A/N: It's been a long time since I've posted an actual story, so hopefully, I'm not too rusty. Thank you to all who have been so kind in offering warm welcomes of return when I get the urge (and the time) to write. This is for you. Expect at least one chapter a day leading up to Christmas.


Post 3x24 AU; Kate never returns from her summer at the cabin.


"I won't ask you to wait if you don't ask me to stay

So I'll go back to L.A. and the so-called friends

Who'll write books about me, if I ever make it

And wonder about the only soul who can tell which smiles I'm faking

And the heart I know I'm breaking is my own

To leave the warmest bed I've ever known"

-'tis the damn season by Taylor Swift


He moved to a smaller city outside of Los Angeles to be closer to his daughter while she attended her dream school. Alexis protested at first, arguing that his life was in New York, but was it really? He could write from anywhere and he wanted to be near enough that if she needed him, he wouldn't have to fly across the country to reach her. He chose Bakersfield because it was a nice "in between", close enough to Alexis, but far enough to give her space; close enough to L.A. for him to drive out for press and book meetings, but far enough for him to feel secluded from the spotlight. And best of all, it was a parallel line across the country from New York, from everything that haunts him there.

No reprieve can last forever, though.

His mother has a heart attack during Alexis's second semester. He receives the call in the middle of the night, a doctor informing him of his mother's admission into the hospital in Manhattan, her current condition. Stable, but struggling. He books a flight before the call is over.

It's finals week for his daughter, a stressful time as is, and he decides not to tell Alexis yet. Is it the right move? He doesn't know, but he can't take the time to think it over.

On the flight, his thoughts drift to the only other person in New York that matters to him. To the woman he poured his heart out to on cemetery grass, while her blood colored it red. He hasn't seen Kate Beckett in over a year, but he would be lying if he said he hasn't thought of her every day since.

I just need a little bit of time.

Sure. Sure. How much time?

I'll call you, okay?

She never called, never came back. He waited, diligently showing up to the precinct every day until the new captain, Gates, kicked him out. He kept in touch with Ryan and Esposito, but the boys barely heard from her either. The main theory is that she remained upstate in her father's cabin - healing, hiding, he has no clue. It doesn't matter anymore.

He moved across the country, cut off most of his communications with the NYPD, and hasn't touched a Nikki Heat document in the last nine months. He isn't sure he ever will again.


Kate uses her shoulder to push through the door of the waiting room, the old incision scar on her side aching with the cooling weather. Snow is beginning to stick longer to the ground outside, creating small hills of white and hardening puddles of slush. Her dad put new chains on the tires of her Crown Vic to combat the ice beginning to smooth over the roads. She used to love winter as a child, thinking it was the most magical time of year, but ever since her mom died, she's had every reason to dread it. The healed scars on her side, the bullet hole between her breasts, serve as another piercing reminder that the cold only brings pain.

"Zach's just finishing up with his last client, Ms. Beckett," the nurse tells her from the front desk.

"Thanks," she nods, pacing towards the windows. She can't sit down again after the short drive from the cabin, it hurts too much to be so still for so long. The physical therapy clinic is small, just like the nearest town her dad's cabin is nestled outside of. Zach, her physical therapist, has never had a client scheduled prior to her, though, and the restless paranoia skitters through her guts. She studies the black Mercedes in the parking lot, the lone car across the lot from hers.

She's seeing a therapist for her PTSD virtually, an older man assigned by the department, because she is going back. She just needs to get through the worst of the pain, the worst of the jumping at every sound and the nightmares that have her waking screaming.

The shooter from Montgomery's funeral has not found her to finish the job. She'll be ready for him when that day comes, but it isn't today, during her physical therapy appointment.

Kate forces herself to practice the calming skills Dr. Burke has given her, bringing herself back to the present by grudgingly identifying five things she can feel, four she can see…

The door that leads to the rehabilitation room swings open and she jerks her attention to the pair coming through, feeling her healing heart drop to her stomach.

"Really, Richard, I'm fine. It's a broken arm." The familiar voice of Martha Rodgers echoes through the room like bird song, melodious and soothing, yet exasperated at the same time. "Besides, that hunk of a therapist said I'm going to make a smooth recovery."

"Better safe than sorry," Castle replies, his attention laser focused on the cast engulfing his mother's right arm. "The way you fell on it-"

"Was nothing extraordinary," his mother drawls, patting his arm with her left hand. "Now, let's get back to the…" Martha's sentence trails just as Castle looks up, finds Kate standing there with eyes wide and lips parted in surprise.

It's been months, over a year, since she last saw him standing in front of her hospital bed with flowers and heartbreak in his eyes. Eyes that lack their signature spark of light as they meet hers.

"Oh, Katherine," his mother whispers, ignoring the shock of silence between the two of them and shuffling across the room for Kate. "I've been hoping you were alright, darling."

Kate sucks in a startled breath as Martha embraces her with her good arm, tugging her in and sighing almost mournfully.

"Martha, your arm?" Kate gets out, her voice a near croak. Martha huffs, waving her off with a good-natured grin as she pulls back.

"It's nothing, darling. Just a minor break from a fall I took last week. Richard flew out to take care of me," she smiles softly, glancing back to her son, face falling. "I… think I'm going to wait in the car while you two catch up."

She squeezes Kate's bicep once before breezing past her, using her good side to push through the exit.

"Castle," Beckett murmurs, taking a tentative step forward, but it's as if he's snapped out of a haze.

He moves to brush past her. Without thinking, she follows.

"Rick, wait," she pleads, pushing through the piercing lance of pain in her side and striding after him.

"I did," he calls over his shoulder, shoving the exit door open and letting it slam against her palm. "You never called."

She shoves through it herself and reaches for his arm, catching the sleeve of his coat in her trembling fingers. "Listen, I know you're angry-"

"Angry?" He spins on his heel, dislodging her hand and glaring down at her. She forwent the higher heels today, watching him from a few inches below in her boots. "You're damn right I'm angry. I - I watched you die in that ambulance. Did you know that? Do you have any idea what's it's like to watch the life drain out of someone you love?"

Panic drains the color from his face, the clear sign of a misspoken word, but she seizes the moment, the chance to respond.

"Listen, I know I told you I needed time. I just - I didn't realize how much."

He shakes his head, shoving his hands into his coat pockets. Snow is beginning to fall and she shivers beneath the thin leather of her jacket.

"You could have called. You could have texted. You-"

"Messed up," she finishes, pursing her lips. The anger eases, turning into disappointment with less of a bite. Something she can work with. "I should have called you, I just… I didn't know how to deal with it. I still don't," she confesses. "I've done everything to avoid what happened that day, to-"

"Forget? Yeah, I get that," he mutters, scraping a hand through his hair. "I'll make it easy for you then. You said we were done that night and we are."

"Castle," she protests, moving forward, but he steps back as if she's poisonous. Her massacred heart burns in a way she hasn't let it for the last year. "You know that wasn't-"

"What are you even doing here?" he cuts her off. "Don't you have some super doctor boyfriend at home to fix you up?"

"We broke up before I was even released," she snaps, watching a hint of the indignation clear from his eyes. But just a hint. "I've been living at my dad's cabin - alone - since the summer. I've tried to go back, but I-" Her throat closes up and she tries to swallow past the lump. "The idea of going back to the city, sitting like a waiting duck in plain sight for my shooter to finish the job? I couldn't, I - I can't."

"No one is finishing the job," he says, surprisingly determined. "You're safe, you're-"

"Safe? Are you kidding me?" she bursts out. "I am on borrowed time. They're coming for me and I need to be ready, I need to-"

"Stop, you need to stop," he growls, finally moving toward her. "You need to heal, you need to go back to the Twelfth, where you have a precinct full of armed officers around you, and-"

"While you go back to L.A?" she hisses, watching his brow lift ever so slightly. "While you drive your Ferrari around Hollywood Boulevard with a blonde on each arm and-"

"That is not-"

"You think I don't have internet access?" she laughs humorlessly, crossing her arms over her broken body.

"Checking up on me?" he scoffs, mimicking her defensive posture. "I'm flattered."

She squares her jaw. "You think I don't worry about them coming after you too? You think it was always one-sided?"

The defense falls from his eyes, a blue burst of surprise filling his irises. Lit up by the glare of headlights.

Kate startles, but Castle shouts, jerks forward as the black Mercedes pulls out of the parking lot.

"Mother! What the hell are you-"

"See you at the cabin, kiddo!" his mother calls from the open driver's window, using her good hand to steer while the other is propped on the opposite end of the wheel.

"Can - can she drive?" Kate stammers.

Castle groans, pinches his nose as they watch the car's tail lights disappear down the road.

"Sort of. We're staying at a cabin a few blocks down the street while she completes physical therapy. She'll be fine going that far."

"I can drive you home," Kate murmurs, but Castle is already shaking his head.

"I'd rather walk."

"Rick, it's freezing," she protests, but he shrugs her off and starts down the sidewalk. She curses under her breath and rushes after him, snagging his sleeve once more. He jerks from her grasp, tugs her arm with the movement.

She gasps at the sharp pull, doubles over to cradle her bad side.

"Kate?" he breathes, turning immediately to touch the hunch of her shoulders with uncertain hands. "What's wrong? What happened?"

"Nothing, nothing, just moved wrong," she grits out, breathing slowly through the reverberating sensation of her incision wound slicing open over and over again. "Where they took the bullet out - it gets sensitive with the weather, the cold."

"Do I need to get a doctor? Take you inside?"

"No," she exhales, the intensity easing, letting her breathe through it.

"Why is it this intense after a year, Beckett?" he questions, hands still cupping her shoulders even as she gingerly begins to straighten up.

"I don't know," she mutters. "Karma?"

He huffs, something like a laugh, and lets her go. "Let's go back inside. You need to go to your appointment."

"I don't want to go to my appointment," she argues, digging her keys from her pocket. "I want to take you home. Or - your hotel, whatever."

"Beckett-"

"Castle, I am freezing, I can barely move, and I need to thaw out. Get in the damn car," she snaps, unlocking the Crown Vic and hustling for the driver's side without checking to see if he follows.