AN: I'm so glad we're all still here diving into it together.

Chapter 1

Kate Beckett had once been in love with Mike Royce. That was the truth.

She'd pretended it wasn't, of course. She was skilled at pretending when the fear of her vulnerabilities being exposed got the better of her.

Rick had been there, overheard when she'd confessed the secret months before, but it'd just been words used as props in a play by Beckett the detective, the one who wore a badge for the NYPD, she'd said. A woman of such strength couldn't possibly allow herself to lose control of her heart, after all, and despite the depth of her very current and very real feelings for Rick, more than anyone else she needed him to believe that. More than any other, it was the greatest tale she'd ever told, because the potential for hurt that lay on the other side of that unveiling was more real than it'd ever been.

Kate had stayed there in the alley with Royce's body as long as she could, until Lanie and the scene techs had finished documenting the surreality of it all and taken him away, and though Montgomery had told her to go home, to leave the immediate work of the night in the hands of her team, that'd been one order she just hadn't been able to follow.

"Beckett, let them do this," Rick said with a mark of concern when he left the huddle he was in with a couple of unis and approached. "You should go get some rest."

She'd felt his eyes on her all night, his active efforts to conceal his watchfulness only making it more obvious.

"I'm not five years old. I don't need to be told when to rest." Her back remained firm against the wall beside the semi-circle of yellow police tape around where the body had been. She hadn't moved from that spot for a long while, long enough that her heels tingled with the pins and needles born of her stasis. "You're the one who should go. There's no reason for you to be here, Castle."

She heard the way it sounded only after, but it was too late to soften it, his expression evidence that he'd heard it the same way.

"You're the reason I'm here," he said, not in grand proclamation but in simple truth, though that here had become a physical place as well as a state of heart and mind still remained an admission without a voice. "How are you holding up?"

"My friend is dead, Castle. How are you?" she snapped but not by intention. Nothing about her felt at all under her control. "Look, you know what?" She pushed away from the wall and felt her head dizzy with the motion. "I can't write a book with you right now. I don't need a pen following me around for this."

Rick understood, maybe not the full impact of such a blow, but certainly her immediate mechanism of survival in its wake, and he wasn't about to take the bait, not there, not then. It would've been far too easy. If Kate wanted a fight, if she wanted to unleash what was building up inside of her and use him as her punching bag, she was going to have to do a lot better than that.

He stepped back, his tender tone unstirred. "Call if you need anything," he said and then turned and went, knowing there wasn't a chance in hell she would.

xxxx

Kate's eyes burned with the fatigue of fighting tears and too many hours absent the relief of sleep, but the image of Royce's broken body, left abandoned in the alley like trash, wouldn't leave her. With the notion of peaceful rest the most far-fetched of prospects, she bypassed home, went directly from the crime scene to the precinct as morning's first light began to glow on the horizon, and found herself back behind her desk, the letter he'd been carrying in her name unfolded in front of her.

"What the hell are you doing here, Detective? I told you I didn't want to see you in this place until next week."

She'd insisted to her captain earlier, as they stood in the fresh shadow of the victim, that she could manage it, that she could work the murder investigation of the man who'd been her teacher, her mentor-more important to her than anyone knew-and remain unruffled by it, but he'd rightly contended otherwise.

Kate took in a breath and exhaled the startle of his presence, settled an arm on top of the letter like a kid hiding her answers to an exam from prying eyes in school.

"I told you I could handle it." Her voice was rough and her tone curt, unfit for use with a superior, especially one she knew cared for her.

Her friend, Roy, in that moment no more her captain than a man out on the street, stepped around, sat in the chair beside her desk, the one most often occupied by Rick, whom she'd driven away hours before with words too harsh.

"Have I ever questioned your capability as a cop?" He pushed when she gave no reply. "Answer me. You really think this is me doubting your ability?"

She couldn't look him in the eye. It would've cracked her open.

"No," she replied with a surety contrary to her manner. "But if I-"

"You've been through this, Kate," he said, only alluding to her mother, "and because of that, you think you know better, but you don't. I've been where you are now, too, and I'm telling you, you need to work it or it's going to work you, and I can't have that in my house, not inside my best cop, not on top of what's already there."

"So, what, I'm just supposed to go home and sit around, twiddle my thumbs? Let the son of a bitch that did this get away?"

He stood up, crooked his head toward the unoccupied desks of her partners across the room. "You're supposed to let the people you trust be the people you trust, and I'm here telling you that you need the help so you don't have to ask for it. You can thank me later." Heading for his office, he called back. "Go get your head around it, Detective Beckett. See you in a few days."

xxxx

It didn't matter what the music was. Kate only needed the bassline, anyway, needed it thumping in her ears from the buds she had burrowed into them as she pounded away at the heavy bag in the precinct's gym.

She always kept a spare set of workout clothes in her desk, just in case, though she didn't find the time to put them to use as often as she liked, but having just been banished from the one distraction from the world's weight she counted on to be able to run to and to hide in, she suddenly had all the time in the world.

It was cruel, she knew, to subject her body to such punishment in its weary state, but she relished the sting of her muscles. Without it, all she could feel was the ache of her heart, and that was far worse. How she'd left things with Royce months before, or he with her. That he'd put her in such an impossible situation ate at her more minute by minute, and the harder it bit, the harder she kicked and punched her way into a trance, breathless and blurry.

No one knew where to find her. She wasn't even supposed to be there, so when he suddenly appeared she jumped, the second time she'd been surprised to find herself with company that early morning.

"Fuck, Espo," flew from her mouth as she yanked out her earbuds with a rough tug of their cord. "You scared the shit out of me. What are you doing here?"

Javi clamped his hands around the bag hanging between them and settled it. "I came to ask you that. Captain said you were taking off a few days, but I saw these on your desk, figured you were probably in here taking something out on someone." He slid her keys from his pants pocket, dangled them by a finger. "Guess I was right."

After brushing away the drops of sweat running down her forehead, she went to work unraveling the tape from one of her hands. "I'm not taking anything. I didn't have any choice. You think I'd be in here if I could be downstairs or out there finding out who did this to Royce?" She stepped off for the bench nearby, grabbed the towel she'd brought in with her and wiped the salt out of her puffed eyes. "It's BS. I'm fine."

"I don't know how you could be." He followed but gave space. "You or anybody else who has to go through it, no matter how strong they are." They shared a look, and he knew she'd heard what he hadn't said. "Listen, we'll get the a-hole that did this, okay, me and Ryan. I promise you that. And when we do, you get to be the one to tell Royce all about it."

"The way I left it, Javi. I never got to…"

He reached out and handed her the keys. "Don't do that. I did that after Ike. That's a hole with no ladder. Do what Montgomery said. Take the days or whatever. Come back in here ready to roll, because we need you that way."

Kate curled the keys into her bare palm and squeezed them with every ounce of anger in her. "You promise, Espo?"

"Yeah," he said, and then he went to it.

xxxx

Even after a hot shower, the length of which would surely have offended anyone with a delicate environmental sensibility, Kate couldn't manage to fall asleep. It didn't help that the morning sun was pouring through her bedroom window, but the beat of the water on her skin usually worked to tranquilize her, which only exacerbated her frustration. So many of her days began with one and had to end with another, the effects of hours spent in the presence of the city's lowest of the low practically demanding a supplementary cleanse of both mind and body.

As he often did, Josh had left her a message after his overnight shift at the hospital. She'd missed the call somewhere between the 12th and home and had listened to it, but still wasn't in any mood to talk, not even to him.

By no real fault of either of them, their relationship had trickled into something of a monotonous pattern. Kate had noticed, at least, didn't know if he had. She hadn't asked. Most days it worked for her. Some it didn't. Those were usually the days she allowed herself to acknowledge what it was she really wanted. If only acknowledging it made her less rather than more afraid of it.

She lived by order, though, and pattern was easier, or so her brain kept trying to convince her heart, and by necessity the battle cry had continued to grow louder and louder, because there was Rick. There was always Rick. Even when there wasn't, even when he was out of her sight, away from her life, and pushing back against it only seemed to make the fight that much harder.

With the hiss of a curse, Kate ripped the elastic band from her wet hair and freed it, rolled onto her stomach and checked the clock on the nightstand. She'd been staring at the ceiling for less than an hour, but it might as well have been a dozen for how long it'd felt.

She didn't belong there. She belonged in her fucking job, hunting down the killer who'd blown another corner of her heart to pieces, and no amount of time in a gym or a shower or any other goddamn place was ever going to make it okay that she wasn't.

Her phone beeped for the second time since she'd made it to bed and she ignored it again, but when a knock at her door followed soon after, she picked it up to check it. There were two text messages from Rick, who, apparently, was standing in the hallway outside her apartment, having already been to the precinct and not found her there. He couldn't have known. She hadn't bothered to tell him.

Having crawled directly into bed from the shower, the only thing she had on was a t-shirt, and even after cleaning herself up, she still looked exactly how her night had gone, like absolute hell. And, honestly, she just didn't feel like being doted on, like being looked at in the way he inevitably would, so she stayed right where she was, didn't move. He knocked again, and once more, and then there was quiet, except for one last beep.

"I don't know if you're in there or not. If you are, I left something for you. I don't want to bother you. I just wanted to make sure you were okay," his final message read, and she had to swallow down the lump that rapidly formed in her throat.

She kicked aside the covers and went for the door, checked the peephole to make certain he'd gone. It would've been like him to mess around, to still be there waiting despite what he'd said, but he wasn't, and around the flutter of disappointment she had to remind herself that was what she'd wanted.

When she opened, there it was on the hallway floor, the same sort of coffee cup he brought her every morning-when mornings were normal. That morning wasn't, though she'd endeavored to make it so, and it seemed Rick had done the same, which found the knot of emotion rising up in her again.

Kate shut the door, held the cup's small opening beneath her nose and inhaled the aroma of vanilla before sampling it, toting it back into the bedroom with her. It wasn't at all what her body needed, but she still wanted it near, if only to be able to see that something had been given in the face of all that'd been taken away.

She climbed back beneath the covers. The sheets were already cool from her absence, brief though it was, and a shiver ran through her. Her phone was still perched on the empty pillow beside her and she reached for it, nearly pulled her hand back but stopped herself and took hold of it.

She read Rick's parting words one more time, felt a flash of anger with herself over too many things, and dropped the phone onto the nightstand next to the coffee. Curled on her side, she gazed at the cup through bleary eyes, thought of the smile he always wore when he gifted hers, the incidental brush of their fingers in the transfer.

The last images in her mind were of him-not of Josh, not of Royce-before sleep found her, at last.