For nearly half an hour, they walk the quieted streets of New York in the middle of the night, the bright lights of the city illuminating the dark sky and the pale skin of the woman leading him through it.

Her hand remains in his the entire time and the tangle of her fingers guides him to a building in Tribeca.

"Where are we?" he inquires, following her into the lobby nonetheless.

"My old place. No one lives here," she explains, striding confidently towards the stairs with him in tow. "It's been on and off the market for a while, but it's currently vacant. No one seems to settle in well to a dead cop's home."

"Well, when you put it that way, the property value does seem to lose some of its appeal," he mutters grimly, but she merely smirks back at him.

Wow, from scowls to smirks. The progress.

They emerge from the stairwell on the third floor and he follows Kate the rest of the way to the door she stops in front of. She finally lets go of his hand to produce a key from the potted plant a few feet away.

The lack of her warmth has his fingers going cold.

"You were a cop and now you're sneaking into abandoned apartments? Katherine Beckett."

"Hush," she chuckles, unlocking the front door with what looks like practiced ease.

Inside, the apartment is bare. A few impersonal pieces of furniture and appliances decorate the space - a sleek sofa, a stainless steel refrigerator, a fancy looking lamp in the corner. Nothing that he could ever imagine her picking out.

"I wish I could have seen it in your preferred decor," he muses, strolling through the front room, through the kitchen and into the living room.

"It was a lot better than this," she concurs, drifting towards the sofa and taking a seat. Despite the lack of personal touches, he can easily envision her in this space, appreciating the various opportunities for natural lighting the multitude of windows offer. The glow of the city lights are shining on her now, cascading through the glass to caress the locks of her hair, the exposed skin of her neck and face.

It catches on the whites of her teeth closing around her bottom lip.

"It was my mother," she murmurs, holding to the chain around her neck again. "We were supposed to go to dinner together - my mom, my dad, and I. She was gonna meet us at the restaurant, but she never showed."

Castle is drawn towards the couch she's perched on, her words like a wire leading him to her side, his heart sinking with every step.

"Two hours later, we went home, and there was a detective waiting for us," she continues, the whites of her knuckles blanching as her fingers curl tighter around the ring that hangs like a pendant against her chest, her heart. "They found her body. She had been - stabbed."

He sinks onto the edge of the sofa beside her with everything inside of him cracking.

"The cops working the case attributed it to gang violence," she says with a slice of bitterness to her words. Her eyes flutter closed, her jaw squaring hard. "The killer was never caught and that - that wasn't good enough for me."

Her gaze returns to him with resolution. "Once I made detective, had so many resources at hand and I became so buried in her case, Castle. It wasn't the first time I'd gone down that rabbit hole, but this time... I wasn't coming back up, not without answers, without justice."

God, he doesn't like where this story is going. Even when he clearly knows the ending.

"But they found me before I could find them," she whispers, pressing her clenched fist into her chest. "I was in a diner, interviewing the detective who delivered the news. Detective Raglan." Her fist unfurls, two of her fingers brushing a spot between her breasts, where her heart lies. "The sniper shot me first. I saw Raglan go down next."

"Kate," he whispers, shifting closer to her. He has to, can't help it. The picture she paints has his gut wrenching, his atrophied heart coming alive again just to shatter within his sternum.

When she meets his gaze, there's a sheen of moisture in hers. "The last thing I remember thinking is how disappointed she would be in me," she confesses on a rasp. "I let her down."

"No, she could never be disappointed in you. Never," he insists, stealing the trembling hand from her chest. "You - Kate, I've only known you for a couple of months, but you're... you would've been the most extraordinary person I'd ever met."

Her brow furrows, but the tears still spill over onto her cheeks.

"You became a detective, probably saved so many lives, brought so much justice and closure to families all while still hunting for your own. You're compassionate, even if you don't like to let it show. You're strong, smart, incredibly hot-"

"Castle," she huffs, swiping at her eyes with her free hand, flipping her palm to return the squeeze of his fingers with the other.

"How could she not be proud of you?" he presses gently, reaching forward to brush the hair from her face.

She sighs and leans forward, leans into him. Her head falls to his shoulder, forehead sealed at his clavicle, and the heat of her breath seeps through fabric of his shirt.

Castle hesitates for only a moment before lacing an arm around the curve of her spine, shifting to draw the shuddering coil of her body into the cove of his. She's practically curled in his lap, but doesn't speak, doesn't try to move away from him either. She does let go of his hand to raise her fingers to the site of his bullet wounds, the graze of her nails traversing over the triangle of scars until the soft tips of her fingers are kissing the graze at his neck.

"I wish I'd known you before," he breathes into her hair. "I think I would have given anything to know you in our old lives."

Kate releases a quiet chuckle, mournful and a little too hollow, and lifts her head. Her eyes won't meet his, following the delicate dusting of her fingers at his throat. Back and forth and driving him crazy. "I wouldn't have been good for you."

"Bullshit," he scoffs, but she merely rolls her eyes in response.

"I knew your books," she murmurs, the smile leaking into her words, and he gasps.

"You were a fan?"

"That's a bit of an extreme statement," she hums, trailing her fingers up the line of his throat to rest at his jaw. "But they were great books."

Pride sizzles warm and lovely in his chest, fed by the tentative smile tugging at her lips.

"I could have written about you," he muses, wrapping his fingers around the slim bone at her wrist near his jaw. "You probably would have been the best inspiration I could have asked for."

Kate shakes her head. "I was too... far gone. My dad, my captain, everyone tried to get me to stop, to back off of her case before it got me killed. But I barely realized I had blinders on, and even if I did, I don't think I would have tried to take them off."

He won't say it, won't appeal to the sometimes overly confident side of himself, let alone verbalize it, but deep down, he knows he could have helped somehow. He knows he could have stopped her, saved her, the way she probably could have saved him from the pointless spiral of his own life.

He doesn't know what it is, what it's always been about Kate since they found each other after death that floods him with such certainty, such longing. He's never felt anything even remotely close to this for anyone except his daughter and it terrifies him. Even as a phantom of a human being. But the pull to her is stronger than any fear and he wonders if she feels it too, if she's ever felt even an inkling of the magnetic-like pulse that draws him to her without fail.

"I would have helped," he decides, circling the protruding bone of her wrist, round and round with his thumb. "I would have been your plucky sidekick through it all at least. Till death did us part."

That earns him an eye roll and... is that an amused twitch of her lips?

"Or brought us together."

He grins at her with delighted surprise and approval. "Oh, that was a good one."

"But you wouldn't be my sidekick," she murmurs, the trace of mirth on her lips still giving a hint of life to that beautiful smile he doesn't see enough of.

"C'mon, Beckett," he groans. "Just-"

"Partners," she corrects, slipping her hand from his jaw, from beneath the cover of his palm. "If you were anything to me, it would have been a partner, not a sidekick."

She disentangles from his loose embrace with the ghost of that smile that lit up his world just moments ago still clinging to her lips, and rises from the couch.

"Come on, it'll be weird to be here during the day."

He follows the flick of her gaze towards the window behind them, the small sliver of sunlight creeping along the horizon. He stands from the sofa, knowing she's right; they have full access to this world, day or night, but there is far more comfort in wandering through the darkness than stepping out into the daylight. The sight of the living going about their daily routines that he and Kate no longer have always left him feeling extra hollowed out, infused him with an extra dose of loneliness and sorrow for them both.

But part of him wishes they could stay, carry on living in her old apartment as if they really were still alive, as if he belonged here with her.

"Is that whose grave you were camped out at when I first met you?"

Castle plops down on the swing set of the abandoned playground they discovered a couple of weeks ago. The nearby merry-go-round is crooked and the metal slide a few feet away has been crushed by the fallen limb of a tree, the brush surrounding the area is overgrown, the grass up to their ankles with empty beer bottles and cigarettes littering the ground - a perfect hangout for the undead who have no place among the living.

"My mom's," she confirms, taking a deep breath before taking her usual seat beside him. She isn't sure how she feels about him knowing so much. It's been so long since anyone - even those from her former life - has been given anything beneath the surface. "It's the only place from my old life where I still feel welcome."

He's silent for a moment, nothing but the creak of the swing's chains filling the air.

"We should go to the Hamptons. I have a place there that's uninhabited for the majority of the year."

Her eyebrows rise. Of course he has a house in the Hamptons just waiting to be lived in.

"Or my dad's cabin," she says without thinking. "It probably needs a lot of work, though."

Ever since her father relapsed a couple of years ago, she has a feeling that the cabin hasn't received much care.

"We could do it, you know."

Kate indulges him with a glance at the statement, not quite following. "Do what?"

He shrugs, looking like a shy little boy for a moment, hesitating and uncertain.

"Have a life," he answers casually, pushing the toe of his shoe into the grass to move himself into a swaying motion. "I'm a writer, my imagination is usually pretty good, but I haven't been able to figure out what the purpose of our remaining in the limbo between life and death may be."

"Torture," she mutters, holding to the chains of her swing, but Castle shakes his head.

"Except that maybe it's a chance to find something we were missing."

It's not the worst guess, but she doesn't like the way it has him looking at her. Like he already found it.

"Maybe," she concedes, not wanting to admit that she likes the idea, that it gives her the foreign sensation of hope that she hasn't had in years. "But what happens after we find it?"

"That, I have no idea about, Detective," he sighs, swaying sideways towards her, but not touching. "I don't know if this new life we're in is endless, if there's some magic element that either brings us back to life or lets us rest in peace-"

"I don't think we'll be rising from the dead," she chuckles, but he huffs in disapproval.

"You never know."

Kate hums and rests her temple to the cool metal of chain. "I'm not sure I'd want to go back."

She can feel him staring, a sense of horror at her words emanating from his frame, but she merely shrugs.

"I had been dead for a long time, Castle. The bullet just made it real."

"But you're not dead to me, Kate," he argues softly, fingers hooking around her swing and dragging her closer to him. "And if we'd found each other in our old lives, I think you would have made me feel more alive than anyone else ever could."

The skin of her cheeks flushes and she curses him for it, for always having so much to say. For what he says next.

"Maybe I could have done the same for you."

She turns to look at him, holding to the chain of her swing and angled towards her with that crooked grin adorning his lips. What does she have to lose anymore?

Kate reaches for his face, his cheeks cold beneath her palms in the October air, and watches his eyes shine sapphire as they go wide. "You already have."

It's the first time she's kissed someone in well over six years and the fact that it's him, this infuriating man who makes her long to be alive again for reasons she can't fully comprehend, has her heart kickstarting like a drumbeat in her chest.

Kissing Kate Beckett, he decides, is the closest thing to alive he will ever feel again and he's absolutely fine with that. She tastes like resurrection; his lips sting with electricity, his skin searing with warmth, insides brimming with heat. He moves to get up, but she shakes her head.

The chains of her swings rattle as she ascends from the seat instead to stand in front of him, bowing forward with her hands still cradling his face.

"You would have driven me crazy in real life," she whispers, her lips brushing between his brows before she returns to his waiting mouth.

Castle hums, cupping her hips in his hands, the sharp juts of her bones fitting perfectly in his palms. "Probably."

"Would have hated you," she sighs, grinning as he gets to his feet, rises into her kiss. Her arms wrap around his neck, the rest of her body aligning perfect and warm against his.

"We've already seen this theory play out, Beckett," he teases, nipping at her bottom lip, pleased by her grunt of surprise, the retaliating scrape of her teeth to his. "You would have resisted me until I finally wore you down, just like I've managed to do here."

"Mm, how romantic," she deadpans, but the corner of her mouth is still upturned when he presses his lips there.

"May have just taken a little longer," he predicts, sneaking hands under her leather jacket, the sweater beneath. She shudders at the cold touch of his hands, but she doesn't squirm or swat them away. "But you would have realized."

"Realized?" Her fingers caress the cool shells of his ears, feathering down to linger at his throat, his scar, before convening at his nape to twine them through his hair.

"That we need each other," he says with ease, expecting the trickle of tension to spread from her spine, leave her stiff and shut off in his arms.

But Kate merely sighs, lashes fluttering against his cheeks. "You're so sure of yourself, of us. We've only known each other for a few months, Castle-"

"Fate, Beckett," he counters, his voice light but earnest, believing it with his entire being. Why else would she be the only person he found in this life, as lonely and as lost as he was, as if she was just waiting for him to show up? Why would he feel so strongly about her from the moment he met her? It wasn't simply love at first sight. No, that was a little too cliché for him. He's never had faith in much, but he can place some faith in the idea of soulmates, even if he did manage to find his a little too late. "I was supposed to end up with you in the real world, Kate. I don't know how, but now I just - I was meant to be with you. I don't care how silly it sounds-"

"Not silly," she murmurs, soothing him with the press of her lips. "But I think you were right."

"Right?" he echoes, grazing his knuckles along her spine, trying to comfort. But he doesn't know why, why she's looking at him like she's losing him, like he's fading away right before her eyes. "Kate, do you know something I don't?"

"No, I just mean... we found what we were looking for," she recalls from their conversation. Her eyes are drenched in gold, the mesmerizing mixture of brown and green sparkling with it. "I really think I could have loved you."

"Why can't it be the same here?" he questions. "Why can't you love me here?"

"Because I think we have to wake up, Rick," she whispers, the gentle stroke of her fingers dusting along his cheek. But her touch feels too light, barely there. Like a dream, but this isn't a dream. It can't possibly be a dream.

Confusion tugs at his brow and his fingers curl instinctively at her elbows. "What?"

"You need to wake up," she coaxes, leaning in to press her forehead to his, a comfort that feels heavy with too much finality. Like a goodbye. "I'll be there when you do, I promise."

He believes her with so much ease, trusts her words without question even as things are suddenly making less sense than before.

"Promise?" he echoes, raising his hands to tangle in her hair, cradle her skull.

Kate's nose brushes his as she nods, her lips skimming his in affirmation. "Always."

Castle's eyes flash open to the dim room of an apartment, familiar yet not. He's lying on his back on the floor, his neck singing with pain that sears from his skull to his shoulders like liquid fire.

"You shouldn't have tried to play the hero, Rick." Oh, and he recognizes that voice, recognizes the moment that he knows now as a memory. Nothing but a memory... that feels far too real. Why is he reliving his death so vividly? "I may not have got your girl, but there will be others," Jerry Tyson taunts, the shadow of a figure looming into Castle's line of sight, the gun aimed at his chest. "Not before you, though."

"NYPD!" He hears the sharp command of a woman's voice, the harsh click of heels on the floor. "Get away from him."

Tyson jerks his gun into position, but the woman shoots first, firing three rounds to Tyson's chest without hesitation. Her bullets hit center of mass, drop Tyson to his knees before the Triple Killer falls facedown to the ground.

For a moment, Rick can only remain lying on his back, staring at the seep of blood pooling out from Tyson's lifeless body. And then reality washes over him like a tidal wave.

"Kate," he breathes, pushing onto his elbows, but she's already rushing to his side.

Her worried eyes roam over him, stopping short at his neck, the blood spilling from the graze of a bullet. But he barely feels it.

"Shit, I wasn't quick enough," she whispers, kneeling beside him to examine his injury. "I'm so sorry, Castle, I-"

"This is real," he gasps, his heart hammering with it. His heart actually beating in his chest. He's alive, she's alive. He forces himself into a sitting position to reach for her, drag her into an embrace even as she protests about his neck. She still allows the fit of her body into his, still slips her arms around his neck, and releases a shaking breath against his cheek that sounds too close to a sob. "Kate, you're here."

The touch of a smile to her lips is tentative, but enough to assure him that he's not crazy, that she knows what he's talking about.

"How? How are we-"

"I don't know," she breathes, shaking her head with it. "I don't know. One second we were at the swings and then I was back in the diner. I could see Raglan sitting at the table, waiting for me, but - all I could think about was you. I had to find you," she whispers, clinging to the collar of his shirt. "I was back at the end, so I figured you would be too."

"I love that you're smart," he exhales, hooking his hand at the back of her neck to anchor himself. The world was starting to spin.

"You showed me where it happened, so I came straight here," she murmurs, her heart pounding hard against his own. "I saw Alexis running out of the building and knew it had to be where you were."

"I was right, second chance. It's a second chance, isn't it?" he mumbles, black spots beginning to dance across his vision.

"Castle? Hey, stay with me," she begs softly, her hands rising to his cheeks. "Please, I - I need my partner for this, Castle."

"Always," he slurs, leaning a little too heavily towards her. She's warm and smells just like he remembers and he feels safe against her, doesn't mind falling asleep like this. As long as she's still here when he wakes up again.

Kate waits anxiously outside of his hospital room. She's spent three hours in the waiting room with his daughter, Alexis, receiving profuse appreciation before the awkwardness of the situation set in. She couldn't explain to his daughter how she knew how to find her father, why she cared enough to stick around until he woke up and was treated for the graze on the left side of his neck. She wasn't even sure how to explain this entire situation to herself.

"Hey, Kate?" Beckett glances up at the sight of Alexis emerging from the swinging door into the waiting room. The bright blue eyes that are nearly identical to Rick's light up for her. "He's awake and going to make a full recovery."

She sighs in relief and Alexis offers her a soft smile. "He's about to be discharged, the doctor's going over his at home care instructions now, but he asked me to send you back."

"The doctor?" Kate asks with a lift of her brow.

Alexis chuckles and shakes her head. "No, my dad."

"Sorry," Kate huffs and scrapes a hand through her. "Long day."

"Tell me about it," Alexis sighs, drifting forward to take Beckett's seat.

She almost forgot that Castle wasn't the only one who suffered severe trauma from this ordeal. He may have nearly died, but so the seventeen year old standing in front of her had been kidnapped by a serial killer and nearly suffered the same fate as his previous victims.

"Alexis," she murmurs before she can abandon the girl. His mother, the great Martha Rodgers, was supposed to be here soon, rushing over from the airport after a long flight from Europe, but that wouldn't be for another half hour or so. "How are you holding up?"

His daughter offers her another weak attempt at a smile. "I'll be okay, Detective. Just not today. I'd be much worse if you hadn't shown up, though. If I would have lost him..." Alexis hesitates, swallowing hard before taking an abrupt step forward, throwing her arms around Kate's neck. "I couldn't lose him."

Kate sucks in a shallow breath and hugs Alexis in return, feeling the way the girl trembles in her arms. "I know."

Alexis clears her throat and gingerly pulls away, her cheeks pink. "Sorry-"

"Don't be." Kate gives her slim shoulder a quick squeeze. "Be right back, hopefully with your dad in tow."

Alexis nods, but turns on her heel before Kate can disappear through the doorway that will lead her to his hospital room. "Detective Beckett? I know I asked you already, but... are you sure you didn't know my dad before tonight?"

Kate pauses, but shakes her head. "No, actually. Why?"

Alexis hums, descends into Beckett's previously occupied seat, and gives Kate a skeptical look. "Because he sure seems to know you."

It's Kate's skin that flushes this time; she has a feeling this will be the first of many moments where a part of her missies being a ghost.

"We'll see," is all she can manage before she pushes through the swinging door, retreating into the white hallway of the hospital and leaving his daughter with eyebrows raised behind her.

The door to his room is a short distance down the hall and open and when she peers inside. Castle is sitting on the edge of the hospital bed, fingering the thick white gauze taped along his neck, his gaze faraway until she steps inside.

"Hey," he breathes, his eyes lighting up for her. Just like always. "How are you?"

"I should be the one asking you that," she points out, pushing her hands into her pockets and pursing her lips.

"Kate," he murmurs, saying her name as if it's the most natural thing in the world, as if they didn't just return to a world where both of them should be dead already. "Stop overthinking it."

"Are you kidding me?" she hisses, storming up to his hospital bed. "Nothing makes sense."

"It doesn't have to make sense."

She lets out of low groan of indignation and he has the audacity to laugh at her.

"Castle," she growls, huffing when he hooks his fingers around the edges of her unzipped jacket and tugs her forward to stand between his knees.

"I know," he concedes, hands migrating to rest upon her waist, a warm and comfortable weight she still remembers so vividly. "It's driving me crazy too, but I'm also too hung up on the fact that we're actually here."

"But what if we're not?" she argues, crossing her arms tightly over her chest. "What if this is just a dream or something?"

"It's definitely not a dream," he mutters, shrugging his shoulder up towards the bandage on his throat. "This wouldn't hurt so damn bad if it was a dream. Maybe the other world was a dream."

"We wouldn't remember," she murmurs, pinching the bridge of her nose between her two fingers. "And that... that felt too real."

"Another dimension," he suggests, arching his brow. "What if we were trapped in another dimension?"

"I-" Her mouth opens before it snaps shut again. She can't dispute it as easily as she'd like. What better explanation do they have?

"It doesn't matter," he states, squeezing her hips when her lips part to protest. "Trust me, Kate, I get it. I'm a writer and you're a detective - we thrive on the facts and tied up endings with no loose strings. I would love the answers and it's going to drive me just as crazy, but I'm not going to question it."

She sighs, unfurls her arms to rest her palms to his chest, feel the reassuring throb of his heart beneath her palm. "How?"

"Because we're alive." His lips quirk, so lovely and reassuring and damn effortless. "It may not make any sense, but it's real, we are real. And all I wanted while we were trapped between the living and the dead, was to come back, to be with my family, to be with you like this."

Her eyes lift from his mouth to his gaze.

"Fate, Beckett," he echos from their last conversation. "I'm supposed to be with you. If death taught me anything-"

"Shh," she sighs, swaying into the welcome home of his body, letting his arms come around her, hold her close. Letting it be real. "I don't want to talk about death anymore, Castle."