Castle-napped.
Richard Castle stormed into his apartment, slamming the door behind him. He was fed up. He had had another fight with Beckett that afternoon. Well, it wasn't really a fight, he had tried to tell her something and she had completely brushed him off... again. Every time he tried to get personal with their conversations she'd find some excuse to interrupt him, the problem was that he had been steering towards the same thing for the past three days. What really got to him was that he was trying to talk to her about it before telling the guys, and after that episode there was no way he'd be showing his face in the precinct again, at least not voluntarily, so any further contact with his friends would have to be over the phone or outside of their work.
His foul mood was not improved by his phone ringing every minute of the trip home. He had tried to ignore it at first but every time it rang out the caller would redial. He eventually just answered. "Okay, Paula, I'll do it. Fill out the papers and I'll be by in the morning to sign them."
She sounded happier than he had heard her in a while. "Good, you're finally coming back around... I'll have everything ready for you by nine, but I'm out of the office after three so you need to come in before then." She didn't even wait for a response before hanging up. He had grumbled into the silence and put the phone back in his pocket.
Now he was leaning back against his door calculating just how much alcohol it would take to make him pass out.
Flash back
"Beckett, do you have a minute?" He was nervous, he needed to give his agent an answer that night or the deal was off and he'd lose what could be his last chance at achieving his dream. He had been given the offer once before and this was the first time he'd ever heard of anyone getting a second chance to do James Bond novels.
"Sure, Castle, what is it?" She didn't even look up from her computer.
He sat himself down into the chair he usually occupied but his body kept itching to move so he stood up and paced in front of her desk as he pulled himself together. "We've been working together for a long time now and I like to think of us as friends... we can talk to each other, can't we?"
She seemed to have finally tuned into what he was saying because that 'I don't want to go there' look was starting to appear on her face. "Castle..."
"Hear me out, Detective. I have some news and I want your honest opinion." He couldn't believe it, he had started this conversation in the exact same way about five times already and this was the furthest he had gotten, she actually let him finish that sentence. "Do you remember, just after I poked my nose into your mother's case, which I recognise was very wrong of me-"
"Castle, can we talk about this later? It's getting late." She had cut him off again. He knew it had been too good to last, but he had run out of later. She had already stood up to leave, she was going to go home for the night, once again blowing him off.
"You've said that, five times now. This is later, Kate. It's now or never..."
She stopped in her tracks and looked him in the eye. "What...? Are you trying to give me an ultimatum or something? 'Listen to me now or I won't get you coffee for a week'. Is that your game plan? Listen, Castle I have somewhere to be and I'm going to be late."
"So be a little late! It won't take more than five minutes." He could see that she was edgy but so was he. He couldn't understand why she couldn't give him a few minutes of her time that wasn't case related.
"Everything with you takes more than five minutes...!" She turned back towards the door. She had been short with him ever since the cover art for 'Federal Heat' had been released. He still couldn't believe it had taken three Nikki Heat books before he got around to actually using that idea. "Look, you can follow me around at work until the cows come home, I don't care, I get payed whether you're there or not, but my personal time, that's mine."
"Well I guess that answers that then." He grabbed his coat and threw it over his arm, not wanting to show how much that comment had stung him, especially after he had ventured to label what they had as friendship when she obviously still considered him to be some author ride a long.
"Answers what? How does the distinction between my personal life and this job answer anything?" She scoffed at him like he was a little child throwing a tantrum in the supermarket. Originally he had found it funny that she thought of him as a 'nine year old on a sugar rush', it gave him more room to surprise her, but the humour was becoming less and less apparent. He made no attempt to hide his irritation and she clearly saw it on his face. "Oh, what now? Did I bruise your ego, you'll survive, kiddo. It's not like it's the end of the world." She used the term of endearment his mother had always used and turned it into an insult, then again made for the elevator.
"You still won't listen... Even though this is obviously important to me you're going to just walk away!" Okay, so yelling wasn't exactly part of the plan, but he didn't really care about that at the moment.
"Yes, I'm walking away, because that's what mature people do instead of getting into petty squabbles over nothing.."
"Well good thing my leaving is nothing to you!" She again stopped in mid stride, this time there was something different about her reaction but he was too mad to bother placing it right now. "And to think I was worried you'd miss me. Huh! Have a nice life, Detective!" Brushing past her on the way out, Rick didn't even want to be in the building long enough to wait for the elevator so he took the stairs, three at a time.
End Flash back
Rick took several deep breaths before flicking on the light switch. When the light flickered on he immediately wished that he hadn't gone home that night. Standing in front of him was someone he really didn't expect to see, and they looked far too happy to see him. "Hello, Richard, dear." He hadn't even opened his mouth to reply when something hard collided with the side of his head and everything went blank.
Everything was spinning as Kate fell back into her chair. When had he decided to leave? She couldn't even understand why he would leave. He loved it there, he loved the job and he was like a brother to Esposito and Ryan, they were always doing that strange 'feed the birds' thing and hanging out on their breaks. He was one of the team. Why would he walk away from that? Why would he walk away from her? So they were going through a rough patch, every partnership had those, it didn't help theirs that his books always had naked women on the covers or that he wrote a steamy romance saga between two characters that every one knew were based on them. He thought it was about the cover but she had gotten used to that, for the most part. The previews she had read on-line, without telling him, showed a very clear longing between the characters that hit a little close to home for her liking, she had admitted her feelings to herself long ago and was growing tired of waiting for him to do the same. Their partnership could survive that though, she just needed some time to adjust to the world knowing how she felt about him, whether she confirmed it or not, then they'd be fine, everything would go back to normal.
Instead of persevering though it, he was just giving up. Was that what he had spent the past few days trying to tell her? It would fit, but that would mean that he had been thinking about leaving her for a while, all the time pretending that nothing was wrong, that nothing had changed. How had she missed that? There must have been signs, something to tip her off, someone else must have known... he wasn't that good at hiding things. Then it dawned on her, the guys, they had to know about it, he would have mentioned something to them, surely. They should have given her a heads up or something. Of course, if they didn't know then someone was going to have to tell them and she didn't like the thought of it being her.
He had thought that her heart couldn't sink any lower than it had when the words had escaped his mouth, but she was wrong. When she thought about explaining the situation to the boys it fell so far that she didn't even know where it had gone. Her whole body went cold and the lump in her throat grew to the point that her every limb went numb.
Realising that she was in no position to think about it right then she stood up and walked over to the elevator. She would visit her mother's grave, like she did with her dad every year on the 26th of April at five thirty, it was how she had spent every birthday since her mother was killed, then she would go home and get some sleep. Things always looked better in the morning, besides, if she was lucky he'd have cooled off by then and would come in to work to talk about what he had said, or at least to say goodbye to the guys.
Kate woke up still tired. She hadn't slept particularly well, which wasn't in any way a surprise. Castle's angry words were echoing around in her head. The last thing she wanted to do was go to work because if he showed up she wouldn't know what to say to make things right, and if he didn't show then there was nothing she could do to fix it short of showing up on his doorstep and begging for him to change his mind. She hoped it wouldn't come to that because there was no way she was going to bend her pride that much, not for anyone, not in the foreseeable future. Okay, so she might go so far as to call him until he picks up. If that doesn't work she'll get the boys to put in a few calls, try and win him over that way.
She had moved on auto pilot that morning. All her paperwork was done with minimal thought and there were no new cases to drag her from herself. Castle hadn't shown. She waited, refusing to take her lunch break until her stomach started to make embarrassing noises so loud that Esposito and Ryan started pestering her to eat something or at least get a cup of coffee. She didn't want to admit it but she hadn't wanted to get her own morning coffee because that felt wrong, almost like she was forgetting Castle before his face or voice had even faded from her thoughts. For the most part she was just happy they stopped asking where Castle was after the first hour of her ignoring them.
She was just finishing her lunch when the distinct click of high, stiletto heels and an angry voice caught her attention. "Where is he? I'll kill him."
Beckett stood to intercept the woman. She looked vaguely familiar but Kate couldn't quite place her. Esposito beat her to the visitor so she stood back and watched. "Excuse me, can I help you?"
"Yeah," The dark haired woman, expensively dressed in designer clothing in the middle of a workday took a threatening step towards him. "You can tell me where that no good slacker, Richard Castle is hiding."
Esposito was clearly not expecting that. "He didn't come in today, so I am sorry, but I can't tell you where he is... Have you tried his apartment?"
"Of course I tried there!" Something other than anger crept into her voice. "I've tried every number I have for him!"
Kate left the break room and made her way towards the woman. "Can I help you with something, ma'am?"
"Detective Beckett... Where's Rick?"
"I'm sorry, I don't know where he is." It wasn't unusual for her to not know where he was when he wasn't with her, at least, not of late.
"Oh, come on, Detective! Do you really mean to tell me that after four years of him following you around everyday you don't know something about his daily activities?"
"You mean other than following me around?" She paused just long enough to get her point across, there was the mystery of Castle's whereabouts to solve. "Now, since you seem convinced that he isn't where he should be, let's give him a quick call and find out where he is so that you can go enjoy your lunch date or whatever it is you have going."
"Oh, for goodness sake! That's what this stonewalling is all about!" The woman pulled out her purse and thrust a business card out towards Kate. "I'm Paula Haas... Rick's agent...! Of course you wouldn't remember me, you were too busy eyeballing the money machine." Understanding began to dawn on Kate as she remembered the fleeting occasions she had met the woman standing before her. "Now someone please tell me where I can find the man that just lost the biggest offer of anyone's life so that I can drown him in battery acid!"
Ryan had joined the group in the middle of the room just as Paula spoke. "What's going on?"
Kate ignored Ryan's question for the time being, either he'd catch on quickly enough or she'd explain it later. "No one was stonewalling you, Ms. Haas. We don't know where Castle is... but I'll give him a call, maybe he's just avoiding you, I've seen him do it to his ex-wives before..." With that she lead the way to her desk, her team and Castle's agent close behind her. She dialed his mobile number. The only answer was that annoying electronic voice that told her 'the phone you are trying to call is either turned off or out of range'. She tried his home number. It rang out. She called his publisher to see if he was in a meeting. He wasn't. Things were beginning to look bad.
"Let me guess, he didn't answer... Maybe he's avoiding you, too." The spite in her tone was almost enough to distract Kate from the main issue at hand.
"I don't need to deal with your garbage right now. Okay? So why don't you just go and wait over there for us to find out where he is?" She turned to her partners then. "Ryan I want a warrant to enter Castle's place and I want it yesterday. Esposito, let the Captain know we might have a possible missing persons case on our hands."
"Excuse me, but won't it be easier if I just let you in to his apartment? I do have a key."
"Castle gave you a key to his apartment?" Kate had known Castle for a while and he didn't strike her as the type to give women the keys to his home.
"He got tired of having to let me in early in the morning, something about having to run down stairs with a sleep addled brain being a recipe for disaster. Any way, he gave me a spare around the time 'Naked Heat' came out." Paula shrugged it off as if it was nothing. "So, are we going to find out if some thing's happened to my golden goose or what?"
Kate nodded her head too distracted to pay much attention to the way Paula focused on the money she could lose rather than on the fact that Richard Castle might be missing. "Come on guys, let's go check out the loft. But, come morning, we'll probably wake up to read about Castle's time at some party or another that he just forgot to mention."
"I doubt it, Detective." Paula spoke up as she waited by the elevator.
"Why is that?"
"Because I'm the one who organizes all of those, including his dates on most occasions." That was when the elevator dinged and the doors began to open.
Kate paused briefly at this new information, she had just assumed that he took whoever he wanted to sleep with that night, except when he went with his mother and daughter on his arms of course. But as she thought about it she realised that more often than not Castle went with his family. She certainly had taken a lot for granted when it came to him. The problem was that she was only just realizing it now that it might be too late.
When they got to Castle's apartment nothing looked out of place. In fact everything was almost exactly the way it had been on the last occasion that the boys had been there. They mentioned that there were a few new photos on the wall in Castle's room, which they had searched in stead of Kate to afford him some level of privacy. When she asked them why they knew what photos were in his room they answered very simply. "That's were all the gaming systems are." Then they mentioned that they had found a broken photo frame on the floor beside his bed, it was a picture of the six of them, her, Ryan, Esposito, Castle, his mother and daughter, it had been taken at Alexis' last birthday party. She had driven in from college to surprise her dad, only he had called earlier the day before and her room mate had told him everything. Alexis had already left so she didn't know that the surprise was being turned around on her with a last minute party thrown together, just family and few friends.
Kate wasn't happy to learn that he had smashed that picture on the ground. It was one of her favorites. They had been getting along really well for a while when that had been taken and she had been convinced that he was going to make his move, only for him to run away to the Hamptons again, this time he went alone and called them every now and then, but the point was that he still went and didn't even offer to take her for 'a friendly get away... no funny stuff'. All that had done was to drive home exactly what she had given up three years before. She was mostly over that heartache but it was really hard to stay on track when it got shoved in her face almost annually, sometimes twice a year.
Finding nothing else in the apartment they made their way back towards the door. It was just as she was reaching for the handle that something dark caught Kate's eye. "What the...?" She leaned in to get a better look. "Is that blood?" She didn't really need to ask. Kate knew what a blood spatter looked like.
"Yeah, it looks like someone got hit, I'd say head by the height of it... and pretty hard too." Ryan confirmed. "I think we'd better get some techs in here... see what they can find for us." Esposito had his phone out and dialing before Ryan had even finished his sentence.
"I'm on it."
Kate nodded. "Okay, Ms. Haas, I'm going to have to ask you to wait outside with Detective Ryan, he's going to ask you a few questions, this just became a possible crime scene."
The precinct was buzzing as the news spread. Richard Castle was missing. His family had been contacted, his neighbors interviewed, his fan mail subpoenaed and his apartment searched for evidence of any foul play. The blood on the back of the door came back as Castle's, the techs determined that it was the result of a single blow to the head. The instrument used to strike him had yet to be identified as being among the objects in the loft, but they were still only beginning to make a dent in the processing stage. There were a few small drops of blood on the floor by the door but none elsewhere so they were pretty sure that he left the apartment immediately after the blow was delivered. It was a safe bet that he was carried out because for a single hit to the head to elicit that clean of a spatter and that much blood, though not a lot it was pretty sizable for a single assault, and the location when considered with the pattern indicated very definitely that the wound wasn't self inflicted or an accident. They also determined that there was little chance of him remaining conscious after that.
The techs had no sooner finished their preliminary analysis than another cop approached Kate. "Detective Beckett, I'm Detective Joe Ramirez, Missing Persons. I've been assigned lead investigator on the Castle case." The short woman offered her hand to shake Kate's but was met with an icy stare instead.
"I'm sorry for the confusion but this is my partner we're talking about, I'm not handing over this case." Kate had straightened to her full height, hoping but not really believing that she could intimidate the other Detective.
"Hmmm... It seems like we've got a bit of a problem then. You see, I'm the official lead investigator and you're interfering with my teams ability to investigate this properly. I'd be happy to keep you in the loop, as a professional courtesy and because I can understand that this must be hard for you, but you need to step aside. I'll gladly accept any help you can give us, I won't neglect the fact that you've worked with the guy for four years, in this job that forms a strong bond and usually provides a lot of information you can't get elsewhere, and I might let you be on scene for what arrests we may make, but other than that I can't have you involved, it could compromise my case."
"You listen to me, Ramirez, that's my partner! I'm not going to sit on the sides getting secondary information and risk you missing something because you didn't know what to press and what to let go!" Kate couldn't even remember the last time she got in a yelling match with someone from another department over a case.
"I might miss something? I'm the one trained to find missing people! You're trained to catch murderers, two very different things! No offense, Beckett, but I hope to God that when I find Mr. Castle the last thing he'll need is a Homicide Detective!" She briefly considered if her next sentence would be too low of a blow but dismissed it, Beckett had already started with the insults and personal attacks, she was just finishing it. "Besides, from what I have learned so far, he's not even your partner anymore. He quit last night. Ran right out of the station with no intention of coming back. One report says he even wished you a 'nice life'." She could see the Homicide Detective crumbling and second guessed her choice, but she knew Beckett's reputation, she had to cut her down now and show that she was capable of doing her job before the woman before her dug her claws in too firmly. "You weren't the only one conducting interviews, Detective." Her voice was softer now, she had already made her point.
"Keep me informed." Kate turned to leave. All the uncertainty and pain she had felt when Castle had told her he was leaving came flooding back, tearing away her strength.
"I'll tell you what I do, when I do... I can't very well spend all my time updating you when I should be trying to find Mr. Castle before it's too late and we do have to hand it over to Homicide." Kate reeled at that. She had expected the attempt to cut her out, she had argued when she should have taken the offer and now Ramirez was trying to put her in her place, but the comment about Castle was uncalled for. The last thing Kate had needed was the thought planted in her mind that there was even a slight chance that they wouldn't find him in time to help him. As a Homicide cop she knew that was a possibility all too well, but to hear the woman in charge of finding him before that happens say it so callously made her grind her teeth in attempt to bite back the many curses that were hanging off her tongue.
The thoughts of what his captors could do to him began to fill her mind and they were closely followed by a disturbingly vivid image of Castle's lifeless body, mutilated and mangled, his blood splattered everywhere and pooling at the bottom of the household garbage bin they had somehow managed to crush him into. His eyes were open and he was looking at her, silently asking why she hadn't saved him, why she let them do that to him. Suddenly Grinding her teeth wasn't going to cut it, nor was an endless stream of ear curling curses. Kate swung on the spot and used all the momentum she gained in the turn to smash her fist right into Ramirez's mouth. Hiding the pain in her fist as it throbbed from the contact with her jaw Kate glared at the woman clutching her face. "If anything happens to him, I'm holding you personally responsible!" With that Kate marched into Captain Montgomery's office to face the consequences of her actions before things got even worse.
Rick felt like he had been hit by a train. His head was throbbing from the blow that had initially knocked him out and everywhere else hurt because of the continuing beat up session he had been subjected to since he woke up in the painfully bright room. The walls were painted white, as were the floor and ceiling. Several lights were trained on him and they never seemed to be turned off. It was burning his eyes. He could see the stains where his blood had hit the floor and walls around him. He wasn't game to check the ceiling though, he knew it wouldn't be good, there had been too many punches aimed at his face for some blood to not have flown upwards.
Spitting out the blood that had filled his mouth he turned his head to look at his surroundings again. His captors were having a fifteen minute break because they wanted to eat their diner without getting blood in it. At least that's what they said. He was inclined to believe them because he could hear the sounds of cutlery on plates and loud chewing coming from the other room where he heard the TV and raucous laughter join the mix. Rick was hanging from chains attached to the ceiling and floor, suspending him in the air. It was like something out of a bad horror movie and a strange thought entered his mind. 'What an unfortunate way to die? You'd think that someone as obsessive as Heather would at least give him the courtesy of killing him the way he wrote in a scene from one of his books."
The smell of roast lamb, gravy and assorted vegetables that got past the blood and broken cartilage of his nose made his stomach growl and hurt for reasons other than the likely bruising he had sustained. He was reminded of the fact the he hadn't eaten since the previous day at breakfast. He and Beckett had missed lunch because they had been too caught up in the final hours of a case, and he had been abducted before getting around to eating diner.
At least, he assumed it had been a day since his kidnapping. He only had the clock on the wall to go by, they said it was there so he could see that they could make two minutes seem like an hundred years. It had a double edged effect. On one hand he was able to put it into perspective, five minutes was only five minutes. One the other hand it reminded him that while the police were probably looking for him, Paula would have roused a search party within five minutes of him not meeting his deadline, it would take at least half a day for them to realise that there were no prints in his apartment that would help them and to then move on to his fan mail. The problem with that was that Heather hadn't sent him fan mail since the first stalker incident. He just hoped that they thought to check out every lead, no matter how unlikely and that they considered history a relevant indicator of a lead. He estimated that he had at least another twelve hours before they would find him, that was assuming he had twelve hours and that they found out about Heather pretty quickly, she was very hard to track down the last time. He didn't like his odds.
Realising that he wasn't going to make it through the next several hours without sleep he closed his eyes and tried to forget where he was. He knew his mother and daughter were safe, Alexis was a Princeton where she barely got five minutes alone, so there was little chance of anything happening to her, and his mother was on her honeymoon cruse with her new husband Chet. How much further out of harm's way can you be than out of the country? That thought gave him some comfort. He tried for the last ten minutes of his break to get something like rest. The lights prevented that fro happening. At least in a dark cellar he'd be able to get some reprieve by closing his eyes. In this white room the light came from every direction and was so powerful that it pierced his eyelids and burned his retinas. If he lived through this he wouldn't be surprised if there was permanent damage done, or if he couldn't bring himself to look at a computer screen again.
He wasn't even aware of the return of his abductors until the big guy, someone Rick hadn't seen before threw a fist into his right ribcage. He swung in the air like he had so many times since getting there. His arms had lost feeling but his shoulders and everything else ached as he was yanked about by the chains. His left shoulder was almost certainly dislocated, he knew that feeling too well from his football days in college. He grunted, he'd been doing a lot of that lately too.
Another punch to his diaphragm confirmed that there was something seriously damaged in the area of his stomach. A knee to his family jewels made his eyes fog up and him wrench his shoulders even more as he instinctively tried to curl up and protect them from further assault. Heather and the man she called Tony took it in turns to strike him. This went on for another three hours according to the clock on the wall. A final fist to the head was what it took to once again make everything go blank once more.
Kate sat at her desk looking at the murder board. They had a new case but she couldn't focus on it. Castle was out there somewhere, in pain, and she was stuck behind a stupid desk waiting for any scraps of conversation or news about the search. She felt more than useless. The man had spent four years following her and when he needed her the most she couldn't help. Oh, she was capable of helping, her superiors and that little tramp running the investigation just wouldn't let her. She couldn't care less about what would happen if it went to trial, the point was to get Castle back, safe and sound. They needed to prioritize, they could deal with the rest when he was home.
When she thought of him coming home, Kate was surprised to find that she wasn't thinking back to his family or apartment as much as back to the station, back to her. So she had known she felt some pretty strong things for him, but the word love hadn't exactly been the word she used when thinking about those feelings, now it was unavoidable. She cursed herself for not having seen exactly what she had in him until he was gone and she might never get him back. Kate swore to herself that when they found him alive, she couldn't handle the other alternative just then, that she wouldn't waste anymore time dancing around them, she would make it abundantly clear to him how she felt and see how he took it.
Ramirez hadn't been understating it when she said that she wouldn't waste time updating Kate. What little information she did have hadn't actually come from the women herself as much as what Kate had over heard and forced out of the uniforms or other Detectives. The only positive thing she say think about the other woman was that she hadn't filed assault charges against her. She had said she understood and that she had been asking for it with the last comment, and Kate wasn't about to disagree on that.
The hardest part for Kate at that moment was that it had been twenty-four hours since Castle had officially been reported missing. The blood on the door suggested that Castle had been abducted approximately sixteen hours before that. He was running out of time if he hadn't already. A snippet of conversation caught Kate's attention and pulled her from her thoughts. "Is everyone in place?" It was Ramirez.
"Yeah, they're watching the room to make sure no one leaves. Everyone is waiting on your signal." And that was redoubtably Will Sorenson. Kate had heard that they brought him in to help on the case because he victim was so high profile. Kate remembered how little the two men had gotten along when they had to share a case, she really hoped that he had put that behind him for Castle's sake.
"Okay, tell them to go in, but remember, I want this clean and simple. Our priority is to get Castle out alive. If we get your man then that's a bonus."
Kate wasn't sure if she liked the sound of that last part but she was too busy fighting to not get her hopes up that they had actually found him. And then she realised where her team had run off to without telling her.
Rick woke up on the floor. He had become accustomed to the routine by now. He would be hanging for about three hours, then left unconscious on the floor for what the clock said was one hour, thought the location had little effect on the beatings, then he would be hung back up by Tony. It was perhaps the strangest scene he could imagine. After the first day they didn't even speak to him anymore. He was pretty sure his jaw was broken so he didn't try to talk to them either. They hadn't made any demands and Heather hadn't said anything about why they were doing what they were, during their first encounters she had been quite the chatter box, then again she hadn't contacted him in any way since he started working with the police so he wasn't overly surprised that multiple things had changed.
Tony must have seen his eyes open because he was again dragging him up to the chains. "You were out for the full hour this time, Ricky, that doesn't make things much fun for us. You should be more considerate next time, if there is one."
Rick just groaned as he was hoisted up and his arms and shoulders reminded him that he had been hanging for the better part of two days and nights. Then it began again, like it always did. He was beginning to think that the clock was lying to him because what he could see of it through his swollen eyes and the blood that dripped down across his vision no longer seemed to move as quickly as it had before. It was like time had slowed down just to make this last.
It was taking too long. No one was going to find him, they'd close the file and store it away as a cold case. He couldn't wait any longer. For a short while he had hoped that Beckett would come for him, that she'd bust down the door like she had so many times before, just in time to save the day, but not for him. He knew she wouldn't be on the case, she was Homicide, he'd be under Missing Persons, and they wouldn't want someone personally connected to him working the case because that could cause trouble in court. That didn't mean he couldn't hope she would be there. Though he didn't want her walking through that door at any point if he didn't make it out of this alive. He didn't want her to have to see him like this, or even the room until it had been cleaned of all evidence as to what had happened to him. The thought of the walls once again being that crisp white made him want to bleed even more so that it would never come out. There was no redemption for this place, not for him. If he were to leave this room he never wanted to see that white ever again.
Another blow to the abdomen, this time pain like no other erupted. Before he could even breath in another punch was delivered to his chest. That was met with a loud, sickening crack. Rick started coughing. It hurt. The pain in his stomach intensified, his ribs and chest might as well have been on fire. Foamy pink liquid was exploding from his mouth with each cough. Every movement, even attempting to breath sent a new wave of pain coursing through him. Another punch to his stomach didn't help the situation. It felt to him the way he imagined it would feel to have a pack of C4 explosives go off inside his body, only you'd die more quickly than he was.
Rick couldn't think, see or hear anything but of the pain that was eating him alive, the aerated blood that was flowing from his mouth telling him that he had a punctured lung, meaning that he was going to die in that disgustingly white room, and the blood pounding through his head as his heart raced to it's final beat. In the condition he was he went unaware as the door to the room burst open. A SWAT unit securing the room and over-powering his abusers, followed by a few FBI agents and the partnership of Ryan and Esposito.
They had sworn not to tell Beckett about the bust. If she had known she would insist on being there and no one wanted that. If they found Castle dead it would destroy her, if he was alive they didn't want her to see the condition he was in, the FBI profile for Tony Winston was not particularly flattering and Heather Cromwell's was not much better. Granted Tony's implied plenty of gruesome violence while Heather's was more leaning towards the psychologically screwing with the victim side of the scale neither was anything they wanted Beckett to see relating to Castle, especially not until Ramirez had a chance to run for cover. No one could be sure just how serious Kate was with her threat. She had already punched a fellow officer and none of them had previously imagined her doing that, so hey didn't want to take any chances.
They were waiting by the door to the apartment when they got the word to go in. They picked the locks and entered having used an optical lens to clear the outer room first. They entered silently and prepared themselves to enter the next. The apartment had been sound proofed about a month before, regular band practice was the reason provided to the building manager. So it had been no surprise that they didn't hear anything while they were outside. They hadn't been prepared for the disembodied screams and grunts they heard coming from the room they were about to enter. A number of the team had gone to clear the rest of the apartment but both Ryan and Esposito had chosen to enter the one with the obvious signs of life. If Castle was on the other side of the door they wanted to be some of the first through.
They waited for everyone to get back into place and for the rest of the house to be cleared. It only took a minute. It had been the longest minute of their lives as they heard, even through the door, the crack of bones and then the desperate coughing from inside. They wanted to forget the rest of the house and barge in but there were enough well armed men around them to keep them in check. It was a really good thing Beckett wasn't there. Both men unknowingly thought at the same time.
When they finally did go in the sight they were met with made even them feel the need to vomit. There was blood on every surface. The perps had their faces pressed into it on the ground as they were being cuffed. Castle was shackled to the ceiling and floor, suspended by think chains. He had foaming blood spilling from his mouth and was covered in blood and bruises. He had obviously not been given the opportunity to use a toilet and hadn't been fed or given water, what they could see of his lips under the crusty and fresh blood were cracked and his cheeks looked hollow.
Someone had already called up the ambulance team from downstairs and it wasn't long before they were carrying him out on a stretcher. The paramedics called over their shoulders that they couldn't treat him on the scene, they had to get him to a hospital immediately. As if that hadn't been obvious.
Both men looked at each other silently wondering who would be the one to tell Beckett about what they had found and when to tell her.
Rick woke up several hours later. At first he didn't want to open his eyes. He didn't want them to know he was awake. If they knew they would just hang him up again. That was when he noticed that he was not lying on the floor, he was in a bed. As his senses began to catch up to him the course hospital blanket became too heavy, it hurt everywhere it rested against his body. He knew it was a feather light sheet, that was all they ever seemed to use. That wasn't the point. The point was that he felt like he was suffocating. Without any further thought he threw the blanket off, opened his eyes and tried to sit up all at once. He fell back onto the bed and cried in agony as he connected with the soft mattress that might as well have been solid rock.
Shouts of surprise filled the room. No one had expected him to wake up at all that night let alone for him to jump up like he just had. "Castle! Take it easy! Don't try to move!" Kate had been sitting by his bed since he had been wheeled out of surgery and the nurses stopped sending her away. The boys had joined her in the waiting room as soon as they finished giving their statements.
"Hey, bro, you're awake!" Esposito stepped closer to the bed.
Rick tried to ask what had happened, how they had found him when Ryan spoke up. "Don't try to talk, man. It won't do anyone any good... Your agent, Paula, she reported you missing, came in swearing bloody murder..." He smiled at the thought of the woman walking into the Homicide bull pen declaring her intention to kill someone. "She later told Missing Persons that you had some trouble with a stalker a while back, apparently she thought you two were in some kind of relationship or something... anyway, Ramirez, the lead investigator, looked into it and the break came when the lab finished processing everything and we got a DNA match for a track of blood found on a photo frame she broke in your apartment." He smiled at the riveted look on Rick's face as he told the story. "We tracked her down to her apartment and asked around, it turns out she'd been seeing this guy, Tony Winston, for the past three months. We ran his name and that led us to the FBI, they've been after him for a while, they could never actually catch him but they had a profile ready and they joined up to help out, they just wanted him when it was over. It turns out he gets a kick out of blood and likes to watch others join in. So we took a look at his financials and found that he had paid for a soundproofing job with his credit card, not a smart move but it's getting harder and harder to get anything done without having to meet face to face or pay with a credit card. We spoke to the company who gave us the address, we spoke to the manager and he said that a couple had been renting it for almost two months, he gave a positive ID on our perps and we knew we'd found you. It was just a matter of getting a warrant and going in for you... Of course most of the time I say we, I mean Missing Persons because technically we weren't involved in anything but the final bust." He and Esposito winked at Rick.
Rick wanted to talk but he restrained himself and settle for a half smile, half grimace. He looked at Kate.
She saw the change in his eyes as he looked at her and it tugged at her heart. He looked so sad and unsure that she really wanted to hold his hand, but by the looks of them they'd be far too tender for her to be able to without hurting him. She smiled back at him. "Can you give us a minute, guys?"
"Sure thing." They said in unison as they left the room to wait in the hall.
When she heard the door closed behind them she spoke again. "I'm sorry, Castle. I shouldn't have pushed you away like I did. I wasn't coping very well with some things and I shouldn't have taken it out on you but you just seemed so clueless." He looked confused now and it brought a smile back to her face. "You write about the subtleties of Nikki Heat and how she feels about Jameson Rook, and you're spot on almost every time, but when it's right in front of you you're either oblivious or not interested in making a move." His eyes communicated so much surprise that she had to laugh. "Oh, come on! You didn't really think I was still that touchy about the cover art, did you? How many years have I had to get used to that?" She leaned in closer. "I'm sorry, Rick but I'm tired of waiting for you to make your move." She rolled the 'r' and flicked her tongue on the 'k' to give it a playful sound. Then she closed the gap and kissed his lips ever so gently, hoping that the small pressure wouldn't hurt him.
What she hadn't considered was him responding as quickly or passionately as he had. He began to draw her in almost instantly but she caught herself just in time to pull away before she really did cause him pain. He looked at her with his trade mark grin sneaking through, though she could see he was in pain it was still a welcome hint of the old him coming back.
Just over year later found them all siting in various places around the Castle living room as they welcomed Alexis home. She had called in a few times to check up on her dad but this time she was there to stay for the week over Christmas. Egg-nog and finger foods were in abundance and Christmas carols played loudly over the stereo speakers. Rick hurried off to his bedroom with a small box tucked in his jacket pocket and a wide grin on his face. He had spoken to Alexis and Jim Beckett a few weeks before to ask their permission before he did anything and they had happily helped him work out the details.
Kate was standing by the dresser. She had spilt some gravy on her shirt while helping prepare the diner. She had just finished tugging the hem into place so that it sat the way it should when she looked up to see the door open and Rick looking at her intently, a mischievous glint in his eye. "Rick, we have guests in the other room... your mother is one of them and my father's another, we are not doing anything that usually brings on that smirk of yours." She didn't quite pull off the warning though, it probably had something to do with the fact that half way through it she started thinking about how fun it would be to get away with doing just that.
He closed the gap between them in a few quick strides. "That wasn't what I was thinking, but now that you mention it I think I prefer you with that top on the floor."
"Really?"
"Yep..."He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her into a deep, searing kiss. They only broke part due to the mutual need for oxygen. Before she could speak he pressed his lips against hers again. Both of their hands began to wander and he smiled when he heard a moan escape her as she pressed herself closed to him. His smile turned to a grin as he pulled away. She glared at him like she always did when he tried to cut them off just as she had given in to the need for closeness, it was rare that he held out for long though because he honestly wanted it as much if not more than her. This was one of those rare occasions. "I have something for you?" She raised her eye brow at him. "You'll like it... at least I hope you will." He suddenly was more nervous than he had been around her for a long time. They had discussed this numerous times and she seemed keen on the idea but he was now just hoping he hadn't misread her enthusiasm. Maybe she had meant some day in the very distant future. But they had known each other for more than five years and he couldn't imagine a time coming that they would ever know everything about each other. Wasn't that the point though, get to know if you're compatible, if it'll work, if you love them enough to make it work, then take the plunge and spend the rest of your life discovering the little things that you don't already know, keep each other on their toes but in a good way?
"What's wrong, Rick? You look like you're about to faint." She was laughing, that was a good sign, she was happy, right?
"I'm scared to death, Kate... I'm scared that one day I'm going to wake up and the past few years will have been a dream, a wonderful, sometimes frightening, dream. I'm scared that one day I'll get a call from Roy telling me that I won't ever again fall asleep with you in my arms, that you'll never again roll your gorgeous eyes at me the way only you can do. I'm scared that one day you'll realise that I'm not good enough for you, not by a long shot, and you'll walk out that door no more to brighten my day with that smile of yours... But can I tell you a secret?" She nodded, unable to form words. "For every one of those fears there are a million hopes that I have for us, for our future. I'm deeply, unbelievably and irreversibly in love with you, Katherine Johannah Beckett, and you would make me the happiest man alive if you would have me as your husband and in turn be my wife."
He almost fell over backwards from the force of the kiss she pressed to his lips. When they broke apart she had tears in her eyes and a smile on her face. "Are you...?"
He laughed at how all his planning came down to a simple question. "Will you marry me, Kate?"
She kissed him again and the tears ran down her cheeks. "Yes, a thousand times yes!" He couldn't have held back his smile if he had wanted to. Who knew that one day he'd be able to call Kate Beckett his fiancée?
The End.
I know I still have a story going but I just had to get this one up, I wrote most of it at two this morning so sorry for anything that doesn't quite make sense. This is unbetaed so any and all mistakes are mine, let me know if there are some, or just tell me what you think. Thanks.