[Author's Note: Hello, all. Hope your last couple of weeks have been good ones. I'm back with something a bit more introspective. It's different than the rest of the chapters so far, and I think you'll like it. I'm quite happy with it. Also, thanks to all the new reviewers, followers, and favoriters of this and all my other stories! You guys rock!]

Kate glared at the punching bag and leveled another roundhouse kick at its center. It was one thing to crack when she was alone in the basement of the precinct or the privacy of her own apartment, but in front of her team? It was a disaster. It was the worst possible outcome.

And it had happened.

Calm and focused, Kate charged up the stairs with the boys in the lead and Castle at her heels. At the top, they slipped single-file through the door and into a dark cavern of a room with a semi-transparent wall to one side. Moving along the wall, they came to a door, which Esposito kicked open as Kate and Ryan pointed their guns into the adjoining room.

The next ten seconds were a blur of aiming and yelling and taking off running, and before she really even knew what all had happened, Kate had one of their suspects cornered in the back of the warehouse.

Or did he have her cornered? Even now it was difficult to process what had been real and what had been imagined. She threw a right hook at the punching bag.

She had chased him into the back room. He'd tried the door, and then suddenly he was holding a gun that had seemed to materialize out of nowhere.

That was where everything froze. Every rational bit left of her had screamed for either fight or flight, but her legs wouldn't move. Her arms wouldn't lift and take aim.

Kate punched the bag again, harder this time.

For twenty awful seconds, she hadn't been able to see anything but the gun that was trained on her. "You're such an idiot," she now told herself. "That guy wouldn't have had the guts to actually shoot you in the first place."

She hit harder, feeling a comforting fatigue beginning to settle into her muscles.

Her mind wandered once again over the seconds she'd spent standing frozen. As she thought about it, she could remember hearing her own labored panting, but that was the only sound she could recall. Even Esposito and Ryan's yelling hadn't made an impression on her. She'd been completely unaware of them until they appeared in her peripheral vision, guns raised.

Kate aimed another series of kicks at the bag.

The moment their suspect had lowered his gun, Kate had felt tears well up and blur her vision. It was a long moment before she regained enough control to bring her gun to its holster at her hip. She recalled the shakiness of her hands- of most of her body- and it made her all the angrier at herself, and the case, and the day, and the people in this world who aren't opposed to shooting other people.

Kate took a deep breath and continued working on her left roundhouse while she replayed what had happened next.

Ryan led the man in cuffs out of the room past Kate, but she didn't move. She didn't react at all- until she noticed Esposito just two feet in front of her. She forced her eyes into focus and immediately wished she hadn't when she saw the look of concern on his face. "Next time, alright?" he told her. "Don't beat yourself up over it, Beckett. I've been there; just give it a little time." He nodded once and walked out of the room, but at the same moment she felt a hand on her back: a hand she recognized instantly.

"Are you doing okay?" Castle asked her, and she didn't know how to answer.

She forced her shaking hands into the pockets of her jeans and turned out of his reach and toward the door. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. A little bit out of practice is all." He followed her silently, which was enough to tell Kate that he didn't believe a word of it.

She didn't care. All the way back to the precinct she stayed silent, her knuckles white on the steering wheel with the effort of holding herself together. She gave herself five minutes to hide in a bathroom stall and regain her composure before going out and showing her team that it was all okay. Just like always.

Just like always, until he had the audacity to bring it back up.

Even thinking back on that brief conversation had Kate furious all over again. She threw one more halfhearted punch at the bag before freezing, hands at her sides, chest heaving with angry, labored breaths. Finally, she tore the boxing gloves off and stormed over to her locker, stuffing them inside it and slamming the door. If it was even possible, the noise was physically painful, but she didn't care. It had become something like a game: seek it out, find the absolute maximum amount of pain that you can withstand without falling apart into nothing, and make yourself feel it. Again and again: all the time, if that's what it takes. Prove to yourself that you can withstand it. Make yourself miserable just so you know that you can live with misery.

Kate collapsed on the wooden bench in the locker room, head in her hands. She wasn't sure if she was imagining the echo of locker slamming or if it was really there. It was too loud either way. "This isn't just about being shot. This is about her, too. You've been doing this since you were nineteen… And now you've finally noticed it because somebody actually gave you a reason to want to fix yourself."

And that was it, wasn't it? There had been friends- few, but good ones. There had been boyfriends- fewer still, and sometimes of suspect quality. But the common denominator was that none of them were ever enough to make her want to let go of that deep-down need to cling to misery. No one but him had ever given her a reason to believe that there could be more to life than clinging to some seemingly hopeless quest for justice. No one else could convince her that she could possibly deserve- much less find- happiness without catching her mom's killer. No one else could give her a reason to want to be more than who she'd become.

But now that she'd been given her reason, she couldn't do it. She was so close- she had to be- and her mind screamed at her not to walk away now. But something in her subconscious was whispering that maybe it was time. She'd nearly died yet again, so maybe it was time to let this go. Maybe it was time to find another way to be okay again.

After all, what was closure worth, really, if you were still alone on the other side?