MILE TWO:

"When I was ten –"

"TEN!?" Castle exclaims. "You have twelve stories to tell me and you're going to start when you're already TEN?! I feel cheated!"

"Shut up, Castle. I'm not telling them in order. I'm telling them as I remember them, and your writer's mind is just going to have to deal with that." She shakes her head slightly, a tick of annoyance.

They pass a gospel choir singing on the side of the road, and Castle is momentarily distracted, belting out an out-of-breath "Amazing Grace" alongside them, Kate struggling to breathe while breaking out in laughter. The choir smiles and waves to the couple, amused, but in only moments, the pair has left them behind, and Castle turns to Kate. "When you were ten…"

"When I was ten, my math teacher told me I was bad at math, and shouldn't have been in the advanced class." Kate thought back to the day. It had been heartbreaking at the time, and while her parents had both assured her the teacher was not right, she never recovered the same fearless ambition in the subject. "When I was thirteen, I failed my first math test. Granted, I was two levels above grade level, but I remember sitting in stunned silence for the whole class, the day really. The moment my parents walked in the front door, though, I burst into tears."

Castle looked at her for a moment, and they ran onwards for a few paces in silence.

"I love math. I love the puzzle, the fact that there's always an answer. I love the thrill of discovery. But after those two experiences, I never believed in my math abilities anymore, not really. I knew I could get As, but I didn't have the passion. And I spent years dreading math, until one day in high school – I met the problem that was my undoing."

They passed the port-o-potties, and Kate falls silent, breathing through her mouth to avoid the stench. When they've passed, Castle bumps her lightly on the shoulder. "So? The problem to end all problems?"

Kate laughed "Yes, the problem straight from hell. It was three am, and I was still stuck on this damn problem. It was a take home exam, only four questions, and I couldn't get this last one – so I'd get a 75% without this. That wasn't happening to Katherine Beckett. I had big dreams! I was going to Stanford!" She smiled.

"Three am, and all I had where four pages of random equations and scribbles, too many derivatives lingering on the page, and a couple of random "fucks" written on the page for vengeance's sake."

"I'm sure your teacher loved those."

"I wasn't going to turn in those pages, Castle! Anyway, there I was. And the longer I stared at the page, the longer I got flashes of inspirations that amounted to nothing, I kept hearing my fifth grade math teacher in my head – 'You're stupid. You can't do math. You'll never amount to anything, why are you even in this class, why do you even try?' I couldn't figure out how to connect the dots. I would get this vague sense I was getting SO close, but then it would just slip from my fingers, because I'd have one too many variables, one too many expressions."

She sighed, turned to him. His face shows confusion, and she thinks it's probably better to put this in the terms of the artist, the author in him. "It's like when you know what you're trying to convey, but you can't get the words to work for you. The sentence is perfect, but ends on a preposition, or the description phrase isn't placed next to what it modifies, but when you put it in the proper location, the whole rhythm falls apart." Castle nodded once, and she knew he got her point.

"I remember thinking to myself, 'I can do this', and picking up the pen, surveying the page, repeating the mantra, but having it fall apart as the numbers and letters in multiple alphabets swarmed in front of me. I remember leaning my elbows on the desk, cradling my head in my hands, and looking down at the pages, letting my mind lose focus, trying to see a pattern, but there was none. The clock read four am, and I wanted sleep."

She smiled; she remembered this part well. "So I decided I'd give up. I wrote down every variation of the problem I had tried, and when it had fallen to pieces, I wrote a couple of sentences explaining why it failed. I figured I'd get some partial credit, that it would be worth something, that maybe I could pull off a B and with the rest of my exams, get it up to an A- for the quarter. And a half hour later, I slinked into bed and slept for a couple of hours, before the alarm rang for school."

She stopped speaking, as though done, and Castle turned to look at her. "Is that the end of the story?" Kate took a moment to catch her breath, looked at a runner beside her whose tee shirt declared that she was running for her aunt who passed away from breast cancer, before turning to Castle.

"No, that's not the end. This is the end: I waited for a week to find out what I'd get on that exam. Finally the day came. Our teacher walked into class and started to speak about the exam. He said that the majority of the class had all gotten problem three – that's the problem I was stuck on – problem three wrong; in fact, only one person got it right. He wouldn't tell us the answer, but just walked around handing back the exams. I remember seeing on mine the words 'Brilliant job' – not even registering the grade, just 'Brilliant job' – before flipping to page three. Turns out there wasn't an answer for question three; that was the trick. That there was no right answer."

Castle looked at her, "There's a moral there, isn't there? You actually told a story about an exam so that you could give me a fucking moral?!"

"Yeah, there's a moral, and you can shut up about the fact there's a moral. It's not a moral for you. It was a moral for me – that there wasn't always an answer, that things don't always wrap up neatly. It was a lesson I find valuable in my work – sometimes cases go cold – and in my life, because sometimes we lose things for nonsensical reasons, and there's no answer. Without that memory, I think I'd always search for the answer; I don't think I could ever have peace. With that memory, I can retain sanity in the quest for truth – because sometimes the truth is not absolute."

She turned to Castle. "You're sweating! Didn't I tell you that you didn't want a sweatshirt?"

"Yeah, yeah, Beckett, you're always right." He smiled softly for a moment to himself, observing the ground in front of him, admiring the light patter of multiple sneakers hitting asphalt at the same time.

"Hey Kate? For what it's worth, I know the answer to the questions that matter when it comes to you."

Kate exhaled, let the words escape quietly on the breath, almost a whisper, a sigh, "I know you do."

They ran in relative silence for the rest of the mile, Kate considering her next story choice. Castle, on the other hand, was engrossed in creating a hip-hop rendition of "Amazing Grace", random lyrics occasionally flowing from his mouth in a quick beat, broken up with the deep breaths of exertion. In three minutes, they saw the Mile 2 sign ahead, and Castle looked at Kate eagerly, excited to hear her next tale.

Author's Note: ENJOY. :) Clearly, this is more about the stories than the race - but I'm thinking I'll try to interject more racing details in the story if you guys are interested in exactly what happens during a half marathon - I don't know if you guys would be interested though?

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter! I probably won't get to write again until Thursday night, unless I'm avoiding the TONS of work I have due before then. :)

As always, reviews are insanely appreciated. To those who reviewed and favorited and followed this story and myself... THANK YOU. I'm so grateful for your interest and support.