A/N: Apologies for the delay in publishing this chapter. For a while, I was uncertain about continuing this story, but for those who wanted more, I truly hope you enjoy this.

And for the record, to those who were concerned, I could never forget about Jim Beckett.


They have to stop just a few miles before they reach the Hamptons, pulling into a darkened gas station right outside of the town, and Kate clicks the safety off of her gun before they exit the vehicle. She doesn't expect for there to be any of the undead out this far, not yet, the infection spilling through the city like wildfire, but it would take longer for it to reach rural areas. At least, that's what she hopes based on Castle's predications.

"Here," she murmurs when he has a hard time rigging the gas pump, curling her fingers around the thick hose and shaking it thoroughly before placing the nozzle to the car, pumping the handle in a short series of combinations until spurts of gas begin to stutter and rush from the dispenser.

"How did you do that?" he inquires from her side, his own gun out, but his eyes bright and trained on her. "Is this like a secret cop thing?"

"Mm, no," she chuckles, watching the meter in the car inch slowly from empty towards full. "It's an 'in case of emergency' thing. Speaking of, where exactly is this bunker of yours and when did it comes into existence?"

"Oh, I've had it since Alexis was a baby, but I remodeled it last summer while you were…" His sentence trails and she doesn't have to ask to know where it was headed. He clears his throat. "It looks great, super spacious, and there's enough food for us to ride it out at least a few months. Though, I know you won't want to be cooped up quite that long."

"No, but I do prefer cooped in with you over being out with the walking dead," she mutters, withdrawing the dispenser and settling it back into place, ready to get back on the road.

"I am better company," he muses, squeezing her hip, but his posture is straightening, defensive, as if he senses the same air of unease that she does.

It's too eerie in the stillness of 5 a.m., the grey hints of morning light beginning to breach the horizon, but the world around them still dark and deadly, the unknown lurking around every corner. It has the hairs along the back of her neck standing up, awareness prickling down her spine, and tension washes over her in one swift wave-

"A bunker, huh?"

Kate spins, drawing her gun into position, but the speaker has one as well, and it's aimed at Castle's head.

Rick's eyes are wide, the gunman only a few feet behind him, close enough to make good on the shot to his skull, and Beckett ignores the rioting pound of her heart and holds her fire.

"NYPD," she states calmly. "Lower your weapon."

"Lady," the man scoffs, unable to be identified in the darkness save for the height of his figure, the bulk of his upper body. "I watched the news until the broadcasts stopped. You really think I'm scared of a cop when there are dead people walking around? Besides, I don't want to hurt you guys, but I couldn't help overhearing your conversation. A safe place with months of supplies sounds too good to pass up."

"We're at full capacity," Castle informs him, but the gunman only chuckles.

"Sorry to say I don't buy that, buddy. But if it makes you feel better, I was thinking we could make a deal."

"What kind of deal?" Beckett murmurs, waiting, just buying time. She can do this. This is the part she can still actually handle.

"I run this place," the man informs her, his head jerking towards the gas station that had appeared abandoned before they'd pulled in, dark and empty. "Well, ran. I have a feeling business is going to plummet after this. What do you say I let you both live, join you instead, and bring everything inside with us? Could add to your stash."

"If that's all you wanted, you wouldn't have approached us with a gun to my partner's head," Kate replies, the light of day slowly beginning to break and unveil the man's appearance, revealing his intentions.

There's no way all three of them are leaving here. Definitely not together.

He shrugs. "Safety first. Why don't you lower your weapon and we can talk, Officer?"

"That's not how it works. I have a feeling you know that from experience," Beckett assumes wryly. This guy has ex-con written all over him. "Last chance, put the gun down."

The man's lips curl into a wicked grin. "Or what?"

But Castle is reacting before she can answer, thrusting his head backwards in a move she's seen before, and this time, she's quicker, more efficient than she was with Coonan, and she takes the shot the moment she has it.

The single blast of gunfire resounds through the air, their assailant staggers to his knees and collapses onto the dirty concrete. Kate breathes past the deafening rush of her heartbeat, her eyes on the spill of blood from the man's chest, but her grip on her piece doesn't loosen.

"Kate." Her eyes flicker up to Castle, standing in front of her now, his hand draping gently at her forearm, coaxing her weapon downwards and she adjusts the safety, returns the gun to its holster. "You okay?"

"You're not the one who should be asking that question," she breathes, hooking her arms around his neck and grazing her fingers to the back of his skull where a bullet could have found its home, where his head is probably pounding from its collision.

Castle hesitates, his chest stuttering beneath the seal of hers in surprise before he exhales, draws his arms up around her.

"I'm fine, totally fine," he promises, hugging her back with tight arms around her waist, but the shudder of his chest against hers tells a different story. "That was nothing compared to some of the situations we've been in before."

Kate purses her lips. He isn't wrong, but he isn't okay either.

"That bunker of yours is sounding better by the minute," she whispers, sighing against his cheek as he chuckles softly. "We should raid the gas station, then get out of here in case the gunshot draws attention."

Castle pauses, his hands clenching at her shoulders as he lifts his face to the sky.

"I don't think we have to worry about that," he murmurs, and Kate follows his gaze, catches sight of the helicopter speeding by, not close enough to see them on the ground, but heading towards the city.

It's mere seconds before the sounds of explosions penetrate the stillness, blooms of orange lighting up the distant sky, the rumble of the earth deafening even from where they stand over 200 miles away. She stares with wide eyes at the helicopters bombing the city they had just abandoned, the breach of sunrise overtaken by the rise of fire and smoke from demolished buildings.

"They must be dropping napalm," she realizes aloud. "In the streets, they're - shit, Castle, you were right. About everything."

When Kate glances back to him, he's slack jawed, his eyes alight with the bursts of color through the sky and growing horror, and she braces her palms at his chest, pushes him towards the car.

"We need to move, get to Alexis and Martha, hope the boys and Lanie made it out before – before this. They may target smaller town areas next," she gets out, snapping Rick into action.

She offers to drive, insisting he deserves a break, but he's already turning the key in the ignition and there's no time to argue.


"They're not here," he panics, nearly tripping his way down the stairs, his skin pale with fear. "What if they didn't make it, Kate? What if they-"

"Don't," she breathes, catching him by the biceps before he can barrel past her. "They could have just gone straight to the bunker the second they realized what was going on," Beckett reasons, standing in the foyer of his Hamptons home, the beauty of the magnificent mansion lost on her as she attempts to steady the terrified man in front of her. "Get what you need from here and we'll go. I'll raid your fridge and leave a note for the boys."

Castle nods dumbly, turning back towards the stairs and climbing quickly, but with exhaustion weighing heavily on his shoulder, the shock and horror of arriving only to find the house empty dragging him down by the spine.

Her intestines are in knots over the unexpected discovery – or lack thereof – and the inability to know the fate of their family from the Twelfth, her father. She really wants to know if her father was all right. He had said he would be at the cabin this week since he had time off, but there was no way to tell and he doesn't have cell service out there either so she couldn't have even-

Kate swallows down the panic before it can grow, devour and consume, and forces herself into the kitchen. She finds a reusable grocery bag in the pantry and searches through the space for nonperishables, snags the water bottles she locates in the fridge, and takes the haul out to the SUV in his driveway they were switching into.

Her father is smart, resourceful, and she trusts in his ability to survive. At least until they can retrieve him.

Rick is bounding down the stairs minutes later, two bags slung over his shoulders, and follows her lead out the door.


"Your dad."

He glances away from the empty road to watch Kate lift her head from the uncomfortable angle where it had been resting against the edge of the passenger seat, her eyes bleary from lack of sleep, but rippling with awareness.

He hadn't even thought… her own father. He'd only been concerned about his family, but she was family too and Jim Beckett was all she had.

"Where is he? Please - please tell me he's not in the city?"

Her head shakes as she sits up, but her throat bobs before she musters an answer for him. "The last time I talked to him a couple of days ago, he told me he was going to be spending the week at our cabin upstate. There's little to no cell service, so I couldn't… I just wish I could have called him."

Her lips purse and her eyes fall to her knees, lashes fluttering in hopes of holding back tears, because he knows how much she hates to cry, and Castle reaches over, snags one of her hands.

"You said upstate?" he prompts, squeezing her cold fingers. "Here, look at these directions, tell me if it's not too far out of the way. We can take a detour, go back if we have to-"

"We can't go back," she rasps, scraping the hand not ensnared in his through her tangled hair, letting him go when he digs in his pocket for his phone. The device is useless now, but the map app should still be open and show his most recently entered route, and he hands it to Kate with bated breath.

"We go back if we have to. We're making good time and I'd say we've been pretty lucky so far," he tries to reassure her, but he finds his words are unnecessary when she releases a sigh of startled relief, shifts to face him with her finger on the screen.

"Your bunker is right on the way. The cabin is just off this upcoming highway," Kate explains with her lips curling in tentative hope and he follows the trail of her fingertip along the digital webs of streets and highways decorating the map.

"Wow, you really were secluded," he murmurs as he squints to study the area her finger hovers above, completely unthinkingly, and his heart shudders with absolute dread, prepared to receive either a pained look or a murderous glare. But much to his surprise, Kate's eyes only soften.

"Yeah, definitely an upside now more than ever. If we ever come out this way for any reason in the future, we'll have a safe place to hole up," she nods, using his wrist to draw his knuckles to her mouth for a brush of her lips before she releases him, casts her gaze back towards the window. "I just hope he's there."

For a moment, he's speechless, stuck on the kiss she'd so effortlessly stained to his skin, but Castle quickly nods, readjusts his grip on the steering wheel and presses harder on the accelerator.

He hopes her father is there too. He doesn't want to see her wounded by the cruelties of the world once again, crushed by the all consuming hands of grief and loss. It's bad enough that the earth (or at least New York) has been overtaken by the living dead, fulfilling an apocalyptic theory that had always been fun to daydream about, but not something even he would have ever wanted.

She can't lose her father too. Not after having to endure the loss of her mother, the constant dead ends in her case, the… lack of her partner these past few weeks.

"Kate?" She glances back from the phone cradled in her palms, the app still opened and illuminating the skin of her cheek, dancing along her jaw. "I love you."

Despite all that had happened between them, the whirlwind of emotions he had become swept up in and the hurt he had harbored, he'd only wanted to protect her the moment the catalytic danger they were in was confirmed. He had only wanted be able to save her this time, whether she loved him or not.

And now that he knows she actually does (the knowledge still lighting a pleasant flame within his heart), he's more adamant than ever to keep them both alive.

Or, he thinks rather morbidly, at least die together this time. Because he refuses to be without her again.

Kate smiles at him and he thinks it has to be the most beautiful thing left in this world.

"I love you too, Castle."


The familiar crunch of gravel beneath the tires of her cruiser soothes her heart and cracks it at the same time, fear running like a fault line through her chest as Castle stops the car just shy of the cabin that is barely visible through the myriad of trees.

Secluded. Seclusion is good. Seclusion meant less people – both the living and the dead kind.

Kate swallows hard and grips the door handle, but Castle stills her with a hand to her knee, fingers splayed over the jean-clad bone of her patella and squeezing gently.

"No matter what we find," he murmurs when she glances back to him in askance. "We're going to be okay. You'll be okay."

She'll have to be.

Kate covers his hand and squeezes his fingers back, savors the warmth his hands always seem to hold, and pushes her door open. She waits for Castle to follow before proceeding with her gun raised, her partner backing her as he has so many times before, their eyes scanning the forest, listening for any sound of human life.

"Wait here," she whispers once they reach the porch steps, but he merely scoffs at her, sticks close to her back while she climbs the short set of stairs to the wooden surface.

"Not a chance," he mutters, splitting from her only once they reach the door, both of them bracketing the frame.

Beckett inhales a deep breath, allows her lungs a second to expand, deflate, before she knocks on the door with her fist, tightens her grip on her gun while she awaits an answer.

Seconds that last heartbeats too long pass and then the distinct crack of a rifle being loaded breaks the silence. Castle and Beckett both jerk in the direction of the noise, only to witness her father coming around the side of the cabin, the rifle he's had since she was a teenager aimed and ready.

And lowering the second he rounds the outer wall to see the two of them.

"Katie," he exhales, relief drenching him from head to toe, and Kate hastily places her gun back in its holster, bounds down the stairs.

"Dad," she breathes out, rushing into her father's embrace and banding her arms around his neck like she used to as a child. "Thank god you're okay."

"Stole the words right from my mouth, honey," he chuckles, his heart pounding hard enough for her to feel the galloping muscle against his chest. "I didn't hear about what was happening until it was too late. Cell towers were down and I had no idea how to contact you, to know if you were - if-"

"I'm okay," she murmurs, pulling back with a grin that quivers across her lips, gripping her father's shoulder before turning back to the man watching from a respectful distance with soft eyes that remain. "Thanks to Castle."

Jim smiles, so easy and natural, knowing. "You saved my daughter, Rick?"

Rick spends a moment floundering, looking to her for confirmation, but she merely shrugs, drifts from her father's side to claim her partner's hand as he trots back down the stairs. "I - I just wanted to keep her safe," he finally gets out, but it's all the answer her dad seems to need.

"Castle's the one who convinced me to leave. I didn't believe it was happening at first, had no intention of going anywhere-"

"Have I mentioned how glad I am that you're the one watching Katie's back?" Jim inquires, the corner of his mouth twitching as he assesses Castle with warm eyes.

"It's a job I'm privileged to have," Castle murmurs in reply, the look he shoots her stealing her breath, almost making her forget that her father is standing only a few feet away, that they're in the middle of an apocalypse.

Richard Castle so openly in love with her could be her undoing if she isn't careful.

"Come on, I don't like being outside," Jim states, plunging her back to reality. "Did you two have a destination in mind, or were you thinking of holing up here?"

They follow her dad back up the three porch steps, into the cabin she hasn't seen since last summer, the space untouched and such a welcome sight after the last twelve hours. He has a duffel bag sitting on the couch, an assortment of two handguns and a machete from the toolshed outside laid out across the coffee table.

Maybe not so untouched after all.

"I have a bunker," Castle blurts, earning the hitch of Jim's brow, the flicker of his gaze to Kate, but she can only nod her confirmation. "Not too far from here," Rick adds, as if her father needs convincing. "It's stocked with food, water, supplies. Enough for maybe five to ten people to live on for a few months. But more than anything, it's safe."

"Well, that certainly beats a cabin in the woods," Jim chuckles, locking the front door behind them once they're all standing in the small foyer. "I don't have much to pack, so just let me grab a few things and I'll be ready whenever you two are."

Her dad disappears down the short hallway just off the kitchen, towards his bedroom, and Kate seizes the opportunity to lead Castle in the opposite direction, towards hers.

"This is where you were?" he murmurs, and she can't be positive if he means last summer or if he's simply referring to her childhood spent in this room during yearly summers away from the city, but she hums her reply nonetheless.

"Yeah, this has always been my room. But I spent most of my time on the dock out on the lake, or in the woods. Not so much this past summer though, my body was too weak to do much."

She's still wearing her turtleneck from the day before, the orange leather of her jacket, but Castle's eyes still ascend to where he knows her scar must lie, unseen by him, but always present.

"Beckett," he chokes out, reaching to snag her hand when she begins to strip the turtleneck from her frame, nothing but the black cotton of her bra with the subtle lace trim underneath. "Your dad-"

"Calm down, Castle," she huffs, tossing the sweater and her jacket onto the twin size bed a few feet away. "My shirt has blood all over it and I have a few spares here, but also-"

Kate claims the fingers she had just avoided, guides them up to the exposed skin of her chest, lays them to rest between her breasts, atop the nearly healed, raised flesh that she's hated for so long now.

The breath he releases shudders along her jaw, his other hand curving at her bared shoulder, thumb stroking the rounded edge of bone as his eyes skate along her side, studying the incision scar, climbing to catch another glimpse of the marred skin beneath his fingertips.

"I'm sorry," she whispers, earning the lift of his eyes, the caress of his gaze to her face even as his brow furrows in question. "I'm just - so sorry, sorry this was between us for so long-"

"Shh, no," he murmurs, shifting in closer until his body envelopes her, the breadth of his chest engulfing her when she curls in, lets herself need him. "No need for apologies, especially not now."

"Rick," she sighs, her breath staining his throat, pooling in the hollow of flesh created by the convergence of his collarbones, but he shakes his head against the obvious protest he must catch in her tone.

Castle presses his lips to her temple, grazes along her hairline until he's whispering words against her forehead.

"This is all that matters."


Kate dresses quickly when the creak of her father's bedroom door resounds through the cabin, tugging on a long-sleeved shirt and shrugging the leather jacket back on too, and he's glad. That jacket makes her look like a total badsass.

The discovery of Jim Beckett, the relief of finding him alive and willing to accompany them without hesitation had aided in distracting him from the sickening twist of anxiety through his guts that the lack of his mother and daughter in the Hamptons had elicited. The moment with Kate in her childhood bedroom, feeling the puckered flesh of her scar beneath his fingers, her heartbeat a reassuring rhythm rising to meet his palm, had soothed the stress consuming his mind, bathed it in the pleasant haze of his love for her. But nothing could stop him from snapping back to the fear that Alexis might be dead, his mother too, and how he had no way of knowing.

"Hey, we're just grabbing what we can from the kitchen and then we're going," Kate murmurs, her hand at his cheek. Comforting him, he realizes, and it confirms that he must be doing a terrible job of hiding everything that's raging inside him. "We're going to find them, Castle. You talked to Alexis before all hell broke loose, you warned her, and she's too smart not to listen. And like you said, we've been lucky so far."

Her eyes flick to her father and back, as if in proof, and he tries to absorb her confidence through the brush of her finger to his jaw.

"If you see anything you need, just grab it, okay? I know we didn't get to go by your place," she sighs, but Rick shakes his head, curls his fingers at her wrist before she can lower her hand.

"I have everything I need at the bunker, even luxuries like my laptop with all of my work synced onto it."

Something sparks to life in her eyes. "Oh good, I won't run out of good books to read even at the end of the world."

A choked laugh escapes his lips and Kate arches on the toes of her heeled boots, dusts a kiss to his mouth that is both tender and strong, instilling him with hope and resolution as she pulls away.

"Two minutes," she mumbles and then she's turning back towards the kitchen where her father is withdrawing canned goods from the pantry.

He intends to assist, carry the bags of canned goods to the car, but Castle casts his eyes over the interior of the cabin first, ensures that none of them are leaving behind anything they might need. But his eyes snag on something he hadn't seen when they'd walked in before he can deem himself satisfied.

He hadn't even thought about how he lacked a picture of her, a physical photo that he could carry around with him in case the world went completely dark and he could never access the pictures on his phone, his computer.

Rick steps towards the mantle of the fireplace, cool from lack of use when he touches his fingers to the black exterior, and studies the framed photo of her, the sun kissing her skin and tangling through her hair, illuminating a brilliant smile that he's seen quite a few times, that he saw less than an hour ago in the car. He isn't sure who captured the moment, what this younger (at least five years younger) Kate Beckett is smiling at, but if it's the only photo he's allowed to have of her, he doesn't mind that it's this one.

He glances over his shoulder to ensure both Becketts are otherwise occupied and gingerly lifts the frame from the mantle, soundlessly unlatches the back so he can slide the picture free from its enclosure of glass and painted wood paneling. The photo is small enough that all he has to do is withdraw his wallet, slip the photo of Kate inside without even having to worry about creasing the picture.

"Castle, you ready?" Kate calls and he shoves the wallet back inside his pocket, turns to acquire one of the bags from her arms, and follows her out of the cabin.

Jim lingers behind them, his gaze tinged with sorrow as it roams the room, bids his second home a farewell, but when his eyes return to Kate, to him, the hint of despair vanishes. Her father locks the front door, however pointless it may be, and shoves the keys into the side pocket of the duffel bag hanging from his shoulder.

"Rick," Jim Beckett calls under his breath while Kate is arranging their belongings in the trunk of her cruiser, attempting to fit everything so her dad won't be so cramped in the backseat, and Castle steps away from the vehicle. "Thank you. For looking after Katie, even before all of this, and for stopping on your way to pick me up."

"Mr. Beckett," he starts when Jim waves him off.

"Jim is fine, son."

"Jim," he corrects with a small quirk of his lips, her father's approval igniting a small swell of pride through his chest. "We're both just glad that you were here, that you're okay. And as for Kate-" Rick glances back to the woman closing the trunk with a triumphant gleam in her eyes that scan the area once more before flickering towards the two of them in curiosity. "I love her."

Jim pats him on the shoulder and passes Castle with the smile back on his lips. "I know, but does she?"

Kate notices her dad's grin, tilts her head at Castle in question, but he only copies her father and smiles back, walks with the older man to the car and slides into the driver's seat, waits for his partner to slip in beside him.

"She does."


Jim Beckett is dozing in the backseat, his head pillowed by his duffel back and his arms crossed over his chest, handgun holstered at his waist and easily accessible, but Castle is hoping they can make it to the bunker without needing to draw their weapons again. Jim had yet to see any of the dead, only what had made it to the news before stations had been shut down, and while it was unavoidable, Rick himself could use some time after last night before having to kill again. And he knew without a doubt that Kate could too.

They were both running on empty and he wouldn't be able to sleep, to think completely straight until he found his daughter, his mother, and had the reassurance that the woman next to him was safe as well.

"Does your bunker have coffee?" Kate asks, tugging the corner of his mouth upwards with gentle amusement.

"Already suffering without your usual morning fix?" he teases, but she doesn't hesitate.

"Yes."

Castle chuckles and lowers one of his hands from the steering wheel, digging in his pocket for the packet of minty gum he knows lies unopened next to his wallet, but in the process, he manages to spill the contents of his pocket onto the seat between them – gum, a paperclip, some change, and his thin wallet all clattering onto the leather.

"I got it, focus on the road," she murmurs, collecting his belongings, holding onto the gum when he mentions it to her, but pausing with his wallet in her grasp.

He panics as he notices her withdraw the photograph that had been peeking out from his wallet, shooting him a quizzical look at the discovery of the freed picture of her that he'd slipped from the frame before they'd left the cabin.

"Kate-"

"You stole this from my dad's?" she questions, holding the picture up, and Rick resists the urge to snatch it back. It wasn't his to begin with and it's only been a few hours, but he's already formed an attachment to that photo, wants to keep it safe and unmarred and close to his heart.

Kate arches an eyebrow at his lack of answer and he sighs, shrugs his shoulders.

"I realized that I didn't have an actual picture of you. I have some on my phone, my laptop, but no printed photos and I needed… I didn't think Jim would mind."

"He doesn't," Jim pipes up from the backseat and Kate huffs, rolls her eyes at her father and passes the photo back to him.

"Do you?" Castle asks, his voice quiet even though there's nothing stopping her father from listening in. "Mind if I keep it?"

The corner of her mouth twitches and her fingers flex on the steering wheel. "No, I don't mind. But you won't need a picture of me, Rick."

It's his turn to quirk his brow, earn the full spill of her smile across her lips. "I won't?"

"No," she murmurs, her eyes on the road, but he's able to catch the glimmer of gold through her gaze. "I'm not going anywhere and neither are you, not without me."