Three

By the time Kate arrived at her apartment that evening, a bone crushing exhaustion dredged her every step. She shed her clothes beside her bed before falling onto the mattress, hoping to be asleep almost instantly, but slumber never came.

Every time she closed her eyes she was back in the warehouse watching helplessly as the last breath of life was squeezed from Castle's throat. She tossed and turned for hours, only getting ten or fifteen minutes rest here or there. By four-thirty a.m. she gave up entirely, pushing herself from the mattress and heading directly to the shower.

At five-fifteen she was at her desk at the twelfth, gargantuan sized cup of coffee beside her. On her drive in, she wondered if there was any store in Manhattan that sold coffee by the gallon and briefly toyed with the idea of a Google search to find out, but then thought better of it. If she drank a literal gallon of coffee that morning she would also need to move her desk so it was right beside the Ladies' Room, and that certainly wouldn't do her investigation any good.

Alone in the precinct, she tapped out her incident report from the prior evening. Her gut clenched throughout her detail of the kidnappers insistence that she choose between Josh and Castle to stop his actions and save one of them—only one. With trembling digits, she tapped out the sentence, "I chose Castle." With it displaying on the screen in front of her, cursor blinking tauntingly just beyond his name, Kate Beckett shut her eyes and dropped her fingers from the keyboard.

That happened. That really happened.

She chose Castle. Castle. She chose Castle.

The situation was, quite frankly, one of the most difficult she had ever faced as a cop. Choosing Castle over Josh, or Josh over Castle, or Esposito over Ryan, or any other analogy—no matter who she was choosing between the situation would never have been easy, but with Castle and Josh the kidnapper had upped the stakes. Would she make the same choice again? If put in the exact situation on a different night, was that the choice she would make?

You know the answer to that, a tiny voice in her head said, but she quickly shook it off. Such emotional notions were clutter her brain did not have time to sweep under the proverbial rug at that juncture. She needed to focus on the case; focus on catching the kidnapper. Then and only then would she deal with the ramifications of her decision.

Turning back to her computer screen, Kate efficiently tapped out the rest of her statement and sent it off to the Queens' PD, copying Montgomery on the email. With that task settled, she turned towards the murder board—er, the Kate's Stalker board—and realized it was in dire need of updating with the events of the prior night.

By seven a.m. when the precinct's daytime employees began trickling in, Kate had finished her cup of coffee and had littered the white board with notes on the stalker-turned-kidnapper. She had wracked her brain for every detail she could recall—no matter how minute—in hopes that even the smallest tidbit could help identify and capture the suspect.

When Kate fully realized the bullpen would soon be crawling with people, including her partners Ryan and Esposito, she grabbed her jacket and headed towards the exit. She was not quite in the mood to face their reactions of the events of the prior evening. Besides, she had yet to visit Josh in the hospital and that was something that could not wait.

With Friday morning rush hour traffic it took longer than she would have wanted to get to the hospital in Queens where the EMTs had taken Josh. Upon arrival, she flashed her badge and requested an update on his condition. A nurse informed her that his ankle was broken, his wrist sprained, and the full extent of the damage to his neck had yet to be determined; he was to undergo more tests that morning. Kate thanked the woman and headed directly to Josh's room.

Kate found the doctor sitting upright in bed, heavy brace around his neck, using his non-sprained hand to eat applesauce with a plastic spoon. When she entered the room, he looked up and met her gaze for a moment before turning back to his food. "Hey, how are you feeling?" she asked gently.

"Like I was hung by my neck," he answered simply, reaching out for a cup of water containing as straw. Before his arm was fully extended he winced and pulled it back into his chest. Kate stepped forward, picked up the cup and held it out to him. He took it from her with a muttered, "I can do it."

"Josh, I'm so sorry," she began. "I never wanted you to be involved in any of this. I didn't think he would go after-"

"You knew about this guy?" he asked, flicking his eyes in her direction. She pressed her lips together and nodded simply. "And you never said anything?"

"He had just sent a few emails and a package to the precinct. He seemed harmless. We were investigating him but I never thought he would-"

"Did Castle know about him?" Josh asked. Kate did not say a word or change her expression, which in itself gave the answer. Josh "hmmph-ed" to himself. "Of course. Look, Kate, you didn't need to come here."

"I needed to apologize."

Josh looked at her, relenting slightly. "Look, even if you had told me about this guy, you had no way of knowing he'd conk me on the head on my way to my car; that's not your fault."

"That's not what I was apologizing for," she clarified.

Josh turned his eyes towards his lap and then remained silent for a few moments, obviously collecting his thoughts. "I always kind of wondered, you know, why you were holding back. Was it me? Was it just the way you were?" He paused and turned his gaze up to meet hers. "But…when you talked about him, I knew. You tried to hide it but you had this…light. And it's pretty obvious how he feels about you."

"Pretty obvious?" she echoed, one brow raised.

Josh blinked at her. "He writes books about you, Kate. It doesn't take a genius to draw a conclusion there."

Kate merely stood there for a moment before saying the only thing she could think of. "I never meant to hurt you."

Josh offered her a half-smile. "In a way, it's better like this. I mean, we would have ended sooner or later anyway, right? At least this way it's not drawn out."

Kate nodded and turned towards the exit, but he stopped her by calling out her name. "Thanks, by the way, for shooting that rope and saving my life."

She offered him a sad smile. "Of course, Josh. And if there's anything I can do for you-"

"Yeah," he said firmly. "Catch the bastard."


When Richard Castle awoke the following morning he stretched his legs out and moved to raise his arms above his head, but stopped in the face of instantaneous agony. God, why did his back hurt that much? How did his back hurt that much? And his feet! How did his feet hurt—oh, right, he had fallen six feet onto a concrete floor after being hung by the neck.

Groaning, Castle attempted to push himself upright and found pain also radiated in his throat and wrist. Yeah, that really happened.

After taking a moment to force himself to move forward, Castle slid from bed and shuffled—well, more accurately hobbled—towards the shower, for the first time in many mornings feeling like a man in his late fifties not early forties. He cranked the shower water on hot and stepped beneath the spray, letting the moist heat melt away the tension in his muscles.

Without thinking, he reached for his razor and shaving gel. He squeezed a glob of gel onto his palm and began his usual, well-practiced task of applying it. It was only when his fingertips grazed the raw skin beneath his jaw that he jumped and yelped in discomfort. Oh right—severe rope burns. Grumbling to himself, Castle rinsed off the gel and set down his razor; there would be no shaving that morning and, judging by the tenderness he felt, probably not the following morning either.

His shower complete, Castle stood in the center of his bathroom facing the mirror. He examined the underside of his chin as best he could. It didn't look that bad, more like a minor sun burn than anything else, but damn did it hurt. He moved his tongue around inside his mouth, testing the tenderness so brushing his teeth would not invite another shock.

Castle had hoped sleep would bring refreshing clarity to the events of the prior night, but it had not. Instead, he felt just as conflicted as when his head hit the pillow. What did Kate's decision mean for them? Would there even be a "them" after this? Or, would they simply move forward, ignoring this event like the many others before it?

Castle didn't want to ignore it. He didn't want to forget it—any of the things that happened between them. It frustrated him more than he could ever verbalize, but outweighing that frustration was the desire to keep her, hold on to her as tight as he could. If he had to ignore it in order to remain her partner, he would, as much as that made his self-loathing level increase.

After dressing and grabbing breakfast, Castle headed for the twelfth to fill out his statement. On his way, he texted his daughter, hoping to catch her between classes. He told her that they needed to talk when she next had a chance, but everything was fine and there was no reason to worry. He didn't want to scare her by telling her what had happened over text or even over the phone. It was a conversation that needed to be had in person and, per his promise to her, he would tell her about it, though, quite honestly, it was not a conversation he was looking forward to having. He could already see the pain in her eyes; it made his gut clench just to think about.

"Oh well, look who it is," Esposito called when Castle walked into the precinct. Ryan looked up towards his friend. "Anything interesting happen last night?"

"Yeah, or did you just…hang around?" Ryan asked, clearly in jest.

Castle pursed his lips together and accepted their cop-humor laced joshing. "So you've heard, I take it?"

"Oh we heard—the rumors," Esposito clarified. "Dude, what the hell happened last night?"

"I'd say it's pretty obvious," Ryan, the shorter of the two, said, gesturing towards the underside of Castle's jaw. Esposito dipped his chin so he too could examine the mark.

Normally, Castle would be the first one to show off a cool scar or an angry red rope burn as it was, but this call had been a bit too close for comfort, so he turned away from them. "Not a whole lot to tell, guys. Psycho kidnapped myself and Beckett's boyfriend and strung us up by the rafters in an abandoned warehouse. Beckett saved us; end of story."

"Yeah but is it true the kidnapper made her choose and she chose you over Josh?" Ryan asked.

Castle's only response was to ask, "Shouldn't I be writing all this down in a statement or something?"

Ryan and Esposito exchanged looks. "Uh, sure," Ryan said with an air of skepticism. "I'll take your statement."

When Kate arrived back at the twelfth twenty minutes later, Castle was so engrossed in making certain his statement was grammatically correct he didn't notice her. Glad for a moment of respite before having to face him—and thus the events of the prior night— Kate shrugged off her jacket and sat down at her desk to check her emails. She had barely been seated for more than thirty seconds before Montgomery popped his head out of his office and said, "Beckett. A word."

At the sound of her name Castle looked up from his statement and eyed her curiously as she made her way into Montgomery's office and he shut the door behind them. He wondered briefly how long she had been in the bullpen without saying hell to him, or to the boys before Esposito interrupted his internal inquiries. "Is this what it feels like to be your publisher?"

"Excuse me?" Castle asked curiously.

Esposito gestured towards the statement he was reviewing. "You done yet?"

"I'm just trying to make sure everything is accurate," Castle explained, though his eyes were trained on Kate in Montgomery's office not the papers in front of him.


"So," Kate's captain said to her as he eyed her from the opposite side of his desk, "I read your incident report. Sounds like you had a bit of a rough night."

Kate let out a breathy laugh. "You could say that again."

Montgomery eyed her carefully to gauge her reaction to his next statement. "The kidnapper forced you to choose between Castle and Dr. Davidson…and you chose Castle."

Kate's gazed faltered slightly and her fingers began to tremble, her heart rate gaining speed. She clasped her hands together in front of her and shook her head slightly, willing the terror to leave her throat so it wouldn't show in her voice. "I, I didn't. I couldn't-"

"Kate," Montgomery cut her off gently. "It's alright; I'm not judging merely repeating the facts." Kate bobbed her head, but said nothing. Montgomery watched her for a moment longer before saying, "May I offer a word of unsolicited advice? You know why you chose him and I'm pretty sure I have a good idea why, but does he know?"

Kate stared back at her captain, giving no response other than a blink.

After a beat, Montgomery added. "Don't you think he deserves to?"

She cleared her throat and took a step towards her desk. "What I think, sir, is that I need to devote every ounce of my effort to finding this bastard and bring him in before he does anything else to me or anyone that I…care about."

The captain stared her down for a moment before stating, "Very well, Detective. Please keep me updated on the situation."

Back out in the bullpen, Kate walked up to her three male cohorts and gave them a soft smile. "Morning boys."

"Yo Beckett," Esposito said just as casually as ever. "Sorry to hear about your boring evening; you really need to get a life, girl."

Kate's smile widened slightly. "Yeah, I'll try and work on that. I'm going to get some more coffee and then let's get to work, shall we?"

Kate escaped into the break room only to be followed a moment later by the writer. She busied herself with his fancy espresso machine as he asked. "Hey, are you alright?"

She glanced at him from the corner of her eye. "Shouldn't I be asking you that?"

"Well…"

"I'm fine Castle. How are yo…" her voice drifted off when she faced him for the first time and saw the marks that still remained under his jaw. Her gut clenched and her hand began to tremble so much that she had to set down her coffee cup. "God, Castle your-"

"I know, I know," he sighed, rubbing his hand over his chin. "I didn't shave this morning. It looks awful, doesn't it?"

Kate gave him a very serious "That's not what I was talking about" expression.

He blinked at her slowly as he said, "I'm fine, Kate; really. Nothing I won't bounce back from." After a beat went by he added, "How's Josh by the way? Have you seen him?"

"Briefly," Kate said. "He-he has a broken ankle and they're still trying to figure out what's wrong with his neck and…" she let her voice drift off as she turned away from him, a trembling hand skimming across her forehead. "God, Castle. This is all my fault—all of it. I was so stupid."

"What? No, you-"

"Yes!" she said, whipping towards him. "Yes, it is my fault. When I got your text—that text from you last night my gut knew…my gut knew something was wrong, but I didn't call for backup and I should have and if I had then-"

"Kate, Kate," he said gently, stepping forward and placing a gentle hand on each of her shoulders. "It's okay. No one died."

"But-"

"No buts," Castle said. "No sense in dwelling on what happened in the past now. Let's just move forward and catch this guy, okay? Between my statement, yours and Josh's we've got to have something to go on, right?" She gave a noncommittal shrug. "Okay, but we've had less to go on and still figured it out, right?"

"Right," she agreed. He smiled at her and she couldn't help but mirror his expression. "Thanks Castle."

"Always," he replied.

Almost simultaneously, the break room door opened and Ryan poked his head in. "Beckett? There's something you're going to want to see."

Kate and Castle joined Ryan and Esposito at her desk where a small envelope waited for her. "It was delivered by messenger," Esposito explained. "The messenger is waiting in interrogation; I thought you'd like to do the honors. That is…if this is from-"

"I'd be surprised if it wasn't," she muttered. After pulling on a pair of blue rubber gloves, Kate scooped up the envelope. Ripping open the seal, she dumped the contents onto her desk. One piece of paper floated out and landed face-down. She picked it up and flipped it over, finding a picture of herself taken presumably as she was leaving her apartment, or the precinct; the shot was too close to tell. Overtop of her eyes, black X's had been drawn and beneath her chin the words "Ready for Round 2?" were written.

"Well," Castle concluded, gazing down at the photograph from over her shoulder, "that's creepy."

Saying nothing, Kate stalked towards the murder board, photograph in hand. She tacked it rather violently to the board with a magnet and then turned back towards her team, fury burning in her eyes. If that's the way this guy wanted to play it, fine. He could mock her all he wanted, but she was going to have the last laugh, by catching the son of a bitch and charging him with everything from harassment to attempted homicide. "Which interrogation room is the messenger in?"

The bike messenger, a pimple-faced, moderately terrified, red-headed eighteen year old, described the original owner of the envelope as a six-foot-one, thin, bespectacled man—a perfect descriptor of the kidnapper. Unfortunately, that was as much help as the poor kid could give them. He had met the man at a café where they exchanged cash for the envelope and delivery address; the messenger had no more information. Still, since he had seen the kidnapper unmasked, it was a start and Kate sent him to sit with a sketch artist while the envelope was sent to the tech team to search for prints, saliva remnants, or anything else to assist in ID-ing the suspect.

Despite two different precincts working hard on the case, by noon no one was any closer to identifying the kidnapper. Kate paced in front of the murder board and obsessively reviewed Castle's and Josh's statements in hope that some clue would identify the mystery man, but it turned out the bastard was better than she thought he was. Now, their only hope was that some remnant of him would be found by the tech team in reviewing the photo he'd sent her that morning, though, in all honesty, Kate did not remain hopeful.

Castle watched his partner from his usual seat beside her desk. He was frustrated, of course, having newfound motivation to find the son of a bitch now that he'd been strung up by his neck, but watching the frustration written all over Kate's face made it all the worse for him. Rationally, he knew his statement was as much information as he could recall and that it was not his fault for being knocked out for most of the time and thus unable to further identify the perpetrator. Still, he felt a creeping guilt in his gut, wishing he could do more to help them solve the case.

"Did Josh text you?" Castle asked when he spotted Kate check her phone and subsequently bit her lip.

She glanced up at him quickly. "No, actually I was hoping the kidnapper texted his address and the words, 'Come and get me.'"

A smile broke out across Castle's face. "Hey that sounds like something I would say!"

Kate let out a breathy laugh before her expression fell into one of a more serious nature. "No, actually…Actually, Josh and I broke up."

For a split second, Castle was conflicted. His default setting as her partner, her friend wanted to feel bad, say he was sorry. Yet, the other part of him—the man that desired to hold her close and never let her go—was ashamed to be thrilled at this prospect.

Before he could respond verbally, Esposito interrupted them with his typical, "Yo Beckett."

Kate almost jogged towards him as he stepped up in front of the murder board. "Do you have something? Did the tech team find prints?"

"Yes, but don't get too excited," Esposito told her warningly. He then went on to explain that there were no prints on the outside of the envelope except those from the messenger. On the photo inside, there was one print, but it was not a match to anything in their system. "Which, in a case like this, that's not very shocking," he added.

"So, you brought us nothing; thanks Espo," Castle said bitterly.

Esposito gave the writer an unappreciative glance before turning back to Kate. "Ryan is still running down the security tapes near the coffee shop where our kidnapper met the messenger, so hopefully he'll come back with something."

Kate offered him a small smile. "Thanks Espo." When she turned back to Castle and saw he looked quite impatient, she told him, "Don't worry; it's not like we really expected to ID him from that package."

"I know," Castle sighed. "I just wish there's something I could do. I wish I could help!"

"You are helping," she assured him. Simply by being there, he was helping. Every day that he showed up, sat beside her and offered her reassuring glances or made her laugh during a tough case, he was helping. Without that kind of help—the help that only Castle could provide—she knew she would be lost.

The afternoon progressed, unfortunately, without great event. Ryan obtained several security tapes and, along with a few recruited uniforms, began slogging through them, searching for the face of their kidnapper. Kate contacted the Queens PD, but they seemed to be at as much as a dead end as the Twelfth.

Just as Castle was contemplating a mid-afternoon snack, he watched Kate suddenly stand from her desk, grab her jacket and head towards the elevator as though she was late for an appointment she just remembered. Curious, he pushed himself from the chair (albeit with great difficulty due to his injuries from the prior night) and trailed after her. Just before she was about to press the elevator call button, he called out her name. "Kate?"

She turned to face him, giving him a half-smile. "I-I'm just going out for a second; I need some air."

Castle knew her far too well to believe a line like that. "The hell you are."

They had a several-moment-long staring contest before Kate relented. "I just…I have a feeling he's waiting for me at my apartment; I'm going to go check it out."

Castle nodded. "Okay. Let's call for backup. Let's check it out."

Kate almost laughed at the suggestion. "I can't call for backup on my own hunch; he might not even be there."

He took a step towards her. "And what if he is? What did you say to me earlier today? You should have called for backup last night."

"That's when other people were at risk," she explained. "But Josh is in a hospital, Montgomery put a team on my dad and you're here. I'm going in alone."

She reached for the elevator button and he grabbed her arm instead. "No you're not."

Kate wrenched her arm away. "Yes, I am. Castle."

Again, he stared her down, this time determined not to let her win. She had saved his life not twenty-four hours earlier and now she expected him to stand by and wait while she risked her own? Not a chance in hell. Still, Castle was wise enough to know very little would stop a highly determined Kate Beckett and was thus left with very few options. "You leave I tell Montgomery."

His words were ultimate betrayal. From partner-to-partner it just wasn't done. It wasn't done except in the rarest of circumstances. Life threatening circumstances. Castle believed those circumstances were at play, though, from the expression on her face, it was clear Kate did not.

Anger boiled in her veins and a few droplets of sweat burst out on her forehead. She folded her arms over her chest, glaring at him as she hissed, "Are you kidding me?"

Solemnly, knowing he was risking their partnership, he shook his head. "Nope. This guy's a psycho, Kate. You don't want to risk my life; I don't want to risk yours. At least take Ryan and Esposito. The four of us will go; like always."

Kate grumbled to herself and bit her lip so as not to show a facial expression. Damn him for being right and, for once, using logic on her. She glanced back towards the bullpen and spotted Esposito on the phone and Ryan at his desk reviewing grainy footage. If she was wrong and no one was at her apartment, how much time would they really waste? Forty-five minutes? An hour? Then they would come back here and attack the case from a different angle.

"Alright," she agreed finally, "but let's do this quietly."