[ let down your guard ]

[fanofthegenre]

The case is wrapped. Ben Conrad, the man that they had pinned down as their suspect, is dead and on his way to the morgue. Beckett sends her detail home for the second time with every intention of luxuriating after the stress of the week in a long, hot shower. Underneath the warming spray, she can vaguely make out the sound of her own phone, but

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[trigger_man]

Jack's sitting at a table not far from the door when it flies open. He turns to look, barely seeing the figure come flying into the bar, his attention to the burst of flame just behind her.

In a split second, he's on his feet, heat hitting his face as he uses the door for protection from it the flame as he closes the door. As soon as it's shut, the smell of--explosives?--smoke still in his nose, he turns to see if the person that came in is all right.

For a moment all he can see is soot and blood and naked skin, but then he focuses on the face and--

"Beckett?" he gasps, instantly running toward her.

[fanofthegenre]

Her first thought isn't that she's lying naked on the floor of the bar, or even that she's in the bar in the first place. Adrenaline still pumping through her veins, the full impact of her injuries hasn't hit her yet, though she's sure to feel sore in a few places when it starts to wear off.

Her head feels a little fuzzy, but she hadn't hit it that hard, had she?

She doesn't hear or sense Jack until he's right beside her.

"Jack?"

Her voice is small, sounding like it's coming from very far away.

"What're you doing in my apartment?"

[trigger_man]

"You're not--" he starts to say, before he realizes that she's kind of naked in the middle of the bar. Immediately, he pulls off the button-down shirt he's wearing, exposing the t-shirt underneath as well as the scars and tattoos on his arms. He'd go to the bar and get a blanket for her, but he doesn't want to leave her side, too worried that she's hurt.

Tucking it around her, he starts over. "You're not in your apartment, you're in the bar. Are you hurt anywhere?"

[fanofthegenre]

Clarity returns to her vision, but the adrenaline's still coursing through her system, still masking the small and not-so-small hurts. Slowly, she sits up, lifting a hand to her head at the sensation of something wet trickling down over her forehead.

Her fingers come down red.

"The bar," she echoes, slipping her arms through the sleeves of his shirt and wincing when her shoulder doesn't move the way it's supposed to.

[trigger_man]

"Yeah, the bar," he says, getting more concerned about the daze she seems to be in. He can't be sure whether it's just shock, or whether she'd hit her head harder than the cut on her forehead would imply. Gently touching the wound, it just looks like a cut, though there's always the possibility of a a concussion or swelling in the brain.

"Hey, Beckett, look at me for a second," he says as he places a hand on her arm.

[fanofthegenre]

She doesn't flinch when he lifts his hand to the cut, though there's a small twitch that occurs in her face, and she glances down to her knee, where a decently-sized bump is starting to swell and purple. That'll be fun to walk on later, she thinks.

Jack utters her name, and she looks up into his face.

"He's still alive, Jack. We thought we had him. We thought we had the murderer all along, but he's still out there."

[trigger_man]

"Forget him for a second; I'm more worried about you," he says, his tone a little brusque. Her pupils look the same size, and a normal size for this lighting. "Is your vision blurred at all, or do you feel nauseous?"

[fanofthegenre]

"I'm fine," Beckett insists, her eyes narrowing with clarity. There's only one thing she needs to do now, and that's find the bastard who did this. Holding the sides of Jack's shirt closed against her front, she struggles to get to her feet

"I've got to get back out there. I've got to - "

Her knee gives out on her when she tries to put her weight on it, and she stumbles forward against him.

[trigger_man]

Jack instinctively grabs her around the waist when she starts to stumble and eases her into a chair before she can land on the floor again.

"Not so fast. It'll still be out there once you've been checked out. Just a second."

Jack jogs over to the bar, returning a moment later with a blanket and a couple ice packs.

[fanofthegenre]

She keeps her attention locked on her knee, trying to avoid the curious stares and whispers clearly occurring in her direction.

Beckett tries to manage a weak smile when Jack returns with a few items.

"Bet I just made your night a hell of a lot more interesting, huh?"

[trigger_man]

"I'm not sure interesting is the right word," he says, wrapping the blanket around her shoulders.

It's only now that his immediate concerns seem to be taken care of that he realizes just how much adrenaline hit his system when that door flew open; just how scared he was when he realized it was Beckett. He'd been too focused on acting to actually feel anything in the moment.

"We should get you checked out in the infirmary; I don't know who's on duty tonight."

[fanofthegenre]

"No, Jack, I'm fine," she insists, taking advantage of the blanket's cover to fasten up some of the buttons on the shirt. She's already given some people a decent eyeful at this point.

"I need to get back out there. Who knows who he's going to go for next? And Castle - oh, God, Castle."

Beckett's eyes widen in her epiphany.

"I was on the phone with him when it - he probably thinks I'm gone."

[trigger_man]

Jack puts a hand on her shoulder, saying softly, "Hey, it's okay. Time doesn't pass out there while it does in here, remember? You getting checked out and taking a minute to make sure you're okay, won't force Castle to worry about you any longer than he would anyway."

Breaking the seal in the chemical ice pack, he places it on her knee. "Hold this. What happened, exactly?" he asks, though even with the litany of oh my God, she could have been killed running through his head he can put together enough pieces to get an idea.

[fanofthegenre]

Beckett's hand, blackened in ash and dirtied in blood, peeks out from underneath the blanket to press the ice pack against her skin. She winces for a moment at the initial contact, but she can already feel the throbbing beginning to die down a little, Jack's question reverberating in her mind.

"Um - well, we thought we'd already caught the guy. Ben Conrad. The trail just led to him. He was dead by the time SWAT busted down the apartment door. I mean, I thought the case was done. I sent the detail home, took a shower. I checked everything myself, I don't know how he could've - "

She shakes her head, her hand squeezing the ice pack a little tighter, takes a breath, and then starts again.

"Castle must've figured it out. He called me, and that's when it went off."

[trigger_man]

"You checked the door and all the windows for signs of entry? Nothing was moved or added to your apartment?" he asks, dabbing at the cut on her forehead with a napkin. His mind is already busily working on the problem because it's easier than thinking of all the might-have-beens.

Knew her apartment well enough or had enough time to get in and out while she wasn't there--not hard with the case, could have used her presence at one of the scenes as an opportunity to get in when he knew she wouldn't come home; could have hidden the explosives in something in her apartment but she doesn't seem to have many shrapnel wounds so not something wood or metal--

[fanofthegenre]

Beckett's lost in thought, too, trying to think of what she could've missed in the combing through she'd done of her apartment, both when Castle had been there and after he'd left. The dumping of their third victim on her front step hadn't done much to restore her feeling of safety, but that was before she'd been convinced they'd caught their guy.

When she glances up, she can tell Jack's thinking hard. She reaches up with blackened fingers, grasping his wrist to pull his hand down from her head.

"He'd left a body there," she admits. "Earlier. He knew where I lived."