Dusk is creeping upon them again. With every downward inching of Apollo's iconic sphere a quiet foreboding is gathering within Beckett. It's only seven. There are still a couple hours before the day is tucked in beneath a sable, celestial-patterned quilt. It marks the twenty-fourth hour since Kate spilled the first secret which started them on this course.

Part of her wonders now what would have happened if she hadn't. Would Richard Castle have left the precinct and slowly, inexorably, her life as well? Maybe they're too caught up in this thing of theirs by now. Perhaps even if he had left they would have eventually come back around to one another later like planetary bodies locked in orbit. Not like fate, she reminds herself, but choices made subconsciously in the pursuit of something..special.

One full day is so brief a span—barely worth mentioning really. Probably not enough to be entertaining thoughts of 'them' as an irrevocable force of any kind. It feels like more than mere hours though.

Her intent was to open a doorway for both of them, as if stepping between rooms. Instead it feels like they exited out into a wide open vista complete with an ocean view. Montauk is a world apart. Amidst its quiet charm they are basically all one another has, all the other needs. Even the wildfire of time has relented some in its voracious consumption. It feels like ages since the first time his fingers slid among hers, since he feathered her lips with that intimate signature of his kiss. They're both already more than either knew.

No. That's not entirely accurate. The man she left the city with is strikingly close to what she'd imagined as a younger woman, when the only knowledge of him she bore was gleaned between the covers of his book jackets. The way Rick has been here is no less than she would expect from the man who waded through the dark rivers of the human heart with her, who in doing so assuaged the immutable torment of her mother's murder. It used to take a difficult case or his daughter's presence to glimpse the adult within her shadow. That nine-year-old on a sugar rush didn't follow them out here. Oh, he's no less willing to play with her, which she loves, but he's also quieter, calmer, self-assured rather than self-possessed. Only the way he watches her feels entirely familiar; that eerie sense of being truly beheld. There's no specific expectation in those blue eyes, only genuine interest in whatever she might do next.

Now more than ever Kate is consumed by the need to learn what happened to him. All of it.

Part of that is for Castle's sake, to make him feel the way she does under that heart-stuttering kind of scrutiny, and to let him know she values him for the darkness and the light. Part is for her too though. Beckett needs to see him in the aftermath of their cards being laid upon the table. There's an element of undeniable fear attached to that. After experiencing him this way, she doesn't want to go back to how it was before. So, the question has become: is he like this because of this place, because of whatever happened to him here? Or is this the real Richard Castle caught with his playboy facade lowered the way her own version of a mask has been slipping?

Twenty-four measly hours—hardly anything at all. But the thought of this stopping...

"I'm a little scared," Kate hears herself say aloud in a rare admission. It's quiet, but emerges steadier than she feels.

"Me too," comes the reply from her right. She turns her head some, lured by the same quiescence of Rick's deeper timbre. He's facing south towards the coast. From that angle the waning daystar presents a glowing line along his profile. Half of him is awash in that crisp light while the other half, facing her, is a gloom of tense masculinity. A white button-down shirt houses his upper half, though only latched to mid chest. The sleeves are tugged onto his forearms. A pair of khaki slacks contain the lower, the cuffs likewise rolled a couple times onto his calves. "We're just getting started," he adds, and watches his own fingertips release and curl again around the edge of the chair arm. "I don't want to stop."

Beckett can't look at him like that—raw and wanting it. It's too stark a reflection of herself. Never mind the fact that he just plundered her thoughts straight from her head. "What you want to tell me can't be that bad," she volleys, but even to her ears the words ring feebly on the spring air. She clears her throat, shifts with discomfort where she rests, and tries again with the strict truth for her part. "It is terrible. I can see that much. It's not like something out of Stand By Me; you didn't stumble across a body in the woods. You...saw someone in the act, didn't you?"

It takes a long second before he turns to look at her. There's no other semblance of an answer.

"Yeah," she expels on a whisper, otherwise motionless amidst the connection of their gazes, as he seems to be. "In the act, but not something quick and neat. You watched someone savor it." Castle turns away again, but his features are paler and his lips are parted in a successful effort to control his breathing. "A man," she concludes, "who killed a woman. I used to think having a daughter put that look on your face when those kinds of cases came along. I'm sure that's part of it. But there's this piece of history attached to that too, isn't there?"

"It wasn't a woman," Castle replies evenly, rising from the chair. She feels knots of tension being tied in her guts as he descends the stairs out onto the grass, but he isn't going far, merely exiting the shadows of the deck in favor of standing in the fullness of the dwindling light. Even though Kate is sitting less than twenty feet from him the author looks very much alone and uncharacteristically vulnerable. "It was five of them."

Oh God, no. A serial killing?

Time seems to contort itself again around the minor eternity it takes for her to find the will to ask an even more difficult question. "When did this happen to you?"

"It was the summer of seventy-five."

Six years old.

Beckett vacates her chair in a rush with a scrape of the legs upon the floorboards. It's an involuntary flinch of grief and disgust. She sucks down a noisy breath and abandons the deck to join him. "Castle..." She pauses at his right side. He doesn't look at her, but doesn't shy away either as her hand rises to stroke across his brow and comb back through his hair. His right arm stirs, hesitates, and then slides around the circumference of her waist.

"It is a terrible story," he says, "but it's also ancient history. That's what I want you to keep in mind tonight if you can. I lose people over this because they hear what happened and it changes how they see me, as if I'm no longer the same person." Castle smooths a circle between her scapula with his hand at her back. "I am though."

Kate has been mulling over this situation since the drive out here, but especially over the past few hours. His assurances now make it sound simple enough. But if Rick was right about them coming here and being able to pull this off, if he was right about so many things... It certainly paints his former dread in a more perilous light. She's staving off a flutter of queasiness by telling herself that there is a precedent at work here. He's learned to expect the worst. Kyra didn't have the benefit of Kate's experience though, in life or on the job with the NYPD. As for Castle, he's not infallible. He intuits her with startling accuracy at times, but he doesn't know her. Not really. Not yet. It's a serial killing for heaven's sake; it's perfectly normal to be shy about discussing it. It doesn't mean she'll prove his fears right by freaking out somehow.

"It's not too late, you know." She startles inwardly at the depth of his voice emerging again. "We can hop into the car right now, take a drive. We can do anything else you want to do."

Not yet, she muses in reiteration, but goodness he's closing in on me fast.

"I need to know, Castle." The words are almost as much for herself as they are for him. In the wake of them she feels a little less nervous and more impatient to get at this thing. The wait is only making it worse. "I know you're worried. I'm...feeling some anxiety myself right now. But we don't run, do we? Have we ever?"

He looks away again, lips pursed briefly in consideration. "We haven't, no, but that doesn't mean there aren't enemies or situations out there worthy of retreating from. Do you imagine it would lessen us to withdraw or defer in such circumstances?" The rhetorical question is valid, but it's the last thing she needs to hear right now.

That first step being the doozy it was, they are still recovering and processing together when a pair of headlights flashes across the grounds ten minutes later. She turns. He doesn't.

"That'll be John Autry, the police Sergeant I mentioned yesterday. The case files don't leave the lock-up where they're stored. Visitors have to go to them, no exceptions, and he's agreed to chaperon."

Beckett sighs quietly again. The last thing she wants is to share this with someone else, let alone strangers. "There are parts you can't talk about? Is that why other people need to be a part of this?"

"'Can't' is the optimal word," Castle replies evenly. "I've tried to hang onto it all over the years, but some is faded now, some gone entirely. And then some of it was never actually kept in the first place. There are blank spots in my mind even though I was there. I know the women involved. I had to know them," he adds, almost inaudibly in the ambient noise of early evening. "But there's also a lot of information I was never able to dig into."

He leans just slightly into her when she curls her arms around his shoulders and rests her forehead lightly against his chest. She lays a kiss into the shallow pectoral valley, nestled between the lapels of his shirt amidst the smell of fresh laundry and underlying scent of him. "You're not coming with us, are you?" Castle doesn't offer anything more than a stroke of her hair, which is answer enough. "It's going to be a while. Will you be okay alone?"

"I'll give you my cell to take with you. Call if you have any questions, or just...want to."

Drat, that's right. She hurled hers into the waves earlier. Castle actually found it after a bit of snorkeling, but it's still pulled apart and drying out inside, which may or may not be enough to see it functional again.

A creak of the deck has her looking up and both of them turning.

Beckett tenses, alarmed to find the new addition not only arrived, but having approached to the top of the stairs several feet from them before arousing attention. He stands around Castle's height, maybe 6'2" with a similar medium build. Hues of dusk lay a fiery reflection across a smoothly shaved head. It emphasizes a hawkish brow marked by thick eyebrows and the matching blackness of a long goatee about his full mouth and strong chin. The imposing man's olive-toned complexion is testament to the waning potency of the Native American bloodline from whence he came. He's dressed in uniform blues with the hat held in both large hands. It rises some along with an open palm in a mute indication of peaceful intentions.

Castle lowers his arms and steps apart some, looks from their company to Kate and back again. He introduces them with a lift of his hand in indication. "Sergeant John Autry, Detective Second-Grade Katherine Beckett, NYPD."

The note of formality is outshone only by the obvious pride her shadow exudes on her behalf. It's sweet. She starts to correct him despite that, to offer her given name as being enough, but the chill vacancy apparent in the other man's dark eyes leaves the offer of familiarity stuck in her throat. She watches their visitor's head dip in a grave nod, nothing more, and decides against it. With some people respect is more important than friendliness.

"Sergeant," she returns evenly, retreating behind the mask of professionalism.

They linger in cool silence for a few awkward seconds.

Rick sighs quietly. "Like a band-aid then." He regards John and says, "I only spoke of the basics. No names, few details, and she's not independently familiar with the case. It's from square one, as before." As with Kyra, Beckett tacks on mentally, and purses her lips briefly. So the Sergeant played tour guide then too? He must know how that ended. Damn. Small wonder his reception towards her is so aloof. He must be expecting the worst to occur to Castle again. Kate slides hers fingers among Rick's. They curl into hers without hesitation.

"No time to waste," John says, the first he's spoken. The voice is a smooth-flowing tenor. "We'll start with the case files, branch out from there as far as is needed." As far as is needed. In other words: until she runs away screaming. Normally that might be an insulting insinuation, but under the circumstances the detective's pride has taken a step back and left the specter of grim expectation as her vanguard. "I'm parked out front," the officer informs Beckett, and leaves.

She arches an eyebrow as he goes and faces Castle when the sound of the front door has closed. "Wow."

"He's slow to thaw," her companion provides. "But he's a fine man, Beckett, and a good cop."

"He cares about you," she returns mildly. "I'm surprised you'd ask him to show me around given what happened last time. You're kinda putting him in the role of executioner for your heart. Can't be easy."

Castle tilts his head at her, smiles with unexpected breadth. He eases into her for an agreeably firm embrace. "I've never asked him to, and for the reason you've already surmised. Remember, it was his father's case. It's become something of a dark legacy. I don't think he trusts anyone else to tell it right." Her eyes close as he strokes through her hair again. "Someone else in your shoes might have only seen him being rude to them. You're pretty amazing yourself, Kate."

There's that familiarity of her first name, but on his lips it emerges on the hush with which a taboo might be whispered, charged with forbidden eroticism. She nestles her face into the crook of his neck, breathing him in and wishing for the first time since leaving the city that they had come merely for pleasure.

It's a brief inner protest and doesn't linger when she withdraws enough to meet his gaze. Direct rays of sunlight elicit vibrancy from every fleck and splinter of available pigment in his expressive orbs. They scatter the fallen leaves of her misgivings and lay bare the long thoroughfare of her conviction. He's the blue of the sky above the courthouse steps after the fresh administration of justice, the color of one flawless raindrop clinging to a blue aster in the window boxes of her childhood home, the color of Manhattan's sister rivers hurrying to join the mighty Atlantic.

The curves of his mouth come together below the gems of her fascination, his eyebrows furrowing above. She's concerned him by the hesitation spent drinking him. "I've put you in just as tricky a situation, haven't I? There may not be a uniform in your case, but there is a typically stylish professionalism, heels and coats. Peeling away the layers today was a pretty stark reminder that there's flesh beneath it, supple, pliant, and vulnerable." His free hand rises and slides over the roundness of her shoulder to perch at the curve of her neck. "I know you can do this. But you may stop at any point. No one—and I do mean no one—who worked this case back then emerged out the other side entirely whole. I would be happier knowing it's not haunting one more person than I would be to know you see me even a little more clearly."

"I would rather see clearly than be content in obliviousness." He knows better. It's written into him. But she doesn't let him dwell on the matter any longer. Beckett reaches for him with a cupping of her hands and tip-toes to lay her lips upon his. It's a merger or comfort more than passion with slow, mind-sizzling caresses. They pause and hover with their mouths touching for a breath of air two different times before finally coming fully apart again.

Kate lowers with reluctance even then, smooths a hand at his chest in silent parting, and claims a girding breath as she strides through the house. She grabs his cell, her weapon and badge wallet. The sound of the front door latching in her wake is so coldly metallic compared to the memory of his warmth that it induces a minute cringe of her shoulders and a shiver that climbs down the ladder of her spine.

John meets her gaze with stoic patience where he stands at the driver's side door of a police unit Ford F-150 with a short bed and crew cab. Neither says a word to the other. She climbs in when he unlocks it, buckles up without being able to tear her gaze from the house. Castle emerges through the front door just as the headlights come to life. At that moment he's the lone speck of familiarity in the world.

She's so often solitary in the life she's built for herself, but there hasn't been an overabundance of time to lament that fact. Watching him watch her leave with a stranger sitting nearby, their destination some new field with a fresh crop of horrors... It is the most poignant stab of loneliness she's felt in recent memory.


A/N: Ugh. So sorry for the delay you guys. It's been a perfect storm of technical difficulties and distraction here lately, not the least of which was discovering a happy heap of videos from the Castle Fanfic Stream Convention. I'm bummed I missed it in progress! Thanks to everyone who participated, and to Esther for spearheading the festivities. You're awesome.

Also, I got a call from John a couple days ago, which is kinda creepy considering how long its been and what with me starting up writing again recently. Anyway, I was given a reading of the riot act for starting this story and not taking over the reins and finishing Promises in C-Minor. It's true we plotted a lot of Castle mythology together. Also fair to say our 'monozygotic' writing styles would make for a relatively easy hand-off. Now I'm in a damned quandary... Do I finish this, or that one? Doing both feels too much like repeating myself. Ourselves, rather.

I'm still puzzling the issue, but I would greatly appreciate any thoughts on the matter from you guys.