Author's Notes: I know there are still a very dedicated trickle of readers keeping up with this story, so thank you for your thoughts and encouragement. I haven't written in this fandom for a while, but every now and then someone reminds me about this story so I pull out the draft and dust off a chapter during my commute. This one is courtesy of veritasetfides who sent me a message on Tumblr. Shorter than most, but this is the real start to the story proper, so I promise Chapter Twelve in a more timely fashion.

Chapter Eleven

It all shattered on a Saturday morning. She was alone in the loft, puzzling over the crossword upstairs when the noise below drew her attention. Throwing the covers over the newspaper, she nearly called out as she swung her feet to the floor in a practiced, smooth motion that allowed her to rotate her entire torso at once (the most painless way to do it), but something stopped her.

Instinct kicked in.

The master of the macabre had been surprisingly resistant to the idea of her service pistol in the nightstand, but she'd insisted. His views on gun control were more flexible than her sleeping arrangements, which was lucky because she'd secretly become partial to living at the loft even if she wasn't ready to admit it.

It was heavy and foreign in her hand. It had been months since she'd had occasion to use it.

The stairs were familiar by now. She lowered herself down each one carefully, passing her weight from her heels to her toes to avoid noise. Once on the ground floor, she moved silently.

The noise was coming from his study. She edged to the corner of the doorframe and paused, listening for any sound that it was a familiar face, but she already knew; it sounded like a room being turned over for something. The computer was whirring to life. Papers were being leafed through and scattered.

Beckett swung herself into the room, weapon drawn, adrenaline making her feel her heart.

She didn't recognize whoever was behind the desk. He was square in the jaw, with the standard buzz cut and she picked military. His eyes flew up, sensing her presence, and he was reaching for a weapon. She shook her head. "Don't. I know how to use it."

"Bet you do," he nodded to a pile of photographs splayed across Castle's desk. "This is you, right Detective?"

"Put your hands on the desk." She wasn't distracted. Her eyes flicked down momentarily, but he was always in her peripheral vision. Surveillance photos. New ones. Ones she hadn't seen before. Something sunk in her chest. She wanted to look again. Instead, she took a step closer. "What were you looking for?"

"Your writer has a nose." He put his hands on the back of his head, sizing her up and choosing wisely. "And he's sticking it into things he shouldn't be."

"He has habit of doing that," she said under her breath, glancing down at the files on the desk again.

Lockwood's photo was there, and Coonan's. What has he found? Beckett itched with curiosity. And why didn't he tell me?

Her adversary saw her momentary distraction and advanced towards her slowly. Her finger hesitated on the trigger.

"You're not going to shoot me," he told her, hands still clear of his pockets. "Because you remember it too keenly, what's it like to be shot. The noise of the bullet and the smell of it, it'll all remind you. And you don't want that."

She sounded a hell of a lot braver than she felt. "I was shot by a sniper. I didn't see it coming. I didn't hear it or smell it or even feel it really. But what I do remember? Is waking up in hospital. And unless you start talking, I'm more than happy to help you share that experience first-hand."

"You were the other thing I was looking for," he continued as though she hadn't spoken. "Boss sent me to finish the job."

"Go for that weapon and I swear..."

He made a move. She didn't close her eyes or look away until after she'd let a round off into his right shoulder. He clutched as his bicep. "Hell of a shot."

"Go for it again and I can give you a matching set, maybe both knees too." She edged backward towards the bookshelves though, the noise of it ringing in her ears. It was too loud. She sucked in a breath. "Tell me who you're working for."

"Fuck," he swore through gritted teeth. He was bleeding, but not so profusely that she was worried for him. He applied pressure to the wound and shook his head. "Can't tell you that."

She felt herself come up against the wall, a shelf digging into the curve of her back, and realised she was no longer between him and the door.

He saw it too.

They looked at each other for a surreal second until he lunged forward and she jumped sideways.

They collided in the doorway. Her sternum hadn't fully healed and her ribs still protested against the weight but she managed to land on top of him, and she sunk her fist into his jaw. "Tell me who it is."

His face twisted in pain, but he surprised her, sinking a blow with his good arm. She raised her hand to her face, knees digging into him until he pushed her off. He was bigger than her, and well-trained. The realisation that she was overpowered sent her panicking more than it would've before the shooting. She'd dropped her gun when she'd tackled him, and she glanced sideways, seeing it lying uselessly a few feet away.

He followed her gaze and made a grab for it.

She curled forward and twisted her hands around his good arm, sinking her teeth into whatever flesh she could find. He smacked her backwards so hard she was blinking away stars when she realised the weapon was now in her face.

"My aim might not be so good, but at this distance –" He looked from the barrel back to her. "I still don't think I'd miss."

She wanted to fight – one gunshot wound was more than she'd ever wanted and before, she probably would have thought she could best him, because despite the rational knowledge she wasn't, there had been part of her that clung to the thought it wouldn't happen to her, that she was invincible – but she was healing and she didn't trust her body to do what she wanted it to, and her mind was fighting her, loudly protesting it can happen to you, it did, it will.

She felt her heart stutter in alarm in her chest. And instead of doing anything at all, Detective Kate Beckett found herself staring at her own weapon, paralysed by fear.

Something in her couldn't give up though, not after she'd fought so long to be where she was. She twisted out from under him and sank her fingers into the flesh wound he sported. Blood oozed through her fingers. She'd never much liked the smell of it.

Howling pitifully, he dropped the weapon and she grabbed his from his waistband as she stood. She'd felt it pressing into her when he was on top of her. Her eyes glanced over it, but her fingers knew it by memory. It was NYPD issue. The serial number had been filed off.

She held it up steady, pointed at his back, and held her bare foot between his shoulder blades.

She wiped each bloody hand on her shirt as she spoke.

"Did he send you here to kill me?" she demanded.

At his silence, the foot on his back moved to his injured arm. "I am not in the mood to play. Tell me."

"Fine," he yelped. "I will, I will, just get the hell off me."

She eased up and nudged his side. "Speak. Fast."

"I was sent to find out what you knew and to get rid of you, both of you."

"Get up. And don't try anything. I don't want to have to kill you, but I will."

"Hey, the feeling's mutual," he joked, hands on his head. "It's just a job."

"Cute, an assassin with a sense of humour." She whirled him around by the damaged arm and nudged him in the chest with the barrel of the gun. "Here's what's going to happen. You're going to turn around and walk out of here. You're going to go and tell whoever sent you that Castle doesn't know anything."

"You saw yourself..."

"He. doesn't. know. anything." She emphasized her point with the weapon. "If they want to come after someone, they come after me. It's my investigation. You understand me?"

She looked fierce even with her hair askew and in her pajamas. She was searching his eyes for any hint he was going to yank her around. Finding none, and in the face of his small nod, she took a step backward. "Go. Get out."

She followed him into the living area towards the door, keeping her distance. He turned back when he reached it, "And how do you know I'm going to deliver your message?"

She'd never had much of a capacity for cruelty. In fact, she'd cried the first time she'd killed someone, sobbed so hard it was embarrassing. Royce had been the only one who'd seen and he'd just handed her a handkerchief and herded her towards the squad car. When he'd finally finished answering the questions of the higher ups who'd attended the scene, he'd fallen into the driver's seat beside her with a gruff kid, don't you ever lose that.

And she hadn't, not really. She'd developed a thicker skin, and she'd seen a lot of things that had jaded her, but she still hated death and violence. It fascinated her and it shadowed her, but it also repulsed her.

So it surprised her when she didn't falter. He wasn't an immediate threat, and as much as she was used to intimidating with words across the interrogation table, she rarely did so with brute force.

She shot him again, in the left shoulder, and didn't flinch when he screamed.

"You crazy bitch."

She swallowed down whatever conscience she had and gave him a steely glare. "Deliver my message, or next time, it'll be between your ears."

Her strides were long and she was shoving him out the door before he realised was happening. He fell down in the hallway. She stared at the bloodstain he left on the carpet realising she didn't have a lot of time.

Beneath what might have been a growing concussion, her mind was reeling. Whoever they were chasing had sent someone, not after her but after Castle.

She remembered the surveillance pictures on his desk and went back to the study, her latest crime scene, for a closer look. Her movements were hurried but not frantic. There wasn't much new information in the files, just dossiers on their two contract killers with what looked like real names. And the recruitment paperwork for a cop. Esposito had affixed a sticky note to it; she recognised his writing and felt suddenly betrayed. It read: this is all I could find. The name was unfamiliar.

She put all the papers back in the manila folder but left the photographs where they lay. The first set were of her mother, in what she assumed must have been the last week of her life. There was one of the two of them together. She let her fingers sully them, tracing their faces. The rest though were a lot more recent. Her, Castle, Ryan, Esposito, even one of her and Lanie at a bar a few weeks ago. They'd been watching her for longer than made sense.

She slammed her fist against the desk. None of it made sense.

She glanced at the open drawer and leafed through it. There was nothing else that looked even remotely relevant, but she learned that Castle was deceptively organised.

A photo at the bottom of the stack had her the most concerned. It was of her with Alexis in the hospital cafe after the shooting. She was wearing her hospital gown and looked exhausted. Alexis' head was turned but the red hair was telltale. They'd been talking about her concern for her father. She swallowed and shoved the rest of the testament to her invaded privacy back into the folder but left that one in the middle of the desk.

Sighing, Beckett fell back in the chair.

The computer blinked to life when she accidentally hit the external mouse removing her hand. On the screen was one of his digital murder boards, but this one contained facts and faces she recognized as strictly non-fictional. He'd added the new information on Lockwood and Coonan and another name, the name of the third cop. Notes explaining their connection followed. She stared at it. It was easily several weeks' worth of work.

He'd known they were being watched and he hadn't told her.

He'd known they had important leads and he hadn't told her.

It surprised her, how much it hurt, that she was more pained than angry. It had been a shock, certainly, when he'd told her about her mother's case almost two years ago, when he'd dug into it against her wishes. And it had even hurt, in a way, but that was nothing like now. She clutched at her own elbows. Now they shared almost everything. Now he had asked her to trust him and she had. Why?

She dug through it all again. There had to be a reason why he'd kept it from her.

But nothing explained it to her.

She stared at the photo of his daughter and felt sick. Twisting it over in her hands though, she found her reason. Whoever had sent him the information knew they were being watched. Another cryptic clue. Her stomach lurched. He was protecting her. She wiped at her eyes.

"Castle," she muttered furiously. "I told you not to do anything stupid."

She shook her head to clear it. She needed to get out of the air-conditioned vacuum they had been trying to exist in, which she'd stupidly and steadfastly come to pretend the outside world couldn't touch.

His safe was open at the back wall. She cleared it of cash before she realised exactly what she was planning to do. When the money and the file were clutched to her chest, she briefly considered that it was a risky move. There would already be questions about what had happened, and in all likelihood it constituted a crime she'd probably get away with, but not if she didn't answer for it. But the stakes had changed, and this was the game now. Sending someone to kill her was one thing. Sending someone to kill those she cared about was entirely another. She'd seen it happen once. She wasn't about to watch it happen again.

She reached forward and printed his notes, wiping away her fingerprints after she did.

The blood trail was a problem. She considered it, waiting for the printer to spit out the pages but she decided there was nothing for it by the time she snatched up the final page. There was no time to clean up properly.

The daze of before was gone. Beckett felt clarity in its place. It wasn't that she had to get out, it was that she had to leave. An esoteric distinction, but it made sense to her at the time: the outside world was coming for her, not for their world, their life. It was a by-product. The shooting, the photos, Montgomery's death. She swallowed. It was her fight. And if they thought were going to bring it to her on her turf and ask her to play by their rules, they were wrong. She wouldn't let them. Simple as that.

In the bedroom, she dressed in her clothes from the day before and stared at the unmade bed. She shoved the bloody T-shirt and the file into her handbag. The gun. She stared at it briefly where it lay on the bed. Her own weapon was still on the floor of the study. She decided to abandon the familiar and settle for the strange with its filed off serial number. It fit neatly in the waistband of her jeans.

And then, with an eerie kind of calm that hadn't truly possessed her since long before the shooting, she walked out of the loft with the cash from the safe shoved into the pocket of her jeans.