A/N: Set in season 4, closely following 4x21, Headhunters.

Written for Sarah aka jerrytysons (how appropriate).

"Where is she?"

The entire bullpen falls silent at the quiet but deafening question he demands into the open room, his eyes on Ryan and Esposito, but his question open to anyone brave enough to answer him.

"He called me, I heard her screams," he growls to cover the break in his voice at the memory of it, the agony of her cries as she called out for him while Tyson chuckled into the speaker. "Where is she?"

Ryan is the first one up, striding up to meet him and already holding out his hand for Castle's phone. Rick doesn't hesitate, handing it over and following the other detective to his desk. Esposito glares at him, and yeah, he deserves it, but he can't be bothered to care, not right now, not when Tyson has returned, not when he has Kate.

"He called me twenty minutes ago, how long has she been missing?" Castle questions, grabbing an unoccupied chair from another detective's desk, unwilling to transfer his seat from the side of Beckett's desk. Not that it's been seeing much use from him lately.

"We didn't even realize she was missing until she didn't come into work this morning," Ryan sighs, scrubbing at his eyes while he hooks Castle's phone up to a plethora of tracking equipment consuming the surface of his desk. "We traced the car, found it abandoned with a message on the back windshield."

He almost doesn't want to ask, but "What did it say?"

"Help her," Esposito cuts in, still shooting daggers into the side of Castle's face from the other side of Ryan's desk. "Speaking of helping, gotta admit I'm shocked you bothered to come to us when you've got Slaughter now."

Castle balls his fists in his lap, so tight, he can feel the short crescents of his nails threatening to break the skin of his palm.

"Both of you need to shut up and focus," Ryan mutters before Castle can jerk up from his seat, because he's just on edge enough to respond to Esposito's snark with a brutality that has been brewing in his bloodstream since Tyson's voice filled his ear. "Fighting over petty issues isn't going to save Beckett."

"Yeah? Well maybe if her partner here would have had her back, she wouldn't need saving."

It's just enough to make him snap. He can admit that throughout these last few weeks, while he was busy trying to flip a switch that refused to be turned off, that he may have been trying to punish her. He may have wanted her to hurt, just a little, just to feel a fraction of the jagged ache of heartbreak he felt, and he realizes her boys have noticed. They're detectives, of course they've noticed, and that their protective nature for their boss, their sister, has sky rocketed, not only because of her abduction, but because of him.

"You know what? I don't need you," Castle snarls, snatching his phone back from Ryan. "It's me Tyson wants. I'll just find a way for him to lure me to her."

"Castle!" Ryan calls, exasperated, but he's already striding for the elevator, the echo of Kate's forced but raw pleas for help ringing loud and unending through his head.

After coming to a shaky truce with Esposito via Ryan, they devise a plan. The plan didn't necessarily involve him finally finding Kate on a computer screen and then getting tasered, but Tyson's accomplice won't touch her until Jerry gives her the green light. All he has to do is stall and give Esposito a perfect shot.

"Wasn't sure you still cared about your girl there," Tyson muses, nodding his head towards the monitor, the image of Beckett squirming on an operating table making his guts churn. "It's too bad. Pretty sure she thinks you've given up on her. I wonder if she has any hope left in you at all." Tyson glances back to the screen, grinning when he notices Nieman drifting into the camera's view, tracing Kate's jawline with a metal tool that gleams with wicked promise in the dull lighting. "Probably not."

"You have me, what do you need her for anyway?" Castle grits out, trying to play along, trying to play into Tyson's need for control, but his focus is continuously drawn to Kate and the growing flower of dread blossoming in his stomach.

"Oh c'mon, Rick, you know why," Tyson smirks, strolling around the room, coming so close to the window before stopping short. "I could never resist the opportunity to make you watch as I have her life ended in one of the most horrific ways possible."

He's known all along that everything Tyson has ever done has been to prove that he's smarter, smarter than the police, smarter than Castle, smart than anyone who dares to challenge him, so Castle lets him believe it. Right until the last second.

Her name is an exhale on his lips the moment they burst through the door, a breath of both relief and surprise to see her alive and standing over the dead body of Kelly Nieman, the growing pool of her blood. The entire team has come to a standstill, but he practically stumbles forward, needing to reach her, needing to reassure himself of her safety, of her existence - needing, needing, needing.

He just needs her.

"Beckett," he murmurs, gaining a slow rotation of her body, but her eyes are unseeing, unable to perceive even as she looks straight at him, and he can't be sure if it's solely due to the trauma she's likely experienced within the last 48 hours or if her disbelief to actually see him standing there plays even a small role in her wide eyes and parted lips, if she can even recognize him at all.

Her eyes drift back to her hand, the blood staining her skin, the scalpel in her grasp, and Castle brushes his fingers to her jaw, finding her attention and drawing her in close when she allows it, cradling her face to his chest.

"You came," she murmurs, the words falling flat against his clavicle, but he nods his head as he curves his palm over the back of her neck, tangling his fingers through the loose strands of her hair.

"Always," he whispers, tracing his thumb in slow circles over the base of her scalp and resting his cheek to her temple. "Always, Kate."

There's a bathroom down the hall, pristine and untouched, and Castle guides her inside, keeping a hand at her back as they come to stand before the white, pedestal sink together.

"I - I killed her," she mumbles and he inhales a deep, quiet breath while he adjusts the temperature of the water. "Slit her throat."

"You had no choice." He cups the back of her hand with his own under the faucet, holding, clinging, to her trembling fingers as the water cascades over her palms, turning the clear liquid racing to the drain into an unsettling pink. "You had to."

"She - they said you wouldn't come," she rasps, her hand twitching, and he smoothes his thumb over the webbing between her thumb and forefinger. "He called you."

Castle closes his eyes for a brief moment, trying to forget the phone call that's embedded itself in his mind, a thirty second message that will haunt him for a long while, if not forever.

"He did," he nods, his chest brushing her back as he leans in, capturing both of her hands in the sink now, scrubbing away the caked blood on her knuckles, erasing the lines of crimson beneath her nails. "I should have been there."

Her head drifts towards her shoulder, giving him only her profile, but he still catches the furrow of her brow.

"They still would have gotten to me," she points out, aiming for reassurance, but her voice is strained, scraped raw, and he can't help it, he abandons her hands to place his own on her shoulders, drenching the too large, white t-shirt, but she doesn't even shiver.

Kate allows him to turn her around, the water still running at her back, her hands dripping as they fall to her sides, soaking the outer thighs of her sweatpants.

"I still should have been there, with you. Should always be with you."

A flicker of clarity blooms in her eyes, spreading through her irises in golden ripples that brighten the darkness.

"I love you, Kate," he breathes out the confession that has remained imprisoned inside his chest for almost an entire year, gliding his hands up from her shoulders, up to the pale column of her throat. His thumbs settle at the hinges of her jaw, studying the sharp angles of her bones, the soft skin Kelly Nieman was ready to decimate.

Beckett's hands rise to clutch at his shirt, nails clashing with buttons, water dampening his collar, and tilts her head forward. Her bare feet leave her inches shorter than him and her forehead comes to a rest at his chin before she dusts her lips there.

They have so much to talk about, so much left unsaid that needs to be spoken, but for now, for this split second of peace spent reveling in the wonder of her touch and the relief of their survival, Castle lowers his mouth to find hers.

It's tentative, barely a whisper of a kiss, so very different from their first - what he once thought would be their last - but it's more than enough, it's everything.

"Hey," he says quietly, taking his seat beside her desk, and holding out her mother's ring. "Thought you might want this back."

The corners of her lips tug upwards as he places the ring in her open palm, but the smile is too heavy, too much effort, but her soft 'thank you' is enough to have him offering a gentle grin back to her. After seeing the ring and chain slicked in the blood of a woman he once feared was her - god, it could have been her - it's a welcome sight to witness the rightful owner slip it over her head.

They're silent for a few moments, her fingers coiled around the ring, her eyes trained on the ground, and Castle leans forward in his chair, curving his palm over the bone of her knee. She had just finished giving her statement to Ryan while he was retrieving her prized possession from evidence and though she had calmed down in the car on the way to the Twelfth, her body warm and pliant against his side in the backseat, draining of tension, it's all come back now, the regaling of events rattling her up again.

"Every time I close my eyes, I see her face," she confesses on a whisper, her haunted gaze drifting to his hand. Her fingers release the ring in favor of traveling down to graze his knuckles. "I see the blood and what I did and-"

"Come home with me tonight," he interrupts before she can spiral too far, before she can drown in it, and his words do the trick, causing her head to snap towards him. "You shouldn't be alone tonight, Kate."

"Castle," she sighs, but it's hardly a refusal and he squeezes her knee.

"And I'm not ready to say goodnight, not after… not after this."

She chews on her bottom lip, but he knows her decision is made when she covers the hand on his knee and twines their unsteady fingers.

He offers her the guest room, but she declines, her chilled fingers remaining locked with his as they ghost through the empty loft together. He tries to get her to eat, manages to maneuver a glass of water into her unoccupied hand that she downs with meager sips, but she shakes her head, rolling her eyes in halfhearted amusement when he grabs a sleeve of crackers from the pantry, bringing the snack with them as he guides her through his office, into his bedroom.

"Can I use your shower?" she requests, her voice too small, too hollow, and he already knows she's going to fall apart under the heated spray of water, but he releases her hand and points her in the direction of his bathroom.

Her choked sobs echo from the en suite while he picks out a pair of pajama pants and an old sweatshirt that's always been too small for him, attempting to busy himself further by searching for his coziest pair of socks. And for a few minutes, he withstands the urge to go to her, to comfort and reassure, but when her cries escalate into an anguished keening, he can't stop himself.

"Beckett," he calls out as he's opening the bathroom door. "I'm coming in."

She doesn't answer, only continues to shatter his heart with the gasping sounds of agony.

"Kate," he tries again, standing outside the door of the shower, but not touching the sliding glass door. He can see her figure though, blurred and hunched against the tiled wall. "I see his face when I close my eyes too."

Her crying stutters, quieting into hiccuping whimpers that leave her sounding so broken, so vulnerable.

"But you know how I'm dealing with it?"

Even over the dull roar of the shower, he hears her take a shuddering breath.

"How?" she answers, her response hardly audible, just loud enough for him to hear.

"I open my eyes," he says, leaning back against the nearest wall, averting his gaze from the rumpled pile of her clothes on the floor, the streak of red he can see smearing the edge of the white t-shirt he can't wait to dispose of. He has to clear his throat to finish the words. "And I look at you. I just keep looking at you."

The water cuts off and Castle steps away from the door, snagging the fluffy white towel left on the vanity for her before she can even ask. She extends her hand from the steam stained door and accepts the towel from him and he thinks he should leave, give the chance to dress in peace, but before he can turn away, she's tiptoeing out of the shower and coming towards him.

"Beckett-"

The arm not pinned across her chest, keeping the towel from slipping, reaches for him, curling around his waist, her hand fisting in the cotton fabric covering his back.

"I love you too," she chokes out, staring up at him with a combination of tears and water dripping from her lashes, with everything he's ever wanted unguarded and running rampant in the pools of her eyes and she - she loves him?

"Kate, you don't have to say-"

"Shh," she huffs, her lips quirking and her eyes pleading with him. "I do have to say it, because it's the truth and I should have told you. Never should have lied."

Fuck, she's really - she's laying it all out on the table then, naked with nothing but a towel between them, drenching him in the water trickling from her skin and the love pouring so unhindered and captivating from her eyes.

"When I was strapped to that table, all I could think about was you," she breathes, and at first, he thinks the strangled noise of grief that resonates through the small space between them comes from her, but then he feels the imagined regret, the remorse of what could have been, lacerating his lungs, tangling around his throat while her hand splays in comfort at his back, and he realizes the noise has not been ripped from her, but from him. "About making sure you knew how much I-" He watches her throat bob with the hard swallow, watches her search for the right words with an urgency that burns in her gaze. "Castle, I just want you."

His hands frame her face before he kisses her, sipping from the well of her mouth, finding sanctuary in the work of her lips against his and the weight of her body in his arms. All his doubts of her, of any chance she could love him back, vanish under the caress of her tongue, eradicated when her body surges up to meet his.

He catches the towel before it can fall, securing it around her as her hand abandons it to delve into his hair, her nails soothing as they trail along his scalp, angling his head to allow the perfect collision of lips, teeth, and tongues. And suddenly, he's the one spiraling, drowning in sensory overload.

He drinks the water trickling down her neck, sips it from her collarbones, from the valley between her breasts where the towel has slid, exposing the raised flesh guarding her heart.

Through the harsh exhale of his breath, he seals his lips to the scar, feeling her heartbeat accelerate, so strong and determined to meet him through the cage of bone separating them.

His mouth, his body, is eager to worship her, but not tonight, not yet, not when her eyes are still tinted with horror. Not when her lips still tremble with something more than arousal and her gut-wrenching sobs are still fresh in his mind. Not yet, but for now, he revels in the touch of her heated skin beneath his hands, her slick flesh under his lips, and he dusts one last kiss to her shoulder before pulling away.

Kate seems to understand without having to ask, resuming her grip on the white towel that's already soaked up the majority of water - along with his shirt which is now imprinted with the shape of her - before he can let her go.

"I found you some clothes," he murmurs, nodding to the sink, where clothing that he will happily donate to her sits folded and waiting. "Put them on and come to bed, Kate."

She nods, but lifts on her toes before he can drift out of reach, claiming his mouth once more before he can head for the bedroom, her lips languid and curling into a soft smile over his.

"Meet you there, Castle."

He wakes the next morning with Kate Beckett curled at his back, the hot puffs of her breath hitting just between his shoulder blades, one of her hands beneath his t-shirt, splayed flat and possessive over his abdomen.

The light of day brings a solace the night lacked once they had crawled into bed. Even with her body filling space in his sheets like he's always dreamed, even with her legs tangled in his and her skin pressed against him, the nightmares had still come for them both. But it had helped, every single time he jolted awake with the images of her lifeless and bloodied vivid behind his eyes, to roll over and find her near, sometimes already awake and waiting for him with a tired smile.

Kate's toes flex at his ankle, one of her legs stretching awake with her spine, and his lips twitch into a grin at the feel of hers curving at his back, her hum of wakening reverberating through his skin.

"I have the day off," is the first thing she says, her voice scratchy with sleep, and he turns on his stomach, slipping from beneath her arm to lift on his elbows. Her eyes are lined with exhaustion but smile back at him while he gazes down at her, so enamored to see her hair splayed across his pillows and her body covered by his bedsheets, his clothes.

"You have the week off, Kate," he points out with a smirk, hesitating for a moment before bringing his hand to her cheek, skimming the thin skin beneath her eye, migrating to comb through her tousled hair.

"Mm, you're right. And I already know how I want to spend it" she hums, her elbow digging into the mattress as she rises to meet him, her hand cupping his nape as her lips smudge his.

Castle chuckles and indulges in the lazy dance of her mouth against his, savoring the taste of sleep and growing yearning, not stopping her when she twines a leg around his thigh and glides her chilled hands beneath his shirt, easing it over his head.

It may still be too soon, they may both still shudder with memories of the last two days spent apart and in terror, but they're done waiting, done standing on opposite sides of a wall that is now in shambles, and - oh, the undulation of her hips is too erotic, too good, to ignore.

"Thanks for coming to get me," she breathes, opening her eyes to stare straight into his, their lashes lacing in the early morning light.

"Always come for you, Kate," he promises again, swears it, and her lips brush his as they split into a smile.

"Oh yeah?" she murmurs, snaking her arms around his neck. "Prove it."

coda:

(n.) something that ends and completes something else.