Close Encounters 16

"McCord will be here in an hour," Castle told them, ending the phone call with Rachel. He faced the guys in his living room and stared them down, made absolutely sure they understood how serious this was. "From now on, we don't mention the pregnancy. Not a word, a joke, a nod, nothing. Black is still out there and I don't know who we can trust."

Each one of them - Esposito, Ryan, Mitchell - kept Castle's gaze and nodded tersely; they all understood what was at stake.

"I'm gonna go get Kate. She'll be pissed I let her sleep this long."

"You have a story worked out for us?" Esposito said tightly.

"Yeah, we do. We'll let you all in on it before McCord gets here. But it's imperative that she thinks she's part of the cover. She doesn't know about the baby, and she can't."

"We got it, man," Ryan said. He was sitting on their couch, elbows on his knees, and he looked as afraid as Castle felt when the idea of Black finding out...

Ryan would have his own baby at home soon. So very soon. He understood.

"I'll be right back," Castle said tightly.

He moved for the kitchen and the basement door, and he heard Esposito snickering. He didn't care. They'd both gotten about four hours of sleep down in the panic room, deep and dreamless, and they'd needed it.

When he got down there, Kate was pulling clean clothes from the laundry basket on top of the dryer. "Oh, good. You can help me."

She handed him her clothes and gave him a smirk that made him feel better; she looked better too. "The boys are upstairs."

"I could hear you guys talking," she nodded. "Help me strip."

Castle chuckled and laid her jeans and shirt on the dryer once more, reached for the hem of the t-shirt she'd worn to bed. "So demanding."

"You love it."

He grinned and kissed her between the eyes, slowly worked the top over her head. Her hair was curly from drying last night and it fell softly down her back in waves. "How's it feel?"

"I'm glad we walked around last night," she said, evading the question.

"You think better now?"

"It's... it hurts," she admitted, shoulders hunched.

Castle stroked his fingers down her spine, circled her shoulder blades. "You want a sports bra?"

"I don't know that I can... no." She tossed her head and leaned into him; he embraced her lightly, gave her that moment she needed. She spoke against his chest. "Actually, yeah. Sports bra. I think my running clothes got washed in this load too."

Castle let go of her to rummage through the basket, found the neon pink bra and held it up by a finger, dangling it in front of her eyes. "I get to help with this too?"

She snorted and gripped the side of his shirt, tugging just enough to pull him towards her. Of course, his blanace was better than that, but he let his body sway.

"I think that's a yes," he murmured with a grin.

"Yes," she huffed. "Fine. Help me put on my bra, Agent Castle."

His grin only got wider, glad she was playing along, happy to help. He widened the base of her sports bra and pulled it on over her head, being careful when he let the elastic band release against her skin. She stood up straighter, the only indication of the pain, and he slowly drew her arms through the holes, arranged it.

"I like this hot pink bra," he murmured, coming in close to run his fingers down her back. Goose bumps flared in his wake and he pretended that the band needed to be fixed, smoothing his fingers under it to touch her skin.

"Need my shirt, Castle," she murmured.

"Right now?" he sighed. "So soon?"

"Stop being seductive," she muttered. "I can't do anything about it. Not with the boys upstairs."

Like that was the only thing holding her back. Castle skimmed a kiss to her cheek and reached for the shirt, another one of his former black t-shirts. He didn't mind her stealing them from him; it was strangely sexy to follow her home and find her shedding work clothes - those drop-dead gorgeous outfits she pulled together effortlessly - and sliding her body into something of his.

It was a little more difficult this time, but he helped her the best he could, ignoring the way she held herself against it, bracing for the pain. She'd pulled out jeans for herself, but he thought that was maybe asking too much, so he found her running pants instead - spandex and easily pulled into place, no buttons or zippers. She'd thank him for it later.

When she was dressed, she was a little shaky but determined. "I need some breakfast," she said. "And we can talk to the boys while I eat."

"And tylenol," he reminded her.

Kate touched his arm, turned him for the stairs. "I took it when I woke up," she confessed. "You left a water bottle and the tylenol down there for me. Get going, Castle. I'm ready to do this."

"I should go behind you," he said, pausing at the bottom step.

She gave him a look but she didn't protest; she went slowly ahead of him and he followed her, his hands hovering, ready to catch her if she fell.

"Here's what we've come up with so far," Kate started. Her back ached in strange places from the awkward position she'd fallen asleep in, but she didn't dare move. Castle was watching her like a hawk. "The CIA can't be mentioned in any way because we had no legal jurisdiction. So this becomes a Task Force between the NYPD and Secret Service, with liaise through the AG's office. Officially."

"Wait. NYPD?" Espo said. "How you figure?"

Kate leaned forward, adjusting only slightly, but even just sitting up straight echoed all through her body. "The idea is that the AG's office approached me - the NYPD detective - to help with an investigation into a crooked politician. This was after Coonan was killed. The connections there are well-established through the evidence we've collected, and we can say that McCord had a hunch, since she had already been looking into things on her end."

"How much back-tracking are we gonna have to do to make that fly?" Espo snorted. "That's years worth."

"I did have a hunch," Rachel injected. "Not the right hunch, but close enough. My co-workers knew I was on to something big, even back then. I kept my mouth shut and my head down, so that's not going to seem all that strange that they didn't know."

"Okay," Ryan said. "All right. I can see that. What about us?"

"I recruited you," Kate said easily. "We're all still NYPD. When IAB looks into this, it'll look like what it looked like - I was first on the Task Force, and I brought you guys along with me when it started to be more than I could handle alone."

"What exactly have we been doing undercover?" Esposito said. "I mean, CIA training courses aren't gonna cut it."

"We'll have to come up with that," Castle said smoothly. "Some of that time, yes, can't be accounted for. But say you three were working out of the Secret Service, running down leads, computer searches - then there'd be some protocol for training, meetings, that kind of thing."

"On the Secret Service." Esposito didn't look like he thought it would work, but Ryan was into it.

He was nodding his head and Beckett could see him thinking. He shuffled his feet and sat forward in his chair. "Okay, okay, here's what I see for us. We had to do some intensive training sessions to get up to speed, right? So those weeks I was at the CIA computer camp, that was just a Secret Service crash course."

Espo shot him a narrow-eyed look, but Kate took it up.

"Exactly. The work Castle did a few years ago to bust up a lot Bracken's organized crime ring is stuff the Task Force can claim. It was in its infancy, but it was still there."

At her word choice, Ryan's eyes flickered away from hers, Castle shifted beside her, took up the narrative. "So you three are NYPD, understand?"

"And what about you?" Ryan said, a little too quickly.

"I'm nothing."

"You're not nothing," Kate said hotly, turning to look at him. He lifted an eyebrow and her cheeks flushed. "Well, not to me. He's Richard Rodgers. He's married, owns a dog, just reconnected with his mother."

"You're going with your cover alias?" Esposito said. "But that means you're a sports agent and you've got no sports knowledge."

"No, no," Kate said quickly. "He's an accountant for a sports agent. And that's always the big joke - he knows nothing about sports. My father has had to fill him in on the rules of football, etc. That kind of thing."

"So he's an orphan - nothing at all about Black?"

"Who's Black?" McCord said. "Is this someone else I need to know about?"

"Black is-" Kate paused and shot Castle a pleading look. He sighed, rubbed his hand down his face.

"Black is my father. He travels a lot, never really had time for me. He doesn't approve of Kate and so we're estranged. That's the story - and it's the truth."

Kate let out a long breath that made her ribs stiffen; she braced her arm across her middle and Esposito shot her a warning look, some kind of panic on his face she couldn't understand. Oh. Because her arm was across her stomach? Calm down, Espo.

McCord gave her a sympathetic look. "I know - it's got to hurt. I got shot in the vest once and that hurt for weeks. I can't imagine. They didn't give you any pain killers? Like the good stuff?"

Kate opened her mouth but Castle beat her to it. "They did, but she won't take them. You know Beckett."

She closed her mouth, flushing because it was usually so damn true. "They make me too tired," she muttered. She had to shift again, taking a shallow breath, and McCord clucked her tongue.

"You should take those - the first 48 hours at least."

"After we get through this, maybe," Kate murmured. "Now for the details of the Task Force. Rachel, we're going to need you to run point on this - it will be a lot of... creative storytelling."

McCord nodded. "I can do that. I think this is important - not just because Bracken was a bastard who had it coming, but because you're a good agent. The best I've seen in a long time. You don't deserve this."

You don't deserve this.

Wait. What didn't she deserve? Was there something else going on outside of keeping a lid on the CIA's involvement?

Kate turned her gaze to Castle and he was being suspiciously still, not looking at her.

"What's going on?" she snapped. "Castle. What's happened?"

He met her eyes, but the truth was already there. She should have seen this coming. A signed confession from a Westies enforcer in ICU wasn't enough. Not when she'd shot a US Senator.

"They're trying to bury me for this," she whispered. "Bracken's people..."

Or Black.

That was what Castle had meant yesterday. Black was trying to bury her.

"Speaking of - someone leaked photos this morning," McCord said crisply. "Security camera footage of a kitchen inside the Palace Terrace hotel. Shows you pointing a gun at Bracken and then pistol whipping him."

Oh, no.

"We can't prove they've been altered, but we'll keeping working on it," McCord said, patting Kate's hand.

Beckett curled her fingers into a fist. "You should stop. They're not fakes."

"What?"

"I did that. I threatened him in order to broker a deal, and then I hit him to make a point. And it worked."

Castle sighed, his face lined as he looked at her. "Until yesterday."

Esposito hung back from the dining room table where Castle and Beckett had laid out all the timeline issues. McCord was taking charge, using the black marker on the white board propped up in the corner to jot down details so everyone would know the official story.

"This isn't gonna do it," Espo told him quietly.

Castle shifted to lean back against the wall, suddenly so tired. "It's all we got, Javi."

"It's not enough to protect her," Espo growled. "How do you plan on that? Huh? Because what I see is a bunch of suspicious shit. And we've got to fool IAB as well as the FBI?"

"FBI?" Castle scraped out.

"Yeah, Congress, man. FBI and Secret Services. Shit."

Shit. That just about covered it, didn't it? "Most of this isn't even a lie, Espo. It's just a little bit broader brush to paint the truth."

"IAB, the FBI, Congressional hearings, and a reporter."

"Well, part of being a CIA agent is lying to protect the people you serve with. If we don't do this, you're all exposed. But of course, if we do do this, you're all exposed as well. It's a no-win situation."

"You know I'm ready to fucking lay it down for her, man, but Ryan's got a family."

"I know. I've kept Ryan out of this as much as possible. He's a new Secret Service hire - paperwork's all there. It's harder to make that work for you, because your sniper training is public record, but we've got it worked out so that you and Beckett were partners on this, working out of the NYPD Undercover Unit."

Espo gritted his teeth, stayed silent, but Castle already knew. They were on thin ice.

"The two of you instead of her and me, that's the only difference, Esposito. You can do it. I trust you."

"I know I can do it," Espo growled.

But. Castle could hear the but coming.

Esposito turned so that Beckett couldn't see him. "We should have taken him out. Long time ago. Soon as we knew the name; we should have dealt with it."

You should have, Esposito seemed to be saying.

"No," Castle said grimly. "I should have killed Black. He should be dead by now. He's behind this."

Esposito gave him a sharp, assessing look. "Next time. You don't hesitate."

Castle nodded.

"And, Castle, if you do-" Esposito shifted closer, menacing. "If you do, you call me. I won't."

The guys and McCord were all in the kitchen poring over details when Beckett made the mistake of watching the news coverage.

She sank to her knees in front of the television, put her hands over her mouth as she stared at the screen. Her ribs pounded with her heartbeat so that she couldn't move, could only watch in horror.

"Kate," Castle barked at her. He strode into the living room and jabbed his thumb into the tv's power button. It popped and went dark and she sank over her hands, sucking in her breath.

"Oh, God," she moaned.

"No, stop. Kate. I am not letting them take you for this."

"I shot him. I shot him and what-"

"No," Castle growled, hauling her to her feet. "I will not let it go down like this."

Beckett sucked in a breath that wouldn't come, tried to rationalize what she'd seen, what they were saying about her. "They're going to arrest me, Castle." She closed her eyes.

"No."

"Yes," she said calmly, finally looking at him. "And we can't - there's very little to do before that. We get our ducks in a row, but I have to be arrested."

"No. Kate." He growled into her hair and gripped her fiercely, his arm too tight and making her breath catch. But he still didn't let go. "Kate, let me take you somewhere. We'll just - we'll go back to Cyprus. We'll live there in that little villa and we'll eat at that amazing place just down the street and sip rose cordial-"

"Castle," she sighed.

He went still but his heart still beat like thunder under her ear. She shifted away from him. "I shot a US Senator. And yes, he came after me first, but I'll be taken into custody."

"I'm not turning you over without a fucking arrest warrant," he cursed.

"We've done all we can," she said quietly. "The FBI will interview everyone and it - it might take a long time to get it sorted. It might take a year for a thorough investigation to be completed."

"It can't," he said bleakly. His hand circled around her hip and his thumb brushed her belly button. "Oh, God, Kate. It can't."

A year? What was she thinking? They didn't have a year. They had - at best - three or four months before she started to show, and besides that, she was supposed to be seeing a doctor soon. Three weeks was barely anything, barely a baby at all, and how was she supposed to keep hold of it if she was in prison?

"No," he whispered. "It can't. It won't."

"We'll figure it out."

"I'll fly your Dad out of the country too," he husked. "Anyone you want, Kate. We'll start over somewhere else. New names. New identities. We can do it."

"That's sweet," she whispered. "But I don't want our child to grow up never knowing the truth of us."

Castle dipped his mouth to her neck, a kiss she didn't understand, and then she heard his laughter at her skin. "Oh, love, that's... we're spies. How will he ever know the truth?"

Her heart broke. But she refused to believe their life would be a lie even from their child. "No, he'll know. He'll know because we'll be right here. I refuse to lie to him. He deserves to know how much - how much we wanted him, what we worked through and against to get him here. Why it's important."

"Okay," he said quickly. "Okay, okay, Kate. All right."

"When they come to arrest me-"

"No."

"When they do-"

"Kate."

"I want you to stay here," she said tightly.

"What? No. I'm coming with-"

"You're supposed to be my accountant husband," she murmured. "Stay here and keep me out of jail. Get a lawyer."

"No," he said tightly. "You're not going to be arrested. You're not."

But she would. And soon.

He'd gone back to the timeline with renewed fervor, denial in every taut line of his body. He was not going to let her go.

"At some point, we'll have to set up residence in the cover apartment," Beckett told him.

Castle shook his head; he didn't want to hear it.

"Castle," she sighed. She nudged him away from the others, drew him into the kitchen. "Rick, I know you don't want to think about this. But the Rodgers live in an apartment with their dog in Greenwich Village - that will be where the reporters camp out looking for us, where the police will come."

"You're not going-"

"Castle," she growled. "Do you think I want to go? I just want to keep-" She pressed her hand to her ribs and turned her head.

He immediately felt guilty, tried to press closer to her, somehow protect her from that pain. "Okay," he murmured, slowly taking her shoulders, taking her weight. "Okay, the apartment. Right. We have to live our covers."

"We should go there sometime today so that none of this comes back to our home here." She straightened up again, wouldn't lean on him. "I don't want a reporter finding us here. This is - sacred space for us, Rick. This is where we'll keep our child safe. I don't want anyone finding our real home."

He nodded, flooded by the weight of responsibility - not just for Kate, but for their baby too. For their future. He was paranoid in the here and now because he didn't want to have it come back to them tomorrow, but being careful here and now so that twelve years from now it didn't ruin them - it just hadn't ever occurred to him.

"Please," she murmured to him, that one word that always got him.

"I know," he said finally, squeezing his eyes closed. "We'll go when we're done here. We'll - God, Kate, I don't want to go."

She wrapped an arm around his neck even though it had to hurt her, and she pressed her cheek against his. "Baby, I know. I know. But this is what we have to do. Stick to the cover story."

He swallowed against it; he didn't want it to be like this. But she trusted the system; she wanted justice and the law to clear her name because, in the end, her whole being was built on those truths. Her mother's life had been built on those truths.

Castle had never had truths to build on. He had to have faith in her faith, or else he wasn't going to survive this.

He wasn't sure that was going to be enough.

"Let's all go into the living room, rehearse this," Kate said to him. Her kiss was soft at his ear, her lips brushing the shell and making a shiver go down his spine. "We've got it pretty good; we'll just go at it over and over until it's flawless. We're all spies - we're good at this."

Castle lifted his head and studied her; she was so strong, so purposeful. He believed in her, that was for sure. "Okay." He backed up and turned around to glance at their group still crowded around the dining room table. "Hey, guys. Let's adjourn to the living room and test it out. If any of you get a sense that it's flimsy or weak, then we work it out until it's solid. Got it?"

"Aye-aye, Captain," Esposito snarked, giving him a salute and moving for the living room. Castle felt Kate's hand in his shirt and he reached back to take her fingers, drawing her after him.

Their friends came with them, ready to work out the last of the kinks.

When the knock came on their door, Kate stiffened at his side. Castle stood and had a moment's gut-searing panic - hide her - that was knocked away when Esposito just outright opened the door.

But it was Reynolds.

Busted up, black and blue Reynolds, who'd nearly died off the coast of North Africa because he'd listened to one too many of Black's lies.

"Ren," Castle choked out.

Reynolds gave a half-hearted chuckle and stepped over the threshold, carefully avoiding Esposito. "I heard on the news. I'm here to help."

Kate came up beside him, though Castle knew it must have cost her to move that quickly. "Michael. You're - how are you? Are you okay?"

"Am I okay? Agent Beckett, you shot a senator."

And with that pronouncement, the whole room fell into terrible silence.

Because she had - she had shot a senator. And that just didn't go away.

How fucking ironic that the one person in this whole room who'd only wanted justice for Senator Bracken was the one who'd be put on trial for his murder?

"It was self-defense," Beckett said into the silence.

And then the room cracked and broke, shaky chuckles and eye rolls and shrugging shoulders. Michael Reynolds came uneasily into the living room and up to Kate, holding out his hand. He still looked like he'd been in a war; his fingers were still in splints where the small bones had been broken.

"I want to help. You saved my life and you didn't have to do that. Whatever you need, I'll do it."

Kate took his hand gingerly and shook it, her smile as crooked and pained as his. "Welcome home, Michael."

They staggered their departures, avoiding the front sidewalk in favor of going out the back. Once, Sasha had escaped the backyard through a long-forgotten alleyway corridor, and after that, Castle had expanded upon that passage to give them a covert escape if they should ever need it.

They needed it now.

Mitchell left them first, going alone, to tie off some last-minute threads to his cover; he was the one who'd be risking the most in their plan, and Castle knew the man was getting his flight bag ready in case it went sideways.

Reynolds went with Ryan, the two of them heading back for the CIA Office to collect the material Mitchell would need when he went to his reporter. Esposito went ahead of them to the cover apartment, locking it down for their arrival, checking to be sure no reporters had gotten into the building.

McCord went back to the AG's local office, ready to call Secret Service and IAB, to run interference for them with the FBI's investigative unit that had formed at a special request of Congress. Her boss had already messaged her twice to get going on it; he wanted her in place to liaise as well, so it worked out for them.

Finally, only Castle and Kate remained, Sasha looking disgruntled at all the upheaval to their home.

"Time to go," he told the dog. "You'll probably hate the new place, but it's only for a little while." He clipped the leash onto her collar and she actually bristled at him, baring her teeth, showing her wolf side.

"I've never seen her do that," Kate said, coming into the hallway and dropping her messenger bag to the floor. They'd packed only a few items inside, sending most of their clothes ahead with Esposito, just in case anyone caught them sneaking in. It wouldn't do to have it look like Kate was trying to run.

"Me either," Castle sighed, nudging his fingers into Sasha's nose in warning. They'd been lucky she was so even-tempered, that she was laid-back and had attached herself to them as her pack. "At least not to us."

"I've seen her do it in the dog park," Kate admitted. "When she thinks I'm in danger."

"With people or other dogs?"

"People," Kate murmured, getting down carefully on her knees and opening her arms to the dog. Sasha came, rubbing against Kate and pushing her head into Kate's petting. "You're just worried, aren't you? A lot has gone on. We're all going to be okay, puppy. You'll be fine."

Castle leaned in over them and stroked Sasha between her ears, put at ease by the way her dog nature seemed to roll over her again, back to being an eager-to-please thing. "That's better. Good girl. When the baby comes, you'll have to let him into the pack too. Can you do that, Sasha?"

The dog nudged her muzzle into his hand and licked his fingers as if asking for forgiveness. Castle petted her quietly, soothed himself by the action, and then he finally met Kate's eyes.

She nodded and stood up, slowly. Castle took the bag from the floor and slung it over his shoulder, kept a firm grip on the leash. Kate didn't look all that steady beside him, brittle with her bruised ribs, but she turned in the foyer and headed resolutely for the back door.

"We should go," Kate called to him. "I don't want to linger."

They exited out the back, like thieves, and he didn't like it. But he remote locked the doors and set the alarm, and he had faith that no one and nothing could violate their home. They'd be away for who knew how long, unable to get back until this whole thing settled out, but when they did come back, when they were able...

Kate slipped her hand into his and squeezed, pressed her lips to his shoulder so that he paused and gave her a moment in the narrow passage between the buildings. "I don't want to leave it either," she murmured. "But we'll come back."

"We have to," he said. He reached out and brushed his fingers over her uninjured hip, pushed his knuckles just under her belly button, feeling her taut abs as she worked to keep herself from being jostled too much. "We need our home for him when he comes."

Kate's eyes caught his in the shadows between the buildings. She looked so strong standing there, so inviolate, like nothing could hurt her even as she nursed bruised ribs.

He cupped the side of her face and kissed her, pulling love from her mouth, needing that reminder of home. "Until then," he murmured, brushing his hand down her sternum. "He's safe here; I won't let anything happen to you, Kate."

so ends Close Encounters 16: Skyfall

Stay Tuned for Close Encounters 17: On the Secret Service