**Author's note** Fair warning, a LOT of angst here, this is probably the darkest this story will get.

You have been warned.

Chapter Six

'Cause I'm broken when I'm open
And I don't feel like I am strong enough
'Cause I'm broken when I'm lonesome
And I don't feel right when you're gone away

Broken: SEETHER feat. Amy Lee

Previously

Kate wasn't sure if Alexis was a target, collateral damage, or simply a lure to bring her out into the open, but she couldn't take that chance. She had made Rick a promise a long time ago to take care of Alexis if anything happened to him. Unlike last summer, this was a promise she intended to keep. She would protect his mother and daughter with her life if necessary. Be there for them like she felt she should have been for Castle.

If Maddox wanted a war, she would give him a war. Take the fight right down his throat if she had to. He had no idea what he was dealing with.

Kate sat in her police issue Crown Victoria in the underground parking garage for Rick's building, suddenly unsure of what she should do. She had been ordered to vacate her apartment for forty eight hours or until CSU had finished processing, whichever came first.

She was thankful that she had taken the time earlier to remove the murder board for her mother's case from the living room window. That would certainly have raised questions she really wasn't prepared to answer. With the guilty party dead and disgraced, his "suicide note" detailing his crimes for the wold to see, it had hardly seemed relevant to keep a shrine to it in her home anymore.

The empty hole her mother's death had left in her soul was still there, as if mocking her, reminding her of everything her obsession had cost her along the way. Including Castle.

Captain Gates had been kind enough to assign Officer Hastings accompany her into her bedroom to pack a bag. Kate knew that this was procedure, something she's had to order done more than once when somebody's home had become her crime scene, but she still felt a sense of violation at having strangers (even if they are cops and crime scene technicians) pawing over her things. Not to mention these were people she would have to work with after this. It would be very awkward.

She had emptied her entire lingerie drawer into one duffel bag, if only to avoid the snarky comments and catcalls about some of her less than conservative unmentionables, then piled a few days worth of work clothes on top to hide them from prying eyes.

"Let this be a lesson to you," she'd remarked to Hastings with a wicked grin that never quite made it to her eyes, "always make sure to keep a bag handy for the lingerie drawer. For grown men, cops can be such little boys about sheer black lace."

She'd gotten chapter and verse about "looking more like a fashion model than a cop" early on in her career, especially in Vice. She certainly didn't need that starting up again. The lecherous stares from some of the dirtbags she has put away over the years (and some of the cops she'd been paired with) were enough to make her feel like she needed a long shower so she wouldn't leave a ring on her bathtub.

The drive to Castle's had been a blur. She had called ahead to check in with Martha, explained the situation and that she would be over as soon as she could find and check into motel.

"Nonsense, Katherine dear, we have plenty of room and you've used the guest room before."

She had started to demur, for Alexis' sake, but Martha would have none of it.

"Katherine Houghton Beckett," she'd commanded in a tone that would brook no defiance. A tone Kate had noted was resoundingly similar to her mother's when she'd been caught sneaking in after curfew, "don't you dare even think about finishing that sentence, young lady. My son loves you and he would never forgive Alexis, or me if he found out we turned you out on the street. You are staying here at the loft with us and that is final, do you hear me?"

Martha's voice had broken on the last few words, driving home just how close to the ragged edge Rick's mother really was, in spite of the veteran stage actress' valiant attempts to hide it. Regardless of the awkwardness Martha's decision was certain to cause between herself and Alexis, Kate knew in her heart that she couldn't tell the woman no. Not now, after all the hurt she felt she'd already caused Rick's family. She felt she had done enough damage with the lies she's told since her shooting. She didn't want to cause her any more.

Before she went up, however, she needed to see the rather large video file labeled "Beckett" that was on Castle's phone. From the EXIF data, she could tell that it had not been made on his phone, merely transferred to it shortly before the photos of Alexis had been taken, and from the same digital camera. It was likely one of the last of several such video files, given the date. She didn't recognize the voice on the recording.

"The subject has thus far been resistant to persuasion. He has given us nothing to suggest that He has given any information to Detective Beckett. Even after repeated applications of physical force, water boarding, and electrical stimulation. The only information he has provided that we don't have is the name "Agent Gray" which is likely an alias. We are tracking it down now."

From the dry language used, she could tell that it had obviously been originally intended for Bracken. It held none of the mocking tone of the note that had been included with the photos meant for her eyes. In fact the voice in the message sounded every bit like a professional making a prepared statement to his employer, not like a sadistic bastard torturing a man for the information locked in his head.

Castle's face was bruised and bloody, his arms secured behind him to the bolted down steel chair in what had to have been a very painful angle. His shirt was pulled open revealing a significant amount of fresh bruises on his chest as well as several small burn marks.

Kate stared blankly in abject horror at what had been done to the man she loved.

"Tell me what you found out, and how much Beckett knows, and the pain stops, Mr. Castle. You might even be allowed to go home to that pretty little daughter of yours."

Castle visibly flinched but buried it, before replying defiantly, "Go to hell...not telling you a damn thing."

"How about we bring the girl in, let her do a round with Sasha here?" The disembodied voice came back with a cold whisper, "Make you watch...maybe that will loosen your tongue?"

Castle bristled, rage giving him the strength to try to wrench himself out of the chair, nearly dislocating his shoulders in the process, "YOU LEAVE ALEXIS ALONE, YOU SON OF A BITCH!"

The cold fury in his eyes and his angry defiance only lasted a moment, as a gloved hand appeared on screen and what appeared to be a cattle prod was pressed to his ribs causing his whole body to go rigid in the restraints, his ear splitting screams overpowering the speaker on her phone. His body went slack when it was pulled away.

"We can keep doing this until you lapse into a coma or your heart explodes, Mr. Castle, but I promise you, the pain will stop WHEN YOU TELL US WHAT BECKETT KNOWS!"

The cattle prod was applied again, causing Castle's screams to echo off the walls just before the camera was turned away from him and the video clip came mercifully to a close.

Kate closed her eyes, tossing her cell phone onto the passenger seat. It was one thing to be told what had happened to him...but to witness it...to hear Rick screaming in pain like a wounded animal because he refused to betray her...because he couldn't walk away, even though he thought she had rejected him, that she didn't want him...it was just too much.

She wasn't sure when she'd started crying, how long her sobs had echoed within the confines of her car. She couldn't face Martha yet, she just couldn't go up there...but she couldn't stop sobbing either. This was all for her...all because he loved her. She felt...unclean...unworthy of such sacrifices.

"What have you done, Rick?" Kate whispered to herself between sobs, "What did you find and whom did you give it to that Bracken would send someone to do...this?"

Kate remembered having met Agent Gray once...he seemed capable and dangerous in an affable sort of way. She wasn't sure what Rick was getting at sending them chasing a CIA ghost.

"Rick gave him up to protect me" she thought to herself..."this wasn't supposed to happen...going away last summer was supposed to keep him safe, but he put the target on his own back instead...took this upon himself, for me...why would he do that?"

Kate could not fathom it. No man in any relationship she had ever run away from (even before her mother died) had ever kept coming back for more like Castle did. Even Josh had simply picked up his things from her place and disappeared into the Congo without so much as a backward look when she'd ended it with him. No one had ever put forth so much effort to get inside her defenses with so little hope of reward before and she couldn't for the life of her figure out why.

"Because he loves you, Katie-bug...because the heart wants what the heart wants." a treasonous voice replied in the back of Kate's mind. One that sounded suspiciously like her mother, before she broke down and cried some more. Sobbing in the driver's seat of her car in a private parking garage where no one could see her tears.

Castle loft

Half an hour later.

Martha had had her back to the door, her mind fully focused on preparing the dinner she had invited Kate to, wanting desperately to bridge the gap between Kate and her granddaughter. She knew it was probably wrong to try to force this. She knew in her heart that her son would want the two most important women in his life to be at odds.

Martha had been at the hospital when Alexis had came back from the precinct, she could hear the loud music emanating from her room, cranking up her stereo wasn't usually her style, she was generally more respectful than that. She knew that Alexis was just as hurt and upset about what happened to Richard as she was, but the girl had chosen to channel all of that hurt into attacking Kate at every opportunity. That needed to stop, right now, she was going to put an end to Alexis' hurtful, destructive behavior.

Though she knew that Kate bore some responsibility for her son's current state, as his mother she also knew that Richard had gone chasing this of his own free will, and this time he had been fully aware of what the consequences might be. Prepared for those consequences in a way he hadn't been when he had first started poking around in Kate's past, three years before.

As much as she would have hoped the opposite would be true, she knew he couldn't simply turn his feelings for Beckett off, it wasn't in his nature. He loved her too deeply for that. He had let the detective all the way into his heart in a way that she hadn't seen him do since he had brought Kyra Blaine home to meet her during Spring Break back in 1990, the love practically pouring out of his eyes when he'd looked at her.

He hadn't let anyone that far in since Kyra had walked out on him all those years ago, under circumstances that were far to similar to what Kate had done last summer for Martha Rodgers' liking. A request for space...a promise to call him in a few days...then a complete disappearance, severing all contact. Only back then, Kyra never came back.

That had been when the "playboy" persona made it's first appearance in her son's social repertoire. It probably would not have been difficult for Gina and Paula to talk him into taking on the role if it hadn't been his idea in the first place. He stopped looking for real women...women with depth...and started having affairs with women who were "fun and uncomplicated" women he would never let in. Meredith had been one of those...until she got pregnant with Alexis. He had tried...God help him, he'd tried...to turn that little tramp into something more, but that had been a doomed enterprise as soon as she'd gotten her figure back.

Gina was a mistake no matter how Martha looked at it. On paper their relationship had made a certain amount of sense, but they turned out to be oil and water together. Gina was a professional woman...an administrative bureaucrat who had no real idea of how the creative process worked. She thought she could make him write faster...and it created a strain on their relationship. Their marriage lasted less time than the one with Meredith. Why Black Pawn kept him under her thumb after their messy public divorce, she could not understand.

Martha was certain that something happened in between those two marriages. She had babysat Alexis a lot for about a year around the time she was six. He had told her at the time that he was doing research for the first Derek Storm novel and he was not allowed to talk about it...but she was certain a woman had been involved, because he'd had two short flings immediately afterward. One with a fashion with the IQ of a ground squirrel, and the other a platinum blonde flight attendant. Neither were terribly memorable, but they fit his "broken heart pattern" to a T. Both of them got him squarely on page six as well.

Katherine was different though. He had never spent this long working up to a relationship. Never worked this hard to try to gain someone's trust never put himself this far out there. She had challenged him to grow. Made him want to be more than he was. Made him want to besomeone Katherine Beckett could respect. Made him yearn for something real for the first time since before Alexis was born. Even after he thought she had rejected him, and his heart had been broken, he still wanted that...more than anything. That he had believed it was worth trading his life for.

Martha Rodgers knew she had to respect her son's judgement and accept that her son believed Katherine happiness was worth the sacrifice her son had been willing to make.

He had marched willingly into the darkness that Katherine had lived in since she was nineteen with his eyes open, and came out broken on the other side. He did not feel this sacrifice to be a vain or empty one, and she was not going to debate her son's judgement on this matter. Nor was she going to allow Alexis to disrespect her father's choices any longer. She was going to seal up this breach between them...starting right now, so that it would not hamper Richard's recovery when he woke up. He would need them both fighting for him instead of each other...She was certain of it.

When Alexis finally came downstairs, fresh faced from her shower, with only a little concealer (Alexis rarely wore makeup and it showed) to cover the dark bags under her eyes from very little sleep, she began to wonder how long it would be before Katherine came up. Eduardo had been kind enough to inform her that she had pulled into the parking garage half an hour ago, and he had walked away when she seemed to be taking a call. That was until she heard a knock at the door.

"Katherine, welcome, dear one, come..." She began, but stopped cold when took in the detective's appearance. Her mascara had run badly...apparently from crying as the tear tracks in her usually flawless makeup clearly showed. Even Alexis seemed to be drawn momentarily out of her hostility at the sight of her. The disdainful remark she had likely prepared to say dying on her lips. Stricken dumb by the emotional wreck that was Kate Beckett.

It was Beckett's eyes that drew their attention and pulled them both up short. They were wide open like saucers, filled with a lingering horror, like she had seen something that had shaken her to her core.

She looked...haunted.