Apperception

'There is no remedy for love but to love more.'
-Henry David Thoreau

X

"Steady," he breathes, his cheek pressed to hers.

Her eyes are closed, and she knows it's a little pathetic, but she feels so very pathetic.

"There we go. Easy, easy."

When she's finally standing, her breath leaves in a rush, the giddy sensation of height. Castle releases her slowly, coasting down her arms until it's just their fingers touching, barely touching, not touching at all.

"How's it feel?"

It? "Shaky," she whispers. Claiming it as her own, "I feel shaky."

"You do," he says. His voice lowers to match hers. "Can you walk?"

"Mm. Gonna try."

"Try." His thumb nudges her cheek and skims her hair behind her ear. "Course you will. When you try, you make it happen."

She lifts her eyes to him and despite everything, he looks proud of her. It makes her spine straighten, for him. Even though her torso is now taut with that residual pain, even though she hasn't seen her daughter since yesterday, and that only a few hours, she can stand up straight to make him proud of her.

To make him anything. Anything.

"Don't look so desperate, Beckett. They might not let you out of here."

She scowls, instinctively giving way to the pain, and his hands come back to her elbows. She's about to say something, about to start a conversation they need to have, ought to have, when the door to her hospital room opens behind Castle.

Kate freezes. Just beyond his back, someone's stepping inside, someone she can't see. He's turning his head.

Anxiety crests like a wave. She fists his shirt and croaks his name, panic pushing her to fight him, to put herself between him and whoever has come through that door. To shield what is most most precious.

Only she has no strength, no leverage, nothing. She cries out as the wounds tear in her side.

Castle startles back around to her, catches hold before she can go down. "Kate. What the hell?"

"Castle-" But she's slow-motion collapsing, the leading edge of sheer terror crawling up her throat.

A form rushes forward and she flinches hard. But two pairs of strong hands are supporting her, Castle is bodily lifting her back to the chair, and it's only Gates.

Deputy Chief Victoria Gates. "Beckett," she says, severely. "You shouldn't be standing up."

"My fault," Castle tells her.

"No," she chokes out. "No, I wanted to try. I want out of here." Her heart is still pounding in her mouth, making every word difficult, making breathing difficult, and she can see the moment Gates steps back, calculation on her face.

"Ah, I see," her former captain says. "You did say Dr Burke has been in to talk with her?"

"Twice, though she fell asleep both times."

"Don't talk about me like I'm not here," Kate says. But her own voice sounds weak. Limp. She's holding her body so rigidly she can't even unclench her teeth.

"It's good pain medication," Castle tells her quietly. His hand at her shoulder squeezes. "You can sit back."

She takes him at his word - Castle can always be trusted - and he's right. The moment her back touches the chair, she no longer has to support her own weight. Her muscles begin to loosen, the pain recedes, the sharp edges becoming fuzzy again.

"A man paid me a visit last night," Gates starts in. "I don't much appreciate being dragged into your crazy, Detective Beckett."

Detective. Well. That might be an answer. But the rest she has no idea. "A man?"

"A friend, so to speak," Gates says, narrowing her eyes. "All charges have been dropped. Officially."

Kate snaps her head up. "Charges?" The room is suddenly tilting wildly off axis. "What charges?" What man?

It's Castle who catches her shoulders, keeps her straight, leaning in over her. His fingers comb through her hair again. "Vikram. For Vikram, Kate."

"Oh, God," she gasps.

"Not quite an act of God," Gates says, that severely arched eyebrow in reprimand. "Though that man last night wanted me to think he was, I'm sure."

"What man?" Castle says roughly.

"I was assuming you knew him," Gates says. Acid in her voice. She purses her lips and turns back to Beckett. "Besides your anonymous avenging angel, you need to thank your boys. Esposito and Ryan have been dredging the East River for a week now. They found his body."

"The Dragon," she rasps.

Castle's head swivels to her. "Dragon. I thought that was Bracken."

"No. He was just the face. This was - the real Dragon," Kate answers. Her hands are shaking. How mortifying, for her hands to still be shaking even though she killed him. She dragged him into the river with her. "He was with Coonan in the Iraq War. They were both recruited." She shivers and has to close her eyes to swallow back the spike of pain in her side.

Is it pain or is it fear?

He's dead.

"Kate. Who was this guy? The Dragon."

"We think he was a CIA operative," Gates says. Kate opens her eyes to see Gates with her arms crossed over her chest. "It's a good guess at this point, because of my visitor last night. And because our dead man isn't on file anywhere. No identifying markers - he burned off his own fingerprints, plus he's had a tattoo lasered. But." Gates gives a wicked smile. "The damn fool forgot to change his jacket."

Kate is completely lost. She turns to Castle, and he shakes his head in equal confusion, takes her hand. It should be criminal how good it feels to have him at her side. "What does his jacket have to do with anything?"

"Forensics. His jacket matches fibers we found at the scene of Caleb Brown's apparent suicide. Caught on the railing of the balcony. And, even better - and this one you can thank your husband for-"

"Rick?" Her eyes shift to him.

Gates clears her throat. "The dead man's blood is a match to the blood on your clothes. Mr. Castle apparently had the forethought to save them when EMTs cut them off you."

She grips Castle's hand. "I grabbed the knife when he came at me," she says, her voice barely coming out. "I stabbed him-"

"In the kidney," Gates finishes. "Yes. Your statement was corroborated by the ME's report."

Castle lets out a low breath, his eyes boring into Kate. "You let him get that close -just to take him out with you?"

Her throat is tight, so she only nods.

"God damn it, Kate," he growls. His hand is hurting her hand.

"Otherwise he was going to shoot me in the back of the head," she whispers.

"Kate."

"Officially, charges against you have been dropped," Gates interrupts.

She doesn't know what to say. She shifts her gaze to Gates, uncomprehending, and all she can think is Where's my baby?

"As such. You will no longer be under police custody-"

"Custody-" she gasps.

"Yes," Gates answers, narrowing her eyes at Castle. "Mr Castle, if I ask you nicely, will you stop interfering with the duty rosters of my officers?"

"Yes, sir," he says, but there is not an ounce of meekness in him. Only that quiet, determined strength. The same man who cursed her for getting too close.

She tugs on his hand. "You had - you said you put our people on my door," Kate wonders, staring at him. "For protection."

"Well. You were actually under house arrest. Hospital arrest? But they were the only people we could trust," he says stubbornly. "And Deputy Chief Gates knew I was doing it." He glares at Gates. "You had to approve those schedule changes."

Something falls apart inside Kate. "Who - you're the Captain of the Twelfth?"

"No, Ms Beckett. I am not. But neither are you."

She bites back the grief and nods. "Yes, sir."

"You are, of course, on suspension without pay. I don't know what to call you. It's possible you'll receive a reprimand and be kicked back to uniform."

She cringes. Castle cringes. But he doesn't let go of her hand.

"Or it's possible you'll be hailed as a hero. Quietly. In very small and clandestine circles. Considering my late night visitor."

"CIA?" Castle asks.

Kate stiffens. "Was it - him?"

"No, no," Castle murmurs, a swift glance to her. "They found his body already. I - looked at him myself. He's dead, just like you were afraid of."

"Who is this?" Gates snaps.

"The CIA agent who was helping us with this undercover operation," Kate says immediately, stepping in with mostly the truth. "He went missing."

"Seems to be a recurring theme."

Kate can't even care about the tone of her boss's voice, can't even be bothered to care. She's supposed to be discharged today - after five rounds of hyperbaric oxygen therapy and new stitches - and she's no longer a suspect in Vikram's murder.

The CIA quite possibly has their backs again. And the NYPD has the Dragon, dredged from the river, descaled.

Gates is suddenly leaning in close to her, hands planted on the arms of Kate's chair, a look of fierce intensity. "It ends here, Ms Beckett. Do you understand? This is over now."

X

Good luck with that one.

He almost said it. In Kate's hospital room with Gates, he almost blurted it out. He's ashamed that it was even in his head to say, that the bitterness has replaced all that anger.

But in the quiet of their home, weeks later, he doesn't know why he's still dwelling on it.

Maybe because it's nearly three o'clock in the morning and he's in the nursery trying not to wake his daughter as he scoops her out of the crib. All for Kate.

This is over now.

Good luck with that one.

He holds Madeleine against his chest and sways with her, murmuring nothing and everything into her ear in a vain attempt to keep her from waking up. Let her stay asleep, let her just sleep.

When he comes around the corner and descends the stairs, he finds Kate asleep on the couch. Passed out, more likely; the painkillers are heavy stuff.

Instead of taking Maddy back up to her crib like he really should, he sinks down onto the couch at his wife's side. Something about the warmth of her under the cover of night, with their daughter once more shared between them - and then the windows overlooking the city, the security of elevation - it all conspires to keep him.

It's not over.

That's the thing, good and bad, about Kate Beckett. It is never over.

She never gives up. Not on justice, not on him.

Not on Maddy. Not on healing from this. Not on life together-

Kate flinches hard and jerks awake beside him, a choked cry strangled in her throat. He can't do much more than press a hand to her knee, but it does the job. She orients to him and then the fear falls away, the panic slides off her face. Some of her tension remains, just that edge she's had ever since, but she finally sighs and cants into him.

He lifts his hand to the side of her face, touching her cheek, her hair. She makes a sound that the late night and the painkillers have left her vulnerable to, but she presses into his side and doesn't try to hide it from him.

There's a long silence between them. And then her fingers splay on Maddy's back. Stroke softly.

"She's asleep," Kate sighs. "At least one of us can sleep."

"Two of us, if you'd let me."

He sees the way her lips twitch into a smile she doesn't want to give. Or maybe just didn't know she could find, after everything. "Thank you," she sighs.

"What for?"

"Oh, God, Castle. Where do I start?" Her hand trembles on Madeleine's back.

He shifts the baby just enough to let Kate see their daughter's face. Since she still isn't cleared to hold her. "Start at the beginning," he says, smiling a little. "I'm listening, and we've got all the time in the world."

"If I could only show you," she sighs. And then that sly curl of her lips that has always made his heart beat too fast. She kisses his chin. "Thank you for humoring me. Bringing her downstairs and letting me see her face, see her breathing, even though we shouldn't wake her up just because her mommy has issues."

He presses his lips flat. "Yeah, well, that's self-preservation. Last time we 'toughed it out', you cried all night."

"Shut up," she says, but there's no heat in it. Only weariness.

"Figured none of us should have to tough it out any longer," he tells her then. He's serious about this. For all that bitterness has replaced anger, underneath it is still, and always, love. "No point in toughing it out, Kate. If you want to see our daughter, then you should see her."

"Just stupid nightmares," she mutters.

He lifts his hand from Maddy's back and catches the ends of Kate's hair, dusts it across her cheek. "Not stupid. And wouldn't you rather snuggle on the couch with Madstar than call Dr Burke and have a nice long chat?"

She wrinkles her nose at him. But she wriggles in a little closer.

"Then thank you," she says into the quiet. "No one else would have me. But you-"

"I got you. And you got this, Kate. You can do it."

"We," she murmurs.

"Hm?" The weight of their daughter on his chest reminds him of those lonely nights without her, so he opens his eyes. Finds her studying him intently.

"We can do it. We. The pronoun that's always missing from my vocabulary."

"Hey. Dr Burke said no more of that."

She huffs. He's serious though. He flicks his fingers against her cheek and drops her hair, shifts instead to put his arm around her shoulders. She comes into him even as he settles back into the couch. Her body stretches, moves, and finally - finally - fits into place against his.

Perfect fit.

Kate lets out a long breath and lays her arm on Maddy's back, fingers stroking the girl's soft hair.

"That's more like it," he says, touching his lips to her forehead. He always knew it would come back around to this. Even those lonely nights, he expected to find her here with him again. "That's better, Kate."

"Much better," she murmurs. Her words are slurring with exhaustion. "Love you. Love you right this time. Promise."

He cups the side of her face.

He believes it's true. Believes in her. More than anything.

X

fin