Hi everyone. Thank you again for all your lovely reviews and support so far.

This chapter is probably the one closest to my own heart (for a couple of different reasons), so I really hope you like it.

She'd never been so helpless.

Years of training and experience in dealing with grieving family members, years of providing comfort to those whose world had suddenly turned upside-down... and yet, those years meant next to nothing right now.

Lanie Parish doubted that any words would ever be enough to dull the pain that was slowly consuming her friend, a dark poison steadily working its way through her system, killing her a little more with each minute that passed.

Before the phone call from Javi, there had at least been the smallest flicker of hope to hide behind, a tiny spark to fend off the darkness— but the raw pain in his voice had been enough to extinguish that, leaving them no choice but to face the truth that awaited them in the depths of that vast, dark pit of grief: Castle may never be coming back.

That call had been close to an hour ago; Beckett had yet to speak a single word since.

In fact, if it weren't for the crushing grip her friend had around her right hand— a pain she knew she would gladly accept a thousand times over if it meant lessening Beckett's own pain even a fraction— her utter stillness and silence would have had Lanie concerned that the normally indomitable detective was slipping into shock.

Looking her friend over with eyes that stung, Lanie carefully laid her free hand over their joined ones, her fingers seeking the pulse in Beckett's wrist. Feeling the steady rhythm against her fingers— a slow, mournful beat, like the pounding of funeral drums— she closed her eyes for a moment, breathing out a small sigh that carried with it the tiniest thread of relief. Even despite her science-focused mind, there was still a small, superstitious part of her somewhere that feared the depth of connection that Castle and Beckett shared— feared that if one heart should stop, then somehow so would the other, the two of them forming two dependent halves of a single whole.

Her eyes were still closed against the world— she may not be able to change reality, but she could certainly ignore it for a few seconds— when a tremulous voice emerged through the silence, the barely audible admission rippling through the room like wind on water.

"He told me again."

Scarcely more than a whisper, Beckett's words were hoarse, pained; as though a jagged stone had lodged in her throat, shredding her a little more with every word that she forced past her lips.

Feeling her eyes immediately begin to burn afresh, Lanie cradled Beckett's hand in her own, trying to keep her own voice even, steady— trying to live up to a role that she wasn't sure she had the strength to play.

"What's that, honey?"

Beckett wouldn't— perhaps couldn't— look at her; couldn't lift her eyes from the floor, from whatever distant scene she was seeing in her mind's eye. There was another moment of heavy silence before Beckett clenched her eyes shut, anguish written in every line of her body.

"He told me again. He said it again and I never got to say it back."

Oh, Kate.

Lanie's throat constricted, her grief welling anew. Moistening her lips, she spoke the words Beckett had been unable to say, her voice a low, soothing murmur.

"He told you he loved you."

It wasn't a question.

"He tried. On the phone. Just like he did when..." shuddering slightly, Beckett gestured weakly towards her chest with her free hand, her voice rough with grief. "He told me a year ago, Lanie. We could have had a year."

Swallowing hard, Lanie gave her friend's hand a slight squeeze, her words as gentle as she could make them. "I know, honey. I know."

Beckett paused at that, her head turning slightly, her haunted eyes lifting to meet Lanie's for the first time in hours.

"You knew," she stated softly, and Lanie closed her eyes briefly, forcing back a dark memory of a slumped form sitting on her couch, the sound of a grown man's heartbroken sobs suddenly loud in her ears.

"Yeah," she answered slowly, meeting her best friend's broken gaze. Then, softly, haltingly, she went on, "I just didn't… I didn't know that you did."

Beckett's eyes dropped again immediately, but not before Lanie saw the flash of pain that speared through their depths. For several moments there was a heavy silence, and Lanie squeezed her eyes shut, wishing that emotional pain could be treated as easily as the physical, wishing that these were wounds she could heal.

It was minutes later when Beckett finally spoke, her voice weak as she breathed the single, pained word.

"How?"

Opening her eyes slowly— then blinking rapidly to clear the moisture that had somehow gathered there— Lanie looked across at her, trying to keep the concern from her tone.

"How what?"

"How did you know?" Beckett murmured, her eyes once again blank, seeing something far away in both time and distance. "About… what he said."

She had never deliberately lied to her best friend. But right now, the complete truth was something she simply couldn't bear to give; instead, she drew a slow breath, and gave as close as she could get.

"Uh, well, over the summer... he… he called, sometimes. To ask about you. He... worried."

It was all she could say. She couldn't say that Castle had taken to calling her regularly over the three months of Beckett's absence, that she was the only one he had told of the night terrors that haunted him, scenes of cemeteries and hospital rooms, of blood and death and Beckett's body on a metal slab. She couldn't say that she had worked with him one-on-one for weeks to enable him to step into her morgue without immediately being seized by a panic attack, or that he was still terrified of hospitals to the extent that even clean white-walled rooms brought him out in a cold sweat, his heart thundering in his chest almost to the point of physical pain.

She couldn't say how many times he had broken down over the phone or on her couch, his façade of strength giving way to reveal a lost and damaged man who had escaped losing the love of his life in one way only to lose her in another.

As if she had somehow heard— or guessed— the truth that Lanie would not say, Beckett's face crumpled, her eyes squeezing shut as if she could disappear into the dark void behind her eyelids if only she tried hard enough. The breath she released was ragged, rasping, as if her body hated itself for continuing to breathe when Castle did not.

"I can't do it, Lanie," Beckett admitted hoarsely, a broken whisper from a broken woman. "I can't do this without him."

Swallowing against the lump in her throat, Lanie squeezed Beckett's hand.

"We're all here for you, honey. I know… I know it's not the same, but we're here."

When she received no response, she added softly, "One step at a time, okay?"

Beckett said nothing, her eyes closing once more, but Lanie thought she saw her head tilt in the shadow of a nod, even that tiny indication enough to give her a small spark of hope for her friend.

With that, they lapsed back into silence, the two of them wordlessly clinging to one another until Beckett abruptly straightened, her eyes wide, panicked.

"I need to call Alexis."

"Kate, honey, you can't," Lanie told her, her words gentle but insistent. "Alexis means a lot to all of us, and you know we all want to do whatever we can to protect her. But right now, none of us are capable of giving her the answers or the support she needs. When it's time, we'll call her and Martha, but not now. Not yet."

For a moment, it looked as though Beckett would argue, her bloodshot eyes locking with Lanie's for a few tense moments before she sagged, defeated, her eyes squeezing shut and head dropping as she let out a slow, shuddering breath.

Desperate to provide some kind of comfort or reassurance, Lanie opened her mouth, but found she had no words to give. There was nothing she could say that would ease Beckett's pain, nothing that could make the world seem worth living in again.

A broken bone, she could mend. But a broken heart?

She was powerless, useless, and she knew it.

A brief knock at the door distracted her from her own self-pity, and with a brief glance at her friend, she gently detangled herself and crossed the room, opening the door carefully to ensure Beckett would remain hidden from sight.

The officer at the door nervously passed on their message, then hurried off, and Lanie turned back to Beckett, speaking softly from across the room.

"Honey, the phone on your desk is ringing. I'm gonna go get it for you, okay? Just in case it's something important."

Stepping outside of the meeting room, Lanie pulled the door closed behind her, dragging in a slow, uneven breath. Blinking away the tears that suddenly threatened to spill over, Lanie swiftly crossed to Beckett's desk, pointedly ignoring the many sets of eyes that followed her every move. Reaching over for the phone, she looked down at the desk, then stilled, her hand faltering halfway to its shrilly ringing target.

On the desk lay a regular notepad; but three words stood out upon the page, scrawled in a familiar hand below a small stick-figure drawing, as if done in a moment of boredom. Castle was here.

Blowing out a breath that was almost a sob, Lanie swiftly flipped the notepad over with one hand, reaching for the phone with the other. Clearing her throat, she lifted the receiver, forcing her tone to be as steady as she could manage.

"Hello?"

The moment she picked up, a male voice began speaking, breathless and hurried.

"Detective Beckett? It's the front security desk. It's about Mr Castle— he just— "

But Lanie had already stopped listening.

The hand holding the phone slowly lowered, falling to her side as she stared across the room, half-certain that she must be experiencing some kind of grief-induced hallucination.

Because there, stumbling out of the elevator— sweaty, dishevelled, bruised and bleeding— was Richard Castle.

"Oh my god..." Lanie breathed, still half-stunned as Castle began striding toward her, his breathing ragged but his eyes filled with fire.

"Where is she?" he demanded, his words sounding hoarse, strained with pain and desperation. Lanie flinched, but had no time to form a response before his wild eyes simply looked past her, his voice like gravel and broken glass as he called for his partner.

"Kate!"

There was no need to question whether she'd heard. The almost instantaneous crash of her chair hitting the floor in the meeting room was answer enough, and then suddenly she was there, almost yanking the door off its hinges as she threw herself into the doorway, her fingers white against the frame.

There was a half-second in which she hovered there, frozen in the doorway, the two of them staring across the several yards that separated them, each seeming scarcely able to believe what they were seeing.

And then a single word broke the silence, a breath, a prayer.

"Kate."

Suddenly, before Lanie even had time to register what was happening, they were both moving fast, and then Beckett's arms were around Castle's neck and his arms were wrapped tightly around her, clutching her to him, the two of them holding on for dear life.

As Lanie looked on, the tears began falling in earnest, at least for her; averting her gaze from the two partners as they clung to each other, Lanie wiped at her eyes, abruptly noticing the silent, awed crowd in the bullpen for the first time.

Clearing her throat, Lanie gave them all a pointed look and flapped her hands— and most took the hint, nudging their co-workers and turning away, some wiping their own eyes just as she had done. Glancing back at Castle and Beckett, she saw them still silently wrapped in each other, the embrace so emotional and intimate that she suddenly felt almost voyeuristic, an intruder on a moment that wasn't hers.

She was about to turn away again when she heard Castle speak, his voice rough and half-muffled against Beckett's hair.

"Ryan and Esposito out searching?"

Beckett's reply was soft, unsteady, almost inaudible from where Lanie stood. "Yeah."

Pulling back just slightly, Castle looked down at her. "Call them. I have the address– if they get there fast, they may still get them."

For a moment Beckett simply returned his gaze— Lanie knew her friend had believed she would never see those eyes again— before the detective suddenly looked her way, asking with her eyes what her words could not.

Immediately understanding, Lanie pulled out her cell, hurriedly hitting her speed-dial.

"Javi, it's me. Castle's— Castle's here. He's safe."

For a beat there was utter silence on the other end of the line, before Esposito's exultant whoop suddenly exploded in her ear, his voice echoing over the line as he relayed the information to Ryan.

"Baby, listen. We have an address," she told him, speaking clearly as she repeated the address exactly as Castle gave it. When Esposito confirmed it, she paused, hesitating.

"Javi," she said softly, turning away slightly. "You guys be careful, okay?"

"We got this, Chica. Tell Castle and Beckett that we're definitely going to nail these bastards."

With that, he gave another whoop and hung up, the line going silent in her ear. Drawing in a slow breath, she turned back to the others, letting her lips curve into a small smile.

"They're on it," she told them. "They said they're going to nail the bastards."

"Thanks, Lanie," Castle acknowledged with a small smile of his own, a smile that softened as he shifted his gaze back to Beckett, who was still wrapped securely in his arms, her fingers curled around the back of his neck. Now what she'd had some time to recover, however, she'd regained her old focus and had begun looking him over with a sharp eye, assessing his injuries.

Her eyes seemed to fix on a cut over his eyebrow, her fingers brushing the bruised skin around the wound, her expression tense. "Castle—"

"It's okay," he assured her, his hand lifting to close around hers. "It's only a scratch."

Beckett frowned. "I'll take you to the hospital. You need to get checked out."

"No," he countered instantly, his tone gaining an edge of panic, his expression tightening. "No, I—"

Having watched the exchange, Lanie stepped forward, clearing her throat. "I can clean you up, Castle. I've got a med kit in my trunk and I make sure it's freshly stocked. I can grab it and take care of you right here."

At her words, Castle's shoulders lowered just a fraction, and he shot her a look of relief and gratitude over Beckett's head. "Yeah, okay. Thank you, Lanie."

Giving him a brief nod, she gestured at the room she and Beckett had previously occupied, working on keeping her voice steady. "Why don't you guys head back into the meeting room where it's a little more private? I'll be back in a minute."

Then, without waiting for an answer, she turned and headed for the elevator, holding her breath as she swiftly left the bullpen.

It was only once the elevator doors closed behind her that the first sobs broke free.

So, Castle returns! Safe (-ish) and (mostly) sound. I'm sure there's some of you who are surprised (and maybe even disappointed) that we didn't get a chapter for Castle's escape— but honestly, this story has never been about what was happening to Castle. It's always been about what happens to the team when one of their key pieces is taken away. With that said, though, we will definitely get a few answers regarding what's been going on with Castle since his phone call with Beckett, so you won't be left wondering.

Also, I hope you enjoyed my little headcanons for Castle and Lanie's relationship. I've always believed that there was a lot more to them (particularly in the wake of Beckett's shooting) than the show ever touched on.

Anyhow, as always, thanks for reading! All comments are welcome :)

-Laura

(PS. I legitimately cried while writing this chapter, so I sure hope I at least inspired a tear or two from you guys!)