Anchor

She's still waiting for the shock to kick in. Adrenaline wore off a while ago, the shaking of her hands stilling as she went through the motions. Turn your gun in, talk to IAB, talk to Gates, talk to IAB again, tackle the massive pile of paperwork. Protocol and procedure got her through the rest of the impossibly long day.

The couple lingering in the lobby of her building stared as she passed by, jingling her keys as she headed for the stairwell. She glanced back, wondering why on earth they were watching her as if she were a stain on the face of humanity. It wasn't until she got upstairs, unlocked her apartment door, and tugged her shirt off that she realized what their eyes were trained on.

And now she's got her hands in a sink of freezing cold water, fingers slipping against one another from the soap as she fights to scrub the dried blood from her sweater.

It's not his. That's her one blessing of the day. Most of the splatter against the forest green of the sweater belongs to the guy in the ICU of a hospital right now. But he will kill her if he sees the dots of blood on the fabric, the cracked lines along her hands and wrists, the drops on her cheeks.

The water in the bowl of the sink is a pale pink, darker ribbons swirling in the liquid as if suspended. Her sweater is heavy as she tries to scratch at a patch of deep red, sending flakes into the water.

Wringing out the excess water, she examines the sweater, checking for the remnants of the day. It's hard to see the blood on the green. Another blessing that he spent the day at his place, unaware of what happened. He's not good with red on green.

She hangs it up on the closet door to air-dry next to the dress pants that she knows will be sent to the dry-cleaners tomorrow. In her underwear, she turns the shower on, letting the hot water work its way through the pipes.

The click of the lock on her front door has her tiptoeing back toward the living room for her off-duty piece. With the familiar weight of the Sig in her hand, she presses her back to the wall and waits.

His back is the first thing she sees as he shuffles into the apartment, a brown paper bag in the hand not holding onto his keys and phone. Humming to himself, he shuts the door with his foot before settling the bag on the little kitchen island.

She tries not to startle him as she lowers the gun to her side but he turns and sees the movement.

"Beckett? What're you doing home?" He sounds shocked and a little disappointed.

She shifts, trying to hide the gun and her hands at the small of her back. "Trial ended early. What are you doing here might be the better question."

His turn to look anxious. "A surprise. Since this case was tough for you, I thought you'd like some comfort food."

As he turns to pull out the lasagna and a bottle of his red wine that must have come from his liquor cabinet, Kate slides the gun onto the side table as quietly as possible. The scent of spicy marinara sauce and melted cheese wafts through the air toward her. Instead of panicking about his presence, she tries for a genuine smile.

"That's sweet," she murmurs, stepping back toward the bedroom. "Let me just turn the shower off and get dressed, kay?"

Except he follows – he always has to follow – making some comment about not needing clothes and as she reaches for the knob in the shower to turn the water off, he catches her wrist.

"Beckett?" His voice holds the dangerous edge she's only heard from him a few times.

She doesn't even try to pull away as he tugs on the hand, turning it over to see the dried rivers of blood crusting in the lines of her palm. His fingers tighten infinitesimally and she hears his breath hitch, fighting for control.

"Is it…"

He doesn't need to finish the sentence before she jumps in. "No. Mostly theirs. I just got in the way." His face is ashen, eyes a duller blue against the suddenly pale skin. "Hey. I'm fine. The trial, not so much but I think they'll still be -"

"How close?" he asks quietly. Too quietly. His face tips down, trying to meet her eyes. "How close were you, Beckett? How close was I to losing you again?"

"Not that close." It doesn't even sound like the truth to her own ears. No wonder he narrows his eyes in distrust at her and that hurts more than any action. So she uses her free hand to touch her fingertips to his chin, thumb brushing the corner of his lips. "Really, Castle. Not that close."

"Close enough for you to get blood on your hands. Close enough that you wanted to hide it from me," he says softly. "Were you going to let me find out from the incident report or at the weekly squad meeting with Gates? Perhaps the boys would let it slip one day on accident. Or maybe you were just going to sweep it under the rug completely, never to be spoken of."

He stops her protest with a squeeze of his fingers at her wrist.

"No. You don't get to decide what I can and cannot know. We're in this together, remember? What happened to that, huh?"

"Just let me explain," she shouts, loud enough to make him drop her hand and take a step back. Now her hands start trembling. With nowhere to hide them, she curls them around her bare stomach, clutching her sides. She can't look at him as she starts, picking the untidy pile of makeup on the counter to speak to. "Shooting at the courthouse. Not my case but it was one of those all-hands-on-deck situations. So I had to go restrain the shooter while everyone else worked on the witness he had shot. Except the witness's friend pulled a gun on the first shooter." She pauses, taking a deep breath as she focuses on the mirror behind Castle and not his face. "Head wounds bleed a lot, make a mess. He's alive, down at Presbyterian with a watch order. I wasn't hiding it from you."

He's quiet, watching her from where he leans against the sink. What she wants to do is plead for him to say something, to do something other than look at her like she did something completely unforgiveable. But the silence hangs there, a nearly palpable barrier.

She pivots to leave, feeling far too exposed in her underwear. She gets as far as finding a t-shirt from her drawer, fighting to get her arms into the right holes when his fingers brush along her sides.

"I'm sorry," he whispers, breath feathering her hair. She stills, the shirt hanging from one elbow, eyes sliding shut as her body lists back toward him. "I'm sorry, Beckett. I just…"

"I wasn't trying to hide it," she insists, letting the shirt fall onto the ground, turning around to skim her fingers up along his arm. "Really. I needed a minute to myself and you dropped by being all sweet and I'm still not completely together."

This time, when he takes her wrist, it's gentle, a warm bracelet around her shaking bones. "Come on," he says, starting toward the bathroom again. He turns the faucet on, grabbing the bar of soap from the shower, and runs it under the water.

Kate leans against his side as he smoothes the pads of his fingers over the lines of red zigzagging over her skin. For the second time that afternoon, the pale grey of her sink is accented by pink and red. She turns her face into his arm, smelling him instead of blood and her soap and their misunderstanding.

He sits her on the toilet, crouching in front of her as he dries her hands, careful to wipe the water drops from the face of her watch. When he turns his eyes up, she manages a small smile.

"I am sorry," he says once more, dropping the towel at his side. "I'll go if you want to take the evening to yourself."

With hands washed clean from the day, Kate frames his face, damp palms cupping his cheeks. "Stay. You help. You steady me." Before he can really prepare, she vaults forward, knees clasping on either side of his hips.

Dinner goes cold as they thoroughly unsteady one another.