"Beckett!" Castle jumps when he sees Kate standing in his doorway, apparently lost in thought. He's at his desk, anxiously sorting through the files he took from the precinct today and he gathers them together hurriedly. He tucks them into a desk drawer that's out of sight and looks back up at her; his muse, standing there, looking a hell of a lot younger than usual, the bereft expression on her face sending a rush of sympathy through him.

She looks at him, and her expression changes, a rage of emotion threatening a flood of anger.

"Did the boys- are you okay?"

"Okay?" she asks. "Okay? No, Castle. I am not okay." She's seething, and the words hiss out from between clenched teeth. "You've been running amok in my life as though it's nothing more than a game to you- and now I find out that you've been at the precinct, doing god knows what!"

"You got called in, huh?" he asks and she shakes her head.

"What? No. I saw Lanie."

"Oh." He'd thought the boys would have called Kate in to the scene they went to, but maybe not. Maybe it was a clear cut pop and drop. Or a suicide. Or- He breaks from that train of thought with a shake of his head, taking in her outfit for the first time. Damn. She may look tired, but she looks good and he realizes that, dressed like this, and having seen Lanie, means she's been out with her friend. And he guesses her determination in coming here tonight is probably fueled by liquid courage; there's an erratic look in her eyes that makes him uncomfortable.

"Lanie told me to talk to you." He makes a mental note to thank Lanie but the next words that come out of Beckett's mouth have him rethinking this plan. "But what if I don't want to talk? What if I don't want to know? Did you ever think of that? What if I'm not ready? You dredged up my past for you, Castle. Not for me. And you're too selfish to even see it."

He looks at her in despair, wanting so badly to make this right. "Beckett, I -"

"No," she interrupts him sharply. "You're like a child playing with scissors. You have no idea what you're doing. What you're starting."

Castle shakes his head sadly, and stands up, moving around the desk toward Beckett, but she holds a hand up, the glare on her face stopping him from coming any closer. "I'm not playing, Beckett," is all he says, and her facade starts to crumble; he thinks he sees the shine of unshed tears in her eyes before she turns and runs from the apartment, pushing past his stunned mother who has been not so subtly lingering on the other side of the open office shelving.

"Damn," he sighs as the door slams behind her and he sags against the armchair in the living room. Martha shifts onto the sofa opposite.

"Well, kiddo," she says. "Do you want to tell me what that was all about?"

Castle can only shrug; he realizes it's gone well past midnight, and while he'd rather Martha hadn't witnessed the exchange, he's relieved that at least Alexis had gone to bed hours ago. The urge to protect Beckett is strong, and he doesn't want his daughter to see her that out of control. "I don't know," he tells Martha. "She didn't really stay long enough for me to find out."

His mother shakes her head at him. "No, Richard. I don't buy it. What's this about you going into the precinct? Hasn't that young woman made it clear that she needs some space?"

"Mother! Just last night you were telling me she would come round. Besides- she's the one who came here tonight!"

"Richard, really. You've hurt her, any fool can see that. No, this won't be an easy fix."

"I don't want easy," he tells her, sinking into the armchair and burying his head in his hands. "But I do want to fix it, and I'm not sure I know how. You heard right, though. I did go into the precinct today."

"Whatever for?"

Castle hesitates, wondering how much he should tell his mother before deciding. "I went to get the other files. The ones Dr. Murray told me about."

"Oh, Richard! Do you really think that was a good idea?"

"Less and less every moment," he admits, but Martha isn't done.

"This isn't one of your stories. You can't just ride in on your white horse and save someone who doesn't want rescuing. And you can't think for a second that you'll be able to solve this on your own."

"I know people," he defends, but his heart isn't in it. He shrugs, resigned. He doesn't want to do this anymore, no matter how much he justifies otherwise. "I've know the names of the other victims, and I've worked out that there are connections. One of them was a former law student of Kate's mom, another one, a documents clerk, the third one, a lawyer for a non-profit. But I'm no closer to working out what happened, why they were silenced. If she would just talk to me, I know we could work it out. I know we could."

"You need a better strategy than this going behind her back," his mother declares and he grimaces at her.

"I need a way through her wall, that's for sure," he agrees. "A ladder. Or a door. Or a hole." Castle stands up again. "I'm going to give this up," he says. "You're right. She's right. I can't solve this, and I was looking into it for the wrong reasons. I'm going to stay away for a while. Give her some space. Take a break, and try talking to her again after I give her some distance."

"I agree that would be wise," Martha nods, and Castle smiles ruefully, turning to go to bed.

"Good night, Mother."


Beckett wakes to a pounding head and the drone of her alarm. She goes to shut the shrill tone off, perhaps set it to snooze, but she catches herself in time. Not her alarm; her cell phone, and dispatch is on the line.

She takes the call and blinks the sleep away, rolling out of bed and swallowing down the last of the water that's on her nightstand before hurrying into the bathroom; every instinct in her body screams at her to slow down, go back to bed, but there's a body, and she's not going to be late today.

No, she decides, as she slides behind the wheel of her cruiser in record time, she's not going to let this thing with Castle beat her. He's the one that messed up. She was fine before he came along, and she's going to be fine again. She turns the music up then winces, turning it off again.

She shuffles around in her purse and then her glove compartment, coming up triumphant with some Advil while she's stopped at a red, and she swallows a couple of pills, willing the headache away. It's not the true headache of a severe hangover, just the shadow of too little sleep, too many drinks, and not just a little shame at her own behavior.

Kate runs her hand through her hair. She doesn't know why she thought going to see Castle would be a good idea. It certainly doesn't feel like it was a smart move this morning. Though, she muses, it could have been worse. As she replays the conversation in her head, she's starting to consider taking Lanie's advice. Maybe she will use some of those vacation days she has stored up once she's wrapped this case.

She pulls up at the scene, and from her car she can't see Esposito or Ryan yet. She is struck, though, by a funny sense of familiarity as she approaches the body and a chill runs down her spine; Perlmutter is hunched over a dark haired woman, who is slumped against the wall of an alley.

She blinks as she realizes the woman is posed similarly to the way her mother had been found, and she sighs, shaking her head. It's a creepy coincidence, nothing more.

"Yo, Beckett." She whirls around, still on edge to see Esposito striding toward her. "Just spoke to Perlmutter. Stabbing."

The words are harsh to her ears, and Beckett closes her eyes briefly, before snapping back to business. "Do we have an ID?"

"Yeah. Kristina Sokolova. A stripper at one of the clubs nearby, we're trying to track down her last place of employment. Witness heard yelling from around the corner, but before he got close enough to see anything, the perp was already running away."

"We get a description?"

"Better," Ryan speaks from behind her. "We got him on CCTV footage from the jewelry store around the corner, and we got the weapon- he dropped his knife a block away so we're running down prints now."

"Good," Beckett says, more to herself than to the boys; this is sounding more and more like a random mugging, or maybe the victim knew her attacker. Either way, if the perp was caught on tape and dropped evidence, it doesn't have any of the hallmarks of a professional hit, and she breathes a little easier, smiling at Esposito and Ryan before excusing herself to go and speak with Perlmutter.


Castle's determined to put some distance between himself and Beckett. He takes the files from the drawer he'd shoved them in last night and carries them through his bedroom into the closet.

He deftly slides open the inner door and opens the safe set into the wall of the hidden storage room. At best, he likes to think of this room as his secret lair, but it's really a glorified second closet.

And a dusty one, at that, he thinks; sneezing. He'll have to change that though, taking a second glance around the small space; he thinks that he and Alexis really could utilize this space more in their laser tag battles.

Castle places the documents neatly below the other paperwork stacked in the safe. He's still counting his blessings that Beckett hadn't seen what he'd been looking at when she'd come by last night.

He figures Beckett will come round at some point, but he's not holding his breath that it will be anytime soon. He's not going to investigate anymore, at least not until he has her okay, and he's woken up determined to make things right, but he's not going to rush it. He sees her late night visit as a positive sign, though; she can obviously stand to see him, and he hopes they'll make it back to more pleasant terms eventually.

"Well, you're in a good mood," Martha chirps at him from the kitchen, and he smiles at the familiar figures in the kitchen.

"Today is a brand new day," he tells her, beaming at the back of Alexis' head. "Morning, sweetie," he addresses her, and she spins around, pausing in her search of the fridge.

"Morning," his daughter smiles back at him. "Do we have anymore juice?"

He wrinkles his nose. "I finished it last night," he tells her, and she shrugs and reaches instead for the coffee machine, setting it for two lattes. She hands him one and he takes it gratefully.

"So what's your plan for this brand new day of yours?" his mother asks, and Castle considers.

"You know what? I have to write- Gina left another voicemail yesterday and I think I'd better actually get on to that book."

"I'm glad," Alexis tells him, and he smiles, remembering her anxiety yesterday.

"I'm not going to quit, I promise, Pumpkin," he assures her again, and she beams back at him. "But I am going to go to the Hamptons for a few days," he continues, and Martha nods at him encouragingly. "Take a break, get some air, you know?"

Alexis takes sip of the drink she's made for herself before setting the mug aside and grabbing her book bag. "When?" she asks. "Today? Or on the weekend?"

Castle shifts his weight from one foot to the other, deciding. "Tomorrow," he says at last. "And maybe you can come up on the weekend. If you want?"

"Sure," the younger red-head agrees, leaning in to kiss him on the cheek and darting toward the door. "Sounds good," she calls, before slamming the door shut behind her, and Castle is left alone with his mother.

"Take a break, get some air, hide from Beckett," Martha trills, and he shrugs.

"Something like that," he admits, picking up the coffee mug and swallowing the last of it, before heading back to his bedroom; time to get dressed. He needs out of these four walls, and he knows just the place; he'd written portions of his earlier novels all over New York City. It's too early for the Old Haunt, but it's not too early to grab his laptop and situate himself on a cozy sofa in his favorite midtown cafe.


Ryan's been shooting her sympathetic looks all day, and if he thinks she's not noticing, he's not the detective she thought he was. She's this close to sending him out to canvass some more; never mind that they are just waiting on warrants.

Beckett's managed to shake the sense of familiarity that had come over her in the alley and she's more and more convinced every second that this has nothing to do with her mother's case. It's just dumb luck, and probably not even something she would have noticed if she hadn't been so wound up about Castle looking into her mom's case.

On paper the case is all wrapped up. They'd tracked down the victim's next of kin, her place of employment, her roommate, and everyone had said the same thing; Kristina's boyfriend was bad news. Better news, though, is that his prints are a match to the prints on the weapon, and the witness statement and blurry CCTV footage fit with his DMV picture.

She's shuffling through her desk, looking for the granola bar she knows is there. She's about to give it up as a bad idea and go heat up some leftovers in the break room, because she's suddenly starving, but then her hand closes over the snack and she gratefully pulls it out from beneath the knick-knacks that she keeps in her top drawer.

She tears the wrapper off and bites into it; it's no steak, but it's a start. She glances up at the boys to find not just Ryan, but Esposito staring at her, identical looks of shock on their faces. "What?" she snaps.

The guys exchange a glance, but it's Esposito who finds his voice first. "Robbery in SoHo," he says in a low voice, and she stares at him in confusion.

"So? Since when do we care about robberies in SoHo when we're waiting on a warrant for an actual homicide?"

It's Ryan who replies, his voice low and serious. "Since it's Castle's place."


A/N: Borrowed a couple of lines from 2.01 for this one ;) Many thanks to Trish and Kylie for giving it a going over!