them off while he gingerly helped her slip the dress over her head. Her fingers dove to the waistband of his slacks, deftly unbuttoning and pushing them down his hips despite the trembling of her hands, which he graciously ignored.
Her hips jerked up when he was above her, frantically seeking, urgent, needing.
"Please, Castle-" His name trailed off on a moan as he thrust into her, the lingering gentleness dissipating as he hauled her leg high at his waist, her knee digging into his ribs and her toes curling into his back. She looped her hand around his shoulder, kept the other clutched at his nape, constantly reminding herself not to touch his right arm or evoke any type of pull or strain from the muscle. She couldn't hurt him anymore than she already had, more than she would-
"Stop thinking, Beckett," he growled, biting at her jaw and making her involuntarily arch upwards. He was hitting her hard in just the right places, pounding into her as deeply as he could go and – oh god.
A string of curses fell from her lips, his name tangled on her tongue as she came. Her orgasm quickly triggered his, sent them both tumbling over the edge. When she came back to herself, his face was against her breast and his fingers were twined with hers in the rumpled sheets.
She tightened the leg still ensnared with his, kept her hand in his while the other raked through his sweaty hair. Tears still trickled from her eyes, falling silently down the sides of her face into her hairline, but she didn't try to stop them.
Rick turned onto his side after a while and she rolled with him, kept her body situated around his and hid her face in the crook of his neck. He didn't say anything, only swiped his thumb over the wet trails along her cheeks and slid his hand into her hair, cradling her skull to his chest.
He loved her. And she knew without doubt that she selfishly loved him back.