This chapter is a shout out to all of the people who transcribe episodes, because it was too much effort to watch said episode and re-write the scene, so yay copy and paste.

So, about half of this scene, the dialogue is not mine at all. I can't remember who wrote said episode but, go thank whoever it is. I want to say Marlowe, but don't quote me on that.

(It's pretty obvious which episode it is I don't know why I'm being so secretive)


The call comes halfway through a game of very intense laser tag. It's a game of Becketts vs. Castles and when Becketts phone rings out loud above the shrieks (mainly Alexis's) he's lying prone behind the couch, waiting for the moment somebody (he hopes it's Kate, because he likes it when she's on top) inevitably leaps over the side and lands on top of him. It's worth the pain. But then she's calling time out, and though he's tempted to ignore it, and just shoot her where she stands, he stands up and follows her as she picks up the phone and holds it to her ear.

Alexis and Harry are still running around trying to get each other, but at least they have the sense to be quiet. He can tell, just by the look on Kate's face that whatever this is, whoever is on the other end of the phone, it's important. She turns to look at him as she listens to whatever they're saying, and just her expression, the disbelief, the shock, and the fear, he wants to take her away from New York. Away from the city, and the murder and everything, and hide them all away in a tiny town in the middle of Montana.

Not that Kate would ever agree to that.

"Yeah – yeah, I can… in half an hour? Give me forty minutes? I've just got to finish something first." She nods, looks at Castle with desperate eyes. "Yeah, alone. I know. I'll be there."

She hangs up and takes a moment to stare at her phone, before setting it down carefully. "That was John Raglan. He was the lead investigator on my mom's case. He wants to meet me."

"Alone?"

"Yeah, I know, I know. It's suspicious, especially after Coonan… but Castle, this could be…"

"I don't like it." He interrupts, his eyes flashing. "At least let me come with you."

"And leave Harry and Alexis on their own? I don't think so." She picks her phone up and slides it into her pocket, starts to walk towards the bedroom and stripping off her vest as she goes. "I'll phone you."

"I can take them next door. They'll be fine."

"Castle-"

"I'm coming with you. No arguments." Kate likes she's ready to argue, he can see the fire in her eyes, but then she deflates in front of him.

"Alright, fine. But Castle, I am in charge. Anything could happen. If I say do something, then you do it. You got it?"

He gives her a cheesy salute. "Yes sir."


The coffee shop is busier than she expected it to be, but she supposes, if Raglan wanted to divulge evidence about her mother's murder, then they're less likely to be overheard. She spots him, over by the window, nursing a ceramic mug in his old and weathered hands. He's not what Kate remembered, he looks beaten down and defeated, not the eager detective that she knew.

He looks up and catches her eye, gives her a brief nod. A recognition. Nothing more. Not yet. Of course, she gets a bigger reaction when he notices Castle, his gaze hardens and his jaw stiffens. They slide into the booth, and Kate settles her arms on the Formica table.

"Lady, what part of no cops did you not understand?" He fumes, focusing on Castle.

"He's not a cop." Kate replies calmly, her cool and collected gaze matching Raglan's steely one.

"Well, who the hell is he then?"

"Someone I trust."

A waitress approaches them, percolator in hand and a painted smile on her face. "More coffee?"

Raglan holds his mug out and she refills it, and to Kate it feels so slow. She can feel the information at her fingertips, so close, but he's stalling. The nerve of the guy.

"Tell me what I don't know about my mother's murder." Kate says, too impatient to wait while he stares into his coffee.

But he doesn't answer her question. "Everybody drinks their coffee out of cardboard cups these days. Or those plastic travel mugs. But there's – there's something about ceramic that warms your hands…"

Castle wants to take the ceramic mug and throw it at the window, wants him to give Kate whatever it is she needs so they can both get out of there. He's anxious. Nervous and fidgety and his heart won't stop pounding. It's an ordinary diner. Nothing suspicious about it. But he can't shake the feeling that there's something bigger, something elusive that he can't quite see yet.

"It's weird, the things you notice." He looks up, finally, and he can see the fatigue, the bone weary way that he holds himself. "I just got the long face from the doc. Limphoma. Six months."

"Sorry to hear about that." Kate replies, though she doesn't seem at all apologetic.

"Every year," Raglan continues, "around the holidays they – they run that Christmas Carol on local TV. When I was a kid, I remember Jacob Marley scared the hell out of me. Forced to drag that – that chain around in the next world."

Castle finds himself uttering the line involuntarily, so used to hearing it over and over during his childhood years. "I wear the chain I forged in life."

"I made it link by link," the detective finishes, his words heavy, just like this metaphorical chain. "I hid a lot of sins behind my badge, and now I gotta carry them. But your mother's case, that one weighs a ton."

Kate leans forward, her demeanour shifting ever so slightly towards anger and fury. "Why? Because you write it off as random gang violence when you knew it wasn't?"

"I did what I was told." Raglan sighs, as if that makes up for any of his dirty past. Kate's not buying it either, scoffs at his admission. "And I kept quiet because I was afraid. A few months ago there was a hostage standoff in your precinct. You killed a hitman, called Dick Coonan. It was a big deal in the papers. People noticed."

"Who hired Coonan to kill my mom?"

"You need some context here. This thing started about nineteen years ago, back before I ever knew who Joanna Beckett was. Nineteen years ago I… I made a bad mistake, and that started the dominoes falling. And one of them was your mom."

And then suddenly, without any warning, Raglan's ceramic mug, the one he'd cherished so much, shatters in front of them. All around them people scream, and Raglan slips sideways and all Castle can do is stop and stare but Beckett – it's not Kate. Not anymore. The moment that gunshot came she turned into a detective – is pushing him sideways and he lands on the floor, his hands landing in something sticky. Raglan is gawking at him, mouth opening and closing on silent words, but there's blood, so much blood, and he has no hope of stemming the flow that is coming from the retired cops neck. Beckett is yelling, telling everyone to get down and stay away from the window, and he turns momentarily to make sure that she's obeying her own orders. She's crouched by the table, using the top to steady her gun, aiming it at the building opposite though there's no hope of getting whoever it is. They'll have long gone. His chest constricts when he catches sight of her white jumper, spattered with blood, and he's sure, he's convinced that Raglan is not the only one bleeding out.

"You're hit." He gasps, reaching out and pulling her coat to the side.

"I'm fine. It's not my blood." She's got her radio in her hand. He wasn't even aware she had it with her, but then again, she'd hidden her gun too, for all he knows she might have a baton and a riot shield hidden in her pockets too. "One Lincoln Forty, I have shots fired on 4th and Main. I need backup and an ambulance." There's a reply from dispatch, scratchy and broken and he's not paying attention. Kate's okay. She's fine. She'd know if she'd been shot, and Raglan is the one that needs his attention right now. He tries. He does, but the flow of blood from his neck is too much. The damage is too extensive and he watches the light bleed out of Raglan's eyes, even as he kneels there completely helpless. "Castle?" He looks up and shakes his head. Kate lifts her radio again. Dispatch are still talking to her. "One Lincoln Forty. Please be advised, this is now a homicide."