Chapter 13

"You need-" The pitch of Castle's voice increased in a rather unmanly way, and he tried again, forcing his tone lower. "You need me to complete a task? Because I have contacts?" This had escalated from 'no time travel for you' to 'you were part of the plan all along' rather quickly, and he turned, narrowing his eyes at Houghton.

"Yes."

"But you said-"

Houghton tilted her head in apparent disregard. "White lie," she said. "Now, you and I will go and do what we need to do…" she trailed off. His eyes widened at her lack of clarity and the realization that the autocratic dictator, whom she had been when driving them around New York state, was no longer present.

There was something she wasn't telling them, and if he had to guess - he didn't think it was a guess, it felt like fact - Houghton herself was not entirely certain about the next part of the plan.

He grimaced. She had brought them here and she had no idea how she was going to manage the next part of the plan because, evidently, her programming was a hell of a lot more flawed than she'd wanted to let on. "Beckett and Alexis, stay here," she finished, her tone lacking the conviction that Beckett's had had every time she'd instructed him to stay in the car.

Castle snorted. Even radiating authority, Beckett had never been able to make him stay in the car; no way would Beckett concede to Houghton now.

"I think we'll come," Beckett said, standing, and he watched with a smirk as Alexis hauled herself up too, squaring her shoulders as she stood beside Beckett.

"Me too," she agreed, her soft voice belying the strength he knew to listen for.

He watched as Alexis chanced a glance at Beckett, his heart swelling with pride at the fortitude with which his little girl was carrying herself. Like his own, he knew his daughter's summer had been rough; her last before senior year, and he'd had every intention of babying his girl as much as she would allow. He'd planned to indulge in ice cream and laser tag, revel in the last of her childhood.

Instead, sunk deep by desolation, Castle had slunk around the loft, unable to pull out of the slump he'd found himself in. At least when he'd been at the precinct working the case with the boys he'd been able to push aside his personal fears, throw himself into the evidence. Since Iron Gates had ordered him away he'd been zombie-like in his interactions, finishing his book on autopilot and all but ignoring Alexis.

He smiled at her, willing the curve of his lips to push the smile into his eyes as well, moving toward her and wrapping an arm around her shoulders, pressing a kiss onto the crown of her head before relaxing his embrace.

Alexis had directed the anger that was rightfully his toward Beckett, a handful of snide remarks over the last few weeks the signs of quietly harbored bitterness for a woman thrown into a situation beyond her control.

If he was honest, he too, in his lesser moments, had resented Beckett.

How hard could it possibly be to pick up a phone?

Looking at her now, he thought he understood.

She would never be anything but beautiful to him; the stunning grace with which she held herself was enchanting even now, but she was a shadow. Her hair dull, her cheeks pale, she was far too skinny, and his heart cracked at the sight of her. Always a fantasy, the memory of her naked downstairs warmed his cheeks, but not from passion. The Kate Beckett he'd taken stock of in her post-time-travel nudity was not the lithe creature he'd spied in the bath nearly two years ago. No, this was shame that flooded his veins as he swallowed, realizing.

Kate Beckett was not okay.

And his daughter, bless her, had obviously come to the same conclusion, throwing encouraging glances Beckett's way as they stood together in the women's locker room, waiting for Houghton to make a move.

This was looking less and less like a plan and more like a suicide mission, and Beckett couldn't miss the hesitation in Castle's eyes. Even in the dim light, she could see that his stance no longer held the confidence he'd had earlier, and he was looking at Houghton differently.

He didn't trust her anymore.

He had, Beckett figured, forcing herself to build a white-board of facts in her mind. Even when he'd cradled Alexis, struggling with the ropes wrapped around her limbs, he'd regarded Houghton with respect as she'd burst through the door, and he'd had no misgivings when she'd started building whatever device it was that had forced them through time.

It was only now, in the precinct, that something had changed. What it was, she wasn't quite sure, but perhaps some of it was territorial. Even now, in 2016 - she snorted quietly - this was hers. This was theirs. She and Castle had spent years butting heads between these four walls, and she was damned if she was going to let a robotic copy of herself become wedged between them.

"We're all going," Beckett said, glaring at Houghton, and the machine nodded, conceding to her. Good. End of days or not, no one was going to take charge of her here. Not in her home. "Tell us what we need to know. No games. No lies, no half-truths."

She swallowed. Half-truths.

Kate, I love you. I love you, Kate.

I'll call you, okay?

Lies. She was swimming in them.

She was drowning.

"Okay." Houghton threw a glance at Castle again and Kate's jaw dropped as she interpreted the look on the machine's face. Did Castle know that Houghton was in love with him? Kate shook her head, trying to clear the thought. That was ridiculous. Houghton was a machine. No more than a programmed body. She couldn't fall in love.

Could she?

"It's 2016," Houghton continued, and Beckett dropped her own gaze, bringing her thumb to her mouth and gnawing on the nail. "And the resistance is just in its infancy. There are whisperings. Rumblings. Names and rumors. And in 2016, time travel is just an idea. The machines are here, the first and second generation. The third is being built." She looked again at Castle, waiting for encouragement of some kind, and he nodded.

"Houghton's the third generation," he clarified. "Very advanced." His eyes flashed. "Practically unkillable."

"But you know how," she reminded him, and Beckett watched his Adam's apple bob as he swallowed. He knew how to kill her? Good to know. That was a piece of information she wanted. "In 2016, there are a number of work camps. For humans. Castle - you all - need to get in, and get a couple of people out."

"Which people?" Alexis asked.

"The leaders of the first resistance." Houghton smiled, but the curve on her lips was foreign on her mouth, more of a grimace. "The people who hacked into the mainframe. The people who hacked… me."

"So… the good guys?" Alexis clarified, and Houghton squared her shoulders.

"That's right. We need to break them out and bring them some of the machines. They need to be kept safe, they're going to reverse engineer the machines so they can figure out how to reprogram us."

The humans were making her head spin. Dealing with Castle had been one thing, and she'd delved deep into the recesses of her borrowed memories to figure out how Beckett handled him, but being faced with Alexis and Beckett on top of her already overloaded program was sending her over the edge.

Generation three was meant to be infallible. Generation four would be functional by 2020 - although there was still time to stop that - but she wished, just for a second, that she was fourth gen. Twice the processing power wouldn't hurt right about now.

Houghton sighed, inhaling and letting the oxygen make its way into her system; it did nothing for her, of course, but Beckett's memories overrode her own knowledge, and she let the conditioning do its job.

In spite of her metal frame, wires instead of circulatory system, she felt herself relax, and with renewed calm, she flipped through several of her programs, killing those that were unnecessary the way Beckett would kill the apps on her phone when it slowed down, started to overheat.

Of course, Castle had always been a model or two ahead of her, phone wise - he loved gadgets - and he'd always laughed at her, insisted he'd buy her a new cell. Beckett had always rolled her eyes at the unnecessary technology upgrades, but after they-

No.

That hadn't happened yet.

"Where is this camp?" Castle asked, and it didn't escape Houghton that he wasn't meeting her eyes as he asked, looking instead at Beckett with concern. He was worried about her. Worried that she was too fragile? Houghton pursed her lips together, remembering just how weak Beckett had felt that summer, how unprepared she'd been the day she walked back into the precinct. The replication of Beckett's sinking feeling when she learned Castle had been kicked out of the team was overwhelming.

"Close," she said. "We can walk. We should go while it's still dark. But we need weapons."

"They'll let us in with weapons?" Alexis asked, her eyes wide, and Houghton shrugged.

"We'll be fine."

"And I suppose we're getting the weapons here?" Beckett asked, annoyance radiating off her, and Houghton nodded.

"Yes. A lot of places were looted, of course, but the police stations were manned up until the end, so the storage room back on the homicide floor will be fine." Houghton forced herself to throw more confidence in her voice than she felt; being a machine didn't make her all-knowing, and she knew better than anyone here just how easily the past could be changed.

Never mind. If they got this right, they'd make a big difference. The resistance that had built the programs that had hacked the AI mainframe had been good. If Castle pulled this off, they'd be a hundred times better. She might not exist next time around. If everything went right, none of the robots would.

The pang she felt at the idea of nothingness was foreign, and she swallowed, whirling around and beckoning the others to follow her back down the stairs.

Alexis found herself throwing uneasy glances from Houghton to Beckett and back again. They were the same, but they weren't. Beckett was smaller, and in spite of herself, a wave of sympathy rushed through her; no wonder Kate hadn't been in touch with her father over the summer.

The reality was brutal, but unavoidable; Detective Beckett had been wounded, and like an injured animal, had retreated to lick her own wounds. The animosity that had been eating at Alexis all summer dissolved as she watched Beckett shift her attention between her father and her robot counterpart. Before, she'd seen Detective Beckett as faultless, as an ally in her own battle to keep her father grounded.

She was more than that, and Alexis clenched her teeth, irritated by the childish views she'd held until now. Detective Beckett was a person, no more or less deserving of compassion than anyone else. What Alexis had always seen as a calm and collected exterior was nothing more than a protective shell, and it came to her in a flash, the truth in the realization blinding in its certainty.

Her father was the only one Kate had ever let in.

She wondered if he knew, or whether he thought he was still on the outside of her walls.

A crash from downstairs had the four of them freezing in place on the staircase. Houghton, ahead of the others, glanced back at them all, her finger on her lips as she unnecessarily shushed them, before continuing on with tentative steps. "Quickly," she whispered as they followed her, filing across the exposed floor to the weapons room.

Houghton twisted the handle, breaking the lock with a crash that rivaled the sound that had come from a floor below, no doubt alerting whoever - whatever - was down there, and Alexis flinched, letting her father usher her into the room and taking the semi-automatic pistol that Houghton handed her.

She stared at it, her fingers wrapping around the barrel, its weight heavy and unfamiliar in her hands, before looking up. Beckett chose her own weapons, stuffing one gun into the waistband of her jeans, grabbing a holster and clipping another to it, and selecting a third that she held, her grip relaxed as though she did this every day.

She might have, but her father didn't. Yet he, too, was apparently as comfortable as Beckett, checking the cartridge of each weapon calmly and efficiently.

Alexis swallowed. Her hands were shaking, and she set her gun back down on the table, gripping the edge of the counter as she struggled to stay upright, fought to take deep breaths and calm herself.

2016 sucked.

She should have stayed in the Hamptons.

A/N: Are we are still surviving the wait until Monday?! Thank you to everyone who is reading this while we wait! And thanks Kylie and Jamie for the beta read! x