Close Encounters 16: Skyfall

The 75th Ranger Regiment (Airborne) filed into the mess tent one after another, a long grey line straight to the chow. They deserved it. Their elite light infantry special operations unit had secured an airfield outside Kandahar after sustaining heavy casualties in a tactical raid that had stretch on for five nights.

Second Lt. John Richard Black - called J.R. by his Army buddies, Richard only to his CO - remembered his supplement pill at the last minute and dug it out of the flap on his breast pocket.

Fuck, nearly missed it again. Sometimes he thought his father's intense supplements were the only reason he survived these Special Forces missions.

He knocked back the horse pill dry and winced as it burned down his throat, but most everything burned. His lungs and windpipe were seared raw from the heat of the fire; they'd lost a 120-mm mortar in a prolonged and coordinated attack by insurgent forces, and the explosion had taken out half his squad.

His hands were steady though. They weren't supposed to be, they hadn't been, but they were.

Because this was a dream. He remembered this night, remembered this work, the Army's Combat Outpost his unit had been assigned to after sustaining heavy casualties in what was later deemed a tactical mistake.

Richard - not yet Castle - snagged a meal tray and a couple of milk cartons, moved quickly to a half-empty table. He'd discovered that the secret to average was to balance the mix. Show up with the guys he led into battle but don't lead their pranks, share a dirty joke and curse at the major, but don't be one heading into town to play with the natives.

So he ate and he laughed at the right places and he elbowed his bunk-mate every time the poor kid's ears burned, but inside Castle was furious.

He'd been pissed then too, in real life and not just the dream of a memory.

Half his fucking squad gone for a piddly airfield. He'd directed sixteen men going into this one but he'd only come back with seven. They'd been repeatedly denied reinforcements, and Richard had been close enough to the commanding officer to hear the man's frustration when he'd called and called and been denied - right before the CO took a bullet.

There'd been four squads, three of them elite light infantry units like his own, for a combined total of sixty-four men and if Richard had to estimate how many were left, he'd be too pissed to eat.

Half the squad. Of course, the guys at this table weren't from his LI unit, so they could joke and tell raunchy stories and slap each other around. His bunk-mate was a fresh-faced from Fort Benning who drove a Bobcat and studied civil engineering and whose quiet and insidious panic should've earned him a body bag.

Richard had probably saved the little fucker's life five times in five days. He didn't mind it, but it wasn't exactly going along with his father's rules.

Never leave a trace behind.

Just then his own CO came up at his shoulder and gave him a once-over. Richard straightened up and gave his salute, but Captain Eastman shook his head. "With me, soldier."

Richard grabbed his tray and followed Eastman to an empty table, sank down gratefully. His eyes touched on Eastman's for a moment and then away, not wanting to invite questions.

"There's a committee here," his CO started. "Looking to pin a medal on you, Richard."

Castle had forgotten how much Mark had looked out for him in Kuwait six years ago when he'd first joined up. As his CO, Eastman had been given access to some information about Castle's origins that no one else had; he'd been assigned Castle's provisional handler. When Castle had been done with his tour, he and Eastman both had been recalled home by Castle's father, and they entered the CIA.

Richard suddenly wondered if re-upping after 9/11 had been something Eastman had even wanted to do - or if he was here solely as the guardian of Black's son.

Damn it. The ways his father had always arranged things made him furious.

"Did you know about the medal?" Eastman said quietly.

"Captain," he started, grinding his teeth. But he didn't have words to convey his sense of doom. If his father heard about the possibility of an award, Richard was gonna get yanked. Not again. He was actually making a fucking difference here. He didn't want this to be Kuwait all over again.

Or worse - West Point.

West Point still made Richard furious. Even though he hadn't been enrolled under his own name - whatever the fuck his own name even was - didn't matter. He knew the truth. He he'd gotten pulled from West Point five days before graduation and in Castle's mind that didn't make him a graduate.

Some guy named Jack Hunt had been expelled a week before the final ceremony, and if the cadets told stories about his exploits, JR Black never heard them. And Castle - it was so long ago now, that he couldn't even begin to care about what they thought. West Point, Kuwait, even Afghanistan seemed ages ago.

But to Richard missing those five days still rankled. Beckett would laugh at him.

Even within the dream, Beckett was a force inside him.

"I know you have reasons not to get pinned," Captain Eastman said then. "I have reasons not to let you."

Richard lifted his eyes to his CO, his face revealing none of the icy dread trickling through his body. "Yes, sir."

Castle had completely forgotten how Eastman had been on his side even then, helping him behind his father's back, giving him ways to quietly rebel. In Kuwait, the off-book excursions they'd taken together, the phrase live a little a prelude to some amazing adventure. The three years between his tours - under his father's thumb - had occluded that sense of freedom. He'd announced he was re-upping after 9/11 and then he'd done it, not even waiting for his father's permission, and some of that determination was building in him again.

Eastman nodded. "So we're going to play it carefully. You talk to your bunk mate yet?"

"No, sir."

"Good. Don't. If he starts in on the thanks for saving my ass shit, then you look at him like he's grown a second head."

"I got it. I know," he growled back, then blanched and ducked his head. "Sir. Yes, sir."

"All right. Good. Leave it to me to fix this on my end. Second Lt. Black, I will see you bright and early." Captain Eastman left the table with his tray and carried it out of the mess hall. Richard sank down a little and hunched his shoulders, wanting no one and nothing to notice him.

But of course, he wasn't given even a second. A squad of guys descended on the table, one of them giving a nod to the empty seats by way of asking. Richard jerked his head in negatory and they sat, calling out crass comments to each other and talking too loudly.

His squad didn't disrespect like this. Richard didn't like it. His eyes accidentally met the guy's directly opposite him, and the florid-faced man gave him a flared-nostril look in return. Spoiling for a fight. To be a big man.

But Richard wasn't just an Army Ranger.

He had a mission.

Leave no trace behind, his father had drilled into him. Don't be stupid like me.

Right. Stupid having had a direct result in Richard's own existence, he couldn't quite manage to be gung-ho about his father's fucking rules.

Still, he wasn't picking a fight with the asshole across the table. The asshole that looked strangely, vaguely familiar. Like he should know that face, like it was important. The Castle in him was struggling.

Suddenly the unruly crowd of combat soldiers went deathly quiet. Richard shifted in his seat and turned, knowing without knowing exactly what he'd see.

At the front flap of the mess hall, Special Agent John Black strode into view.

"Fuck, that's the doc," a guy next to him whispered. "Don't he look like Death himself?"

Richard stayed still, let nothing cross his face. Doc? He didn't know what cover his father had donned this time, but it was his job to be ready, to listen and wait for his moment.

Black came to the head table and spread his palms out wide. "Soldiers. Men. I'm asking for volunteers."

But this time, it was a dream. And when that call came for volunteers, Second Lt. J.R. Black didn't duck his head and clench his fork and ride it out. He stood up. Castle stood up, felt the indignant, self-righteous anger rising in him as well.

Because it was Coonan sitting across from him, Coonan who would volunteer yet again for his father's independent training and medical testing.

And Castle was done with it; he wasn't going to take it any more.

He stood up, dropped the fork to the table and grabbed the knife instead.

Black deserved the knife.

No one stopped him. No one even shouted out. Castle gripped the knife and came face to face with his father, that smug and grandiose visage, unruined, unspoiled, and he reached out with his free hand to grip the back of his father's neck.

"Are you volunteering, soldier?"

Couldn't even call him son, not here. Not in front of everyone. Castle shook his head and gripped Black's neck tighter, felt the heft of the knife in his other hand. "Not volunteering," he said. "I'm here to fucking slit your throat."

"Really, Richard. Sit down until I call for you. This isn't your time."

Castle brought the knife up in a flash and had his father's throat opened up before Black could finish his sentence. The blood leaked at first, as if it was a flap of loose skin that was letting the vital stuff out.

Not good enough.

Castle yanked back on his father's head and the seam split wider across Black's neck; the blood began to run. Castle felt the knife in his hand but the handle was clean, not even sticky, no warm feeling of life tacky against his fingers.

Not good enough. Black deserved much worse.

He brought the point of the blade just below Black's ear and he dug into the resisting flesh, severing muscle and tendon, grinding past the myelin sheaths and the nerves until he struck bone.

His father opened his mouth to scream, but the blood gurgled in his throat instead.

Castle reversed his grip on the handle of the blade and grit his teeth, put force behind it as he scraped across his father's neck, just under the jaw. The blood burst from the veins and arteries, pumped furiously by a mad-beating heart, spraying Castle's hands and forearms, soaking his shirt.

He smiled grimly and finished the job, as if he were gutting an animal, ending the wide, bleeding smile just below the other ear. Blood drenched the floor of the mess hall, soaked into his leather boots until they squished.

He released the back of his father's neck and Black's head fell backwards, hanging on by mere threads and ligaments, the stubby protrusions of his spine.

Castle grabbed the front of Black's Army medic jacket and wiped off the blade. When it was no longer black with blood, Castle shoved on his father's chest and turned around.

He heard the body hitting the floor, but he didn't turn around to watch.

He was dead. He was brutally dead.

Kate was safe.

Kate woke instantly with dreams of Africa. This time it had been baby hippos crying for their dead mother, though the night before it had been Castle trapped in the rubble, Beckett unable to shift the debris from him as he bled out, unable to even get to the regimen case just out of reach, all of it for nothing.

But that wasn't reality.

They had the regimen.

Just to reassure herself, Kate rolled over in bed and curled closer to her husband, listened to his heart beating steadily in his chest. He had a stupid grin on his face too, and it made her smile, but she lifted up on her elbow and checked his bedside table.

The bottle of pills was there, one-third empty after a couple weeks of taking them every day. It was part of their morning routine now, and he didn't even grumble at her for it. After she'd brought the serum to Boyd and Threkeld, the two doctors had been thrilled to have the 'complete set' as they'd called it.

Reverse engineering the regimen was number one on their priority list, but Castle was unwilling to continue taking the serum regularly. And since they didn't have enough for a lifetime of even periodic ingestion, she had agreed it wasn't feasible. But to keep his blood cells stable - super stable - they'd agreed on the pills for the next few months to get him back into fighting 'super' shape.

The pills he took weren't weren't the actual stabilizers, but they were an extremely low-dose mixture of serum compounded with elements from that cache of pills in Tunisia. Almost like an inoculation, as Threkeld had explained it to them. This way, Castle's lipoproteins would remain high enough for his body systems, as well as adding just enough super to his diet so that he wouldn't fall into an immune response like before.

She was proud of him; he was being so patient with her on this. She was proud of herself too, for being able to compromise on it, to think it through logically. Castle had never taken the injections every day - only before and after a mission or when he'd been injured in the field - and the paperwork Castle had brought home with them from the Congo seemed to back him up on that.

So the schedule of injections and pills wasn't down to a science yet, but they'd agreed together on this program of recovery. They had even started up maintenance on their covert skills and self-defense techniques as a team. He'd asked her to promise to stay alive, but she only asked the same of him - and they were working together to keep those promises.

Kate leaned in and softly kissed those smiling lips, ran her fingers down his chest to caress his hip. When he still didn't wake, despite that good morning reaction to his dream, she slid out of bed and headed for the bathroom.

She felt really good for the first time in a long time. Black was still out there, a dark unknown, but even that was something of a relief. If they needed his specialty knowledge of the regimen and what it had done to Castle, then at least it was out there.

No, not just good. She felt amazing.

Castle still loved her, had forgiven her, and nothing could break them.

Castle woke from dreams again and groaned, rubbed his hands down his face. The bed was empty next to him, but that had been their routine lately. He slid his legs out from under the sheets and tried to shake off the feeling of blood on his hands, the sound of his father's body hitting the floor.

Obviously, he was messed up in the head. Obviously.

They were assigned to speak with King at the end of the week, and he knew it was going to be bad when this all came out. But for now, Castle was going to let his dreams work out his deepest, darkest fantasies and hope it would be enough.

His shower was quick and cold. He liked them cold, he realized, when he was on the regimen. A cold shower was like a sign of his physical stamina and endurance - not only did he not really feel it, but it sharpened his mind and woke him for the day.

When he'd dried off and found clothes, Castle padded down the hallway towards the empty bedroom. The panic room he was installing in the closet was hidden behind a back panel and tunneled into the natural space just above the stairs. If he wanted to get truly ingenious, Castle might attempt to make it two-story, digging down into the sheetrock behind the living room wall and the staircase.

He'd have to check the load-bearing beams, all of that, before he took on that detailed of a project. For now, it was a tight, cramped space but it would fit him, Beckett, and the dog easily enough.

Kate had set up his files in here too, all spread out over the work table he'd bought for construction purposes when they'd gotten back from the Congo. He appreciated the effort, her willingness to show interest in his 'hobby', but he didn't expect her to help him. Not with the building of the panic room and not with sorting through the reams of CIA intelligence cables that Castle had found in that manufacturing installation - Congo 3 it seemed to be called.

Despite himself, Castle bypassed the panic room - he needed only to complete the wiring to the security system to finish it out - and he stopped at the heavy, wooden work table. His fingers touched the edge of a mimeographed report dated November of 1969, and he skimmed the contents again, hoping for clarity.

Still nothing. He couldn't make sense of it. Too many code words, too much redacted, too much time had passed: Phase III completed. Subject neutralized. xxdential approval has been received for execution of Phase IV. xxxxxission for access to Serum 152 and the subsequent antigens...

And there it stopped making sense. The ink stain on the left didn't help either, and although it was addressed to MJ-1, MJ-2, and MJ-12 and the Project heading was BLK-AIT - Castle was hesitant to make assumptions about these files.

What he knew for sure was BLK-AIT was a project his father had been involved with for decades. And second, that this project's subjects had been given various Serums in controlled conditions - but none had seemed to survive.

The Eyes Only documents were all copies - not a single one was the original - and often so impossible to decipher that all he had were more questions.

"Castle."

He lifted his head and saw her standing in the doorway, hands pushed into the back pockets of her jeans. Her hair was drying naturally, waves around her face, her skin pink like she'd been outside.

"What do you want to do for your birthday?"

He laughed, not expecting that question at all, and he dropped the pages he'd collected, left everything on the table to go to her. "My birthday's not for another month."

"I know," she shrugged. "But last year was..." She wrinkled her nose and he shook his head, slid his arms around her waist.

"Last year we celebrated late," he admitted. "But it was fun."

She smirked back at him, their eyes meeting, and he took her hand from her pocket and tugged her out of the room towards the stairs.

"You eat anything?" she murmured.

"No. I'm hungry. You?"

"Yeah. I've been up for a few hours."

"Sit with me?"

"You'll come up with something?" She pushed on his shoulder to get him to head down the stairs, and he moved, feeling her coming right at his back. When they got to the dining room and used it as a shortcut into the kitchen, she crowded into his spine and left a biting kiss between his shoulder blades.

"I'll think of something," he promised. "Forty-five seems like an important birthday."

"Exactly," she said, grinning as she slipped around him. She was headed for the fridge and he watched her pull out ingredients.

"You making me something?"

"Thought I would. Omelette's best I can do."

"Trying to ply me with eggs?"

She laughed, but he leaned in and kissed her cheek. What did he care if she wanted to feed him eggs just in case?

"Sure, baby. Omelette sounds good."

"Sit down and tell me what you want for your birthday."

He shrugged and moved past her, pulled out a chair at the kitchen table and sank into it. He watched her for a moment, her fingers slim and strong on the shells of the eggs, cracking them apart. She scrambled them first, got the stovetop burner turned on, and then she washed her hands, giving him a look to get him going.

He sighed. "I don't know. Anything. I liked it last year when we were here at home with everyone."

"We could do that. Reynolds is still - you know - and could probably use a good meal. You are cooking, right?"

He snorted at her and rubbed his hand over his jaw; he'd forgotten to shave. Oh well. "Yeah, I'll do the cooking."

"I mean, I could do it. If you'd rather not-"

"No, I like it."

She flashed him a smile. "I thought so. And since we're quarantined, there won't be any missions to interrupt us."

"It's not quarantine," he laughed.

"They keep saying - we're just checking to see if you picked up anything."

"Okay, so it's sort of quarantine. We were in the Congo, Beckett. You can't expect the docs to not be worried about jungle parasites. Remember the blow fly?"

She squirmed, as she always did when he talked about it, and he laughed again and stood up from the table. He came to her and wrapped his arms around her waist, nuzzling down into her neck with a hum.

"They'll do blood tests every week for four more weeks," he hummed, "and then we're in the clear. We can go as far away as you like."

"I'm not antsy," she muttered.

"You sound restless."

"Maybe a little restless."

"Stir-crazy."

"Not yet," she threatened, slapping his arm as he pinched her. "Not climbing the walls. But I thought they'd let us do more."

"Who is they?"

"Is it you? Did you say we couldn't-"

"Of course it's me. I'm the one in charge of the whole department," he said, huffing at her neck. She squirmed again and elbowed him off of her, only to turn around and grip him by the ears.

"You bully."

"We needed the rest."

"But I can at least sit at my damn station and do paperwork," she muttered.

"Careful on the ears," he growled back, nosing in to nip at her mouth, kissing her roughly.

It spilled a laugh out of her, reluctant and coerced no doubt, but she tugged on his ears and brought his head up again.

"I need to work, Castle. It's how I cope."

"I know," he sighed. "But work comes soon enough. I wanted... time for us."

She stilled, her fingers relaxing and her eyes on his. "Okay. For your birthday, Rick, time for us."

He smiled back and leaned in, softly kissed her. "Thank you."