okay, so this chapter is kind of short/rushed. and that sucks, and i'm not super pleased with the way this turned out. but i realized, as i was staring at my google doc for the fourth consecutive hour without writing anything, that i had much better things coming, and i would be able to let myself get to them if i kind of let this chapter go. so, here it is.

playlist (sorry for the vaguely-hipster overload):

1. happy birthday - sufjan stevens
2. river (acoustic) - LIGHTS
3. miss you - foster the people
4. kids - MGMT
5. the damage in your heart - weezer

if i haven't made it clear enough already, i love you all for reading. bless your little hearts :3

p.s. i didn't use any of the phobia words for friday the thirteenth for this chapter title a) because even i'm not that mean and 2) there weren't any that fit properly. but charlie's fifteenth did/does fall on a friday the thirteenth! whoo hoo! funny how those things work out...

p.p.s. i am so sorry for the delay, but i've been sick - i could barely remember what day it is, much less that i update this fic on wednesdays!

p.p.p.s. as always, nothing that you recognize belongs to me.

prevaricate /priˈvariˌkāt/ v. 1) to speak or act in an evasive or false way; to lie.

Charlie rolled over, blinking at the clock. She glanced over at the makeshift calendar, back to the clock, then back to the calendar.

"Happy birthday to me," she whispered, without much joy. She sat up and rubbed the remnants of sleep from her eyes. Leaning over, she pulled her backpack up onto her lap, and rummaged around to find her wallet.

Wallet was a pretty generous term, because Charlie had made it a few years before from duct tape, and it was getting tattered and ratty from use. But she flipped it open and thumbed through the contents. She had about twenty bucks in cash, enough to refill her subway card and maybe buy herself a little something.

For the past two weeks, she'd been going to the precinct and trying to make herself useful - refilling coffees, going on food runs, copying and filing - but she felt awkward and out of place. And without the courage to confront Beckett, and without Beckett having the knowledge to confront her, Charlie didn't know what the point of sticking around was.

But she did have one sort-of related thing she wanted to do. And her birthday seemed as good a time as any to do it.

She got dressed, grabbed her bag, and went into the hallway where the payphone was. Thumping down the phonebook and trailing her finger down page after page, she finally found what she was looking for. She carefully ripped out the address, folded it once, and stowed it in her jacket pocket. Then she walked down the hall, into the vestibule, and out the doors.

It took Charlie almost an hour to get to the morgue. She was tired and kind of hungry, but she was determined to complete her goal.

Security was oddly lax, and Charlie made it down to Dr. Parrish's office with minimal interactions. And then, she just stood outside, unsure what to do. She was about to knock quietly on the doorjamb when the doors swung open. Charlie squeaked softly and jumped back to avoid getting whacked.

"Oh!" Lanie cried. "Hello! Can I help you?"

"I, um..."

"Don't I know you?" Lanie asked, peering into Charlie's face. "You're the girl from Detective Beckett's cases, aren't you?"

Charlie nodded mutely.

Lanie smiled. "Well, what can I do for you?"

"I...can I see...I just, I didn't get to say goodbye to Lucy, and...it's my birthday, and..."

Lanie's face was hard to read, and Charlie's heart stopped. Then the ME gave a soft grin and tilted her head towards the door. "She's on the first table. You've got five minutes, okay?"

Charlie beamed. "Thank you!" She darted through the double doors as Lanie shook her head with a sad smile.

Charlie skidded to a stop as she came face to face with her best friend, lying cold and naked on the slab. With the sheet draped over her y-incision, Charlie could almost pretend like Lucy was sleeping, but she knew that this is not what Lucy looked like asleep. Her features were too stiff and sad.

"It's my birthday," Charlie whispered. "I wish you were here, Lou."

She gazed mournfully at Lucy's body, and stroked her hair back with one hand. Then she reached over to the tray of tools and pulled out a scalpel. Gripping it like a pencil in her right hand, she slowly put the tip to the pad of her left pointer finger and pressed down until she felt the prick. A pool of blood welled on the index, and she gently smeared it on the corner of Lucy's mouth. Then she bit down on the digit, hard, until she got to the far wall of the room to pull down a paper towel and press it against the wound.

She shoved her injured hand in her pocket so Lanie wouldn't see, and exited the lab.

"Thank you so much, Dr. Parrish," she began softly. Her hand fisted around the paper towel, and crumpled the thin yellow sheet with the morgue's address into a ball.

"You're welcome, honey," Lanie replied.

"Did you swab her mouth for blood? I noticed a kind of reddish substance on the corner of her mouth when I was in there." Charlie said, with an air of nonchalance.

Lanie furrowed her brow. "Yes, I did, but I'll check again. Thank you."

"No, thank you." Charlie turned to leave, but then turned back. "See you around," she said, a hint of question in her voice.

"See you," Lanie agreed.

Charlie slumped her shoulders and stuffed her other hand in its pocket. As she shuffled out, Lanie stared after her curiously.

Charlie walked up out of the morgue and down the street, needing some fresh air before she got back on a bus crammed with people. She went inside a Duane Reade to get some Band-Aids for her finger, which was still bleeding, and then she sat on a bench and people-watched.

She soon became interested in a couple strolling down the opposite side of the street. They appeared to be feeding each other bites of something, and upon closer inspection, both had smears of frosting on their noses. Charlie scanned the shops, looking for an establishment that might sell what she sought, and landed on a light blue awning that said Magnolia Bakery.

She made her way down and across the street until she reached the shop. Her eyes lit up at the sheer quantity of pastries decorating the windows, and she almost got knocked over by a family exiting the store. The father, though, held the door open for her, and she nodded gratefully as she slipped under his arm.

There was a rather long line, so Charlie looked into the case, picking out which cupcake she wanted while she waited. She smiled slightly as she saw a row of chocolate cupcakes adorned with little plastic balloons, and decided she wanted one of those.

"For here or to go?" The woman at the register asked her.

"To go, please," Charlie replied.

The woman nodded and said something to one of her co-workers, who went to the case to get the cupcake. "Your total is six dollars and fifty-eight cents."

Charlie handed her a five and two singles, and put her change in the tip jar. She hated change, because it made so much noise. The woman handed her the receipt and her box and said, "Have a nice day!"

"You, too." Charlie smiled and left, holding the door for a woman and her son.

"This blood is fresh," Lanie muttered to herself. "But if she wanted it tested, then..." She sighed as she dialed the number, annoyed with having to stoop so low. "Castle? It's Lanie. Yeah, hi. Anyway, I kind of...need a favor." Lanie rolled her eyes before asking, "What do you want for it?" She paused, and looked surprised.

"Really? From the way Kate made it sound...ah, never mind. So what do I do? And they'll know what to do? Okay, Castle. How long, do you th-really? That quick? Hey - thanks. Okay. Buh-bye."

Lanie swabbed Lucy's mouth and stuck the q-tip in a sterilized vial. She marked up a plastic bag, slipped the tube inside, sealed it, and put it in the 'out' crate for the lab.

"Now, we wait." She said to herself.

Lanie waited anxiously for the results. She tried to distract herself with emails, other lab work, even some stupid game she downloaded on her phone with a candy-eating monster, but the few hours that Castle had estimated seemed like years. She bounced her foot on the bar of her stool, and then violently pushed back from her desk so she could pace.

By the time the lab tech came in with a manila folder with brads folded out on the cover, Dr. Parrish was frustratedly swiping her screen, trying to keep the stupid spider from creeping down the rope and eating the lollipop thing.

"Dr. Parrish?" He asked nervously.

"C'mon!" Lanie yelled in exasperation, and then looked up somewhat sheepishly. "Are those the lab results Mr. Castle requested?"

"Yes, Doctor," he answered respectfully.

She smiled kindly up at him. "Thank you so much."

He nodded and turned around to make his exit. Lanie flipped the folder open and scanned the pages. Her eyes widened, and her eyebrows scrunched together. She went back to the front page, and spent a solid ten minutes reading and re-reading each word.

"That can't be right, unless..." Lanie muttered. "Kate would've told me." She looked back down at the papers. "There can't be a mistake, right? No, there can't," she assured herself. Taking a deep breath, she picked up her phone and scrolled through her favorites until she reached the right name.

"Katie? Hey, it's me. Are you busy?" She paused to laugh nervously. "No, honey, I don't want to go out tonight. Well, actually...or, um, never mind. Anyway, the reason I'm calling is because there are some test results I'd like to discuss with you. Um, pretty urgent. That's perfect, I'll see you then."

As she had about a half an hour to kill, Lanie decided to get back to that damned spider. "I'll get you, my pretty," she cackled quietly.

"Hey Lanie!" Beckett walked into the morgue and greeted her friend with a tinge of worry in her voice. "Why'd you call me down here? You said it was urgent?"

"It is." Lanie set her phone down, took a deep breath, and looked her friend in the eye. "It's about...well, honey, you might want to sit down."

"Why, Lanie? What's wrong?" Beckett furrowed her brow. She found no trace of humor in the other woman's eyes, normally so full of pithy sparkle.

"Kate, do you have any younger cousins, or younger siblings you didn't know about? Half-siblings, maybe?"

"Why, Lanie?" Beckett's voice was hard.

"I had a strange visitor today, Kate." Lanie answered, not sure how to say what she needed to. "That girl, Charlie, who you've been working with?"

Beckett nodded so Lanie knew she understood. "Yeah?" She asked.

"She came to see me, and...when she left, there was a new blood sample in my lab. So I sent it off to be analyzed, and the results came back."

"Yeah?" Beckett was getting agitated.

"Did you know that today is Charlie's birthday?"

Beckett started towards Lanie, a harsh retort on the tip of her tongue. Then she paled and dropped onto a stool.

"What, Katie? Tell me."

"My...you're saying that she's...that Charlie is my..."

"Your what, Beckett? Kate, talk to me. Complete sentences."

Beckett looked up, face frozen in an expression that was a cross between scared and humiliated. "My daughter. Charlie's my...daughter."

Lanie pressed her lips together into a thin, plum line. "I thought she might be. Kate, why didn't you ever say anything? I'm your best friend!"

Beckett stood up, fire in her eyes. "I know that, Lanie! I don't talk about her, ever! It's hard enough having to think about her all the time, wonder what she looks like or how she's doing in school or what her family's like. Where have they been on vacation? What does her bedroom look like? How many boys has she kissed? Does she like dogs or cats? Jesus, Lanie, I can barely spend time with Rick and Alexis without wanting to cry or scream or...I don't know what." She deflated. "It's so hard. I'm tired of hard. I just want something to be easy, for once."

Lanie didn't say anything, just walked over to Beckett and wrapped her arms around her friend. Beckett slumped into the hug and held on tight. No tears, just closeness. That was all she needed.

"So, when are you gonna tell Charlie?" Lanie asked, once Beckett pulled back.

Beckett's eyes flew wide and scared. "Never!"

Lanie put her hands on her hips. "Katherine Alice Beckett, that is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard you say!"

Beckett looked away. "Don't call me that," she whined weakly.

"I will address you like a child when you act like one! Damn, girl, don't you think she deserves to know the truth? She's been living in a homeless shelter, for pete's sake! Where are her parents?"

"I can't be her mother, Lanie," Beckett whispered.

Lanie softened, and bent her knees so she could look her friend in the eye. "I think you can, but that's really beside the point right now. Don't you think you owe it to her to be there for her when she just needs somebody?"

"I think she already knows it's me," Kate said. "She did come here, and leave you that clue..."

Lanie stood and leaned back on a table. "Good point."

"And if she did know...she would've said something if she wanted me to know!"

"Would she? Katie, maybe she's just as scared as you are. She's in a big city with no one she knows-"

"Or maybe she blames me," Beckett said. "For whatever happened in her life to have her end up here. Maybe she hates me. I'd hate me too."

"Oh, Katie..."

"I can't tell her yet, Lanie. I'm not...brave enough."

Lanie appraised her carefully, and then sighed. There was nothing more she could say or do. "Okay, Beckett."

Beckett looked up at her. "Are you mad at me?" Her voice was soft and meek, like a child's.

Lanie sighed again. "No, honey, I'm not mad."

"Well, I'm gonna go back to the precinct." Beckett stood up quickly and walked out of the morgue.

Lanie put her head in her hands. "That did not go as planned."

When Beckett got back to the 12th, she was jittery and irritable. Castle noticed something was wrong the minute she stepped out of the elevator, but didn't know what could've set her off.

"How was Lanie?" He asked pleasantly.

"Don't ask," she growled.

"More coffee?" He offered.

"No, thanks," was her terse reply.

"Do you need me here, or..."

"No, Castle, you can go," she bit out.

If Beckett had turned around at all, she would've seen Castle's face fall more with each exchange. But as it was, she just stared at her desk as he walked slowly towards the elevator.

"Castle! Wait," she yelled, her voice thick with apology. "Sorry, I just..." She made a split-second decision. "Can we go in one of the conference rooms? I...need to tell you something."

"Sure, Beckett," he said softly.

He followed her down the hall a bit to a door on their right. They closed the blinds on the windows so they couldn't be seen, and Castle flipped on the lights so that they could see each other.

"So, um...what's up?" He asked.

Beckett stared at him so intensely that all curiosity was drained from his body and was replaced with anxiety.

"Kate?"

"Rick. Sit."

Castle pulled up a seat and waited patiently for his partner to explain herself.

"When I went down to the morgue, Lanie told me something really...interesting. Something that helps a lot with figuring out who Charlie really is."

"That's great, Beckett! That's good news! Right?"

"Well, yes. But I don't think you'll like what she found. I don't know if I like what she found. I mean, it isn't bad, but it's also-"

"Kate. What did Lanie tell you?"

Beckett flushed slightly. "Right. Um, well, it's easier if I just show you." She began to tug off her jacket. Castle quickly stood to help her out. Once she had freed her right arm, he sat down to let her do it herself. She laid the coat on the table and began untucking her blouse from her pants.

Castle tried his hardest to remain expressionless, but it was (understandably) difficult to keep an impassive face when the love of his life was basically undressing for him.

Beckett slowly rolled up the creamy chiffon and exposed her midriff, then the navy band of her bra. She then ducked her head and slid the top off entirely.

Castle was breathtaken. He'd admittedly imagined Beckett topless many a time, but it was always with her face superimposed on top of some tall, slender model in a porno or lingerie catalogue he'd thieved from Alexis' room (the catalogue, not the porn). He couldn't have possibly imagined the glory of Beckett's practically bare torso at all, much less in person and in his face.

But that was not the point. Beckett turned her back to Castle, lowering the bra strap on her left shoulder a bit.

"You're showing me your tattoo? Now? Not that I'm not excited, but-"

"Read it."

"05/13/96...what does that...I mean, that's today, but...fifteen years ago? You were what, in high school? So...I guess that date has significance, right, or you wouldn't have had it tattooed on your body...but, what does this have to do with Charlie?"

As he said all this, Beckett's shoulders began to shake, and she put her face in her hands.

"Kate?"

"I...have a...when I was sixteen, I had a..."

Castle's lips thinned nervously while she paused.

"Daughter."

Beckett hastily restored her strap and top, haphazardly stuffing the delicate fabric back into her waistband.

"So Charlie is your..."

"Yes."

Castle grabbed Beckett's wrist. "I don't care, you know."

"What does that mean, Castle?" Beckett still refused to make eye contact.

"It doesn't change anything between us, if that's what you're so scared of."

"It changes everything, Castle."

"No, it doesn't."

"How can it not?" She asked, almost hysterical. "That girl, that fifteen-year old girl, is my daughter. She's wrapped up in the middle of not one, but two murders - she lives in a homeless shelter! She is homeless! And here I am, and I can't even tell her that I gave birth to her?"

"Why can't you, Kate?" He asked gently.

"Because she knew! She's known this whole time, and she didn't tell me! What if she hates me, for inadvertently putting her through all of this?"

"What if she's scared, too?"

Kate sat heavily on one of the couches. "That's what Lanie said."

"She's a smart lady. And Beckett...you don't have to tell her right away, if you don't want to. But I think you should."

Beckett sat quietly for a few minutes. "Okay." She said.

"Okay?"

"Okay. But not today."

Castle nodded. "Not today."

Charlie sat up in bed, cold beads of sweat dampening her forehead and upper lip. She looked at her alarm clock, and the big red numbers told her that it was only 3:30 on Monday morning. She'd only fallen asleep at 2.

It had all started on Friday afternoon, after she'd gone to the morgue. She went back to people-watching after she'd gotten her cupcake. At first, everything was fine. Skipping kids, an elderly couple walking arm in arm, some douchebag talking as loudly as possible on his Bluetooth. Then, Charlie caught a glimpse of blonde hair.

She stood up quickly, not wanting to lose sight of her. Charlie followed the woman around the corner and down the street. She picked up the pace, because her target was about a block and a half ahead of her. Breaking into a slow jog, Charlie gained on the woman for a minute or two until she was almost right alongside her. And then the woman turned. Her eyes were brown instead of blue, and her nose was all wrong. Charlie's lungs constricted as she remembered that Aggie was dead.

She decided to walk back to the Bowery to give herself time to collect her thoughts, but the damage was done. Every person she passed, it seemed, was a reminder of those she'd lost. In Midtown, there was a beautiful teenager with caramel skin and anime eyes. Charlie's heart panged at the memory of Lucy. A family with twin boys and a baby girl made Charlie cry at the thought of her own family. When she finally got back to the mission, she was so worn out that she went right to sleep. But her sleep was not peaceful, and she was plagued by nightmares of Lucy and Aggie being murdered, her father and brothers being crushed to death, and herself being raped and beaten countless times. She tossed and turned, and when she finally woke for good, she was even more exhausted than she had been the day before. Charlie decided to get some food to maybe make her feel a little less sick, but realized that she only had a few bucks left in her wallet, due to the purchases she'd made yesterday. So McDonald's it would be.

She was almost finished with her Happy Meal when she spotted him. Big, tall, mustached, and tiny black beads for eyes. She couldn't be sure that it was him, as she saw him from the side and at a distance, but she also couldn't take a chance. Moving quickly so he wouldn't spot her, she dashed to the women's bathroom in the back of the restaurant. Locking herself in the first empty stall, she squatted on the toilet seat and hugged herself. Her stomach churned and her head spun, and she leapt off the seat to bury her head in the bowl, puking up everything she'd consumed in the past 48 hours.

When she was drained, she slumped against the back of the door and tried to breathe. She was shaking and crying and still heaving a little, and her heart was pounding a mile a minute. She didn't know how long she'd been in there when someone knocked on the door and asked, "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she said faintly. "Thanks."

"Okay," was the unsure response.

When Charlie heard the door squelch shut, she pulled herself up like a baby and tried to balance on unsteady legs. She flushed the toilet twice, trying to make sure that as much of her mess was gone as possible. Then she walked out of the stall and to the sinks, rinsing her mouth several times to get the acidic taste out.

Cautiously, she left the bathroom. She peered around the edge of the little recess where the bathrooms were, and didn't see anyone that remotely resembled Brian Wright. But just to be safe, she flipped up her hood and pulled the drawstrings to obscure her face a little.

As she walked back to the mission, she thought of grabbing a sleeping pill from the medicine cabinet and just sleeping it off. She couldn't wait to be alone. But when she got back to her room, it was a mess.

"What the hell?" Charlie exclaimed automatically.

A head appeared, with a reproachful look on its face. "That's not very nice language." The head was attached to a body, and it stood. It was a girl, about Charlie's age. "Hi, I'm Marie. Marie Duggan. You must be Charlie."

Charlie stood, speechless, for a minute. "Yeah," she answered. Then she turned on her heel and walked back out of the room.

Rage was boiling inside of her. How dare this person come in and claim a space barely cold from when someone else occupied it? How dare the shelter allow this girl to rifle through Lucy's things as if they belonged to her? How dare they not ask her permission for this, much less inform her of it? Charlie was pissed. She stalked around to the back of the building and began screaming. She punched the brick, she kicked the gravel, and she spun around looking for anything to take her anger out on.

She thought maybe someone would come outside, see what all the noise was about. Maybe they'd even ask her if she was okay, or tell her to shut up. But no one came. Finally she tired, and collapsed on the patch of grass in the corner of the lot. Her knuckles were bloody and full of debris, and her toes hurt like hell. She bent her knees up to her chest and just cried.

She waited outside until lights out, then snuck back in the window like she'd done a thousand times. With Lucy. Lucy had always made everything seem like a grand adventure, even if it was as mundane as grocery shopping for the soup kitchen, or pitiful as rooting through garbage for something usable.

"It's after lights out," the girl in the next bed said, a hint of nervousness in her voice. Marie, she'd said her name was.

"I know," Charlie answered tersely. Her hand stung, she was exhausted, and she was still angry.

"Are you alright?"

"Of course," was Charlie's edgy reply.

Marie flipped on the bedside lamp. Charlie rolled her eyes. "Your hand doesn't look it. Does it hurt?"

"Not much," she lied. "It's after lights out." She said, hoping to scare this annoying twit into going to bed.

"I'm a Girl Scout. I can fix it for you, if you want."

"Of course you are," Charlie muttered. "I'm good." She turned around to get into bed, but then Marie said,

"Here's my first aid kit! It'll only take a minute. Sit down, please," she said, her tone taking on an authoritative lilt.

Charlie perched on the edge of her cot, and stuck out her right arm when requested to. Marie tried to make conversation while she used the tweezers to extract pieces of stone from Charlie's knuckles.

"How did you end up here?"

Charlie inwardly groaned. She did not want to go through all this with a stranger, much less this one. "I ran away."

"Why? Does your family know where you are?"

Charlie rolled her eyes again. Did this chick not get the purpose of running away? "I don't have any family."

"Of course you do! Everyone has family. I've got a mom and a little brother. What do you have?"

"I told you, I haven't. You wanna know why? Because they're all dead!" Charlie hadn't meant to yell, but this girl was so frustrating that she couldn't help herself. She felt a little sorry about putting the hurt and shocked look on Marie's pretty face, but not very, because she felt like Marie deserved to get a little bite after sticking her nose far in where it didn't belong.

"I'm really sorry, Charlie...I didn't know," Marie offered weakly. She had finished getting the debris out of Charlie's hand, and had progressed to dabbing antibiotic ointment on the back of it and on the fronts of her fingers.

"Yeah. Whatever." Charlie said. Marie smiled up at her, and Charlie involuntarily smiled back.

"Okay, Charlie, flip over your arm for me, and stick it out straight," Marie directed. Charlie laid her hand out palm-side up, and Marie started wrapping it in gauze.

When Charlie's hand and wrist were pretty much immobilized, and all you could see of her hands were her four fingertips and her thumb, Marie secured the wrap with medical tape.

"This should be changed daily until your knuckles heal, and you shouldn't get the wrap wet, because the medical tape will lose its seal. So I'll re-wrap it for you every night, okay?"

Charlie nodded. "Marie," she said suddenly.

"Yes?"

"How did you get here?"

Marie sighed softly. "My dad left us when I was little, and my mom has trying to support my little brother and I since then. With the recession, my mom lost her better-paying office job, and hasn't been able to get many more waitressing shifts. So we lost our apartment. She and Hayden are in the family section, but they told me there was an open bed down here, and I thought it might be nice to make a new friend. But I can leave, if you'd like."

Charlie looked at her lap. She heard the pleading undertones in Marie's voice, and felt the care that her hand had been fixed with. "I wouldn't. Like that, I mean...I would like to have you as a friend."

Marie's crushing hug toppled Charlie, and they both giggled as they rolled on her bed.

"I'm not really sleepy anymore," Marie said.

Charlie felt the exact opposite, but she wanted to get to know this girl a little more. "Me, either."

They talked for a few hours about everything under the sun. Charlie told Marie about some of the weird rules and funny people who lived at the mission, and Marie told Charlie about Hayden and their mother, Kristina. When Marie finally grew tired again, she turned off the lamp and went back to her own bed, but Charlie's bad thoughts came creeping back, and she began to dwell on Aggie and Lucy again.

"You've gotta make this right, Em," Charlie said to herself.

When she finally did fall asleep, the nightmares came again, which is how she came to be sitting up in bed, sweaty and tired, at 3:30 in the morning. She was frustrated and exhausted, but she crept out of the room and went to the bathroom to shower (making sure not to wet her hand) and change. By 5:00 AM, she was sitting in a chair at the 12th, waiting for Det. Beckett to get to work.

When Kate Beckett walked into the 12th on Monday morning, the last thing she expected to see was a sleeping head on her desk.

"Is that Charlie?" Castle asked her in a whisper.

"Yeah. That's weird, because she wasn't here on Friday," Beckett said nervously. "Oh, what happened to her hand?"

Castle shook his head. "Looks well wrapped, though. And trust me," he said with a wink, "I know a good job from a bad one."

"Shut up," Beckett growled, but she nudged him playfully.

"Should we wake her up?"

"Well...she's in my seat," Beckett said with a small pout. "But she looks so peaceful, it seems a shame to disturb her. I can sit at Espo's desk," she muttered craftily.

Just then, however, Charlie jerked awake with a small cry.

"Are you okay?" Beckett asked, with no small amount of worry.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. When did you get here? How long was I out?"

"We just got here," Castle replied. "When did you get here?"

"Oh, around five or so?" Charlie said. At Beckett and Castle's looks of astonishment, her expression turned sheepish.

"Why so early?" Beckett inquired, coming over to stand by the girl. Beckett felt a cosmic pull to her, and was seriously considering blurting out the news, just so she would have an excuse to put her arms around Charlie - around her daughter.

Charlie took a deep breath. "I've had some trouble sleeping this weekend, and I think I know why."

"Well, you've been having nightmares." Beckett said, without thinking.

"How'd you know?" Charlie asked, awestruck.

Beckett blushed and silently cursed herself. "I just...when, um, my mother died, I had them too. You know, all the things you could've/should've said or done...that kind of thing."

Charlie furrowed her brow as she nodded. "Yeah...and the thing is, I know what to do. I've...well, I haven't exactly been truthful with you guys."

"Really?" Castle asked. Beckett shot him a glare over Charlie's head.

"I guess you could say I've been withholding information?"

"Really?" Castle asked again, this time with less sarcasm.

Beckett raised an eyebrow and folded her arms across her chest. "What do you know, Charlie?" She expected some pretty useless information, like something minor she and Lucy had done that she felt had gotten Lucy killed.

"I think I know who killed them. Actually, I'm pretty sure I know who. And if I'm right, I also know why."

Beckett took a step back, and shot another glance at Castle. She was totally bewildered. "Who?" She and Castle asked at the same time.

"My...stepfather. Brian Scott Wright. He killed my mother, too."

Beckett took that news like a shot to the chest. "Did he escape from prison? I mean, we would've heard of him if he had and had come to the city," she said, a little breathless.

"He was never convicted. The police said my mother killed herself, and he left no trail, so they declared him dead too. I only know because it was in our paper. I ran away when I found out that she was dead too."

"Too?" Beckett asked weakly.

Charlie took another breath. "You can do this, Emmie," she thought. "When I was eight, my father and older brothers were killed on impact in a head-on collision. When I was ten, my mother got remarried to Brian," she spat the name out. "Six months ago, he shot and killed my mother because she threatened to turn him in for...hurting me. And now he's after me, too."

Beckett knew there was no way that she could follow up that admission with news about their relationship. She had never felt such heartache, save for losing her mother. How are you supposed to feel when you discover that your own child has lost everything she's ever known?

"We'll find him," she heard herself saying. Beckett felt out-of-body; it was like she was looking at herself say these words to Charlie. Nothing felt real, except for this: "I promise you, we'll get him." Beckett never made promises she wouldn't keep.