Close Encounters 2

aka The Man With the Golden. . .

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Castle belongs to ABC and no infringement is intended.

He loved her place - the narrow kitchen with its double-paned window blocks sloping up like a greenhouse, the living room's wide embrace of a couch, in her bedroom the pressed flowers and necklaces hanging on the head of an ancient metal rake, the framed photographs scattered through her office bookshelves.

The books. She had a taste for intrigue, he was always pleased to discover, but she'd also read complicated, beautiful things that ranged a gamut of genres - Chekhov and Kierkegaard, Foer and Colette, Dickens and Hornby. He couldn't pinpoint her tastes and he adored the not knowing, the mystery that was Kate Beckett.

With a paper bag from Wang's under one arm and her confiscated apartment key in hand, Castle approached her door with that familiar sense of both urgency and peace.

This was where he belonged.

Though maybe he should put the key away, knock like a gentleman instead of slipping in like a spy.

Castle knocked, leaning one shoulder against the door frame, waiting on her. He heard white noise clicking off, maybe a television or radio, and then the soft padding of her bare feet towards the door.

Okay, that was a guess, but-

Ah, look. He was right.

She was clad in tight, black leggings, a workout top that slicked against her like a second skin, her breasts golden and ripe in the lamp light coming in from her living room. She had her hair back, out of breath, and the sweat formed cool, enticing trails down her neck.

"Castle, about time," she greeted him, reaching out to tug him inside. "I'm starved."

He relinquished the bags, unable to do the same with the spell her body held over his.

"What've you got?" she asked, setting the bag on the counter and turning to face him.

She was so strong - her body taut and lithe like a jungle cat, all dark power and deadly speed. He wanted to lean in and stroke his tongue over the hard line of her bicep, bite the skin where it softened as it met her shoulder. He found himself drawing closer, sliding his hands around her waist and under her shirt so he could press his palms flat to the sweat gathered there.

"Come on, spill it," she huffed, but didn't push him away. "What've you got?"

"Spicy," he murmured, appreciative as he lowered his mouth to her jaw. "Honey." He sucked at the downward trail of salt along her neck, felt her stiffening to reject him and added, "Chicken. Just like you like it."

He pulled his head back to watch her blink through the onslaught to her senses, her body thrumming and ready for his, oh so ready, and then her cheeks flamed as she caught up to him.

"Not what did you get us for dinner, Castle. What about my mother's case?" she growled, shoving his shoulders.

Oh. She was ready all right.

She was battle ready.

She was ready to tackle her mother's case with everything in her - body primed and in peak condition for the resulting war against injustice.

Castle pushed his hands in his pocket and studied her, gathering back the shredded remnants of his self-restraint. He nodded slowly. "I found someone who will look at the ME's report, and I'm plotting criminal activity for that month. But I need to see the case file again, Beckett."

She took a half step back from him, but he could see her mustering her defenses through sheer force of will alone. She swallowed hard a few times, making her throat dance, the sweat alluring and maddening.

Castle stepped in, gripped the back of her neck slowly, his thumb angling just before her ear. He could see the sharp intake of her breath as she stared up at him and he was darkly pleased to know he could still make her respond even when she was fighting it.

He leaned in and let his unshaved cheek rasp along her neck before he touched his tongue to the sweat that had pooled in her clavicles, hummed against her skin until she shuddered.

When he pulled back, assent and expectation were in her eyes, a burning and clear lust that made a fist in his spine and burned a path through his senses.

But.

"Dinner first, Kate."

She scowled, but he claimed her mouth again, stroking his tongue inside, stealing her breath.

"Then this," he murmured, canting his hips into hers so she knew exactly what he wanted. "And then we can look at your mother's case."

Castle ran his fingers over the crime scene photograph one more time, found the sharp edge cutting even though he thought he was being careful.

Beckett was sitting on her hands on the couch, watching him all too closely, and he put the photo away, tucked it back into the front of her mother's case file. But the image burned in his brain.

He knew that handiwork.

The pattern of knife wounds.

He knew that method, that strategy; he'd been taught it himself while in Afghanistan ten years ago. Which meant he had a clear idea of how but-

"Castle?"

He glanced up, saw the raw nerves exposed in her eyes. Did you find something?

"Just being thorough. Wanted to check the ME's report again."

She nodded, her bottom lip tugged between her teeth.

He'd say nothing. He couldn't say a word to her until he was certain, one hundred percent, that it was the same group.

A band of hired killers, trained by their own government for black ops, who-

Damn it. This was her mother, murdered in an alley and left for dead. Her mother. How had her mother gotten tangled in something that required cleaning up by a former-Special Forces assassin?

"I made copies," she said intently.

He lifted his head, saw her rocked forward on the couch, nearly trembling.

He'd been right beside Kate Beckett these last three weeks, and he was slowly beginning to see what this case did to her, how her eyes were eclipsed by a darkness he'd never thought possible in a woman filled with such strength and grace. He'd seen her disappear, and even though he continued to haul her off to bed and bring her screaming back, she went away every time.

She went somewhere. . .other. And he was afraid that amazing sex could only stave off that darkness for so long.

She needed help; she needed him.

So he kept it a secret. For now.

Beckett scraped a hand through her hair, felt it snag on the cuff of her dress shirt. She yanked and strands came out, but the sharp tug brought back her focus.

She was standing in front of a bare murder board, trying to collate the data they'd been given by various witnesses, and simultaneously trying not to think about him.

What he was doing right now.

With her mother's case.

She knew. . .she knew how she could get about this. She'd been holding herself together by a string before he showed up, and then he laid it all out, every secret thing, picked it apart and asked questions she didn't have answers to and-

"Yo, Beckett."

She snapped back to the murder board and Esposito in front of her. "Yeah. Yes. What?"

"Ballistics came back."

It took a great force of effort to haul her concentration back into their murder investigation, to compilate Esposito's ballistics, to compare notes with Ryan, to be present in the reality of the 12th precinct.

But she had to. And she would be a professional, she would give it her full attention because this woman was a victim too, she had been a mother to a daughter, and she deserved justice, she deserved to have a voice.

Just like Beckett's mother deserved as well.

A mother deserved a voice, a chance to speak-

Had Castle ever. . .where was his mother now?

She had fifteen minutes to kill while she waited on Perlmutter to finish up; Lanie was out today, not sure why, and Perlmutter was always so exacting, so detailed. He hated to be interrupted.

And with time on her hands, and the prospect of her mother's case like a dark, swarming cloud, she purposefully ignored the gnats of questions buzzing in his ears. Instead she called up her web browser on her phone and started sifting through the New York Times archives of Broadway runs and lesser-known productions, hoping to hit on something. What had he told her? She was an actress; she left him at boarding school.

Beckett did some quick mental math, figured he was born in 1969 so that meant his mother left him at school in late 1974 when Castle was five years old, and then she never came back in spring of 1975 when school was out. Kate added 74-75 as a filter to her search and began scrolling through articles, not even sure what she was looking for.

She just knew that she - there had to be balance. The darkness swallowed her if she didn't find debris to cling to, something to keep her head above water.

So she was doing. . .this.

It was a needle in a haystack, but the haystack could keep her afloat.

Castle found her at her apartment, sunk down on the floor with the case spread around her. She had a carton of leftover Chinese food in one hand, but it looked like she was barely touching it.

She startled when he called her name, lifted her head to see him standing over her.

"How'd you get-" She stopped and grimaced; he held his hand out and she took it, letting him pull her to her feet. "Never mind. What'd you find?"

"Nothing yet. I wanted to see you."

Beckett's lips quirked and she touched his chest with her fingertips, picking at the buttons. "Wanted to see me, huh? See me naked more like."

He grinned wolfishly at her. "That too."

Beckett slid closer, popping his button open and laughing when he sucked in a breath. Castle drew an arm around her waist and dipped his mouth to hers.

She hummed, coming alive for him, and he tugged her shirt out of her pants. "Let's see some nakedness, huh, Beckett?"

"You first, Agent."

He sifted his hands up the bare skin of her back, around to the tensing of her stomach, and waited until her eyes darkened with need, with a desperation that was no longer focused on her mother's case, but on the path of his fingers across her flesh.

Castle refused to ask his father for help on this one; he manually created a search parameter, breaking out his old computer language code books when he ran up against a brick wall. It was messy and sloppy code, but it was getting the job done.

It'd take a couple of days longer using just his own server for the search and not the office's command center super computers. He wasn't used to that, but he could think of a few other things to follow up on while he waited.

He was officially on sabbatical, and his key card wasn't supposed to have access to the command center, but he slipped in behind Eastman as they were chatting and pulled out a portable keyboard from one row of servers.

Scanning the Department of Defense's inactive rosters was simple enough - finding what he needed in the long list was not.

Castle knew there were a couple of units that received the same black ops training as he'd been exposed to on the Afghan border, but it wasn't like DoD was going to actually label them clearly. He pinpointed a few likely candidates and memorized their designation numbers, then logged off the server.

He nodded to Eastman as he left, went back to his own cramped office where his desktop computer was running the forensic search. For just a moment, he saw his email program, narrowed his eyes at it.

Castle opened the program and groaned at the four hundred and eighteen new messages. He scanned the list and easily deleted the top twenty, paused at the subject line from the North Ireland office.

Foley

His finger was clicking it open before he could even think and he read the single line with a heavy heart.

Possible sighting at the airport, most likely headed to the US. Shit.

Castle rubbed his face and leaned back in the chair, letting out a long, controlled breath. Foley was out for blood.

All right. He could-

No.

Gritting his teeth, Castle forwarded it to Eastman. Foley was a ghost; it wasn't enough to pull Castle away from Beckett's mother's murder.

That decided, he popped open a clean laptop and began his file on the elite commandos. He needed to work, get this solved.

What he really wanted to do was drag Beckett out of the station and tie her up in his bed for a couple hours. It was usually the one thing they could both agree on, but he doubted she'd be willing to leave on a Thursday at two in the afternoon.

She wasn't the kind of woman who played hooky.

Too bad.

Oh, but last night, she'd slogged through a thunderstorm and showed up on his doorstep dripping wet, goose bumps erupting on her flesh as she'd stood there. He opened the door wider and she'd jumped him, her wet clothes soaking through his, her mouth hot and fierce even though her skin had been like ice.

She'd been crying, he knew, but he hadn't asked why. He knew that too - the case, the daunting void of having no answers for the last decade. He'd been tempted by the fragile set of her mouth - not to crush it against his own, but to speak. To give over everything, every suspicion, every damning clue.

But he'd cradled her face between his palms instead and pressed love into her eyelids, traced a path of refuge down her nose, brushed her lips with his tenderness. She'd mewled and clawed at his shirt, but he'd subsumed her franticness until she was still but terse beneath him, unhappy with herself for needing him.

He'd driven the resistance from her body with the sharp force of his own, but he knew he'd yet to drive it from her spirit.

Kate Beckett did not want to want him.

He wanted.

Uh-oh.

Kate tensed and opened her eyes, twisted her head on the pillow to see the man sleeping next to her.

Damn it; she'd done it again.

Castle was deeply asleep, but she knew the moment she twitched, he'd come awake - alert and conscious and aware. So very aware.

She swallowed and closed her eyes, tried to recreate the events of last night. She'd solved a case, gone home, drank some wine. . .

Not too much, not enough, really.

Her mother's case - all the mismatched pieces, all the evidence collected - had laid strewn on her living room floor. No matter what she did, Beckett couldn't make it fit; it didn't make sense. Castle's damn layers - his story. . .there was no story. She'd put the timeline back together, but not even that gave her any idea.

Last week, she'd spiraled down into that bleak hopelessness, had needed to breathe, had needed to escape, and she'd walked out of her apartment in the middle of a thunderstorm and wound up at his door, Castle both breath and refuge.

But this time? Last night? What had done it? What sent her over the edge and toppling into his bed?

Her mother's case and. . .

She had no idea; she'd just come. And now here she was, trapped in his bed when she'd get a call for a body at any moment, plans she'd made for this morning now ruined, promises to herself to not need him broken-

"Mm, Kate."

She opened her eyes and saw the sleepy allure in his, felt his fingers skim her hip and circle her belly button. She hitched in a breath and blinked, curled into him without completely knowing she was doing it.

Castle hummed and lazily explored her back with that hand, his eyes fixated on her mouth as they drew closer.

"Hurry up and kiss me," she demanded, heard the raw tone to her voice.

"Made you scream last night," he smiled, lips brushing hers softly, too softly. "Made you beg."

"I hate you," she moaned, slipped her tongue between his lips, breathed with him.

"I know you do," he murmured. "I hate you too."

And the way he said it, oh help, the way he touched her - she knew it was entirely the opposite.

Before she could panic, his mouth was trailing down, fingers teasing, and she was left breathless and stunned, spread before him.

Castle laughed, lying on his stomach, and squirmed away from her touch, deeper into the sheets, but Beckett followed, half-draped over his back.

"What's this one?" she murmured, her mouth burning on his shoulder.

"Scar."

"Yes, but how'd you get it?" Her teeth scraped and he grunted, his arm twisting behind him to snag her hip.

"You're relentless."

"Mm, and you're tasty." Her tongue traced the edges and he shivered. He wasn't supposed to say - there were things people should never know, but he loved how she teased, loved the amusement in her voice, loved hearing her come back from that uncertain darkness.

"Plane crash over the Channel," he murmured.

She paused in her exploration, her fingertips brushing over the diagonal scar that bisected his shoulder blade. "Plane crash," she sighed.

Really, anything more was tantamount to betraying-

"Looks deep." It was definitely a question.

"I was - bailing out as it went down."

Her palm pressed to the scar like she was sealing it tight. "Glad you made it. Hitting the water - wicked g-forces there, Castle."

"Mm, true." He sighed and turned over, caught her around the shoulders, his fingers tangling in her hair. "You interrogating me, Beckett?"

"Possibly."

He huffed and lifted his mouth to kiss her but she backed away, fingers stroking his collarbone, a wicked look in her eyes.

He groaned, dropped his head. "What else do you wanna know?"

"You bailed out and-?"

"Well, jeez, that's kinda the climax of the story there, Beckett. See I was in a cargo plane smuggling blood diamonds to a financier in Paris-"

"Bullshit."

He laughed, bringing his hands up to cup her shoulder blades. "You don't believe me? I've got the South Africa sector, but. . .events often take me to Europe."

"Blood diamonds."

"Yes."

"I swear you're lying," she said, narrowing her eyes at him.

Damn, she was good. "All right. No blood diamonds. But I can't tell you what was on that cargo plane."

She must've seen it on his face because she lowered her mouth to his, brushed a kiss over his lips. "Okay. A mysterious cargo. A secret agent. A moonless night over the English channel."

"How do you know there was no moon that night?"

"If you'd been able to see, Castle, you wouldn't have gotten hurt."

He palmed her cheek, thumb stroking over the graceful line of her bone structure. "They put up a fight when I tried to detonate a bomb."

Her eyebrow arched in silent command for him to continue. She was gorgeous - a tensile strength that made him want her all over again.

"On the runway - back in North Ireland - it didn't go off like it should have. I stowed away, worked at getting all the wires back in place, and they found me."

"Oh?"

"Not before I reset the timer," he grinned slowly, curling his fingers in her hair to tug her down close. Her lashes brushed his nose; he could fee her breath move through her lungs. Was she nervous for him?

"How long did you give yourself?"

"Five minutes. Not-"

"-long enough?" she finished. "I should think not."

"I'd just subdued the two - ah-"

"Security guards?" she supplied.

He smirked. In a manner of speaking. "Very good. The two security guards. I'd just escaped with my life-"

"Mm, how dramatic," she murmured, her breath spilling out in a laugh against his cheek.

"I know, right? It's the life of a spy." He grinned against her skin, slipped his hand down her back, squeezing. She arched into him with a gasping laugh, nipped at his bottom lip.

"Keep going, Castle. I wanna hear how this riveting story ends."

"I already told you - I snagged a parachute, ripped open the door, and then the bomb went off. Blew me out, shrapnel caught me as I came down."

"You are a terrible storyteller," she sighed, but her mouth settled over his and her hand drifted down in reward.