I'm not sure why I'm on a downer given the fantastic episode I just watched, but this bubbled up to the surface, and so I threw some words on a page. I think that despite her best efforts, there's no way Beckett can steer clear of her Mother's case, because her sniper is about to take her safety net away. I'm thinking that maybe they'll lure her out into the light by using Castle as bait, and so this is where I'm headed below. Also, I'm sleep deprived and feeling punchy.

This is for the very lovely Laura and Jena - because they got me hooked on the show. Damn them. ;)

Following Nothingness into Forever

Her words ignited something in him, but she has no idea what tumbled from her lips.

Then she is tangled up in him. Hot skin against cold. A soft landing, not a desolate alleyway and a never-ending fall. She melts.

"Castle", she breathes, because she has to.

And it's not about where he's touching her, but how. How he knows her. How he answers questions her body has yet to ask. He's kissing promises onto her skin, but she's already becoming a liar, without her being conscious of it. She's taking, taking...

And he gives her everything. He gives and gives…

xxx

Later, he covers them with a cool sheet and wraps his arms around her, and really holds her. Holds her like this is where both of them will be forever. She breathes him in, kisses his throat, his lips, his forehead, and traces her fingers over the arch of his eyebrow. She smooths away the question she finds there with more love, more of her secrets. And finally, finally, his eyes close, as he is lost to his dreams.

She hopes he's dreaming of her, and there's a mostly hidden part of her that understands that he is. That part of her that trusts him with every secret, every black thought, every self-defeating belief that she's ever had. She isn't looking for redemption in his arms, just a place to be. A place to heal, to grow and transform. He is a promise she wants to keep.

xxx

And then her phone rings. And with just a few words from a voice once familiar, she knows. She understands what people have been telling her all along. She can't win this - it's just a question of how much she wants to lose.

So she leaves his bed. She leaves his apartment. She leaves knowing what this will do to him.

Blinking against the still-falling rain, she looks up at the early morning grey skyline, and everything just hurts. She makes it to the subway, boards a train to where she never wanted to be. She feels the weight of the crosshairs on her back, the scratch and bite of the lines marking her skin, and she almost buckles then, almost doesn't make it there. But she does. Because there is no other alternative, no capacity for resolution other than this.

"I wasn't sure you'd come."

"Yes you were."

"He's safe now."

She says nothing in response. She just has to trust.

"Let's not do this here. Over there…to the right." She sees the abandoned train carriage ahead. The open mouth of the double-width doors a gaping blackness waiting to swallow her. "You know, you put up one hell of a fight on the roof. It's a shame, really."

She can't help herself, and when she speaks, her voice is almost lost to the pounding rain. "Nothing can happen to him. It ends here." A plea, nothing more, because she has nothing more. Only hope.

"It ends with you. The man I work for made that clear." He prods her gently in the back with his rifle. There is no need to be rough, no need to run at her full speed.

Castle. Castle. Castle. She says his name over and over in her head, and then, putting one foot in front of the other, she follows nothingness into forever.

Um, sorry.