"Kate." He held her tight.

"Castle." Then she groaned.

He let go immediately. "Kate?"

She stepped back, hunched over a little. "I'm okay." She back up into an armchair, sitting down slowly, her hand pressed to her chest under her left breast.

"You mean you were really ..." He couldn't say the word.

"Shot. Yes." Kate relaxed a little.

"You should be in the hospital," he insisted.

"That's what I keep telling her," Josh put in. "But you know our Kate."

"Yes. Yes, I do." Our Kate. Oh, he wanted to do something about that, preferably to do with his fist in the good doctor's perfect face, but he kept that thought tightly under wraps.

"I was in the hospital," she said. "And now I'm not." Looking from one to the other she added, "And I'm fine."

"You're getting better." Josh went down on his heels next to her, his hand on hers. "But you're not fine yet."

"It wasn't that bad."

"If the bullet hadn't deflected along a rib –"

"But it did." She took her hand from under his and pushed her hair back behind her ear. "I'll be okay."

"I can take a look, make sure you didn't –"

"It's okay," she assured him. "Castle was just a little ... overenthusiastic."

"If you're sure." At her nod he stood up and stepped away. "I'll be in the kitchen if you need me," he added, giving them space to talk.

She nodded and smiled a little as he backed out of the room, Esposito taking up a position by the door.

Most of Kate's attention, though, was on Rick. "Hi," she said, needing to fill the empty space between them.

"Hi."

"You okay?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know?"

"Physically I'm fine, if a little drunk still. Otherwise ... I am really confused," Rick said slowly.

"You?" She gazed at him. "The famous Richard Castle? Confused."

"Yes. Ecstatic that you're not actually six feet under, but yes. Confused. If this isn't all I thought it was ... how did you ..."

A voice came from the bedroom. "That would be me."

He turned and came face to face with a woman he recognised all too well.

Jordan Shaw. Cool, collected, poised, beautiful as ever, and probably the last person Rick expected to see (although he was getting used to being surprised by now, and wondered idly who was the next 'last person' on that list about to turn up).

"Well, I'll be ..."

"Probably." Jordan smiled slightly. "You've earned it. And close your mouth, there's a train coming."

His jaw slammed shut. "So you're behind all this?"

"All what?" She shrugged slightly. "I'm merely visiting an injured friend."

"A supposedly dead friend," Rick pointed out, then turned back to Kate. "Which, by the way, we're going to be having words about."

"That I don't doubt," Kate said.

His blue-eyed glare went back to Jordan. "You arranged it all? The hospital, the funeral ... all of it?"

The FBI agent nodded. "Yes."

"Why?"

"Because contrary to popular opinion, the FBI isn't stupid. And I've been keeping an eye on things since we met over the nutbar."

Her name for the serial killer, Scott Dunn, who'd been obsessed with Nikki Heat. Who'd bombed Kate's apartment in an attempt to kill her ...

Rick swallowed, and wondered vaguely whether he was becoming just a little psychic, since he'd been thinking about that only a few hours earlier. "So?" he encouraged.

"So I read Detective Beckett's file at the time. All of it. Her mother, Coonan, then Raglan, MacAllister ... the coincidences kept piling up, and I hate coincidences. Then came the shooting of Lockwood and your captain and, well, I put two and two together, and came up with a trace."

"Trace."

"Information." She leaned forward. "Castle, no matter how quiet you try and keep things, they have a habit of getting out. After all, you're here."

"That was ..." He stopped, not about to admit how frantically he'd held onto the potential lifeline. "A guess," he finished lamely.

"Mmn." She fixed him with her clear gaze. "I'd wonder about that if I didn't know just how good your mind is at mixing things up into a totally new picture."

"And Kate?"

The woman herself stirred. "Jordan approached me. Told me about the intel."

"And you didn't tell me?" His anger was rising again. "Kate, I'm your partner! More than that!"

"I told her not to," Jordan interrupted quietly. "The least number of people involved the better in this type of operation."

"And you let her go to the funeral, give the eulogy, all the while knowing ..." Something clicked in his brain. "So the assassin was really real? Not a set up?"

"I'm afraid so." Jordan sat down in one of the chair by the table and crossed her legs, her skirt riding up a little. "Totally real."

"No set up, Castle," Kate said softly. "Do you really think I'd let someone shoot at me? Even wearing a vest?"

"I ... don't know." He felt his world start to spin. "I thought ... when I saw the blood ... but something felt was screwy."

"So Esposito said." She shook her head at him. "You shouldn't have got Maggie involved."

"It was more the other way around." He watched her settle herself against the back of the chair, and couldn't help but see the wince on her face. "Wouldn't you be better lying down?"

"Are you propositioning me?" she asked in turn.

"No, I ... of course not!"

"That's okay, then." She dropped her head, but not before he saw the smile on her face. "And it hurts just as much when I'm in bed."

Hurts. He wondered why it was so hard to believe she had actually been shot, when she was here, in front of him. "I thought ..."

Jordan took pity on him. "That it was all a set-up?" She shook her head. "We considered it, taking a potshot at Kate and making out that someone else had decided to take advantage of the situation, but in the end it didn't seem feasible. And a situation like that, the funeral, so many cops ... we wouldn't have anyway."

"They did."

"They're desperate." Jordan sighed. "And in all honesty we didn't expect it," she admitted. "Not there, not then. But Kate's been wearing one of our latest bullet resistant vests ever since we met four days before Montgomery's funeral."

Four days. She'd gone to lunch with an old friend, teasing him without humour by implying it was a previous lover. When she'd got back, though, things felt ... off. Well, more off than before. He'd asked her about it, but she'd said it was only the events of the past week playing on her mind. He'd backed off, not wanting to push it. But from that point he felt out of the loop, sidelined, as if there was something she wasn't telling him. Seemed like he was right. But ... "Bullet resistant?"

"Nobody says bulletproof any more. Considering the type of ammo out there now, that would be the height of hubris."

"But she was still hurt."

"The vest did what it was designed to do, to take the force out of the projectile by flattening it, and the ballistic shockplate deflected it away from the heart across her ribs."

Rick looked at Kate. "That's why you were bleeding."

"It hurt the same," she admitted, her hand still tucked under her arm. "Just not quite as permanent."

"So the vest –"

"Saved my life."

"Thank you," he said quietly to Jordan, but with total conviction.

The FBI agent smiled. "You're welcome."

"Do you ... remember it?" Rick asked diffidently, turning back to Kate.

She shrugged. "Not really. I remember standing at the podium, talking, trying not to cry ... but after that it's pretty much a blur."

"You don't remember me talking to you?"

Her eyes were on his, two tiny lines of confusion between her brows. "No. What did you say?"

"Nothing," he dissembled. "Just telling you to hang on."

"Oh."

"But the rest?" He knew he was changing the subject, now desperate to avoid the elephant in the room of his words to Kate. "What about your dad?" He still couldn't get the image of her father standing by the graveside out of his head.

"He knows. I couldn't ..." She stopped for a moment, then went on, "I spent so long trying to save him after my mother died, I couldn't let him go back into that dark place."

"But it was okay for me to think you were dead. That you'd died in my arms. That was okay?" He got up, anger making him need to walk. "I thought you were in that fucking box!" He hardly ever swore, not like that.

"I know. And I'm sorry."

"Sorry? You think that's enough?" He wanted to stop the words, but somehow they just kept coming. "Do you have any idea how I felt?"

"Everyone had to believe it."

"What about Esposito?" He pointed at the detective. "He knew. You let him in on your little plan."

"No. He didn't know until after. And there was no plan." She got up and stood in front of him, her hair mussed, her skin flushed. "You really think I wanted to get shot? Even wearing a vest, that would have been a really stupid idea, and not even worthy of one of your books."

"I didn't think so!"

"What?"

"I thought you were dead!" He took hold of her shoulders, as if holding her down might make things clearer. "Then when Maggie suggested you'd faked it all, I – "

"Maggie?"

"She cut short her honeymoon, came to the loft to make sure I was okay."

"She wasn't at the funeral."

"No, she ..." Rick stopped. "Wait. How do you know that?" His eyes widened. "Were you there?"

"I ..." She licked suddenly dry lips. "Yes," she said defiantly. "Yes, I was. Jordan thought I was being crazy, but ... it's not every day you get to see your own funeral."

Her shoulders might have become red hot the way he let go and staggered back. "You watched."

"Besides, I thought my killer might have shown up to gloat, and we'd have a way in."

"I can't believe ..." All that emotion, wave after wave of it, rolling around the graveside, his own family in tears because they thought it was real, his own guilt, the pain, and now knowing she was only a few yards from him ... all of it became too much. "I don't know you at all, do I?" he said quietly, before turning and striding out of the door.

"Castle." Her voice followed him, even if she couldn't. "Castle. Rick!"

He walked. Kept on walking. He didn't know where, and didn't care, his shoulders hunched into his overcoat. The rain had stopped earlier, and the clouds overhead were breaking, allowing the last rays of the dying sun to angle onto the sidewalk, but he didn't notice.

Everything was playing again in his mind, the hangar, Montgomery telling them what little he had, not giving a name, having to carry Kate outside so the man could make amends by killing Lockwood. Kate trying to hold herself together through those long days ... She felt guilty, he knew that. If she hadn't gone after the man who'd killed her mother, so many other people would still be alive. He'd tried to tell her it wasn't her, that it was the man who ordered the hits in the first place, but he wasn't sure she actually listened. Besides, it was all his fault, he knew that. Writing the damn Nikki Heat books in the first place.

The picture show continued in his mind. The funeral, the riderless horse, Kate giving the eulogy. There was no gunshot, he realised, just the sound of the bullet pushing the air aside, then he was on the ground next to her, begging her not to leave him, selfishly wanting her to live.

And she had. She was back there, in that crappy hotel, and all he could do was be angry that she hadn't told him.

He sat down on a bench advertising low cost legal services and put his elbows on his knees, his head dropped between his shoulders. He could blame the booze, of course. As much as Maggie had poured coffee into him – and throwing up had definitely helped – he was probably still legally drunk, and perhaps it was a combination of that and sheer relief that had made him walk out on her.

"God, Ricky," he murmured to himself, pushing his hands through his hair then down his face. "You really are an asshole."

A non-descript town car drew up next to him, and the driver side window rolled down. "Tantrum over?" Jordan asked.

He looked up. "Well, I was planning another ten minutes of sulking and banging my heels on the ground. Do you want to go around the block a couple more times?"

She rolled her eyes, an expression he was beginning to think women learned while getting their mother's milk. "Get in."

He got in. "Thanks."

"For what?" She glanced at him as she accelerated into traffic. "Coming after you? Or thinking you're an idiot?"

"Yes to the first. And ... I know, to the second."

"Good. Because I'd hate to think you considered that kind of behaviour acceptable." She overtook a slow moving delivery truck. "Besides, you started this, now you have to see it through."

"Started it?" His own thoughts echoed back again.

"No. I don't mean the writing," Jordan said, obviously reading his face as clearly as one of his books. "I mean figuring out she's alive."

Rick swallowed. There was that. She was alive. Heart beating sixty times a minute, blood pumping through miles of veins and capillaries ... alive. "See what through?"

"Catching the man who's behind this."

"We don't know who he is."

"Do you really think that's going to stop her?" She made a sound like harrumph. "And you have to be there, to make sure she's safe."

"I couldn't before."

"Then make up for it now."

He looked out of the window, then asked diffidently, "Was Kate ... is she ..."

"Mad? Yes."

"Ah."

"She also understands, which is more than most people would be."

"I've already agreed I'm an idiot."

"Just making sure you don't forget. She sent me, by the way."

"She did?" He brightened up a little.

"It was either me or 'Dr Motorcycle Boy'."

The emphasis she put on the last three words wasn't lost on him, and he couldn't help the smug smile that crossed his lips. "She said that?"

"Accidentally. And he wasn't in the room."

"That's a pity."

"Richard Castle, I never knew you could be so petty."

"Ask my mother." The smiled became more affectionate. "Or rather, don't. She'd be more than happy to list all my shortcomings."

"That's her job." She pulled up at a set of red lights. "Are you going to tell her?"

"Tell her what?"

"Castle, I might have got it slightly wrong when I profiled you and her before, about the pair of you sleeping together. But I know I'm not wrong now, so don't be obtuse."

Rick dropped in his seat. "She doesn't remember what I said."

"What did you say?" The light turned green and she pulled smoothly away.

"That ... that I loved her."

"Then tell her again."

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because of Dr Motorcycle Boy."

"Why are you letting him stand in your way?"

"I'm not. Kate is."

"You really think she cares more about him than you?"

His lips set in a stubborn line. "He knew. That she was alive." He didn't mean to sound bitter, but it came out anyway.

Jordan signalled and drove the car into the underground garage beneath the hotel. She waited until she'd parked in a space and turned off the engine before reaching across and hitting him. "Idiot."

"Ow! What was that for?" He rubbed his bicep.

"Didn't it occur to you that Kate didn't tell you because she wanted you safe? Because she cares?"

"That's what Esposito said, but –"

"What would you rather believe?"

"I thought she was dead." He wondered just how many times he was going to have to say it.

"And she isn't. You'd have found out eventually anyway, but since you forced the issue, just be happy about it."

"Oh, I am."

"You're not acting like it."

He opened his mouth to disagree, but what came out was, "You're right. I'm acting like a child who's had his favourite toy taken away from him."

"You've got it back. You've got her back." She opened the door. "Now come and apologise."

He felt like he had that time at prep school when he'd been caught smoking in the toilets. The Principal had given him a stern talking to, and an illustrated pamphlet on the perils of cigarettes – a very heavily, gorily illustrated pamphlet. He hadn't touched a cigarette since. "Sorry."

Kate, her arms wrapped around herself, framed in the light from the window, nodded. "Accepted. And ... I understand. I let you believe the worst. Even if it was for your own good."

He had to smile. Kate wasn't going to apologise, not if it meant having to admit she was maybe wrong. But it was close enough. "Okay."

Josh interrupted, bustling back into the room. "Come on, Kate. Time to change that dressing."

"It's fine," she said, barely glancing at him.

"No, it's not. I don't want you getting an infection. You were damn lucky, but I don't want that luck to run out." He beckoned her. "Come on. I've got it all set out in the bathroom."

Kate's expression changed for a moment into annoyance, but it cleared quickly. "Fine. But you be gentler taking the tape off this time." She stood up and preceded him out of the room.

"When am I not?" he said, following her.

Jordan's phone trilled from her handbag and she got up to answer it.

Rick smiled briefly at Esposito but it wasn't returned. "Hey."

"Hey."

"Does ... Lanie know?"

"No. And you're not to tell her."

"Javier, she is going to kill you when she finds out."

"Well, that's my problem, not yours. And she's safer not knowing." Esposito moved closer. "I heard, bro, I told you," he said quietly. "Me, Lanie, Ryan ... we all did."

"Kate didn't. And I thought she was dying."

"So you didn't mean it?"

"I ..." He glanced around, made sure Kate wasn't about to come back in. "Don't tell her."

"Why not?" Esposito shook his head. "Man, you two are your own worst enemies."

"She'll think I said it because I thought ..." The image of her lying on the sweet-smelling turf overwhelmed him for a moment. "She's got Josh."

"She needs you."

"Kate Beckett?" Another smile. "She doesn't need anyone."

"Castle, you are one stupid son of a bitch sometimes."

"Maybe. But she doesn't need me being ... me ... right now. There's other things to worry about."

"Like how we catch this murdering bastard."

"Exactly."

"She knows somebody was pulling the strings, that it didn't end with Raglan, MacAllister and ... Montgomery." It was hard to say, even now. "She's like a bulldog with a rat – she's going to worry at it until it's dead."

"Good image."

"Yeah, well, you must be rubbing off on me."

Rick took Esposito's arm, pulled him to the other side of the room. "Does she know?" he asked, his voice dropped as low as possible and still be audible.

"Who know what?"

"Agent Shaw. About Montgomery."

"No."

"Shouldn't she? I mean, she's investigating Roy's murder, the attempt on Kate's life ... it's all interconnected."

"You heard Beckett," Esposito said, glancing around. "You, me and Ryan. That's it. Nobody else outside the family."

"And if it comes down to it? To her needing to?"

"Then we look at it again."

Jordan finished her call and crossed the room to them. "I have to go back to Washington."

"You're not staying?" Even Rick was surprised.

"This isn't the usual FBI investigation."

"You've gone rogue?"

Jordan laughed. "I like the idea, but no. Technically I'm ... assisting the police. In this case, Detective Esposito here."

"Lanie's going to love that," Rick said, unable to get his mouth off automatic.

Jordan ignored him. "In reality, we're having to investigate this under the radar. The shooting of a police Captain would normally be dealt with inhouse, but the implications of someone much higher up, possibly at the most senior level ... we can't take the risk of whoever it is being spooked and making a run for it."

"We'd know who it was if they did," Rick pointed out.

"And with the kind of money they must have to hire a hitman like Lockwood, they could just vanish into thin air, and I don't want that."

"Me neither."

"Then we're on the same page. Besides, I'll be back in New York in a day or two – this is just to give a briefing in person to my bosses."

"So what now?"

"Kate stays under wraps," Jordan said firmly. "They think she's dead, which means they'll relax, and if they relax they might make a mistake."

"They." Rick felt all his confidence vanish like water on a hotplate. "Just who are 'they'? Do you actually have any idea?"

Jordan looked about as uncomfortable as he'd seen her. Even when she was being held captive by the serial killer, bound and ductaped as she was and definitely not looking at her best, she still had poise. Now, though, that pose was showing definite cracks. "The FBI received some information that suggested –"

"No," Rick interrupted her. "No spook speak. Just a good, old-fashioned yes or no."

She gazed at him for a long heartbeat. "Then ... no."

"At least that's honest," Kate said, coming back into the room, Josh lurking in the doorway behind her.

"We know something's rotten, and it goes up pretty high, but how far, or who ... or why ..." She shrugged elegantly

"You're as much in the dark as we are," Kate said.

"So a cop killer goes free," Rick added.

"A double cop killer. Perhaps more." Jordan sighed. "Your captain got too close, Kate and her mother ..."

"I'll find him." Kate was certain.

"No." Jordan was even firmer. "You leave it to us."

Kate's face hardened. "I'm involved. Damn it, they tried to kill me!"

"And if they think you're alive, they'll try again. They think you know something, are a danger to them. And next time they might succeed."

"Jordan, I can't stay here!"

"Yes, you can."

"No, she can't," Rick put in, then at their expressions added quickly, "Not with the keeping under wraps. The staying here. Even the cockroaches are demanding better working conditions!"

Kate did not appreciate his attempt at humour. "I have to find out who's behind this."

"No, you don't." From Jordan's tone it was clearly a subject she wasn't going to be moved on. "You're going to stay put, and out of danger."

"I have work to do!"

"You're dead. As far as the world is concerned, the assassin got it right and killed you." She glanced at Rick. "And as few people that know he didn't succeed the better."

"I'm not going to tell anyone," Rick assured her.

"Good. Because otherwise I'd have you both locked up in protective custody."

"But that doesn't get away from the fact that she can't stay here." He gestured at the seediness. "I mean, look at it."

"Then where do you suggest?"

"My place. It's secure, there's a damn good alarm system –"

"No, Castle. Not happening."

"Then how about out of the city altogether?" He leaned forward. "I've got a place in the mountains, a cabin."

"You do?" Kate interjected, surprised.

"I do. And it's far enough away from anywhere to be safe."

Jordan pursed her lips. "I don't know ..."

"I'll stay with her. Make sure she doesn't do anything crazy." Rick could see Josh start to bristle.

"Away from New York might not be a bad thing," the FBI agent said, thinking out loud.

"No." Kate's voice cut across. "Not happening. I'm not leaving."

Jordan looked at her. "It's not ideal, I'll admit, but –"

Kate stepped between them. "Someone tried to kill me. I want to find out who."

"It's not your case." Jordan held up a hand to stop the tirade. "You're not going to get involved."

"But –"

"No. There are no buts." She crossed her arms, her slightly arrogant air very prominent. "And since it's a straight choice of either holed up in this admittedly pretty appalling hotel, surrounded by Feds to make sure you don't even take a single step outside until we get these guys, or you accompany Castle to the mountains." She smiled slightly. "Clean air, nice walks ... You can stay here if you like, but if you do you're not the intelligent woman I took you to be."

Kate glared at her, then looked at each other men in turn. Esposito was looking as if he was fighting a grin, while Castle was hopeful, encouraging. Josh, on the other hand ...

"I want to go too." Josh was firm, unyielding.

"Sorry, Dr Davidson," Jordan said before anyone else could object. "This can't be a procession."

"Then I want the address. The phone number."

"It's need to know, and whatever your relationship with Detective Beckett, you don't."

Josh's face set, fuming. "What about the dressings? The shots?"

"I can do those myself," Kate assured him.

"And there's a doctor in the local town," Rick added, pouring salt onto the wound. "Nice guy. Old school."

Kate's lips twitched.

"Then there's no problem." Jordan picked up her purse. "I need to check this out with my bosses, but I can't see them objecting."

"You mean if anything happens to me it will be Castle's fault?" Kate asked shrewdly.

"They may well see it that way," Jordan allowed. "But it's late, and nobody's going anywhere until the morning at least."

Rick glanced at his watch, surprised and shocked to see the hour. "I can stay," he offered.

"Go home, Castle," Jordan advised. "Beckett's fine for tonight, and you need to pack."

"Pack. Right." He looked at Kate, who nodded. "Call me. If you need anything."

"I will," Kate promised.

Jordan followed him to the door. "You're sure about this?" she asked, keeping her voice low. "The cabin?"

"Of course."

"I can't send anyone with you. We're trying to keep this as low profile as possible."

He looked into her brown eyes, trying to read her. "Who from, Jordan?" he asked. "You've got some idea, haven't you?"

"Castle, it's your job to keep Beckett safe. You concentrate on that, and let me worry about who done it."

"How long for?"

She smiled slightly. "In your case? Probably the rest of your life." She closed the door on him, leaving him staring at the crusted old wood.

By the time he got back to the loft he'd gone through feeling exhausted and out the other side, not ready for bed but unable to think straight. Besides, the apartment was empty and full of shadows. There had been a small part of him that hoped Maggie had ignored his order to leave and would be waiting for him, but for once in her life it looked like she was being sensible. No. That was unfair. She had always been far more sensible than he was, and he knew he'd come to rely on that sensibility in times of crisis, even if it was only as a voice over the phone. Right now, though, as much as he wanted to tell her everything, that had to change.

Going through the rooms he spent a few minutes putting on as many lights as possible, then slightly less turning most of them off again, the spectral shade of Alexis at his shoulder complaining about his carbon footprint being so huge. At least all of his books were available on Kindle, so that was a few trees he didn't have to feel guilty over.

He switched the TV back on in the study, turning the sound down so it was barely a murmur, and flicked through the channels until he found an old science fiction film he loved but hadn't seen for a while – Forbidden Planet. Based on Shakespeare's The Tempest, of course, all about one man's need for revenge, and maybe a tad too close for comfort, but it was only a few minutes in, and as he dropped tiredly into the soft armchair he found himself looking forward to putting his brain on hold as he made re-acquaintance with Leslie Neilsen, Walter Pidgeon, Anne Francis, and of course the monster from the ID ...

The spaceship had barely reached Altair IV before his head was tipped back and he was snoring lightly.