A/N - Yep took a while, I know, but a few asked for more to this story, so here you go!

There are a few more chapters I'm working on, so I hope you enjoy. Comments are love guys.

I called Dr Shreve's office that morning, before making up my mind to ring Castle, asking him to come over.

As soon as I walked into his office, I felt the tension in me ease a little.

The smell of the place calmed me. It was a mix of an oaky wood and old books that were kept on the shelf. It was like when you walk into an old friends' place and instantly you knew that in here you were safe.

Last time we spoke, was after Will left for Boston. I had been so hurt and confused over him just leaving, I thought Dr Shreve might be able to make me see where I had gone wrong.

If I'd done anything to make Will move to Boston, why he had made a decision that hadn't included me. Why he'd assumed I wouldn't go with him.

In the end, we ended up somewhat agreeing on the fact that it was his decision and ultimately I had no power over that.

As I sat on the chair across from Dr Shreve, I told him about my life during the last few months. Of being partnered up with Castle, of Will being back in New York. And lastly, what Castle had told me at the hospital.

Dr Shreve asked me where I was thinking this new information about my Mother would lead.

I bit the inside of my cheek and thought, where did I think this was going to go?

"I suppose it depends on what he has to tell me." I answered hesitantly.

I winced inwardly, as I saw him peer over his glasses at me. Damn it, Beckett! Get it together.

"Why did you hesitate before you answered, Kate?" He asked patiently.

I crossed my legs and started picking at my jeans. "Well, I doubt he has anything to tell me that I don't already know."

One eyebrow arched, "Do you really believe that, Kate?"

I crossed my arms, "Yes." I felt like a child not getting their own way.

"Okay, Kate. I know you need to have control of every situation, but you came to me. So how about stopping the defensive early today huh?" He said in an unimpressed tone. "You wanted to talk about this, right?"

I bit my lip and nodded. "I do, but I just... I don't know."

Dr Shreve cocked his head to the side, "What don't you know?"

I lifted my head and looked him in the eye. "I don't know if I can go down there again." Then, "I don't want to be the person I was then." I said just above a whisper.

His eyes never left mine as he sat back into his chair. "You have at least two things now that you didn't have back then. One, is that fear. The fear of being someone you don't want to be again. That fear will more than likely keep you from going down that track again. You'll recognize the signs and if you're the smart woman I know you are, you'll stop it before it takes you over again." He paused and I felt his eyes piercing into mine, like he was willing me to understand this fully. "Second, I don't know much about this part of your life, but this Castle seems to be a good influence on you. He obviously cares for and respects you if he looked into this for you. Then he came and told you, which seems to me to mean a lot, especially after you had threatened to end your partnership with him." He paused. "Which takes me back to my original question. Do you believe that he has something to tell you about the case, that you already know?"

At that point, it felt like everything around me was closing in.

I chewed the inside of my cheek, and cleared my throat. "Yes, I do. I mean, what could he find that no one else has been able to?" I frowned and bit the inside of my cheek again. "That being said though... He has this weird way of figuring things out in cases that none of us would think of. Well, not initially anyway." I shook my head, "No. There's no way that I, or Will, or anyone else, missed something on her case."

There seemed to be a dead quiet in this office. I couldn't even hear any noises coming from the reception area.

It was like everyone one in the world wanted to know where this was going.

Dr Shreve hmmphed and sat back in his chair again. His eyebrows came together and his forehead furrowed. "I don't think you believe that at all, Kate. I think you're lying, not only to me, but yourself as well. I think it's more likely that a tiny part of you wants to believe that, but the majority knows it's more than that. Do you really think it's plausible that he would come to you with something trivial that he knows you would have already looked into or thought of?"

"Well, he may not think it's trivial. He may think its some major breakthrough..." I stopped when Dr Shreve's expression changed from patience to annoyance. I looked down at my jeans again as he forced me to actually think about it, not just the bits I wanted to listen to. "No, it's not. I know our... partnership means something to Castle and I know he knows what this would be doing to me."

I looked up and brushed the wetness from my eyes.

"So, what do you think you should do about this situation then?"

The sound of his secretary tapping away on the keyboard suddenly filled my ears.

I looked out the window and saw it was a gorgeous day outside. And at that point, I hated the blue sky and shining sun. Irrational I know. But why should it be beautiful outside when I had to make a decision that was tearing me apart inside?

"Did I tell you that the clicking started again?" I tried to deflect the question I didn't know the answer to yet.

"No, you didn't Kate." He put his hands under his chin and leaned on them. "You're also deflecting. But you know that."

"I don't know the answer." I stated hopelessly. "That's why I'm here.. I want so desperately for this information to be something I don't already know. But at the same time, I'm completely terrified that it will be something I don't know.

But then if it's something I already know, it's like some sort of hope is dangled in front of me, but every time it gets yanked away just before I get there. Then I get broken hearted all over again. And every time it feels like I'm screaming for air. I cry louder and louder, but no one hears me." By that point there was burning lump in my throat that felt like it was the size of a tennis ball. The metallic taste of blood was on the tip of my tongue, and I realized I was biting my lip so hard I had drawn blood.

"And you think that you're going to end up broken hearted again?"

I nodded, not trusting my voice.

Dr Shreve took his glasses off and looked at me seriously. "Do you always question Castle's intentions?"

I frowned. "What do you mean?"

His lips drew together to form a thin line. Then, "Well I hear that you're scared of finding out something you don't know.. But, you're also afraid of him telling you something you already know. That's what's holding you back. Because you've invested a fair bit of hope in this already, haven't you?"

My chin trembled and licked my lower lip. The stinging pain from where I broke the skin previously made me wince. I nodded again.

"So what happens if you don't end up broken? What happens if the hope that's dangling in front of you becomes something you can grab a hold of and run with?" He questioned quietly.

What would happen? What happens if it solves her case? Can I handle Castle being the one that helps crack the case and lets me move on?

"I don't know. Would my life just go on? I've forgotten how it feels not like to be lost, well a part of me anyway. My job keeps me pretty stable, but it's always been in the back of my mind. I just haven't allowed myself to venture into it. I've kept myself busy enough to not focus on it anymore. I guess it all depends if we get the guy who did it in the long run."

"Hmmm... So are you going take that chance where you may end up exactly as you are, or are you going to take that chance where you may or may not end up moving on from this?"

He was right. I could either end up exactly the same, or head towards solving Mom's case.

"I guess I'm going to jump." I said getting up out of my chair and getting my cell out of my pocket.

***

I had been sitting in complete silence, my leg bouncing, still mulling over whether I was going to regret this or not.

You don't realize how loud silence actually is, when the only sound around you is your heart beat and your thoughts.

I hated silence. Sometimes it screams the truth you don't want to hear.

I grabbed my remote and pressed the random play button. The soft sound of Snow Patrol started filling my apartment.

My thoughts and feelings were still at war. One was still convinced he knew nothing I didn't already know. The other was still terrified that he had something I didn't know.

So I had vacuumed, dusted, rearranged my books and DVDs into alphabetical order, threw the dishwasher on.

I was doing anything to distract myself and quieten the voices running around in my head.

I was waiting for the clicking to start again. It hadn't woken me once I fell asleep, but it had kept me until 4am. I had run on my treadmill for about 3hrs to try and get it to stop.

Luckily I hadn't been called into the office during the night. I had gone in at 9am, and walked back out at 11am.

A few rapid knocks sounded at my door.

I got up from the couch, stopped in front of the door and took a deep breath in. My heart pounding in anticipation of what was about to come.

I opened the door to a smiling Castle, "Nice to see you Detective Beckett. You're looking lovely today." He said striding into my apartment.

"Thanks..?" I looked down at my jeans and casual white t-shirt. "Come on in.." I said sarcastically.

I loved my place, but I felt a little intimidated with him in my apartment. Compared to his place? Mine now seemed like a cardboard box. He'd taken over my workplace, and now he seemed to be taking over my personal life too.

He was taking in everything in my lounge room.

He walked over to my bookshelf and I cursed myself for not hiding my book collection. I had meant to at least hide the Castle collection, but I had gotten distracted with DVD's after rearranging my books.

"That's a nice Richard Castle book collection you have there Beckett. I hear he's a pretty good writer..." He ran his finger tip along the spines. "You seem to have every single book." He smirked over at me.

I felt my stomach drop slightly, then pursed my lips and retorted, "We needed them for the first case you came in on. Remember? The maybe deranged copycat killer fan?"

He grabbed one and opened the front cover. Of all the books he could have picked up, he grabbed Flowers For Your Grave. I took the few steps between us and tried to snatch it off him.

"Castle... Castle, stop!" I said as he kept moving it out of my reach.

He flipped to the front page and started to mock read, "To Kate, I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed getting to check you out while you were waiting in line. Love... Well it's from me." Castle read off the page and looked up at me. "You waited in line to see me and get this signed? How do I not remember that?" His brow creased as he tried to remember. "That would have been years ago. Before we ever met... You are a fan! You've been on my website longer than you let on! Seriously are you castlefreak1212? Cos if you are, you said some pretty..."

I could feel my cheeks burning a deep shade of red.

"Yeah, yeah okay." I interrupted. I grabbed the book, slammed the cover shut and threw it onto the couch. "So I was a fan of your writing. That was until I met you anyway." I smirked and arched an eyebrow at him.

"Ouch! You wound me deep, Beckett." He went and sat on the couch.

"Do you want something to drink? Water? Coffee?" I said sobering back into my serious mood. I shoved my hands into the back pockets of my jeans.

"Coffee sounds great. As long as you don't have the same stuff that you guys used to drink at the office." He did a mock shudder and I laughed.

"No, I have proper coffee and a coffee machine." I threw over my shoulder as I walked into the kitchen.

He followed and sat on a chair on the other side of the kitchen bench.

As I fussed about getting the coffee, I looked over at him. "So I'm going to start the serious side of the reason you're here." I paused and he nodded, his demeanour changing to serious. "Our partnership was never meant to be like this. It was meant to be you shadowing me. You getting pointers about how cases are solved, blah, blah, blah. It was never meant to be you looking into my private life and certainly not you looking into my Mother's case. Do you understand that?"

Castle nodded again. "In my defense, I was only trying to help out. I was trying to repay you for helping me out. For giving me my new character and set of books. I should have come to you first, I realize that now. I'm sorry." He sounded sincere, and I couldn't help but silently forgive him. "Coffee is ready."

I looked down and found the cups almost overflowing. "Dammit." I cursed, before pulling the mugs out.

"They'll be fine. Just add cream and sugar."

I scowled down at the mugs, then added the cream and sugar to his and passed it over the bench. I decided to go with water.

"What did you mean by 'set of books'"? My eyes narrowed in his direction, before I walked over to the couch.

"Well it turns out one book isn't enough for Nikki Heat. And you have way more character to share with me." He winked.

"Right..." I was looking intently into my cup of water, trying to figure out how to bring this up.

Castle shifted to face me. His left leg was on the couch, bent at the knee and his foot hanging off the edge.

He cleared his throat, "So... Uh... I guess I'll start, since we've skirted around the subject enough...."

My heart rate started to increase. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath in and nodded.

"Are you okay?" I lifted my head towards his voice and I met his intense gaze.

I swallowed a gulp of water around the lump that had formed in my throat. I nodded again. "Yep, I'm fine.. Let's get this over with, before I change my mind."

"Okay then. I decided to look into your Mother's case after that socialite mother got murdered. I don't know what I was thinking, except to try and help. So I asked my friend, who is a forensic pathologist to look into the case. Just to see if he could see anything someone else had missed. Or to see if he could think of any other cases like this. He told me not to hope for too much, due to the case being cold.

Then I asked you about looking into the case with me, and you threatened to end our partnership..."

"Castle, I need you to get to the point." I interrupted.

"Right. So he came back to me with some information three days ago. He's found a link with 3 other murders that happened around the same time as your Mother's."

I hesitated, my mind racing a million miles an hour.

A link? An actual link? What kind of link? How did they find it in a couple of days? Calm it down, you were preparing yourself for this, remember?

"What kind of link?" I asked sceptically.

His brow furrowed, and a look of concern creased his forehead. "The stab wounds. And a sample of DNA left at the crime scene."

My eyebrows drew together as I ran over the case in my head. The only DNA on the scene was Mom's, mine and Dad's. That was expected though, it was in our house..

"Tell me about the stab wounds."