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

A/N One-month time time jump.

Usually she dreads the drawing-in of the day, as sunrise begins to arrive after 7:00 and sunset well before dinnertime, but not this year.

They've spent the last three days in the Hamptons, the town blissfully quiet, empty of the hordes of summertime residents and visitors. In the end of September the air and water are almost the same temperature, and it's delicious. She seldom dwells on or even thinks about how rich Castle is, but it's hard not to in this magnificent piece of real estate.

She's sitting alone by the pool now, holding her mug of coffee against her chest, warm inside and out. She has never felt about any man as she feels about Castle. She has certainly never had the intimacy that she has with him. Sex, yes–though sex with him is better and more imaginative than anything she's experienced in the past–but not true intimacy. She's willing to show her vulnerability, willing–wanting–to talk with him anything. Her mother, her insecurities, her demons, her dreams.

There are so many small and not-so-small things that she loves about him.

He puts books–some old, some new–under her pillow.

His favorite fan, "other than you, Beckett," is a 72-year-old woman named Carol Ann who works in Dunkin' Donuts.

He leaves funny, romantic Post-it notes in her running shoes.

He's not embarrassed about crying in front of her.

At some point every day, often out of the blue, he says, "It's KBT" or, "It's Kate Beckett Time," and goes off for an hour or so to let her be alone.

It's KBT right now, and he's inside writing, which reminds her that she is getting farther and farther away from her last paycheck. She's being trying to push that thought away, lock it up in a box and just revel in her happiness, but it's getting more difficult to do. She needs to work; she wants to work; she yearns to work with him. A cloud suddenly blocks the sun, and a chilly breeze comes off the water. "Thanks for the metaphor," she mumbles to the sky as she pushes herself off the chaise and walks indoors. Standing in the kitchen, she wraps her arms around her chest and shivers. She has to talk to him about this. No more putting it off.

She and Castle share a love of hot chocolate as a comfort drink, so she heats milk in a saucepan. The chocolate-laced cocoa powder that he buys is so rich that whipped cream seems redundant, but he loves it, so she puts a large dollop in the top of his cup and carries it and her slightly more restrained one to his study.

"Hey," she says, bumping her hip against the half-open door. "Can you take a little break?"

It has been fascinating for her to watch him work. Staring at someone who's typing is generally mind-numbing, but not when she carefully watches his face. Especially his eyes and mouth. She's sure that he's unaware how much they reveal while he's concentrating. Sometimes she sits in there with him and reads, but she glances at him as often as she can. Even when she can see him only in profile she intuits a lot about what's going on in his wildly imaginative brain. Now, for instance: she can tell that it will take him a few seconds to react to her question, as he shifts from writer to lover.

"For you? Any time you ask. Even if you don't ask, but just show up all gorgeousity like that."

"Gorgeousity? Did you just make that up?"

"I'm allowed to make up words. I'm a wordsmith. Unfortunately, I can't take credit for that one because Anthony Burgess created it. Smithed it. First time I've ever used it, though. Must have been saving it for exactly the right moment."

He smiles at her with his whole being, and her heart nearly explodes. She'd like to shelve the conversation she's about to start, but she can't. It's overdue. So she begins. "Want to sit on the love seat with me?"

"You bet." He gets up from his desk chair and plops down next to her. "Mmmm, hot chocolate. What's the occasion?"

She doesn't answer right away, and when she does her voice is shot through with wistfulness. "Weather's getting colder."

His smile fades and a look of concern replaces it. "Are you okay?"

"Yes. No. I mean yes, but."

"Oh, God, I hate 'but'."

She sets her cup on the end table next to her. "I love you, Castle," she says, and squeezes his hand. That had burst out of her, unconsidered, but it's true. She takes a few moments before continuing, and she doesn't let go of his hand. "I love you more than I thought I could ever love anyone. You've taught me the boundlessness of love." She stops again and calls back the courage that has almost escaped her. "And love includes how much you love your work. I loved my work, too, and I miss it. I miss it more all the time. I love being here with you, but I miss working with you. Just now you said, 'I'm a wordsmith.' You can define yourself as a writer. I can't define myself as a cop anymore, and I need to. I need to go back to work."

"You could–"

"Don't say it." She puts her hand up, palm out, and emphatically shakes her head. "I know you say I can go to law school, be a kick-ass lawyer, but that was an old dream of mine, Castle. Being a cop is in my veins now, just as you are. You're in my veins. You know that, right? I want to go back to work, find a way back not just for me but for you." She's almost pleading now. "Will you help me?"

He'd looked so happy a minute ago, and now he looks shattered. "Kate, before you resigned you were almost killed. And the son of a bitch who did that to you is still out there."

"Cole Maddox."

"Cole Maddox. He'll come after you again."

"Not if I'm careful. Not if we put together the pieces I left behind."

"His eyes are cloudy with worry and confusion. "What pieces?"

"Montgomery's wedding album."

"What?"

"In Maddox's hotel room. Javi and I found it. It wasn't just his files that Maddox wanted, it was photos. He was looking for someone that Captain Montgomery knew. He drew a lot of Xes over faces in the album, but one photo was missing. He took it with him."

"And?"

"And Evelyn had a negative, but she didn't know who the man in it was. Ryan got a print. He brought it over to my apartment the morning after I quit because he thought that I might recognize the guy in it, but I didn't."

"So what happened?"

"Nothing. Dead end. Gates put the kibosh on the investigation. Said she'd used way too many precious resources–her exact words–on it already."

"I don't understand, Kate. You didn't know the man in the photo, and the case has been dropped. What pieces are there for you to put together?"

"For us to put together, Castle, not me. Do you know a better team? I don't. Yin and Yang, that's us. You practically said so way back in one of our first cases. Maybe you can ID the guy."

"How could I?"

"Because, you and I can pick apart that picture. Find something in the details or the background. Find something that I didn't see the first time, when I hardly even looked at it. I was done. Not interested. At least, that's what I told myself then. Please?"

"Kate, I don't want you to–."

"To what?"

"To lose yourself again."

Her eyes spark with anger. "You don't trust me."

Before she can retreat he puts his arm around her shoulder and pulls her close to him. "I do. I do. But I'm terrified of Maddox, terrified of what he'll put you through. What he'll do. The pull of your mother's case is so strong, and I understand that. But it's too much and it's too dangerous."

She twists away and stands up to face him. "All I'm asking is that you look at a photo. One damn photo."

"And if I can't get anything from it either, then what?"

"Then I still want to be a cop again, but I won't do it with that in my pocket. Okay? Clean slate." She lets out a long breath. "Okay, Castle? Will you look at it?"

"He's obviously not happy about it, but agrees. "Yes." That's all he says.

One short conversation with Ryan later, she holds up her phone. "He's sending it to me."

She paces while waiting for the ping of the incoming text, and the instant it arrives she sits down again and shows him the photo. "See? Here. Do you know him? What's here that we can work on?"

He's a good actor; it's in his genes. But he's not so good that he can hide the blood rushing from his face, or the tightening of his lips. Everything about him is taut, and radiating anxiety. "The picture's so small. And fuzzy. Hard to tell."

She doesn't believe him. Without comment, she presses her thumb and finger on the screen and enlarges the image so that only the man's head is visible. If Castle's scared, so is she. "Who is it?"

"Him," he says, choking on one syllable and covering his eyes with his hands. "Oh, God, it's him."

"Who?"

His head is bowed so low that she can't hear his reply. "Who?" she asks again. When he doesn't answer she gently pulls one hand away from his face, and immediately regrets it. She has seldom seen such anguish, certainly not from him.

"Smith." He's looking, if he's looking, not at her but at some unspecified spot on the wall. "His name is Smith. Probably not. Could be anything."

"Tell me. Tell me. Please look at me and tell me." He sighs, and she feels the regret in it. Regret and something. Resignation, maybe?

"Before Montgomery went into that hangar, he sent a package to someone he trusted. A friend. It contained information damaging to the person behind all this. Montgomery was trying to protect you. He was killed before the package arrived, but his friend struck a deal with them. If they left you alone, that package and its contents would remain secret. But they had a condition: you had to back off. That's the reason you're still alive. Because you backed off."

"How? How do you know that?"

"To make the deal to work, someone had to make sure you weren't pursuing it. Your mother's case."

She wants to get up. Wants to get up and run and never stop. Wants to run into the ocean and let herself drown. But her legs are like lead. "Are you part of this?"

That's when he moves, taking her into his arms in an embrace so tight that she can hardly breathe. "I was just trying to keep you safe, Kate. I loved you. I love you. I love you even more now. I can't let you."

She pushes as hard as she can but she can't escape, and finally has to give up. He's too strong. So she says furiously into his ear, "Can't let me what, Castle?"

"Can't let you go. Can't let you die."

"You lied. You lied to me for a year. More than a year. And now this time, all this time we've been together, Castle. All this time we've been together. All this time. I trusted you with everything. With all my heart." Her hands are trapped against his chest, but she manages to push them against him a little. "Let me go."

"No."

"Let me go."

"No. The only reason I lied was to protect you."

"I didn't need protection. I needed a lead, and you had it." Castle's still not moving, so she relaxes against him. "Please. Who is Smith? Where is he?"

He relaxes a little, too, but he's still holding her. "He's a voice on a burner phone. A shadow in a dark parking garage. He was there ahead of me and got the lights out somehow."

"You've seen him? You've met him?"

"Yes, but–"

She has room now, and she beats her fists against his chest, hard. "How do know he's not the one? How do you know he's not involved in my mom's murder? How could you do this, Castle? You betrayed me."

He grabs her by the wrists. "No. No. Listen, Kate. Please listen for a minute. They're too much even for you. They are. Last year your father asked me to stop you. He came to my apartment and begged me. Montgomery asked me. The two most important people in your life asked me to stop you, and I did what I could."

That's what shatters her. Her wrists are still in his hands, but she curls into a ball. She cries as she has never cried, not in jail, not the whole summer she was alone in her father's cabin, seized by every kind of pain. Not even the night her mother died. She cries until her violent coughing makes her stop. It's only then that she's aware that at some point he had let go of her and is gently massaging her back. She manages to get herself into a sitting position. "What about you? You were just following orders? You don't think you're one of the most important people in my life? That's what you did? You made a deal for my life? I had no say in it? What the hell, Castle. I'm taking a walk. Don't come."

She runs to the beach and then she walks. Walks and walks and walks. Her mind is full of everything and nothing. She can't think. She looks out over the water from time to time, occasionally registers a boat, but that's all. She's not aware of anyone on the beach. Who would be on the beach under the gray skies at whatever the hell time it is on whatever the hell day? She pulls the phone from her pocket. 3:25. September 28. Thursday. She has no concept of how long she has been out here or how far she has come, except that it must have been a long time. She sits down on the sand. "How far have I come?" she says to acres of emptiness.

How far has she come? She'd thought that she'd come a long way. She'd thought that she'd come to the perfect place with Castle. She was really learning to be comfortable in her own skin. And now this. This. What is the fucking point of anything if Castle can't trust her with her own life? Because now she can't trust him. What is the fucking point? It's way too late to find this Smith guy, anyway. If they ever could have. She feels a drop on her pants and looks up at the rain, except that it isn't raining. It's not. The drop was from her eyes. She's crying again, stupidly, uselessly crying. She's as weak as she was when she hid away in Berryville.

There's another drop, this time on her shoulder. And then another, on her head. Now it is raining. It doesn't matter. She gets up and begins to walk again. As the sand gets wetter and heavier, her pace becomes a trudge, and she finally stops and looks away from the water. She's reached some town. Not much of one, but it's not just boarded-up summer houses. She turns to her left to go find what's there.

If she believed in portents, she'd believe in this one. She pushes open the door of The End of the Road. That's its name, End of the Road. It's dark inside, and not just because of the early-autumn rain. The overhead lighting, such as it is, is very low-watt. There are only four other people in here. Dammit. She just realizes that she doesn't have any money with her. Nothing but her phone. Maybe someone will take pity on her. Who cares? She'll figure it out. Something.

"What can I get you?" the bearded guy with the beginning of a pot belly asks when she sits down opposite him. "Other than a towel, maybe."

"A towel?"

"Yeah. If you wanna dry off a little. Or you could use the bathroom. Right over there." He points over her shoulder. "Only paper towels, better than nothing."

She shakes her head. "Thanks. I'm good." No, I'm bad, but what's the point? "You have Maker's Mark?"

"Yup."

"Then that's what you can get me, please. Neat. And make it a double."

TBC

A/N Sorry for the long delay in posting, but I was on the road for several days. Next chapter should be up in a timelier fashion. And just a reminder: I always have a happy ending.