(no subject)
Title: Ephemeris, Ch. 16
WC: ~2200 this chapter, 40,000 total so far
Summary: "He hates her, she realizes. It's a step up from irritation. From dismissal. A step up from the diner parking lot and it curves her lips into a hard smile. He sees it. He answers in kind."
They sit side by side on the bed. He rests the gun on his thigh, but it's like they're past all that. Both of them so drained that the life and death of all this will have to go on with a minimum of dramatics.
Martha would be so disappointed.
A short laugh creeps out of her as the thought trips through her mind. Cross gives her a sharp look. His fingers twitch and the gun moves with them. She waves him off, though. She shows her hands.
"Tell me," she says, and it's more instruction than command or plea. For all the drama they're having none of, it's like a stage direction. "Just tell me."
It rankles him any way. The very fact of her gets under his skin, and he stiffens again. She shakes her head.
"Tell me," she says once more, and the fight goes out of him.
"I was too late." He sounds like he can't believe it. Like it shouldn't be possible, and the undercurrent of arrogance is something familiar at last. It's the first hint tonight of the man she met months ago. "I knew there was a threat. The wedding, and Blaine was . . . better connected than my intel suggested. But the two of you . . ." He shoots her a sidelong look of disgust. "All that back and forth over those few days. I had it covered until that. They'd never have moved if . . . You were supposed to be in the city."
"Supposed to be," she echoes. She presses her palm to the bed. She wants to rest her cheek against it, even in the midst of all this. She wants to breathe in his scent and remember that he's alive. Somewhere, he's alive, or none of this would be happening. She shakes herself. "You were too late." She swallows hard. She knows already. She's put it together easily enough that the possibility must have been in the back of her mind all this time. Saying it out loud is something different, though. Something worse. "Castle was in the car."
"He was in the car." There's a long pause, and she'd like to kill him. She'd genuinely like to wrap her fingers around his throat, but he takes the story up again. "He did good. Held his own for a while." Cross's voice loses an iota of its hardness, as if he's proud. As if he has any right to be. There's the same broken smile that made her think of Martha before. That made her think of Castle. "Almost made daylight."
"The park," she says faintly. She feels the shade on her face. The solidity of Lanie and Esposito on either side of her, looking back and away from the site of the accident. From the shrine. "Ifhe could've made it that far . . ."
It's worse. Imagining it like this is worse. And better, too. Solid facts that can't help but light up the worst of the shadows. Because he's the writer, but her imagination is just as dangerous as his.
She thinks about him on his own. Their I love yous just fading, and his mind working fast. She imagines him, annoyed at first. Baffled and angry and indignant, with no idea who could be doing this now. Who could be after them when they'd finally put Bracken away.
She imagines Tyson and Dunn and a dozen other psychopaths and thugs running through his mind. She wonders if Cross occurred to him at all. The man he'd just learned not to mistake for family. She imagines him afraid and still wanting to know. He always wants to know. She imagines him alone trying to hang on.
We want the happy ending, we can't give up.
Cross is talking. Babbling. She's lost the thread of it. "He ran out of room. The car was off the road by the time I . . ."
"You killed them both." She fills the gap. Jumps ahead when he trails off into silence this time, because some things don't bear thinking about. Not right now. "The driver and his partner. You put the body in the car."
"I pulled Richard out," he snaps. He takes a leap forward of his own. Right over the grisly details, like they don't matter. They don't, she realizes, and she'll deal with that later. The fact that she cares not at all about these men. However Cross dispatched them, the only thing she feels is glad. She'll deal with that later.
"I hardly left him those first few weeks. Hardly slept. Made do with what I had on hand here. Took what I needed. It's a safe house. I didn't . . . " He breaks off. He looks at her, full on, like he's expecting something from her. Gratitude or maybe venom. Accusation or thanks. Something. But she stares straight ahead. She gives him nothing, and he says it again. The same flat tone. "I didn't think he'd live."
It washes over her in a sick wave. The bloody scene in their bedroom at the loft when Cross was shot. Kitchen gloves and needle nose pliers. She tells herself he must have had better here. It's a safe house. He must have. She repeats it to herself, but the timeline falls into place. Weeks and weeks of touch and go. Weeks and weeks of Castle so badly hurt that he might have died in this room. Worse than alone.
"But he did. He lived." She doesn't look at Cross. She says it for herself. A touchstone, though she perversely wants to keep it from him. She doesn't want him to have the satisfaction of it. The reassurance. Whatever happened in this room-weeks of whatever he had to do to keep Castle alive-it broke him, and it's no more than he deserves. "You knew he would. That night at the diner. We were looking before that. You had to have known, but you didn't bother until . . . you knew I thought he was alive. That it wasn't his body. You'd have let me . . . you'd have let Alexis and Martha . . . "
"To save him. To save Martha and Alexis. Even you . . . You're damned right I would have. I would've taken him to the ends of the earth and kept him there."
"And if he'd died." The words hit her in the gut. He didn't die. He didn't, but the words are awful anyway. "You'd have let me go on looking forever. you'd have disappeared."
"Richard isn't the only one they want dead." To his credit, he doesn't sound like expects her. To care. "They would have used them." He's choking on the words as something new comes over him. Control slips, and his knuckles go white. His voice drops to something so cold it's not even angry. "They will use them. Because they know who Richard is. And now they know he's alive. Because of you."
He hates her, she realizes. It's a step up from irritation. From dismissal. A step up from the diner parking lot and it curves her lips into a hard smile. He sees it. He answers in kind.
"You think you've won something, don't you?" His tone is abruptly conversational. A disturbing flip of some switch. Echoes of Bracken in him now, and it turns her stomach. "He's alive, Kate. But for how long? They'll come for him. They'll come for Alexis or Martha or you. There's noise already. Chatter, thanks to you. And I'm so far out of the game-holed up in this place-if I'm hearing it . . . Do you have any idea how bad this is? Do you have any idea what you've done?"
"Do you?" Her mouth is hot with fury. With bile and metal that she swallows down. He knows better than anyone what she's most afraid of. He's using it, but she won't let him play her. "You said it yourself. You've been holed up here for weeks. Hiding. No backup. No help, because you're 'on the outside.' Because you have a cover to protect. Hiding. All this was your master plan?"
"I kept him alive." He's snarling. In her face, but there's a hitch in his voice. "I kept him safe."
"From what? From whom? Do you even know that?" She swings around to face him. She latches on to it. The shred of uncertainty. She leans in. Crowds him. "Blaine thought Castle had a handler. Did he think that was you?"
"I took care of Blaine," he shoots back. His tone is something from an old playbook, but this is her game now. Interrogation.
"You took care of Blaine," she repeats the words slowly. Like there must be something else underneath. Something less pathetic. He stares her down, but it's bravado. It's hollow, and they both know it. "What about Blaine's buyers? Whoever else he was working with in the CIA? 'An inside job at the highest level.' Isn't that what you said?"
He opens his mouth. He's scrambling to find his footing again, and she can't have that. She shifts gears.
"Is it even Blaine? Do you even know that? Hell, what about Paris? Waiting until the wedding so it would be sure to make the headlines. It's the same MO. What if it's the man who took Alexis? What if it's any one of a hundred people who want you dead? What if they want Castle dead because you sent him into that trap? Because they think Castle is . . . whatever the hell you're supposed to be." She breaks off. The words leave her all at once. Dead in the air as it sinks in. "You don't know, do you? You have no idea."
He's silent. Unmoving and staring at his own hands. Staring at the fingers wrapped around the gun like he's forgotten what it is.
He's thought settles on her, and she almost goes for the gun. She can practically feel the metal under her skin. The satisfying weight the sweet resistance of the trigger giving way beneath her finger.
She pictures it. Another vivid fantasy, and she wonders how many problems it might solve. The body of an unidentified man, shot dead in the Hamptons. Unsolved. Unsolvable, but there'd be headlines. She'd make sure of that. They'd hear. Whoever they are, they'd hear all about it. She wonders if that and that alone might keep Castle safe.
Haven't got it in you.
It's his voice in her head. Castle's. Quiet and sure, though she'd like to argue. She'd like to savor the taste of the fantasy a while. But he's known her better than she knows herself for a long time now.
You really are remarkable, you know that?
She doesn't have it in her.
"Where is he?" She asks at last, but it's anticlimactic. Cross doesn't even seem to register the question. "You know it's over. You didn't drag me out here for some super villain monologue. You set this up. The photo. The fire. All of it because . . ." She laughs, hardly believing the words as they spill out of her mouth. "Because I'm your Hail Mary. So. Where. Is. He?"
A phone rings just then. A shrill intrusion from the far end of the room. The kind of impossible moment that doesn't happen in real life. It leaves every nerve in her jangling.
He was expecting it, though. He rises from the bed, and the skin he wears shifts again. He slips back into the persona. The spy, though it's a last-ditch effort. She stares as he covers the room in a few strides, then pushes up from the bed. She stumbles after him.
She hears the sound of a drawer. He turns swiftly from the work bench and tosses something her way. Her arms fly up to protect her face. Pure defense, but she catches it. A phone, remarkably like the one he destroyed. The ring cuts off and starts again, almost immediately. She stares at it, pinned to the center of the room as he moves for the door. He still has the gun. Loose at his side, but ready enough.
He nods at her. At the phone.
"That'll be Martha." The name does something to him. It casts a shadow on his face, but he blanks it out so quickly she might have imagined it. He's straight and tall now. Hard and what passes for charming with him as he eases the door open. "Keep him alive. If you can."
He's going. The phone shrieks again. She stares down at it. Back at him, but he's going. Her thumb stabs at the phone as she lurches toward the door. He's around the corner already. He's gone, and she knows she's made a terrible mistake. She knows, but there's a voice pouring out of the phone. Her name. Frantic words running together.
"Martha," she whispers as she inches down the dark, steep stairs. "Martha I . . . have to . . . I have to go. He's . . "
"Katherine." Martha's voice is sharp. Sudden control where there'd been galloping panic seconds before. It's like cool fingers threading through her hair. It's like shades drawn and the low, reassuring voice that's brought her this far.
She sinks on to the step and sags against the wall. "Martha."
"Katherine. You listen to me. You have to get back to the city. Immediately. New York Presbyterian." She can hardly get the words out for tears, but they're clear enough. "He's here. Darling . . . Richard. He's here."
A/N: Just the epilogue now. Thanks for reading.