Disclaimer: I do not own Castle or the recognizable characters who appear in this story. Any other names, for characters or businesses, are fictional, uncompensated, or are in the public domain.
As Beckett comes back to herself, she realizes Castle's shuffling them back to where they entered the ring. She can't tell how long they stood there while she broke down, but it feels like hours.
"Not the time to dance," she grouses for form's sake, though she's hoping he won't take her seriously.
"C'mon," he rumbles gently, still cradling her but knowing better than to do anything like sweep her off her feet. "There's a three-minute break between rounds," he jokes gently. "Didn't you hear the bell?"
"Lucky for you," she mumbles, still exhausted and embarrassed and thankful beyond words he's giving them a light conversation to distract from her embarrassing breakdown. "I had you on the ropes."
"That's been true since the beginning," Castle admits quietly before stepping away to again part the ropes and allow her to step through easily. After they walk down the few stairs from the ring, he leads her to the equipment rack and silently removes their gear. Then, taking her hand again, he leads her toward the back corner opposite her changing room. She's surprised, though she realizes she shouldn't be, to see a small kitchenette. Everything's on one side of the small space since the construction to remove the walls stole what was probably cabinetry, but it looks like it has the essentials.
After guiding her to a bench seat next to the window, Castle steps away to open the refrigerator. The door blocks her view, but the mystery of his errand is shortly revealed as he approaches with a bottle of cold water in one hand and a gel icepack in the other.
"I think you'd better do the honors," he offers with a nod toward her chest as he extends the icepack. God bless him, Beckett thinks as the promise of numbing the throbbing pain over her scar erases any sense of decorum. But as she reaches out, she covers his hand rather than the icepack. It's a small gesture of thanks, of connection, but it's what she can offer now and she knows he'll recognize and appreciate it.
Ready to make a joke about the indecent sigh that would result when the icepack reached its destination, Castle swallows his comment. Because the noises Beckett releases when the pack covers her chest are not at all erotic or lusty. There's no mistaking a sigh that releases pain. And the last thing he's going to do is call attention to his partner's decision to let go of some of her pain. She's exhausted enough that she doesn't manage to hide her grimace, either, her closed eyes and the lines etched on her face testament to her suffering and long struggle toward recovery. He hopes, desperately, that the emotional release from their sparring session is worth the additional physical pain it created.
With considerable uncertainty, Castle takes a seat on the bench next to her as he opens the bottle of water for her. "Lean forward," he requests as he hands her the water, deciding to go all-in. Oddly, Beckett is quietly compliant, leaning forward enough to allow him to slip an arm over her shoulder. Still quiet, she turns slightly in her seat so that her head nestles into his shoulder. It angles her away from him slightly but increases their physical connection. It also allows them to speak without looking at each other, Castle realizes, which might make their conversation a little easier, whichever way it's going to go.
"I'm sorry, Castle," Beckett whispers a few minutes later, her eyes still closed and icepack still resting over her heart. "I'm so, so sorry."
The temptation to make a joke is nearly overwhelming, but he refrains. Tonight's about raw, emotional honesty. So, instead, all Castle emits is a long, slow sigh. Beckett doesn't reply immediately. She, too, recognizes the sound of released pain.
"I'm sorry I didn't call," she clarifies. "I'm sorry I hurt you. I'm sorry you're getting hurt because of me." She pauses for a moment, collecting her strength and appreciating the steady rise and fall of his chest she can feel on her back. "And I'm sorry I didn't have the courage to admit that I heard you."
Castle nods but remains quiet while he collects his thoughts. He desperately wants to know why – why she fled without a word, why she lied about his confession, why she was so vague when they talked on the swings before his return to the precinct. But he chokes those questions down, trying to be the better man he's glimpsed in his time with her. She needs help right now, not an interrogation. The answers to those question don't matter if she doesn't heal.
"What can I do, Beckett?" he asks. "How can I help you?"
"Can you forgive me?" she answers in a low tone. "I haven't been good to you, Castle. Not for a long time."
"You didn't ask me to invade your life," he answers, moving her head with his light shrug. "In fact, you were pretty clear about your thoughts on the subject," he adds with a lilt in his voice. "But you were good enough to let me be your partner."
"You're more than that," Beckett corrects him, voice still quiet. "We're more than that. And I want us to be even more," she confesses in a whisper. "But I don't understand why you want that. All I've done is cause you pain, Rick. Either I hurt you or you get hurt because of me."
"Hey," he chastises lightly, "I'm the egotistical one in this partnership. It's not all about you, Beckett."
"And it's not all about you, either," she answers, finally opening her eyes and craning her neck to look into his eyes. "You're not responsible for what happened to me. You saved me."
"No," Castle rejects immediately, shaking his head as if trying to fling memories from his head. "I didn't. Trust me, Beckett, I didn't save you. I've never felt so impotent in my life."
Now it's Beckett's turn to avoid the easy shot, throwing a cheap joke in Castle's direction based on his word choice. But she, too, avoids temptation. In fact, she theorizes, he wouldn't have used that word unless he's being utterly serious.
"I could tell you that your words meant everything to me," she begins slowly, struggling with her confession. "I could tell you that they were my lifeline, my way back. It's true," she says, her voice breaking under the weight of her sincerity, "but I don't think you'd believe me. So, let's try this instead. What did you do when I tried to hit you in the ring?"
Castle's momentarily thrown by her question, so he pauses to think about it. "I reacted, I guess," he replies, not certain what she's expecting to hear.
"Exactly," she nods. "Now, what would you do if a two hundred pound man launched himself at you?"
"I'd move," Castle answers with a small huff. "Don't need any fancy training to know that."
"So what do you think I did when you threw yourself at me at Montgomery's funeral?" she asks quietly. "I flinched, Castle. A natural, untrained reaction. You know what the doctors said?" she asks rhetorically, regretting her words as the conjure images of Josh. "Millimeters. That's why I'm not dead. A tiny fraction of an inch and the shot would've been fatal. You might not've reached me before the bullet, but you made me react. And it saved my life."
Castle sits quietly and wonders about Beckett's theory. It's nonsense, really. Even if she moved, there's no telling in which direction. In fact, he might've endangered her more with his sad attempt to protect her. But he knows better than to voice that possibility now, when she's so run down and trying so hard to make him feel better. "Maybe," he allows after a long breath. "But if so, I did a pretty poor job of it. Next time I'll be faster. Then we can skip the whole bloody, heart-stopping, dying declaration mess."
"There won't be a next time," Beckett answers to clear the slate before moving on to the other memories he raised.
"Yes," he interrupts with sad certainty, "there will be."
"Why?" Beckett asks in growing horror.
"Because you're not going to stop. They're still out there, Kate, the ones who killed your mother and tried to kill you," he confirms, closing his eyes and leaning his head back. "They're out there and you won't stop until they're in jail or you're in the ground. So, yes, there will be a next time."
There's no point in arguing with her partner, Beckett realizes, because he's right. They've gone to insane lengths to silence her, which means they were worried about the investigation. And whatever her mother stumbled into, it's big – big enough to be well-financed and organized years later. So, perhaps not while she's recuperating and perhaps not before some planning, she's sure she'll take up the hunt again.
"Have you found anything?" she asks, letting them both skip the pointless questions about whether he's working on her case.
"In a way," Castle sighs, taking a deep breath to plow through his own confession. "There are factions. At least two – one trying to silence you and another blocking those attempts. There's supposedly a deal in place – your tormentors stop trying to kill you and your protector sits on some incriminating evidence he has on them. But the deal's off if you start investigating again."
The news hits Beckett like the punch Castle refused to throw. She doubles over, moving away from Castle to hunch in on herself as she tries to think of the dynamics in play. But it's no good – she's too exhausted, too raw to find an investigative handhold right now. The mystery of her case is too slippery to be grasped through such fatigue. So, in a move that shocks them both, she realizes she needs to let it be for tonight and straightens herself to lean against Castle once more.
"How do you know?" she asks, unable to at least collect a little more information.
"Untraceable phone calls," he answers. "From someone who claims to be a friend of Montgomery's. According to him, the only way I can keep you safe is to keep you off the case."
"Which you're pursuing in my place," she accuses without malice.
"Of course," Castle answers immediately. "I haven't found much, but it's all yours when you're ready."
"Really?" Beckett asks, challenging his motivation more than his words. "You're just going to set me loose?"
"You're a big girl, Beckett," Castle replies with a heavy sigh. "I couldn't stop you if I wanted to. And if you're going to go ahead, you need to be as ready as you can be."
"So, when will I be ready?" she asks, wondering if this is his game – moving the goalposts on her recovery so that it's always just a little bit longer before she can relaunch her investigation.
"When you can take me down," he answers, lifting a hand to point back at the ring. "If you're not strong enough to take down a celebutante writer, you won't be strong enough to uncover a conspiracy."
Well, that wasn't the test she was expecting. It's probably not a bad one, though, she muses. Her partner is surprisingly adept in the ring, so maybe he will be a good standard against which to measure her progress.
"You realize you'll have to fight back, right?" she asks, testing his faith in this plan.
"Not gonna happen, Beckett," he answers unequivocally. "The memory of me hitting you is one I will absolutely never allow."
"But you hit the woman in the elevator," she reminds him again, this time without the emotionalism.
"She was talking about killing me!" he answers indignantly.
"Oh, please," Beckett replies, trying to lighten the tone. "I probably do that every day."
"True," Castle allows, "but I think she actually meant it."
"Fine," Beckett allows. "You've obviously sparred against a woman, too," she speculates, thinking about how he squared off against her in the ring.
"I train with a woman," Castle answers. "You were wearing her gear. My instructor thought I'd be easy pickings for a pretty face," he admits with a huff, "and I needed to be ready for a different fighting style, so he matched us up," he explains. "She's quick as lightning, whether moving around the ring or swinging at me, and she kicks like a mule."
"I thought so," Beckett confesses, though she finds herself troubled by the thought of Castle spending a lot of time with a woman someone 'matched' him with. "Which means you're used to training with a woman. So why not me?"
"We both know gender isn't really the issue. I won't swing at you for the same reason I never considered spanking Alexis," Castle explains. "I will never raise a hand to… the women in my life."
His course correction during his explanation was smooth but still obvious. His caution is pointless, though, since they both know what he was going to say. It's sweet, she supposes, but completely hypocritical.
"You won't harm the people you love," she says, surprising them both with her boldness, "but you'll let yourself be harmed because of them? How does that make any sense?"
"It's my job," he answers with a maddeningly simple shrug. "Father, son, partner – every identity entails providing whatever support I can."
"That doesn't make sense, Castle," Beckett answers, frustration starting to creep back into her tone. "Love shouldn't hurt," she offers, coloring immediately at least because of the topic, if not other feelings. "And it's self-defeating. How can I get stronger if you're always protecting me?" she asks, finally expressing something that's bothered her since their meeting in Dr. Burke's office. "And what's the point in my getting stronger if you're too hurt from protecting me?"
She can't see her partner's face from their current position, but she can practically feel his confusion. Now they'll see how direct they're going to be with each other tonight.
"What's the point?" Castle reacts to her comment. "What do you mean? You need to be strong, Beckett. It's who you are and who you need to be."
"Do you remember our conversation on the swings?" she asks quietly as they continue launching questions rather than answering them. "I'm not good at this, Castle. I'm not good at committing myself to someone else, not since mom. I'm not even good at talking about committing myself," she laments in frustration. "But I'm trying."
"Kate, we're dealing with enough already," Castle tries to interject, providing her an out. "We don't need to…"
"So, I'm going to try again," she interrupts him, lacing her words with the confidence she doesn't feel. "You asked me what I meant. Here's what I mean, Rick: what's the point of getting stronger if you're not around once I get there?"
Her question steals the breath from her partner, leaving him gaping. He's not sure how long he sits on the uncomfortable bench wondering if he heard her correctly before he realizes he can just ask. "Beckett? What… I… are you…," he trails off, frustrated and discombobulated. Then, with a small head shake, he manages a simple question. "What are you saying?"
Beckett seems as nervous as he sounds, but she manages to piece together a reply by thinking back to their time in the ring. "I'm saying I am broken, Castle. I'm weak and I'm scared. But I'm getting stronger. I want to get better, too," she adds meaningfully, inflecting the word to make it clear it's not just a synonym for healing but a hope for growth. "I'll get there, I promise I will. And when I do, I want you there. So don't you dare think of leaving the precinct," she tries to challenge, before realizing how off-key it sounded. "Please, I mean. I don't want you to leave."
"Then I won't," he answers simply. "Just…," he trails off, wondering about how bold he's going to be tonight. "Just let me help?"
"You have been," she confirms quietly. "But you can help me best by taking care of yourself, Rick. I'm not sure if you're my reward or my next challenge, but I need you in one piece to find out," she whispers with a hint of a smile and her usual assertiveness.
That prompts a huff from Castle, who's happy to find himself juggling an unexpected bit of optimism. He tries to cling to that feeling as he thinks about her comment. But his smile dims as he thinks about her words and connects them back to what he heard back in her therapist's office.
"So," he asks with a sigh, clearly signaling his shift to another fraught topic, "why would you think I'd leave?"
"I heard you," Beckett repeats her confession. "I heard everything that happened to you after I left the precinct that day."
"Not just my conversation with Gates?" he asks in surprise. "I thought maybe you bugged her office," he says with a light shrug, trying out a ridiculous theory and growing still again when Beckett doesn't take the bait. "Kate?"
"It wasn't Gates' office that was wired," she confesses quietly. "It was you."
The implications strike Castle immediately and he's not happy. "Sit up, please," he requests in a tight voice, launching himself upward as soon as Beckett's movement frees his arm. He stalks around the makeshift gym as he thinks about what was said that day, from Dixon to Gates. He confessed everything, he realizes to his disgust. He thought it was all on the edge of collapsing anyway, and that maybe he could hold things together just a little longer if he reached some improbable accord with Gates.
To his great astonishment, that actually seems to have happened – he and the captain have a better understanding of each other. She's dropped some of her icy demeanor toward him and he's actually tried to avoid antagonizing her. But the words meant for her have apparently spread far wider.
He's unaware he paused in front of the heavy bags until he feels her tentative touch on his arm. "Want me to hold the bag?" she offers quietly. "Or maybe sparring sounds better now?"
Castle's so strung out after their long, emotional day that he's not sure how to react. So he doesn't. He stands in place, eyes looking past the gym equipment while he continues to think. Beckett maintains the peace, standing at his side and maintaining their connection with her hand on his arm.
"It was the boys, right?" he asks after long, silent, oppressive minutes. "Getting a good laugh out of Dixon, I suppose," he sighs as his head falls, his free arm lifting so he can pinch the bridge of his nose.
"Rick," Beckett starts, "I don't want to lie to you about this."
"I'm sure it's already made the rounds in the precinct, right, just like that damned video from the elevator? And now it's evidence," he rolls on in a disconsolate growl. "So every juror will get to hear it. And the judge. And the DA, the DA's office, and opposing counsel. Then," he continues, feeling queasy, "it'll go public. Assuming it's not leaked earlier, it'll be aired at trial," he realizes with a heavy sigh and a hand scraped through his hair. "Nice to keep these humiliations private."
"It's not evidence," Beckett corrects him quietly, "not yet. Only our team has heard it and only our team knows it exists. And if you decide so," she offers freely, fully aware of the legal implications of this option, "then it doesn't exist."
Castle stands quietly for a moment, ruminating on the bizarre situation in which they've found themselves. Here stands Detective Kate Beckett, the inspiration for Nikki Heat. She's shown before that she's willing to operate with a certain independence, following the spirit if not the letter of the law, but this is different. His paragon for justice and professionalism just offered to aid and abet in the destruction of evidence of several felonies. But the alternative is to expose her partner to even more bad press and…
"Where is it?" he asks as the full dimensions of this dilemma become apparent.
"In my apartment, with mom's files," Beckett answers before offering a slight shrug. "Didn't seem like a good idea to bring it back to the precinct."
"I know it doesn't seem like it," Castle offers, his odd tone of voice and seeming shift to a new topic catching Beckett's attention, "but I promised myself back when we started that I wouldn't jeopardize your job. I let myself think I was actually helping, now and then, but I wasn't going to let my writing lark harm your career trajectory. At least not in a way that we couldn't fix with some intervention from friends or interested parties," he offers with a shrug, recalling some of his more dangerous actions over the years.
"But that's exactly what'll happen if that recording gets entered into evidence, isn't it?" he asks, finally turning to his partner to pin her with an inquisitive look. "You're going to say that you were behind the recording to protect the boys. You'll keep your job, maybe with a demotion," he muses aloud, watching her flinch, "but this would be a huge black mark, wouldn't it?"
"It doesn't matter," Beckett answer nobly, though they both know the repercussions for her career would be significant and maybe even insurmountable.
"Of course it matters," Castle rejects immediately. "Do you think you can find your mom's killer as a civilian?" he asks incredulously. "Do you think you can be you without a badge? Maybe if you gave it up on your own, in exchange for a new direction. But not if it was taken from you."
Beckett wants to reject the idea but she can't. Losing her badge is unthinkable. Losing the reputation she's built so carefully since the terrible day that changed her life is just as appalling.
"So, either the evidence disappears, or…," Castle trails off, turning his head to look at the heavy bags again.
"Or?" Beckett prompts, wondering about where his thoughts have wandered.
"Or we say it was me. I take the fall."
A/N: I'd hoped to finish this story with one more chapter, but this one was getting too long, so I split it up. I would've held it until the next chapter is ready, but it's been so long since I posted that I thought I'd put this up. The surge in professional responsibilities from last week has abated so I'm hopeful that I can finish this story in the next week. I'd feel guiltier if there weren't such an abundance of great stories posting on the site these days.