Chapter 3 – It's Complicated

A/N: How you all finding it so far? Leave a review for me, will you? As my inbox's flooded, I don't check e-mails that often... so reviews are more appreciated. You can PM me too though.

- This chapter is dedicated to all of you who reviewed! Your reviews made my day :) Keep them coming!

- If you see my own review on my story, ignore it. Its just a friend bugging me. (Unfortunately she knows my password which I have to change now)

- Pardon my grammatical errors please :)

Disclaimer: These characters don't belong to me, Andrew W Marlowe and ABC are doing a damn good job with 'em.

Castle shut the entrance door with his leg, not loosening his grip on that piece of paper. He started moving slowly towards the couch where Beckett was sitting. She had rested her sprained ankle on the table in front and was staring at him as he walked. Castle seated himself on the other end of the couch, the spot furthest from her. Kate noticed the paper and his worried expression which cajoled her to ask him what was wrong.

'What's up?' she asked, after staring at him for a while and noticing no change in his expression.

'Kate...' he began but then again there was a long pause. Kate raised an eyebrow at him, asking him to continue.

'It's a message from your sniper... Cole Maddox?' he said, confirming the name in the end. Even the mentioning of his name made Kate uneasy.

'Oh god... he knows I'm here' she said, moving her hand through her hair and placing her palms on her eyes. How could've she been so foolish to come here, knowing that her every move was being tracked.

'What does it say?' she asked, after seeping in the first news. Castle did not wait for her to ask again. He read aloud immediately.

"Richard Castle, now that you are already involved, welcome. Your girlfriend here has some files which are very important to me. They are worth killing for and I mean that literally. Unless you both don't cooperate and hand them over to me, I will kill everyone your partner loves. Since you are top on the list, I'll start with you.

You have 7 days. I will send you a reminder every day. Don't cross the deadline or it will get deadly. You'll drop the files in an alley. Detective Beckett will know which one I'm talking about. Don't visit the place unless you have the files or I will kill you there and then. One more thing, if you both inform anyone else, he/she dies along with you

BTW – May your friend here, Mr Smith, rest in peace".

'Son of a bitch...' Kate hissed with tightly clenched teeth.

It was a threat and many things were mentioned there that Castle didn't know about. The anger inside him was boiling, forcing him to act impudent and get the story out of her. He tried to calm himself down and ease his partner in crime first. Kate was just red with rage and cursing herself for involving him in this mess. Now his life was threatened all because of her. She was trying hard to remain strong and not to break in front of him as they had no time to lose. Every minute of their life counted now and seven days would go by fast, she knew that.

'Tell me what happened Kate... a month's a lot' Castle asked, not with scared but with determined eyes. She told him the entire story where she had been and how she had survived, without him there to save her or support her.

A month ago...

After leaving the loft that morning, Kate had been adamant to catch the guy who had shot her, the same who was related to her mother's murder somehow. She asked for his location and headed straight to that place, Ryan and Esposito having her back all the time. She caught a glimpse of his face. He was standing on the same spot where he had been captured before on the traffic-cam. He hadn't moved an inch. It was as if he had been ready to get caught all along. The moment he saw Beckett, he started running. Kate chased him. That's when her life started falling apart. She ran for almost a mile, trying to hunt him down but she lost him. He was just too fast. Her team was unable to catch up with her and had taken a few wrong turns. She had no back up but she didn't care. She continued to run. She ignored calls from Ryan, Espo, Gates and everyone who was trying to contact her. She had pulled herself back into that rabbit hole. She would stay in motels or cheap guestrooms at night and would resume her journey in the morning with fresh eyes and recharged energy. Many days passed with her following the same routine, trying to catch this guy because of whom her life had taken a wrong turn not once but twice. One day she saw him entering an old heritage building. He had a locker there and was keeping some files in it. It opened with a key. She could break a lock which opened with a key. He just slyly walked away, into the elevator and that's when Kate broke the lock and took the files out. They were the files that Mr Smith was using to blackmail the higher authority, just to keep her safe. When she got out of that building, she started walking towards the main road to hail a cab. But she was being followed. She turned around to face the man. It was him, Cole Maddox.

'Ughh... you again detective, I should have killed you, actually that was my plan all along... to make myself seen, to get you to follow me here without backup, what are you going to do now, Detective?' he asked, grinning shamelessly at her.

Kate remembered their first fight, she remembered the day she was shot, she remembered the night her mother was found dead in an alley. All these dark memories encouraged her to fight and kindled the fire of revenge in her. She took her gun out and was about to press the trigger when he threw a knife at her. She tilted, the knife missing her hand by inches, but she had dropped her gun and the files now in an attempt to dodge the knife. He walked casually towards her and was just a feet away when Kate bended and kicked his knee hard with her ankle, the intense force used hurt both of them. He fell to the ground, on his back. Kate was about to pick her gun to shoot him but he kicked it away with his foot, making her fall down as well in the process. He was now standing, with her lying there. He punched her face, giving her a cut on her lower lip. Kate quickly reached for the disposed glass bottle lying nearby and pierced his thigh with it. He groaned in pain. Kate thought she had knocked him down so she just dropped the bottle and started gathering the files. She was about to grab her gun when he attacked her from behind, using the discarded broken glass bottle as a weapon. He was aiming for her head but Kate shifted her position which caused him to injure her arm instead. Kate screamed in pain as the sharp edges of the broken glass bottle ripped her skin apart but she instantly used her elbow to smack him in the face. His nose started bleeding. She grappled him and gave him a kick between his thighs with all her strength which made him drop to the ground and yell loudly as pain took charge of his body.

Once he was surely knocked down, she hurried to the main road, hailed a cab, not to the precinct but to Castle.

She told Castle the whole story, not exaggerating at all like he would have done if he had kicked someone's ass. She hated to recall some parts as she could still feel the pain. The bruises and marks were a constant reminder of the worst day of her life. Castle comforted her and gave her support throughout, sometimes squeezing her hand to show that he was there, sometimes shifting closer and using his fingers to tuck a few strands of hair on her forehead, behind her ear to make her feel his presence and in the end, keeping his hand on her knee to show her that she was safe now. She left out a few details here and there. Even Castle knew that she was holding back something from him, but he decided not to ask her right now, maybe he would... after she got some rest. Once the inevitable conversation was over, he put a distance between them again.

'No wonder he's frustrated... you took the files and totally kicked the guy's ass' he stated, smiling and making the situation a little bearable, though his voice was a little shaky.

'You came directly to me after the fight so, what I want to know is that... where are the files?' he asked, looking at her, trying to figure out where she could have hidden them. He knew that the ending of her story was incomplete and it even missed a few parts in between. She blinked hard and took a long breath before saying something.

'Some place safe...' she said, looking at him longingly. Maybe it wasn't the truth but it neither was a lie. The files were safe. Castle wasn't satisfied with her answer but he had no capacity to argue.

It was already afternoon - 12:30 pm. A lot had happened in just 12-13 hours. They decided to skip lunch, get some sleep and wake up only for dinner now. They had 7 whole days to return those files and figure things out. Castle stood up, gave her a small smile and said 'Get some rest... we'll talk tomorrow'.

Though Castle didn't deny the fact that she had suffered too but he couldn't just act as if nothing had happened. He had given her comfort and support when she needed and he wanted her to do the same for him instead of pulling away from him and using him as a back up plan. In order for something to work, each person has to support the other; they have to lift each other up, it just cant be done one way. He wasn't sure whether she loved him or just loved the idea of being with him. There was a big difference between the two. He knew he couldn't always be her pillar of strength because one day eventually he would become avarice and would want more from her. He had to be circumspect this time before warming up to her and letting her in as his heart was already lying broken and shattered and another blow would just totally crush it. He was tired of trying.

Kate realized that the wall she had built around herself after her mother's death to keep out the sadness had kept the joy out of her life too. She wasn't having any fun until he came into her life. She just couldn't afford to lose him. She knew that now he needed time and it was a lot for him to take in therefore she just nodded and said 'Yeah... you too...'

Her eyes followed him all the way up to his bedroom until he closed the door. She could have been there with him in his room right now if she hadn't made a few wrong decisions back then. Though she had best interests in mind while making them, the end result just wasn't worth it. She knew that sooner or later they would have to confront each other and sort things out. The difference between Kate and Castle was that she did not consider that night a mistake. She considered that night something that was permanent, something that was perfect and indestructible, something that wasn't fading as days passed but was becoming more and more vivid and clear with time. She had reached a stage where she could finally say those three words back to him but she wasn't sure whether he wanted to hear them now.

It had been a hell of a month, actually a lot more had happened that month besides her encounter with Cole Maddox. She had left out another very important detail in her story. She hadn't told him that - last night wasn't the first time she had visited him in those 30 days.

A/N: This was a tough chapter to write, especially 'Kate's story' and the action part. Even their feelings towards the end. I hope I did justice to them? (Fingers crossed) - What do you think so far? X

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