Sorry for the delay, I've been heaps busy with school trying to get good marks for senior selection and I couldn't figure out how the story continued. I know people say this all the time, but I promise I will be quicker with updates. Enjoy!

The next couple of months went by quickly for Castle and Beckett, they had a few challenging cases, but mainly they were open and shut ones. They were off to a great start to their relationship, no problems at all, but Beckett couldn't let go of the thought that something terrible was going to happen. She was sitting in the bay in his kitchen just watching him, 'how could someone as messed up as me deserve someone like him?' no matter how much she told herself that she was crazy, she kept having thoughts like this.

She was bought out of her thoughts by her phone, checking the caller ID she saw that it was Montgomery. "Beckett," she answered. "Kate, I need you and Rick to come down to the station ASAP, this isn't something I can tell you over the phone." Shit, her mind kept going to worse case scenarios, had something happened to her dad or to Castle's mum, or Alexis? "Sir?" "I'll explain everything when you get here." And with that he hung up and she was left staring at the black screen of her phone.

"What's wrong?" he'd looked up from whatever he was watching/reading on his tablet to see her distressed face staring at her phone.

"Montgomery called, want us to go down to the precinct. He seemed really serious, he used our first names something has to be wrong." She was starting to really stress out, what if something bad had really happened, she and Castle had finally gotten together and everything had been perfect, must the other shoe really drop?

"Hey, whatever it is we will get through it together, always." He got up off the seat that he was sitting on and walked over to Beckett, put his hand on her shoulder and kissed the top of her head. "I promise you if anything bad has happened that I will be your rock, and I hope you will be mine." "Always."

This is the day they'd been regretting, 3XK had come back and killed 3 more people. As soon as they had gotten to the precinct Montgomery had called them into his office, shut the door behind them and told them to take a seat, he had told them about the three murders that had occurred over the 3 previous nights and how they had been killed in the same style as all of Tyson's previous victims.

"Three! Why is this the first time we've been told about this!?"

"They were in 3 different jurisdictions, no one put it together until the 3rd body was found and they searched the database for similar MO's."

"I don't care whose jurisdiction they're in I want all the bodies sent to Lanie and we get full control of the investigations." There was no chance in hell she was letting anyone else run this investigation, Tyson had targeted her team and she was damn sure they were going to catch the bastard.

"I've already talked to the commissioner, he thinks it's best that your team gets the case because of your connections with it, his only condition was that if any of you do something stupid because you're too close to it he will give them straight back."

"Don't worry Sir, none of us want our behaviour to potentially cause him to be set free."

They'd left Montgomery's office and Castle had gone straight to the break room, while Beckett informed the rest of the team. Ryan took the news almost as bad as Castle, as she had expected, each of them blamed themselves for the fact that Tyson had gotten away. After ensuring that Ryan was ok Beckett made her way over to the break room, she saw Castle sitting there just sitting staring off into nothing as he sipped his coffee.

"Hey, are you ok?" She took the seat next to him and rested her hand on his knee. She was his rock, just like they promised each other this morning.

"It's my fault, I should have figured it out sooner, I keep thinking that if I had he'd be locked up and no more innocent people would be dead, their deaths are on me."

"Listen to me," she waited for him to look up at her before she continued, "This isn't your fault, none of us realised until it was too late, he played all of us there was nothing we could do about it then, but this time we know who he is and there is no escape, we will catch him and he'll be locked up for a long time." He reached over and gave her hand resting on his knee a squeeze. "Thank you." "Always."

"Let's go, we've got an investigation to do," Beckett stood up, took Castles hand and helped him up. They walked out of the break room and headed straight to the murder board where Esposito and Ryan were already waiting.

"Alright, let's start, 3 victims 3 nights. The first victim, Nicole Martin 29 years old, was found in her apartment 3 nights ago by her mother, the second victim, Tracy Wallis 27 years old, was found in the back room of her dance studio 2 nights ago by the janitor, and the final victim, Savannah Evans also 27 years old was found in the hotel she was staying in by the maid. Each killed the same way and have all the same characteristics as Tyson's other victims. Esposito, you and Ryan go and re interview everyone and Castle and I will go down and see if Lanie has anything for us."

"Hey Lanie, got anything for us?"

"Not much at the moment, my preliminary cause of death for all three victims is strangulation with a green and white rope, no DNA or fingerprints found on any of them." Although none of that will help the case much, it confirms that they were killed by 3XK.

"Thanks Lanie, call me when you've finished the autopsies."

"Kate hold up," Beckett turns to castle and tells him she'll catch up to her and walks over to Lanie.

"What's up?"

"How's Castle doing? I know this one's tough for him."

"He keeps saying he's fine, but it's really affecting him. He blames himself, he thinks that it's his fault that these girls are dead because didn't figure it out sooner."

"You'll get through this together, you always do."

"Yeah, thanks."

It was 12 o'clock before they got home that night, the investigation hadn't really gone anywhere so Montgomery sent them all home. They walked into the door of Castle loft, toed their shoes off and went over and sat on the lounge, it had been a long day and they both needed sleep but neither of them felt like sleeping.

"You ok?" Beckett asked this question 100 times and each time got the same answer, "I'm Fine." This time she wasn't taking that as an answer. "No you're not, I can see how this is affecting you, I'm here as your partner and your rock, it's not your fault, none of us figured it out, you did and thanks to you we know who we're searching for and we will get him."

"I didn't figure it out soon enough though, these people are dead because I wasn't quick enough to stop Jerry." Beckett saw how much this hurt him and wanted so badly to fix it.

"It's not your fault, you're not the one holding the rope and strangling innocent people, he is. I know what it feels like to believe that people are dead because of you so you have to believe me when I tell you this, it's not your fault, it's the fault of the people killing them and it's your job to get justice for them." She leans over kisses him and rests her head against his chest. "I'm here for you Rick, always."

Again, sorry for the long wait, enjoy and make sure to review.