Title: Murdercycle

Disclaimer: I should be working on a paper for Drama Lit II.

Summary: She can't believe their moment is going to happen here, in a hospital room, when she can't even reach out to stop him. Slight Spoilers for 4x21.

She wakes to piercing blue eyes, her limbs heavy, mouth full of cotton.

"Kate?" he whispers, and she feels the fluttering of fingers over her hand, tries to latch on before they fall away as the eyes blink. "Good, you're awake."

"Castle," she rasps, trying to sit up, to follow his hand away, but she can't seem to move, can't reach out any better here than she could at the precinct. "Wha—what happened?" she manages, taking stock of the pervasive ache in her right side and the dull burning over her left.

"You took a spill on your bike," he tells her, eyes looking past hers now. "One broken rib and some nasty road rash."

"Oh, okay," she mumbles, trying to remember.

He told her he was taking the week to follow Slaughter around three days ago. Then yesterday he came walking in with an enormous shiner, boasting to the boys, who, for the record, found it about as manly and awesome as she did. But he pranced off with his new pal—new partner?—and left them there to solve their own case. When she left, she popped in to say goodbye and found the two of them discussing character ideas.

The rest is a blur of wind and the smell of her helmet and the sudden crash of falling, jerking, twisting and burning. And now she's here, and so is he.

"You came," she says, sucking in a breath when the thought tumbles free. Damnit.

His eyes slip back to hers and she sees a shock of something deep inside, before he pushes it away and adapts that calm façade she's come to hate more than anything.

"The boys called," he offers.

"Right," she whispers, and man, does that sting more than what must be a mile of road rash running up her side. Riding in the tee shirt was a really, really dumb idea. "How bad is the rash?" she asks, because now that she's thinking about it, she can't stop feeling it. The gunshot was centralized, this burns all over, consuming.

"A big patch on your side, and your arm is pretty ripped up, but no skin grafts, no bone," he tells her, and she sees it again as she watches him look her over. No gown, just the bandages—all that separates him from her is a flimsy pile of gauze, and whatever chasm has grown between them.

"Can I go home tonight?" she asks, trying to make the question strong and carefree, but if she has to stay here, without him—that's a given, apparently—she doesn't think she can stand it. She can't. She can't stay here alone. Can't do it again.

"No," he sighs and she feels his fingers at her wrist again, a second before his hand curls into a fist he jams down by his side. "You need to stay on the IV for the night."

Oh, she's attached to an IV. Cool, cool. No, shit. No. She can't do this. "I—" she opens her mouth but nothing comes out, nothing but the ghost of the crippling dread filling her chest. "My dad?"

"I called, but he's stuck up north doing a retreat or something?'

Oh, the AA retreat he leads every year. "Right," she nods, regretting it as it somehow pulls at something that burns. Damn it. "No, please, you told him to stay, right?"

He nods slowly. She mentioned it, must have been a few weeks ago, and she told him how much it meant to her father, how much it meant to her.

"I told him to stay," he assures her.

"Good." She tries to smile, but that means her father won't be coming, and they're in the middle of a case. Lanie can't be there. Javi and Kevin have to finish her case. And Castle—Castle has Slaughter now.

"Yeah," he says, bobbing his head as he leans back in his chair.

"You," she stops and swallows, tries to push the words she desperately wants to hold back out of her throat. "Slaughter probably needs you."

He jerks suddenly and the look he gives her, thoroughly shocked and almost hurt pierces through to her heart before he can wipe his face clean. "I—"

She shakes her head, grimacing because she really needs to remember to stop moving. "I just figure you have better things to do than play nurse," she manages. Well, that didn't sound petty, bitter, or hurt at all. Great.

He gapes at her and she realizes that she can't seem to swallow because she's so freaking parched. She reaches out with her left arm toward the water and yelps, dropping her seemingly foreign appendage to the bed, only to jerk again. Like thousands of flames, the burns lick up her skin and she can't help but writhe in the bed, panting, trying to keep herself under control, but failing miserably.

He doesn't want to look at her anyway; he shouldn't see her like this. If he's really leaving her, she wants him to remember the strong Beckett, the Nikki Heat he met that first case—whatever he saw that made him follow her, stand by her, work with her for four years. That's what she wants him to remember. Not this messy, broken, burning woman who can't stop moaning in a hospital bed.

"Kate," he says softly, standing to bend over her, a hand pressing gently on one hip as his other holds his weight above her, his eyes at her level where she's propped in the bed. "Stop moving."

She gasps at his proximity mixed with the pain, at the warmth of his hand, so solid on her hip, anchoring her to something other than the pervasive burning that's everywhere. "Tha—thank you," she says when everything stops twitching and she can get a little air back in her lungs.

"They said you could have some morphine to knock you out overnight," he says softly, meeting her eyes, and for the first time in three weeks, she sees him, her Castle, her Rick. "I told them you'd probably say no."

She blinks her assent, because she doesn't even want to think about moving again. "Yeah," she breathes out.

"But maybe you might want some," he continues. "You're going to move when you sleep, and then you'll just wake up and do this—" he squeezes her hip gently. "All over again."

"No," she whispers. No more morphine. She's had enough to last her a lifetime. "Something weaker?"

"I don't think Tylenol's going to cut it," he says, shaking his head at her. "You can let someone help you, you know," he adds, and she watches him disappear. "You can let someone in. I don't care who it is, but let someone help you."

And then he's gone, backing away, and she can't move, can't bend forward from where she's propped up, can't follow him. "Castle," she calls out, and she sounds as she is, broken and hurt and confused. But she can't just watch him walk away.

He stiffens near the door, hand on the knob already, so close, ready to leave her. It's breaking her heart; he's breaking her heart, and she never even gave it to him.

"What?" he asks, and he doesn't even have the decency to turn around.

"What?" she parrots. "What? You tell me," she lets out, weeks of frustration released by this stupid injury and the sight of him, turned away from her, leaving her. "I don't even deserve a goodbye?"

He spins around and they stare at each other. She doesn't know what she's done to make him look like that—to make him into a mirror that reflects the same anger, the same hurt, the same heartbreak she feels right back at her.

"Deserve?" he mutters, eyes glinting strangely as he takes a step back to her, fingers leaving the door knob. "You want to talk about decency here?"

"Decency?" she scoffs around the dryness of her throat, the ache in her stomach that has as much to do with him as the broken rib and bruising. "You mean more than throwing out four years of partnership for a shiny toy?"

"Slaughter's not a toy," he growls.

"Then what the hell am I?" she lets out, too far gone to wonder about should she, and will he, and what if. "What about Ryan and Esposito? Whatever you're punishing me for, you can't be dumb enough to think it's not hurting them too."

"Punishing you? You think I'm punishing you?" he asks, low and fierce and dangerous. She's never seen him stand like that, so rigid, the lines of his black jacket falling like armor around his chest—guarded.

"Yeah, I do," she spits back. "I don't get the act, but I get that I did something, or you think I did, and if you want to talk decency, how about having the decency to at least tell me what it was before you toss me out like yesterday's trash."

He rocks on his feet, like her words physically blow him over. But he shifts back, and she's never, ever seen his face harden like that. "Oh, is this about keeping secrets?" he hisses, and it's like a chill falls over the room. "You wanna talk about keeping secrets, Beckett?"

She opens her mouth, but he's taken that from her too—the fight's just gone. It falls into place with a sickening crunch that hurts more than anything she's felt in a hospital bed. She didn't wait too long. She missed her opportunity, gave it away without knowing it. He heard her. That's what it was. That's what the looks were, why there was only one coffee, why she's felt it tipping on her subconscious for weeks—that little piece of evidence that didn't make sense until now.

"Castle," she lets out, low and plaintive.

It throws him, she'll give herself that. "There you go," he says, and the triumph she hears doesn't sound the way she's sure he meant it to. "Took you long enough."

Her eyes snap to his and she feels her jaw tighten at that. "So instead of talking to me, asking me, telling me you were there, you decided to parade a group of blondes through my precinct and change partners?" He opens his mouth but she's on a roll now. "Instead of having the balls to confront me about it, you went all passive aggressive and hurt everyone you say you care about?"

"What good would it have done?" he tosses back. "You can't even say it now. I got out with what's left of my pride. Forgive me for not doing it well enough to protect your fragile sensibilities."

"Your pride?" she repeats. "That's what four years amount to for you? Your freaking pride?"

"What? No," he defends, standing straighter, arms across his chest. "What do they amount to for you? You wanna talk about hurting people, how about stringing me along for 10 months, waiting for me to do just this, to let you go. And now you're mad at me? That's rich, Beckett."

"Letting you go? Stringing—" Shit, does he think? "If you'd let me talk to you at any point in the last three weeks you'd know that wasn't true!" she asserts. "I'm not stringing you along."

"You have a fantastic way of showing it," he snarls. "If you were embarrassed by it and didn't feel the same way, you could have just told me. I'm a big boy, Beckett."

"You're an idiot!" she exclaims, rocking up from the pillows only to gasp and sink back, her entire body rigid.

"Stop moving," he says, angry but still too—too what, in love with her?—invested to not care. "And I'm the idiot," he adds with a little less bite as he makes his way back to her while she breathes through her nose, counting like they taught her all those months ago, counting the pain away.

"Admittedly not the best place to have this out," she grits through her teeth, opening her eyes to find him there, standing at her bedside.

"We don't pick our moments well," he agrees, resting his hands on the retractable arm, knuckles slightly white with the strength of his grip.

"I thought you understood," she mumbles, glancing up at his face. "On the swings. I thought you understood."

"I thought I did too," he says with a lopsided shrug. "But then I heard you and I just can't anymore, Kate." There's so much weariness in his voice, so much repressed hurt. She wishes she could just reach out and take his hand.

"Because you think I'm embarrassed by it," she concludes, trying to catch his gaze as it shifts around the room.

"Ran out of other explanations for why my partner," the word comes out with a sting of rejection and she can't help but suck in a breath, "would lie to me, wouldn't just tell me she didn't feel the same way."

She works her jaw, breath shallow, because this is her moment, in a damn hospital bed. This is the moment she's waited for, and now that it's here, how can she ever make that up to him? "So, of all the possible conclusions you could have drawn, you went straight to doesn't feel the same way?" she asks, watching as his eyes snap back to hers, wider than normal.

He opens his mouth, makes a struggled sound, and closes it again, nodding.

"And when I tried to tell you, multiple times, tried to open up to you in the last three weeks, you didn't think, at any point, whatever I had to say was worth hearing?"

His eyes dim and she figures he's going back, seeing things he refused to see. She almost sickly hopes he can watch himself crush her moment by moment, that he can understand just what his pride did to her, and to him, by the looks of it. "I—"

"You didn't think, for one single second, that maybe I had my reasons for keeping it from you? That if you talked to me, you'd understand?" Nothing. He's got nothing, and it's triumph and blow at once. "Do you remember what I said on the swings?"

"Yeah," he gets out.

"And you didn't consider that?"

"It's been ten months," he sighs, looking down at her. "You'll have to forgive me for not having the patience of a prophet."

She blows out a labored breath, wishing she could dig her palms into her eyes, could somehow stop that itch that leads to tears. It sort of sounds like she broke him, broke him by trying to put herself back together. If he weren't so hurt, he'd appreciate the irony of it. One of them should.

"You know, the day before that interrogation, I was going to ask you to dinner," she says, and it sounds random to her too. He blinks, startled, and meets her eyes. "I wanted to tell you."

Those blue eyes, the ones that can warm and love and freeze her, blink and widen and then flutter shut as he hangs his head. She gives him a minute, pleased for the respite, letting herself sink into the pillows.

"Tell me what?" he finally asks, bringing his head up.

"That I remembered," she offers sadly. "That I wanted to try. That I'm still a mess, but I don't want to let that stop us anymore, because there's never enough time. That we deserve an honest chance before it disappears" she continues. "Take your pick."

"Kate," he breathes and all of it falls away.

"You thought I was embarrassed," she says, trying to see how he could possibly have gotten there. "You honestly thought I was too embarrassed to tell you?"

"Rapidly feeling like an idiot," he says. "A jerky idiot."

"I am sorry I didn't tell you," she interrupts, before he can get to apologizing, which she does so desperately feel she deserves. "I waited too long, and then every time I thought about it, I couldn't see a way out that didn't hurt you," she explains, laughing quietly. "Obviously that backfired. But it damn well wasn't because I was embarrassed by your feelings."

"Gonna go down in my book as my stupidest conclusion," he says quickly.

"It better," she huffs, watching him.

"Why then?" he asks, shifting closer, still held away from her, but back in her bubble, back in that space reserved just for him—a little too close, a little too personal, and so distinctly Castle.

"For a while it was all just one jumble, no matter how lovely, how life affirming," she says, pausing to meet his eyes, since she can't reach for his hands. "And if I tried to think about it, I had a panic attack, since it kind of brought back the whole shot in the chest thing."

It's a testament to her work with Burke that she can speak so lightly about this, that it can just be a story to her. Not to him though. He's pale and his hands are almost completely white around the bar, his back stiff.

She ploughs forward. "Then I just wanted to be better," she says quietly. "I wanted to break down the wall, I wanted to be whole for this." He pales further and she wonders if it's regret or hurt. "And then the wall stopped being about my mother's case at all," she says softly, watching as his head snaps up. "And now I just don't want—I can't let my problems stop me from living, and I'm not there yet, but I'm…here."

"Kate," he says, releasing one hand to reach for her. He pauses, his hand hovering over her hand, then her stomach. He sighs and settles for her hip, canting toward her.

"I'm sorry I hurt you," she whispers.

He shakes his head and stares at her, mending and broken, hurt and healed by her, for her, with her. At least he's not perfect. His eye isn't swollen anymore—the magic of Martha's miracle cures—but he's bruised, purple marring his handsome face. "I'm just sorry," he lets out.

"Wanna call it even?" she whispers, smiling as he gives a startled laugh.

"Not yet," he says, his eyes dim momentarily, but he's smiling at her. "I have some making up to do."

"Stop working with Slaughter and we're good," she says quickly, a little too desperate, a little too eager.

He blinks and shakes his head, bringing his hand up from her hip to cup her cheek. "How can I work with him when my partner's in the hospital all night?"

She sighs, air filling her lungs back up, all the way, for the first time since she woke, maybe for the first time since that night three weeks ago. She lets her head fall heavy in his hand, smiles back, relieved and winded and hopeful. Not alone. She won't have to stay here alone. He'll be here, like she wanted—like she wanted all those months ago, a gift she couldn't let herself take.

"I really want to hug you right now," he says, breaking them out of their contended silence. She laughs and nods, wincing. "Can I get you something instead? Meds in place of me?"

"No," she says softly. "Just stay. I'm good."

He nods quickly and bends down to press his lips to her forehead, her cheek, her eyelids. She lets out an unsteady breath just as his lips sink onto hers, warm and wet and real. It's too short, and he pulls back long before she's ready to let him go, but then she coughs, startled.

"Oh, the good omens," he chuckles, releasing her cheek to grab the cup of ice chips on the bedside, returning to pop a few into her mouth. "We need to do this when you're not hurt."

She laughs around the ice wetting her throat, soothing the itching burn. "Timing's never been our thing."

They lock eyes and she sees the understanding there. There will be no declarations tonight, nothing more than soft kisses and his presence, his real presence. They're both still hurt, still wounded from the past weeks, the past months. But they're hurt together, and that's infinitely better than anything else. And when she's healed, and he's kicked Slaughter to the curb, maybe they can give this a shot. Maybe they call fall head over heels, in sheets and pillows and coffee.

Maybe now with the secrets gone, they can start again.

"Promise me something?" he asks an hour later, when he's back in his chair, this time with his fingers tripping over her thighs, lips randomly falling to kiss her fingers.

"What?" she wonders lazily, feeling the pull of exhausted sleep tugging on her senses.

"I get to ride the bike with you next time."