a.n. I totally forgot to do this last time. Thank you guys so much for all the kind reviews and alerts! You're all lovely and talented people, and you make my day. I make such a scene laughing like a 12 year old girl every time I get a review. I'd say it's embarrassing (especially since I'm a 30 year old dude) if I wasn't so damn happy. So thank you.

This chapter takes a hard left turn at the end, so I hope you don't hate where I left it.

Disclaimer: If I owned Castle, Season 8 would be in the bag. So would Seasons 9 through 20. It should never end. I want it all. Alas, I do not own Castle.

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Chapter Ten

Previously…

"I'll be fine if you make your shot count. I don't see another way out of this do you? Two bullets isn't enough to get past him, and we haven't called for backup yet, who knows if Diana called 911. So there might not be any help coming. If we're going to live, we have to do this," he said determinedly. "Ready?" he asked, shaking the bottle. No, she thought, but nodded anyways.

"This is your last warning," Baylor said.

"Now!" Castle shouted, standing up and popping the cork. Beckett, taking advantage of the distraction manages to shoot Baylor twice in the chest, but not before he got off a couple shots of his own.

She holstered her gun and then looked over to where she expected to see Castle standing. He wasn't there. "Castle?" She said rushing around the corner of the counter. "Castle!"

xxxx

"Castle!" Kate shouted as she fell to her knees. Looking him over for injuries as her heart threatened to explode. She saw the bullet lodged in his vest, right above his heart. Thank god we wore our vests, she thought. Lightly slapping his face, she said, "Castle. Come on wake up, you're going to be fine."

He started to stir and his face scrunched up in pain. Opening his eyes he said, "Beckett? What happened?"

"You took a bullet, you idiot. I told you that you were going to get shot. Do you have any idea how much paperwork I'm going to have to do now?"

He looked down at his chest and spotted the bullet lodged in his vest. "Good thing I got this vest. Sorry about the paperwork. I'll help if I can," he said. She looked into his eyes and realized that he was being honest. Well that's new. The old Richard Castle wouldn't touch paperwork with a ten foot stick, she thought.

"I'll hold you to that. Now let's take a look and see if you broke anything. Off with your vest and shirt," she said, gesturing to his chest as she spoke.

He sat up and stripped off both his vest and shirts. Kate held her breath. Wow. She couldn't help but stare. This Richard Castle was…buff. "Do you work out, Castle?"

He looked up, confused. "Huh?"

"Do you work out? That is not a writer's physique," she said, blushing.

"Oh. Yeah. I...uh…use exercise to calm my mind when I can't write. So what's the verdict, did I break anything," he said, drawing her attention to the bruise forming on the upper half of his chest.

Cautiously she reached her hand out and felt around the bruise, checking to see if any of the ribs underneath had any give to them. "They don't feel broken, so that's good. But it's going to hurt like hell." At first she had been distracted by his muscled chest, but as she calmed her nerves she spotted two scars just above his abdomen. "Are those…?"

He noticed where she was pointing. "Yeah. The knife was a military grade weapon and tore me up. Doctors said I shouldn't have lived, but I did," he said, as he started to put his shirts back on. "I wish that…" he shook his head and finished getting redressed.

"Wish what?" she said, not knowing if she wanted the answer.

"It should have been me. I know it would have been bad for her, but she should have lived, not me."

"Oh, Rick," she started, but what should she say? She knew he carried a lot of guilt around for what happened to his daughter. "I know you feel guilty, but it wasn't your fault, okay?"

He nodded, then stood up. He reached down for her hand and helped her up. Her breath caught again when their skin connected. Letting go of his hand quickly, as she didn't trust herself not to do something foolish like kiss him, she pulled out her phone and called dispatch to send CSU, the ME and backup. She learned that there were already units on the way due to a 911 call at the same address.

"We'll have company soon," she said. He nodded, then walked to the closed bedroom door and knocked.

"Diana, you can come out now, it's safe."

xxxx

After the boys arrived, she and Castle stood out in the hallway in front of Diana Edwards' apartment. The ME had already taken Baylor's dead body away, which is something that hadn't happened the first time around. She had been looking for the differences in this case, and she had found them. It could have been so much worse, she thought as she leaned back against the wall. She remembered standing in this exact same spot the time before. She had been so sure that Castle was going to kiss her. She had wanted him to kiss her, even then when she kind of hated him a little bit. She didn't hate him now.

"Thank you, Castle," she said, suddenly.

"For what," he asked, turning away from watching the CSU techs analyze the scene.

"Saving my life," she responded with a shy grin.

"We're partners, that's what partners are supposed to do, right?"

"Still. Thanks."

He gave her a small smile and said, "You're welcome, of course. Listen, want to grab some food? I'm starving. Guess I used up a lot of calories saving your ass," he said, smirking.

"Yeah. I figured you wouldn't last long before you started rubbing that in my face," she said, shaking her head.

"Seriously? Listen to that sentence. You said 'wouldn't last long,' then you said, rubbing that and face in the same sentence. How can a guy not say something inappropriate when you say stuff like that?"

"Most guys are mature."

He snorted as they started to walk back towards the elevator. "I'm plenty mature, thank you very much. And you notice, I didn't actually make the comment, I just pointed out how prone to misinterpretation your sentence was."

"Ahh. I see. So you were just doing your duty as, what exactly? The grammar police?"

"Nah. They wouldn't let me in the grammar academy because I'd outshine every single person there. It'd be embarrassing."

As they got in her car and started to make their way towards Remy's, they continued to banter back and forth. It wasn't the same as it had been before with the other Richard Castle. He still made her laugh, but it just seemed more grown up than it was before. She liked it.

"How's your chest," she asked as they pulled up to the diner.

"Sore, but I've felt worse. It'll be fine. Probably will put some ice on it when I get back to the loft," he said, running a hand over his chest.

"I'm sorry that that happened," she said, getting out of the car.

"Not your fault. I should've ducked. I'm an idiot. I'm just happy nothing worse happened. You would have had so much more paperwork if I hadn't been wearing the vest," he said, holding the diner's door open for her.

"Tell me about it."

When their meals arrived, their conversation fell off into a comfortable silence. She knew that this day had been hard on him, what with Meredith showing up and then taking a bullet. All she wanted to do was make all the pain go away, but she knew they weren't there yet.

"So you liked the book," he asked after finishing his shake.

"I loved it, it was fantastic. Probably the best thing you've ever written."

She could see the blush working its way up his neck and smiled, loving that he could have such a reaction to her words. "Thank you."

"What did your publisher think of it?"

"They like it a lot. Already working on language for a three book deal, though I'm not supposed to know about that. My agent has an inside source," he explained after seeing her face. "I…Since I'm going to keep writing Nikki, is it okay if I keep shadowing you?"

"Of course," she said, maybe a bit too eagerly. "We make a good team. How long do you think you'll stick around for?"

He shrugged. "It'll take me quite a while to write three full novels, and I won't start on the next one until I know for sure they want them, so I won't know for a while. But it could be a couple years. I always take some time between novels to think about the direction I want to go, especially with a new character. Say I start writing the next one in a couple months, it'd take me about a year and half to write the three, though most of that would be downtime, editing and such. Since Alexis died I've become a much faster writer. I thought that Black Pawn would pull a Patterson and have me write several books a year, but they seem to be okay with one a year from me." He looked down and cleared his plate of the last French fry, then looked back up at her. "I've thought about doing another series in tandem with the Heat series. It'd give me something to do in those down times when I'm waiting for editing to get done on my previous novel."

Finishing her own meal, she asked "Do you have any ideas for another series?"

"A couple. I've always wanted to do a Derrick Storm prequel series, which would explain more about his origin. Then I have an idea set about 500 years in the future."

"Jumping into Sci-Fi, Castle?"

"Maybe," he said, throwing her a grin, and calling for the check.

As they were leaving the diner, and preparing to go their separate ways, Castle asked, "Do you think I should have more than one vest made up?"

"Don't bother. I'm going to get you one of ours. You're not a cop, but you have that consultant's badge so it shouldn't be a problem. I'll ask Montgomery. If he says no then you can have another made up."

He nodded and gave her a smile. "I hope not to make a habit of getting shot. Just getting hit in the vest hurts like hell."

"I know," she said. "Please don't do it again. The paperwork is already going to be a bitch."

"Yeah, sorry. I'll help when I come in tomorrow if you want,"

"Sure." Stepping by the driver side door of her cruiser she turned back and said, "Thanks for dinner, Rick. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Have a nice evening detective," he said, waving as he made his way to a clear spot on the curb to call a cab.

xxxx

It had been on the back of her mind for weeks now, but she could no longer ignore it. She had been so focused on establishing - or at least laying the ground work for - a relationship with Castle that she thought she could just wait for a while until she could focus on it completely. But she had to do it now. It was distracting her and it needed to be out of the way so she could truly put her focus on what mattered: Castle.

She had to do this. She had to solve it. She just hoped that there wouldn't be any surprises waiting for her along the way. Bracken had to go down.

xxxx

a.n.2. Don't think of it as a cliff hanger, think of it as set up for the next chapter. Review please.