Found

Season 9, Episode 17

Written by whatifellinlovewith

This is a work of fiction by writers with no professional connection to ABC network's Castle. Recognizable characters are the property of Andrew Marlowe and ABC. Names, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

The bags of takeout slipped from Castle's fingers onto the breakfast bar, landing with a familiar crinkle of plastic that had a slight smile curling at the corner of his mouth. The day already seemed to be lifting from his shoulders, home easing the tension left by their case, anticipation of a quiet night in with his wife soothing the feeling in the pit of his stomach that something about the case didn't make sense.

Kate would be home soon, as soon as she had taken the senator home, so he went to work setting the table, opting for the dining area instead of the breakfast bar. His mind raced as he moved the Italian food he'd picked up from the takeout containers to serving dishes. They didn't usually do that, but he needed to keep his mind occupied, lest his worries about the case consume him.

Something didn't add up.

He just couldn't figure out what.

His phone vibrated in his pocket, halting the impending spiral of his mind. He reached down to retrieve it, swiping the screen to answer the call the moment he saw his wife's face illuminating the screen.

A breath came over the line, quiet and annoyed, and he expected her voice to follow with apologies that she needed to stay back for some reason, or with rants about the Senator's actions since he had left her side. But it didn't come, not the exasperated rant or exhausted questions or joyous hello that could have come through.

Nothing.

Until—

A thud sounded in the background, distant but there all the same, punctuated by her voice, a mumble in his ear.

"What the-"

His breath hitched, fingers tightening around the device cradled in his hand. He let his eyes lock on the serving platter he'd set on the table, brain trying to imagine the dinner they would have if—when—she got home. Trying to calm the traitorous race of his anxious heart.

It leapt into his throat as another thud sounded, stilling there until he heard another breath come over the line, quieter this time, but there all the same. Promises that she was alive, that it was probably—hopefully—nothing and within moments she would be speaking explanations into his ear and loosening the knot in his chest with promises to be home soon.

She would. He knew she would.

Except—

"Drop the gun and phone, Captain."

He almost dropped his own phone at the words, fingers shaking as he clutched tighter at it. His other hand closed around the back of a dining chair, supporting his weight as his knees threatened to fail, weakened by the words just as much as his ability to breathe or speak. His mind scrambled with questions, raced with a desperate need to know what was happening and whose muffled voice had sounded over the line before his wife had even said a word to address him.

Who was speaking to his wife, voice laced with a sharp desperation, an order he knew meant nothing good.

The sound of Kate's phone clattering to the ground only solidified the weight in his chest, the pressure against his lungs rendering him incapable of breath but past which he forced words all the same.

"Beckett? Are you there? Kate?"

The words played on repeat in his ears, fell from his lips just the same, a mantra of half-hearted hope for a response, an explanation, anything to cease the worst-case scenarios budding behind eyes he hadn't realized had fallen shut, to calm the erratic race of his heart.

And then he heard the shot.

It was strange for Ryan to be the last of their team at the precinct, for him to be the one sitting there as the sun sank beneath the city, painting the sky in streaks of color, buoyed only by the budding of spring. It was quiet, the night shift having begun and taken with it a number of uniforms who would return in the morning to crowd the homicide floor again.

He took a second, just a moment, to marvel at it. To think that he was the first one to start a family but his team—his best friends—were starting their own. There would be less time spent with his own family as his team developed the same needs, with Esposito in a relationship laced with an unprecedented level of commitment from him, and Castle and Beckett finally getting their happy ending; he found a bitter pain in his chest at the realization that something would have to change, because he wanted more time with his own family, too.

And then he forced his fingers tighter around his pen, turned his attention back to the paperwork laid out across his desk and reminded himself that compromises would be lesser the sooner he got that finished.

Until the phone was blaring through the silence, the familiar jingle sounding with still unspoken promises to ruin his night, drag him back into the city and away from his home. He reached for it, brought it to his ear.

But what he heard wasn't a professional informing him of a murder to be solved. Rather, it was a gasping voice so familiar yet broken that it sent ice cooling his veins, certainty that something was terribly wrong cementing in his gut.

"Castle?" he asked, hearing his own voice shaking, cracking ever so slightly under the weight of his expectations.

"Ryan she's– Beckett– She's there," came a choked response from the other end of the call. "She's at Kearney's house and there was a voice and– and a shot. There was a shot."

Castle's words were frantic and broken and almost didn't make sense. Almost.

Ryan almost wished it didn't make sense, so he could pretend, for a moment, that he didn't feel his own panic budding. Almost.

He sucked in a breath, words of reassurance welling in his chest but falling silent from his lips, voice forming a promise instead. "I'm on my way."

The sound of his desk phone being set back down echoed through the bullpen, almost as loud as the skidding of his desk chair, his steps as he rushed to the elevator, cell phone poised in his hand with Esposito's number already dialing.

In hindsight, Castle should have taken his car service or a cab. But his mind had been racing too quickly, focused on one thing and one thing only, and that was getting to his wife. His very pregnant wife who was in the vicinity of a gunshot, who could be bleeding out - again - while he waited for a car or cab.

So he drove.

Somehow he managed to weave through the streets of the city in one piece, the blue and red flashing lights of police cars guiding him once he got close to Kearney's house, and he skidded to a stop, tires squealing, his seatbelt stopping him from jerking too far forward. He spotted Ryan instantly, the detective fastening a bulletproof vest, and Castle didn't even bother turning off his car, just threw it in park and got out.

"Ryan!"

He pushed his way through the uniforms that were blocking off the scene, made note of the van with Hostage Rescue Team on the side pulling up just after he did. When he reached Ryan he took note of his disheveled appearance: tie askew, top button undone, hair limp. And, by the look that Ryan gave him, Castle figured he looked the same way.

But he didn't care about that. He just needed his wife out of that house, safe. He needed to know that she was okay.

"What do we know?" Castle barked. "Who the hell is in there? We arrested the killer!"

Ryan shook his head. "I have no idea. Patricia was perfect for it. Her fingerprints were on the gun, which we found in her apartment. She had motive, opportunity, and evidence."

"But this obviously isn't her," said Castle, gut twisting. "Do you have any suspects?"

Ryan's face fell at the question, and he shook his head sadly as he spoke. "The only other one we had was the driver, but I had a uniform look into his mysterious day off and turns out he had a doctor's appointment with a urologist and was too embarrassed to say anything," he explained, "and either way, he picked up when we called and he's at home with his family."

There was a pause, silence. Castle felt his gut twisting, his heart hoping Ryan would follow up with a but and information they could actually use.

Instead, he found Ryan's gaze shifting over Castle's shoulder. "Oh thank God, Espo made it."

Castle reached into Ryan's trunk and grabbed a spare vest, not wanting to waste any time to get his personal one from his car. "That's great, I'm going in."

"Excuse me?"

"I'm going in," Castle repeated, shoving his arms through the vest. "I'm getting Beckett out of there."

"Whoa, hold on." Esposito arrived just in time to grab one of Castle's arms, stopping it. "Dude, no you're not. It's too dangerous."

"There was a shot, Espo," Castle snapped. "He told her to put her phone down and then I heard a shot." His stomach churned, and he swallowed to force back down the bile in his throat, the thought of what could have transpired just yards away making him nauseous. His phone was heavy in his pocket, regret sinking in his gut at the fact that he'd had to hang up to call Ryan. He gripped the edge of Ryan's trunk, propping himself up as his breath started to quicken and his vision blurred. He felt himself sway on his feet, and in a moment there was a pair of hands on each arm, reminding him that the bulletproof vest was just another weight on his chest. He pulled it off, ripping it from his body and throwing it aside before Ryan made him turn around and lean on the car.

"Give us time, Castle," Ryan muttered, a firm hand on his shoulder. "We're gonna figure this out, and we're gonna get Beckett out of there safe and sound."

She forced herself to blink, just once, to ensure she wasn't dreaming, not imagining the shattered wall opposite her, the lingering reverberation of a gunshot ringing in the air. But it stayed there, the slice through the drywall, the rattling in her skull as the sound played on repeat in her mind.

Her gaze fell and landed on the swell of her baby bump, a hand coasting across her waist where it used to taper beneath her ribcage but had since swollen with life. The reminder of her daughter had her chest pounding against the cage of her ribs, gut twisting unpleasantly with the knowledge of all that was at stake.

She tightened her fingers around the warming metal of her gun, clutched it to her side as the echo of the gunshot faded, replaced instead with footsteps that would be unnoticed if not for the silence. If not for the way her breath was trapped in her chest and Senator Kearney seemed to be too shocked to make a sound.

The voice came again, louder, more certain, and causing fear to lance its way through both his victims.

"I told you to drop the gun, too," he said.

And she did, hand pressing hard to her baby bump in a silent apology for the show of surrender as the weapon slipped from between her fingers, hitting the floor with a metallic thud she wished she could deafen herself to. The footsteps continued to draw nearer, the orders cutting through the silence with a tone so icy she couldn't think to disobey.

Not anymore. Not with her daughter on the line.

A phone was ringing in the distance, chirping happily as though nothing was wrong, but their captor didn't flinch, and she didn't dare do anything that might drive him to pull the trigger.

"Back up. More. More."

She slowly walked backwards until her spine hit an archway. Then Kearney was tugging her to the side, beneath it, back even more until her calves hit a coffee table and a flashlight switched on and all fell silent once again.

A man stood before them, dressed in black with a crooked mask pulled over his head and glazed eyes gleaming in the light he shone onto his own face.

She found relief unfurling within her when she noted the lack of joy, of satisfaction shining in his gaze. She could rule out a psychotic serial killer out only for blood. And the anger flickering like firelight was aimed not at her, but at Kearney.

Her gaze fell again, just for a second, past their captor's leg to where her gun sat on the hardwood floor, past that to where her phone did the same. The screen had gone dark, the call disconnected, and she wondered how long it had taken before Castle hung up. Before panic had him abandoning his desperate attempts for a response and rushing to bring her help instead.

There were red lights flashing outside, a silent promise that he'd succeeded at that, at least.

She clenched a hand around nothing, longing for her phone in her hand so she could dial his number, breathe reassurances to him, if only through a call. So she could tell him that the bullet was lodged in the wall, not her chest. Get his help so she could save herself, and make him promise not to do anything stupid, before the next shot lodged itself somewhere else.

But her phone was too far, daydreams merely a reprieve from the reality of her situation, and she let them both go with a sigh tumbling from her lips.

She looked back at the gleaming black eyes behind the mask. He was staring at her now.