A/N: Update! Yay! Thank you for the awesome reviews! I hope you like this chapter.

Disclaimer: Because Andrew Marlowe is totally a teenage girl.


Chapter Three

June 10, 2012

72 Days Before

Weirdly enough, when Castle knocked on the door, Kate was halfway finished with Heat Wave. When she climbed into bed, she'd been tired, but her brain just wouldn't shut down. So she'd decided to give it something to think about other than her impending death and took Heat Wave off her bookshelf. The first Nikki Heat novel was special enough to have a place on her bedroom bookshelf.

"Hey, Castle," she greeted, offering her partner a soft smile.

"You lied," he said without greeting, the raw hurt clear in his voice.

Wha – oh.

Crap. Crap, crap

How had he found out?

"Come in, Castle," she said quietly.

They walked over to the couch and sat like they had earlier, facing each other, knees touching.

"I'm sorry, Castle," she said sincerely. "I should've told you – "

"You're damn right you should've told me." He interrupted angrily.

Damn. Lying was still a very touchy subject for him. Castle rarely lost his cool (sure, he got upset, but never genuinely angry).

"I didn't want you to think I was giving up." She said softly. "I didn't want you to know there was another way and I didn't take the chance."

He stared at her for a moment, thinking of a response. Had he expected her to get defensive and angry? Probably. It wasn't like she hadn't before.

"I would never ever think that." He said, still angry. "Why the hell would you lie to me?"

"I was just trying to protect you," she said quietly, biting her lip instinctively.

And like magic, his rage melted away.

"A little, yeah," he said, his voice lower. The anger completely gone, like it was never there in the first place.

"I know I can't force you to undergo chemotherapy. And I understand why you chose not to. I just wish you would've told me."

"I love you," she murmured again, surprised at how easily the words escaped now. Say it while you can, she supposed. "You are . . . one of the most important people in my life, Castle. I never wanted to hurt you."

He took her hand, curling his fingers around hers. She smiled gently and squeezed his hand lightly.

"I love you too, my dear detective." He murmured.

They both started leaning toward each other. Their lips were this close to meeting and Kate was just about to close her eyes when suddenly –

Buzz-buzz.

Castle's phone vibrated, a text message, and he pulled it out of his pocket.

"It's from Alexis," he told her. He admitted sheepishly, "I didn't tell her I left. I was in a rush."

He quickly typed a decent-sized reply and sent it.

"I can stay," he offered, smiling just a little bit.

"That's alright, Castle. Go home. I'll still be here in the morning." She promised.

A peculiar expression appeared on his face. Oh. Too soon, as he would say.

"Are you sure?" He asked.

"Yeah, go spend some time with your daughter." She said.

He opened his mouth to speak, but she stood and cut him off. She grabbed his other hand and pulled him to his feet. She led him to the door, both partners silent.

"Are you absolutely sure?" He asked concernedly.

"Alone time, remember?" She said.

"Right," he sighed.

"I love you," she repeated. "I love you so much, Richard Castle."

"And I love you, Katherine Beckett." He said, smiling a little. "Until tomorrow."

"Until tomorrow," she echoed.


June 11, 2012

71 Days Before

She fell asleep at around nine-thirty and woke up at four-thirteen in the morning.

She wasn't that tired, but she didn't want to start her day just yet. She just laid on her side, fingers curled around her sheet, which was pulled tight around her body.

Kate wasn't the type to lay in bed all day – she got restless, needed to be doing something. But today, she laid in bed for forty-five minutes, consumed by her thoughts.

Dispatch called just shy of five o'clock. Kate was never more grateful for an early-morning body drop.

After hanging up with dispatch, she dialed Castle's number – which, yes, she had memorized.

"'ello," Castle greeted blearily.

"Hey, Castle," she said quietly.

"Oh, hi, Kate," he said, sounding significantly more awake.

"A body dropped," she told him shortly.

"Oh," he repeated, sounding disappointed. What, did he seriously think she was done with her 'alone time' and wanted to have a heart-to-heart at five in the morning? Over at the phone? "What's the address?"


The victim was twenty-four-year-old Tanya Jacobsen, Esposito said. The girl was unhealthily skinny, with thin, pale blonde hair pulled into a messy bun and a bullet hole in her forehead. Tanya was in bed, on top of the sheets, wearing an oversized T-shirt and blue short-shorts. Her blood was all over the pillow, like somebody had thrown red paint on it.

"Hey, Lanie," Kate greeted her friend, who was sitting next to the body on the bed.

"Hey," Lanie echoed, not looking up from Tanya. Tanya's icy blue eyes were fixed on the ceiling, wide and shocked.

"Do I really need to ask cause of death?" Kate quipped, walking closer to the body with Castle trailing behind her.

"Ha, ha," Lanie said dryly. "I'd say it was a .22, by the way."

"TOD?" Kate inquired.

"Between four to six hours ago," Lanie answered.

A pretty young girl, shot dead in her apartment. She was married – Kate noticed a ring on her finger. She probably had loving parents, a protective older brother, a sweet little sister. A family that some monster had ruined, torn apart. A family that would never be the same after losing one of its members.


Tanya's husband David had found the body. David was tall and gangly, with dark, greasy hair that sliced his thin face in half diagonally. Every inch of exposed skin, with the exception of his face, was covered in tattoos. His visible eye was huge and piercingly blue, staring sadly at the hallway that led to the crime scene.

He looked like a cartoon character, Kate thought.

"David Jacobsen?" Kate asked. The kid – he looked so young, she couldn't help but think of him as a kid – jumped to his feet, off the couch in a second.

"That's me," David said quickly.

"I'm Detective Kate Beckett," Kate said. "And this Richard Castle."

She shook David's hand, which was surprisingly small and cold.

"Do you know what happened to Tanya?" David asked, eyes flickering rapidly from the detective to the writer, then back to Kate.

"Not yet," Kate said instead. "David, do you have any idea who could've done this? Was there anyone who wanted to hurt Tanya?"

"N-no," David answered. Of course not. "She was the sweetest girl I've ever met. She didn't have a mean bone in her body."

"Are you sure?"

"Well . . . her and her older sister Julianne got in a fight recently. But Julianne would never hurt Tanya!" David added quickly.

David gave them a frightened look, like a little kid who told his parents a secret he shouldn't have. The poor guy looked like he was about to cry. Intuition told Kate that the guy probably got upset over squishing bugs, wouldn't have been able to kill Tanya and not be sobbing over it.

Kate decided to give him some space.

"Thank you, David," Kate said gently. "You've been very helpful."


Back at the precinct, Kate and the boys quickly set up the murder board. This past week, Gates had been exceptionally irritable. Her daughter and newborn, colicky grandson were visiting. Kate also suspected Gates was angry with her about the Quitting Incident, as Castle called it.

"No signs of a break-in," Esposito commented as he wrote it. "She must've let the perp inside."

"Without David seeing?" Ryan asked dubiously.

"David was talking to his online friends and painting," Esposito reminded him. "iPod turned up all the way the whole time."

"That never ends well," Castle remarked quietly, thinking of the Candela kidnapping. A father had sat his daughter in living room and went off to paint, blasting music in his ears. The kidnapper had snuck in through the window, taken little Angela Candela, and left without Angela's father Alfred noticing. They didn't usually remember cases from so long ago, but it was hard to forget a kidnapping.

That hadn't been a fun case.

"So she . . .," Kate started to say something, but, like last night, the world suddenly went completely back.


A/N: Cliffhanger! Dun, dun, dun.

Hope you liked it. Please review – I'd love to hear what you thought of it. I know there are a lot of you who follow the story . . .

Yeah, yeah, I know I sound like I'm begging. I kind of am. A little.

-Ellie