Notes: I know. It's been more than a month. I have no excuse really, other than the fact that I truly wrestled with this one. Please believe me when I say it's better for the wait. If you've forgotten what's happening - and I would in no way blame you - this picks up during Knockout, in which there is angsty and wrong making out between Montgomery's death and his funeral. So far, people have been talking a lot about all manner of things and Beckett is still in the hospital which I'm sure you're quite sick of, but don't worry, discharge is around the corner. As are a few developments between our protagonists that I'm sure you've been holding out for. If you're still reading, I truly commend and thank you and you're more than welcome to clamour for more, or take your pitchfork to me, at the end. ;)

By-the-by, bears some similarity to the canon, which I am stupidly proud of, as it was entirely serendipitous (most of this has been written since late August). Or I'm part-Rogers. Ugh. End humble brag. Sometimes I hate myself. On with the story!

Chapter Seven: Only she who says she did not choose, is the loser in the end.

Once they stopped doling out the medications that made her sleepy, Kate Beckett was a miserable patient. And unfortunately, as Josh had once remarked to Castle as they crossed paths outside her room, oxycodone didn't seem to make her anywhere near as drowsy as the morphine. They'd exchanged a small, ashamed smile at the joke, but it wasn't exactly uncalled for. It was approaching ten days post-op, and everything was looking better, most of all, the patient's acerbic tongue. Beckett was faintly embarrassed at her behaviour, but she felt like she had surrendered control of her mind to the trapthat was her body. That not only meant great physical limitation, but it wore at her patience all-too-quickly.

Castle never quite knew what to expect when he made the journey across the river. Beckett hated hospitals, which he found he'd always known, in a way, even before her daily espousing on the subject. That morning, though, she was in a good mood and he was aiding and abetting her wilful disobedience.

The physiotherapist had been very clear about the limits that needed to be observed. She needed to be up and walking, but she couldn't push it. He called it 'exercise good, exertion bad'. Kate Beckett had never been one to back down from a fight. She had crossed her arms, and Castle read it all over her body: challenge accepted. He had known at the time that it wouldn't be long before she made him her accomplice. And now, here they were, after far too many laps of the hospital room and she was starting to struggle for air.

He propped her up. "Come on. I think you've done enough."

"No," she insisted. "One more."

"Beckett, you could rip a stitch."

"I'll certainly rip something if you don't help me."

"You don't scare me." He looped his arm under her shoulders and pulled her with him anyway. "At this speed, even I'm faster than you."

"You want to race?" she gritted out through her teeth, trying to ignore the pain in her chest which shot out and sank its claws into her with every step.

"Not a competition," he reminded her. "You'll be back to running laps around me in no time… provided you don't kill yourself first, which I'm told is a distinct possibility if you don't –"

"Fine Castle." They had reached the bed again, and she let him use the automatic controls to lower it so she could sit. He liked to play with it, much to her endless annoyance. With the tip of his toe, he kicked it until she was at a more appropriate height, almost eye level.

"Apparently they call this neurology height," he told her while she caught her breath. "A fall from this height is a turf to neuro," he explained.

"Nikki Heat's going to spend a long time in hospital in the next book isn't she?" She had developed a nose for writerly research over the past three years, and if Castle had started absorbing the lingo it was definitely making its way onto the page.

"Maybe." He stood at her knees and gave her a teasing smile. "Or maybe her latest arch nemesis is a serial killing surgeon who takes his work home with him, only at home the patients are perfectly healthy, until he kills them."

She groaned. "Done to death."

"Angel of mercy killer?"

"Mmm." She swung her legs so her toes hit his shins lightly, "Maybe."

"Everyone thinks it's the doctor but actually it's the nurse, getting her revenge on a system that takes her for granted?"

She let her hands fist in his shirt. "Why don't you finish the latest one first?"

"Because that's not as fun," he groaned, "I already know how it ends, I just have to write it. And Gina is on my back about it."

Beckett gave him a wicked look but didn't comment. He followed her line of thought anyway.

She laughed at his answering look and pulled him closer to her. At first he thought she was going to hug him, so he brought his hands to her shoulders, but her fingers worked their way to his collar and tugged his face within kissing distance. She let her tongue dart out over her lips and stared at him. With a hitching breath, the retort died before it left his mouth. His hands travelled the line of her shoulders, slowly, finding the bare skin of her back through the loose ties of her hospital gown.

But even at that, she didn't move, just blinked at him, like she couldn't remember how she'd found herself close enough to feel his breath on her cheek.

"Kate?"

She pulled back and released his shirt. "Sorry," she murmured, feeling her cheeks burn. At least she could blame that on the exercise.

"No, don't worry, it's –" His hands were lingering against her back, tracing her shoulder blades. This was how it seemed to work lately – she tested their limits and he took it as permission to take liberties. It was a stupid, dangerous game that neither of them really realised they were playing until they were in the moment. She reached up and tugged at his arm until he removed his hands.

"Don't say it's fine," she grimaced. "It's not." She patted the space beside her on the bed. He sat. "Sometimes I wonder why it's so easy."

He nudged her shoulder. "Fate."

"Be serious."

"Beckett," he sighed out. "What do you want me to say here?"

She let her head rest against his shoulder, still frowning. "I don't know, nothing, probably."

"And how long is that going to last?" He let his head rest against hers. "We keep trying it. It's not working."

"I know that." She bit her lip. "But I can't… I kind of need you right now," she admitted wryly. "So just ... wait, please. I know it's asking a lot, but I'm not ready to negotiate any more changes. There's been enough of them. I'm not ready to make a mess of another one."

"You need me, huh?"

"Don't let it go to your head."

"Do you think you could get rid of me?" he joked, but there was a hidden truth in it.

"Well that's true." She elbowed his side and sat upright. "You are incredibly persistent."

"Some people call that loyalty." He shuffled as she moved to sit properly in the bed. "Dedication, fidelity, dependability, constancy, reliability, trustworthiness."

"Thank you Roget," she remarked sarcastically. "I take your point."

"Do you really?" He gave her a loaded look.

She nodded slowly. "I'm still not sure it's the right time for thatconversation."

She made a face at how hoarse she sounded; hospitals made her mouth permanently dry.

He dutifully reached over to fetch the plastic cup that she'd pushed out of reach earlier. "Here."

"Thank you,"

His hands were warm when she twisted her freezing fingers through his. If he was surprised, he didn't show it.

"We should pick our way through one emotional minefield at a time." She sighed. "So I suppose we might as well get to one of them, since that's about as much locomotion I can handle for one day, and there's been enough small talk. Before Montgomery's funeral, we said we would talk." She winced, her muscles ruing her earlier enthusiasm. He probably thought it was for him though. "Castle, I want us to be able to work together again."

"I sense a but."

"You asked me to walk away." Beckett frowned. "I can't do that. And I don't feel like we're on the same side anymore."

"You know that it's not as simple as that." He reached out and let his fingers curl around her elbow. "There aren't two sides here. It's not us versus them. If it was, you know I'd be on your side every step of the way. But it's reality, not a novel, as you so often remind me. This is complicated, probably more complicated than we know."

"I know."

"And you know better than anyone that they're out for blood. We have to be careful. You know what I was trying to say that night? Finding your mother's killer won't mean a thing to you if you're dead. Closure, all of that? It's for the people left behind. You know that, that's why you do what you do."

She unfurled his fingers from her arm and squeezed his hand. "I need you to know that walking away, it's … it's not an option."

"Sometimes." He met her eyes, defiant. "You have to find another way. So fine, I promise you that when the time is right, I will do anything and everything I can to help you find your mother's killer, but you have to stay alive while we do it. You can't run at it head on anymore. I won't ask you to walk away, but I will ask you to find another approach. Okay? We can be smarter than them, but not if you lose yourself in it."

She let him unfold her arms and hold both of her hands for a minute.

"Fine," she said, at length. "You might be right, at least, in part. I told Ryan and Esposito to back off." She cocked her head. "For now. I'm trying to figure it out, but it makes no sense."

"What?" He searched her face for clues as she pulled her hands free and looked away. "I think they tried to kill you."

"But why now?" Her brow furrowed in concentration. "Why only me? Why not you or Ryan or Esposito? We're all equally as likely to know about Montgomery's involvement and that's the only new lead we've had in months… we wouldn't even have thatif Lockwood hadn't escaped. They led us right to all of it. There… there has to be something we're missing. And if they were trying to kill me, why didn't they succeed?"

He grimaced but she pressed on.

"I know, they did the job well enough. But they've never had trouble hiring top of the line assassins before and –"

"And a shot to the head would have been fail safe," he finished her sentence. "I know, I've been wondering the same thing."

"And?"

"You know me; I've never had trouble imagining a scenario to make sense of the evidence before, but here? Even I'm coming up blank. It's too big, not human enough, for me to imagine."

She nodded slowly. "I'm in two minds. The longer we wait, the colder the trail goes. But even if we catch the shooter, it'll be Lockwood all over again – no real identity, no prints in the system, no nothing. And whoever's hiring these people has reach.

The words idled between them.

He found himself wanting to say more, about the leads they'd been given and the so-far-unrewarding follow up but the window drew his eyes. He wondered if the omniscient, amorphous they were still watching from across the street. It made his fingers itch to close the blinds, but he couldn't think of a way to excuse it. In the end he remained silenced by the part of him that was still afraid for her, for him, by so nearly losing her.

(That part was convinced that even if he couldn't save her from it, he could at least insulate her from that mad need that drove her. The rest of him thought it was unduly optimistic but it insisted. And he'd always had a bit of hero complex when it came to wounded women, always wanted to rescue them, wanted them to rescue him.)

"What are you thinking?" she asked, quietly. "I can almost see it, turning behind your eyes."

"Plot point," he deflected, easily, with a kind of alarm at how second-nature the deception was becoming. "Sorry."

She smiled and shook her head once. "Castle," she said, and the moniker had a weight to it that demanded his attention. "I want you to know, I can let it rest, for now. Already have, in a way."

"Really?"

(And it was the single, shining perfect moment to tell her about the files, the photos, all of it, but he was afraid it would change her mind.)

Beckett nodded. "For one thing, I'm told things aren't exactly as … relaxed at the precinct without Montgomery in charge. For another, no one else needs to get shot."

She saw everything in him relax with relief. "Thank you."

She shook her head. "It's not for you or my father or anyone else. But maybe I understand it a little bit better now. You were afraid."

"Beckett, you have no idea."

"I do," she argued quietly. "It never really goes away Castle. And I hate it because it makes me feel weak but I'm not … done. There are so many things I haven't finished." She felt it catch in her throat and looked away from him in case she couldn't stop herself from crying. She felt his weight shift on the bed and he was tugging at her arms until she twisted and folded herself into the embrace.

"You didn't want to die," he said into her hair. "That's okay. I don't think anyone ever does, or at least, is meant to."

She pulled away, sooner than he would've liked but after longer than he expected. When she'd distanced herself, shuffled to the furthest corner of the mattress and pressed her hand to her cheek, Beckett glanced over at him, wondering why it was so easy to go to him and so hard to stay. The old arguments seemed hollow, but the new ones had yet to take their shape. Still. She folded her arm across her body. "Well I didn't."

"What?"

"Die."

"No."

She saw just how much he struggled to mute the smile that spurred and her throat tightened a little. The knowledge that she could hurt him, really hurt him, twisted through her. She had the burning urge to change the subject, but she came up blank. Miraculously, he did it for her.

"I haven't forgotten." Castle paused in the middle of the sentence until she frowned a little, unable to tell what was meant to come next. "About the book," he finished. "About how I said you could read it."

"Oh." She relaxed, but barely. "I told you that you didn't have to. I won't hold you to it."

"No, it's nearly done. It's just…"

(He looked self-conscious for a second and she nearly made a face at herself when she realised she just how much it endeared him to her.)

"It's just not quite ready," he told her, finally. "Don't want to disappoint you."

"You couldn't," she promised, nodding to the copy of Hell Hath No Fury resting beside the bed.

His eyes widened at little at seeing it. "My mother?"

Beckett grinned. "Yes. But it was sweet of her Castle."

Running a hand over his face he reached out and flipped through to where she was up to, read a few sentences before closing it with a soft smack, clearly communicating his disgust. "I'm almost tempted to try to buy up every copy and have them burned."

She reached over and took it from his lap, smoothing the dust jacket beneath her palms almost protectively. "I liked this one," she told him, simply. (He puzzled over it in the seconds before she explained, because it didn't seem very Kate Beckett of her, to like a novel about the occult.) "I mean, you've written better since, but I liked a lot of the contrasts you made. They were … starker, than in the later ones. And I think you used to be less self-conscious about your word choices."

Her eyes glanced up to find him transfixed and she nearly laughed. Of course, of course, Castle would like to talk about his own books.

"I think that sometimes you were a little braver," she finished, before it could go too far to his head. "I mean, on the whole the polish makes them better. But it's nice sometimes, to re-read the ones that are a little rougher around the edges."

The truth was that Hell Hath No Fury was the kind of thing she'd put down if she opened it in a book store. Derek Storm had always been more her style – the killings were outlandish, sure, but the prose was more restrained, precise, immediately gripping. (She could tell, reading the earlier work, that he'd learned not to run on as much over the years.) But it was the last novel her mother read before she died. Actually, she'd found the dog ear halfway through the penultimate chapter. It was one of those absurd thoughts that sometimes cut through grief, but she still remembered it clearly, feeling intolerably sad that her mother had never finished it, never got the missing piece of the puzzle.

There was a single line at the close of that penultimate chapter that always spoke to her, that she thinks her mother would have liked:Adam smiled at the horizon and its fading light, his long nose casting orange shadows in the face of another sunset. "That's all you can do. Pick up the pieces from where they've fallen and rearrange them as best you can."

She had re-read it far too many times, just for that.

She narrowed her eyes at him, but he'd seen her momentarily serious expression. Her words were teasing. "You're going to be insufferable now, aren't you?"

"The writerly ego is very fragile Beckett." He gave her a wounded look. "It needs all the praise you can spare it."

"I have a hard time believing that any of your egos are fragile," she told him.

Absently, Castle wondered if it was a reference to Freud. Probably not. In that respect, he was probably far too ruled by id.

He sensed that she wasn't telling him all of it but didn't press; usually it was best to wait her out and she'd tell him eventually. Evidently this was one of those times. She looked up, and hesitated. He heard the slip of air.

"What?"

"It was the last book she read before she died." She held it up with her fingers marking her place.

"Then be sure to tell her I'm sorry," he remarked. He was looking at her gently though, encouraging.

The comment coaxed a smile out of her, as he'd intended.

"I'm surprised actually." She was giving him a much more familiar look, all shark going after prey and he knew she had an insult waiting. "Pulp fiction wasn't like her. She preferred literature."

"Beckett, you wound me. Then again-" he eyed her slyly "- at least you don't share her preference."

Well that was true. She'd read a lot of more high brow novels in high school and college (in fact, she'd been toying with the idea of an English major in that first semester at Stanford) but after she'd come home and thrown herself into a psyche major and then, the academy and the job, she'd been too exhausted to handle anything heavier in the time she stole to read. She glared at him just the same.

"Hey." He nudged into her leg with his fingers. "I appreciate every single one of my fans. Especially you, because you know better but you read them anyway."

"You have an overactive imagination, but you've always done your research, despite my endless protests."

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks."

She was pleased that he'd quoted correctly, but it didn't show on her face. "Don't push your luck Castle."

"You have been unusually nice this afternoon." He pondered over it. "Why the good mood?"

She held up her wrist to show him the last cannula. "We're down to the last tube, and they're not using it for anything."

"Planning your escape?"

Beckett grinned. "Oh yeah. At least, I'm hopeful."

He smiled, said it softly. "I am too."

She and her dad both looked up from their respective reading material at the knock on the door.

(Jim Beckett spent most of his time keeping her company which she appreciated more than she might've thought before the shooting. They'd always been able to be in each other's presence quietly; her mother had always been the one to drive the conversation. But their own ways of handling grief had strained their relationship. Silences had become absences. The shadow of it still sometimes sat in between them. But after her brush with death they had found a calm. It was easy. And she was grateful.)

Castle was looking back at them, half in and half out of the room, the arm not still in the hallway curled around something that sparked her interest, at first because she thought he was bringing her a case from the precinct to look over and at second, because she realised it was the writing he had promised her.

"Can I come in?" he asked, rhetorically, but still waited until she nodded to cross the threshold completely.

"Of course." Beckett let her book rest against the hospital blanket cover-down. (She'd finished Hell Hath No Fury, or rather, skipped over ten chapters in the middle and re-read the end before moving on to something Lanie had bought her. It was stupidly easy to read - or just stupid, she hadn't yet decided which - and she'd resolved never to let Castle see it. The teasing about chick lit would neverend.) When her hands were less occupied, she waved him in.

"I brought coffee, for everyone." He announced, setting down both burdens at her feet and handing her the paper cup. It was a familiar ritual in an only semi-familiar setting, but she smiled at it, let her fingers rest against the warm cardboard, always aware that his were only inches away.

Her dad glanced between them and stood up. "I'm going to take a walk with mine."

Beckett nodded at the same time as Castle began protesting, saying Jim didn't have to leave on his account, which earned him a glare.

Jim Beckett laughed at them and raised his cup in a kind of toast as he made his exit. "I won't be long."

There was a beat of silence before Beckett hid her face in her hand. "He's completely transparent isn't he?"

"He tries to be inconspicuous."

"Valliant though in vain," she muttered, cursing her mind for catching the lilt of the dialogue she'd been reading all morning. "Don't get me wrong," she continued, refocussing her attentions on the sentence she'd intended. "I appreciate that he's here it's just... "

"There are some things you don't want to have to explain to your father?"

She nodded. "You said it. And he's not asking incredibly loudly."

"He's not the only one."

He muttered it without thinking and he saw the panic that flashed across her face, and the way she froze for a moment afterward and immediately regretted speaking too honestly. In truth he knew that the uncertainty was a necessary evil, that there were more important things than whether or not she knew that he loved her, and whether or not their ending was together or apart. He'd settle for them both alive. And that meant unravelling the conspiracy surrounding her mother's death, finding the shooter, letting her recover, physically and mentally. Intellectually, he was happy not to push. But it didn't come naturally, and there were his own wounds that were healing, vivid nightmares and a lack of restful sleep and a growing obsessionwith the murder board in his study; all of it made it more difficult for him to be better than his basal instinct. (And instinct and insecurity, louder, said push, said it's better to know. Part of him did know. He just didn't trust it.)

She swallowed and extended a hand, about to reply, to smooth things over, but he spoke before she could, changed the subject, adopted a much brighter tone than was necessary.

"I brought you something," he said. After bending to retrieve it, he handed her the stack of pages. "As promised."

She lay them in her lap and let her thumb smooth over the title page. "You didn't have to."

"I know." He didn't say it, but she heard it. I wanted to.

She wished, with acuteness, that it could have been simpler. It was significant, the kind of moment that became a memory that stood apart from the rest, but even as it was happening, she wanted to remember it differently, wanted to reach out, run her thumb along his jaw, kiss him, but softly, in a way she never had.

(That wasn't like her, her impulses were rarely tender, more likely to be borne of more frantic desire than deep-seeded affection.)

She sank her teeth into her lip instead, refusing to let him draw her gaze though she could tell he was staring at her.

"I forgot," he said, after a long silence.

"What?" She did look up then, stunned out of her mute emotion by his words.

(Even that had a symbolism to it.)

He procured a red pen from the pocket of his shirt. "For all the things you want to change."

Beckett's hand flew to her mouth to stifle the huff of amusement. "I wouldn't want to influence your authorial voice or vision Castle."

"Really? I would've thought you'd be a 'notes to fill the margins' kind of editor. And I particularly would've thought you'd jump at the chance to make your fictional counterpart more… realistic."

"Unless you mean less naked on the cover, then no, she's realistic enough."

He studied her, trying to decrypt her expression. "Really?"

"People don't read crime thrillers for realism anyway. They're … an escape."

He smirked.

"What?" She narrowed her eyes at his mirth.

"Only you Beckett." He reached over and handed her the pen, letting his fingers rest against hers to take the sting out of it. "Would come home after a long day solving homicides and escape by reading books about it."

"In the books it's different, neater, easier. And there's a comfort in that, in a protagonist and an antagonist and a villain, and it all working out in the end. Life is rarely so black and white." She watched his expression. "Not that you don't get the nuances right, at times."

"Just that I get to perfect the ending. I know what you're saying."

"Do you?" she asked, and the question was carrying more baggage than should be expected of two words. She followed up with another, quieter one, which made what she was not plainly saying clearer. "Really?"

"In most ways. It's -" he ran a hand over his face, "- God Beckett. It's barely been two weeks."

"I know." Her hand started towards his but fell short against the woven hospital blanket. She traced the small holes in the fabric with the pad of her finger.

He nodded once, admitted it quietly and deflected with humour. (So he was still there somewhere, the Castle she knew, loved.) "I miss Montgomery, and not just because Gates is ... five letter word, rhymes with witch."

"I know."

"I didn't think... I didn't know him like you did, like the others did, but he was still... I've been thinking about it a lot, about why he tolerated me hanging around the precinct, following you around for reasons that must've been transparent to you, to everyone. And I think he must've seen something in me that you certainly didn't." He paused to smile at her, nostalgic. "But more than that, something I'd started to forget in myself. I was wandering a bit Beckett, back then."

She nodded, and adopted his hushed tone, traded a secret of her own. "I know. I was too... I just, hardly knew the extent of it, at the time."

"Anyway. It's not just you, but you're part of it, it's the work, and it's the team, it's real people again, after too long without more than a handful of them, and even fewer that I'd call friends. I feel like I owe him that. I'm just... grateful, more than I can really say."

"He brought me onto homicide you know." It was her way of acknowledging what he'd said, the depth of it. "And not a moment too soon. I was just drowning in it, in my mother's case, in Royce leaving and it was what I needed. I'm not sure if he ever knew how much, but then again, I was always surprised by it, how well he knew me. I think sometimes it was better than I knew myself. And he had this way. He had this way of steering me away from my limits, so gently that most of the time I didn't notice."

"The book," he said, nodding to the manuscript in her hands, "It has to be for him."

She nodded, unable to hide the smile that played at the corners of her mouth. "You don't have to ask my permission or seek my approval."

"Read it," he urged, "First. What you said at your apartment that day, about telling no one outside of us, well, you may have noticed that I have a tendency to write what I know."

Beckett sighed. "If anyone asks it's fiction, your overactive imagination. That's what you've been saying all this time anyway."

It had never be true, not strictly.

"I'd like that," she told him, fiddling with the corner of the first page, wearing it into a crease in a way that would become so familiar that the paper would give way. "And I think he would too. A dedication, I mean."

He nodded, swallowed. "It still feels strange. Ryan and Esposito are happy to have me along, but walking in there, seeing that office but it being Gates behind that desk. It reminds me that it's still fresh."

"Well like you said." She reached for his hands properly, took one and squeezed it once before dropping it back into his lap. "It's only been two weeks. And like the doctors keep saying, it's going to take time for things to feel normal again, for all of us, not just for me."

"I always hated it when people said it only took time."

"As though that were something we all have in abundance," she murmured her agreement.

"I hated it even more when I learned they were right."

She laughed, wryly at first. "The most intolerable platitudes are the true ones."

He amused her for nearly an hour by furnishing her with examples, and her laughter was increasingly genuine.

Sometimes, in those smallest of moments, she forgot where she was and why she was there and each time she remembered it was the slightest bit easier. She hadn't noticed it yet, the change was too slow, but the ease with which they could fall into old habits was comforting. She held onto it; it fed her hope and slowly it became a belief. No matter what happened, they would all find their way eventually.

In a way, she thought afterwards that they both knew it was coming. In the last days at the hospital she saw Josh less and less, and when he was there, everything felt stilted, full of apologies on her part and silent pride on his. But maybe it was just that she knew, and her knowledge coloured all of it.

Still, she had the sense that it was all hurtling towards an inevitable conclusion, hurt feelings and accusations that she deserved and the end of something that had once been good, good for her, for both of them. But it wasn't what it had been, what she'd once thought it could be. And she knew she couldn't allow herself to pretend forever. But one more day never seemed to hurt.

In truth, she knew she was indulging herself, waiting for a moment that was never coming. There was no right time, no good way. It was just that this was the last tie to a past, a time that was over. Life is full of changing times. Sometimes they fade, bleed into the new, like summer to autumn, or a year's end and a new one's beginning. But sometimes the shifts are abrupt, winter to spring without the thaw. This one had been. She was still searching for a constant, and she knew (had known, probably, from the beginning) that it could never be Josh, but her instinct was still to cling to whatever was left. In lots of ways, she was used to having him in her life and she knew she'd feel the absence of him when he was gone.

Regret, she was learning, was bitter medicine. And Royce had been right about more than one thing in his last letter to her, there was nothing worse than if only.

But if only what? She wasn't sure what she would change, or, more precisely, how she would change it. The deck had been stacked and every card that fell had followed the one before.

Fate still wouldn't excuse all of it, if she believed in it. She did and she didn't; she knew that sometimes things happened to you, that life continued without your consent. But you chose how to weather the storm. Death, loss, that wasn't a choice, but grief was. And still there were other choices; she wished she had made hers differently.

It had been months, debatably, but weeks, certainly, since the dirty bomb and resurfacing doubts. Then, when it had started to be a mess, it was one she was going to fix, but there had never seemed to be the time. They were, all three, bodies in motion, and classical mechanics applied. Maybe this was the external force she had been waiting for, pushing for change.

The light was waning when it came to an unavoidable point, the one where she couldn't avoid it any longer, and even her nostalgic mind couldn't stop her body from betraying her. Josh moved to kiss her, as he must've a hundred times, but for all that it was familiar, it wasn't because she felt differently. And she couldn't stomach it.

Her face was hidden behind her hair when she turned away. She swallowed and opened her mouth to shake it off.

He beat her to words. "Don't apologise."

That drew her attention. She was searching his expression for a clue with her detective's eye instantly. Josh looked worn; they both did, like they were paper that had been folded and re-folded on itself one too many times.

He refused to hold her gaze for long.

"Why not?" she pressed, quietly.

"Because." He tracked the shadows of the blinds, moving slowly across linoleum, cut with brilliant orange, red, fast fading to purple, blue, a cosmic metaphor he didn't truly want any part in.

He looked up, "Kate."

"No." She shook her head but barely. "Don't. Say it."

"Why should I have to? You're the one..." He trailed off into a sigh. "God. Look at us."

"I'm not sure I'd want to," Beckett admitted.

"Yeah." He laughed, in the way people have of finding humour when they have to. He tugged at her hand. "Do I know what you're saying?"

Her throat was tight. She nodded, still staring at the wall, at the silhouette they made.

"It was never going to work," she said, sadly.

"I know that. You were never in it."

She frowned and met his eyes. "That's not true. This isn't about Castle, not entirely. I know you think it is, but it isn't."

"What am I meant to think?" He was exasperated, frustrated, hurt, and plain exhausted. "You let me think there was a lot less to it than there is."

She was definitely guilty of that charge. The look she gave him was contrite. "But still a lot less than you're probably imagining. It's not just that Josh. It's because … we're too alike. I have to go out there and chase murderers. You have to fly across the world and save lives. You think you can give it up, but you can't. You love it too much, more than you'll ever love me. And I love what I do more than I'll ever love you. Sometimes, that means getting shot. And you can't ask me to stop."

"I wasn't going to," he said, but she knew part of him was lying. And even if he never asked, she could tell that he wanted to. It made her feel guilty (more guilty than anything else) and she couldn't carry that around with her forever.

"But you want to," she lamented, "You want to ask me not to die... and I can't promise that."

"No one truly can," he said. He knew, of course, that his words were true. Fate or, more practically, pathology paid no heed to race, creed, age, career choice.

"I need to do this," she told him. "And I think I need to do it alone. Everyone in my life is going to tell me not to, and I'm going to ignore them. I don't want to make you one of them."

"I don't want to be one of them." He was struggling to keep his tone neutral. "I'm sorry Kate, but I don't. I don't understand it. I want to. I always... want to understand you."

"I know." Her chest ached and she brought her hand up to her sternum, but it wasn't physical. She let out the breath that had hitched and held her hand out in between them, wiggling her fingers until he met her halfway and grabbed it. "I'm sorry too."

"What you said, about wanting someone who'd be there." He stared at their knotted fingers. "I wanted it to be me you know. I really did."

"You can't be something you're not," she murmured. "And neither can I. Believe me, it's not easy."

"At least you have someone to ease the blow." From anyone else it might have been a dig, but from him it was just a last regret. He slumped forward and leaned his head against their hands.

"That's not true." It was barely a whisper. She almost choked on it. She felt two slow tears escape from both her and didn't bother wiping them away. "And even if it is, you do too."

He looked up her in silent question, one of his own tears threatening at the corner of his eye. She reached out and smudged it away with the pad of her thumb. "Africa, Haiti, South America." She tried to smile, but she tended to cry in small floods with long droughts in between. There was nothing for it now.

"Don't." He leaned against her hand, "Please. Don't cry. I can't... not if you cry."

"I told you it wasn't easy."

"I know it's not."

She took a deep breath and glanced her cheeks with her free palm. "Josh, go home. Get some sleep. I'll be fine."

"I know you will." He gave her a wistful smile. "Always are. I love you, you know."

"I know," she sighed. "I loved you too." (Because she had, in a way. As much as Castle had accused her of hiding in it, she hadn't really, not entirely. It wasn't just an escape, it was a salve.)

"But."

She nodded, grimaced ruefully. "Yeah. But."

"Damnit." He clenched his hand into a fist and held it to the underside of his nose. "Why is there always a but?"

"I don't know." Her fingers brushed against his five o'clock shadow. "Come on. It doesn't make it any easier drawing it out like this. Just... pretend like it's no different to any other night and kiss me and walk out of here and ... they're discharging me tomorrow," she said. "And we'll leave it at that."

He nodded and stood and bent to kiss her. Their tears were mingling on her cheeks when he pulled away and stalked out.

Beckett stared at the empty doorway until her eyes stung from exhaustion. Then she swallowed, steeled herself to it, and leaned back against the pillows. She closed her eyes to the hospital ceiling and imagined her mother sitting beside her, offering old advice. It hurts for a while and some of that will never leave you, but someday, you'll look back on it and you'll remember some time or another and it will just make you smile.

She'd been sixteen and didn't believe a word at the time, but it was true, at least, about that particular boy. Some hurts scarred worse than others. She felt the tears return and spill from behind her eyelids and she wished, for the first time in a long time, that she was a child again, crawling into her mother's lap on the sofa and finding easy comfort.

When she finally fell asleep, first light was peaking between the blinds and she dreamed Johanna was wrapping her in a fierce motherly hug telling her that doing the right thing wasn't meant to be easy.