Notes: This chapter takes place around 2x13 "Sucker Punch."

Part Thirteen: I Meant It

It had been a year since Castle last saw Donna.

Considering the endless possibilities of bad press, he was always glad to see the lovely Donna Vincennes from the New York Ledger. She did with words what good photographers did with cameras and lighting. Her blurb on him last year for the Top Ten Bachelorslist showed his best side.

All of his best sides, really—all those fit for print.

It probably hadn't hurt that he'd flirted with her and she'd flirted back—not in a personal way that suggested something might come of it, but in that fabulous way that paparazzi do with an eligible celebrity throwing off his sexy creative juju. A bit of sexual tension went a long way to add that extra little sizzle to the news.

At the sound of Donna's voice, Castle snapped back to attention: "How does it feel when fans tell you how much your books mean to them?"

"You know, it's funny you should ask," he said, without realizing that he was about to embark on an odyssey of a ramble: "We were at this wedding—for my ex, except she was also involved in our last murder case, just as an innocent bystander, so now we've got like a Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon thing going on.

"But anyway, Beckett and I went to the wedding—the one that didn't have a dead person—and Beckett said the funniest thing. Actually, what she said wasn't funny; it was just funny that she said it. About writing. She never wants to talk about writing, not seriously. We always talk cop stuff, which I guess is cooler, technically, but all of a sudden she wanted to talk about the writing process. Weird, right?

"Anyway, Beckett said that she wonders if writing for yourself—something you need or want to say for you—and then finding out that it means something to someone else can be as gratifying as writing with readers in mind who then affirm your work. Kind of insightful. I mean, she's a cop, not a writer."

Donna made a few notes, but the contrast of how much he said and how little she wrote made him pause.

"So I think that answers your question." (Did it? He was having trouble remembering what the question was—something about meaning?)

Donna smiled. "Oh, I think so."

Even in her most rebellious years, Kate still quietly admired her parents' marriage. Seldom was there a doubt in her mind that they would go the distance; that they would each only ever marry once, because theirs was a lifetime kind of love. And Johanna's death had done little to change that impression.

But there was a new question floating around in her mind lately, ever since Victor Medtner's crush on Nina Grin had evolved into shameless pursuit. And even though the startling implications of the Dick Coonan case were what prompted her to meet her father at the diner, she'd barely spoken about the investigative side of things before the conversation turned very personal.

"Do you think you'll ever get married again?" she asked, the question tumbling out before she found herself sort of sputtering a poor attempt to elaborate. "You still talk about her a lot, sometimes like she isn't even gone . . . and I just wonder . . ."

Jim hesitated, the worry lines of his face aging him a few years in a single heartbeat, and she immediately regretted prying.

"I'm sorry, Dad," she said. "Forget I said it. I shouldn't be asking."

But his reply was very soft, gentle. "No, it isn't that. It's just that . . . that's—complicated," he told her carefully, and suddenly she felt a little like a child; wondered if her father—the man whom she'd helped to pull from the pit—was about to dodge the conversation and blame it on the fact that she just wouldn't understand.

But it wasn't like that, she realized, watching his face grow pensive, even hopeful.

This wasn't the kind of complicated she sometimes heard from her parents when she was small. This was the kind of complicated that Jim himself was still sifting through. She could certainly appreciate that.

She allowed him the silence and a patient smile.

He nodded slightly as he seemed to find the words. "Katie, sometimes we find people that are just so hard to let go. Even when they leave us. We talk about them all the time, as though we can speak them back into our presence. That's how much we miss them."

"I didn't mean—" Had he thought she begrudged him his talk of Johanna? That she took it as some indication that he couldn't move on? Did he think Kate, of all people, would expect that of him? "I like that you still talk about her. And I think you're right. I was just wondering . . ." and she trailed off, not really sure now what she was wondering or whether it mattered.

But something opened up in Jim, and he carried on the conversation with a kind of quiet ease that suited him. "We had two decades together, you know." He smiled warmly, the joy of having known and loved unable to be overshadowed even by the extent of his pain and loss. It brought an even deeper timbre to his voice; more solid and self-assured. "I vowed to love your mother for always and I meant it.

"I also said 'til death do us part, but I never dreamed that day would come so soon, or so unexpectedly, or so violently," he said. "I need the time and space to grieve that, and that might look different for everyone. For me it means knowing that I'm not ready to love again and that that's all right. That it's all right if I never am. But I promise you this: If I do ever remarry, it won't mean that I've stopped loving Mom. I couldn't."

At that, Kate realized that she didn't feel like a child, but she did feel a little like she was a college kid again. This was a conversation ten years overdue. And now they were making up for a little lost time.

She smiled, holding back her tears, because this was such a beautiful side of her father that he'd opened up to her, and no matter how touching his words or how tragic the story behind what he said, somehow the declaration deserved a smile more than it deserved tears.

Besides, if she let down the dam now, she might not make it out the door in one piece, and she needed to keep it together.

"So," he said finally, now regarding her as both daughter and detective, as though he sensed that she was ready to transition from the solely personal to the more professional side of things: "what have you found?"

There was one stop that she needed to make before heading back to work.

When Castle beckoned her inside his loft, he spoke in an even tone, offering her both a reassuring presence and an unexpected promise: "I will do anything you need, including nothing, if that's what you want."

"I don't want you to do anything. Do nothing, Castle. Can you do that?"

He was telling her that he could. He could do that for her. He would do anything and everything and even nothing if she only said the word.

But Beckett was no longer in the void of nothing where she had spent the eighth of January; where she had isolated herself and turned Castle away.

She had stepped out of the void to visit the grave, to phone her dad, to cross the threshold of the widower's home and laugh and lament over finger-foods. She had stepped out of the void to fulfill her responsibilities for trial prep, to attend the Blaine-Murphy wedding as promised, to shield Castle from Sheila, and even to feel the warmth of his proximity and hear the insights of his life's work. And she had stepped out of the void because Jack Coonan and Dr. Murray had left her little choice.

No, she still had a choice. It was just that she was choosing differently now.

"What I want is to find my mother's killer."

A few hours ago, she killed a man.

It wasn't like she had never done that in the line of duty before, and certainly, under the circumstances, it was difficult to think of her victim as human—or even a victim, for that matter. Not only had Dick Coonan killed her mother, letting her bleed out in an alley alone, but he'd also killed his own brother. He'd already ensured that there were few to mourn him. Kate felt that much more vindicated.

But she did have blood on her hands: Coonan's blood and the blood of any other victims he may have killed whose loved ones deserved the closure of knowing—how and why. Knowing why matters.

And because Coonan was dead, she and however many others would have to wait until another lead came along before they could know why.

Without a moment's hesitation, without even a conscious decision, she took action that put Castle's life above the only lead she had to solve her mother's case. It wasn't regret. It was just—

I need him alive.

Just who did she need?

Late that night, she wept at her bathroom sink, having washed the blood from her hands for the dozenth time.

She folded herself there over her arms, her body wracked with sobs and shudders, her face covered in tears and snot, the hopelessness of her situation overwhelming and unbearable even to consider, let alone to live with.

By the time she was ready to pick herself up she had already slumped to the tile floor, a messy heap of grief and confusion. As the barrage of emotion subsided into want and weariness, she stood and washed her face and hands once more.

She went to her bookcase—found nothing, because Macbeth was out of the question and As I Lay Dying was like a bad joke tonight and God knows none of those murder mysteries were right for this.

No, she went back to her room and took The Other Book from her bedside table—the book that Castle had signed for her years before they met. Not because it was a murder mystery or because it helped her understand why people did what they did. Nothing could tell her why tonight; why Coonan had killed her mother, why she had killed Coonan.

She chose it because it was soothingly familiar; because she knew almost every word by heart.

She was caught up in a breeze off the sea, her feet firmly planted on the rock, but her body feeling light and empty inside the swirl of salty air, as though she could float away at any moment.

As her hair and her black dress curled and thrashed at the wind's every whim, she busied herself with new discoveries on the ground, wandering from the solid ledge to the beach that offered more to find. She bent down now and then to gather sticks and stones, which she began to twine together with seaweed and string to form a small figurine. He didn't even have a face on his little head, but for some reason, he made her laugh. A silly little stick-man made of sea things. Something out of nothing. Joy out of emptiness.

She heard someone else's laughter, and she turned in surprise to find Castle. Her breath caught as he came right up to her, his blue eyes shining and his short wisps of hair every bit as windblown as hers. But he didn't look afraid that he would float away. He didn't look afraid at all.

He smiled, took the stick-man from her hand, and stepped so close to her that she swore she could smell his cologne infused with the sea-salt air.

She was wearing a belt at her waist, and his hand brushed lightly against her abdomen as he secured the little stick-man at her hip. Her stomach fluttered with the warmth and intimacy of the touch. She closed her eyes, willing herself to lean into the vulnerability and the not-knowing, and she felt him lean in beside her ear to tell her softly, "Now you're yourself, Kate."

She opened her eyes, ready to see him so close, but as soon as she did, he was gone, and the grounding warmth of his presence became the startling coolness of the unimpeded wind.

When she looked around her, she saw a spot of something red on the horizon in the distance, but she couldn't quite tell what it was as long as it stayed out there. Silently, she urged the spot to come in, in, and it came just a little closer to shore until she could see that it was a sailing ship. And oh, it was beautiful! The most magnificent thing she had ever seen.

She stepped into the water just enough that soft foam lapped at her feet.

Then, like Assol, she outstretched her arms to the ship, its sails as scarlet as the blood of innocents, but the ship never came in. Only blood in the water, washing in with the tide.

She stepped back at that, but she stood at the water's edge until she felt weak, and it was only then that she looked down—put a hand to her gut and took it away to see that it was covered in her own blood.

She couldn't remember when she'd been wounded.

She couldn't yell; she couldn't call out. She could only crumple to the ground as the effects of the wound consumed her. She would bleed out until she was dead, and there was nothing she could do.

Then her old training officer stood over her body, and—good, she thought, at least I won't die alone. But he wasn't there to watch her die. He always did expect even more of her than she expected of herself. His voice was textured but low and even, like a sheet of gravel, and nevertheless commanding. "Stand up and fight, kid. There's still work to be done."

He was right. Those were the words that got her out of bed in the morning.

She wanted to call him. He was the only one who understood what drove her; what her life was all about. But they hadn't talked in so long. She put down her phone and took out the watch and necklace instead.

As Beckett took a bite of sushi and looked at the array of food that Castle had set on her desk, she couldn't help but smile to herself. It was a nice gesture, of course, but to her, it was even more than that.

And then, suddenly, it was like it wasn't enough to keep it to herself; like she wanted someone to know why this was something worth smiling about. She wanted him to know.

She swallowed her bite and asked, "You know what this reminds me of?"

Of course he didn't, but that never stopped him from guessing before. "The gastronomically dangerous Epcot?"

She didn't even roll her eyes, but her expression meant roughly the same thing. "My dad," she said, attempting to maintain the serious tone and baffled at the warmth creeping into her voice; couldn't tell whether it was the man she mentioned or the one beside her that caused it.

"You mean the sushi, or eating at a desk?"

She shook her head slowly, eyes trained on him and lips fixed together in an apparent plot to off him. "I meant all the different foods you've got here, Chef."

She hesitated, but it was obvious enough that she had a story to tell, and Castle couldn't help himself. He set down his Thai food, rested his elbow on the desktop, and leaned his chin into his palm, an intent look in his eyes meant to urge her onward, letting her know that she had his undivided attention.

It worked. She smiled—a really lovely smile, one that he realized that he didn't see very often but that he vowed to see again and again, and she said, "I saw him—on the ninth. I went to visit him and we talked a while and we didn't feel like cooking, so we just popped a few random appetizers in the oven and picked at them." She bit her lip for a second and then the smile was back, to his delight. "All the stuff my mom always pretended she didn't like, you know?"

No, Castle didn't know anyone who pretended not to like something. . . .

But he dared not taunt Beckett now; not when that smile was on the line. So all he said was, "I'm glad you weren't alone." Guiltily, he remembered his faux-pas of showing up unannounced at her door the day before The Big One, and his face showed as much. He hadn't wanted to remind her of something stupid he'd done. He'd just actually meant it. He really was glad.

God help him, Beckett took it the right way. "Me, too," she said, and even though the smile receded, she still looked perfectly comfortable to be sitting here with him, talking about her parents and sharing four kinds of takeout.

He had just picked up his fork to resume eating when she spoke again, as though she'd read his thoughts.

"By the way—" She looked up to find that she already had his attention; looked back down and busied herself with her meal because, really, they didn't both need to be looking at each other for this. "My go-to is Chinese food," she said, a small smile and one rogue eyebrow accentuating her candidness. "For future reference."

Admittedly, he'd always found the word reference kind of hot (a sexy librarian thing, no doubt), but seldom before had the word future sounded as wonderful as it did now from the past-driven Beckett.

Because she meant it.

That night, Kate held Heat Wave in her hands without even opening it.

"What if I let her down?" she'd asked just before interrogating Coonan, daring Castle to come up with a more positive consequence than the one in her head.

But he hadn't played her game. He'd sucked her into his own. "Do you know why I chose you as my inspiration for Nikki Heat?"

"No. Why?"

"Because you're tall."

She'd smiled at that. The unexpected. The way he relaxed her like a friend instead of handing her platitudes. The way it worked. The way he knew it was enough; that she was ready.

"Now go in there and do your job."

She took out a new notebook—the old one still relegated to the bookshelf in the entrance—and set to work making amends between Nikki and Rook.

It didn't take long for them to reconcile.

She wanted him around.