A/N at the end.

Chapter 18

They were sitting in silence. The burgers and their coffees had gone cold long ago and were ignored on the desk. Since Castle had revealed what had happened to him in the woods he had spent most of the time sitting in his chair not speaking. It was eerie. Not like him at all. But then what was like him? It was possible he was a lot quieter than she thought he was. It felt like there needed to be a question mark over everything. But right now, from by the introverted sweep of his gaze, he was anything but quiet on the inside; it was obvious he was calculating his next play, a move no doubt made all the more complicated now by the new knowledge that his family knew something. And very clearly, as evidenced by this protracted strategizing, he was still not open to the idea of simply telling them what had happened in the woods. She watched his brow grow heavy with some difficult, private thought. He looked utterly worn out and older than his years. And still he was silent.

But he wasn't the only one filled with a strange and preoccupied sort of silence.

She was still shocked with by what her partner had revealed. It was horrifying and close to unbearable. And that it had happened when he was a little boy, already staggering under the weight of his illness and hearing loss, made it all the more horrendous. In her time with the NYPD the suffering of the victims was always the hardest to absorb. Even worse than witnessing violent death as a trained professional, was standing alongside the innocents who had barely escaped that fate, or those left behind. Exposed to their grief and shock as lives were ripped away from them or as they were forced by circumstance to witness things that no person should ever be made to see, she felt wounded by it. Every time. But each time it also steeled her resolve: that she would do whatever she could to bring some small measure of comfort through her words and her promise to do anything and everything in her power to see justice served. She knew the pain of no answers, no justice, no peace, and it was unendurable not to do whatever she could to spare others what she and her father suffered daily.

And here she was, exposed to this same sort of suffering again. In the one place she never thought she would find it.

She really had no idea...

Getting that story out had been an enormous step for her partner. He had told someone, finally, but he was still clearly enmeshed within it. The rawness of his retelling, the paucity of his usual literary flourishes and a total inability to compartmentalize away the horror of what he was speaking about, was all evidence of that. Even now, as he sat slumped, thinking, he was no doubt continuing to so do within the horrific bloody dimensions of that trauma.

Still freshly wounded and bleeding after all these years. Caught like a fly in a spider's web.

Given all of that, it had been a gamble to push him to tell Martha and Alexis, but she felt she had to voice those words. As much as Castle was hurting, there were two other people being held hostage to the same trauma and suffering their own distress without even knowing why. They needed answers. They needed, no they deserved, to know more. The man sitting across from her needed to tell them, and not just for their sake, because if what he remembered and had revealed to her was indeed the truth, there was a young woman out there lost in Hollander's Woods; there were people mourning her disappearance; and there was a murder, still unsolved. There was murderer not yet caught. And there was a traumatized witness who had been unable to speak out for nearly 30 years. A witness who had been on the run and hiding for so long he was going to need all the help they could give him not just to solve the case, but so he could start to recover.

To help Castle and his family, to find justice for that woman murdered in the forest, to catch the killer, she needed to start thinking as a Detective, not just as a ... She paused. What was she? Partner, colleague? Partner, yes, OK, Lanie was right about that. But... Maybe, a friend?

Pushing aside that question, she forced her thoughts returned to his fraught confession, considering it as she would the cases she dealt with daily, the ones she swore to solve for the sake of those gone and those left behind. He had said he needed to solve this. He needed her help. So, as she had told him, she would give it. And swear to do everything in her power to help him unravel this mystery. But not yet. Now Castle evidently needed his silence. But she would keep watch, just in case he needed rousing from his thoughts. Like he had earlier. She recalled how he started to tell her his story and had seemed to slip away into his memories. The look on his face... Blank, but not like sleep, more like some sort of fugue. Dissociation, maybe? Like the raid, when he had taken a pounding from Baxter, but... this seemed worse somehow. She hoped it was as a result of the stress of voicing what had happened to him so long ago, and not something that ran deeper and bespoke an even greater wound than was already evident. It was something she would have to talk to Martha about. And Castle himself. But, right now it was time for her partner to take time to regroup and for her to be there if he needed her.

So, she continued to sit with her thoughts and let him work through his for as long as it took.

She knew he was worried - no that was an inadequate description - scared, terrified, that the murderer in the forest might surface and harm his family. That had been the driving force behind his every day, his every calculated move, since that night. Thinking as a cop, she could think of numerous reasons why that was unlikely to happen (if it had ever been likely to happen at all), and she had no doubt that somewhere along the way Castle had considered those possibilities, but he still had not been able to set aside his terror for reason. Not in over 20 years. And right now, he was too battered, too raw, to have that laundry list of rationality raised. That time would come. But not yet.

Kate returned to her coffee mug.

She sipped at the tepid coffee. The vanilla had been unexpected. He had caught her by surprise with that addition, and the thought that he had quietly stocked his cupboards with the ingredients of her favorite brew had left her floundering for a moment, even though she was still in the grip of horror over his first attempt to tell her his story. On any other day she might have suspected it factored into some sort of elaborate seduction plan or grand manipulation ploy, but since Baxter had turned everything upside down, she was re-evaluating everything she thought she knew about Richard Castle and the reasons why he did everything he did. Not that seduction attempts were off the table entirely: she knew where his thoughts went. Frequently. And, in her more unguarded moments, maybe he wasn't entirely alone in the direction of those thoughts. But now...

Her phone suddenly chirped.

Crap.

The screen glowed showing that it was Esposito calling. She couldn't ignore it. When she left the precinct today, it was with a direction to her team to continue to push Baxter, to keep on with the dig into Carmichael and his nefarious activities, while she took Castle's statement. Montgomery was still unhappy about her leaving the auditor to his own devices in the department yesterday. The Mayor's man had twiddled his thumbs for all of 30 minutes before evidently deciding that his 5pm deadline to get a report back to his boss couldn't be delayed another second. And so he had hunted for, and cornered, the Captain himself to get his answers. So when Kate returned later that day, despite her boss's understanding and his approval in broad strokes of why she had headed to Castle's loft, it was to a mightily irritated Captain and a stern direction to get the writer's statement as soon as possible and get something on Carmichael. Get him something he could give the Mayor. She couldn't annoy him a second time. So she took a deep breath. Right now, Castle was safe. Martha and Alexis were safe. But Carmichael was going to escape if they didn't get a break soon. And Carmichael had to be brought down.

Knowing that didn't stop the guilt though. She looked back at her flashing cell.

Of the all the worst timing.

"Castle?" She reached out to gently, fleetingly, to grasp his knee. He looked up at her and blinked owlishly at her raised cell phone. "I'm sorry. I have to take this."

"Ah yeah. Of course. Yeah." He sounded thrown by her interruption, but nodded gamely at her anyway, immediately jumping into his camouflage. She suddenly hated how he did that. Within seconds it was as though she had done nothing more than rouse him from a pleasant daydream. He just shrugged into that genial disguise like he was donning a well-worn coat. Damn it.

"I'll take the call in here," she said. I'm not leaving. And I am not buying the act.

"Beckett, Espo wouldn't be calling unless he had something he needed to tell you. It's fine," Castle said nodding, encouraging and comforting her now. Flipping the tables effortlessly, his voice taking on that velvety rumble that was capable of gentling everybody within ear shot. "I'll just get rid of these burgers; Harry Xiao has really lost his touch. We need to order something in." She watched him start stacking the plates, ready to take them into the kitchen and dispose of the food.

Her cell buzzed again, drawing her attention back to Espo and reason for his call.

Damn.

She thumbed the cell as she rose from her chair, feeling the need to stand as she slipped back into work-mode. But as she stood she couldn't help reaching out to touch her partner again. This time to curl her hand around the broad curve of a shoulder, feeling his muscles shift as he took up the plates. She looked at him, pointedly: are you sure? The corners of his lips curled upwards, the laugh lines around his eyes crinkling, as he returned the look: I'm sure. I'm ok. She wasn't buying it, still, but if he was able to put up a front then he was still in control. And she had a job she could not ignore.

She had a job...

"Espo," she acknowledged, not moving from where she was standing, but letting her hand drop away from Castle, noticing how the heat from his body was slow to seep from her palm. She was rattled at how much she felt its loss as her skin cooled. This touching they were doing, that she was doing, now that his hearing issues were out, was new and still felt too intimate. Until the last few days, any touching between them was either inadvertent or for the job. Even Castle's irrepressible flirtations hadn't breached that unspoken barrier between them. He danced along its edges, pushed, baited and teased, but never actually made contact. Even when he handed her a coffee, she suddenly realized, they did not touch. It wasn't part of them. Until now.

"Beckett, yo! How's Castle holding up?" Espo interrupted her thoughts as she watched Castle leave the room, plates in hand, their coffee mugs left on his desk.

"Castle -" she paused: what to say to that? That he was coping? Sure, he was doing that. Right now was doing what he always did: putting on show. Not really hiding, more deliberately staying within the safety of his public persona. They weren't that unalike in that regard, she thought ruefully, even if it was for different purposes. And they weren't so different in other ways either, she was realizing. That woman in the forest had been a stranger to her partner, but the same wrenching violence ending in death had touched both her and Castle intimately in their early years. And it had permanently rerouted them, wrenched them out of their lives as they knew them, and set them down new and much darker pathways. But, thank god it hadn't been his mother lost, and at that age. Apart from the horror and grief of that scenario, Castle had no father and she had never heard him mention any other relations that might have been close enough to take him in. There must be someone, but there was good chance that he would have ended up in state care.

At least, at 19, she was not in danger of that scenario, but at Castle's tender age he was precariously closer to being alone and helpless in the world than she had been. So it seemed he had taken his own action to protect his only parent. He had gone on the defensive, and had remained there, standing a lonely guard. For years. His reaction had been... extreme. He was eleven years old, newly without his full hearing, alone and scared and he had decided to watch over his mother and himself thinking he could protect them from a murderer. It was utterly ridiculous. It had not been the right choice. Not the one she was trained to think of as the correct course of action. And yet it was so utterly, guilelessly innocent and naive, so childishly noble and brave, that it almost hurt to think about. Her own reaction to losing her mother to violence had, her therapist had finally helped her accept, also been extreme - and ultimately less noble than it was destructive. She didn't have the defense of childish naiveté to fall back upon. Unable to stop herself hunting her mother's killer in her early career with the NYPD, she had strayed close to irreparable harm before someone had stepped in to help her.

She found herself wondering what might have happened had the horror in the woods happened when Castle had been 19 and grown, as she had been? What might he have been able to do about it that would have saved him from a lifetime of fear? He couldn't have followed her pathway into the police force, not with his hearing, but what might he have been able to do? But the reality was he hadn't been a man when it had happened. He had been a little boy... With no one to step in to help him; to stop him.

"Beckett?"

"Sorry, Espo. Yes, Castle. He's doing - ok."

"Good." Kate ran her fingers through her hair. Her eyes strayed to the office door as Espo went on. "I don't know how Castle puts up with shit like this without cracking heads. We've only had the press after us for a few days and I'm already thinking of going vigilante on their asses." Beckett grimaced. If only that were the extent of Castle's troubles. But that wasn't her story to tell and she wouldn't rob Castle of the little control he had over his life right now by telling it. That was for her partner to do, when he was ready.

"Espo. Carmichael?"

"Yeah, right. Not good news. Baxter still isn't saying a word. Nada. He's refused new counsel, but he's still not talking. And Carmichael is still coming up a blank."

"He's totally clean? Nothing at all? Nothing in his financials, his contacts? What about his lawyer?"

"No, Beckett: he's coming up blank. As in the guy doesn't seem to exist beyond a social security number - and that's not looking too legit, though we can't pin down anything solid yet. We've looked everywhere."

"Carmichael is an alias then."

"Looks like." There was a pause on the line. "Castle was right to pick him out like he did. It was a good call."

"Yes, it was," Kate answered, already thinking hard. His legal counsel had Carmichael out of the precinct before they could grill him, and they didn't have enough yet to compel him to return. Without Baxter's co-operation, it looked like they were going to lose hold on the man. She was in no doubt that Carmichael was not going to be around for much longer. If he wasn't already gone. "Is Ryan still on him?"

"Yeah. He checked in 20 minutes ago. Had eyes on the guy. So he's still in the City." Espo had read her mind, as he usually did.

"OK, keep on digging Espo. There has to be something. Where was he before arrived at the precinct? He must have come from somewhere. Someone must recognize him. Airport, car services, cab companies, did he stop somewhere for coffee? Clubs, bars, the usual. And how did he contact his lawyer? Someone must know him if he was called in to take control of Baxter. He didn't materialize out of thin air. What about the guys we brought in with Baxter?"

"One was D.O.A." Right yes, she remembered that now. (How could she forget that?) "And the other, guy, er, calling himself Bingo," Kate could feel Espo's eyebrows rising as reminded himself of the name," is scared as hell down in Holding. He's clammed up, quaking in his boots."

"But he's scared right? At least that's a reaction." It was more than the impassive Baxter was giving them. "Can you organize to have him brought back up to Interview first thing tomorrow." She looked at her watch. "I need some more time here, but I'll be back in before I head home."

"No problem. Hey, can you let Castle know we're thinking of him? What's happening, with the press, it - it ain't right."

"I will. Thanks Javier."

"No problem."

Kate thumbed the cell to terminate the call and breathed out. They were running out of time with this case. They had to dig harder. She pocketed her cell and headed back out into the loft to find her partner, and she found him in the kitchen staring at the espresso machine as it purred over a fresh batch of beans. He appeared lost in thought again. He had a lot to think about; they both did.

"Castle," she called as she approached, her voice louder than she would usually pitch it, but it wasn't until she was rounding the kitchen island that he looked up. His face was pinched again. He licked his lips.

"Beckett, I-" he started, drumming his fingers against the espresso machine, lips curling upwards into an expression he clearly didn't feel. She tensed, but at the last second Castle seemed to shy away from whatever was on his mind. "What did Espo say?" he asked instead. OK, she wouldn't push.

"Baxter is still not talking. And it looks like Carmichael is an alias. Apart from a suspect social security number, he's a ghost."

Castle nodded, "A fake I.D. for short term use only then. He must have expected to give Baxter his orders and disappear again." The writer paused, considering. His eyes sharpened as the lure of mystery took hold. "Someone hired him, or ordered him, to deliver this message, though. The same people who were running Baxter."

"Yeah." Kate nodded. "Though that doesn't really help because we don't know who they are." She paused, waiting to see if Castle would take the bait to provide her with a list of possible they's. He didn't. "What, no suggestions about who they might be?"

Castle smiled ruefully and shrugged a shoulder. He drew in a breath and winced, keeping his gaze downcast again at the little machine in his hands. "Look, Beckett, about Mother and Alexis. I- " He stopped, then started again. "I - can't tell them."

"Castle-"

"I can't. I know you asked me to, and I understand why, but I just can't." He looked up at her, eyes intense. "Not yet."

"I know you want to keep on protecting them Castle, but you have to tell them something. Knowledge is what will protect them. Understanding."

"I know and I will. Just not - just not everything. Not right now. I- I just can't." He huffed out a breath. "We can work it. You, me, the boys. We can work it without bringing Mother and Alexis any further into it. We can." Please, Beckett.

"All right," she acquiesced. For now. "I think you need to, but you have to be the one to make that decision."

"Thank you," he looked visibly relieved, shoulders drooping. "There's something else," he paused, "and I know there isn't enough to justify it officially, -" Castle's gaze left her suddenly, darting to the stairs and then upwards, before returning to her," and I could hire private security, but-"

"You're worried about the safety of the loft."

"Not the loft: what's in it," Castle said, eyes flicking upwards momentarily. "I've done everything I can to deal with what might happen, but right now I -"

"It's fine Castle, I'll talk to the uniforms on the door again. They won't let anyone in who isn't a resident."

"Thank you. Mother won't accept a bodyguard. I've tried. But I think I could get Alexis to accept-"

"Castle," Beckett interrupted, "how are you going to persuade your daughter to accept a bodyguard if you don't tell her what's going on?"

"I'm her father, she'll-"

"Freak out. Ask more questions. Refuse it. Try to investigate -"

"She's my daughter!"

"Exactly, Castle-"

"Fine. I'll tell her there've been some threats."

"You'll lie to her?"

"I won't be lying."

"Castle? What threats?"

"It's nothing I can't handle, Beckett. The usual crackpots, trolling for a reaction." He licked his lips. "Not it - him - the killer. None of it has mentioned - that - back - "

"Have you read it all to know that?" Kate demanded, horrified and angry at this new revelation.

"What do you think I have been doing all day?" he snapped back. Anger bristled from him, irrational and hot. In reaction, she drew a rein on her own outrage and horror and took a breath.

"Look, I don't need to tell you that the likelihood of the man you saw back then contacting you now is incredibly small. Apart from the span of years, he could be dead or already in custody for something else or too old to do anything. He might not yet even know about what has happened." She went for the kill. "He might even have forgotten about you right after you ran all those years ago, you must have considered that. But still... it should be looked at. I'll organize with the Captain-"

"No!" Castle snapped. "He'll want to know why."

"Castle-" she started, but stopped again when she registered the utterly implacable look in his eye. "It's enough that you have been threatened for us to look into it."

"But it's possible that he might send me a message, and then -"

"Well, then if he does, the resources will be made available immediately to protect you and your family Castle." She frowned at him. He wasn't thinking clearly at all. He was still viewing this through the prism of fear that he had been living in for decades. Still desperate to remain hidden. Struggling to keep what control he had. And the desperate habit of it all was blunting his usual sharp sense of reason. "Look, at least let us look at the mail you have received. If something turns up, I'll talk to you first."

He considered her words, then: "OK. OK. You'll talk to me first?"

"You have my word." She nodded at him as he raked his gaze over her, eyes sharp. He drew in a breath then, and nodded.

"I'll turn everything over to you. Gina can help with that. Tomorrow." He swallowed. "The coffee is almost ready. I -I think I want to do the statement now. About Baxter. I need a little time to not think. About. It."

"Sure," she nodded, knowing that for the rest of the night it was all he was going to be thinking about. He was obsessive when a thought took his attention. Another thing they shared in common. "I'll fetch the coffee cups. We can talk in your office."

She took his statement with as little fanfare or extraneous chit chat as she could manage. Castle was looking increasingly ragged, and she was sure he was supposed to take some of those pain pills of his and lie down, but he was being stubborn and hanging on until the end. No complaining. No whining. No suggestive requests for some nursing. It was unsettling.

Out of sheer habit, she was expecting him to become the 12 year old he loved to embody when he was in a mood to rile or get some extra attention, or maybe hide from too much attention.

Wait.

"Castle," she began carefully. "Come with me." She rose from her chair by the desk and held out her hand. He didn't move, but looked at her with curiosity dulled by fatigue. His eyes narrowed. "I have something to show you."

"Ookay." He drew the word out as he accepted her hand. His thick fingers curled around hers, warm and solid and she gently hauled him up out of the chair, mindful of his bruised knuckles. She looked up and saw that there was a tiny bemused smile on his lips, as he puzzled over her sudden act of mystery. He never could resist the lure of the unknown and went with her willingly as she tugged him forwards.

"We're going into my bedroom? Uh... Um...Beckett... This is not..."

"Hush!" she admonished, and ended up dragging him into the room and not stopping until they were both in front of the full length mirror that hung on the back of the door of his walk-in closet. She pushed him again until he was right in front of it, and peered around his arm to meet his gaze in the glass.

"Ookay, Beckett. You have my attention. What are we doing in here?" he asked, voice nervous under a thin veneer of bravado. "I've had dreams that started like this -"

"Castle, don't start. Now, look: what do you see?"

"Looking," he said after a moment, and shrugged. She could feel him start to tense up, nerves kicking in. He wasn't sure where this was going anymore, but she hadn't reacted to his smirk or throwaway line and that had clearly rattled him. "I see... Me, you. My bedroom. Uh, what do you -?"

"I see you, Castle."

"Huh?"

"Do you?"

"I'm hard of hearing Beckett, not needing glasses!" he retorted. She ignored the tone.

"You are not eleven anymore, Castle."

"I - Oh, I see. Beckett..." her partner managed to sound bemused and irritated at the same time. He shook his head: "I know that."

"No, I don't think you really do, Castle," she countered, feeling her own tension rise as she decided to put it all out there. " You've done a remarkable, incredible thing to survive, to protect your family, and thrive like you have. Despite everything that was thrown at you, here you are: healthy, strong, successful, and wealthy, with a family who loves you, friends... And not all that disagreeable to look at. And yes, I will still shoot you if you repeat that to anyone."

"Beckett-" He colored faintly at her words. She pushed on, ignoring his interruption for fear her own nerves would fail.

"You want to take on this murderer and solve what happened in the woods?" she asked, "well, so do I. And I am so honored and humbled, Castle, that you trusted me and opened up to me; asked me to help you. I won't let you down, and I won't let your family down. And I swear to you that if there is a way to catch this guy and put him away, I will find it. We will find it."

He was staring at her through the mirror, expression unreadable.

"But first you have to realize, you have to know, in here," she tapped his chest with a finger, pressed her hand over his heart, "that the time for defensiveness is over. You don't have to be the one who is hunted anymore. You don't have to play by his rules anymore. You don't have to hide. Anything. From anyone. Not anymore." She looked at him and held his gaze tight. "You aren't a little boy anymore, Castle.

"And you aren't alone."

He didn't speak. Didn't move. They stared at one another. She could feel his heart racing under her hand. He tried to speak, lips moving. Then stopped.

"I'm not asking you to say anything, Rick," she said after a moment. "I meant what I said, and I am just asking you to think on it. I'm asking you to really think on it."

"Okay," he nodded. He sounded quiet, in a way that he shouldn't. Or in a way that she wasn't used to, perhaps was more accurate. And he looked shell-shocked with exhaustion. The fine laugh lines around his eyes were creased with it.

"But not now. I think, if I remember rightly, your Dr Bloom wanted you to rest. You have some pills you are supposed to take?" Her words seemed to rouse him and he shook his head.

"Don't need them." His voice was rough. "It's fine Beckett. I'll just sleep."

"Relax, Castle, I won't stay around to witness the dopey fall out." She patted his chest, then suddenly realized how intimate their contact was, and pulled her hand away. Her own nerves flared. She swallowed, and pushed on, putting a lightness into her tone that she did not feel. Scuttling for some distance. "What did you do to that poor man anyway?"

"Poor man?" Castle retorted, following her rapidly back onto the firmer ground of their usual banter. "Poor man? Seriously, Beckett? Dr Bloom does not need anyone's sympathy."

"But what did you do to him? He was pretty clear that you did something to him - under the influence." She watched a spark come back into his eyes. His lips twitched with memory, trying to curl upwards despite his best efforts not to grin.

"I may have called someone. On his behalf."

"And -? Come on Castle, don't make me hurt you!"

"And maybe, just maybe, that person specializes in certain techniques in the area of relaxation."

"You called a prostitute? Castle!"

"Not a prostitute. A - a masseuse." He bit his lip, the nervous tension of the last few hours coming out in a grin that was rapidly becoming uncontrollable.

"Oh my god, you did: you hired him a prostitute."

"I was stoned. He seemed really uptight. One thing led to another..."

"He was right, you need to give me your cell phone before you take those pills."

"I'm not taking them Beckett." He sobered as he spoke.

"Castle."

"No. They make me say things. Do things. Not just to Dr Bloom." Oh, it clicked: he was talking about yesterday and his drugged ramblings. "It's not something I want to discuss. I really don't want to take them, but it will be ok, I'll just sleep. Right now I think I could sleep through the impact that killed the dinosaurs."

"It's up to you, Castle. Do you want me to stay for a bit longer?"

"No." He said. "No. It's ok. I'm just going to sleep, I think." He paused, and before she could react Castle spun around where he stood, and she was engulfed in a huge hug. Smothered might be a better word. His cologne was suddenly all around her, the warm scent unavoidable, its effects undeniable. "Thank you, Kate." She felt the heat of his breath in her ear, the rumble of his words in his chest. "Thank you." She hesitated, then slid her arms around his back and returned the embrace.

End Chapter

A/N: Thank you to my awesome beta, ebfiddler, without whom this story would be so much less than it is. Thank you for your continued support.

Thank you to all who are continuing to follow this story. Leave a review to let me know what you think!