"It's fine, Kate," he murmured, again.

She had been tenderly stroking the surrounding skin of his injury for nearly fifteen minutes, breathing quiet questions concerning his health and trying to erase the image of the blood that had covered the skin of his arm so thickly when Lanie had cut away his clothing. She had been able to practically feel the skin throbbing under her light touch nearly an hour ago, after he had put too much weight on it, but the stitches hadn't torn and he swore he was feeling minimal pain.

But she had to be sure. It was her fault he had been shot in the first place and it could have been so much worse. He could have been shot in the chest, it could have been his heart, he could have-

She turned her face back into his chest, inhaled the heady scent of sweat and his aftershave.

And he loved her. She had suspected as much, seen it sparkling in his eyes plenty of times over the last month, but leaving the words unsaid had been best for the both of them. Now they were out there, and while part of her reveled in the beauty of them, the rest of her panicked. She was the wrong person to love, especially right now.

"Just sleep," he sighed, cupping the side of her face, brushing his knuckles down her cheek. "For tonight, we're safe, love. So just rest."

Kate lifted her head, sought his lips and kissed him slow.

They may have dodged a bullet today, literally, but it wasn't enough. She couldn't live with the fear of losing another person she cared about.

She waited until he dropped off into sleep to carefully extricate herself from his arms and the bed. She snatched one of his sweatshirts from the bureau and a pair of jeans from her duffel bag and then she started to pack.

Beckett hauled her bag over her shoulder as she headed towards the front door to his loft. She had packed up the majority of her belongings haphazardly into the duffel, but a few items of clothing, a pair or two of shoes, had been left behind for the sake of space and weight. She would come back for them, or ask him to send them to her, or just – she huffed at herself. She was treating this like it was a breakup, and it wasn't. They weren't even – there was nothing to break.

"Kate?"

She froze at the door, fingers poised over the handle of the coat closet, and glanced back to see him watching her from the living room. His blues eyes sparked with knowledge, but his features said he didn't want to believe he knew what she was doing.

"Are you-" His gaze fell to the duffle at her side and his question turned into a dejected statement. "You're leaving."

"I just - I think it would be best if I went to stay with my dad for a while."

Rick nodded dumbly and she felt the crestfallen expression on his face poke holes in her already sore heart, making the beats unsteady and painful.

"Castle, I told you I wasn't ready-"

"Until you crawled into bed with me in the middle of the night, right?" he countered, his eyes sharp but his face still shimmering with the hurt. He shrugged and turned away from her, shaking his head at himself and she curled her hands into fists to keep from reaching for him. "It's because I told you I loved you, isn't it?"

She wanted to tell him no, but she would be lying. Knowing he loved her was terrifying and wonderful and made her want to stay, but she was going to get him killed. She would put her mother's case to rest, pry the target from her back, and achieve the justice her family deserved, and then she could love him back, but now… not now.

"Rick-"

"I'd just thought you should know, but maybe that was a mistake. Maybe this entire thing was a mistake," he muttered and she was glad he couldn't see her as her lip began to tremble.

"We aren't a mistake," she whispered, but it only made it worse.

"Don't say that when it's obvious you don't believe it. Just - I'll call you a cab."

She swallowed, forced the grief from her features and nodded when he turned around. "Fine."

He didn't look at her as he brushed past and went into his bedroom, closed the door behind him. Kate grabbed her coat from the front closet, slipped out of the loft before he could return. She didn't want to hear him say goodbye.

She had never been to her father's new apartment. She wasn't even sure she was at the right place even though she had memorized the address while she was still in the hospital. Regardless, she still knocked on his door, kept her head down and squeezed her eyes closed to stop the stupidly relentless tears that continued to fill there.

"Katie?"

She glanced up, attempted to force a small smile for her dad even as he looked back at her in alarm.

"Can we go to the cabin?" she sniffed, knowing her eyes were likely still red rimmed and misty, but she wanted - no, she had run from what she wanted - she needed time now. The time she had always planned to take for herself, without Rick. "Just for a little while?"

Her father sighed and cupped the side of her head, smoothing her hair from her face. "Only if you tell me what happened on the way."

She opened her mouth to protest, but nodded her consent instead, allowed her father to guide her inside his empty, one bedroom apartment that looked nothing like him. She tried not to dwell too much on that.

Jim packed quickly, and within minutes they were in his truck, starting down the streets of Manhattan and speeding along the highway, heading to the family vacation home where she hoped to find temporary sanctuary.

"So what happened, Katie? You sounded happy the other day on the phone," Jim began softly after they had driven out of the city, keeping his eyes on the road while Kate remained curled up in the passenger seat, wiping at her eyes with the sleeves of her sweatshirt. It smelled like him. "And I know today was rough, to put it lightly, but I thought having Rick around would be - I thought he would be good for you."

She sighed, pressed her forehead hard into the freezing glass of the window. "He is good for me. But he got shot today, Dad. Because of me."

Jim bit his lip, a habit she had picked up from him as a teenager, and spared a second to look over at her. "I don't have any food at the cabin right now, so I'm thinking we should have this conversation over a late dinner."

Kate nodded reluctantly. The cabin was a good hour and a half away and she hadn't eaten much of the chicken Rick had heated up for dinner at the loft a few hours ago, merely picking at the well-made meal while he watched her with worry. She caused him so much worry.

Jim pulled into the first place they came across, a small, all-night burger joint that she assumed he'd eaten at before by the way the older waitress smiled warm and welcoming at them.

"How's the bullet wound?" he asked as he led her to a booth in the back, real concern in the question.

"It was only a graze," she murmured. "Lanie said it would heal up completely in a few weeks and he seemed physically okay at the loft."

"Had you planned to leave tonight?"

Her father already knew the answer, this was just how he worked at slowly pulling the story out of her.

"No. He just – after the funeral, he told me he loved me," she whispered, ducking her head when the waitress brought them two waters and quickly took their order from Jim.

"And you weren't ready to hear that?"

Kate chewed on the inside of her cheek, kept her gaze on the paper napkin she was picking apart. "I already kind of knew, but I wasn't ready to hear it, no."

"So you ran." There was no judgment in her father's response, only comprehension and understanding. He did still her fidgeting fingers though, covered her jittery hands with his and held them firmly for a moment.

"I like Rick," he said. "But I love you, and I want what's best for you above all else, but Katie… this is what you do, what you've always done. Even before the accident."

Kate cocked her head in confusion, not wanting to admit to herself that she knew exactly where this was going, what he was going to say.

"When you get scared you hide."

"I'm not-" She sighed, shook her head at herself. "I don't want to hide, Dad, but I don't want to be so - I don't want to love him back right now."

"But you do."

"But I do," she nodded. "Right now though, I don't think it would be fair to dive into this relationship with him, more than I already have, when I still need to spend some time fixing me." She couldn't also reveal to her father how she desperately wished to keep Rick out of the crosshairs, how the image of his body bludgeoned and bloodstained haunted her in dreams every night, how serious the situation with Johanna Beckett's killer really was. She wasn't lying to him, she was only telling half of the truth.

"Would you have stayed, had he not been shot today?" Jim questioned softly, squeezing her chilled fingers.

"Yes," she admitted, lowering her gaze back down to the shredded napkin in front of her. "I kept telling myself it would only be a few days, a couple of weeks at most, but I don't know when I actually intended to go." She retracted her hands from under her father's, folded them under her chin. Her qualms about 'waiting' and 'finding herself' seemed more like excuses now. She had found herself with him, and she could easily say she had been happier with Rick now than she had been before the accident. Aside from the crippling loss of her mother, she would definitely prefer a life with him over the one she had had two years ago. "It started to feel like home there."

"You know, it took me three years to know I was in love with your mother."

"Dad," she sighed, running both hands through her hair. She had heard this story, many times, and she had always loved it, the tale of how her parents had found love, but she didn't think she could handle hearing it now that the love story came with a tragic ending.

"I would give anything to have a minute of that time back."

"What are you saying? That I'm wasting time?" she demanded, feeling the tears of frustration building again, but Jim shook his head.

"No, honey. I don't want you to waste time hiding, not from something that makes you happy. There's a difference between healing and hiding though. So you take your time to heal, but if you need time, tell him that. Get your life back in order and then come back to this relationship, but don't shut him out, Katie, because that wouldn't be fair to either one of you."

"I don't know if he'll forgive me for walking out on him," she murmured quietly, pulling her hands into her lap when their food arrived and nodding her thanks to the waitress.

"He might be a little upset, but he'll forgive you."

"How do you know?" she muttered while nibbling on a fry.

Jim shrugged, as if it was the easiest answer in the world.

"He loves you."

When they finally arrived at the cabin later that night, she considered calling him as she got ready for bed, explaining everything and hoping he would understand, but she knew it would be better to wait until the morning, when her head would be clear and her eyes were no longer itchy and stinging. But before she put away the phone he had gotten for her, she typed out the words, a promise and reassurance rolled into one, and pressed the send button before she could talk herself out of it. She put the phone back on the nightstand, turned over in the bed so her back was to the device, and fell into sleep.

I love you too.

A/N: Only the epilogue remains. It's been an amazing ride, thank you.