castle fanfiction, castle/beckett - ring out, wild bells [3/3].
Ring Out, Wild Bells (3/3)
Author's Notes: This is part three, read part one here or part two here.
It takes them several days to work through their list of potential suspects. Most are not very pleased at being disturbed by the police during the holidays. One of them even says so, loudly and in a sentence peppered with colourful descriptors. Castle writes some of them down for his latest book. They have just one suspect left to interview, and so far they've made no progress.
Ryan and Esposito are both back in by the Monday after Christmas but by New Year's Eve they've exhausted all other avenues of investigation.
They began a review of all the files Castle pulled without her permission hoping to find something they've missed. She looked over the file of their only elusive suspect. Castle, bored with his assigned task, invaded her personal space in order to read over her shoulder.
"Interesting," she remarked, almost to herself, "This guy's been in prison for 22 years, including time served during his trial. He was released in November."
Castle looked at the trial dates, "The final verdict was given around the same time as our victim and his old friend fall off the map."
"He was in jail for a sexual assault and murder," she continued his thought, "Of a college girl, who was stabbed. He was convicted on the basis of testimony from two high school seniors who witnessed the stabbing. They called an ambulance but she was pronounced dead in the ER on arrival."
"Two high school seniors?" Castle asked.
"Yeah, about the right age," Beckett snapped her head to look at him and found herself closer to his face than she anticipated. She sucked in a breath.
"We need to call the US Marshals," she managed, standing quickly. Castle followed her without a word of explanation.
"I love it when mum and dad do that," Ryan said to Esposito.
"I don't," Esposito grumbled, "I never have the slightest clue what's going on."
The US Marshals were still trying to locate the files they had requested, and Beckett wasn't sure if they were being toyed with or if there was a genuine hold up locating the records. A 20-year-old case was probably in paper storage, and she'd seen the NYPD's filing system, or lack thereof, so she knew the latter was a distinct possibility.
She continued reading Sal William's rap sheet. "Great guy," she tossed the file in Castle's direction when she was done, "Career criminal. Mostly petty theft and minor scams. Mob ties though, which might explain why two witnesses at his trial disappear after it was over. And how he copped a suspiciously lenient sentence."
"Did you run the names of the witnesses?" he asked.
She nodded, "It might be a coincidence, but I've got a strong feeling it isn't."
"What now?"
"Now," she picked up the receiver and began making a call, "We put out an APB and call the halfway house listed as Sal's last known address. He must be around. He met with his parole officer last Wednesday. And then we wait."
"No we don't," Ryan corrected her, emerging with Esposito in tow. "Just got a call from cops out on Long Island. They've got Henderson in custody."
---
Castle was leaning back in his chair in the interrogation room, letting it rest on two legs. Beckett opened and slammed the door that he jumped and nearly fell of his chair. This nervousness on his part seemed to make Henderson look a lot more jumpy, if that were possible.
"Mr Henderson," she greeted the suspect in a measured tone that gave Castle the distinct impression of a cobra about to strike. "I'm your new best friend."
The businessman looked as though he seriously doubted that.
"Which is lucky," she continued, "Because your old best friend is dead. Jake Littleton," she slapped the victim's photograph in front of him.
Henderson didn't react at the mention of Littleton's name.
"And I've got to say, Mr Henderson, I like you for it."
Henderson didn't say a word.
"I've got a witness that says she saw you arguing with Mr Littleton the week before he was brutally murdered. And phone records indicate that you were the last person to talk to him alive. You disappeared around the time of his murder. And I've got a partial DNA profile left at the scene, which I'd be willing to bet money matches yours. That's a lot of evidence pointing the finger at you."
Castle hid a proud smile and thought, atta girl. Henderson's eyes darted left and right, appraising the situation.
"And I'm your only way out," she leaned forward across the table. "Co-operate, answer my questions, and I'll put in a good word with the DA's office."
Henderson met her eyes suddenly, the mask of nervousness completely gone. "You've got nothing on me," he informed them.
"We'll just see about that when I get that warrant for your DNA sample. Or, if you're so sure, why not just give me a sample now?"
"Because then you'd turn me loose wouldn't you?"
"No reason to hold an innocent man."
The suspect didn't reply.
"So, you were sleeping with Emily Littleton, the wife of an old friend," she went for the obvious, "Is that why you killed him? Because Emily wouldn't leave him for you?"
Henderson remained composed, poker-faced.
"Come on Steve," Beckett rapped against the table with her knuckles, startling the man sitting opposite them, "You don't want to be this guy. You don't want to be the guy who didn't co-operate. Help me out here."
"I want a lawyer," the suspect folded his arms.
Beckett cursed under her breath on the way out the door.
---
"Bring Emily back in for questioning," she instructed Ryan and Esposito, "And keep Henderson in holding. If he wants a lawyer, he's entitled to one but I'm beginning to think there's a possibility he's guilty after all."
She noticed Castle's face fall in her peripheral vision. "Too pedestrian," he told her as Ryan and Esposito made their way to the stairs.
"If it looks like a duck and sounds like a duck," she held up her hands.
"He's not necessarily guilty. I agree, something doesn't add up here. But he wasn't exactly scared when you brought up the DNA."
"True."
"I like the mobster for it," Castle fingered the file thoughtfully. "Mostly because it would involve secret identities and a bloodthirsty quest for revenge."
"You know how things are in the real world Castle."
She added Sal Williams' photo to the murder board though, with a question mark above it. "Until we hear back from the Marshals, I'm going to stick with the suspect I have. We'll go at him again once someone comes down from the public defender's office."
"Seriously? Rich guy like him going with a public defender?"
She shrugged, "Maybe the tax scandal cleaned him out."
She tried the Marshals again, but got an automated message.
About forty minutes later, when Castle was making faces at Henderson through the one-way glass, her cell rang. "Beckett."
"It's Esposito," the detective told her, "We're at Emily Littleton's house and she's not here. I think you'd better send CSU out here. There are signs of a struggle."
"Got it," Beckett ended the call and sat with a grim look on her face for a moment, considering their next move.
Castle wandered over and saw her face, "What's wrong?"
"Emily Littleton is missing," she filled him in. Instead of the I told you so she was half-expecting, his face fell. "And the public defender's here. I think it's time we re-questioned Mr Henderson."
He nodded and followed her into the interrogation room.
The public defender voiced her objections, wanting more time to confer with her client, but Beckett pressed on anyway. She was willing to bet her badge on Henderson's innocence, especially since Esposito had said it was likely Emily's abduction had happened recently.
"Emily Littleton is missing," she told Henderson, flatly, "Presumed abducted. Now if you didn't kill Jake Littleton now is the time to speak up, because if his killer is still out there, there's a good chance he's the one behind Emily's disappearance. I'm sure I can find something other than murder to hold you for," she thought for a moment, "Other than for the fact that I really don't like you."
Castle saw the change in Henderson's face when she told him Emily was missing. Beckett had hit a nerve.
"Ok," Henderson held up his hands.
The public defender warned him not to admit his guilt.
"I didn't kill Jake. I probably got him killed, but I didn't lay a finger on him. A few weeks back, I got in my car to leave work and Sal's sitting in the back with a knife pressed to the back of my neck. Sal's a pro, I know he knows how to use it... wait, hang on, I'm getting ahead of myself."
He paused, "Senior year of high school and my friend Jeremy and I are walking down a deserted street in Newark late at night. We're walking past an alley when we hear what sounded like sex noises, whimpering girl, grunting man so, being the idiot teenagers that we are, we hide behind a dumpster and decide to make dumb ass comments. Except, in the mean time, we hear Sal telling this girl he's going to kill her if she screams, if she doesn't stop struggling. We can see through the gap between the wall and the dumpster, Sal's got a hand over her mouth and a knife to her throat."
"Jeremy wanted to say something, he mimed that, but I told him he was crazy, told him to keep is mouth shut. Then, next thing you know, Sal's stabbing this girl and tossing a condom in the dumpster and we're shitting ourselves hoping he doesn't see us. I ran to the nearest pay phone and called 911 and Jeremy tried to stop the bleeding. But she dies. And Sal, dear old Sal, gets done for it because Jeremy and I testify at his trial. But then our lives are turned upside down. I was going to Iowa State with a football scholarship, now I'm going to UC Santa Barbara. Jeremy was going to Wesleyan then Harvard Law, now he's suddenly going to UT Austin. We have different names, different identities. Our parents are told they can never contact us again. Hell, we're told we can't contact each other again."
"But that's ok, because I really liked Santa Cruz, and I built a business empire in LA then in New York. I meet a girl who works in my office, Emily - who I think is unmarried. Well, you know how that turns out. As soon as I realised who she was married to I ended it. Jeremy, Jake, whoever, when I saw him in those pictures, I recognised him immediately. Then the tax scandal breaks, then Sal's in my car, threatening me, saying he's going to kill me if I don't tell him where Jeremy is. I freaked out, I told him. I was a coward. I should have," he put his head in his hands and spoke to the table, "If I'd just kept my mouth shut, Emily and Jeremy'd probably still be safe, at home. God," he looked up and met first Castle's eyes, then Beckett's.
"I sold out my childhood best friend to a criminal who commits crimes for, as far as I can tell, fun. I tried to warn him. That's when we had the argument in his office Detective, I told him Sal was out and he was coming after us and he called me crazy. Told me we weren't meant to be in contact. He ignored me. Until Tuesday. He called to apologise, said he wanted to hear my side of the story. We met in the Garment District around five on Tuesday afternoon. After that, I decided to go missing, had my secretary call it in. I've been lying low, hoping Sal would get bored or go back to the bighouse for another crime. But then he calls me and tells me he's going after Emily if he can't get to me and," he ran his hand through his hair, "I can't let that happen. Emily's ... Emily just lights up a room, you know? And she knows nothing about it."
"So that's it, Detective, that's what I know. I was meant to meet him in the city this afternoon, but your boys got to me first. And now he's done it, he's got her."
Kate Beckett felt incredibly calm as the last pieces of the puzzle fell into place.
"I'll hold you just in case you're Keyser Söze in all this," she told Steven Henderson. "But we'll do the best we can to find Emily."
"Ryan, Esposito," she called, pushing open the door to the interrogation room, "Contact Emily's cell provider. Let's see if she's got a GPS tracker in her cell."
---
It was the one break they caught on the case. Emily's cell was somewhere in the vicinity of a storage facility just around the corner from where her husband's body was found. An explanation for that comes to mind as Beckett and Castle get out of the car, "We're just blocks from his halfway house," she mused. "Which is why his parole officer or the house staff don't suspect anything - he's just ducking out to commit major crimes, then going back and keeping a low profile."
Castle nodded.
"Stay behind me," she warned, "I know I always say it, but you ignore most of everything else I say."
He held up his hands, "Trust me, in this situation, I want to be behind the people with the guns."
She nodded. Ryan and Esposito were co-ordinating with their back up.
"We have to try to figure out which storage unit he's in," she unfurled a plan of the building. "The ones the owner has checked recently are marked."
A scream echoed from the opposite corner of the facility. Beckett ran in the general direction of the noise.
"Well that makes it easy," Castle quipped, running after her.
She figured their best bet was the element of surprise. She gestured for the team to stand back and her boot connected with the door with a satisfying bang. Inside, the storage unit was dark but illuminated in the small pool of light from the corridor was Sal Williams. Emily Littleton made a run for it. Sal decided to take a shot, and that was when Beckett first registered that he had a gun, when the bullet meant for his captive hit her square in the chest.
Stunned, she fell backward onto her wrists. Esposito took a quick shot as the killer tried to run, hitting him in his trigger arm. Castle just stood back and tried not to get in the way of anybody's bullets, at least until Ryan was cuffing their murder suspect and placing a little too much pressure on the bullet hole. Esposito gestured for Castle to check Beckett for injuries while he went in search of Emily Littleton.
Castle looked as dazed as she felt when he crouched beside her. She blinked at him, trying to tell him she was fine, but finding herself still incredibly winded by the impact. His fingers loosened the flattened round from the kevlar, then returned to her stomach, as though he didn't quite believe she hadn't actually been shot. He finally thought to check her pulse and she was in the middle of making a mental note to make him do her next first-aid course with her when the fingers pressing against her neck started pulling instead of pressing. That's not right, she thought.
And, before she realised what was happening, he leant over and kissed her, ever so briefly, on the mouth. Her physiological response made it an ill-advised move to pull on someone who was trying to catch her breath.
"When you try and chew me out for that later, I'm going to claim you passed out and required resuscitation," he told her.
She looked incredulous.
"Any excuse will do," she finally managed to choke out, but she let the moment linger, not thinking to push away from him until Esposito started calling to them from the door, "Beckett all right?"
"She needs to see the paramedics," Castle responded, on her behalf, but that might have been just as well because she was still trying to process the exact order of events. Her fingers found her lips.
She narrowed her eyes when his words sunk in, "I'm fine Castle. He got me in the vest."
"Yeah, and the impact can still break ribs or cause internal bleeding."
She should have expected him to have done his homework.
"Fine," she rolled her eyes, "They can check me out here and if they say so, we'll go to the hospital. But I don't need an ambulance. You can drive me."
"Esposito, Beckett definitely needs medical attention," Castle joked, "She just agreed to let me drive."
The next few hours were a whirlwind. The vest had protected her from any serious injuries. She was going to have one hell of a bruise come the next day, and she had fallen on her wrist at an odd angle but other than a her arm in a sling and a tenderness in her ribs, she was, medically speaking, in the clear. Her pride, too, had only suffered minor damage though she was a little embarrassed at being the One Who Got Shot. ("Can't take her anywhere," she could imagine Ryan quipping to Esposito.)
Josh came to see her at the hospital while she was waiting to be discharged. Castle had disappeared to help Ryan and Esposito fill in the Captain and, on her orders, to check on Emily Littleton. Ever one to overanalyse a situation, her mind had been replaying the events of the past few hours on loop since she'd been left alone in the hospital bed. And while she had firmly decided that it was just a kiss, a kiss bestowed when Castle had been on an adrenaline high and she'd been too stunned to protest, she also knew that Josh probably wouldn't see it that way. And that wasn't fair.
(Besides, there was some part of her that had decided it wouldn't be so bad if Castle kissed her again. But she wasn't getting her hopes up. God, she was tired.)
She had a brief conversation with the doctor while he glanced over her chart. They'd managed to end it by the time he was done with the results of her X-rays (which were clear). He took it as she expected he would, expressing disappointment but wishing her the best. He'd had to run off to answer a page in the middle of a sentence.
Castle was the bearer of good news and gifts. "Ooh, is that food?" her stomach growled at the smell.
"Two cheeseburgers, onion rings and extra fries," he confirmed, "Thought you might be hungry and given the commotion out there, I think we might be waiting a while for that nurse to come back with your paperwork."
She shrugged and tore into the bag with her good arm. She stopped, a handful of fries halfway to her mouth, and said, "How's Emily?"
"Just in shock," he settled himself beside her on the bed, fast food in between them, "They've got her on fluids and they're keeping her overnight to be safe, but she'll be fine to go home in the morning. The Marshals have already got her under guard. It seems her and Steve will be entering the witness protection program for round two."
"Hmm, did you ask her what name she'd pick?" she asked, remembering their earlier conversation.
"Think she's going to go with Katherine," he grinned slyly.
"And how much of a hand did you have in that partner?" she began the complicated process of unwrapping her burger one handed. He reached over and did it for her, depositing it in her hand.
"I may have extolled your virtues at her bedside, once the doctors said it was ok for her to have visitors."
She shook her head.
"Anyway, the full story is pretty much what we figured. Sal, being the fine upstanding citizen that he is, decided all he wanted from Christmas was revenge. Given the high profile scandal surrounding Henderson's company, his photo was in a few papers recently. Sal saw him, tracked him down and threatened to kill him. Henderson sold out Littleton, Sal killed Littleton, then used Emily, who had been involved with both men, to draw out Henderson. We picked him up, and you know the rest."
"So the affair was just happenstance?" she punctuated her sentence with a mouthful.
"For the most part. When Henderson realised Emily was Jake's wife he broke off the affair. Witness protection had told them not to have any contact after their new identities were given out."
"Witness protection also should have made sure Henderson's photo didn't make the front page," she commented.
"True, but as you said, it was a twenty-year old case. Who would've thought it would be a problem?"
"So, case closed?" she concluded, hopefully.
"Ryan and Esposito took care of your paperwork. It's under the bag. It'll need your signature but they'll stop by and pick it up, run it by the precinct. One of them is going to have to take your car back."
She looked down at her wrist and frowned.
Castle busied himself with the onion rings and they ate in silence for several minutes.
"Josh came by," she said, casually.
"Oh?"
She shrugged, chewing and swallowing before continuing, "We decided it was best to focus on our respective careers at the moment. Could you get me some of my Coke please?"
He held the straw to her lips so she could drink.
She gave him a suggestive look with the straw in her mouth and he decided not to pry. It was, he concluded for one of the first times in their acquaintance, none of his business.
---
The traffic in Manhattan was gridlocked. It was an hour to midnight on New Year's Eve. She had to reorientate herself so her good arm was facing the traffic in order to hail a cab, a process which took approximately three times longer than on a normal night.
"I'm going with you," he told her as they stood in the street, "And don't even think of arguing with me. I thought you were dead for a second back there and you're stuck with me until I'm convinced you're going to stay alive."
She waved him off with her good hand, "I'm fine Castle. I'll still be here tomorrow."
"Tomorrow's not that far away," he reminded her. "At least let me make sure you welcome in the New Year safe in your own home." He took her lack of refusal as the acceptance it was.
She pulled her injured arm closer around her middle and changed the subject. "It's freezing out here."
He shrugged of his coat, draping it over her shoulders. She regarded him with an amused expression, "Where have you been hiding this chivalrous side Castle?"
He let his hands linger, "You don't like to be taken care of Kate Beckett."
"No," she corrected him, finally succeeding in her quest to hail a cab, "I don't need to be taken care of. There's a difference."
They made most of the journey in silence, both looking out the windows lost in thought. Castle texted Alexis, and his cell buzzed to announce her replies. He wordlessly handed her the device so she good see the good wishes of his mother and daughter. She smiled. The lack of conversation was easy, rather than awkward.
He refused to let her pay, something that bothered her independent streak, but she was wearing his coat so she subtly left half the fare in the right pocket. If he noticed, he didn't comment. He had never seen her new apartment. It felt different from the first time he had insinuated himself into the old one. She wanted him to see it, and that was tied up with the past - the explosion, him returning her father's watch, the two nights she'd slept in his spare room - and the present. She wasn't sure which made it harder. She babbled about it not being finished as she turned the key in the lock and struggled to open the door one-handed. He reached around her, offering one of his hands to help her, turning the door handle. His fingers brushed against her hip as he withdrew them.
He took it in with an appraising look, "It's starting to look like it's really yours."
She nodded, "I had to go up to my father's and raid the family photo albums to replace some of the pictures."
(That had been a cathartic experience. Neither she nor her father had really bothered to go through the family albums when he moved out of her childhood home. They had been packed in boxes in the bottom of a closet in the spare room for nearly five years when she went looking for pictures of her family. They were dusty. But it was one of the few times she remembered the happiness of her childhood unadulterated by the absence of Johanna in her adult life. She had cried, but not with regret.)
He seemed to sense that the new apartment was symbolic of some greater paradigm shift. For one, there were a lot more photographs.
"It occurred to me over the summer," she said, returning from the kitchen where she had deposited the bag containing the medication she had been given for the pain and catching him fingering a picture of her and Lanie laughing at the mocking face Esposito was making behind an oblivious Ryan. "I've spent so much of my life forgetting things. And I have good memories, of my mother and my childhood, everything. I don't want to be the sort of person who forgets the good things."
He didn't say anything for a minute, "Life is about the moments, the little things in between the big things."
"Promise me you'll keep a straight face when I ask you for a favour," she suddenly felt incredibly relaxed, "Can you help me change out of this shirt?"
"Thought you'd never ask," to his credit, he did say it with an incredibly straight face.
"Just the shirt Castle, I can do the rest," she narrowed her eyes. "And if you say that's what she said, I still have one good arm."
It was the first time he'd seen her bedroom. He lingered in the doorway while she rummaged in the drawer for a T-shirt. When she righted herself, she was smirking, amused. "What's the matter with you? The Castle I know would be in here trying to find the skeletons in the closet."
"Well I couldn't properly snoop in front of you," he offered half-heartedly. "But mostly, I don't want to me anywhere I'm unwelcome. I... I've been trying harder to respect your boundaries, your privacy."
"It's like you're a vampire and I have to offer you a formal invitation," she joked. "Come, you can't help from over there."
That piqued his curiousity. "Why Detective Beckett, please tell me you haven't fallen victim of Twilight?"
"Please Castle," she rolled her eyes, "I'd have thought you'd at least have given me the benefit of the doubt and pegged me for a Laurell K Hamilton girl."
She stood with her back to him and threw the T-shirt down on her bed. With her good hand she began pulling up the blue shirt she was wearing. He sucked in a breath and decided it would be best to keep conversation neutral when he reached out to assist her.
"Funny story about Twilight. Alexis read the first one, and I may have given it a parental appraisal, to make sure it was appropriate for her age group."
She laughed quietly, which hurt in her chest but not too much to make her stop. "A likely story. Was it as bad as it sounds?"
"Worse," he was studying the pattern on her duvet cover trying to avert all his attention from the fact that she was half-naked and he might even be able to get away with kissing her shoulder. God. He wanted to.
"Castle," she turned around to face him. Oh, this was not going to end well, he thought. "Can you help me re-dress now?"
He grinned. "Usually it's more of a one way service I offer."
Her first mistake was not backing away. There was something appealing about the scenario he described, and she was already using most of her remaining mental resources trying to ignore the way his fingers had felt against the curve of her waist when he was helping her undress. She should have thought of a quicker retort, should have rolled her eyes, should have something. Instead she wet her lips, subconsciously, and may or may not have leant towards him.
He reached out and let his hand rest against her cheek. "God."
She closed her eyes. "Help me with the shirt," she said, evenly, "This is." She didn't finish the sentence.
"Open your eyes," he was holding the sleeve out so she could slip it over her injured arm without moving it.
Re-clothed, she sat on the edge of the bed, trying to shake off the moment.
"You're beautiful," he told her with an earnestness and vulnerability that surprised her a little. She patted the space beside her. He sat. They'd been moving towards it for so long, it was a shock to find herself suddenly at a standstill.
"Maybe we should talk," she said. It had been a long time coming.
"Thought you might eventually get around to saying that," he nudged her good shoulder.
"Castle," she was willing him to be serious.
"I'm not sorry I kissed you," he declared.
"I'm not asking you to apologise."
"So. What now?"
"I don't know," she curled her good hand into a fist against her jeans. "I feel like we just got here, you know? I mean, you left and when you came back, things were different."
"I didn't know you were going to break up with Demming," he was completely honest with her. It was terrifying moment.
"In your defence, neither did I," she admitted.
"He made you happy."
"But he didn't make me mad."
"That's usually considered a good thing," he informed her pleasantly.
"He was... nice, he was all the things I should have liked, and I did but," she trailed off, tapping her foot against the carpet nervously. "There are so many things about you that infuriate me," it was a roundabout way of saying it, but he wouldn't have expected any less, "But here we are, in spite of all that."
"I didn't ever mean to hurt you," he figured he might as well go all-in. "I know I have. More than once. But I have always only ever wanted you to be happy."
She nodded. "But why Gina? Why your ex-wife?"
"The devil you know?" he was guessing, "I don't know. You said no."
"No," she shook her head, "I didn't say yes."
"Somewhere, a feminist rolled over in her grave."
That comment earned him a solid pinch that still stung even through layers of clothing.
"Why," she studiously avoided his eyes, "Why did you wait until I was with someone else?"
"The timing was never right. Well," he conceded, "We had our moments. But you would have shot me down, possibly literally, if I'd acted like any other guy. Which I resented, by the way."
She smiled distractedly, her focus still on the conversation at hand, "I never thought you were serious. It's one thing to treat me differently to," she paused, "The Ellie Munroe's of your acquaintance, but at some point, if it was what you wanted, I had to be like any other woman."
"But you're not," he made the jump to present tense, "And you know what they say. Twice bitten, once shy."
"That's not what they say Castle, and besides, what makes you think I'd bite?" she raised an eyebrow.
He smirked, "I'm not sure I'd mind if you did."
"That's not what I meant," she allowed herself to flirt, "But I'm sure it could be arranged." She adopted a more serious tone again almost instantly, "But you just said it, we're different. We're different. I would never intentionally hurt you," she tightened her fingers around his, "Whatever else, you've somehow managed, against all my reason and better judgement, to become my friend."
"We can't go back you know," he said, so close she could feel his breath on her face. She wondered what he meant by that.
"Why are you so sure we'd want to?" she breathed over his mouth, caught between her own uncertainty and a burning desire to know what it would be like to really kiss him, without extenuating circumstances, without work, with just them. It wasn't often she let herself stop thinking enough to be completely in a moment. Maybe it was the hospital-strength painkillers at work, but she felt dangerously close to giving in.
"I'm not," he answered, inches above her lips, his free hand reaching out to play with her hair.
"Neither am I," she confessed, "And that's what scares me the most."
"I'm going to kiss you now," he told her. "Resist your urge to slap me with your good arm afterwards."
And he did.
The clock ticked over to midnight and brought the calendar with it but they didn't notice until five minutes too late.
---
Author's Notes: This is part three, read part one here or part two here.
It takes them several days to work through their list of potential suspects. Most are not very pleased at being disturbed by the police during the holidays. One of them even says so, loudly and in a sentence peppered with colourful descriptors. Castle writes some of them down for his latest book. They have just one suspect left to interview, and so far they've made no progress.
Ryan and Esposito are both back in by the Monday after Christmas but by New Year's Eve they've exhausted all other avenues of investigation.
They began a review of all the files Castle pulled without her permission hoping to find something they've missed. She looked over the file of their only elusive suspect. Castle, bored with his assigned task, invaded her personal space in order to read over her shoulder.
"Interesting," she remarked, almost to herself, "This guy's been in prison for 22 years, including time served during his trial. He was released in November."
Castle looked at the trial dates, "The final verdict was given around the same time as our victim and his old friend fall off the map."
"He was in jail for a sexual assault and murder," she continued his thought, "Of a college girl, who was stabbed. He was convicted on the basis of testimony from two high school seniors who witnessed the stabbing. They called an ambulance but she was pronounced dead in the ER on arrival."
"Two high school seniors?" Castle asked.
"Yeah, about the right age," Beckett snapped her head to look at him and found herself closer to his face than she anticipated. She sucked in a breath.
"We need to call the US Marshals," she managed, standing quickly. Castle followed her without a word of explanation.
"I love it when mum and dad do that," Ryan said to Esposito.
"I don't," Esposito grumbled, "I never have the slightest clue what's going on."
The US Marshals were still trying to locate the files they had requested, and Beckett wasn't sure if they were being toyed with or if there was a genuine hold up locating the records. A 20-year-old case was probably in paper storage, and she'd seen the NYPD's filing system, or lack thereof, so she knew the latter was a distinct possibility.
She continued reading Sal William's rap sheet. "Great guy," she tossed the file in Castle's direction when she was done, "Career criminal. Mostly petty theft and minor scams. Mob ties though, which might explain why two witnesses at his trial disappear after it was over. And how he copped a suspiciously lenient sentence."
"Did you run the names of the witnesses?" he asked.
She nodded, "It might be a coincidence, but I've got a strong feeling it isn't."
"What now?"
"Now," she picked up the receiver and began making a call, "We put out an APB and call the halfway house listed as Sal's last known address. He must be around. He met with his parole officer last Wednesday. And then we wait."
"No we don't," Ryan corrected her, emerging with Esposito in tow. "Just got a call from cops out on Long Island. They've got Henderson in custody."
---
Castle was leaning back in his chair in the interrogation room, letting it rest on two legs. Beckett opened and slammed the door that he jumped and nearly fell of his chair. This nervousness on his part seemed to make Henderson look a lot more jumpy, if that were possible.
"Mr Henderson," she greeted the suspect in a measured tone that gave Castle the distinct impression of a cobra about to strike. "I'm your new best friend."
The businessman looked as though he seriously doubted that.
"Which is lucky," she continued, "Because your old best friend is dead. Jake Littleton," she slapped the victim's photograph in front of him.
Henderson didn't react at the mention of Littleton's name.
"And I've got to say, Mr Henderson, I like you for it."
Henderson didn't say a word.
"I've got a witness that says she saw you arguing with Mr Littleton the week before he was brutally murdered. And phone records indicate that you were the last person to talk to him alive. You disappeared around the time of his murder. And I've got a partial DNA profile left at the scene, which I'd be willing to bet money matches yours. That's a lot of evidence pointing the finger at you."
Castle hid a proud smile and thought, atta girl. Henderson's eyes darted left and right, appraising the situation.
"And I'm your only way out," she leaned forward across the table. "Co-operate, answer my questions, and I'll put in a good word with the DA's office."
Henderson met her eyes suddenly, the mask of nervousness completely gone. "You've got nothing on me," he informed them.
"We'll just see about that when I get that warrant for your DNA sample. Or, if you're so sure, why not just give me a sample now?"
"Because then you'd turn me loose wouldn't you?"
"No reason to hold an innocent man."
The suspect didn't reply.
"So, you were sleeping with Emily Littleton, the wife of an old friend," she went for the obvious, "Is that why you killed him? Because Emily wouldn't leave him for you?"
Henderson remained composed, poker-faced.
"Come on Steve," Beckett rapped against the table with her knuckles, startling the man sitting opposite them, "You don't want to be this guy. You don't want to be the guy who didn't co-operate. Help me out here."
"I want a lawyer," the suspect folded his arms.
Beckett cursed under her breath on the way out the door.
---
"Bring Emily back in for questioning," she instructed Ryan and Esposito, "And keep Henderson in holding. If he wants a lawyer, he's entitled to one but I'm beginning to think there's a possibility he's guilty after all."
She noticed Castle's face fall in her peripheral vision. "Too pedestrian," he told her as Ryan and Esposito made their way to the stairs.
"If it looks like a duck and sounds like a duck," she held up her hands.
"He's not necessarily guilty. I agree, something doesn't add up here. But he wasn't exactly scared when you brought up the DNA."
"True."
"I like the mobster for it," Castle fingered the file thoughtfully. "Mostly because it would involve secret identities and a bloodthirsty quest for revenge."
"You know how things are in the real world Castle."
She added Sal Williams' photo to the murder board though, with a question mark above it. "Until we hear back from the Marshals, I'm going to stick with the suspect I have. We'll go at him again once someone comes down from the public defender's office."
"Seriously? Rich guy like him going with a public defender?"
She shrugged, "Maybe the tax scandal cleaned him out."
She tried the Marshals again, but got an automated message.
About forty minutes later, when Castle was making faces at Henderson through the one-way glass, her cell rang. "Beckett."
"It's Esposito," the detective told her, "We're at Emily Littleton's house and she's not here. I think you'd better send CSU out here. There are signs of a struggle."
"Got it," Beckett ended the call and sat with a grim look on her face for a moment, considering their next move.
Castle wandered over and saw her face, "What's wrong?"
"Emily Littleton is missing," she filled him in. Instead of the I told you so she was half-expecting, his face fell. "And the public defender's here. I think it's time we re-questioned Mr Henderson."
He nodded and followed her into the interrogation room.
The public defender voiced her objections, wanting more time to confer with her client, but Beckett pressed on anyway. She was willing to bet her badge on Henderson's innocence, especially since Esposito had said it was likely Emily's abduction had happened recently.
"Emily Littleton is missing," she told Henderson, flatly, "Presumed abducted. Now if you didn't kill Jake Littleton now is the time to speak up, because if his killer is still out there, there's a good chance he's the one behind Emily's disappearance. I'm sure I can find something other than murder to hold you for," she thought for a moment, "Other than for the fact that I really don't like you."
Castle saw the change in Henderson's face when she told him Emily was missing. Beckett had hit a nerve.
"Ok," Henderson held up his hands.
The public defender warned him not to admit his guilt.
"I didn't kill Jake. I probably got him killed, but I didn't lay a finger on him. A few weeks back, I got in my car to leave work and Sal's sitting in the back with a knife pressed to the back of my neck. Sal's a pro, I know he knows how to use it... wait, hang on, I'm getting ahead of myself."
He paused, "Senior year of high school and my friend Jeremy and I are walking down a deserted street in Newark late at night. We're walking past an alley when we hear what sounded like sex noises, whimpering girl, grunting man so, being the idiot teenagers that we are, we hide behind a dumpster and decide to make dumb ass comments. Except, in the mean time, we hear Sal telling this girl he's going to kill her if she screams, if she doesn't stop struggling. We can see through the gap between the wall and the dumpster, Sal's got a hand over her mouth and a knife to her throat."
"Jeremy wanted to say something, he mimed that, but I told him he was crazy, told him to keep is mouth shut. Then, next thing you know, Sal's stabbing this girl and tossing a condom in the dumpster and we're shitting ourselves hoping he doesn't see us. I ran to the nearest pay phone and called 911 and Jeremy tried to stop the bleeding. But she dies. And Sal, dear old Sal, gets done for it because Jeremy and I testify at his trial. But then our lives are turned upside down. I was going to Iowa State with a football scholarship, now I'm going to UC Santa Barbara. Jeremy was going to Wesleyan then Harvard Law, now he's suddenly going to UT Austin. We have different names, different identities. Our parents are told they can never contact us again. Hell, we're told we can't contact each other again."
"But that's ok, because I really liked Santa Cruz, and I built a business empire in LA then in New York. I meet a girl who works in my office, Emily - who I think is unmarried. Well, you know how that turns out. As soon as I realised who she was married to I ended it. Jeremy, Jake, whoever, when I saw him in those pictures, I recognised him immediately. Then the tax scandal breaks, then Sal's in my car, threatening me, saying he's going to kill me if I don't tell him where Jeremy is. I freaked out, I told him. I was a coward. I should have," he put his head in his hands and spoke to the table, "If I'd just kept my mouth shut, Emily and Jeremy'd probably still be safe, at home. God," he looked up and met first Castle's eyes, then Beckett's.
"I sold out my childhood best friend to a criminal who commits crimes for, as far as I can tell, fun. I tried to warn him. That's when we had the argument in his office Detective, I told him Sal was out and he was coming after us and he called me crazy. Told me we weren't meant to be in contact. He ignored me. Until Tuesday. He called to apologise, said he wanted to hear my side of the story. We met in the Garment District around five on Tuesday afternoon. After that, I decided to go missing, had my secretary call it in. I've been lying low, hoping Sal would get bored or go back to the bighouse for another crime. But then he calls me and tells me he's going after Emily if he can't get to me and," he ran his hand through his hair, "I can't let that happen. Emily's ... Emily just lights up a room, you know? And she knows nothing about it."
"So that's it, Detective, that's what I know. I was meant to meet him in the city this afternoon, but your boys got to me first. And now he's done it, he's got her."
Kate Beckett felt incredibly calm as the last pieces of the puzzle fell into place.
"I'll hold you just in case you're Keyser Söze in all this," she told Steven Henderson. "But we'll do the best we can to find Emily."
"Ryan, Esposito," she called, pushing open the door to the interrogation room, "Contact Emily's cell provider. Let's see if she's got a GPS tracker in her cell."
---
It was the one break they caught on the case. Emily's cell was somewhere in the vicinity of a storage facility just around the corner from where her husband's body was found. An explanation for that comes to mind as Beckett and Castle get out of the car, "We're just blocks from his halfway house," she mused. "Which is why his parole officer or the house staff don't suspect anything - he's just ducking out to commit major crimes, then going back and keeping a low profile."
Castle nodded.
"Stay behind me," she warned, "I know I always say it, but you ignore most of everything else I say."
He held up his hands, "Trust me, in this situation, I want to be behind the people with the guns."
She nodded. Ryan and Esposito were co-ordinating with their back up.
"We have to try to figure out which storage unit he's in," she unfurled a plan of the building. "The ones the owner has checked recently are marked."
A scream echoed from the opposite corner of the facility. Beckett ran in the general direction of the noise.
"Well that makes it easy," Castle quipped, running after her.
She figured their best bet was the element of surprise. She gestured for the team to stand back and her boot connected with the door with a satisfying bang. Inside, the storage unit was dark but illuminated in the small pool of light from the corridor was Sal Williams. Emily Littleton made a run for it. Sal decided to take a shot, and that was when Beckett first registered that he had a gun, when the bullet meant for his captive hit her square in the chest.
Stunned, she fell backward onto her wrists. Esposito took a quick shot as the killer tried to run, hitting him in his trigger arm. Castle just stood back and tried not to get in the way of anybody's bullets, at least until Ryan was cuffing their murder suspect and placing a little too much pressure on the bullet hole. Esposito gestured for Castle to check Beckett for injuries while he went in search of Emily Littleton.
Castle looked as dazed as she felt when he crouched beside her. She blinked at him, trying to tell him she was fine, but finding herself still incredibly winded by the impact. His fingers loosened the flattened round from the kevlar, then returned to her stomach, as though he didn't quite believe she hadn't actually been shot. He finally thought to check her pulse and she was in the middle of making a mental note to make him do her next first-aid course with her when the fingers pressing against her neck started pulling instead of pressing. That's not right, she thought.
And, before she realised what was happening, he leant over and kissed her, ever so briefly, on the mouth. Her physiological response made it an ill-advised move to pull on someone who was trying to catch her breath.
"When you try and chew me out for that later, I'm going to claim you passed out and required resuscitation," he told her.
She looked incredulous.
"Any excuse will do," she finally managed to choke out, but she let the moment linger, not thinking to push away from him until Esposito started calling to them from the door, "Beckett all right?"
"She needs to see the paramedics," Castle responded, on her behalf, but that might have been just as well because she was still trying to process the exact order of events. Her fingers found her lips.
She narrowed her eyes when his words sunk in, "I'm fine Castle. He got me in the vest."
"Yeah, and the impact can still break ribs or cause internal bleeding."
She should have expected him to have done his homework.
"Fine," she rolled her eyes, "They can check me out here and if they say so, we'll go to the hospital. But I don't need an ambulance. You can drive me."
"Esposito, Beckett definitely needs medical attention," Castle joked, "She just agreed to let me drive."
The next few hours were a whirlwind. The vest had protected her from any serious injuries. She was going to have one hell of a bruise come the next day, and she had fallen on her wrist at an odd angle but other than a her arm in a sling and a tenderness in her ribs, she was, medically speaking, in the clear. Her pride, too, had only suffered minor damage though she was a little embarrassed at being the One Who Got Shot. ("Can't take her anywhere," she could imagine Ryan quipping to Esposito.)
Josh came to see her at the hospital while she was waiting to be discharged. Castle had disappeared to help Ryan and Esposito fill in the Captain and, on her orders, to check on Emily Littleton. Ever one to overanalyse a situation, her mind had been replaying the events of the past few hours on loop since she'd been left alone in the hospital bed. And while she had firmly decided that it was just a kiss, a kiss bestowed when Castle had been on an adrenaline high and she'd been too stunned to protest, she also knew that Josh probably wouldn't see it that way. And that wasn't fair.
(Besides, there was some part of her that had decided it wouldn't be so bad if Castle kissed her again. But she wasn't getting her hopes up. God, she was tired.)
She had a brief conversation with the doctor while he glanced over her chart. They'd managed to end it by the time he was done with the results of her X-rays (which were clear). He took it as she expected he would, expressing disappointment but wishing her the best. He'd had to run off to answer a page in the middle of a sentence.
Castle was the bearer of good news and gifts. "Ooh, is that food?" her stomach growled at the smell.
"Two cheeseburgers, onion rings and extra fries," he confirmed, "Thought you might be hungry and given the commotion out there, I think we might be waiting a while for that nurse to come back with your paperwork."
She shrugged and tore into the bag with her good arm. She stopped, a handful of fries halfway to her mouth, and said, "How's Emily?"
"Just in shock," he settled himself beside her on the bed, fast food in between them, "They've got her on fluids and they're keeping her overnight to be safe, but she'll be fine to go home in the morning. The Marshals have already got her under guard. It seems her and Steve will be entering the witness protection program for round two."
"Hmm, did you ask her what name she'd pick?" she asked, remembering their earlier conversation.
"Think she's going to go with Katherine," he grinned slyly.
"And how much of a hand did you have in that partner?" she began the complicated process of unwrapping her burger one handed. He reached over and did it for her, depositing it in her hand.
"I may have extolled your virtues at her bedside, once the doctors said it was ok for her to have visitors."
She shook her head.
"Anyway, the full story is pretty much what we figured. Sal, being the fine upstanding citizen that he is, decided all he wanted from Christmas was revenge. Given the high profile scandal surrounding Henderson's company, his photo was in a few papers recently. Sal saw him, tracked him down and threatened to kill him. Henderson sold out Littleton, Sal killed Littleton, then used Emily, who had been involved with both men, to draw out Henderson. We picked him up, and you know the rest."
"So the affair was just happenstance?" she punctuated her sentence with a mouthful.
"For the most part. When Henderson realised Emily was Jake's wife he broke off the affair. Witness protection had told them not to have any contact after their new identities were given out."
"Witness protection also should have made sure Henderson's photo didn't make the front page," she commented.
"True, but as you said, it was a twenty-year old case. Who would've thought it would be a problem?"
"So, case closed?" she concluded, hopefully.
"Ryan and Esposito took care of your paperwork. It's under the bag. It'll need your signature but they'll stop by and pick it up, run it by the precinct. One of them is going to have to take your car back."
She looked down at her wrist and frowned.
Castle busied himself with the onion rings and they ate in silence for several minutes.
"Josh came by," she said, casually.
"Oh?"
She shrugged, chewing and swallowing before continuing, "We decided it was best to focus on our respective careers at the moment. Could you get me some of my Coke please?"
He held the straw to her lips so she could drink.
She gave him a suggestive look with the straw in her mouth and he decided not to pry. It was, he concluded for one of the first times in their acquaintance, none of his business.
---
The traffic in Manhattan was gridlocked. It was an hour to midnight on New Year's Eve. She had to reorientate herself so her good arm was facing the traffic in order to hail a cab, a process which took approximately three times longer than on a normal night.
"I'm going with you," he told her as they stood in the street, "And don't even think of arguing with me. I thought you were dead for a second back there and you're stuck with me until I'm convinced you're going to stay alive."
She waved him off with her good hand, "I'm fine Castle. I'll still be here tomorrow."
"Tomorrow's not that far away," he reminded her. "At least let me make sure you welcome in the New Year safe in your own home." He took her lack of refusal as the acceptance it was.
She pulled her injured arm closer around her middle and changed the subject. "It's freezing out here."
He shrugged of his coat, draping it over her shoulders. She regarded him with an amused expression, "Where have you been hiding this chivalrous side Castle?"
He let his hands linger, "You don't like to be taken care of Kate Beckett."
"No," she corrected him, finally succeeding in her quest to hail a cab, "I don't need to be taken care of. There's a difference."
They made most of the journey in silence, both looking out the windows lost in thought. Castle texted Alexis, and his cell buzzed to announce her replies. He wordlessly handed her the device so she good see the good wishes of his mother and daughter. She smiled. The lack of conversation was easy, rather than awkward.
He refused to let her pay, something that bothered her independent streak, but she was wearing his coat so she subtly left half the fare in the right pocket. If he noticed, he didn't comment. He had never seen her new apartment. It felt different from the first time he had insinuated himself into the old one. She wanted him to see it, and that was tied up with the past - the explosion, him returning her father's watch, the two nights she'd slept in his spare room - and the present. She wasn't sure which made it harder. She babbled about it not being finished as she turned the key in the lock and struggled to open the door one-handed. He reached around her, offering one of his hands to help her, turning the door handle. His fingers brushed against her hip as he withdrew them.
He took it in with an appraising look, "It's starting to look like it's really yours."
She nodded, "I had to go up to my father's and raid the family photo albums to replace some of the pictures."
(That had been a cathartic experience. Neither she nor her father had really bothered to go through the family albums when he moved out of her childhood home. They had been packed in boxes in the bottom of a closet in the spare room for nearly five years when she went looking for pictures of her family. They were dusty. But it was one of the few times she remembered the happiness of her childhood unadulterated by the absence of Johanna in her adult life. She had cried, but not with regret.)
He seemed to sense that the new apartment was symbolic of some greater paradigm shift. For one, there were a lot more photographs.
"It occurred to me over the summer," she said, returning from the kitchen where she had deposited the bag containing the medication she had been given for the pain and catching him fingering a picture of her and Lanie laughing at the mocking face Esposito was making behind an oblivious Ryan. "I've spent so much of my life forgetting things. And I have good memories, of my mother and my childhood, everything. I don't want to be the sort of person who forgets the good things."
He didn't say anything for a minute, "Life is about the moments, the little things in between the big things."
"Promise me you'll keep a straight face when I ask you for a favour," she suddenly felt incredibly relaxed, "Can you help me change out of this shirt?"
"Thought you'd never ask," to his credit, he did say it with an incredibly straight face.
"Just the shirt Castle, I can do the rest," she narrowed her eyes. "And if you say that's what she said, I still have one good arm."
It was the first time he'd seen her bedroom. He lingered in the doorway while she rummaged in the drawer for a T-shirt. When she righted herself, she was smirking, amused. "What's the matter with you? The Castle I know would be in here trying to find the skeletons in the closet."
"Well I couldn't properly snoop in front of you," he offered half-heartedly. "But mostly, I don't want to me anywhere I'm unwelcome. I... I've been trying harder to respect your boundaries, your privacy."
"It's like you're a vampire and I have to offer you a formal invitation," she joked. "Come, you can't help from over there."
That piqued his curiousity. "Why Detective Beckett, please tell me you haven't fallen victim of Twilight?"
"Please Castle," she rolled her eyes, "I'd have thought you'd at least have given me the benefit of the doubt and pegged me for a Laurell K Hamilton girl."
She stood with her back to him and threw the T-shirt down on her bed. With her good hand she began pulling up the blue shirt she was wearing. He sucked in a breath and decided it would be best to keep conversation neutral when he reached out to assist her.
"Funny story about Twilight. Alexis read the first one, and I may have given it a parental appraisal, to make sure it was appropriate for her age group."
She laughed quietly, which hurt in her chest but not too much to make her stop. "A likely story. Was it as bad as it sounds?"
"Worse," he was studying the pattern on her duvet cover trying to avert all his attention from the fact that she was half-naked and he might even be able to get away with kissing her shoulder. God. He wanted to.
"Castle," she turned around to face him. Oh, this was not going to end well, he thought. "Can you help me re-dress now?"
He grinned. "Usually it's more of a one way service I offer."
Her first mistake was not backing away. There was something appealing about the scenario he described, and she was already using most of her remaining mental resources trying to ignore the way his fingers had felt against the curve of her waist when he was helping her undress. She should have thought of a quicker retort, should have rolled her eyes, should have something. Instead she wet her lips, subconsciously, and may or may not have leant towards him.
He reached out and let his hand rest against her cheek. "God."
She closed her eyes. "Help me with the shirt," she said, evenly, "This is." She didn't finish the sentence.
"Open your eyes," he was holding the sleeve out so she could slip it over her injured arm without moving it.
Re-clothed, she sat on the edge of the bed, trying to shake off the moment.
"You're beautiful," he told her with an earnestness and vulnerability that surprised her a little. She patted the space beside her. He sat. They'd been moving towards it for so long, it was a shock to find herself suddenly at a standstill.
"Maybe we should talk," she said. It had been a long time coming.
"Thought you might eventually get around to saying that," he nudged her good shoulder.
"Castle," she was willing him to be serious.
"I'm not sorry I kissed you," he declared.
"I'm not asking you to apologise."
"So. What now?"
"I don't know," she curled her good hand into a fist against her jeans. "I feel like we just got here, you know? I mean, you left and when you came back, things were different."
"I didn't know you were going to break up with Demming," he was completely honest with her. It was terrifying moment.
"In your defence, neither did I," she admitted.
"He made you happy."
"But he didn't make me mad."
"That's usually considered a good thing," he informed her pleasantly.
"He was... nice, he was all the things I should have liked, and I did but," she trailed off, tapping her foot against the carpet nervously. "There are so many things about you that infuriate me," it was a roundabout way of saying it, but he wouldn't have expected any less, "But here we are, in spite of all that."
"I didn't ever mean to hurt you," he figured he might as well go all-in. "I know I have. More than once. But I have always only ever wanted you to be happy."
She nodded. "But why Gina? Why your ex-wife?"
"The devil you know?" he was guessing, "I don't know. You said no."
"No," she shook her head, "I didn't say yes."
"Somewhere, a feminist rolled over in her grave."
That comment earned him a solid pinch that still stung even through layers of clothing.
"Why," she studiously avoided his eyes, "Why did you wait until I was with someone else?"
"The timing was never right. Well," he conceded, "We had our moments. But you would have shot me down, possibly literally, if I'd acted like any other guy. Which I resented, by the way."
She smiled distractedly, her focus still on the conversation at hand, "I never thought you were serious. It's one thing to treat me differently to," she paused, "The Ellie Munroe's of your acquaintance, but at some point, if it was what you wanted, I had to be like any other woman."
"But you're not," he made the jump to present tense, "And you know what they say. Twice bitten, once shy."
"That's not what they say Castle, and besides, what makes you think I'd bite?" she raised an eyebrow.
He smirked, "I'm not sure I'd mind if you did."
"That's not what I meant," she allowed herself to flirt, "But I'm sure it could be arranged." She adopted a more serious tone again almost instantly, "But you just said it, we're different. We're different. I would never intentionally hurt you," she tightened her fingers around his, "Whatever else, you've somehow managed, against all my reason and better judgement, to become my friend."
"We can't go back you know," he said, so close she could feel his breath on her face. She wondered what he meant by that.
"Why are you so sure we'd want to?" she breathed over his mouth, caught between her own uncertainty and a burning desire to know what it would be like to really kiss him, without extenuating circumstances, without work, with just them. It wasn't often she let herself stop thinking enough to be completely in a moment. Maybe it was the hospital-strength painkillers at work, but she felt dangerously close to giving in.
"I'm not," he answered, inches above her lips, his free hand reaching out to play with her hair.
"Neither am I," she confessed, "And that's what scares me the most."
"I'm going to kiss you now," he told her. "Resist your urge to slap me with your good arm afterwards."
And he did.
The clock ticked over to midnight and brought the calendar with it but they didn't notice until five minutes too late.
---