If you are looking for joyful and fluffy Christmas fic, this isn't it. Sorry. If you are looking for humorous Castle and Beckett save the day and then make out fic, this isn't it either. Again, sorry. If you are looking for intense/Kate asks some serious questions about herself/perp-is-creepy case-fic, I'm your girl. Consider yourself warned.

Special thanks to Carto. She's a fic bully, but she's my fic bully.

The primitive sense of the just—remarkably constant from several ancient cultures to modern institutions ... starts from the notion that a human life ... is a vulnerable thing, a thing that can be invaded, wounded, violated by another's act in many ways. For this penetration, the only remedy that seems appropriate is a counter invasion, equally deliberate, equally grave. And to right the balance truly, the retribution must be exactly, strictly proportional to the original encroachment. It differs from the original act only in the sequence of time and in the fact that it is response rather than original act.

—Martha Nussbaum

The call comes at 3:16.

Kate doesn't hear it right away. She's dead asleep, her limbs heavy with blood that's liquid lead, exhausted from the kinds of exercise one expects after a date night before a day off. The ring is a sharp interruption, slicing through her dream of climbing Mount Everest with Castle. She squints at him while hanging from a plateau like a monkey, a dangerous move that her dream-self doesn't seem too concerned with. Castle grins at her, icicles on his eyelashes, his lips red from the wind and moving in slow motion as they form the words I love you.

She's opening her mouth to say it back when he moves away from her. It takes a moment to register that he's not moving, he's falling, his grin fading with his body, which is plummeting off the mountain and down into the white abyss and she screams, tries to let go of the plateau and follow him, but her fingers are glued to the stone—

"Castle!"

She bolts upright, chest heaving. Pain scratches at her throat from a yell that must not have been only in her dream, because her boyfriend jolts awake next to her.

"Kate?" he slurs, reaching for her blindly, his palm connecting hard with her upper arm. She reaches for him, hands clammy, fingers closing around his t-shirt. She hangs on like he's about to fall, clings to him so he won't, and then her phone rings again.

She loosens her grip. She can hear him panting beside her, still disoriented. Reflex kicks in. She lets him go, turns to the side table next to his bed and fumbles for her phone. She has it to her ear in a second, brisk and business-like.

"Beckett."

She hears Castle exhale, feels the mattress sag as he relaxes. "Detective Beckett," a voice says on the other end of the line.

Kate frowns, looks at the clock. She pinches the bridge of her nose. "What is it?"

Castle wraps himself around her, his head at her shoulder, inhaling her hair. She closes her eyes. She's not on call, for God's sake. Can't they have one night?

"There's been a murder. You're needed at the Waldorf."

"I'm not on call."

"You are now."

"And you are?"

"Commissioner Levitt."

Silence. It's three in the morning and she wants to be asleep, wants to be curled up with Castle until late tomorrow morning when he wakes her with pancakes or sex or both. But this is the Commissioner, and it's three in the morning. Three in the morning is terrorist time. Serial killer time.

No-more-sleep, end-of-date-night time.

"I'm sorry, sir. Has something happened?"

"A murder. High profile. I want you here, Beckett."

"Yes, sir. I'll be there as soon as possible."

"Make it sooner."

The harsh click punctuates the call, and Kate sighs. She lowers the phone to her lap, turns the screen down toward the sheet so its brightness doesn't hurt her still sleepy eyes.

"Doesn't he know its date night?" Castle murmurs into her shoulder, his lips painting her skin.

"Guess he missed the memo," she answers. She pushes a hand through her hair, tries to mentally prepare. Cold night out. Get up, find good clothes. Not too shabby—Commissioner will be there. High profile? Maybe press. Coffee. She needs—

"I'll make the coffee," Castle says.

She turns to thank him, is stopped by his lips on hers, gentle, exactly the kind of wake-up call she'd have preferred.

"I'll make it strong," he promises, then climbs out of bed.

"Better make it nuclear," she mutters. His shadowy form disappears from the room, and she allows herself the brief luxury of collapsing back onto the bed, just for a moment.

Sometimes she hates her job.

X-X-X-X-X

It's so cold out Kate can practically see her breath crystallizing in front of her as she and Castle climb the steps to the Waldorf. She shoves her gloved hands into her pockets and shivers, nearly jogging up the steps. Castle watches her longingly, his eyes dancing over her face.

"Yeah, me too," she tells him, just as they reach the front door. His face splits into a wide grin, and she can't help but smile a little, too.

The second they get through the door, it's gone. The Commissioner is pacing. He sees her, beelines forward so intently Kate wants to take a step back. He's too intense for it being four in the morning.

"Beckett."

"Commissioner," she greets, nodding her head. "You remember Mr. Castle."

"Rick," Levitt greets gruffly. "We're on the eighteenth floor."

"The Starlight Roof?" Rick asks.

Levitt looks surprised. Kate lifts an eyebrow.

"Came to an event here," Rick explains. "Nice digs."

"Should be, since it's an Easton wedding," Levitt answers, ushering them toward an elevator.

"Easton?" Rick asks. "Like the billionaire Eastons?"

"That's them. Rented the whole damn floor. Wedding reception on one side, rooms on the other."

"And the dead body is where?" Kate asks, following Levitt onto an elevator.

"One of the rooms," the Commissioner answers. "Drunk couple stumbled into the wrong room and found her."

He meets Kate's gaze. He looks suddenly haunted, white and far too old, and Kate suppresses a shiver, tells herself its left over from the frigid cab ride here.

"It's not pretty, Beckett."

Castle's silence is palpable. The elevator starts to rise. Beckett holds eye contact with the Commissioner. "This isn't the 12th's jurisdiction."

The implication is clear. He nods, then shrugs. "We need the best." He glances at the numbers above the elevator, then back to her. "And someone who can handle the press in the midst of a case like this."

"A case like what?"

The elevator arrives on the eighteenth floor, makes a sharp ping sound. The doors slide open. Kate doesn't step off. "I can show you better than I can tell you," Levitt says.

"By all means," Kate answers, gesturing toward the still open elevator doors. Levitt steps off, and Kate follows. Castle falls in stride next to her.

"The hairs on the back of my neck are standing up," he whispers to her.

She smiles. "Scared, Castle?"

He pouts. "A little," he admits.

She pats his arm, the rare public contact making her heart race. "Don't worry. I've got a gun."

He opens his mouth, then quickly shuts it when he sees the look she's giving him. He smirks, she smiles, and then Levitt is turning to face them. He points to a doorway to the right. "Body's in there. Look it over before I tell you who it is."

Kate frowns. "Why would her identity change my assessment of the scene?"

"I don't want theories on why yet. You know who she is, that's all you're going to do. I want theories on what. Tell me what, I'll tell you who, and then you can tell me why."

He walks away without another word. Castle snorts. "That was like the world's worst riddle."

Kate shakes her head and starts toward the crime scene. "Shush, you."

From the doorway, the scene seems simple enough. The bed is still made. The dead woman is draped atop the comforter. Her nails are freshly manicured. Her black stilettos are Manolo Blahniks. Her long diamond earrings probably cost more than Kate makes in a week. Whoever this was, she had money. Her dress is a beautifully deep shade of purple; the fabric shimmers every time the CSU cameras flash.

It's the light from the camera flash that starts the steady seep of heat out of Kate's body.

The victim is covered in bruises. Deep purple welts to match her dress, red marks crisscrossed into her skin, bloody wounds and swollen joints that tell a story Kate doesn't want to imagine.

The medical examiner hovers over the body, peering into the woman's eyes. Kate recognizes him, though she hasn't worked with him in a long time. She moves toward him and the victim.

"Dr. Evans," she calls.

He looks up, smiles. "Beckett. Long time no see."

Kate nods, looks back down at the victim. The bruises are even more horrific up close. There are spots of blood on the comforter that she didn't see when she first came in the room. She bends forward, sees that they've congealed. Vic's been dead a while.

"See the petechiae?" Evans says, pointing a gloved finger at a cluster of small, vivid red dots on the victim's face. He leans forward, gently opens one of the woman's eyes. There are red spots on the whites of her eyes as well.

"COD was asphyxiation then," Kate says.

"Well, I won't know for sure until I get her on my table," Evans says, straightening. "But I'd say it's a fairly accurate estimate."

Kate crosses her arms over her chest. "She's roughed up."

"Understatement," Castle says softly from across the bed. Kate looks up at him.

"And you are?" Evans asks.

"My partner, Richard Castle," Kate answers.

"You're right, Detective Castle," Evans says. Castle's eyes go wide as he glances at Kate, but she doesn't correct the M.E. "Somebody did a number on her. Whoever it was, they had a lot of anger."

"What're we looking at?" Kate asks.

"Like I said, it's all preliminary. Some broken fingers judging by the swelling of the joints here," he points to her left hand. "Bruises all over her suggest a beating. With his fists, probably. Ligature mark around her neck is probably how she died if we're talking asphyxiation."

Kate leans over, studies the angry red line that wraps around the woman's neck. "Any ideas on the weapon?"

"Nothing patterned. Not a chain or a rope. See how smooth it is?"

"A tie," Kate guesses. "Silk, maybe?"

"I'll look for some fibers," Evan says.

That's when Levitt enters. "What do you see?" he asks.

"A woman worth a lot of money," Kate answers, looking at him pointedly. "Designer shoes, expensive jewelry, beautiful dress."

"So?"

"So all of it is still on her. It wasn't about money. At least not robbing her, anyway."

"So what was it about?"

"Rage. Broken fingers, blood, bruises. Petechiae suggests asphyxiation, and the ligature mark around her neck says strangulation. That's intimate. You do it right, you can watch the life drain out of someone. There's a lot of hatred here, Commissioner."

Castle is beaming at her proudly from across the bed, but she ignores him to meet Levitt's gaze head on. "This is Jamie Easton," he says. "Little sister of the bride."

"Your perp's got a lot of balls, then."

Levitt frowns. "You don't think it's a crime of passion?"

"Passion, certainly. Not opportunity. He didn't pick her at random, and he didn't lose his cool. He planned this. This is capital murder."

"Can you prove that?"

"Not yet. But I will."