A/N: Inspired by a tumblr anon and the quite brilliant film, Sister Cities.

"You are my epilogue,
my prologue,
and every chapter that exists in between."

-Stories. Seventy Years of Sleep, nikka ursula

"Becks?"

Kate glances up from her place on the porch to the sight of Richard Castle approaching, concern drawing his brow into a furrow, but his eyes still light up at the sight of her, bright blue and shimmering.

Wow. He looks... good, an unexpectedly welcome sight to her sore heart.

"Castle," she replies, her heart pitter-pattering in her chest at the sound of his name in her mouth again, after so long. "What are you doing here?"

She watches his throat bob with a swallow, the subtle touch of nerves in his shoulders as he shifts in front of her, and it's then that she actually takes a good look at him, notices the uniform-

"You're a cop now?"

Rick straightens up, her appraisal of his profession seeming to spark his confidence.

"Yeah, actually," he chuckles, still a bit sheepish beneath his bravado, rubbing a hand to the back of his neck. "After you left for Stanford, I switched my major in college. You were right, I really excelled in Criminal Justice. Liked it enough to pursue it."

"But… writing," she murmurs, rising from the porch steps to stand a few feet above him. "You were going to be a writer."

Rick shrugs, shifts his weight, as if the topic isn't one he's comfortable with. "Things change. But uh, you haven't. At all."

Her breath gets caught up in her throat, over a simple compliment that means too much coming from him, and Kate scrapes a hand through her hair.

"I - I heard about your mom, but when dispatch sent me out for a house call, I wasn't expecting… the address didn't even ring a bell," he explains and… oh, oh god, they sent Castle to identify the body, assess the crime scene? "The rest of my unit should be here shortly."

"Shit," she breathes, and Rick ventures closer, at the bottom step now, staring up at her.

"You okay? Considering…"

"I'm - no, not really," she admits, because Castle was always too good at reading her anyway. "She's not - she wasn't supposed to die like this. Wasn't supposed to… die at all."

Kate looks away, diverts her gaze to the cracks in the steps of her parents' brownstone, but then Castle is climbing, only a step below her, reaching gently for her hand and giving it a squeeze that threatens to coax the tears lingering in her eyes to descend onto her cheeks.

"I'm sorry, Kate. I'm so sorry," he murmurs, and she flexes her fingers, slips them through the cage of his, holds onto the warmth of his palm. "Is Jim inside?"

Kate nods, feels Castle's thumb trace the ring on her fourth finger, beginning to let her go.

"How long has it been?" she asks before he can trudge up the last two steps past her to enter their home, but he goes still, his shoulder stiff when it bumps hers before he deflates with a quiet sigh.

"Too long," he answers, squeezing her hand once more before shaking free of her fingers. "Twelve years, if you want an exact number."

He leaves her alone on the steps, abandons her to enter a home that hasn't been hers in too long, and goes to begin the investigation into her mother's death.

"How did she die?" Kate asks him, her voice shaking like her body, still stranded in the doorway, like she's too afraid to venture deeper into the home. Jim is still upstairs, looming over the medical examiner, but Kate is waiting on him as he makes his way back down. "She's only 60 and she's always led a healthy life, there's no way she-"

"No," Castle confirms with a gentle shake of his head. "Not natural cause, but it doesn't look like a homicide either, Kate. They'll have to do an examination down at the morgue, see what they can find."

Grief consumes her pupils then, bathing her eyes in black, her face in despair, and she turns away from him, bites hard on her lip.

She looks the same - long limbed and gorgeous, her hair darker than what he knows is her natural shade and the fringe of her bangs hiding pieces of her striking bone structure, the lines around her mouth and extending from her eyes carving deeper, only becoming more prominent by the minute.

"She's really dead," she rasps, her chin quivering with the declaration, the reality of it all. "When Dad called, I - but I couldn't believe… not my mom. Castle, how am I supposed to - how-"

Her voice cracks, sharp and painful, and her face crumbles, and he panics. Kate Beckett never cried, not even when they were younger, not even when she crashed her motorcycle when they were seventeen and she was laid up in a hospital bed for a night, her eyes wet but her cheeks stubbornly dry. She's always been so strong, practically invincible, but this is breaking her.

So he hugs her, because he doesn't know what to do, how to help the girl he was in love with twelve years ago, the powerful, career driven woman she's become, how to ease her agony. He dealt with victims of grief on a regular basis in his line of work at the NYPD, but Kate had never been ordinary and his instincts urged him to handle her with extra care.

"I'm sorry," he repeats, allowing his eyes to shutter closed for a brief moment when her arms ascend to wrap tight around his neck, the heels she wears elevating her to his height, placing her at an advantage to bury her face in his shoulder. "I'll keep you in the loop, send you updates as they come, I promise."

Kate nods against his shoulder, lifts her head to look up at him, but doesn't shake free of his embrace, leaning back into the splay of his hands at her spine. "Thank you."

The always is on the tip of his tongue, but it's been so long since he's used the preserved word in response, since he's said it to anyone, let alone the person it was reserved for. He bites it back, swallows it down, and releases her.

"Of course."

Kate growls when he snags the cigarette from her fingers, drops it to the concrete outside of the café and casually crushes it beneath his shoe while he takes his seat across from her.

"Not a habit you should return to," Castle murmurs with a quirk of his brow as he glances down, notices the coffee already waiting for him.

She hadn't even thought about how odd it was that she could still remember his preferred order, didn't even consider how it might have changed.

By the pleased twitch of his lips when he takes a sip, she supposes it hasn't after all.

"You're not my keeper," she mutters, blowing out the bitter breath of smoke and swallowing a small gulp of her own caffeine, over indulging in the coffee to refrain from turning to other forms of coping.

She really did not have the time to develop a drinking problem.

"No one could fill that role," he chuckles, but the amusement quickly falls from his eyes as his gaze drifts to her left hand. "Ah, I take that back actually."

Kate pushes her thumb against the simple band of silver. "Not a wedding ring, Castle. Just covers the tan line left from one."

His eyes ripple with surprise. "Oh. I - your dad said-"

"My divorce from Josh was finalized three months ago," she explains, tilting her head to study the interesting expression claiming his features.

Relief, sorrow on her behalf, and a dash of hope that makes her heart flutter.

"I retract the latter statement," he says around the rim of his coffee cup. "How are you holding up?"

Kate directs her gaze back to the mug between her palms. "I don't know. I don't know how to accept that she's just gone, that she… that I didn't get to say goodbye. My dad seems strangely at peace with it. Heartbroken, miserable without her, but like he's accepted it. I can't comprehend how."

"I… might have an idea," Castle reveals, earning the quick return of her full attention, but the hesitation on his face fills her with dread, with fear.

Her coffee sloshes uncomfortably and heavy in her stomach, the few drags from her cigarette unfurling through her lungs, burning her chest from the inside out, and Kate tries to sit up a little straighter, breathe past the internal warfare.

Something was wrong.

"Do you want to walk with me?" he inquires, already downing the last of his coffee and standing, holding out his hand to her. "Because I'd rather not have this conversation on a public sidewalk area."

Kate swallows and accepts his open palm, lets him hoist her up from her chair and guide her away from the café's outdoor seating area, across the street and towards a less popular park that isn't too crowded at this time of day.

She shakes off his hand to snake her arm through his, stick close to his side and brace herself for what his answer will be. "What did you find, Rick?"

His chest expands with a deep breath and his lips purse before he replies. Shit, this was going to be so bad, wasn't it?

"ALS," he finally says, the acronym striking her hard, leaving her speechless and confused. She knows what ALS is, but no way could it be connected to her mother's death. She had never breathed a word about the disease to Kate and if her mom were sick, certainly she would let her own daughter know. But Rick isn't finished, not even close. "From the medical examiner's report, your mom's death… it looks like it may have been a suicide and after running some tests, it was determined that she was suffering from the disease, her body slowly degenerating-"

"What?" Kate slows to a stop, her feet stumbling, and Rick stops too, stands in front of her, blocking her from view of fellow pedestrians enjoying the park. Protecting her, her dignity. "ALS? No, Rick, my mom - she would have told me. She wouldn't have just - and my dad? They wouldn't…"

Would they? Would they have kept this from her?

"I went to question Jim this morning," Rick informs her, his voice low, his eyes a dark shade of blue, watching her warily. "Privately. He didn't admit to anything, but hypothetically, your parents both knew Johanna was dying. Slowly. That she was trapped in a body of which she had no control over, that she was in constant pain, and from what your dad said, I think-"

"She killed herself?" Kate breathes out, her knees quivering, threatening to buckle at any moment. "And he... No, she - suicide? This is wrong, it's - she wouldn't do that. I know her, I know my mother."

"ALS is a debilitating disease, Kate. I can't speak from experience, but from what Jim said-"

"Why did he tell you this?" she demands, indignation flaring hot and painful through her already raw chest. "Why isn't anyone telling me anything? I'm their daughter, I was her daughter. I was-"

She doesn't realize that she's sobbing, quietly choking on her words, collapsing into the wall of Castle's chest when he catches her crumpling frame, and burying her broken sounds, her relentless tears, in his neck.

"Because they knew you'd stop it, knew you'd drop everything, and they both wanted the world for you, Kate," he whispers in her ear, his lips brushing the cool shell of cartilage. "They thought they were doing what was best for you as your parents."

"By lying to me?" she cries, fisting her hands in his jacket, feeling his own tighten at her back. "By robbing me of the final moments I could have had with my mother? The last time we spoke, we fought because I was working too much. I was working too much while she was planning her own death. I loved her, more than anyone, my mom was - I didn't get to say goodbye, Rick. Please, just-"

She doesn't know what she's asking for, can't make sense of her own mind, the tangled web of grief and anger and heartbreak it's become, only that she's falling, Castle aiding her descent to the patch of grass he'd maneuvered them into, the wide branches of a tree, its dying leaves, extending over them in shelter. Her body is limp and shuddering in the arms that hold her against his side, his hand cradling her skull to his chest, rocking her slowly back and forth. Trying to soothe her.

But there's nothing that could mend the splintering of her heart in that moment.

Kate cries for a long time, the two of them huddled together on the ground of a public park, shielded by the thin cluster of trees he's never been more grateful for, but he doesn't try to stop her, quiet her.

Jim and Johanna had betrayed her in their hopes to spare her and there's no way to fix it, fix how she's feeling right now.

"I should have visited more," she whispers and Castle dislodges his cheek from its unintentional resting place atop her head. "I haven't been home since last Christmas. That was four months ago, Castle. I hadn't seen my mom in four months."

"You're a Chief Justice in DC, Kate. That's a very time consuming-"

"I was a train ride away, a short flight," she rasps, wiping at her cheeks, but failing to move from his side. "I could have made time. My mom was more important than a job."

"She knew that," he reassures her, squeezing one of her shoulders and tracing the bone with his thumb. "You and your mom were always close. She knew how much you loved her."

"I should have shown her," she sighs, tugging her knees in closer to her chest, her thigh bumping his abdomen. "I wanted to be like her so bad, Castle. It's the entire reason I went into law, worked so hard to become the first female Chief Justice. I just wanted to make her proud."

"And she was. So proud of you. They both are. Just this morning, your dad was gushing about you."

Kate doesn't say anything, sniffling through a breath and turning her nose into his neck, exhaling heavy and exhausted and seeking rest against his chest. He wonders when it was, the last time she rested.

"Thank you, Rick."

He dusts a thoughtless kiss to her temple, tries not to savor the scent of cherries, the swell of need that rises through his ribs, clutches at his heart. He's missed her.

A lot.

"Always."

The day after her mother's funeral, she tracks Rick down at work in the evening, wandering the streets of a city that was once her home until she comes across the Twelfth Precinct. He'd held her hand during the service, discrete and gentle, twined their fingers and tightened his grip when a few treacherous tears had slipped free, and she's grateful, for all he's done. And she wants him to know.

"Hey Becks," he greets, meeting her outside the station, mere minutes after her text requesting he take a break and go for a walk with her had been sent.

Kate glares at him. "No one calls me that anymore for a reason."

"Why's that?"

"Because I hate it," she states with an arch of her eyebrow, but Castle simply quirks his lips and falls into step beside her on the New York sidewalk, spreads his fingers for hers to fit through when she reaches for his hand.

He hides his surprise well, but she can still read it in the corners of his eyes, the subtle twitch of his mouth and stutter of his adam's apple.

"When do you head back to DC?" he asks, his thumb automatically stroking along the ridge of her knuckle, but his gaze remains straightforward.

"Another week," she murmurs, aimlessly guiding him through the East Village, bumping his side every few steps in an attempt to remain close, avoid the jostle of fellow pedestrians. "I wasn't sure how long I'd need to stay and I had a ton of extra vacation days, so I booked a flight that was two weeks away from the day I got the call from my dad."

Castle hums. "Good. I'm sure your dad hopes to keep you around as long as possible."

"Mm, and you?" she inquires, chewing on the corner of her bottom lip as Rick shoots her an inquisitive look.

"I'm… not ready to see you go again either," he admits, his eyes roaming her features, searching for something she'd been sure she had lost. "Why does that matter?"

Kate sighs and drifts her eyes down to their knotted hands. "How long do you have until you have to get back?"

"Tomorrow. My shift ended ten minutes before I got your text."

She sucks in a breath. "Good, because we need to talk."

Castle swallows and directs his gaze straight ahead, nervous, but nods. "My place isn't too far from here, or we can find somewhere for dinner instead-"

"No, I'd prefer this conversation be had in private," she murmurs with a tentative lift of her lips. "The public has seen my emotions on display enough this past week."

He chuckles and squeezes her hand, takes the lead, guiding her through streets she had once known like the back of her own hand.

"Plan on this being an emotional chat?"

"Never know," she muses, bumping his hip, appreciating the embrace of the skyscrapers lining the streets, the vibrant life of the city all around her, until they reach an apartment building where Rick stops, withdraws his keys, and escorts her into.

"Coffee?" he asks after the two floor walk up the stairs and he's opened his front door to her.

Kate studies the one bedroom apartment, charming and cozy and somehow, the opposite of what she had expected, but still him.

"Not right now," she replies with a polite smile, following when Castle extends his arm towards the leather sectional in the middle of the lounge area, but she's too wired with nerves of her own to sit down. "Rick, what are we doing?"

He goes still in the middle of his living room, staring back at her, bewildered and terrified, but he had to know what she was talking about. No way had he been blind to the blossoming build of something between them throughout this past week, like bright petals of a flower blooming through the sidewalk surface of her grief, and she just needs to know if it's worth tending to, worth the allowance to grow and flourish.

"I… don't know," he confesses honestly. "It's been a long time, Kate."

"Blaming it on nostalgia?" she murmurs, but Castle huffs and shakes his head.

"No, it's not that. I'm just - afraid of history repeating itself. I wasn't enough for you then-"

"Rick, that was never true and you know it," she argues softly. "We were high school sweethearts and I loved you. But we were so young and Stanford was my shot."

"And I never wanted to hold you back from that. I just never heard from you again after you left. Not for twelve years. It makes me wonder if you ever even remembered me," he admits, his hand rising to comb through his hair, his palm curving his nape in a familiar tell.

"Of course I did," she sighs, hating the look on his face, the hurt and embarrassment blending through his eyes. Hating that she managed to convince him that he hadn't been worth a second thought. "I thought about you throughout school, when I kept expecting to see your books in the stores. I thought about you when I achieved my dream position in the Supreme Court. I thought about you while I was married-"

He chokes at that and she drifts in closer, stops only a few inches away from him.

"I thought about you after I got divorced."

"Kate-"

"I always felt like people who ended up with their high school sweethearts were kind of ridiculous, you know? We were just kids, you were my first love, and I never would have thought you could be my last, but I just kept circling back to you in my head," she confesses, far more than she had planned to share (with anyone) spilling out into the space between them. "Kept wishing I could see you again, see where we could go if we had a real chance at it."

"A real chance?" he echoes, his voice soft, somewhat shellshocked. "Your - your last?"

"I hate the circumstances that brought me here, brought you to my parents' home last week, how I saw you for the first time in so long," she whispers, but Castle's hands are reaching for her hips, drawing her in. "But I don't regret seeing you again."

Kate laces her arms around his neck and arches on her toes when he fails to pull away, her mouth a breath away from his, the tips of their noses skimming. Rick's chest stutters, his gaze falling to her lips and his fingers tightening around her hipbones.

"I don't want grief driven promises," he tells her solemnly and she nods, takes it because she understands why he thinks the past week's events could influence her decisions, but while she misses her mother viscerally, mourns her fiercely, she hasn't lost her mind, the ability to think clearly.

"I don't plan to give you any," she murmurs, twining her fingers through the fine strands of hair at the base of his skull and stroking her thumbs to the vulnerable skin behind his ears.

Castle drops his forehead against hers, closing his eyes and tangling their lashes along the way, his nose colliding with her cheek.

"What do you want, Kate?" he asks her, his voice raw and on the razor's edge of pleading, and she tilts her chin, barely grazing the surface of his mouth with her own.

"You." The touch of her lips to his is tentative, faint, until he lifts one of his hands from her waist, cradles the concave hollow of her cheek and holds her there as he seals his mouth to hers, strokes his tongue to the seam. Kate sighs into his kiss, welcomes and rises into it. "Just want you."

Castle's eyes flutter open, electric blue and crackling as they snag hers, placates his doubts with the naked truth he finds there.

"I missed you," he whispers against her mouth, tending to her bottom lip before his tongue slips inside, caresses and explores her mouth thoroughly enough to have her fingers knotting in his hair, her heart pounding for more as her breasts crush against his chest.

"Missed you back," she pants, moaning softly when his other hand trails under her shirt to sear her skin, tracing the small of her back, the gentle bow of her spine. "Make it work this time."

"Yes," he mumbles, walking backwards when Kate nudges him with her hips, grunting as the backs of his knees hit the edge of the couch, sends them both collapsing into the cushioning.

She doesn't mind, bracketing his thighs with her knees and cradling his head in both of her hands, bowing over him to pay tribute to his mouth, worship at his lips and seek the stroke of certainty from his tongue.

"Castle," she gasps, breaking away from his mouth to breathe against his cheek, her lungs expanding harshly for air, and the bones of her ribs blooming beneath his hands that soothe along her curved spine. "I missed this too."

Rick chuckles and catches her hand, turns his head to brush a kiss to the heel of her palm. "Stay a little while?"

"Yeah," Kate murmurs, nuzzling her nose beneath his jaw, touching her lips to the cadence of his pulse, beating hard and erratic for her. "I want to stay."