A/N: Thanks so much for your responses! Keep 'em coming! Feel free to let me know anything that works for you, doesn't work for you, annoys you, makes you want to yell at me…. I'm game!

I meant to say 2 things when I posted the first chapter:

1. I received some wonderful help from a few fantastic betas. I would not be in as good shape on these chapters if it weren't for: CastleWriter16, Caskettalways, chezchuckles & Katrina.

2. I own nothing – I do not own Beckett, I do not own Castle, nor any of the other amazingly fun characters Andrew Marlowe (and crew) have created. Thank you Mr. Marlowe & ABC for letting me play in your world!


Sunset sweeps through the bullpen and across her desk as she flips through paperwork. She's making a good show of it, but really she's only been rereading the same twenty lines of bureaucratic spew for the past hour.

Across the way she can feel Esposito and Ryan glancing over at her, trying to judge her mood. She'd tell them to stop but she doesn't trust her voice, worried she may show more emotion than she intends.

Visiting her therapist always leaves her feeling exposed. So she's learned to carefully conceal herself afterwards. Don't get into any big conversation, don't look up long enough to engage someone else, stay hidden.

She had forgotten these rules she'd made up for herself back then, when she needed a way to navigate her life while she waited for the wall to restore itself. Those raw moments when her skin was still thin and her emotions brewed just under its surface.

She forgot all about it because for so long now he'd been here waiting for her, sitting in his chair, working on his paperclip chain/fiddling with his phone/rearranging the items on her desk, until she returned. She could always count on him to bring her right back to reality - a reality she wanted to be a part of - where she could laugh easily because she was focusing on the adventure of the case instead of the tragedy.

Before she can stop herself, her eyes flit lightly over to his empty chair. She keeps her head down but she can't escape the twist in her gut that pinches, like a thin blade pricking her most sensitive spot.

Esposito gets up – crap, he noticed. He saunters casually over to her and plops down into the empty chair, playing relaxed, but she can see the stiffness in his jaw. Esposito is a good cop, but she knows his tells.

"What's up, Espo? You offering to file my reports for me?" She throws it out there, like she's got no cares in the world, but she keeps her eyes down, afraid they might betray her.

"Hell, no. I just finished mine."

"Then why are you sitting in my chair?"

"Just checking out the view from here. Never realized he can see straight into the break room. No wonder he obsesses about the espresso machine so much."

This is why he sat in Castle's seat, she's sure of it. So he can gauge where she's at with the missing novelist.

Come hell or high water she will not let him see her face. The only thing she'd convey at this point is regret… and longing, neither of which she wants to share with Esposito. He's a good friend, but not that kind of friend.

She thinks maybe her silence will scare him off, but instead of getting up, he reaches for the pile of mail stacked on her desk. She's been avoiding it, not wanting to deal yet with the physical reminder of how long she's been off the job.

Esposito flips through it, chucking most of it in the trash – thank god. This is actually a nice gift he's giving her. He's whittling the pile down, getting to the bottom of it. But about three letters from the end he hesitates, his hand stopping mid-air.

Too curious to stay closed off to him she lifts her head and surveys the envelope in his hand. "What?"

He glances up at her, gauges her mood, and then flips the envelope around for her to read. His index finger taps the upper corner, points straight at the name on the return address.

It reads "R. Montgomery."

Cautiously she plucks it out of his hands, clasping it lightly by its edges. To an outsider it might look like a trained cop expertly handling the evidence, but it's greater than that. She's nervous about holding something a ghost sent her.

She twists it back and forth between her fingertips in disbelief. "It's postmarked the day he died. He must've sent it before I met with him in the hanger."

Excitement overtakes her and she places the envelope down, rummages through her drawer and picks out a razor blade. She delicately slices the package open. The paper inside spills out, like organs spurting out of a gutted fish.

It's a handwritten letter to her, Montgomery's signature evident in each word. A wave of nostalgia hits her. Something about how he swings the ends of his g's puts her right back to when she was a cadet and he was grooming her for homicide.

Her eyes flit across the pages, unable to absorb all the information at once. Snippets of sentences stand out: "I'm sorry", "I didn't mean for this to happen", "I was trying to protect you."

Her insides churn with a flurry of mixed emotions: rage tangled up with sadness and disappointment, coated with a thick layer of betrayal.

Her head wages war on her stomach, forcing the emotions down, keeping her face neutral. Keeping her secrets safe.

Her head's just about to win when she sees it: his name in the last paragraph of the letter.

"I know you came to me and asked me to get rid of him, but I think that's the wrong move for you Kate. Castle's given you something none of us here ever could and to throw that away is simply foolish.

By now I'm long gone and I can't force you to work with him anymore. So it's up to you. It's up to you to choose to stay with him. Don't do what I've seen so many cops do in the past – throw themselves into the work until one day they wake up and the job is no longer enough.

True partners are rare. They emerge out of the experiences you share while seeking justice. Losing your partner – not the one assigned to you but the one that finds you – is something no one should have to endure. Don't do that to yourself."

She flips the letter over but that's it, that's everything he had left to tell her. No clues, no hints, no answers. He stayed true to his word in the hanger – he isn't going to tell her who's responsible.

"What does it say?"

"Nothing I didn't already know." But she's got an edge to her now, raw nerve rubbing on raw nerve and she can't sit anymore. She springs to her feet and marches off, leaving Esposito in her wake.


She strides over to her late Captain's office and is met with the harsh reality that he's no longer the occupier. The office is decked out with the new Captain's awards, diplomas and personal effects.

Beckett stands frozen in the doorway, unable to cross the threshold.

She gazes into the office and as she does so the furniture changes, the items on the desk morph back to the way they used to be.

And then she sees him: Montgomery sitting at his desk, thumbing through paperwork. He stops mid-shuffle, looks up at her, smiles.

"Can I help you Detective Beckett"?

Beckett jumps, awoken harshly from her dream state, the new Captain hovering behind her.

"Ah, no. I'm good."

Gates pushes past her into the office. Invading the sacred space without hesitation. "You know, we haven't had a chance to really talk yet. Did you want to catch me up?"

Beckett looks back at the desk; the image of Montgomery gone.

"Sure." Her lips move, expressing affirmation, but her body's slow to react. It takes Gates looking back at her expectantly to get her to walk through the door.

"I was pleased to see how well you did on your psych eval. You're a model Detective."

Gates shifts in her chair and Kate can tell she's about to delve into something she's not sure she wants to hear.

"I've seen what happened to you, happen to other officers. Each one handled it in his own way but every one of them came to something I like to call a 'professional crossroads'."

Gates looks up at her expectantly. Kate knows she's just checking in, making sure she's listening, but all she can imagine right now is what Gates must be like in interrogation. A bull rooting around a suspect's china shop.

"After years, sometimes decades on the job, these officers were certain of what they were doing, why they were here. And then they get shot, just like you, and all of a sudden, they're questioning everything."

Beckett, still hovering by the doorway, feels Gates eyes boring into her. She wants to see if her speech is landing.

"It's okay to question it. And it's especially okay to question it in here. But whatever you do," Gates stabs a finger toward the cityscape looming outside her window, "you never ask those questions while you're out there."

Gates' tone is only serving to rile Beckett up, but she pushes her rash self down, keeps her poker face on.

"I'm fine, sir. I appreciate the talk, but really, I haven't questioned anything. I know I belong here."

"Do you belong here with or without Richard Castle?"

Beckett wasn't expecting this line of questioning. Frankly, it hadn't even occurred to her that the new Captain harbored any feelings - ill or otherwise - about the author, since the boys had told her the minute Gates showed up she had encouraged Castle to stay out of the case and away from the twelfth.

Castle had used all his charm to dissuade her (which, now knowing the foe he was dealing with, she wouldn't have minded watching) but he had failed. Gates had somehow, despite all Castle's connections, succeeded in permanently ridding the twelfth of his presence.

If Beckett weren't so conflicted about the situation she would admire Gates for her inability to be swayed by higher powers.

She realizes, however, that this probing from her new superior may have been exactly what she needed to dig down deep and find that inner strength she used to conjure up just to get out of bed in the morning.

"I don't really see what Richard Castle has to do with my job. I was a cop before he got here, I'm still a cop now."

Beckett's voice is steady, the first time all day. Her face is straight on, eyes afire, as if to threaten Gates with her unending integrity.

"Good. Glad to hear it." Gates lowers her eyes.

Beckett won the staring contest and she's probably past the first of many hurdles Gates will throw at her as a way of testing her state of mind, but instead of leaving, she stands in the middle of the office, her eyes sweeping the surfaces.

Gates looks up, confused as to why Beckett would linger. "Detective?"

"I assume they sent Captain Montgomery's personal effects home?" She doesn't bother to look at Gates while she says this, just keeps perusing the room from a distance.

Gates nods, watching Beckett carefully. "I had them packed up and shipped to his wife. She didn't want to come in."

Beckett nods. "That's what I thought."

And with that she gives Gates a curt smile and exits. Beckett can feel Gates' eyes follow her out. She knows any ground she won today by dismissing Castle may have been lost in those last few seconds.

Gates was testing her resolve as well as her loyalty, and Kate practically came out and announced hers still belonged to her former Captain.

But if it meant she could get answers, if it meant she could follow the intuition stirring in her gut telling her Montgomery had left an unintentional trail of breadcrumbs for her to follow, then it was well worth it.