Disclaimer: The only part of Castle that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

Beckett had done everything she could to distract herself, but nothing had worked. She tried to read but kept stalling on the same paragraph; took a bath but got out because she hated being in the tub alone; abandoned a favorite old movie after ten minutes, and made a batch of brownies that she first undercooked and then burned. But finally, finally, it was time for her to leave for the Hamptons. She cleared the city quite easily, but she's out of her mind with worry as she drives east on the Long Island Expressway. She and Castle had agreed not to communicate at all during his 24-hour session with Maureen, but that as soon as the time had elapsed she would call him from the car. She has phoned four times in thirty minutes, and each call has gone to voicemail. What the hell had she been thinking, telling him to take Maureen to the house? She has no idea what the girl is capable of, really. She's being handled by Tyson and Nieman, for God's sake. Beckett calls her husband again. Voicemail. And again. Voicemail. And again. Voicemail. Is she going to arrive and confront carnage? Should she pull over now, and get backup? But if she does and everything is okay, she'll have tipped their hand. She decides to go in alone; at least she's armed.

In the Hamptons safe room, Castle is working on the laptop that he had stashed in the duffel bag and has quickly isolated the address that Maureen had given him. It was for an old, ramshackle house in a heavily wooded, lightly populated section of northern Staten Island, near the water, and he immediately understands its appeal for Tyson. There are no neighbors within earshot and there's nothing of interest in the area: no historical markers, no unusual rock formations, no rare migratory birds. Bored teenagers looking for something to vandalize would be scared off by the evidence of a very large, very hungry, very vicious dog on the premises. There is easy access to the water, which could serve as a good escape route, particularly at night.

Castle looks at Maureen, who is still sitting quietly, her expression a balanced mix of sullenness and relief. It gives him a jolt, and he checks his watch. Shit, shit, shit, he'd completely lost track of the time. Beckett must be worried.

"Don't go anywhere, Maureen," he says, as he puts his laptop back in the bag and picks it up. He walks through the door and activates the lock. As soon as he's in the living room he checks his phone and finds a screenful of missed calls from Kate. He calls her back and she answers almost instantly, forcing herself to sound casual.

"Hi, Castle. You and Alexis having a good time?"

Oh, thank God, thank God, thank God. "Yup," he replies, "but I missed you. We've made a big pot of chili; are you almost here?"

"Five minutes out, babe."

"Okay. I'll start the coffee. You've probably been drinking that Route 495 swill, am I right?" He wants to keep her on the line, just for the comfort of her voice in his ear, but he never takes his eye off the security camera that's focussed on Maureen.

"Oh, please. I made coffee at home and brought it with me."

"Which you finished at least an hour ago and then you got some gas-station poison, emphasis on gas."

Her heart rate is slowing, and she's reasonably sure that she's helping him, too. "I might have. And I might also have bought you and Alexis some Häagen-Dazs bars, the vanilla ones with almond bits in the chocolate covering. The ones you swear you treat yourself to only occasionally, crumpled wrappers and ice-cream sticks in the kitchen wastebasket to the contrary."

He laughs, a big, rolling, genuine laugh that rumbles through his chest. "Ah, you're such a detective, Beckett, even at home. Is nothing sacred?"

"Not much, Castle." And she laughs in return. "I'm almost there." She ends the call and thinks, almost there. Maybe we are almost there. Because even though he's a good actor—thank you, Martha—he's not quite that good. He sounded amazingly calm. More than that: he seemed assured. Like he had figured something out, had made some kind of breakthrough. She pulls into the driveway, more hopeful than she has been in months, and sprints to the house.

He's waiting five feet inside the door, and takes a full body hit when she throws herself on him. "Castlecastlecastlecastlecastle. Jesus, I thought something had happened to you. You didn't answer the phone. I thought Maureen had—" She's stopped by Castle's ferocious kiss and they slide to the floor, mouth to mouth, chest to chest, belly to belly, hip to hip, thigh to thigh, knee to knee. She feels the same rush she experienced when he had pushed her up against the door that night, that first night, and she wants him to take her exactly as he had then. She can hardly breathe for wanting him.

Castle peels himself off her, but she drags him back. "Kate, no. I'm sorry. I know, I know." He pushes the hair from her forehead. "We have to see Maureen first, okay? I can't leave her just now. We have to watch her. Just for a little bit. We have to get up, we have to get up." He looks into her eyes and sees that she is about to shatter. Everything, every closely held fear, is about to leave her in tiny pieces, in sharp-edged fragments, so he pulls her tight into an embrace. "Shh, shh. It's fine. We'll be fine. Shh. I promise. There's a way out, we've got it." He can feel her begin to let go against him, into in.

He hasn't given nearly enough consideration to the stress that Kate had been under; she had been plagued with doubt and anxiety and eventually terror for a year and a half. Had lived first with the possibility of this, then the probability, then the certainty. For him, it had been only days. "Kate," he whispers. "Is it all right if I pick you up carry you to bed or the sofa?"

"Sofa," she says so quietly that he inuits her answer more than hears it. He cradles her in his arms and takes her to the living room. Even though he thinks that Maureen won't try anything in the safe room, he can't risk it; he needs to check the security camera constantly.

"I'm going to make you some tea," he says, keeping his hand on her shoulder. "All right? Will you be all right here for a couple of minutes? Or do you want to come with me?"

She nods, but she cannot choose. He will have to do that for her.

Her eyes look huge; her hand, inside his own, feels tiny. Like a small bird, nestling in his palm. He helps her up and they walk to the kitchen; she perches on a stool while he makes tea, looking at his phone at closely-spaced intervals to keep watch on Maureen. While they sip from their mugs, he very calmly gives Beckett a précis of his time with Maureen. He begins at the end, with the news about Alexis being in the house in Staten Island, before he fills her in on the rest: how he had drugged Maureen with sleeping pills to get her to the safe room, what he had done, what she had said.

With each bit of information, he sees the steel come back into her spine. Her back straightens; her eyes are bright. Her recovery period is stunningly fast. "I used to spend a lot of time thinking about how strong you are, Kate. It always amazes me. But after you brought down Bracken last year, I started—not taking it for granted, exactly, but accepting it. I just knew it was there. And then, after last summer, after I got back from wherever the hell I was, I could hardly bear to think of what you had gone through while I was missing, so I closed it out. And I'm so sorry. So sorry that I didn't have any inkling of what you were going through. You've been living with this horror for so long."

"That's exactly what I've been calling it in my mind, Castle. This horror."

"Here's what I'd like to do right now, if you agree. We have a lot to go on now, and I have some ideas I want to discuss with you, and I'd like to hear yours. I don't want to have to keep monitoring Maureen, so I'd like to drug her, safely, as I did last night, with sleeping pills."

"You don't think she'll fight you, or us, on this?"

He shakes his head, and gives her an encouraging smile. "No. She's scared and she's resigned. She's also smart, and she realizes that co-operating with us is her only way out now. Do you want to go down and see her, or would you rather not? I completely understand if you want to stay here."

And there she is, his take-no-prisoners, bad-ass Detective Beckett. It's all over her face and in every muscle and tendon in her body. "Absolutely not. I'm with you." She slides from the stool and takes his hand. "Let's make the hot chocolate with the secret ingredient and take it down there."

"You don't want to go over anything first, what we're going to say to her?"

"We don't need to Castle," she says, opening the cupboard and grabbing the tin of hot chocolate. "We know exactly what to say. We're partners. She doesn't stand a chance."

TBC

A/N Please accept my apologies for the delay on this chapter. I've found this story very tricky to write and have been breaking away to produce some less tension-filled Castle stories. But I promise to complete this in the near future: the finish line is in sight.