Author's Note: An episode filler for "Sucker Punch." Another emotional chapter ahead.

For All That You Are

Chapter 10

Castle thought his heart might actually be breaking. Or being physically ripped apart.

He hovered, feeling awkward and ill at ease—and worse, useless—as he lingered in the hallway of the precinct just outside the door to the women's restroom.

Because that didn't look weird or creepy at all.

He was momentarily relieved that obviously everyone in the precinct knew what had just happened so no one would question what he was doing, lurking the way he was and where he was.

But then again, what did that matter, because really, the entire world could have been crowded around, pointing and staring, and he wouldn't have budged or cared much at all.

He heard another sound like a muffled sob over the sound of running water and at this point, he wasn't even sure if he was really hearing it or if it was the product of his overactive imagination because he knew that Beckett was crying inside there.

Just like she'd cried earlier, over Dick Coonan's body.

He inwardly flinched, at the thought, the memory.

She'd stayed on her knees on the floor beside Coonan's body for a long time, until people from the ME's office had arrived to take the body away. And then she'd finally stood, watching stoically, as Coonan's body was covered and taken away.

Her mother's killer.

The best chance she'd had of finding out who was behind her mother's murder.

It wasn't until Coonan's body had disappeared from sight behind the closed elevator doors that she'd moved again, hurrying straight towards the women's restroom.

And he'd followed. Because he didn't want to let her out of his sight, because he never wanted to be away from her, because he couldn't help it.

Because he loved her.

He'd heard her give one hiccuping sob before the door had closed behind her and that had been enough.

His heart hurt with an almost physical pain until he felt as if his ribs had been cracked.

Being shot by Coonan could not possibly have hurt worse than this, he thought wildly.

And knew that he meant it. To help Beckett catch her mom's killer once and for all, to give her that closure, he would risk his life willingly. Not gladly—he would never willingly leave Alexis alone—but for the first time in his life, or more accurately, in Alexis's life, there was someone he loved as much as he loved Alexis, for whom he would make such sacrifices.

Beckett was crying and the worst of it was that there was nothing he could do.

He couldn't barge into the women's restroom and hold her, couldn't take away her hurt, couldn't really comfort her in any way.

He could only stand here in the hallway and listen to the (faint, possibly imagined) sound of her sobbing.

Except that wasn't the worst of it. No, the worst part was that it was his fault.

He flinched, again, but he couldn't deny the truth of it echoing in his mind.

If it hadn't been for him… He was the one who had made the plea deal possible by volunteering his money; he was the conveniently available civilian hostage Coonan had taken.

He was the one who had poked into Beckett's mom's case and started all this in the first place. If he hadn't found out what he had, if he hadn't pulled in Clark Murray, if he hadn't shared what Dr. Murray had found with Lanie so Lanie had noticed the wound similarity…

If if if…

But he had done all that.

And now there was nothing he could do, short of turning back time and somehow avoiding being taken hostage, if he'd caught on to Coonan earlier, if he'd been more alert. Or going back further, if he hadn't pried into Johanna Beckett's case at all.

But he didn't have a time machine and for once in his life, not even speculating about time travel could distract him.

Beckett had lost her best chance at finding her mom's killer. Beckett was crying.

And he could do nothing.

Kate couldn't seem to stop crying.

She hunched over the sink in the bathroom, her still-bloody hands clutching the sides of the sink, and cried, ugly, jagged sobs being torn from her throat, racking her body.

She cried for her mom, killed by a contract killer who'd dismissed her mother's murder as just another job, cried for her dad, cried for herself.

Cried for how close she'd come to finding out who had killed her mom after 11 endless, long years and had their strongest lead broken, a thread snapped.

And she cried because after so many years, she'd finally learned who had actually committed the murder, had a face and a name to attach to the anonymous shadow killer of her imaginings, and she'd killed him.

She had killed her mother's killer. Life for a life.

But it wasn't really over, not that neatly.

Because she still didn't know who had actually ordered her mom to be killed, didn't know who was actually responsible for her mother's murder.

And she might never know now.

She didn't regret it, would never regret it; she would do it again if she had to. Take a life to save a life. Not only because it was Castle—she'd shut her mind and her heart to that, couldn't deal with it, and still didn't try—and not only because it was her job but because it was who she was.

But she still cried.

She knew or sensed (or something) that Castle was just outside—she was aware that he'd followed her as she'd fled into the bathroom—but she hoped that the sound of the running water was enough to cover her sobs.

At least she'd had that much presence of mind because even in this extremity, her unwillingness to be so openly vulnerable was still strong. She hadn't been able to hold back her tears earlier, just after she'd shot Coonan—and she expected she'd writhe over that later, over crying in front of so many of her colleagues—but even so, as she broke down further, she didn't want anyone else seeing her or hearing her.

In some tiny corner of her mind, it occurred to her that later, she might be… relieved or thankful or something that Castle was out there because she knew, somehow, that he would also prevent anyone else from walking in right then. Even if one of her female co-workers honestly needed the bathroom, she knew he'd direct them to one on another floor, to the one in the lockers, just not this one. (She didn't stop to wonder how she knew he'd do that; she just knew it. He knew her well enough for that and somehow, she knew he'd try to help in the only way he really could. As irritating as he could be at times, when it really mattered, she trusted Castle to do what he could to make her life easier.)

It was a small comfort, that she could break down like this without any worry of being interrupted. Possibly the only comfort she had at that moment.

And so she cried. Cried until gradually the sobs slowed and her tears dried out and she was calm again, the calm of exhaustion after the emotional upheaval of the day, but calm. Her eyes felt scratchy, her eyelids swollen. She finally washed her hands, scrubbing harshly at Coonan's now-dried blood to make sure she got it all off, shuddering a little at the look of the blood and water swirling down the drain, trying not to think that it was also her best chance at finding out who was really behind her mom's murder going down the drain too. Stupid symbolism.

She had to get a hold of herself. She was still at work, still on duty.

She deliberately regulated her breathing, in and out, in and out, letting the focus on the simple bodily function calm her. She was NYPD Detective, Grade-One, Kate Beckett. She had been doing her job to shoot Coonan and she would go back out there and continue to do her job.

It took another few minutes for her to summon her usual armor, the shield of her calm and cool Detective Beckett persona that was as much a part of her work outfits as the badge she wore.

That done, she dried her hands and opened the door.

To be faced immediately with Castle, his eyes flying to her face as he took an impulsive step forward, towards her. "Beckett. Kate, are you… okay?"

Oh god, the way he was looking at her. Her breath, her step, faltered in spite of herself just at the sight of him, the warmth and the concern shining out of his eyes and written all over his face.

This man, who had given $100,000 of his own money without batting an eye for a shot at her mom's killer and called it a small price to pay. This man, who tried so hard to make her smile and simply cared about her in a way she couldn't remember anyone else ever doing.

She couldn't do this now. Couldn't deal with the flood of emotions the sight of him evoked, couldn't handle the depth of emotion she saw in his eyes.

He lifted a cautious hand as if to rest it on her shoulder but she twitched her shoulder away from his touch and his hand fell back to his side. She couldn't—she couldn't let him touch her, not even a brief, entirely platonic gesture of support and sympathy. She felt as if her composure were being held in place by fraying threads and if he touched her, offered her his strength and his comfort, she thought she might dissolve right then, all her hard-won, fragile calm crumbling into dust.

She couldn't deal with it, any of the tsunami of emotions he stirred up, the memory of that moment with Coonan's gun pressed to his side. Not now. She needed to be strong, needed to be Detective Beckett, not Kate.

But even as she thought it, she caught the flash of something like hurt in his eyes and her heart twisted inside her, a tiny bit of her resolve chipping away. She couldn't hurt him either. She took a half-involuntary step towards him, her hand reaching out, her fingers accidentally brushing against his stomach, as she grasped his jacket for a second as if to hold him in place before dropping it. "Castle, I—I need to report to Captain Montgomery, need to call my dad. I—maybe you should go home. It…it's been a long day and there's nothing more for you to do here, just paperwork. I—I'll call you, okay?"

It was the truth, all of it, but she felt the lameness of it, the inadequacy of it. After all he'd done, after everything, he deserved more but she wasn't ready, couldn't deal with it, and she had to do her job, taking refuge in the familiarity of it.

"But Beckett, I—" he broke off and visibly restrained himself, rethinking his words, and she heard his voice in her mind saying, I will do anything that you need, including nothing, if that's what you want. He had meant it and he was, still, keeping his promise. He paused and then nodded. "Of course," he agreed, with an attempt at ease. "You do what you need to; don't worry about me. Just…" he trailed off and hesitated and then finished, a little too earnestly, "you can call anytime."

A memory flashed into her mind, the look on his face with Coonan's gun jammed into his side, the way he'd shaken his head at Coonan's threat as if to tell her not to give up her mom's killer for his life. She shoved the memory aside, swallowed down the sob that was building up in her throat.

No, no, she couldn't deal with this now. She just couldn't.

And so she did what she always did when she felt threatened, she took refuge in work. "I need to talk to the Captain," she said again, repeating the words with preternatural flatness.

Castle hesitated, reluctance written all over his face, but then—as she'd somehow known he would—he listened. He gave way. "Okay. I'll… talk to you later?"

It was a question and she answered it with a nod and then he left and she shut her eyes for a moment, breathing in and then out, before she headed to the Captain's office.

She felt the concerned gazes of everyone in the bullpen and inwardly writhed. Oh god, she'd cried in front of all of them. And even if they were her colleagues and she was on friendly terms with (most of) them, she still hated how exposed she suddenly felt. She thought her professional reputation and credibility had been built up enough to withstand the appearance of momentary weakness (she hoped) but that didn't mean she liked it any more to know her colleagues were wondering about her. She was a private person. She hated the idea of people talking about her, guessing at her emotional state after shooting Dick Coonan. (And she was too much of a realist, had seen too much, not to know that lurking in the background of such speculations would be the lingering specter of sexism, of old stereotypes about women being overly emotional, given to hysterics. There were good, valid reasons for why she'd cultivated her carapace of cool invulnerability at work.) And now, in one devastating moment, her shield had fallen.

She felt Esposito's and Ryan's looks too, but she steadfastly avoided their eyes as she walked into Montgomery's office after a perfunctory knock. "Sir."

Montgomery studied her sharply as she took a seat in front of his desk but all he did was nod in greeting. "Detective Beckett."

The formality of the address, his tone, set the stage for the next few minutes. She tamped down all emotions, making her report of what happened and how Coonan got a gun and his threats briefly, answering Montgomery's few, incisive questions with near-robotic control until she suspected she sounded like she was reporting something entirely unrelated to her, that had happened many years ago to a total stranger. Forced detachment was all she could manage.

She was a Detective; she knew how to make a report of a situation and a hostage stand-off. It took every bit of training and self-control she had, but she managed it.

Montgomery put down his pen and fixed her with an assessing look. "All right, Detective, I'll file the Incident Evaluation for One PP. You can go home and take tomorrow off."

She nodded, unsurprised. Cops who were involved in any sort of incident that ended up with a fatality were almost always put on desk duty for a day or so afterwards, if not involved in an active case, while the incident was reviewed; the Captain telling her to take the day off was his tacit acknowledgment of how personal this was for her, a silent expression of support. "Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."

He paused, glancing away, out the windows towards the bullpen, and then back at her. "Where's Castle?" he asked with a slight change of tone, somewhat approaching his usual one.

She straightened her already straight back, sternly tamping down the flare of emotion at the mention of his name. "I sent him home, sir."

He nodded. "Fine. I have everything I need." He paused and then went on, "You might tell him, though, that the money he sent is gone. He won't be able to get it back, even with Coonan dead."

The money. Oh god, the money.

No, no, she couldn't think about it.

"I understand, sir."

Montgomery studied her for a moment and then looked away, down at the notepad on his desk. "That was a hell of a thing," he mused aloud. "I have seen a lot in my years on the force, a lot of bad but also a lot of good… That was a hell of a thing he did." He left unsaid but she heard it anyway, a hell of a thing Castle had done for her.

Not just the money but also the unflinching support, his quick thinking, his courage, the calculated risk he'd taken in head-butting Coonan to get the vital moment of distraction. All of it, everything Castle had done for her.

Oh god.

She felt herself blushing in spite of herself as she suddenly realized that Montgomery knew—the boys knew. Word about Castle's proffered money had been kept under the radar from the bullpen as a whole but obviously, the boys knew. They knew how much Castle cared about her, how much he was willing to do for her…

And she… couldn't think about it now.

Montgomery looked back at her, holding her eyes. "I had my doubts about Castle when he started following you around, thought about kicking him out."

She blinked. "But the Mayor…"

He shot her a mildly chiding look. "This is my house, Beckett, and I run the show here. I could have kicked him out but I didn't. You know why?"

She jerked her head in a negative, wondering what Montgomery was getting at. It wasn't like him to spontaneously offer confidences.

"He proved that he was helpful, even made your case closure rate go up, but more than that, I saw that he was good for you."

She blushed hotter and looked down at her lap, shutting her eyes for a moment as she tried to get a hold of her rioting emotions. Good for her. The words seemed so… small… to express what Castle did for her. He made her job more fun as she'd told him; more than that, he made things… easier. As much as he could—and did—irritate her, somehow, in some way, he made her life… better than it had been.

There was a pause and then Montgomery only repeated, "Yes, that was a hell of a thing he did."

She didn't say anything in response—what could she say? It was true.

Montgomery straightened up in his chair. "Go home, Detective. You're off duty tomorrow."

"Yes, sir." She stood up, turning towards the door.

"Beckett?"

She turned back, one hand on the door knob. "Sir?"

"Nice job today."

Oh god. She almost flinched, feeling the impact of the words, because she couldn't feel any sense of triumph.

She had killed the man who murdered her mother—but where was the victory in that when she had also lost her best chance to find out who had paid Coonan to do it?

She tamped down her rising emotions. "Thank you, sir," she managed to say and then she escaped.

She fled into the unused conference room, closing the door and then the blinds for good measure, before she sank down into a chair.

She choked back a sob, blinking frantically against the prick of tears, the tears she'd thought she'd cried out of her system earlier. She'd been wrong.

She'd killed Dick Coonan.

She could almost hear the insidious whispers creeping into her consciousness, the ones that had driven her obsession, that she let her mom down if she couldn't find her mom's killer. And now she'd killed the best chance of finding out who was really behind her mom's murder. Was still failing her mother, even after finding out that Dick Coonan was the killer.

It wasn't the first time she'd killed someone and she doubted it would be the last. But this one—this one stung, would haunt her.

Could she have done something, anything, differently? Somehow kept Coonan alive but still incapacitated him?

But… she'd saved Castle.

She would have done it for anyone, she knew, but the fact remained that she had saved Castle.

Castle.

She tried to focus on that, on what (who) she'd saved and not what she'd lost, and slowly, the vise around her heart eased a little and she could breathe again.

Feeling somewhat calmer, she pulled out her phone, steeling herself again.

Oh god, what was she going to tell her dad?

From somewhere inside, she heard her mom's voice answering, the truth is always best, Katie.

Her dad answered his phone immediately, so much so that she realized with a pang that he had probably been watching his phone, waiting for her call, all day. "Hello, Katie?"

With that knowledge, she skipped over any mundane greeting. "We caught him and he's dead."

She choked a little on the word and had to stop and heard her dad suck in his breath sharply. "What? Katie, what happened? Are you okay?" His voice rose with every word and she realized with a little twist of guilt and anxiety just how worried her usually calm lawyer father had been.

She swallowed back the threatening sob, forcing as much calm into her voice as possible, although she suspected it wouldn't succeed in fooling her dad. "We caught him, Dad, the man who killed Mom. His name is Dick Coonan."

"Dick Coonan," her dad echoed, his voice sounding hollow and unlike himself.

She flinched. They had a name. After all these years, all the grief, all the devastation, they had a name to put to the man who had murdered her mother. The faceless shadow of her imaginings, faceless no more. She pressed her fingers to her mouth to hold back another sob, understanding what her dad was feeling right then.

Her dad cleared his throat a little. "What—what happened, Katie?" She could hear the effort it took to keep his voice from trembling.

She swallowed hard, shutting her eyes as if that would help. "He… he tricked us and almost got away with it but we figured it out and then he… he tried to escape and I… I had to shoot him." She didn't mention the money Castle had given, the fact that it was Castle who'd been taken hostage, wasn't sure she could talk about it at all without her voice cracking, her fragile composure crumbling.

"Oh God," her dad uttered. "Katie… Are you okay?"

"I just… I killed him. I killed our best lead…" She fought to keep her voice from trembling but knew she failed.

Her dad sighed. "Oh, Katie…"

"I'm sorry, Dad," she choked out. "I'm sorry I didn't find out who was really behind it all, who paid Coonan."

"Don't, Katie," her dad said sharply. "Don't apologize. Whatever happens, this isn't on you; I know you did everything you could."

Had she really? Was there any way that she could have shot Coonan not to kill but less lethally and still saved Castle? She didn't know, wasn't sure. Possibilities, alternate scenarios played through her mind, as she expected they would be doing for at least the next few days. If she'd shot Coonan in the shoulder or the hand—but those shots were harder to make, had a greater risk that that he wouldn't be incapacitated or that she'd miss her shot. She was a good shot but in the heat of the moment, any cop—every cop—became less sure of a marksman. And that was the problem. Because trying for the non-fatal shot would have been a risk and any risk to Castle was unacceptable. She couldn't do that. Not because he was Castle but because she was a cop and any risk to a civilian, to a hostage, was always non-negotiable.

"You did everything you could, Katie," her dad repeated. "I know you and I'm as sure of that as if I'd been there. You did what you had to do and you never need to apologize for that."

Her dad's faith acted as a balm on her lingering wounds. She had done her job, what she had to do.

She had taken the shot to save a life. That was all. She'd had to do it, would do it again.

She had saved Castle. She had saved Castle—and against that, nothing else mattered. And yet…

"I just… I thought… I hoped… it would be over so we can move on."

Her dad sighed. "Oh Katie-girl… I understand that, I do, but moving on isn't really related to finding out who killed her. You shouldn't be putting your life on hold until you find your mother's killer; that's not how this works. It's about coming to terms with the past, making peace with it and learning to live with it."

Making peace with the past—but how could she do that without knowing who was responsible for her mom's death? Without knowing why? She'd accepted the grief over her mom as part of her life but coming to terms with her mom's death—she needed answers first.

"I don't know how to do that, don't know if I can," she faltered.

"You can, Katie. You're strong; you've always succeeded at anything you put your mind to." He paused and then added, "And remember, life never delivers anything…"

"We can't handle," she finished her mom's saying with him, managing a watery little smile even as tears pricked her eyes. "I remember."

"You found your mother's killer. You did it."

"Not just me. Castle helped." (And Kate was entirely unconscious of how her tone softened at his name—or of how much it revealed to Jim Beckett.)

Her dad paused and then asked, his voice sounding somewhat more at ease, "You let Rick help?"

"I… I don't know if I could have done this without him," she admitted, surprising herself with the words—and, more, with the truth of them.

She couldn't have done it without Castle. Not because of the money but because of the support he'd given her, the added measure of strength she'd derived from knowing he was there. From the way he'd known to crack a joke and make her smile by quipping that he'd based Nikki Heat on her because she was tall. He had been—he was—her partner. After all this time of thinking of him as her irritating shadow, he had become much more than that. He was her partner. A word that had such significance to any cop.

A partner—the one who always had your back, the one you trusted the most, the one you knew would stay by your side even into hell and back.

She hadn't had a real partner at work in a long time. Esposito and Ryan were both her partners in a sense but it was really the two of them that were a team, a pair, while she technically supervised them, the head of the triangle, so to speak. A partner was an equal.

Castle was her partner.

She felt a flicker of surprise. God, if anyone had told her even six months ago, that Castle, the irritating thorn in her side, would become her partner, she would have deemed the person insane. Ridiculous to think that the brash playboy, the impulsive man-child, that she'd thought he was could ever be her partner. And yet he was.

Her partner, her friend—and… and more than that too.

"I'm glad you have a friend like Rick, Katie."

"He's been… a good friend," she admitted quietly, a tendril of warmth unfurling inside her chest at the thought of him, of all he had done for her.

"And you, Katie, how are you? Are you okay?"

"I'm—I'll be fine," she amended, knowing her dad, lawyer that he was, would pick up on the significance of that.

"Do you want me to come over? I can go to the precinct or meet you at your place."

"No, that's okay, Dad. Esposito and Ryan are here if I need them and I have paperwork to do."

She did. Captain Montgomery would file his Incident Evaluation but she would need to write up her own report of the situation for him first, in addition to the usual paperwork to close the Jack Coonan case.

"Okay, Katie, if you're sure."

"I am. But… dinner tomorrow?"

"Of course," he agreed immediately. "You're sure you'll be all right, Katie? I can come over; it's no problem, you know that."

"I'm sure, Dad. What about you? Will you be okay?" she asked with a flare of worry for her dad along with a pang of guilt. She hadn't thought what it might do to her dad to burden him with her own emotional turmoil.

"I'll be fine, Katie. Don't worry about me. I'll call Daniel. I already talked to him about this and he's probably expecting to hear from me again."

"Okay. But call me if you need anything."

"I know, Katie-girl." And for the first time, she heard a faint smile in his voice, that faded as he went on, "I'm proud of you, Katie. Your mom would be proud of you."

She bit back a strangled sob, the words breaking through her tenuous control of her emotions. "I don't know why," she choked out. "I… I lost our best lead." She'd failed—was still failing to get justice for her mother.

Her dad sighed but answered firmly, "Katie, you did your job. I know what your mom's case does to you but you rose above your fears and you did what you needed to do." He paused and added, his voice husky with emotion, "I, of all people, understand how hard it is to overcome your demons and you did it. Of course I'm proud of you. I've always been proud of you."

She swallowed a lump of emotion, blinking against the prick of yet more tears. "Thanks, Dad," she whispered.

"I love you, Katie-girl."

"I love you too."

"Get some rest, Katie."

"I'll try. You too. Good night, Dad."

"Good night."

Kate shut her eyes and rested her head in her hands for a few minutes, controlling her breathing again in an attempt to rein in her emotions.

It had been harder than even she'd expected to tell her dad that they'd lost the best new lead they had because she'd been forced to kill Dick Coonan. They'd come so close, learned so much—and run into another dead end. Again.

If we run into a wall tomorrow, we'll get a ladder and climb over it or dig a tunnel or go around it. We won't give up.

She straightened up slowly, his words echoing in her mind.

Dick Coonan might have been their most direct lead but he wasn't the only one. There were the other people he'd killed, the other victims of the conspiracy that had killed her mother.

She wasn't going to give up. Not now, when they knew so much more.

And she wouldn't be alone.

She set her jaw and pushed herself to her feet.

She was Detective Beckett and she still had work to do.

And then… and then she needed to call Castle.

She emerged from the conference room and headed straight to her desk, feeling a tiny flicker of amusement at how Esposito and Ryan immediately tried to pretend that they weren't watching, had been busy with their own work.

She sat down and started to work on her paperwork even as she mentally placed bets on how long it would be before either Espo or Ryan approached her.

It would be Esposito who actually spoke but Ryan would tag along beside him, she predicted, and she placed the over-under on how long it would take at 5 minutes.

It took roughly three minutes.

Espo stood up, wandered into the break room, and then, with an air of casualness that wouldn't have fooled a five-year-old, just happened to wander by her desk on his way back. And Ryan didn't even make a pretense and simply popped up out of his chair and joined Esposito.

"So we can take care of the paperwork on Jack Coonan," Esposito began with studied indifference.

Ryan nodded like a bobble-head in agreement, except he was eyeing her with a sort of wary concern as if she were a grenade primed to explode.

In any other workplace, among any other people, the offer would have been accompanied by a hug or some other overt gesture of sympathy. But they were cops and cops didn't do that, took refuge behind sarcasm and graveyard humor. But even so, for Esposito, who griped about paperwork even more than she did, to volunteer to do more of it was the equivalent of sky-writing a declaration of worry and support.

"Nah, no point because, knowing you guys, I'd just need to do it all over again to correct your mistakes," she returned. She found herself relaxing a little. This sort of back-and-forth was familiar, safe; this, she could do. No messy emotions to deal with—or at least the messy emotions were safely hidden away and unspoken.

"You should talk. We heard from the Captain that you're skiving off tomorrow and ditching us and we figure some of us have to actually work around here," Espo retorted.

"Just try not to get into too much trouble while I'm out," she advised with mock seriousness.

"Oh, you know, we were just gonna play with matches, run around with scissors, that sort of thing," Ryan answered with an entirely overdone air of nonchalance.

"Yeah, use your desk for target practice," Espo chimed in. "We'll try not to set your desk on fire or anything."

"But you know, no promises," Ryan supplemented. "Paperwork burning so easily and all."

"I'll make sure to tell the Captain to keep a fire extinguisher handy," she retorted dryly.

Espo shrugged. "We've gotta do something to amuse ourselves while we're working since you're going to be off playin' hooky."

"Speaking of, you guys should go back to work and stop distracting me. Can't talk to you all day when I've got paperwork to finish up."

She made a show of turning to her computer and after a beat, Esposito and Ryan both wandered back to their desks. She bit back a tiny smile, feeling more restored to her usual self after the last couple minutes of badinage. The boys had her back.

With that, she dove into the paperwork, closing the Jack Coonan case and writing up the Incident Report for the Dick Coonan shooting—keeping any and all emotions firmly in check.

It was her job and she knew how to do her job.

She did her paperwork and then she went home.

And she did not call Castle.

~To be continued…~

A/N 2: If I promise a happy ending (soon), will you please not kill me? *runs and hides*