A/N: Mistakes are mine, no beta. Wrote this today, likely to be 3 chapters. I will post as soon as they are done, no reason to drag this out.

Today was turning into quite the mundane day. Ryan and Esposito were off chasing down leads, boring, cold case leads that Castle had no interest in being involved in. A more relaxing work day for Kate at least, if she didn't constantly have to fight to keep Castle away.

Vikram was off chasing one of their leads, not wanting to use precinct computers to hack the NSA and AG databases. They were only just over a week into the investigation, but they were making some progress; the LockSat team seemed to have made some mistakes and those were to be exploited. They had a photo now.

"Captain Beckett?"

Beckett looked up from the paperwork she was finalizing, "Yes?"

"An envelope was just delivered by courier at the front desk. It looks clean Ma'am." The uniformed officer dropped the padded, Manila envelope on her desk and exited her office.

Tearing open the seam Beckett dumped out the contents onto her desk, a flip-phone, and a single pieces of paper. With a sudden sense of dread she unfolded the note:

"They are coming. Leave NOW."

The tiniest moment of shock ran through her, where had she slipped up? Let LockSat know she was hunting him? Surely it was LockSat she was being warned about here. This must be a message from Rita, or Smith; what other explanation could there be?

With a sudden sense of urgency, she reached into her desk draw for her service weapon; dropping her own phone in its place and pocketing what was presumably a burner phone her pocket. She grabbed a'll the cash from her wallet, her credentials too; but left everything else.

Moving quickly now Beckett rounded her desk, and started heading towards the stairs, planning on exit through the rear of the precinct, a predictable strategy, but far better than exiting through the front door.

One of her now numerous detectives slammed down his phone, jumped to his feet and turned with a shocked expression on his face. He caught sight of her just before she made it around the corner out of the bullpen.

"Captain Beckett! Ma'am!"

She kept her head down, planning on ignoring the yelling behind her; flight the priority now. The run of the mill work of running the precinct would have to wait for now, take a back seat to other needs.

"Captain Beckett! There's been an explosion!"

Castle. She spun around, barking out the question, "Where?"

"The west side highway ma'am."

Not Castle.

"Let Ryan and Esposito coordinate the response if it's in our patch. I have a meeting at 1PP." She started heading away again.

"It was their unit ma'am. A car bomb."

Time stopped. It had to be a coincidence, they didn't know anything. They could have been targeted by any number of people they'd arrested or convicted over the years, there was always a risk of an officer or their family being targeted. The hanging threat of disgruntled ex-convicts seeking revenge. It was a bubbling fear they all lived with every day.

It had to simply be coincidence, and she could do nothing to give them justice if LockSat had her killed. She had to run now. Fight back for them later.

"Who's responding?"

"The 1-5 ma'am. They have units on scene. They IDed the vehicle."

"Keep me up to date. The 1-5 has the lead."

"Yes ma'am Captain Beckett." Was the last thing she heard as she started down the stairs. She was blind now she knew, her phone and only way for them to contact her abandoned in her desk.

XxXxXxXxXxXxXx

Beckett had walked 2 blocks from the rear of the 12th precinct, heart in her mouth, pulse pounding, before she took a moment to pause and regroup. She need to change her look, disappear. Since all this has started her had taken to carry a large sum of cash, plastic being far to easy to trace. She'd planned ahead for this day, just in case; was far better prepared than when she had to run after the Vulcan Simmons incident.

Where to run? Nothing connected to her, or anyone close to her; and the last unconnected safe house had been tracked in mere hours.

Beckett flipped open the burner phone, took a chance and hit redial.

"Hello.." A female voice. Rita to the rescue again apparently.

"Rita…" It was good to say a familiar name.

"No names!" Beckett could hear the exasperation through the phone line.

"What.." She wanted answers, now, but was interrupted before she could even really ask for them.

"Bond. The Strand. One hour." A clipped tone.

"I have to warn Vikram." Nobody else knew anything, but her confidante was clearly in danger if their operation had been blown.

"They are being taken care of. Bond. The Strand. One hour."

Click.

One hour to the meeting, time enough to change appearance. Beckett stepped up to the curb and flagged down a passing yellow cab.

XxXxXxXxXxXxXx

Exiting the cab at Union Square Beckett immediately became more comfortable again. Mere blocks form her meeting at The Strand, and close to all the places she recalled from her time at NYU it was a familiar zone. While familiarity was danger, it was safety too – she knew this area better than any out of town hit squad was likely to know it. The alleys, the street layout. It was not a bad place to hide in plain sight, but only for the short term. Long enough to change her look at least.

She now had 45 minutes, that meant no time to deal with hair, a hat would have to do. She headed in to to H&M. Not her normal up-market style, but generic and boring – and a far better look to blend in with than Burberry.

Another 30 minutes later she exited the store, in an outfit she was uncomfortable with for a multitude of reasons. Beckett had dumped all of her clothing in the trash to both change her look, and remove the possibility of a tracking device. She took one brief moment to smile at the situation, if it had been Lanie going commando and bra-less she'd be drawing eyes not avoiding attention. Cheap sunglasses and a red beanie to hide much of her hair, and Beckett considered the changes material enough to buy valuable seconds if not more.

Three blocks to go in 15 minutes. Plenty of time, and plenty of time to watch how went in and out of her meeting place for a little while. To check if there were any large SUVs parked on the street or in nearby alleys.

XxXxXxXxXxXxXx

Beckett had checked out the block, wandered the stacks, and had noticed nothing out of the ordinary. The Stand had been a favorite book store for her when younger, in her NYU days, a warren of shelves, dark, quiet. More than that though, it was where she had first met Richard Castle, standing for hours in line to get her book signed. Now, here she was again, waiting in line for another meeting that may change her life again: for better or worse remained to be seen.

She scanned the book shelves as she paced through the stacks, running her finger along the shelves, past A, to B, to C. Castle. Kate gently stroked the single copy of Heat Wave, the book that had so annoyed her at first. She didn't have time now, to think about him, to be distracted; she had to move on. D, E, F. Fleming. She pulled out the first copy of Casino Royale and flipped open the cover. Nothing.

"Just how stupid are you Kate?"

Beckett spun to find Rita standing behind her, she hadn't heard even a single footstep.

"What?" Beckett's heart was thundering again, surprise forcing the brevity of her response.

Rita was looking at her like a disappointed parent, not quite shaking her head, but nonetheless seemingly looking down her nose at her.

"Ryan and Esposito. That's on you Beckett. I warned you. But you didn't listen."

Beckett hadn't even had time to mourn, and was now being blamed for deaths she had nothing to do with. She was getting riled up, spoiling for a fight. "Now wait a damn minute! They knew nothing, I didn't involve them..."

"You went looking for LockSat, and you kept two of the men who helped you bring down Bracken sitting right outside your office as you did it."

The allegation stung, "But..."

"Did you really think LockSat would check what they knew? Give people the benefit of the doubt? McCord's team didn't know anything really, but he had them all killed just on the chance they might eventually. You kept those two close, and you kept them in the dark; but LockSat doesn't like to take chances. Kill them and he removes the risk of what you might have told them. Loose ends get cleaned up."

She'd thought this through, it didn't make sense, her plan was better than that, or so she had thought, "I don't understand! How did he even know I was looking into it, as far as he knew I believed the Allison Hyde coverup."

"Kate, sometimes your trade craft impresses me. I went back over your safe house later, after; the glass in the corridor at your safe house, very clever. And sometimes your stupidity amazes me. You hired Vikram! Why would he join the NYPD from the Attorney Generals office? A demotion and a pay cut? Move cities? Maybe he did it because you saved his life, but that seems above and beyond. You think LockSat would believe that? More likely because you both wanted to continue the hunt. He doesn't take chances. He's paranoid, people are out to get him. Then you left your husband and started sneaking off to a storage locker in the middle of the night. I mean, really?"

Beckett was a little taken aback, this was a lot to take in, perhaps the plan had not been as discreet as she'd believed.

"Wait! How do you know about the storage locker? That's where Vikram is!"

Rita practically rolled her eyes, "You mean the locker you drive to in your GPS tracked NYPD cruiser? You really think you weren't being monitored? Vikram can hack the NSA, but LockSat can't have the NYPD GPS system hacked?"

Beckett hesitated, "Is Vikram..."

"I told you, he's being taken care of. His funeral arrangements at least. There was a fire a few hours ago at your locker. How do you think I knew they were coming for you?"

Kate slumped slightly, having to lean on the book shelves to remain upright. Ryan. Espo. Vikram. Dare she even ask?

Rita reached out to grab her arm, and began pulling her out of the stacks, "We have to go. Now."

Her voice was soft, dreading the response, "Castle? Is he ok?"

Rita practically laughed as she continued to tug Beckett from the bookstore, "You're worried about him now? There are Instagram pictures of the two of you at a fraternity party two days ago Beckett. You just closed a case together. You moved out, but without stopping working together, being seen together, getting handy in the precinct, that's all worthless. Even that might not have been enough."

"He's hard to control, it's not like it's easy." Beckett was feeling utterly drained, and the though of Castle being in danger was not helping at all.

The responding tone was impatient, accompanied by tugging on Beckett's arm, "This is not kiddie theater Kate. You wanted to push him away, don't do it like a little girl on the playground. Restraining order, public divorce, ban him from your precinct, suspend anyone who works with him; if you'd wanted him away from you, then you could have made it happen. You didn't. You chose to let him stay close, you chose to let him be in danger."

Beckett tried to jerk her arm free as she responded angrily, "That's not fair!"

Resistance was ignored, and the pulling continued, "Yes it is. But it's water under the bridge now. He's should be safe for now. Hunt went for him."

XxXxXxXxXxXxXx

They'd made it to a car Rita had stashed around the corner form The Strand, and were moving slowly away from lower Manhattan. Beckett's mind was churning, she was still trying to grasp just how badly everything had turned out. To make matters worse, Rita was refusing to say anything more about Castle's situation. He was with Hunt, but was he safe? On the run like her? Had he already been hurt?

"What do you have Beckett? What have you found so far?" Rita's questioning shook her out of the partial daze she had fallen into.

"We, Vikram, tracked down a photo of man behind the Allison Stage staging. He's not on the books anywhere, facial recognition came up empty."

Rita guffawed. "You ran a database search when this whole thing started because of a database search? Are you insane Beckett? You thought not having you name tied to it would mean LockSat would presume some random other person was running it? He's watching you Kate."

"Vikram hacked the database, we didn't put an official search through. Give me some credit here." Beckett was getting a little exasperated at being treated like a complete idiot, and it was starting to come across in her tone too.

Rita took a slightly more conciliatory approach, apparently not wanting to aggravate Her too much. "That's good Kate, or better at least, but you do realize the whole thing was a baited trap right?"

Beckett's tone took on a harder edge, the work, the sacrifice she had made was being treated as nothing, "What are you taking about Rita? We had to dig for that picture."

"The LockSat people killed Bracken in federal prison without a trace, and you think they got careless covering up the Allison Hyde murder? No ball cap, no sunglasses, just a clean facial shot on a security camera he knew was there. Ok."

Rita took a deeper breath, "Kate, the picture you have was left deliberately. They don't make mistakes so carelessly. These are not your usual jealous murderers. If you dug, found it, went after the man in it, then it proves you don't believe the cover up and they know they need to silence you. Go after that man and he will kill you. If you kill him, well that still tells them you are on to them."

"He was left out there as the bait to trap you. The whole thing stinks of set-up Beckett. That said, you made it so easy they knew before that. Hiring Vikram just accelerated the inevitable."

Beckett twisted in her seat, turning slight to be able to see Rita's profile more closely as she asked her next question, "Why does it seem like you're interrogating me Rita? Attacking me?"

"I need to know what you know. Simple as that."

"The why explain everything to me? Why treat me like an incompetent rookie? If you want information, ask for it."

"I want you to trust me Kate, I'm trying to help you, help us, understand what's going on. Quid pro quo, I tell you things, you tell me what you know."

"If you don't believe I trust you by now Rita how am I supposed to convince you? I blew up my marriage on your advice." There was the slightest crack in her voice there, even Kate could hear it herself.

Rita reached out and gave Kate's slightly clenched fist a squeeze, "That's true, true."

Kate was still angry, she'd made herself a target, she knew that, embraced it even, but then they'd gone after everyone else. "Quid pro quo goes both way Rita, why did they go for everyone else first? Aren't I the threat?"

Rita's eyes never seemed to stop scanning their surrounding, with only the occasional glance at Kate, "They are good, not crazy, they're not going to waltz into a heavily armed police precinct; they needed you out of the precinct first."

Saved by the incredibly lucky coincidental warming once again though Kate, "But you got to me first, warned me. That saved my life. Again."

"Got a deja vu feeling here Beckett? Like you've done all this before?" There was actually a smile behind those words, almost laughter at the absurdity of the situation.

"Why weren't they waiting outside?"

A quick glance from Rita and a small smirk, "Who says there wasn't anyone outside? I'm pretty good at this Kate."

"Thank you Rita, I don't know where I'd be without your help."

They drove for a few moments in quiet, letting everything sink in, before Rita broke the silence, "Kate, where would Castle go if he got separated from Hunt? Where would he hide if he had to run by himself? You know him. Think."

Kate felt a flash on panic, "Separated from Hunt? You said he was with Hunt!" He could be in danger after all, and that was more than she wanted to face right now.

"He should be, but if a squad went after them, Hunt would hold them off while Castle escaped."

"New York Public Library. He'd go there, he hid there before; but only I know."

Rita nodded, and changed lanes, "Ok Kate. Let's go get him."