AU. Richard Castle has gone from mystery fiction, to true crime. And he wants Beckett's story.

TW for mentions of sexual assault.

The first time he knocked on her door, she didn't even answer. They'd been hounding her for so long, she didn't even flinch at the sound. She just turned the TV up louder and waited for him to go away. Eventually, he did.

When he came back the next day, she took the phone back off the hook as well. The knocking went on for longer then, and she was tempted to dig out her ipod, shut him out completely. But she hadn't done that in a long time, even before. She never had felt safe silencing the world like that.

He didn't give up on the third day and neither did she.

On the fourth day, she yanked back the bolts, wrenched open the door and thrust her face an inch away from his. "Go. Away," she sounded each word so there would be no mistaking them and stepped back to throw the door shut on his nose.

But he was inside too, standing grinning on the welcome mat and her fist clenched by her side ready to punch him on the nose. It didn't matter that his words had sung her to sleep after her mother's murder, or she'd told him after an hour queuing that he'd saved her life. All she felt now was a rage that burned so deeply it left scorch marks inside her bones.

"Get out of here before I shoot you." It wasn't a threat, but a promise.

When people came into her house uninvited now, she didn't hesitate. The gun was at their head in three seconds, and a bullet would be in it in another five if they didn't give her a reason to put it down. Right now, it was buried in his hip.

His hands flew into the air.

"Hey, whoa. I'm not going to hurt you." There was still a twist of the jovial grin on his face, but when their eyes caught each other, it crumbled.

"I won't hurt you," he promised again, but the softness in his voice only made her push the barrel in deeper.

She'd rather have his hatred than his pity.

"Beckett," he said, and maybe it was the fact that it was her cop name; the one that was tough and hard would have a bullet in a man's skull before he could lay a hand on her or maybe it was because none of the other reporters had used that one (they'd all called her Kate, like they were her friends).

Whatever the reason, the gun was still in her hand but not at his hip. "You have one minute," she said with it cocked to her shoulder.

"I'm writing a book. But not like you think, it's about people who defeated their attackers."

"So you'll be talking to Harry Potter?" Kate mocked with her eyebrows arched.

Castle shook his head. "Just women, so maybe Ginny Weasley. Anyway, I want to know about those who won. Like you."

Kate sniggered and it wasn't friendly. "Women who won? Won't that make the others feel kinda shitty, Castle? Like if only they'd fought harder, if only they'd been stronger?"

"No. I mean, that wasn't-"

"Not interested. Now leave my apartment before I do shoot you."

It was the second threat he'd had in under five minutes, and her hold on the gun tightened again, but he didn't turn away. The boyish grin returned to his face, his eyes gleaming with the same dance. "If you're gonna be a spoilsport, can you at least let me buy you coffee?"

Kate stared at him. Reading people was her job, guessing motives was what caught killers, but there was nothing she could offer towards Richard Castle. She'd literally held a gun to him. Threatened him twice. He knew what had happened to her. And still, somehow, he wanted to ask her out.

Maybe he wanted to pour the coffee on her head.

"I'm going to take your silence as you being too bowed over with joy to answer."

Kate shook her head, an inexplicable laugh bubbling in her throat and spilling over. "No, Castle."

He looked as if someone had just told him there was no Santa Claus. "No?"

"No."

"You're sure?"

She rolled her eyes. "Get out."

His grin had faltered, but now it was back, glinting on his face like a snowflake in a rainstorm. "Okay, but I see my entire Derek Storm collection over there. Someone's more of a fan than they're letting on."

She cocked the gun.

"Okay, okay!" Castle's hands were in the air again and he twisted one behind his back to open the door and walked out of it without taking his eyes off of her. But he didn't leave, he just stood there, still watching her. "But if you change your mind-"

Kate didn't hear the rest. She slammed the door on his words and they were swallowed by the wood.

A minute later, a card was slipped underneath her door with his number scrawled in black.

The next day, there was a knock and a coffee. She peered through the peephole and tightened her grip on her gun when she saw no one. The door stayed on the chain until she'd peeked around the frame and spotted the paper cup settled on the carpet outside. The rest of the hall was empty. It was a Starbucks cup that didn't have her name scrawled on the side, but Castle, so she would know who left it. So she would know it wasn't a stranger who'd lurked on her doorstep.

Still, Kate put it on the kitchen counter where it grew cold.

Three hours later, she put it for a spin in the microwave.

After eight days of silence, he knocked again. He stood on her doorstep with that boyish grin and a takeout bag. "Hope you like Chinese food," was all he said before side stepping her. Her gun was at her side, and although it twitched in her hand, she didn't raise it.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded instead.

Castle blinked at her. "I brought takeout," he said, as if it were the answer to two plus two.

Kate rolled her eyes. "Why?"

"I've been leaving coffee on your doorstep for over a week. Thought it was about time we took the next step in our relationship."

He was rooting through her cupboards for forks and plates before she could even tell him they had no relationship. He wasn't anything to her and she couldn't stand why she was anything to him. She was sure she didn't. He was just trying to melt her so she'd agree to him damn book. But she wouldn't. Couldn't. His book was for heroes.

"Do you have any soy sauce?"

"No, and you're going to leave."

"But I just got here!"

"I didn't ask you to come! Leave me alone, Castle. I'm not going to help you with your book."

Castle heaped two plates with everything in the cartons, ignoring her. He pushed one towards her, but she ignored it and glared at him. Anyone else would have taken one look at the gun and ran. One look at her. Castle had not only had a look, but more than one conversation. And everything he'd read in the papers. But that was just why he was there. He wanted her to be his next story. He wanted the exclusive with the detective that had killed The Night Walker.

She shook her head. "Get out."

"Aw, c'mon Beckett. You can't drink my coffee and reject my food."

"Who says I drank it?"

He just smiled. "You did."

Kate rubbed her temples. Her head throbbed and she wanted, needed, him to go away. "Castle," she growled and he finally looked up, really looked up, and saw her. His smirk melted, giving way to something softer, warmer and worse.

"Are you okay?"

The concern that lined his voice made her want to toss her plate at him. "No, I told you to get out."

Images of the last time she'd been here began to creep into her head, darkening the corners of her mind. A fog floated through her, coating the rational thoughts. It's not the same, he's not dangerous, he doesn't have a knife, he doesn't have barbed wire, he doesn't have drugs, he's not going to hurt you. He'd already told her that. I won't hurt you. As if he'd seen her flinch when their skin hadn't even brushed, as if he'd seen the glimmer of terror that she tried so hard to mask with her gun.

The cold weight of the gun was like her own life throbbing in her hands. She clung to it so tightly her muscles ached.

"Do you really want me to go?"

And there it was. If she said yes, even just managed a feeble nod, he would go. It wasn't like before. He wasn't him. He was the writer who'd held her hand through her mother's murder, the one who'd given her a rope when the floor crumbled beneath her feet. She had invited him in all those years ago when she'd opened his books and let them protect her.

"It's okay," she managed at last. The words sounded like they'd been wrung through a blender.

Then as if the prove it, she picked up a fork and twisted a noodle onto it.

"I'll leave, Beckett. If you really want me to."

"I said it's okay!"

The softness was worse than the arrogance, worse than him striding into her home and setting up like he lived there.

Castle seemed to pick up on it too because he shrugged and dug into his own food.

Then there was a silence that sounded like screams. At least to her. Her heart was still pounding inside her head and her hand tapped against the counter, thudding like a woodpecker breaking into the nest that held its babies. But she'd invited him now. It was okay. It was.

"Hey, Kate?" He said it like he was a doctor about to deliver news of a death.

Kate lifted her eyes to him with the forkful of noodles still hovering in front of her. And burst out laughing. From somewhere he'd produced some glasses and they were currently holding a napkin on his face. "Hello," he greeted her. "My name is Mr Napkin Head." He used his spoon as a cigar, pretending to smoke it.

Kate's teeth snapped down on her bottom lip, forcing the rest of her laughter back, but when Castle took off the napkin and glasses, his eyes twinkled with knowing.

"That always works on Alexis. Well, now she pretends to roll her eyes and tells me I'm a lame dad, but you can tell she loves it really. Sometimes she joins in and we both lean in really close behind my mother then tap her on the shoulder."

Kate smiled, the scene flashing through her mind like they did when she peeled back the pages of his books. "I'm paid to notice things, and I've never seen you wear glasses before."

"That's because I only carry them around for this sole purpose. Along with a spare couple of napkins."

Kate raised her eyebrows. "Really?"

"Hey, I have a daughter."

"Who's a teenager."

"You mock, yet you laughed."

Her eyes rolled towards the ceiling and she finally put the forkful of noodles in her mouth, thinking it was probably the first thing she'd eaten since yesterday. Food was something that had slipped her mind a lot even before. Something she had to be reminded of, either by Esposito or Ryan, or the gnawing ache of her stomach when she finally rose from her work long enough to feel.

Afterwards, when she did remember and didn't care, the flesh melted from her bones. When she went back to work, she'd find croissants, bear claws and apples on her desk every morning. Sometimes she'd be there early enough to see who put them there. At lunch, there'd be more food on her desk even though she didn't take her break and her team would eyeball her until she ate it. Without them, she wondered if she might have starved to death.

A grin had appeared on Castle's face that wasn't there before and she knew that conversation hadn't been his only motivation for being there. She twisted some more noodles onto her fork.

"If you could only read one book for the rest of your life, what would it be?"

The question seemed to come from nowhere, certainly no part of their conversation and Kate frowned at him.

"Come on, Beckett, it's a very important question."

"War and Peace. It's the longest book I've read and enjoyed. So if I'm going to be reading it for the rest of my life..."

It wasn't the truth. Her real answer, the one that had come to her instantly when she was still raising her eyebrows at the question had been A Bloody Storm. His book, the first she had read. The one that had dragged her out of the haze of her mother's death and given her a reason to push back her duvet.

"A Russian literature fan?"

"Expecting a Nora Roberts die hard, were you?"

"From you, Beckett, I'm learning to expect nothing."

Kate raised her eyebrows.

"In a good way," he added.

The noodles were almost gone, but she didn't feel like eating anything else on her plate. After weeks of eating only what had been forced on her, her stomach had shrunk to the size of a thimble.

"Favourite TV show?" Kate asked him, forcing down some chicken.

"That's easy. Remember that Joss Whedon sci-fi show that got cancelled after a season?"

She nodded. She'd thought Captain Mal looked a little like him, actually (but that was no way the reason she had watched it).

"Nebula Nine," she told him, then paused. "Or Temptation Lane."

Castle hid his smirk badly behind his napkin. "Wow, interesting taste you've got there. Such a leap from Epic Russian literature."

A piece of chicken made its way to the front of his shirt, but she didn't contradict him. She knew they were both, in theory, awful shows, but she wasn't about to divulge to him why she loved them so much. She didn't even know him well enough to be eating his Chinese, but he was watching her swirl it around the plate in the same way she'd grown used to everyone looking at her. Even if it was laced with cyanide she'd rather eat it then get that look.

"Is your taste in men any better?"

"Well I let you in so apparently not."

Castle smirked like he'd just successfully asked out the homecoming queen. "Are you admitting to a little crush there, Beckett?"

"No."

He still didn't lose his grin and something that could have been frustration twisted around her heart. Maybe she should have left his coffee on the doorstep. But she didn't suppose it would matter too much; he'd leave her soon enough.

He knew what happened, but he hadn't seen her bolt all seven locks on her door, or check the windows more times than she could count to make sure they were seared shut too. He hadn't seen her wake with a scream in her throat and fire on her skin, or throw out yet another of the pies her dad left her with. He hadn't seen her fall asleep with her gun clutched in her hand and wake up in the stillness of the night, swinging it wildly around the room, aiming at shadows. Nor had he seen her cupboards that were bare of any bottled drinks. All she would have now was what came out of the tap. And Castle's coffee.

He hadn't seen her run to the bathroom and throw up because there was so much filth inside her. He hadn't seen has pass out because she couldn't breathe through the memories that were drowning her or cling desperately to her wrists because she could feel it tearing through her skin again. He hadn't seen her claw holes in her skin with her nails to try and kill something invisible on the inside. He wouldn't come around with Chinese after that. He wouldn't leave coffee on her doorstep.

"Dollar for your thoughts?" Castle interrupted.

Irritation washed through her, settling nastily in her chest. "Don't you mean penny?"

"Yours are worth more."

She wanted to roll her eyes again, but it took more energy than she could muster. Every compliment now just reminded her that it wasn't going to last. Her nineteen year old self would have thought this should be the best day of her life. Richard Castle in her apartment with Chinese food. But thirty one year old Kate was only sad. Because it should make her happy.

"Castle-"

But her voice cracked and she looked down at her plate with her face alight with shame. Her fork stabbed the chicken, but it didn't stop the tears stinging her eyes. Dammit, dammit, dammit.

"Beckett?" He reached for her hand and too late she pulled away. Because his thumb had already brushed over her wrist. He had already frozen as if someone had slashed open her throat.

"He used barbed wire," she told him in a voice that sounded like she had it wrapped around her neck. "To tie me up."

That detail hadn't been in the reports and Castle swallowed like he wanted to throw up. Of course she made him sick. She made herself sick, and her team and her dad and Laine.

"You can go if you want to," she forced herself to say. "It's okay."

"What? No, I- I wish you hadn't killed him."

Now that she hadn't been expecting.

"Because then I could have done it."

Or that.

She wondered why that had been the clincher. Knowing that he'd forced the tiny knives into her skin and melded them together with a smouldering iron. He knew what else the man had done to her. What he did to all of his women before he killed them. How he made their life his before taking it from them.

"It's fine, Castle." The words came out like butterfly wings and Castle tore them apart.

"Fine?" he spat. "Beckett, he-" but he wasn't quite angry enough to shoot her with it. "It's not fine."

Wasn't it? Not everyone had seen her kill a monster. Some had accused her of murder. He was a human being, they said. And because she was a cop, she got away with killing him. Just like her lot always did. She'd probably asked for it anyway. She looked like a stripper half the time and if she flaunted a body like that, what else could she expect? Killing him was like kicking a dog for eating a steak you put down in front of him.

"You can go now, Castle."

And just like that, it ended.

It came in flashes that night, like an old cinema screen flickering in and out.

Flash the wine glass was tumbling from her hand and shattering on the floor, shards sprinkling like stars among the midnight sky. But there was nothing beautiful when she fell with it.

/the wire was tearing holes in her flesh and it was as if it was inside her too, shredding every part so he could get right between the pieces and nestle inside her forever.

/he was inside and she wanted to be somewhere else, but she could smell every putrid shred of his skin, she could feel every hair brushing against her as if he was trying to scratch his way right in.

/not all the blood blooming across the pillow was hers. She'd lost the patch where they joined and she was standing with a gun in her hands, but it had never trembled so much in her hold.

/Ryan was wrapping a blanket around her shoulders, but they wouldn't let her take off what he'd dressed her in. She couldn't stop shaking. It was cold. So cold. There was frost right inside her bones.

/Beckett, can you tell me what happened? How many times did you fire the gun? Did you notice anything out of the ordinary when you returned home?

/Jesus, Kevin, do you want me to show you on a doll where the bad man touched me?

Kate...

She didn't scream, but there were tears drenching her pillow. Her duvet was twisted too tightly around her and she couldn't get out. Then it was on the floor, torn apart by her own hands and she wondered where she found the strength to do it. And why she hadn't found it sooner.

After flicking on every light in her apartment with her gun held out in front of her, she sat with her legs dangling from the kitchen counter and watched the door. Her eyes burned the door until the sun did too. Until there was a knock on it.

She jumped as if snapping out of a nightmare and then blinked around like room like she was surprised to be there. But it wasn't the first time. In the first days, she'd slept on the couch with the TV on in the background, like she wanted to remind herself of both that she was not alone in the world, and not everybody could get to her. Her gun would be clutched in her hand the whole time, and she'd wake up with her whole arm aching.

The bed saw her again now, but she still hadn't given up her gun. And she still wouldn't put down her glass.

"Beckett?"

Castle.

Anger fuelled her forwards and she almost wrenched the door right off its hinges.

"What?"

He held up a steaming paper cup with a grin. "I forgot my jacket," he shrugged. "And thought you might want some coffee."

And just like that, it began again.