Beckett couldn't read Rick's face; it was dark. His voice was the careful monotone of someone explaining something simple to someone…who was also simple. "When you take me home tonight, I will show you the doc on my smartboard. It's pretty much the same as the murder board you have at home on your mom."

"So?" That he had a version of her mother's case queued up was no surprise. After this long, it didn't even seem like an invasion of privacy.

"By 'pretty much,' I mean it also has all I could figure out from the very, very little Roy told me the night he made me come take you out of there." He paused. "The day before Roy died, he mailed some files to someone — I don't know to whom, but they were evidence against whoever it is really behind all this, the name Montgomery wouldn't give you —"

"McCallister's 'Dragon' —"

"Way too much credit. Not a dragon: a murderous, string-pulling sniper-using chicken. He's just a Big Bad."

"Bad enough."

"And big enough. Roy had paper on him, maybe Lockwood didn't know — but you were safe until you started investigating your mother's death again. We hit a dead end when we lost Coonan."

'Lost' was one way to put it, Kate supposed. -blood on the station floor, blood on her hands, warm body, no pulse-

"They must have tapped Raglan's phone. He stirred things up getting in touch with you, and the Bad sent Lockwood after him. I'd like to know what hold he had on McCallister: he never talked, even though he was sent to prison. He thought he was safe, until The Big Bad got Lockwood out, and he went to McCallister's cell and killed him."

"We know all that, Castle."

"I'm getting to the point. Not long after you came back to the precinct, the man who has Roy's evidence called me and explained that you were safe only so long as you stayed away from your mother's case. Or, you know, not just your mother's, the rest of them too. The attempt on your life, the shooting, was made while no one had the evidence in hand. I guess this guy —called himself Mr. Smith— received the files and put the fix back in, so you were safe. He seemed to think no one would threaten you unless you provoked them. I have to assume Smith has some culpability himself or why not just publish Roy's evidence?"

Whatever lightheartedness Kate had gained earlier was gone. She was raw from crying. This news didn't just remind her of her losses; it brought the case alive, into the car with them. "You still haven't finished, have you?"

"No, it gets worse. The same guy called me while we were investigating Laura Cambridge, the woman in the mayor's charity. He's the one who told me to listen for evidence. He told me there were 'forces at play.' I couldn't get him to be any more specific, but framing Weldon wasn't just about spiking his chances of being governor. And I'm pretty sure the Big Bad was behind that lawyer coming to shut Jordan Norris's mouth."

"That story Laura Cambridge wanted to tell, the one she died for — it was about him. The Big Bad."

"Probably." They sat there for a few minutes in the dark.

"And this is on your version of my mother's murder board., and you haven't told me."

"What am I supposed to tell you? 'Hey Kate, I've been taking calls from a shadowy figure who wants to keep you off your mother's murder case, so they don't kill you, too?' "

"That would have done just fine."

"You haven't had a history of being particularly rational about this case."

"What do you think! They killed my mother and Jennifer Stewart, Diane Cavanaugh, and Scott Murray twelve years ago, and, and Roy, they shot me, they silenced Laura Cambridge and Jolene Grainger, and they ruined your buddy the mayor's career!" She knew all their names. She would have recognized them on the street if they passed.

"And before they shot you, or Roy, they blew Raglan away in front of us and offed McCallister in jail and your father came and begged me to get you off the case. Before they came for Roy! Before he died trying to keep you safe. Before you bled out in my arms." Rick's voice was shaking now. "No. There's no reason for you to be rational about this case. But you said maybe you could let it be for awhile. I can't not ask you to lay off. Ask your father."

"My father…is not my partner." Kate tried to pick her words, but it was hard, since she didn't know what she wanted. "I need… different things from you."

"Don't ask me to help you die."

The words sat in the air for a long time. I'm too tired too fight about this now, Kate thought."I've thought about that."

"I know."

"Not assisted suicide—"

"I know," Rick said again. "Probably not suicide as such at all, just one day failing to step all the way out of the path of a truck. Or, maybe, not quite drawing your gun soon enough. Or maybe giving up a little sooner if your car went underwater. Just drawing a little farther back from of your life." I should be getting really angry and yelling at this point,Kate thought. She was too tired. Rick went on. "Maybe avoiding undoing a little mess in time to keep it from getting bigger."

"You're offering me an out?" Incredulity drew the words out longer.

"It's not much of an out. 'Wilful neglect while the balance of her mind was disturbed'? I didn't think you'd admit it, though- that you might think about dying."

"I haven't to, anyone else. Kovalic asks me if I ever think about hurting myself and of course I don't do that."

"Of course you don't." His voice was heavy with sarcasm. And —grief? Kate put her hand on Rick's arm. He didn't jerk away, but he didn't lean in, either. "You also don't actually take a potato peeler and use it on my heart, or Lanie's or Espo or anyone's. I didn't think there's enough of mine left to fry, but what a surprise." Her hand on him tightened and he batted it away. "Nobody's life is their own, Kate, and yours less than most. If this case is so damned important you should be taking better care of yourself, not worse."

"I'm tired of fighting it." Yet another unspeakable thing, said out loud

Castle's entire shape transformed into alertness. "Hospital, now—"

"No! I meant the case. Stand down!"

"Jesus," Rick said with unmistakeable fervor. "And I mean like praying, Kate, please." Castle shuddered. "I am not joking when I say you're not the only one whose stress levels are doing her harm. Not joking. Not being funny. Actually, your stress levels are doing me harm."

"You said that sometime earlier, that I was killing you in ways I didn't intend."

"There are so many things about love that are really scary and last so much longer than death. Like living."

I don't want to cry anymore tonight, Kate thought, her eyes filling up.

"The hardest thing to do in this world is to live in it," Rick said after a moment. "That's why your shrink wants you to feel, wants you to stop and smell the roses and feel the thorns. Because otherwise they're just the same as the roses. And then there's no reason to live. We ask you to go easier on yourself, to stop and take time. Would it help if you recognized it takes more of a warrior to do that than to just flail around battlefields with a sword? Being alive, loving someone is not a soft option. Ask me how I know sometime." He shook his head, then turned to her and held out his hand. "I love you, Kate. Stay with me. Don't leave me. Kate, I love you."