"See you in the fall."

After the elevator doors slid closed the 12th precinct was unusually silent. Almost unbearably silent, with just the echoes of those five words running through Kate's mind.

"… request by the mayor, or I wouldn't ask you to do it." Kate was so wrapped up in her own thoughts that she missed the sound of cell phones ringing in the break room, and then it took a few seconds for her to realize the captain was standing in the doorway talking to her.

Kate shook her head to try to clear her mind. "Sorry sir, could you repeat that?"

The captain faltered slightly, sympathy flashing over his features so fast that had Kate not been a detective she probably would've missed it. "There's been a murder. I know you're supposed to be taking the weekend off, but the mayor has requested you take the case…"

Kate grabbed the note in the captain's hand, skimming it quickly to check the address was on there, trying to get out before the he could voice any of the concern she had briefly seen on his face. Kate pointed at the elevator and started walking quickly, not wanting to give the captain, or any of the people who were behind him in the room for that matter, the chance to break the delicate hold she had on her emotions. "Yeah, no problem…I'll just…"

"Wait! Kate! There's something else…"

Kate didn't look back. Didn't want to look back. "It's ok sir, I've got it."

As the elevator doors closed she heard him shout her name one last time, and pointedly ignored it. Leaning against the wall she closed her eyes and tried to push Castle out of her head. In all honesty it was a relief to have something to focus on. Something other than those five words and a vapid blonde ex-wife.

If this case hadn't fallen in to her lap she didn't know what she would have done. Her usual method of dealing with a bad day was going home and reading. Reading Castle's books, unfortunately, which probably would have been a complete disaster right now. It wasn't like she even had any other books – everything had been destroyed in the explosion and she hadn't had chance to replace anything but essentials, like clothes. Castle had turned up on her doorstep, a few days after she moved in to her new place, carrying a box full of his novels. To anyone else this might have seemed a little vain, him gifting her with his own books. To her it was sweet, although at the time she pushed that reaction down. Thinking back, she realized she missed a lot of chances to admit that there was more than a working relationship going on. That he had slowly wormed his way into her heart, then run over it with a mack truck just as she started to figure everything out.

Kate sighed as she realized the direction her thoughts were going in. It was almost as if the act of admitting to herself that she felt something for him opened a floodgate, and it was getting harder and harder to ignore the missed opportunities. She was too late.

She made attempts to go back to detective mode on the drive over to the crime scene, and slowly it started to take. She felt the walls rebuilding, felt herself pushing down Kate in favor of Detective Beckett. By the time she arrived at the scene she was her cool, calm, collected self, or at least she chose to believe that was the case.

The crime scene was in a very lavish apartment building, in the penthouse. Kate's eyebrows rose when she saw the apartment. It was tastefully decorated, but you could tell with once glance that each item was worth a small fortune.

Lanie had somehow beaten her to the crime scene and was examining the body in the master bedroom. Sensing that Kate was all business she was concise. "Gunshot wound to the back of the head. From the directionality of the blood splatter it looks like the vic was running towards that," Lanie pointed in the direction of a smaller room towards the back of the bedroom.

Kate walked over to the windowless room, which was a little dark with only the light from the bedroom filtering in. She waited a moment for her eyes to adjust then she glanced around. Several shelves lined the walls to the right of the doorway. There were basic supplies – canned food, bottles of water, first aid kit, candles and matches, among other supplies. On the left of the door, attached to the wall, there was a phone and a panel with a keypad. There was a large couch, large enough to lend itself as a bed if need be, against the back wall. Another door was beside it, in the far left corner. She walked inside and could make out a small bathroom, also stocked with supplies like shampoo, toothbrushes and several tubes of toothpaste.

Clearly the victim had been worried about his safety. Why else would he build a panic room, and keep it fully stocked?

I wonder what Castle would say to this. Unbidden the thought entered her mind. Justifying the thought was simple, this was the first case she had worked without him for a long time. Justifying why her mind was now making her hear Castle complaining about how dark it was, was a different matter. Maybe she was losing her mind. Turning around she saw someone else was in the panic room, near the phone and TV, and the shadowy form she could make out looked very familiar. Ok… so now she was hallucinating Castle? What the hell was wrong with her?

As she walked into the room and could now see, hear and even smell him she realized she was either completely losing it or Castle was standing a few feet away from her messing around with something on the wall.

Before Kate had time to gather her wits, he pumped his fist and yelled "Ah ha!" before pressing a button. When the lights didn't come on he whirled around looking for another switch, and finally spotted her in the doorway of the bathroom.

They stood staring at each other for just a second too long, and missed the fact that the light filtering in was fading because the door to the panic room was sliding closed, trapping them both inside.

Kate wasn't sure how long they actually continued staring at each other. Well, let's be honest, in the general direction of each other considering the room was now pitch black. She was broken out of her reverie by a buzzing, which was again in the general direction of Castle. Just as she was considering the logic of blindly walking in that general direction, which she was pretty sure could cause all kinds of bad, low level emergency lights flickered on above her. Which was a mixed blessing. Yes, there was less chance of the kind of bad her fumbling around in the dark with Richard Castle would cause - and wow that sounded totally wrong right after she thought it – but now she actually had to face him. She wasn't ready for that. She wasn't even completely sure how much of a hold she had on Detective Beckett, and the last thing she needed was Kate, fresh from the mack truck hit and run, overruling her. Oh and this was so not the moment to wonder exactly how healthy it was to be thinking of herself as two different entities…

Kate took what she hoped was a calming breath, and then actually realized something. She was locked in a room with Castle. This was worrying in two ways. Firstly, she was locked in a room with Castle. That was the obvious one. The second one was a little more worrying, which was in and of itself slightly disturbing. The problem was that she had only just realized that she was locked in a room with Castle. This was not good. Calm, cool Detective Beckett did not take what seemed like an excessive amount of time to come to a fairly simple conclusion. She also wouldn't be running a fairly extensive inner monologue, while staring at Richard Castle, and doing little else. So… today was going really well.

Castle, well he was scared to move, maybe even to blink. Any minute now Beckett was going to realize that he had, admittedly accidentally, flipped the switch that operated the door. The fact that she was just standing there staring was not helping, since he could only imagine that she was thinking of at least 8 different ways to kill him.

Somewhere in the last few weeks he had lost his ability to read her, and the reminder of why that had happened gave him a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. This was why he had to get away. Martha had inadvertently suggested that leaving Kate alone for a while might help her realize her feelings for him, which is part of what had led him to make the grand exit with Gina. But more than that, Castle couldn't stay in New York watching Kate fall in love with another man. And part of Kate obviously knew that, since something must have caused the realization that the whole thing could make things 'awkward'. Awkward. He could think of hundreds of better words to describe your heart being slowly broken. Or at least he could under normal circumstances. And what was that noise?

Kate had shaken herself out of her thoughts again and finally took a step towards Castle, who still didn't seem to have noticed the buzzing coming from the phone right next to where he was standing. Her movement seemed to break his concentration, and if she hadn't been trying so desperately hard to school her own expression she wouldn't have missed the brief flash of pain wash over his features.

Castle finally realized the buzzing was coming from the phone next to the door, and that Kate was obviously heading in that direction to pick up the handset. That at least gave him a few more moments to steel himself for the conversation he knew would be coming. Hopefully without an ass kicking for getting them in this predicament, even if that did seem unlikely.

Kate picked up the handset and gave her customary "Beckett."

"You want the good news or the bad news?"

"Esposito…" the threat was clear in her tone. She wasn't in the mood to play games right now.

"Ok, so the panic room door can only be opened using the code, which only the vic knew. But the housekeeper has got the number for the guy who installed it, and Ryan's on the phone with him right now." Esposito knew better than to try to mess with her right now, even with about a foot of metal separating them, but he just couldn't stop himself from adding with a laugh, "just don't let Castle press any more buttons until we know what they do."

Cursing her reaction to the man, which had clearly distracted her from the fact that he was the reason they were now trapped in the panic room, Kate rounded on Castle.

"Not my fault!"