There seem to have been a few problems seeing uploaded pages over the last 24 hours or so but I hope you've been able to read chapters 3 & 4 now which took the story to the end of Rise.

Now we move on to the rest of the season. Hope you continue to enjoy Kate's thoughts!

Disclaimer: Sadly, nothing about Castle belongs to me.

Chapter 5

Heroes and Villains

It had been a couple of weeks since Kate had last written in her diary. She knew Dr Burke had said to keep it a regular exercise but frankly, nothing much had happened, which in itself was, of course, a good thing. Then, this last case, talk about right up Castle's street. As she recalled the last few days, she knew she had to get it all down in the diary because, in amongst the superheroes and samurai swords, some things had struck her a little too close to home.

Who would have thought that a body, literally sliced in two, could start me feeling as though maybe there's a chance that I could get past all this. It has done, though, because I find myself suddenly beginning to look forward rather than always dwelling on what's already gone.

Relationships are an integral part of my job. I'm always having to explore why this person was murdered, what drove that person to do what they did, where were the people who could have prevented the tragedy and Tyler Faris's killing showed a whole range of relationships to me.

The body was discovered in an alley behind a bar. I'd called Castle and we arrived near the scene at the same time. I could tell straight away that he was distracted and wanted to get something off his chest. As it turned out, he was worried about Alexis. Richard Castle, public figure, famous author, playboy extraordinaire is not the man I see every day at the precinct. The man I see is Richard Castle, family man, good friend and amazing partner: this is the man I know, the man I – yes, okay, I'll admit it here – the man I've fallen in love with; and Richard Castle, father, is the best of the lot! He was concerned because Alexis had decided to apply to Stanford for spring admission and, as a father, was not sure that she was making her decisions for the right reasons and was also suffering from the realisation that his little girl was growing up. Over the years we've known each other, I've always been amazed and somewhat humbled by the fact that Castle has willingly sought my advice about Alexis and this was another of those moments.

This was also one of those times when I felt I was actually able to speak from a certain amount of experience. I'd always had a good relationship with my parents, don't get me wrong, but mom and I would often clash about stupid things but one of the most serious arguments we ever had was over me going to Stanford. She wanted me to stay east, I was desperate to head west and the more she said, the more I dug my heels in. When I finally set off, we'd barely spoken for weeks. Dad had tried to get us to sort it out but we were both just too stubborn to let it go. I came home for Christmas after my first semester and we finally talked it out, yelled, cried, hugged, all of that, but we managed to put the disagreement behind us. Just as well, because in the New Year – well, I don't need to go into that here.

My advice to Castle, based on personal experience, let her make her own decision because if you try to hold on, she'll just pull away. I really hope he follows my advice on this one. I'd hate to see it cause a rift because there is just the two of them; I did at least have my dad to go to when mom and I fell out.

Then there was Tyler Faris's mother. Over the years, I think the hardest part of my job has been interviewing the family of victims. I always try to be as supportive as I can, try to give them as much time as they need to process the awful horror of their loss whilst obviously still needing to get as much information from them as possible to enable us to give them some sort of closure. I've seen people react in many different ways but Mrs Faris – well, that was a new one. She was just so resigned; said she'd always known Tyler would end up like that, well not exactly like that, not cleaved in two from head to – let's just say Castle cringed at the rest of Lanie's description!

As I've said, I had my moments with mom over those teenage years but even at our lowest ebb, I still never doubted for a second that, should I get into serious trouble, both she and my dad would be there in an instant doing everything they possibly could to extricate me from whatever mess I'd gotten myself into. In short, I never, ever, doubted that they loved me.

I wondered what on earth had happened in Tyler's life to cause such a complete lack of emotion from his mother. That is probably a little unfair; she did appear to be sad but far too ready to accept his death as inevitable rather than as a life cut far too short by a gross act of violence. When I asked if she knew of anyone who wanted to hurt her son, she simply suggested I would need a bigger pad!

Finally, there was Officer Ann Hastings and her writer, Paul Whittaker. We got onto Paul with information from Mrs Faris. Castle had figured out that the Lone Vengeance comics were written describing events that had already taken place and that, therefore the writer, Sean Elt, must be Lone Vengeance. It didn't take us too long, then, to work out that crime journalist, Whittaker was, in fact Sean Elt and therefore Tyler's killer. However, although that seemed to be the obvious answer and in spite of the fact that Paul confessed both to being Lone Vengeance and killing Tyler, something seemed off to both Castle and I. The words of Paul's confession were only just out of his mouth when I tripped him up with details of the crime, proving that he was not in fact the killer. Castle commented that Paul was just the writer and Lone Vengeance was the muse, just like us. Nice to think he sees me as a sword-wielding killer! Now we just had to find out why Paul was lying and who he was covering for.

We found Lone Vengeance's lair, for want of a better word, and Castle and I waited for the guy to return. Castle was rather disappointed, expecting something more akin to the Batcave than a dingy room with no furniture, until we found the sword collection; then he was more impressed. Imagine my surprise when Lone Vengeance finally returned only to be unmasked as Officer Ann Hastings, NYPD and based right there at the 12th. To say I was shocked would be a major understatement. I really just couldn't get my head around the thought that a police officer, an officer I knew, was responsible for such a gruesome crime.

We took her back to the precinct for questioning and although she readily admitted to being Lone Vengeance, she vehemently denied anything to do with Faris's death. She floored me a little by telling me how she'd always admired me and wanted to be the same kind of cop that I am and it was clear from her record that she could certainly have been that cop; I just needed to know how a cop with such a great record could possibly go so far off track. It turned out that her father had owned a dry cleaners, had been shot dead over $80 and the day after burying him, she decided to join the academy. Suddenly, I could see the parallels – didn't have to be a genius for that. Everything she was saying was a reflection of my own situation and she knew it, even called me on it. I had to maintain my composure but it was so hard. By the end of the interview, though, I was convinced that she hadn't in fact killed Tyler. She'd provided enough information for me to actually believe that there was a third person running around in a Lone Vengeance suit in addition to her and Chad Whatshisname, we'd pulled in earlier.

The case closed soon after that. We got the bad guy. Justice was served. Ann was released from custody and I had to talk to her. I needed to give her a piece of advice and maybe it wasn't just for her; I think I should listen to my own advice, too. I told her that she had someone who cared about her, after all Paul had confessed to murder, was willing to go to prison to protect her and not to be so driven by the past that she throws away her future. Wise words, Beckett, try listening to them yourself! As Ann and Paul headed into the elevator, Castle and I watched them, Castle commenting that they were a writer and his muse fighting crime, just like us. I had to agree until they fell into each other arms and a long kiss but after my initial surprise, I had to grin especially at the look on Castle's face as he realised the implication of his words. He probably wasn't aware that my thoughts were – if only!

Kate sighed as she put the pen down and read the last few sentences again.

"Maybe in time," she thought, locking the diary away in the drawer and heading off for a well earned shower,

"Maybe in time, I'll be in a place where I can finally admit to Castle that Ann and Paul's relationship is what I want for us, too."