My Mind Holds the Key

for daphnebeauty

My body is a cage that keeps me
From dancing with the one I love
But my mind holds the key. . .

Though the fear keeps me moving
Still my heart beats so slow
You're standing next to me
My mind holds the key

Set my spirit free
Set my body free

-My Body Is a Cage, Arcade Fire

She couldn't move to save her life.

But to save his?

She sucked it up and grit her teeth and rolled over, a slow and agonizing process, a forever thing, an effort of mind over body, rolled over until she could see him sprawled in the grass beside her, on his back, not moving.

Castle.

Her heart beat too slowly, sluggish; her blood leaked out everywhere.

His name wouldn't move past her lips, no matter how she tried. Sand scraped inside her eyelids, but they were nowhere near a beach, nowhere near the shore; they were just two people stabbed in Central Park, two people bleeding out in Central Park, two more doomed, ill-fated-

Castle.

Her hand curled between their bodies, but wouldn't reach.

When she woke, her body ached.

But she was in her own bed.

Not Central Park.

Her mind was playing tricks on her. Still.

She rolled over and felt the strain across her ribs, as if she'd pulled a muscle, as if she'd been stabbed. Her phone said it was four in the morning. Too late to call - or too early. She could taste the blood on her tongue; her heart a strange rhythm in her chest.

She called.

It rang and rang. And rang. And then-

He grunted in answer, slurred his name, and then the silence unnerved her.

"Sorry," she muttered. "Go back to sleep."

"Beckett?"

"Hang up, Castle." She waited until he did, then put her own phone down and curled up on her side, breathed through it.

"Did you call me last night? This morning?" he said, handing her a bigger cup of coffee than usual.

He already knew the answer then. She quirked an eyebrow at him and didn't address it, sipped the coffee until the burn numbed her tongue enough to let her swallow a few mouthfuls.

He was wincing, as if he knew she was doing damage to her taste buds, her throat. "I thought so," he muttered.

She pointed at the board; he stopped asking.

She was grateful. She was afraid it showed.

She couldn't move to save her life.

"Could you - just kiss me?" he murmured.

She couldn't move. Couldn't move away either.

"Or could I - kiss you instead?"

Her heart slowed; her blood flooded her skin, made her hot.

"Your eyes are beautiful."

She huffed at the line, spell broken, jerked her head away. "Really?"

It wasn't Castle.

Shit. Who-?

She woke with the taste of blood in her mouth, panic scrabbling at her insides, a sense of dread so complete that she didn't even bother to doubt, she just picked up her phone and called him.

"Second night in a row."

She couldn't speak.

She was cheating on him in her dreams.

She was killing him in her dreams.

She was afraid that killing him was easier to take than cheating on him.

"Beckett-"

"Sorry. Go back to bed."

"You gonna be able to fall asleep?"

She sucked in a breath, pressed a hand over her eyes, felt the darkness widen out. Soothing. A texture to the night, and not just the unremitting black.

"Okay, you stay on the line. I'll just talk."

She made a noise, didn't know if it was agreement or distress.

"I had this idea yesterday. I think I want to buy a flying squirrel."

She snorted, rubbed her hand down her face.

"Have you seen those? They're adorable. If I had my own flying squirrel, I could teach it tricks. It would rest on my shoulder and I could feed it cheese."

"Cheese," she let out, but the hand around her heart hadn't eased.

"Uh-huh. Help me think of names."

"Moose."

"Moose? Moose the Squirrel, ahh, got it. I like it. You're good at this. Okay, what if I had a lemur instead? What would its name be?"

"They look like tiny raccoons."

"Yeah, but what would I name one?"

"I don't know. Bandit."

"Bandit. Ohhh . . .Beckett, now I want a lemur. Damn. This game is working against me. So many other animals to choose from."

She let out a soft sigh, her body unwinding. "What else can I name?"

"Name my . . ." And his pause was long enough, heavy enough for her to catch his double entendre and laugh.

"Sight unseen?" she said, entirely without thinking, and felt the heat scorch her cheeks.

"Uh-oh, good point. Later then. Now if I got a mongoose . . ."

Had he just - he said later.

Later. With no question mark on the end of it.

She liked that too.

"Rikki Tikki," she supplied, but she wasn't thinking about a mongoose, or at least, not about that kind of mongoose.

She scraped her knuckles raw against the brick as she collared their suspect. Collared involved some tackling, yes, and usually she was fine. Taking off the top layer of skin usually didn't get to her. The blood was bright.

Castle was looking at her funny; she sucked on her knuckles and hissed at the pain, shaking her hand out as she walked out of the alleyway. Esposito was manhandling their guy into the back of a squad car; he didn't like being made to run. She did. She liked the chase.

"You need some antibiotic cream or something," Castle said. "I'm pretty sure that saliva doesn't include magical healing properties."

She shot him a look, glanced down at her ragged skin. "Feels better though."

"Well, if that's the case, let me offer my services-"

She slapped his shoulder with the back of her undamaged hand, stood on the sidewalk as she watched the boys talk with the two uniforms who had accompanied them for the takedown. She and Castle were in their own little bubble over here, the blue lights strobing in the darkness.

"I have been told that my mouth is magic, so-"

She startled at the sound of her own choked laugh, surprised he'd gotten to her, but gave him the look to acknowledge it, giving him the win. Persistence. Must be the key. He could wear her down like no one else.

"I'm not sure about your mouth," she found herself saying. "But the words that come out of it? Magic."

"Once again, should you need to do a case study - investigate my claims - I'm sure that can be arranged."

She cut her eyes to him, gave him that coy smile she used when really her heart was pounding, and shrugged neatly at him. "I'll let you know."

He gave her a pleased smile back. "You do that. My calendar is wide open, Beckett."

Subtle, Castle.

She couldn't move to save her life.

But his?

She rolled over to reach for him in the grass, determined to change it this time, despite the ache, the slippery heat of her blood pooling beneath her-

Castle. It was him, not someone else, relief and grief both.

His head turned to face her, his body followed, curling in towards her, and they were not in the grass, bleeding in Central Park. They were anywhere else. They were two people dying in Central Park but two people alive together elsewhere, two people not held apart by death.

Their hands met and fingers tangled; he breathed slowly, labored, but watched her dying. She kept her eyes open as long as she could manage, watching him as well, and when she couldn't, she rolled and put her cheek to the back of his hand, brushed her lips over the knob of his wrist with the barest touch.

"Kate," he said.

She lay there, her body being pressed into the grass, ready for reaping.

"Kate. Stay with me."

Deep into the grass, the green blades tickling her skin, the breeze skirting her neck, the breath leaving her.

"Stay with me, Kate."

For a man bleeding in the grass, he sounded so very good. His voice like magic.

"Kate, I lo-"

And then before he said what she knew he was going to say, what she longed to hear one last time, the magic was gone.

She opened her eyes, and he was dead.

She was not even awake when she called, not even conscious of herself being in the dark of her bedroom until his voice sounded on the other end, suspiciously awake.

"Kate."

"Can I come over?"

"Of course."

She hung up still half-slumbered, grabbed yoga pants from the floor, pulled on the loose grey shirt over her tank top, phone still clutched tightly in her fingers, found her wallet on the dresser. Her keys were on the kitchen counter, waiting for her hand.

She locked the door, stumbled down the stairs, missed a step at the bottom that woke her up a little more. Enough to raise her hand and flag a cab, settle back into the cracked plastic seat with her heart still slowly pounding, a message drum.

She fell asleep with her cheek pressed against the glass, was woken by the jerking stop of the taxi in front of his building. She paid with her credit card and fought her way out of still-clinging dreams, inside to his lobby.

The elevator ride was interminable.

Castle had the door open, was actually standing there waiting for her.

Her heart was roaring now, a beast she couldn't tame. She had her arms around him and her face buried in the side of his neck before he could offer, before he could even shut the door.

"Kate," he said softly, neither question nor demand, just home, a resting place.

"I had a dream." She felt her lips move against his skin and felt his answering shudder.

She had a dream and now she might get away with a slight, just very slight, obfuscation. A way to smooth over the last summer's terrible tragedy without adding more mess, more pain.

"A dream. Last night too?"

"Not the same dream. Tonight's dream - I was dying in the grass."

She did not say, I had been stabbed. She let him make of it what he wanted.

His hands clenched at her back, pressed her closer.

"You said something to me. You said my name."

She did not say, I know what you said. I know, I know.

"I said your name? While you were dying in the grass," he repeated.

"And then, instead of how it was supposed to go, you died, Castle."

"I'm not dead."

Not the point, is it? Well, to her it is. But not the point of telling him. "You died in the middle of telling me something. Something important."

His hands were fists at her shoulder blades; he loosened his grip as if making himself, reluctant and determined at the same time. "I died before I could tell you something?"

"Something I remember," she finished, and lifted her lashes to look at him, really look, hoping this was okay, to say this, to let it out like this.

How she knew.

"Something you remember."

"Can you - can you-" She faltered, had only to center herself on the image of her dream, two people dying side by side in the green grass, before she could continue. "Can you finish what you were supposed to say?"

"In your dream?"

"At all. Can you say it at all? Again."

His thumb swept the plane of her cheekbone, his fingers suddenly wrapped around the back of her neck, all too familiar. She remembered those moments too. A deceiving kiss. His body pressing her against her car as her Captain made his last stand. Her body sinking into the grass as darkness bled out from her chest. So familiar.

His mouth came to hers before he said a word, a light touch, a caress of mint and satin.

"Kate, I love you."

She touched her tongue to his parted mouth, slid inside where it was silky and warm and welcoming. He caught her up, hips flush, and kissed her hard.

When she had to breathe, to speak, she broke away, fingers at his cheek stroking, eyes finding his.

"I remember."

He kissed her again, softly, then laughed a little. "How's the magic now?"