Jane Doe

"What happened after Coonan?" She asks after a moment of letting that sink in. They've caught whoever it was, the man behind her mother's murder. All she has to do now is listen to the story, listen to how the pieces slot together, and in the end she'll be rewarded with the name.

She's finding it very difficult to be patient, but thankfully Castle must understand how the need for knowledge consumes her because he's being quick and thorough and exacting with the information he gives her. "After Coonan there was nothing for a whole year. And then in January of 2011, Raglan contacted you wanting to meet and tell you something about your mother's case." Castle steeples his fingers and rests them against the table. "He told us that he wrote her case off as random violence because he was told to. And that the story went back much further than we knew, seven years before your mom's murder in fact. But before he could tell us anything more, he was shot dead by a sniper."

"Oh my god. They shot Raglan too? Who are these people?" She breathes, meaning the question to be rhetorical before she realises that Castle actually knows the answer. And interrupting won't get her there any faster. "Sorry. Go on."

"We talked to Raglan's old partner, Gary McAllister." He gives her a moment and she watches him take note of the flicker of recognition across her face. Of course she knows that name too, met Detective McAllister when she was nineteen years old and a hole the size of a mother had just been torn through her world. "McAllister said that Raglan had been deep in debt but then he wasn't, and that he suspected Raglan was running drugs. McAllister gave us the name Vulcan Simmons; Ryan knew him from when he was in narcotics, said Simmons got started running drugs in Washington Heights."

Oh god. She's so glad she's hearing all of this information at once, that there's an end in sight. And so astounded that she made it, lived through this. It goes so deep, tendrils of wrongdoing in all of the city's inner workings, and she doesn't understand how it didn't drown her. Maybe it has something to do with the man at the table with her now. "My mom worked with a group that were trying to clean up the drug trade in Washington Heights."

"I know." He says, looking so proud that she feels herself blushing like an idiot. "You made that connection back then too. We thought that maybe Coonan, as someone in the drug trade, would have known Simmons."

"That makes a lot of sense."

"It did." He agrees, and she frowns. It doesn't anymore? "We interrogated Vulcan, but he gave us nothing, and he pushed you too far. You shoved him up against the mirror and broke it, and Montgomery had to cut him loose."

Oh, God. Shame cuts her through and she hangs her head, sucks a breath through her teeth. It's not even a surprise, that she would have reacted that way. Her mother's case makes her vicious and stupid, and anyone probing at it ends up on the receiving end of her temper. Except, apparently, Castle. "Sounds like me."

She's sardonic, and he smiles in sympathy. "Yeah. Believe me, Kate. The way he was talking to you? If you hadn't gone for his throat I think I would have. But because of what happened, Montgomery took you off the case."

"I'm guessing that didn't stop me investigating." She huffs, and Castle laughs too.

"No, it did not. I came over to your place and we looked through the files again. I found some pictures your mom had taken in the weeks before she died. There were some awesome ones of teenage Katie Beckett, ice skating and decorating the tree."

Cheeks flaming, she rolls her eyes at him. "I'm sure you loved that."

"I really did. But then we saw that there were twenty four exposures in the roll of negatives but only twenty pictures. Those other four were pictures of the alley where your mother was killed."

"Why would she have pictures of the place where she was murdered?" Kate frowns. None of this is even starting to make sense. Even though Castle is telling the story with the benefit of hindsight, it seems like there were a lot of missing pieces they had to sort through before they got a clear picture.

Castle grins at that, his face dancing with mischief and making him look exactly like their son for a moment. "We wondered that then, too. I went back to try and find information on any other crimes committed in that alley."

"You did that for me?" She says softly, hardly able to believe it. Of the people she dated after her mother was killed, only Will Sorenson ever even knew that her mom had been murdered. But with this man, Richard Castle, she seems to have shared every detail of her mother's case.

"Kate." He says carefully, reaching for her hand once more. "Even at that point, I would have done anything for you." There's nothing to say to that, no way to react except to chew on her bottom lip and wait for him to continue. "Montgomery caught me at the precinct. You begged him to let you back on the case but he refused, and he put a protective detail on you. But in the meantime, Ryan and Esposito had made progress too."

"The boys helped?"

"Yes. The four of us did a lot of this together, Kate. We're a family." He gives her another moment to digest everything he's said, and then he lets go of her hand and places both of his flat against the table. "The boys found who shot Raglan, a Hal Lockwood. He'd bought drugs from a woman named Jolene."

"Jolene." She breathes, for no reason at all other than it helps her to keep track of this twisted warren of parts to this case.

"Yes. While the boys were figuring all of that out, I found the case in the alley. An undercover FBI agent named Bob Armen was murdered there. The guy convicted for it was a mob enforcer called Joe Pulgatti, and it was Raglan who arrested him."

A crease is steadily forming between her eyebrows but she's totally helpless to stop it, can only focus on breathing and trying to make sense of everything. "So it was Pulgatti that Raglan was trying to tell me about when they killed him?"

"Yeah. We went to go see him in prison. He told us that he was a witness to the murder, that three men in ski masks had tried to kidnap him and Armen. So then we thought, how did Raglan place Pulgatti in the alley if the only people there besides him and Armen were the kidnappers?"

"Holy shit." Kate says quietly, shoving her hair back behind her ears when it threatens to spill into her face. "Raglan was a kidnapper?"

Castle nods once, smoothing his fingertip along the edge of the file. "Yes. He and McAllister both, it seemed. And your mom was the only one who would listen to Pulgatti's story. McAllister told us that he and Raglan had been kidnapping mobsters for ransom money in an effort to clean up the city, but that he didn't kill your mother or any of the others. That it was someone else."

"Who?" She grits out, but Castle's shaking his head.

"He didn't say. Referred to him as The Dragon, and wouldn't say anything more."

"Goddamn it." Kate curses, slamming her fist down onto the table top, and Castle casts a worried glance towards the staircase. Shit. For a moment there – just a moment – she forgot about the little boy sleeping upstairs, the child she has to protect from all of this. They hold their breath, but there are no sounds, no indication that Kate has woken Marlow.

Castle covers her fist with his palm, his thumb stroking back and forth over her knuckles. "I know, Kate. All of the dead ends are frustrating. But I promise you, we're getting there." A pause, and then he ploughs ahead. "The boys were abducted by Lockwood."

"Oh, no. They got hurt because of me?" She whispers, a hand pressed to her mouth. This case is everything to Kate, and she would risk her own life at a chance to solve it, but she can't imagine she ever would have wanted the boys to do the same.

Shaking his head sharply, Castle squeezes her hand and she uncurls her fist, lets their palms kiss. "Not because of you. Because of Lockwood. We traced them to an abandoned warehouse, distracted the guard to get inside and we took Lockwood and his guys out."

"Wait." She frowns. He's gone into detail with everything else, but this he skips right over? "How did we distract the guard?"

He hesitates for a moment, and she thinks he might actually be blushing. "We pretended to be drunk, but it wasn't working, so I uh. . .I kissed you."

"You kissed me." She smirks, lifting her eyebrows at him now. He squirms in his chair, again reminding her of their son. "I'm not sure that's police procedure."

"It worked!" He exclaims, so indignant that she's smiling despite herself. "And it was. . .amazing. It was the first time I'd ever kissed you, and you pretty much blew my mind."

She's blushing again, damn it, but he doesn't seem to mind. "So was that when we got together?"

"Oh. No. You were with someone else at the time. And back then, neither of us would admit how we felt." He shrugs like it's nothing, but she can see the hurt there he's working so hard to hide. "Anyway. After that, you visited Lockwood in the prison every week to ask who hired him."

Kate pushes the heels of her palms against her eyes and groans, bringing her hands down to cover her mouth. Her eyes close and she shakes her head, wanting to cry. "I'm guessing he didn't tell me?"

"No. You visited him for about four months and he gave you nothing. And then in May of 2011, things started happening again." He stops, pressing a fist to his mouth and watching her. "I'm sorry. This part is hard."

Right. He said earlier today that Montgomery died in 2011, in May. So Kate steels herself, prepares to compartmentalise this. She doesn't want to fall apart in front of him. Although, by the sound of things, she's done so countless times in the past. "Do you. . .want to stop?"

"No, no. It's better to just get it over with." He exhales a shaky lungful of air, fiddling with his wedding band again. Almost as if he needs the reminder that they made it to a point where they were married with a child and they were happy. Before she forgot. "Lockwood was released into the general population. He killed McAllister and escaped from custody. We found the guard who gave the transfer order, but when we went to question him he had been murdered."

Grief flares in her gut for the man whose name she doesn't even know. Another victim of this whole messy conspiracy, another family left to struggle around the ache of his absence. "What was his name?"

"Ryker. Kate, you remember how there was a third cop kidnapping mobsters with Raglan and McAllister?" He waits for her nod. "Well, the boys figured out that the third cop was Montgomery."

"Montgomery killed my mom?" She whispers, eyes filling with tears so Castle swims in her vision.

Immediately, he's grabbing for her hand and cradling it in both of his, lifting it to his mouth to kiss her knuckles. "No, he didn't. He didn't. But. . .Montgomery killed Armen. And your mother died because of what he did."

She bows her head until her forehead almost kisses the solid oak of the dining table, grief swallowing her whole and then spitting her back out again, leaving her gasping for air.

"Montgomery lured you to an aircraft hangar. It was supposed to be so Lockwood could kill you, but he had called me too and I got you out of there. Roy took out Lockwood and all of the guys with him, but Lockwood shot him too. He died saving your life, Kate." Castle's voice is soft, as if it can lessen the blow of his words. And she is crumbling. She lived through all of this over a couple of years, but hearing it all at once is just. . .too much. "There's more. At his funeral, while you were giving the eulogy. . .you were shot."

She feels the knowledge like another bullet and she gasps, staring wide-eyed at him. "I was shot?"

"Yes. I tried to get to you, I tried to push you out of the way but I was too late." He's crying now, quietly and almost ashamed, but he doesn't try to stem his tears. Just watches her, lets her see all of his emotion.

She swallows, staring at him. This man really, really loves her. Apparently he values her life above his own. "You tried to take a bullet for me?"

"Yes. And I- that was the first time I told you I love you." He hangs his head, suddenly refusing to look at her. "Not that that mattered to you."

Kate frowns, running a mental inventory of her body. There hasn't been anywhere that pulls when she moves, and she hasn't really looked in the mirror to see a scar. "Where was I shot?"

"In the chest. I watched you die in the ambulance. You died again in surgery. And then you shut me – and everyone else – out of your life and didn't speak to anyone except your father for three months." He growls at her, his fists clenched.

It's the first time she's seen him angry with her. Since he walked into that hospital room and poured his relief into her mouth, he's been nothing but tentative and careful and kind to her. So it's wonderful to see him get mad, to see him push her for a reaction. "Well I probably had a lot of healing to do, Castle. What do you want me to do here? Explain myself? I have no idea why I stopped talking to you."

"Right. Of course. You're right. It's not fair of me to get mad at you now." He says slowly, his whole body relaxing in increments. "You came back to the city eventually, and I was so glad to see that you were okay. I'd been so worried about you."

"Was that when we got together? When I came back?" She does wonder. After everything he's told her already, all of the things he's stuck by her side for, she can't imagine how she possibly could have resisted him. Especially once he said he loves her.

He snorts a laugh, the bitterness coming back just as easily as he let it drain away moments before. "No. You lied to me, said you didn't remember anything of the shooting. And you told me you couldn't have the relationship you wanted until you solved your mother's case."

Oh. That does sound like something she would say. An excuse she would give if she was running scared, trying to protect her heart. "You stuck by me through all of this?"

"You've always been worth it." He says quietly, managing a smile for her. "How could I regret any of it when I got to marry you? When we have the most amazing little boy?"

Her eyes close against that and she concentrates on not letting the tears spill, doesn't want him to think that she's crying because of the life she has now. That's so not it. "I wish I could remember."

"Me too. After you came back to the city, Kate, I got a call from a man named Mr Smith. Montgomery had sent him a file that he was using to blackmail whoever was behind your mother's murder, and keep you and Montgomery's family safe. But for the deal to stand, you had to stay away from her case. So I. . .lied to you, about it. Kept it from you, and got you to back off from the investigation."

He looks so ashamed that she can't even bring herself to be angry. She must have found out about his lies at some point, and from the look on his face now she probably got pretty mad at him when she did. So it really isn't fair to do that to him again. "Okay. Clearly I forgave you for that once already, if I married you."

"You did, yes. You stayed away from the case for several months after that. And then in May 2012 it all resurfaced again." His jaw cracks wide on a yawn and he scrubs at his eyes, clearly exhausted. But she's too selfish, too narrow-minded to tell him to shelve the discussion for now and get some sleep. She has to know. "We caught the case of a man named Orlando Costas, who had been killed. We found out that he'd been hired to steal some files from Montgomery's house, and that the person who killed him was the same man that shot you, a year before."

"Okay." She nods, feeling through the thin material of her tank top for the bullet scar. She finds it, raised underneath her fingers, and works at it as she listens.

"We identified him as Cole Maddox, and you and Esposito tracked him down and followed him to a hotel. You fought with Maddox and you ended up dangling from the roof. Ryan pulled you up before you could fall, but he had to tell Gates in order to get back up, and so you were suspended."

She frowns at him, tilting her head. This is the first time in all of this that he hasn't mentioned himself, that he hasn't been right by her side while she's faced this dragon. "Where were you?"

"I told you about the deal that I had, because I thought maybe it might make you stop. Because they were going to kill you if you didn't. I told you I love you, again, and I begged you to stop if you felt anything for me at all. But you wouldn't let it go. So I walked away. I couldn't watch you die again, Kate. I couldn't." He shakes his head, eyes spilling over with grief, and her heart cries out in sympathy.

From the little she knows, from what she's gleaned through his story, Richard Castle is a good man. A brave man, who has stood by her side, been her partner in all of it. And it sounds like she's thrown it all back in his face, time and time again. She must have had her reasons, but right now she doesn't remember any of them. "I'm sorry, Castle. I shouldn't have treated you that way. From what you've told me, I owe you my life multiple times over. I was very selfish."

"You were you." He shrugs. "Or, the person you were then. You were different after that. More willing to listen. Less ready to throw your whole life away. After you were suspended Kate, you showed up at my door soaking wet. You told me that Maddox got away and you didn't care, that you just wanted me."

Lifting an eyebrow, she asks for the third time. "Was that when we got together?"

"Yes." He grins, and she echoes his smile in spite of herself. "It was. Best night of my life, Kate. I only wish you could remember it."

She flushes, imagining in spite of herself what it would have been like. To be with this man after almost three and a half years of working together. From what he's told her, she must have been in love with him even then. She can't think of another reason she'd have let him stick around, shared her mother's case with him. "I wish I could too."

"So, after we had three rounds of really amazing sex." He smirks, grinning wider when she blushes. "We found that Maddox had gotten to Mr Smith, the man who was holding the deal with the dragon. We found Smith and he told us enough that we could find the file, but so did Maddox. It was rigged to blow and the explosion killed Maddox, but it also destroyed the file."

"So we were back to square one?" She sighs, drumming her fingers against the edge of the table.

Castle takes her hand and knots their fingers together, regarding her tenderly. "No, we were closer than ever. We pieced together some of the shredded pieces of the file and we saw that it had contained money orders, paid to the dragon by Raglan, McAllister and Montgomery."

"Did we get a name?" She grits out, the resolution to this thing so close she can almost take it.

Castle nods once, sharp, and squeezes her fingers. "The man who ordered the hit on your mother, who is behind this whole thing, is Senator William Bracken."

"A senator." She breathes out, searching his face. She doesn't even know what for, only that she's waited so long for this name and now she has it, she doesn't know how to react.

"Yes. But we couldn't do anything about it, then. The file wasn't sufficient evidence, and if we went after him you'd be a target. You confronted him in person and you made him think there was another copy of the file. You made the same deal with him, to keep yourself and everyone you care about safe."

"I made a deal with the man who killed my mother?" She frowns, totally unable to make sense of that. Why would she not go after him, try with everything she had to take him down?

Castle looks mournful, a sad smile twisting at his mouth. "You had gotten to the point by then where your safety was more important. We knew we'd get him someday, Kate. And you were okay with that. And then, a few months later, you stopped an assassination attempt and you saved Bracken's life."

"I saved his life?"

"That's who you are, Kate. Who you had become. That's the woman I married. You're not her, I know, and this is hard for you to understand. But Bracken owed you after that. It meant you were even more safe than you had been." He says quietly, the tip of his finger smoothing over the metal of his wedding band. "Over a year after that, after we'd gotten engaged, Bracken saved your life. You'd gone undercover as someone you thought was a drug courier to try and find a man named Lazarus, who was killing drug dealers. It turned out that Elena, the woman you were impersonating, was actually a contract killer. You faked a hit and were able to meet Lazarus, but it turned out that he was Vulcan Simmons."

"Oh, shit." She blurts out, startling them both. "That can't have been good."

"It wasn't. They took you to the woods and they were going to kill you, but then Elena saved you. She told you that Lazarus wanted you to live. We figured out that Bracken was Lazarus, and because he had saved you, you were even."

"Even as in, there was nothing to stop him from killing me?"

"Yes." Castle nods. "Kate, I don't want you to think that our lives were consumed by your mother's case. We were engaged, and we were so in love, and having so much fun planning our wedding."

She nods at that, smiles for him. There's no doubt that she was happy, even in spite of everything with her mother and Bracken. Her father even told her as much. "I know, Castle. My dad said we were happy together."

"I hope that we still can be. Even if you don't remember." Castle murmurs, wincing as if he expects her to yell.

She won't. This is her life now, and even if she doesn't remember how she got here, she's going to try and make the most of it. For her son, and for this man to whom she owes so much. "I can only hope that one day I'll love you as much as you love me"

"You. . .you're going to stick around? Give this a chance?" He seems so surprised, so cautiously hopeful, and this time it's her that takes his hand and not the other way around.

"Castle, we have a beautiful son. And you've been so good to me so far, patient and kind. I'd be an idiot to walk away from this life, even if it doesn't really feel like it's mine yet."

And then he's beaming at her, wide and beautiful and she dips her head, can't look at him. "I'm so glad, Kate. So glad."

"Castle." She hates herself a little for doing this, but she has to know. "Is there any more to the story? Or do I need to watch my back every time I go outside in case Bracken tries to kill me?"

"Oh, no." He splutters, huffing a laugh. "Let me tell you the final piece. Alright, in early May of 2014, a couple of weeks before we were supposed to be getting married, a man called Jason Marks was killed. He was a political consultant and you'd been running surveillance on him for a few weeks."

"Did you know?" Somehow, that close to their wedding, it seems vital that she'd been sharing this stuff with him.

He nods, his mouth lifting at the corner. "Yes, I knew. You were being careful, and we were doing it together as much as we could. I didn't like it, that risk so soon before our wedding, but I knew and I was okay with it. The boys found traffic cam footage of Jason Marks in a car near where his body was found, being driven by Vulcan Simmons."

"Simmons again." She says, more as a placeholder for herself than for him to respond to.

"Yes. It was Simmons that brought us to Marks. You were following Vulcan first, and then Marks was the connection between Simmons and Bracken that we had been looking for. Gates kicked you off the case because of your personal history with Vulcan, and when the boys questioned him they had to cut him loose. There was nothing to tie him to the car."

Kate nods, halfway expecting that. And, yeah, she knows herself. "Okay, so I'm guessing I went after him myself?"

"Yeah. You snuck out while I was sleeping and you found the car, but Vulcan showed up. And then, Kate, he was murdered. With your gun." Castle leans back in his chair, shaking his head. "They were framing you. We found out about a tape that Montgomery had recorded in which Bracken confessed to murdering your mom. And then we found it, Kate. It was inside of the elephants at the precinct, the ones that used to belong to your mother. And with that evidence, you had enough to arrest him. You did it, Kate. He's in jail now, maximum security, and he's going to rot there for the rest of his life."

"It's over." She breathes, and then the tears come. Her shoulders shake with her sobs and she's barely even aware of Castle moving until his arms are around her and he's pulling her to her feet, bringing her with him over to the couch and holding her close as she cries.

His hand cradles the curve of her skull and his lips rest at her temple, his body warm and close under hers. "It's okay, Kate. I know, it's a lot to take in. You're safe now, I'm here."

For the first time since she woke up in the hospital, Kate is absolutely certain that the life she finds herself in now is so much better than the one she left behind.

A/N: I'm sorry this is so so long and is basically a rehashing of things we already know, but I felt like it was important to show the genesis of Kate's understanding of the lengths Castle will go to for her, and to show her realising how much she must be capable of loving him.