Sorry for the delay. LONG busy week, and then these two would just NOT behave.

Castle stares at the phone in his hand for an untold number of minutes, his mind an odd blank around the most basic set of questions. How far do they need to run? For how long?

He clicks the phone off finally, raising his eyes to the black smartboard. If they can wake the dragon, can't they put him back to sleep? Call it a truce, no harm, no foul? Let the dragon get on with his life, no threat from them hanging over his head, and let them do the same.

How angry could she be, if he passes that message on? She has no more access, no leverage. And didn't she already swear that she's done?

Castle thumbs the phone back on, returns Smith's text with a call.

The phone rings on. And on. And on.

He ends the call, perplexed, then nearly jumps out of his skin as the phone comes back to life, vibrating in his hand.

'Kate.'

She nuzzles the warm palm cupping her cheek, untangles a sleepy hand from the covers and trails it up his arm. She encounters the sleeve of a t-shirt and twists her fingers in it, uses it to pull him closer. Even half asleep, her eyes still closed, a hot current of desire shoots through her at the idea that she can do this. With him. That they finally took a deep breath and dove in together.

'Kate,' he murmurs, 'I need you to wake up.'

She rolls onto her back and tugs again, wanton, needing the heavy weight of him between her parted legs. 'Come back to bed.'

'No, Kate, I can't—' he stutters, but still he comes, his mouth warm against her neck, his hair tickling her cheek as she unbalances him and pulls him close. He groans into her ear and then he's moving away, his hands stroking down her arms in farewell.

Gone.

She sits up with a gasp, suddenly fully awake. Strange bed in a strange place. His place, his bed. She didn't dream them together, he's standing right here beside her in a Green Lantern t-shirt and rumpled hair, an unreadable expression on his face. Still, she feels weirdly disconnected, not quite sure which is real - the two of them making love what seems like five minutes ago, or this distant man with the clenched jaw and oddly shadowed eyes.

Surely they're not back to that. She fixed that, didn't she? Apologised, told him what he meant- 'Castle?' Her voice comes out strangled, higher than it should. 'What's going on?'

'Kate, I need you to tell me what happened the other day. Before you came over.'

The flat affect to his voice prickles at the back of her neck. 'Now? At-' she glances at the clock on his nightstand '-one am?'

He reaches over and tugs the covers down, draws his fingers lightly over the triangular bruise at the bottom of her ribs. His face confirms he's been with the cops long enough to know it for what it is – the toe of a boot. She has other bruises as well, some as small as the fingermarks on the back of her arms, some larger, like the one across her hip she must have gotten when she rolled over the edge of the roof. The first night they were together, it was all too frenzied for him to notice, and every time since, she's made sure he had better things to do with his tongue than ask. And now here he is, demanding answers she's not really sure she should give. The bruises belong to another life, a Kate Beckett she can't be anymore. Not if she wants to live and be with him.

'Kate. You said you almost died. What did you do?'

'Nothing. It was just…' She pushes his hand away and draws the covers back up. 'It was stupid. I went after someone without proper backup, we fought, he got away. It's done.'

'Did you see a file? Kate, did he have a file?'

'He had lots of files, Castle. He's the one who broke into Montgomery's house.'

'Not those files, another one. The one Montgomery sent the night he died.'

'I never got a chance to look. Castle, what is going on?

He comes towards her, perches gingerly on her side of the bed and hands her his phone. The text is brief, self-explanatory really. Castle's face is unreadable, totally closed.

She swallows against the feeling of her own throat closing up. So much they haven't talked about, and there's no time for careful explanations now. 'Is this him?' she asks. 'Your contact?'

'He's not a contact. He's the guy who's protecting you, the guy Montgomery trusted with your life. With Evelyn's life, and his children's lives.' His voice is sharp, and Kate literally bites her tongue, presses it between her teeth to hold back her response. 'He said his name was Smith. I'm going to guess that's probably not his real name. But who he is, that's not important right now. The message is what's important.'

She hands him back the phone. 'So, what? He sends you a text and you do whatever it says?'

'I'm not in his pocket, Kate. He warns me if there's something to warn me about. That's all.'

'At one in the morning?'

'It came while we were at dinner. I didn't check it at the time because we were...busy.' There's no devilish gleam to his eyes, and no responsive tug from inside her, thinking of exactly what they were busy doing. Nothing but panic beginning a sluggish swirl.

One day. She'd asked for a day and that's exactly what they'd gotten. One good day. And now here she is again, poised again at the edge of the rabbit hole, her fingers slipping, her own weight dragging her down. 'I'm not running away, Castle. I don't even know what I'm running from.'

'Kate, he's never sent a text before. Usually he calls. I tried calling him back, but there's no answer. And then, just now, I got a call from someone claiming to be from the precinct, asking if I knew where you were.'

'Why would they be calling you?'

'Apparently you're not answering your phone either.'

'I- oh.' She looks towards the door, through which she can see his shoes, her shirt, strewn across the floor of the study. 'It must be out there somewhere, in my jacket.'

'Do you know a detective Freemantle?'

'Yeah, he works robbery with Tom. I met him once, a couple of years ago. Why would he be looking for me in the middle of the night?'

'Because, Kate, it's your apartment that's been robbed.'

He comes closer now, sits beside her and takes her hands, a little surprised when she doesn't try to fight him off. 'Listen to me. That message came in hours ago, probably it was meant to warn us this was about to happen. I told Freemantle I had no idea where you were and I think we should stick to that. I don't think you should go home. And I don't think we should stay here, either, it's bound to be the next place they look.'

'I don't want to run away, Castle. I've been doing that for months.'

'This is different. Kate, you can't go back to your apartment. If they didn't find what they're looking for, they'll have found something else.'

'I don't know where the damn file is, Castle. Even you don't know.'

'Kate, the murder board. In your window.'

She looks up at him, her eyes wider now, a little frightened. 'It wouldn't have occurred to them to open the shutters. They wouldn't have found it.'

'They might if they were—'

'But it isn't hidden anymore. I took it down. I took it down and I wanted to burn everything, but I wasn't quite ready for that yet, so I stuffed it all in an envelope and just threw it in a drawer. They'll have everything now, they'll know exactly how much we know.' She sucks in a sharp breath and for a moment she looks like she did the last time they worked this case together, over a year ago, all big eyes and trembling hands, saying gone Castle, everybody's gone.

'Come with me,' he says, taking her hand and tugging. She untangles herself from his bed slowly, reluctantly, the light of the one lamp glowing golden on her skin, shadowing her bones. He hands her his robe and she wraps it around herself, instantly lost in the folds. She seems so huge to him most of the time that it almost hurts, to be reminded of how slim she really is, how fragile despite all her strength and training. The bruises are reminder enough of what they're up against, and how hopelessly overpowered they are.

He leans in, places a kiss at the point of her cheekbone, which she accepts without comment, and he breathes a little easier. So far, she's still with him. So good.

He leads her into his office, guides her to the chair by his desk. Her fingers clench around his as he disengages, but he has to let go. He'll need both hands for what's about to come.

'I made this. Over the summer,' he says, turning the smartboard on. He walks over to it, double-taps the trash and drags the file back out, watching it blossom as it hits the active part of the board. 'So, you see, the information we had, it isn't all gone.'

He turns back to see her hunched over his desk, her hands over her face, breathing in short, sharp gasps. 'I don't…take it down, please, Castle. I can't. I just…I can't. I can't. I've died too many times for this already, I don't have any more lives left.'

'Okay, we won't, it's finished,' he says quickly, putting the board back to sleep and dropping the remote onto a pile of unopened mail. For a long moment there's only the night-quiet, the hum of the fridge and the muffled traffic below and the sound of Kate trying to get herself under control. He looks at the titles of his books, the windows across the street - anywhere but at her, or their clothes on the floor, or the rumpled bed in the other room. It's like they somehow woke the dragon again through the sheer force of their happiness.

But no, that's not how it was, he reminds himself, before he can storify it into something else. They were not here yet, and then they were done. The dragon woke up for some other reason and went after Montgomery's files, not after them. Or maybe the dragon didn't wake again at all. Maybe the shooter wanted the files for some other reason, maybe he has his own plans for taking the dragon down.

He turns to tell her that and thinks better of it at the same moment that she raises her head. Her eyes so much softer without the heavy makeup to outline them, the edge of her mouth blurred. He feels his heart expanding towards her like the Grinch's, breaking any frame that's meant to hold it.

'All right,' she breathes, her eyes locked on his. 'If we're going to run, we're going to need a plan.'

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