3: The times they are a-changin'
Castle doesn't try to follow her. He stays sitting on the edge of his bed, trying to fit sleepwalking into his personal Beckett-profile. It doesn't fit. On the other hand, Beckett hadn't appeared to be using it as an excuse either: she'd been far, far too embarrassed for that.
His mind snaps back to the main point. It's okay that it was you. That could mean anything from you might as well be my brother (ugh) through I know that I'm safe with you (which is true but only possibly flattering, depending on the definition of safe) right up to I'm madly in love with you and my subconscious has decided to act on it. (Which is less than likely, to say the least, but maybe a little less unlikely than he might have thought a week ago because after all arms round her and affectionate kisses suddenly seem to be allowed.) He ponders all of that through his shower, shaving, dressing, and arriving in the main room to find Beckett clearly on her way out.
"I'm going to the precinct, Castle. See if anyone will let me do anything useful." That comes with a sour-lemon flavour.
"Okay," he says mildly. "Have you got the spare key?" Beckett produces it.
"Thanks. See you later?" She sounds more hopeful than convinced.
"Maybe." There's a flash of disappointment across her face, quickly hidden. "Paperwork is boring."
"How would you know? You never do any."
"See you later, Beckett," Castle says smugly. "Have a good day."
"Bye," she growls.
Castle treats himself to breakfast and an excellent cup of coffee, feeling only very tangentially guilty at deceiving Beckett into thinking he's not keen on going with her. She'll forgive him when he gives her back her watch, though, and on that note he bounces off to the jewellers', asking the doorman to take care of his deliveries – that is, Beckett's laundry – when it arrives.
It occurs to him that she hasn't yet started looking for a new place, but it's only been two days and – he should have thought of this – she's probably still shocked and not thinking straight about it yet. He should suggest an agent to her, but he knows he won't. He wants her to stay too much, especially if she's quite literally sleepwalking into his bed.
Michael is, as ever, pleased to see Castle.
"Come to learn, Rick? I have all but one piece, and I should get that tomorrow. The face is a slightly unusual size, and I had to order it specially, but I can put the mechanisms back together now." He smiles gently up at Castle's intrigued face. "Now, m'boy, are you interested because you're interested in everything, or are you interested because this belongs to that pretty detective?"
"Er… both?"
Michael gazes wisely upon him. "Like that, is it?" He leads Castle back into his workshop/sanctum and lends him a spare loupe. "Now, watch and don't touch unless I tell you to." He picks up a tiny set of tools and starts to assemble the inside. "This will be just as good as new." Three tiny gearwheels are installed with the utmost gentleness. "Now for the chip and battery." They are carefully placed. Castle watches with absorption, leaning closer and closer until Michael taps him firmly on the head. "Out my light, Rick."
"Sorry," he mumbles.
"Okay, that's it for today," Michael says, a little time later, putting the watch-back on to hold everything in place. "Just the hands and the front to go. It'll take me no more than half-an-hour, tomorrow."
"Michael… before you finish it, would you call me?"
"Sure, but why?"
"Well… um… could I put on the face, or the hands or the front? Please? I just want to do something to help. More than simply watch you and pick up the check."
Michael turns and examines Castle closely. "What aren't you telling me, Rick? And should I be expecting you to come in to buy something, soon?"
"Nothing, and no."
Michael raises an interrogative eyebrow of which Beckett herself would be proud.
"Ri…ight," he drawls. "Sure. You're just friends. Right you are, son." Castle looks pleadingly at him. "Okay. But you do exactly what I tell you and nothing more. None of your experiments. If you don't do what I tell you, you'll ruin the watch."
"I'll be really careful. Promise."
"Okay. The delivery should come in around" – he thinks for a second – "noon. Come by around twelve thirty. We'll be done by one. If you like," he grins, "I'll find a presentation box and you can pick it up late afternoon."
"Thanks. Till tomorrow, then."
"Bye."
Castle saunters out of the jewellers perfectly happy with life, and without casting more than one – okay, two – glances over the ring tray. Just to see what's there, naturally. He does it every time. Really.
The precinct is buzzing with the Feds' lovely new tech, their actions, their abilities… Castle has never heard so much bad-mouthing outside a literary convention. The cops hate the Feds who hate the cops right back, it seems. Wow. He tries mentioning Homeland Security, and everyone unites around hating them.
He follows his nose to Beckett's desk, and finds it empty. He eventually tracks her down, before her coffee has got cold, in the FBI room. Clearly she's managed to worm her way back into Agent Shaw's team. Or possibly worm is the wrong word. Storm, more likely. There is a lively discussion going on, if you're feeling tactful. Castle prefers accuracy. A blazing row is underway. He opens the door, straight into Beckett's gesture, catches her wrist and puts her coffee in her hand. It has almost exactly the same soothing effect as inserting a pacifier into a screaming baby. She automatically takes a swig, then another, and calms down.
"What's the problem?"
"Shaw's gone."
And then her phone rings and it's their killer and the row is forgotten as the whole team – cops, Feds and one writer – swings into full forward momentum, with Beckett taking unquestioned charge. Castle notices with some interest that adrenaline and alpha-status overrides all of Montgomery's order of desk duty, pain, bruising and cracked ribs without a struggle, and files that for later Nikki-use.
In the thick of searching out the killer's location, Castle has entirely forgotten about finishing the watch, and it's not until he and Beckett are on stakeout duty that he remembers. He taps a quick text out to Michael, asking to delay till the following day, not tomorrow – he'll call him – and returns to the story of their killer. It's all wrong. It's too easy. Beckett listens to him, wincing occasionally as she shifts position in her seat, and – mirabile dictu! – agrees.
And then she hands him her backup piece and this is just the most amazing day ever – right up until after he frees Shaw and races after Beckett and he hasn't found her when he hears the most heart-wrenchingly terrifying scream of pain and anger and fear and it's Beckett and what has that fucker done to her and he slams to a halt on them, raises and fires and fuck he's missed Dunn's head but thank Christ he got the gun but Beckett's laid out on the floor and what the hell? – she's not conscious and what did that bastard Dunn do to her?
It's another bus, and (perhaps fortunately, Castle thinks) a different EMT in the back as it aims for the hospital. Even so, this time he isn't leaving. Beckett may be incapable of moving – they'd lifted her out on a stretcher and she hadn't even complained so something is badly wrong – but that doesn't mean that she'll be particularly impressed. This time, though, she might be co-operative. Or in too much pain to be obstructive.
He puts a large, warm hand over hers, interlinking their fingers.
"Hurts…" she sighs. He tries to take his hand away, but she tightens hers around it. "Don't go away."
"Okay," he says amiably. "I'll wait with you."
"He dropped on top of me," she mumbles.
What the fuck? He will kill him. He could have snapped Beckett's neck. Castle feels sick. He's felt sick with terror for Beckett far too often in the last couple of weeks. He wants to take her home, buy out the entire stock of cotton wool from every Walgreens and Duane Reed in Manhattan and wrap her in it till nothing will ever hurt her again. He knows he can't. All he can do is hold her hand and stop her trying to shoot the EMTs.
"Just stay still till the EMT looks you over." He grins, though it's more rictus than humorous. "Try not to upset this one. I've no lollipops today." She tries to grin back. It's pitifully pathetic. "At least you're not concussed again."
There's a noise that might be a growl – if it weren't so small, barely-audible, and miserable. "That the best you can manage, Castle? It could be worse?"
"It could be. Last time you were green and vomiting. Not pretty. Not pretty at all. And you were really nasty to the doctors. This time you should be nicer to them: after all, they're the ones who are trying to patch you up." Another growl, with a bit more force to it.
"Won't stay in hospital."
"That's childish, Beckett. If you need to, you will."
"Don't wanna. Don't like hospitals."
"You sound like me talking about the paperwork." This growl would scare grizzlies. "That's better. C'mon, Beckett. I'm the nine-year old in this partnership. You're supposed to be the adult. If we're both nine, who's going to shoot the bad guys?"
"Esposito," Beckett flips back, and manages a reasonable grin. "Cheaper than putting them in jail."
At this fortuitous point the ambulance stops, the rest of the EMTs return, and Beckett, muttering darkly that this is all entirely unnecess – OW! – as she's removed from the bus on a gurney, is then taken into the ER. Castle considers asking a passing nurse to examine his hand, which feels as if it has been crushed, but thinks better of it. He follows Beckett – just like usual, though he'd rather prefer it was into the bullpen than the ER – and when she's put on an ER gurney repossesses himself of her hand until a doctor snaps at him to get out the way. Reluctantly, he does.
The doctor fusses over Beckett, prods her chest gently (Castle has a moment or five's violent envy: it's not fair that anyone else gets to touch Beckett's really quite beautiful chest) and when she yelps nods sagely.
"You have a broken rib, possibly more than one, in addition to the two cracked ribs and bruising from – yesterday? What have you been doing? Weren't you told to take care?" The doctor produces an exasperated, exaggerated harrumph. "We're going to take you into X-ray to rule out any other complications. As long as there aren't any, you won't need to be admitted. Is there someone who will be staying with you? You shouldn't do anything strenuous."
Castle can't stop his snort of mixed amusement and disbelief. "She's with me," he manages, once he recovers his breath from the doctor's uninformed naivety about Beckett's lack of need for assistance (well, in her mind, anyway) and ability to refrain from activity (of any sort).
"Good," the doctor says. "Make sure she doesn't do anything strenuous for three weeks or so." There's a squawk from the gurney. Both the doctor and Castle ignore it as being irrelevant. "Right. X-ray for you." And Beckett is rolled off.
A little while later she's brought back. Shortly after, she hasn't obviously killed the doctors, she's been given some serious pain relievers, and has acquired a dopey smile. She is delivered to Castle, who's been amusing himself by making up stories about everyone, including the staff, in the ER waiting room, (there had been a bossy nurse whose – er – colourful phraseology had given him several ideas) with a prescription for those same serious painkillers, which apparently won't interfere with the contraceptive implant. So Beckett babbles, in any event. Castle is informed that there are no complications, and instructed not to let her do anything strenuous. He decides not to inform her that she's blurting out her medical history to him and tries not to listen too carefully. He fails.
"Not that she'll want to," the doctor says. Castle knows that this is nonsense, but keeps his mouth firmly shut. He collects dopey, cute Beckett and takes her to have the prescription filled and then home. Unfortunately, the dopey cuteness wears off before they're even halfway home, to be replaced by a not-particularly well-concealed tide of annoyance at Dunn, the broken ribs, the pain she's in, and the need for some of the good drugs, stat. Castle lets it all wash over him. None of it is directed at him, none of it refers to him, and in fact he's thinking about picking up Beckett's hand again. (He really shouldn't, since he's driving her car, and in fact can't, what with all the gear shifts – why doesn't she get an automatic?) Eventually she runs down, looks vaguely sheepish, and stops.
"Sorry, Castle. I hate being injured."
"You don't say," he points out, with a heavy layer of sarcasm. "Here I thought you liked it."
Beckett snickers, winces and yelps, and stops. "Don't make me laugh. It hurts."
"Sorry. Look, we're nearly home. You can take the pills" –
"Don't like pills."
" – and then at least it won't hurt as much. I'll make dinner, and you don't need to do anything but sit comfortably" – there's a disbelieving noise – "and talk to me."
"You mean listen to you."
"That too." It being a stop light, Castle turns to her. "Look, I know you don't like the situation, but just… put up with it, okay?"
"I'm imposing," Beckett mutters.
"Yes, you are." She gasps. "In the sense that you are impressive, through accomplishments. What you aren't is an imposition." She snorts, and then yelps and winces again. He smirks, wiped off by the yelp. "Stop worrying, Beckett. Hakuna matata."
"What?"
"Hakuna matata. It means no worries."
"Huh?"
"The Lion King."
"Oh?"
"Disney. And a musical. Surely you knew that?"
"Oh."
"Want to go?"
"Not tonight, Josephine. I have a headache." Castle snickers.
"Shouldn't that be a rib-ache?"
"That too."
"We're home." Castle parks neatly in a free space. "Don't move till I can help you get out without too much pain." He comes round, opens the passenger door, and waits while she manoeuvres both legs out – very cautiously. "Okay. Give me your hands, and you concentrate on moving carefully and I'll take your weight."
"You saying I'm overweight, Castle?" she snarks.
"No. I could lift you up like a feather. But if I do we'll hurt your ribs – more – and this time they might keep you in hospital. Since you don't want that, just for a change do it my way."
Beckett mumbles and grumbles and does – for a change – what Castle suggests. There is a lot of Russian swearing. This does not stop when she's out the car, nor when Castle puts a gentle arm around her – purely to ensure that no-one knocks into her, of course, and he's sticking to that excuse – nor when they make it in the door. It does stop when she takes the horse-pills, but that might only be because there is a mouthful of water preventing her talking.
When she's swallowed the pills, Beckett aims, or possibly shuffles, for the stairs. She makes it to the top. Just. The Russian swearing is back.
"How can it hurt my ribs to walk up some stairs?" she huffs. Castle has no idea. If he'd wanted to be a doctor, he'd have studied medicine. (He has studied anatomy, though only from the standpoint of killing people. In his books, of course.) He declines the proffered argument in favour of cooking dinner.
"Beckett, dinner's ready," he calls, a while later.
" 'Kay," flutters down the stairs, followed, creakily, by a somewhat white and strained Beckett.
"What's wrong?"
"Had a shower."
"Yes?" Castle asks suspiciously. He doesn't see why a shower should induce this look.
"I tried to wash my back and twisted and it" – there's a pause there that many profane or vulgar words would fit into – "hurts."
"I would have washed your back," he says, suggestiveness and waggling eyebrows on autopilot.
"If I'd known how much it would hurt I might have let you," Beckett mutters – and only realises that she had said that out loud when Castle sucks in a gasped breath and drops the spatula with which he's cooking.
He's two fast strides across the floor towards her before his brain catches up with his feet, and he slows up, rams his instant, instinctive reaction back into its cage, and doesn't haul her against him and kiss hell out her. Instead he puts both hands gently on her shoulders, and steers her to the couch. There's a hot wash of colour delineating her cheekbones, and she's chewing her lip. Even if kissing her would sort this out, he's not going to. He'll just bring this back to banter and snark and normality…because if he doesn't he'll do something stupid and she'll be back in hospital. Not a desirable outcome.
"Would you? Because I'll be happy to wash your back – or front – any time. Just say when."
"That was the painkillers talking," Beckett snips. Castle raises his eyebrows in a manner indicative of extreme cynicism and disbelief.
"If you say so," he drawls. "Dinner will be ready in a couple of minutes." And he returns to the frying pan. A small, pained sigh follows him. It carries a note of disappointment that he's certain she doesn't know is there. Beckett would never knowingly have let it escape. He stirs the mixture of beef and vegetables with a contented, smug smile. Beckett has let slip quite enough for him to be sure that she's much more interested than she'd like him to know. Shame she's far too injured to be likely to sleepwalk tonight. As soon as she moves the pain will wake her up.
Dinner is eaten with embarrassed carefulness on Beckett's part, both in movement and speech, and amiable imperturbability on Castle's part.
"Coffee, Beckett?"
"Please."
"Here, or there?" He gestures towards the couch. "The couch might be more comfortable?" He puts the coffee down by it.
" 'Kay," Beckett says, clearly out of resistance to anything and too tired to care. She creaks towards the couch: the scent of coffee providing the necessary impetus to move her over. It's possibly the only thing that might have moved her short of manhandling. Castle ensures that she has seated herself before he sits down – mostly to make sure he can help her if required (not, note, if she asks), but partly to make sure he can sit next to her. A friendly arm and some general consolation seems indicated. After all, kisses were allowed yesterday.
Thank you to all readers and reviewers. I really appreciate hearing all your thoughts.