Author's note: This is a darker story than I typically write. It will be a Castle and Beckett story at the heart of it, but Beckett is going through somethings that are very personal to me. Those things may trigger some who have experienced emotional and mental abuse. This story deals with that and depression. Writing this is my therapy and my unending hope for optimism will allow this story to end happily even if my own does not. Love you guys xoxo.

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We Have It All

"It will fade and it will wither
But gold, it will never
And hey, baby, don't you know
Diamonds are forever

Hear me
Can you hear me
I am calling out to you for the last time

Our hearts we have sold
For diamonds and gold
But hey, baby, take a look
We have it all"

-Pim Stones

Prologue

Deep breath. She can do this.

Her inner voice reminds herself as she looks down at the wedding ring in the center of her palm. It's a toxic noose, strangling her with years of mental and emotional abuse. She's better than this. She can do this.

Without allowing herself to second guess her decision, she pockets the band with a promise to pawn it later. There's no reason to keep it. She's not turning back. Her daughter will not grow up in this environment.

It's time to move back to New York. Fresh start. New life.

Jim Beckett helps her get a sublet in her old neighborhood. She'll at least be close to the Twelfth until she's on her feet again and can find a permanent place for her and Ella.

She's faking a smile a lot. Trying to keep things normal for her daughter, but inside she feels like a shell of her former self. Her stomach is in constant knots that first week. The coloring of her skin is off, her cheeks look hollow. She needs to start taking better care of herself, if not for her, then for Ella's sake.

Jim had saved most of her furniture in storage when she up and followed Will to Boston all those years ago. When he handed her the key to a storage unit that held all of her things, part of her was hurt that her dad hadn't believed in her choice to move to Boston, but mostly there was an overwhelming feeling of gratefulness at his foresight. She still has some items that she can call her own.

Not that she's materialistic. She honestly can't care less about things. It just represents one giant step towards normalcy - her new normal.

Montgomery offered her a job at the Twelfth. Her old position as homicide detective was conveniently available. She starts back next week.

Maybe things will be okay.

Maybe...if only she can push down the nagging feeling that this is far from over as her phone buzzes from across the room.

(Weeks ago in Boston)

Will losing his job was a blessing in disguise. All his tightly knit lies had been brought to the surface. All the women he'd tried to sweep under the rug, including that cocktail waitress he'd had an affair with for a year. All of it came out.

His half attempts at apologies were laced with an undertone that clearly tried to blame her for his years of infidelity.

"You know Kate. If you weren't always worried about your career or if you worried about my needs for once, maybe I wouldn't have had to find emotional support elsewhere."

There were constant insults veiled in that passive aggressive way of his, so relentless that she started to half believe that it had been her fault. He warped her mind and destroyed any bit of self worth she had left.

Will was angry. He was violent. He wasn't mentally stable. He scared her.

But she took him back and promised she would change…to save their family.

He promised he would seek help for his issues.

Things were getting better, at least she'd managed to fool herself into believing it.

Until he was arrested...

Will was found outside the waitress's place with a gun in his hand. He'd been begging his ex-mistress to take him back while the woman was at home with her new boyfriend. It was the sort of thing you'd see in an episode of Cops, not in real life. Not involving a former highly-decorated FBI agent.

He called Kate from booking, certain she would bail him out.

Kate was a shell of her former self, but she refused to be a laughing stock. She left him in there and turned off her phone- closing her eyes and sobbing herself to sleep.

How had her life gotten like this?

She tried to continue on the next day at the precinct like everything was okay. Denial was her best friend, until the newspaper in Boston got wind of the drama, and the high-ranking detective involved, and wrote up the story. Things went from bad to worse. Kate had to apologize to her Captain. With pity in his eyes, he told her to take some personal time.

Personal time turned into her crying for hours, one day blurring into another. More than she ever had in her life. She couldn't climb out of it; she felt like an awful mother. Ella was too young to understand what was going on, she just crawled into Kate's lap and clung. The strength that she'd held onto after her mom was murdered, all but vanished.

Lanie tried to call her after the article made its way to New York, but Kate couldn't bear to even talk to her best friend, so she kept sending it to voicemail. Forty-seven times in fact and each time Lanie left her a message offering words of encouragement that Kate didn't feel like she was worthy of receiving.

"Kate, it doesn't have to be like this girl. Kick that man to the curb and come home."

And in typical fashion, her best friend didn't take no for an answer. Lanie contacted her dad and when Jim Beckett showed up at her door with the keys to her sublet, Kate didn't feel like she had any other choice.

And she was glad they had taken it out of her hands. She wasn't capable of making that choice in her state.

She wrote Will a note saying they would work out the logistics when he was released, while Jim helped pack bags for her and Ella.

Kate shakes her head from the memory of the drama and moves toward the sound of her phone, the buzz makes her heart race. Even though she's been in New York for a week, she's still looking over her shoulder.

Because she knows better.

Nothing can ever be easy in the downward spiral that her life has become.

Yesterday one of her friends from the Boston PD gave her a heads up that Will was out on bail. It had made her stomach drop.

Reaching for her phone, she knew who it was before she even tapped the screen.

"I'm out. Just remember - this is all your fault. What happens now...it's on you."

tbc

Thanks for reading xoxo

(I understand that Will is probably OOC but that is why this is an AU story.)