For my darling Alexis (you may know her as stanacatic on tumblr). There are only forty minutes in an episode, not enough to show everything, and so she gave me a list of scenes she wishes we could have seen and I'm going to fill in the gaps for her. Not in any sort of order.

6.17 In the Belly of the Beast – reunion scene

Castle phone rings in his pocket and he tugs it out with trembling hands. His body is a livewire, a mess of panic and guilt and ohgodKate. The number flashing up on his screen isn't one he recognises – he already knows it isn't her because it wasn't her ringtone – but maybe it's. . .something. A ransom call?

Could be.

He swats at Esposito, pulls the detective's attention away from Captain Gates, and then he swipes his finger across the screen to answer the call. "Castle."

"Babe- it's. . .it's me." His fiancée's voice comes crawling across the distance between them, the phone line (and god knows what other trauma) making it crackly and foreign but still her, such a flood of relief that he's sitting down before he even realises it.

"Kate. Kate. Where are you?" He grits out, scrubbing a hand down his face. There's a sudden flurry of activity as Espo and Ryan realise that it's Beckett on the phone, that she's alive, and hurry from the bullpen to find Tory and Gates. "Sweetheart, oh God, where are you?"

There's a strangled noise that could be a sob, a groan of protest as if she's trying to stand but her body just won't cooperate with her. He can imagine all too readily what she's been through and it makes his heart thrash in his chest, his whole body thrumming with the desperate need to just get to her.

"I'm not sure. Can you- trace the call?"

The team comes running back into the bullpen and Rick's head snaps up. Tory makes it to him first and holds her hand out; he switches the phone to speaker before he hands it over and follows Tory to the tech room. "Tory's here right now, Beckett. We're tracing it. Are you safe?"

"I- think so?" She says. There are noises like branches breaking underfoot, a crash, and then she hisses. He paces back and forth in front of the desk as Tory fiddles with his phone, working as fast as she can to get a trace on the call.

"Where are you, Kate?"

"I don't know." She moans, so brittle that even Esposito is clenching his fists and turning away. "The woods. They took me out here to. . .to kill me. But Elena, she- I'm safe. But cold. Please hurry."

Oh God. He will do anything, anything, to get to her. "We are, Kate. Just hold on for me baby, please. Just hold on."

"M' tired." She says, but before he can beg her not to fall asleep, not to succumb to shock in the middle of the woods, Tory's voice is ringing out triumphantly.

"I got it!"

"Let's go." Espo says, pushing on Castle's shoulder to get him to move.

Grabbing his cell phone back from Tory, he takes it off of speaker and presses it to his ear again. He doesn't even hear the pained crackle of her breathing anymore and the bottom falls out of his world for the fourth or fifth time today. "Kate, are you there? Beckett!"

"I'm here." She whispers. He knows what it means when her voice gets like this, her words slurred and her breath support gone. Means she's wiped out, about to crash.

Mostly, it comes at night with the sweat-slick brush of her skin against his and her smile buried at the crease of his neck. But not this time.

This time, she is going to die if they don't get there soon and get her to a hospital. "I need you to stay awake for me, okay? Stay on the phone, keep talking to me."

"I'm gonna try to find the van." She murmurs, her voice quiet and low and pitched just for him. Even the woods are watching; he can hear the way her PTSD is creeping slowly inside of her, rotting in her guts and sending fissures out across her skin.

If she has a panic attack alone in those woods-

They have to get to her. "Espo."

"I know, Castle."

He lets himself be hustled out of the elevator and into the parking garage. Down here, the air cool and the lights too bright, he can almost hear the clack of Beckett's heels on the tarmac at his side. "Beckett. What van?"

"Harden's. It'll be warmer." Her teeth are chattering, he hears it in her voice, and already he's planning. Scrolling through in his mind all the hot, beautiful countries he's going to take her too. The beaches they're going to stretch out on and let the sun lick over their skins.

Esposito opens the door and pushes Castle into the back of his cruiser, sliding into the driver's seat. Ryan joins him in the passenger side and starts fiddling with the GPS as they peel out of the parking garage and join the flow of traffic out of the city.

"Kate, we're in the car. We're on the way. Just hold on for me, please." He begs her, hears the discordant night-noise of the woods in the background of their call.

It's nearing six am; he will have his arms around her by sunrise.

She's just breathing over the line next to him, just breathing, and then he hears a strangled sound of relief and she chokes out another sob. "Castle- found the van. Took the keys from his body."

"Get warm, Kate. Get warm. But please don't drive. Don't move. Sit tight." He feels his words jumbling together, crowding inside his mouth to get out. He can't decide which are the most important ones, and more than anything he just wants to say that he loves her.

But he won't do that, won't say that. Not until he can see her face.

"Don't think I could." She manages a strangled laugh for him, and then he hears the roar of the van's heaters on full blast and prays that they'll kick in quickly. "Castle-" she moans. "Hurts."

"I know" He doesn't, he has no idea what they've done to her. But she's breathing, talking, she made it to the van. And that's so much better than what he was imagining. Her bleeding out all alone on the forest floor with rotten detritus crowding her nose.

"When will you be here?"

He leans forward, glances at the ETA the navigation system is showing. Shit. "Uh- about forty minutes."

"Local PD will be with her in five." Ryan says, twisting in his seat to look at Castle.

Right, of course. They're not the knights in shining armour. And yes, they're charging to her rescue, but the boys have already been in touch with the New Jersey cops. "Cops will be with you in five minutes, Kate. We'll meet you there. Can you put the van lights on? Make it easier for them to see you."

"Cops. . .but not you." She says, as if testing the truth of it.

"Not me. But soon. I'm on my way. I'm coming, Kate." He pleads with her, the words like benediction. He wants to be the one to rescue her, silly though that may be. But he can't be, he can't be, and he's so grateful for the New Jersey PD, for whoever will be there with her in about three minutes, now.

He hears a sigh, and then she's coughing, a terrible sound that lasts forever. Lasts so long that he hears voices over the line, the blessed relief of the cops that have finally made it to her. "Detective Beckett? We've got an ambulance here."

There are noises he doesn't understand, tries not to dwell on, and then a man's voice comes over the line. "Hello?"

"Hi." He splutters, scrubbing a hand down his face. "I'm Rick Castle, Beckett's fiancé. How is she?"

"The EMTs have got her, Mr Castle. She's just getting some oxygen, but she seems okay. Coherent, at the very least."

He's trembling now, and he feels the too-warm slip of tears down his cheeks. How badly he wants to be there for this, hold her hand while she gets checked out. "Thank you."

"I'm going to have to hang up, I'm afraid. What's your ETA?"

"About twenty five minutes." He says, and then the officer on the other end of the call is saying something else he doesn't even hear. The dial tone shakes him out of it and he stares at his phone, rests it on his knee in case it rings again. In case she calls back.

He rests his cheek to the window, the cold spreading its numbing fingers out wide across his face. When they finally, finally make it to where she is the salt has made his face stiff and his eyes are swollen. The boys are kind enough not to mention it.

The cruiser pulls to a stop and Rick goes tumbling out of the door, falling to one knee in the gravel. Scrambling to his feet, he runs for the ambulance and climbs halfway inside before he realises that she isn't here. "Where's Beckett?"

The EMT offers him a sympathetic look. "She went to take the cops to the body."

"You let her?" He says, incredulous. Can't understand why a medical professional would let her just go wandering about in the woods in the middle of the night.

Well. Not the middle of the night anymore. The horror has rolled right around into morning and the sky has that bruised, purpling look to it as if fighting the sunrise.

"She seemed up to it. And it. . .didn't seem like she'd take no for an answer."

That has the corner of his mouth quirking up almost entirely without his permission. Of course she would want to be strong in front of the Jersey cops. Of course she'd persuade the EMTs that she's fine.

It's only him, only him who has the honour of seeing her crumble. Who gets to hold the cherished pieces of her in his hands until she's strong enough to put them back together. "Right. Sounds like her."

There's a commotion at the border where the woods meet the edge of the parking lot and his head snaps towards it. He watches the wide swing of the flashlight beams, figures all clad in black shifting like shadow among the trees. They seem ancient, but not wise or loving as he usually imagines. These woods, these trees, have seen a terror they keep knotted inside, safe behind the bark.

He moves away from the ambulance, headed to join Ryan and Esposito at the boundary to the woods. And then one of the shadowy figures detaches itself from the seething mass of bodies and comes flying towards him.

Kate's hands come up around his shoulders and he lifts her off of the ground, squeezing tight as he bands his arms at her waist. Her nose is buried at his neck, her tears hot where they slip underneath the collar of his shirt, and he palms the back of her head as he sets her back on her feet.

"Kate. Kate. Thank god you're okay."

"You're here." She breathes out, trembling hands cradling his cheeks, and then she's smudging his mouth with her kiss.

He walks her backwards until she's leaning against the side of the boys' cruiser, his forehead bowed at hers, and he kisses her hard. Even with the woods watching. When he eventually breaks away his cheeks are wet with both of their tears, but she's smiling at him.

"Castle." She says, and then nothing more. He knows that feeling all too well, the stumbling block of a name. How everything else can be contained inside of it.

He tucks her hair back behind her ears. Wet and lank, and her face is scraped raw. There's the glisten of ointment the EMTs must have given her, but she winces when he touches her temple just underneath the bloom of pain. "What happened to you? Kate."

"I can't- I'll have to give a statement. Don't want to have to go through it twice."

She bites her lip, looks up at him with so much trepidation. As if he would ever force her to tell him anyway. Well, yes, so in the early days of their togetherness they did fight about her refusal to share. But this isn't that. It's so very, very different.

"We've got your fleece." He says instead, peeling her out of the coat that has been carelesasasly draped over her shoulders. He pulls open the rear door of the cruiser and reaches inside, finds the thick NYPD sweater she keeps in her locker at the precinct.

The one she wore when he pulled her out of the Hudson, and just like then her hair is sodden. Only this time, he gets to kiss her. He gets to knot their fingers together and keep her close at his side, feel the way she squeezes when the boys come back over to them.

"Beckett, glad you're okay." Esposito says gruffly, drawing her in for a brusque hug. "You good to head back to the precinct?"

"Yes. Please." She nods.

The four of them pile inside of the cruiser, Beckett in the middle seat instead of next to the window so she can lean against his side. Her cheek pillows against his bicep and she plays with his fingers where they rest at his thigh, smoothing over his hand again and again like collecting cobwebs.

"I wrote you a letter." She mumbles, quiet enough that the boys won't hear from up front. "CSU are gonna find it. I don't want you to read it when they do."

"Okay. I won't." He promises, a little surprised to discover that he has no desire to do so. A letter that she wrote for him, thinking that he'd be reading it after her death?

Yeah. . .that's not something he needs.

"It's about how much I love you. How this – us - is the greatest thing that's ever happened to me." She murmurs, grinning when his face goes slack with shock.

She kisses him, tender and a little apologetic, and the daring sweep of her tongue at his bottom lip brings his words flooding back. "Me too, Kate. I love you, too."

He waits until she closes her eyes, and then he lets his own slide shut as well.

It's over.

Tumblr: katiehoughton

Twitter: seilleanmor