Author's Note: This chapter has some important conversations between Castle and Beckett; I only hope they live up to expectations.

Nothing Lost

Chapter 48

When they had all finished eating, Alexis was the first to push her chair back from the table. "I can clean up."

"Are you sure? You don't have to since you cut up the fruit," Castle spoke up.

Alexis waved a dismissive hand. "I don't mind. Kate did most of the work anyway."

"Let me help you," her dad spoke up. "I haven't done anything so far except eat so helping clean up is the least I can do."

"Oh, you don't have to, Dad," Kate interjected, her words overlapping with Castle's protesting, "That's not necessary, Jim."

"I insist," her dad said, moving to pick up Castle's plate as well as his own before Castle could do the same. "You can take it easy, Katie." He stood up and handed the plates to Alexis.

Alexis dimpled up at him quickly. "Oh, thanks, Mr. Beckett."

"I'm happy to help too, Alexis darling," Martha volunteered.

"It's fine, Grams," Alexis demurred. "I think Mr. Beckett and I can handle it."

"I think you'd better call me Jim, Alexis," her dad offered. "Or Grandpa Jim, if you'd prefer."

Castle fell into a coughing fit while Kate felt her eyes flare, her cheeks flaming. "Dad!" She could not look at Castle.

Her dad gave her a blandly innocent smile. "What, Katie? I was only thinking that I'm a little old to become an uncle."

Kate suppressed a snort. Sure, she believed that, just like she'd believe an offer to sell the Brooklyn Bridge. "Da-ad."

"Katie," her dad mimicked her tone and then added, "Alexis doesn't mind, do you, Alexis?"

Alexis shot Jim a sunny smile. "I don't mind. Grandpa Jim," she added after a faint pause. "I've never had a Grandpa before. I think I like it."

"Alexis," Castle's voice sounded half-strangled.

Kate turned to Castle. "You know, I was thinking of taking a walk on the beach, if you wanted to come with me?" she invited with just a shade of desperation. She'd tentatively planned for walking on the beach to give her and Castle some privacy and time to talk but now, she also wanted to escape.

"Yes," Castle agreed a little too fervently. "That sounds great."

"You two have fun," her dad carolled blithely.

Kate narrowed her eyes at her dad. "Stop it, Dad."

He lifted his hands in a gesture of innocence. "I'm not doing anything."

Her dad was incorrigible. Kate chose discretion as the better part of valor and escaped outside with Castle.

Castle made a rueful face. "I don't think I like having your dad and my daughter joining forces against us."

She returned the look. "I suppose it's better than if they didn't get along."

"Do you really think there was ever any chance of that?"

"Knowing Alexis, no. My dad was always guaranteed to like her."

"The same goes for your dad. I can't imagine Alexis not liking him." Castle gestured for her to precede him down the short flight of stairs that led to the beach.

She looked around as she stepped onto the sand. She had not yet ventured onto the beach since they'd arrived in the Hamptons, had kept her walks to the lawn and around the pool and going up and down the street. She'd been missing out. It was a nice beach and, fortunately, was almost deserted at this hour of the morning before the usual summer crowd could show up. A public place that would still afford them all the privacy they might need for the talk they needed to have.

"It's a private beach so if you want to take off your shoes, you can just leave them here," Castle suggested, suiting action to the words and slipping off his own shoes, placing them by the foot of the stairs.

She followed his suggestion, leaving her sandals beside his, finding the sand cool against her feet. It was, she supposed, still too early in the day for the sun to have warmed the sand. She slipped her arm through his, smiling as he bent to brush his lips against her temple. "So how much of this beach is yours?"

He gestured with his free hand as they started walking on the sand. "Officially, the beach isn't technically mine but unofficially, if you extend the fences on either side of the yard across the sand to the water, that's pretty much it. I basically have priority to use it, as it were. It's not much."

"So you don't actually own miles of the coastline. That's positively tragic," she said dryly.

He had the grace to laugh. "Yes, I know I'm sounding like the stereotypical rich person."

"Just a little," she agreed with a smirk. He might have sounded like one of the entitled multi-millionaires but she knew he wasn't really that person.

"What were you and Alexis talking about this morning, if you haven't been sworn to secrecy or something?"

"We were just talking a little about Ashley."

Castle frowned. "What did he do now?"

She nudged him. "Ashley hasn't done anything. Don't jump to conclusions. Alexis just wanted to know what I thought about their chances of making a long-distance relationship work."

"Did you tell her she should break up with him now because teenage boys can't be trusted?" he asked hopefully.

She shot him a look. "Castle, you don't actually mean that."

He made a face at her. "How can you be so sure? No dad wants his teenage daughter to have a boyfriend."

She bit back a smile at his show of disgruntlement. "Because Alexis told me you told her not to let the statistics about long-distance college relationships get in the way of her relationship with Ashley."

"The traitor," he pretended to grumble.

"It was good advice, Castle. And I told her that although long-distance relationships are hard, that shouldn't keep her from trying as long as both she and Ashley are willing to put in the effort."

"I always knew you were a smart one, Beckett," he quipped.

He was teasing but she sobered. She hadn't been very smart this week. "Alexis was also worried about you."

He blinked, turning to frown at her. "Worried about me? Why would she be worried about me?"

She stopped and turned to face him, retaining her grasp of his hand. "She said she could tell that you've been preoccupied and worried about something but trying to hide it."

"My daughter might be an empath. She's a little scary that way," he said with mock dismay.

She didn't smile, although she knew that was his intent. "She was right, though. And that's my fault." She made a rueful face. "I'm sorry for being a jerk this week."

"I wouldn't say you've been a jerk at all. That would imply you showing some negative emotion, which you haven't done. If anything, you've been overly pleasant," he returned with just a hint of an edge to his tone.

She inwardly winced, even as she understood that this was probably the closest he would come to reproaching her. He was too good to her. And she owed it to him to own up to what she'd done in so many words and not try to evade or gloss over it. "I'm sorry for shutting you out."

He stilled, his expression momentarily freezing into blankness, before he visibly lowered his guard, let her see his emotions. A mix of regret and some hurt and concern and stronger than all that, tenderness and hope. "You don't have to apologize. I understand. You have… a lot on your mind."

Paradoxically, his very understanding, his willingness to forgive, almost made her feel worse. She might have felt better if he'd tried to reproach her or been irritated at her or something. "I do have to apologize, Castle," she contradicted. "I said that I wanted a real relationship, promised to let you in, and I… didn't. I shut you out again and broke my promise."

"Kate…" He lifted his free hand to cup her face. "Nothing's broken," he assured her. "You didn't break your promise; you just… delayed keeping it."

She choked on a watery sort of laugh. "Castle."

"I mean it, Kate. You know how I know?"

"How?"

"Because you're here and talking about this with me now."

"Still. I shouldn't have shut you out."

He sighed. "I can't say it was easy being shut out but I do understand. I know this has been hard on you. I can only imagine what you must be feeling right now and I just want to help."

He didn't intend it as a reproach but the words shamed her nonetheless because of his understanding, his compassion. She clutched his hand tighter. "I know and you do help, Castle. I just—I'm not used to letting someone be there for me so I… forgot. I fell back into old, bad habits." She lifted her shoulders in a rueful half-shrug. "Like some wounded animal, retreating and hiding in my burrow."

"I can be your burrow," he offered.

A small sound like a sob and the embryo of a laugh escaped her. So like Castle, both the sentiment and his willingness to extend a simile. She met and held his eyes, so warm and steady and blue, a deeper truer blue than the sky or the ocean—and remembered the way he'd reached out to her when he'd realized or sensed her surge of emotion over her mom at breakfast. Remembered the way he'd held her and soothed her during the panic attack yesterday when Agent Shaw had visited. "I think you already are my burrow." She managed a wobbly almost-smile. "It just took me a while to remember that."

It might have been the worst irony, that this week, trying to deal with all her roiling emotions over her mom, might have been a little easier if she'd remembered and allowed herself to lean on Castle.

His lips lifted into a faint, tender smile. "Yeah, well, luckily for us, you're smart so you figured it out."

"Better late than never," she supplied, trying to match his tone.

"Exactly," he murmured, sliding his free arm around her waist, and she willingly lifted her head for his kiss.

His kiss was soft, tender—and didn't last nearly long enough but then, she wasn't sure Castle's kisses could ever be too long.

He didn't release her when he lifted his head and she was happy to stay in his encircling arm. "Castle?"

"Hmm?"

"I'm still not really ready to talk about… all that's happened, my mom's case," she admitted quietly, lowering her eyes. "It's too… hard, hurts too much."

"I don't expect you to turn into a babbling brook all of a sudden, Kate. You don't have to bare your soul. I just want you not to feel like you need to hide how you feel from me. I know all this has been hard on you and you're upset and sad. I understand. Just don't hide from me."

"No more hiding, really," she promised. And vowed that she would do better. "And are you okay? It can't have been easy for you, listening to the recording, hearing Captain Montgomery's voice admitting to what he did." She had thought she had come to terms with Montgomery's past and for the most part, she had, at least when it came to his role in the kidnapping and extortion scheme, as hard as it was for her to understand. But hearing the Captain's so-familiar voice had been another unexpected blow.

"It was harder for you than for me."

Her lips twisted slightly. "Maybe but Montgomery was your friend too."

He sighed. "He was and I won't say it was easy hearing his voice on the tape. But I'm trying not to let the wrong he did outweigh all the good. He spent his life trying to atone for his wrongs and that means something." He paused and went on soberly, "But I can't help thinking I'm really glad Evelyn and his kids will never hear the recording, won't have to find out the truth."

She winced at the mention of Evelyn and the kids. "Yeah. I'm a cop and I've always thought it was better to know the truth but this time…" This time, not even she would want Evelyn or the Montgomery kids to find out about Montgomery's past.

"We have to protect the living and the innocent," he agreed. "Having them find out would only hurt them and…"

"And it won't bring my mom back," she finished for him, very quietly, her throat tight.

He flinched and then he tugged her closer as he wrapped both his arms around her. She turned her face into his shoulder and let the warmth and strength of him against her dissolve some of the knots of tension inside her.

"I still miss Captain Montgomery," she admitted in a murmur against his shoulder. Talking about Captain Montgomery was… easier than talking about her tangled emotions where her mom was concerned. The words didn't come smoothly but she could give him this much, share this much.

She felt rather than heard his sigh. "I know."

"I think… it might be easier, somehow, if I could hate him for what he did but I can't." She swallowed. Sometimes, when she thought about the way Montgomery had heard the threat against her mom and done nothing, she felt such a surge of helpless anger it almost choked her and yes, at those times, when she heard again in her mind the words on the tape, over and over again, she thought she almost could hate Montgomery. But then other memories of the Captain would come flooding back—the years of working for him, all he'd taught her, the way he'd made her a better cop and, in many ways, a better person too. She remembered the camaraderie, late nights in the precinct talking over a case, smiles and some laughs, the occasional drink after work with the boys—remembered the pride in his eyes when she'd made detective, when he'd told her she and the boys had achieved the highest case closure rate. She remembered, too, how much his pride had meant to her, the way she'd pushed herself in order to impress him. And she knew she could never hate Captain Montgomery. "I can't hate him and that… hurts." And made her so desperately sad too, that anger and betrayal tainted her grief over him.

"Goethe said, 'A good man apologizes for the mistakes of the past but a great man corrects them.' That's what Montgomery was trying to do. It doesn't make things simple but I think it'll help, in time."

"Time," she repeated quietly. "Yeah, it'll take time."

"And I'm right here with you."

She lifted her face to his, managing a faint smile. "I know."

He bent and kissed her again and her thoughts went deliciously blank and for a little while, everything was better as she luxuriated in the feeling of being loved.

She was running. She had to get there in time, had to save her mom. She'd heard the tape, heard the threat, and just known and now she was running. Running desperately, tears starting down her face, ragged pants escaping her throat, as she ran to the alley, ran to where her mom was heading. She was almost there, saw her mom's figure turning into the alley at the end of the block, and a half-strangled shout of warning escaped her. But her mom didn't hear, was still too far to hear.

She saw the dark figure stealing into the alley behind her mom and then heard a muffled cry and saw the figure running out of the alley. She choked on a sob and sprinted into the alley, falling onto her knees by her mom's body.

"Mom mom oh mom," she was keening as she cradled her mom's bloody body.

Her mom's eyes fluttered a little, a faint whisper escaping her. "Katie…" And then nothing.

She was too late. She'd found the cassette and figured it out too late. She'd failed, let her mom down, and now her mom was…

"Kate! Kate, wake up!"

She jerked sharply awake on a gasp, her eyes flying open, and felt a jolt of instinctive, lingering fear at the sight of a dark silhouette looming over her before her mind recognized the silhouette. Castle. Of course it was Castle.

"It's okay, Kate, you were dreaming."

"Castle." His name came out almost as a whimper.

Slowly, some more coherence returned, bringing with it the awareness that it had to be the middle of the night. She might have gone to bed relatively early because the first couple days of physical therapy had been brutal and left her sore and exhausted but even so, the quality of the darkness outside and more than that, the utter stillness of the house, told her it had to be late, after midnight at least. "How are you here?"

He understood the somewhat inarticulate question. "I'm a night owl. I like to lurk."

Something approaching amusement at his phrasing helped dissipate some of her lingering tension and clear her mind further. "You were writing?" she guessed.

"Got it in one, Beckett. It turns out spending most of my day with you is very inspiring."

He wasn't going to ask what she'd been dreaming about, she slowly realized, wasn't going to outwardly express the concern he had to feel. The manufactured lightness of his tone, although she could just catch the thread of tension that betrayed that it was forced, told her that.

And somehow the knowledge that he wasn't going to ask put her more at ease. She shifted, lifted a hand to tug on his arm.

He complied with the awkward motion and she felt the mattress shift as he joined her on the bed, stretching himself beside her, on top of the comforter, and curling an arm around her, bringing her in against his side.

She pillowed her head against his shoulder, nestling against his side.

"Is your writing going well?"

"It is, actually. I'm more than halfway through the book now. I might even manage to get the first draft in to Gina on time, which would have the added benefit of making her keel over with shock."

"Tell me about the book," she asked, more because she wanted him to keep talking, wanted to listen to his voice, somehow soothing in the darkness.

"You asking for spoilers, Beckett?"

She nudged him. "No, just in general."

"Well, it's going to involve Nikki and Rook working together again in a case that forces them to grow closer because the case involves a conspiracy with some high-ranking people behind it. Nikki isn't sure who else on the force she can count on, aside from Raley and Ochoa, so she has to team up with Rook for his resources, his help."

"Because Nikki trusts Rook." Just as she trusted Castle.

"Yeah, she does. The book is also going to be about Montgomery—or Montrose, his fictional counterpart, rather. A tribute to the man we knew, a way to redeem his memory and honor his legacy."

"I think… he would like that. And Evelyn and his kids will appreciate it."

"I hope so."

"It's a nice idea, Castle."

"Thank you." He turned his head to brush a kiss to her forehead, his fingers idly combing through her hair. She let her eyes close. It was soothing, feeling his fingers brushing through her hair like this, his body warm and solid against hers.

A little silence settled over them in which she could hear the sound of his breathing, felt the steady thump of his heartbeat beneath her hand.

And somehow, something about the darkness and the quiet, the intimacy of knowing they were the only two people awake in the house, made it easier to talk, share some of what had been haunting her for days now, the thought that was seared onto her mind.

"I was dreaming… about my mom's murder." Her voice was very soft, barely audible even to herself but she knew he heard, felt him stiffen, the tightening of his arms around her. "I was… running, trying to save her. But I was too late. I was too late…" She pressed her lips together, her throat closing up at the memory, the guilt and regret tearing at her.

"Oh, Kate…" he sighed.

"I keep thinking about it, that I should have realized it sooner. I could have solved this sooner…"

"Realized what? Kate, what are you talking about?"

"My mom's case. It's like what Jordan said, that the cassette, the evidence we needed has been sitting on my desk all this time, all these years, and I never knew, I never figured it out."

"Kate—"

"I should have figured it out. I should have looked harder." Now that the dam had been breached, the flood of emotions she'd been trying to hold back broke free, came rushing out. "My mom must have left a note to herself about the evidence, a reminder of where she put it, somewhere and I should have looked harder. I went through all her papers and I must have missed something. I should have caught it, should have listened when my mom tried to tell me about the elephants. But I didn't. In all these years, it never occurred to me. All these years… and I never figured it out. If I'd been smarter, if I'd been a better detective…" If she'd been a better daughter—she choked on the thought, the words. All these years, the vital piece of evidence had been sitting on her desk and she'd never realized… Had failed her mom all these years…

"You have a point," he agreed equably.

"But I—what?" she mentally floundered. She'd been expecting him to argue, had been prepared to try to convince him, but his entirely unexpected agreement left her stunned, off balance—and a little hurt. She swallowed hard. He agreed. Maybe now, after all this time, he was finally realizing that she wasn't anything like Nikki Heat at all, wasn't the extraordinary person he always said she was. She had half been expecting it to happen, hadn't she? Even after all this time, some part of her had been waiting for the other shoe to drop, for him to realize just how flawed she was.

"It makes sense to me," he went on, his voice sounding so weirdly composed, it left her feeling disoriented. "Of course you could have figured out that the elephants on your desk hid a crucial piece of evidence. I always suspected you were telepathic and now you've confirmed it."

What was he babbling about now? Had he lost his mind or had she? "Castle—"

"No, wait, it wouldn't be telepathy, my bad," he went on smoothly. "You're a psychic, that's it, a medium who can receive messages from the great beyond. Of course with your psychic abilities, you should have figured out about the elephants sooner. I get it—"

"Castle!" she finally found her voice again. "Don't be ridiculous. There's no such thing as telepathy or psychics."

Even in the darkness, she sensed his look of feigned confusion. "No, really? But that's the only explanation I can think of for what you've been saying. You'd have to be psychic to have known there was something so important hidden inside the elephants."

"Castle!" She wavered between exasperation and irritation and understanding and behind all that, a tiny glimmer of something like the beginnings of amusement. The man was infuriating. And ridiculous. And—oh damn!—clever.

"Beckett," he almost mimicked her tone before abruptly sobering, his tone now entirely devoid of anything but sincerity. "You couldn't have known, Kate. You said that you went through all your mom's papers and knowing you, I know you must have been thorough about it."

"I did," she admitted. "My mom had her own system, a sort of shorthand. My dad and I never managed to figure it out."

"The way I figure it, your mom would have been too smart to write anything down about the cassette in any obvious way as it is. The fact that she went to such lengths to hide the cassette shows she knew how important it was; it defeats the purpose of hiding it if you then write down exactly where you hid it."

"I could have tried guessing, could have looked harder," she tried but even to her own ears, her voice lacked conviction.

"You could have tried to break your mom's elephants?"

She winced a little at the words, the remembered picture of the broken pieces of her mom's elephants. No, she could never have done that, had treated her mom's elephants as if they were made out of the most delicate porcelain. They were so precious to her…

"No…" She sighed, shutting her eyes as if in a last-ditch attempt to avoid accepting what he'd been trying to tell her.

He didn't respond and there was a long minute of silence—and slowly, slowly, acceptance of what he'd been saying solidified in her mind. She might not entirely feel absolved emotionally but where her mind led, gradually her emotions would follow.

"When did you become the voice of reason?" she asked, sounding rather petulant even to her own ears.

"If it makes you feel any better, I'm still not convinced that you're not telepathic," he offered.

"Castle!" Her voice came out on something like a sob and the beginnings of a laugh combined.

He tightened his arms around her, pressing a kiss to her hair. "Hey, it's okay, Beckett," he murmured. "None of this is your fault, you know. You did everything you could have done. There's nothing more you could have done to solve this any faster."

She sniffed a little. "How can you be so sure?" He hadn't even been around for the last couple years as she'd learned more about her mom's case.

"Because I know you, Beckett. You never give up. And all of this, all that you've learned about your mom's case in the past months—remember that Raglan, McAllister, even Captain Montgomery spent years covering their tracks. This wasn't some keystone cops conspiracy; these were experienced professionals who had a lot to lose and they knew it." He paused and went on quietly, "Montgomery had the evidence you needed and he waited until he knew he'd reached the end of the line before he gave up the rest, sent the evidence to Agent Shaw, knowing she would run with it. For his family's sake, I think, even more than his own. You said yourself that you don't want Evelyn and the kids to know."

A shuddering breath escaped her as she wondered, for the first time, what she would have done if by some chance she'd stumbled on the cassette sooner or otherwise learned about Montgomery's involvement. Would she have exposed Captain Montgomery, turned him in for not just an Internal Affairs investigation but criminal prosecution and likely imprisonment? Evelyn and his kids would have lost everything; his kids would have had their futures destroyed, essentially branded as the kids of a notorious corrupt cop. Would she have put Evelyn and his kids through that in order to get justice for her mother? Her heart twisted. She didn't know; she honestly didn't know.

Her mom wouldn't have wanted that, destroying innocents like Montgomery's family. She would have had to find some way to protect Montgomery and his family while still bringing Bracken down—but a conspiracy of this size, an investigation into someone as influential as Bracken—she wasn't sure she could have kept it between herself and the boys. If only because Bracken's fall from grace would inevitably be very public and the moment any hint of it became public, every investigative journalist in the country would have dug into everything Bracken had ever done, every piece of paper he'd ever touched. Her lips twisted a little; if that had happened, a real-life counterpart to Jameson Rook would have found out about Montgomery.

It was only now—with not just Montgomery, but also Raglan, McAllister, Pulgatti, all dead—that they could bring Bracken down—and let the dead keep their secrets, with Agent Shaw's help.

"You're right," she admitted on a quiet sigh.

"You just said I'm right. Say it again, Beckett, please."

He was infuriating. "Castle!"

"Yeah, that's a Detective Beckett tone right there," he observed, now sounding pleased—and she realized belatedly that his silliness had been a ploy, baiting her into irritation which had, oddly, infused her with more strength, restored her to herself. Well, damn. He really did know her well, didn't he?

She let out a huff. "I don't know how I put up with you."

"I know you like me, Beckett," he said airily. "You like having me around."

Oh, this man… This man, who understood her so well. Her throat seemed to close on a lump of emotion and for once, she found she couldn't make a teasing response. It was her turn to tighten her arm around him. "I really do," she mumbled against his shoulder.

She sensed rather than saw his smile—well, she couldn't have seen his smile anyway since she'd tucked her face against his shirt. "I like having you around too, Beckett," he whispered against her ear, his tone a blend of teasing with an underlying seriousness that somehow managed to echo her jumbled emotions. She didn't know how he did it.

She sniffed even as she felt her lips curve a little. And somehow, he seemed to sense that too because he bent his head just enough to allow him to brush his lips against hers. A very brief kiss considering the somewhat awkward angle but for the moment, it was enough.

They simply lay there in silence for a few minutes as she relaxed further against him. She really did like this sharing-a-bed thing with him. She'd never been much of one for cuddling before; sharing a bed for sex was one thing but she'd always thought if sex wasn't an option, she'd prefer to have the bed to herself, preferred to sleep alone. It was different with Castle. She could get used to sharing a bed with him. She wanted to get used to sharing a bed with him—and not only to sleep or to cuddle. The solid feel of his chest beneath her hand, even through the fabric of his shirt, was making her wonder what his chest—and not only his chest—would look like without the benefit of clothing. She made a mental note to ask at her next physical therapy appointment how long it would be before she would be cleared for, um, vigorous physical activity.

"You know what I've been thinking?" he broke the silence.

"No, what?"

"I think the way everything's worked out is fitting, poetic even. You said your mom used to call the elephants a family."

"She did." She'd been thinking about sex and he'd still been thinking about her mom's case. That was… a little lowering.

"Think about it. Your mom left the elephants to you. If you couldn't have been the one to discover the cassette, at least it was found by the boys, who are part of your precinct family. And now, we can use the cassette to bring down Bracken while still protecting Montgomery's family. You were involved in this because of your mom and then you figuring out about Dick Coonan started with a family affair after he killed his brother and now, it will end thanks to the work of another family, you and the boys, even Montgomery. It all comes back to family."

"If you put it like that, I suppose it does." And trust Castle to see the big picture like this, see all that had happened through a storyteller's lens.

But she found that thinking about it from Castle's view, focusing on the family aspect of it… helped. Or at least, eased some of the sense of helplessness, of uselessness, that had been gnawing at her. She hated being reduced to waiting passively, unable to help on the most important case of her life, her mom's case that had been the focus of so much of her adult life. But well, as Castle had put it, if she couldn't have found the cassette on her own—and she could admit now she'd had no way of knowing to look in the elephants—it was fitting that the family of elephants had yielded the secret to her precinct family, the boys who were like her brothers in many ways. And the boys had passed the secret to Castle, who had also become part of their precinct family, one of the small group of people who had served as pallbearers for Montgomery's coffin—more, someone who had accepted both her and her dad into his home and included them in his family circle so easily.

She supposed it was irrational, absurd, to find the thought oddly comforting—she still wasn't playing an active role in closing her mom's case—but somehow, it did help. Families were meant to help each other, families were the people you trusted to stand beside you.

"Family," she repeated quietly. "And that includes you, Castle."

There was a pause before he responded, "I guess you really are stuck with me now."

His words, his tone, were almost a jarring contrast to her statement but by now, she knew he tended to hide behind humor, a show of lightness, when he felt things most deeply. He understood what she meant.

She turned her face up to brush her lips against his chin, the easiest part she could access without moving her position, and then nestled her head against his shoulder again.

"Will you stay?"

"I'm not going anywhere. Relax, Beckett."

She closed her eyes and for once, followed his instruction. And found herself drifting to sleep before she'd realized it, knowing she was safe, with Castle.

~To be continued…~

A/N 2: Thank you as always to all readers and reviewers.