No one knows that Javier Esposito spent all of his time off over the summer at Beckett's dad's cabin.

He didn't tell Ryan, who would have wanted to come along and thought it odd when he was refused. He didn't tell Lanie, who would have been confused and suspicious, even though Beckett is her best friend. And he certainly didn't tell Castle, who was having a hard enough time dealing with everything. He just slipped out quietly at the end of each week and got in his car and drove upstate.

And every weekend was the same. She was always there waiting for him on the front porch, huddled on the old wooden glider swing, and if it weren't for the fact that her hair would be done differently or she'd changed her clothing, he'd swear she hadn't moved since the last time he'd been there. He would come up the drive, usually passing her dad as he left and sharing a wave with the man, and then he would park by the cabin and climb the rickety wooden steps and sit next to her on the glider.

The first few weekends, they spent almost all their time sitting on opposite ends of the swing, rarely speaking. But somewhere around late June, she suddenly blurted out that she wasn't sure she was going to go back to the precinct. She'd looked as surprised as he felt when she said it, almost like she couldn't believe the words had popped out of her mouth, but then it was like the floodgates opened because she was speaking again, and everything was pouring out of her.

Her mom's case.

Her shooting.

Castle.

Montgomery.

Her dad.

Everything, everything that she had a feeling about, she suddenly began to share them. With him. And at first he sat there and just listened, but finally he started engaging her in dialog about those feelings. And then he shared with her some of his own experiences – like the time he got shot in Iraq (an accident) and the time his convoy was nearly all destroyed by an IED. Javier knew a little bit about trauma, and what he knew, he passed on to her in hopes that it might help her come back just a little bit stronger.

She came to him in the night in mid-July, when she was finally able to move (mostly) without pain, and in the aftermath she lay next to him with her head on his shoulder, and she whispered into the dark, "Thank you."

He canted his head slightly, looking down at her. "For what?"

"For being here," she murmured. "For talking to me. For listening to me." She laid a hand on his chest. "When you're here," she said, "it makes everything quiet in my head. You... you make everything okay again."

He leaned down and pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead. "I'll do whatever I can," he whispered. "I promise you that."

She closed her eyes, turning enough to rest her forehead against his body. "Thank you," she said again.

He knew it wouldn't last. He knew where her heart lay. But he also knew that no matter what happened, he was going to be there for her, and he would be whatever she needed him to be whenever she needed it. She was his partner.