SCARS

"Stay with me, okay? Don't leave me" he said, hovering over Kate as she fought for consciousness. She could feel his hand behind her neck, supporting her head gently, tenderly, urgently. She focused on his eyes as intently as she possibly could, fighting to stay with him, staring into the blue depths and seeing fear and desperation. Tears slid down her cheeks, both from the burning, searing pain and the look in his eyes. "Kate" he breathed. "I love you. I love you, Kate."

She wanted to tell him she loved him too, that she had for a very long time, but the pain was too much. She couldn't find her voice, and her only answer was another tear streaming down her cheek as the world went black.

The alarm clock on Kate Beckett's bedside table chirped abnoxiously, making its way into the dream she'd had dozens of times in the last four months. She reached over and shut it off, taking a moment to inspect the scar on her chest before she got out of bed.

It was fading gradually, but was still obvious. It ran the entire length of her sternum, where the surgeons had opened her chest to repair the damage done by the bullet. Just to the left of the long, thin scar was another, a smaller, rounder scar. The one made by the bullet. Kate ran her hand along its length and repositioned the necklace holding her mother's ring to the center of her chest. She inspected the permanent dent in the band. She could have gotten it repaired, her dad had offered, but she needed to keep it just as it was. It was a reminder: that ring had saved her life. If she hadn't been wearing it, if that bullet hadn't hit it first, her heart would have been damaged beyond repair.

Glancing at the clock again, Kate dragged her body out of bed to shower and get ready for work. It was later than she normally would have gone in, but considering the scar on her chest she was grateful to be going in at all. They didn't have any open cases at the moment, anyway. It would be another day of paperwork unless a body dropped.

At the twelfth precinct, fists pounded furiously but expertly into the punching bag secured between the hands of Javier Esposito. "That's it, man, good." He encouraged, gazing at Richard Castle with mild concern as he spoke. "Couple more. Come on." The fists continued to pound into the bag ferociously, and Esposito squeezed tighter to keep the bag in position.

After a final, furious uppercut that nearly knocked the bag out of Esposito's hands, Castle stepped back. "Thanks, man" he said, somewhat breathless, as he wiped a tape-wrapped hand across his face. Castle didn't seem to notice the blood soaking the tape around his knuckles, but Esposito did. He glanced across the room at Kevin Ryan, who had just finished a set of pushups. The partners exchanged brief looks of confused concern before Ryan dropped down for another set and Esposito picked up a set of barbells. Castle noticed none of this, he was already engrossed in a set of pull ups.

When the three men finished another couple of sets, Ryan and Esposito picked up their towels. "Yo Castle" Esposito shouted, "we're hittin' the showers."

"Alright, guys. I'll see ya downstairs in a bit" Castle replied.

Ryan and Esposito had expected this reply. They had gotten used to it in the last few months, whether they were working out at the 12th, at Castle's gym, or running in the park. Castle always wanted to do a couple more sets, a couple more laps, a few more blocks, and would see them in a bit. "Don't forget the coffee" Ryan told him.

"Do I ever?" Castle shot back with a grin. Ryan and Esposito exited to the locker rooms as Castle hopped back up on the bars for another set of pull ups.

The changes in Castle were obvious to everyone. While still jovial, he was more serious, less ready with an outlandish theory or inappropriate remark. He seemed lost in thought more often, and never with the wistful look on his face he'd always had before on these occasions. The people who knew him well noticed these changes. The more obvious changes were physical. While he had never been overweight, Castle had lost quite a few pounds more than he had gained in the year previous. He had always worked out fairly regularly, but now it was an everyday occurrence, sometimes more than once a day, bordering on obsession.

But something other than the weight loss and increased exercise had given Castle a new hardness to his appearance. There was something in his eyes, which once twinkled mischievously, that was now more analytical, more anxious. He was less childlike somehow, and it had nothing to do with the new thinness of his cheeks.

While his friends and family were slightly concerned, in some ways they welcomed these changes. In the months between Raglan's death and Beckett's shooting, Castle had seemed listless, lost, almost depressed. He hadn't been sleeping, judging by the deep circles and bags beneath his eyes, and had been drinking more than he had before. He had poured himself into writing, or pretending to write, and had attempted to go about as if everything was fine when everyone knew that it wasn't. At least now he seemed to be moving about with a purpose, though no one really knew what that might be, and seemed healthier. He was certainly getting even more female attention than ever, though he didn't seem to pay as much attention to it as he once did.

As Castle finished yet another set of pull ups and moved to the weight bench, someone else entered from the locker rooms. Castle visibly stiffened, his jaw clenched. Normally, the approach of a beautiful woman wouldn't cause this sort of change in Castle's demeanor, but this was not the typical woman. She was of average height, about fifty years old, with short, professional-looking blonde hair and piercing gray eyes. There was nothing about this woman that seemed kind or approachable. Castle's jaw clenched even tighter at the thought that this woman was Captain Montgomery's "replacement." She would never replace Montgomery. While Montgomery was a true professional, great at his job, he at least had a heart. Montgomery was understanding and supportive of his team, and above all did what was best for them, had their back. His death had proved that. Captain Rachel Maddox was nothing like that. Roy Montgomery had been a friend. Maddox hated Castle, and therefore hated Beckett and the rest of the team by extension.

"Aren't you rich enough to afford a gym membership?" said Maddox in her clipped, harsh voice, training her eyes on Castle for an instant.

Castle forced a smile. "Good morning to you too, Captain."

"I agreed to let you continue invading the murder investigations, Castle" Maddox practically growled his name, "thanks to Beckett's little ultimatum, but that doesn't mean you're invited to use this precinct in any way you see fit."

"Yeah, well, Javier and Kevin invited me to work out with them this morning" said Castle, picking up a heavier set of barbells. "They're my friends, and we like to do things together. I realize this concept might be foreign to you, but it is what it is."

Maddox's face flinched for a moment at his words, to which Castle merely gave her a false smile and started lifting. He loved getting under that bitch's skin. "I don't see your friends around now" said Maddox.

"They're showering, as a matter of fact. Not as much stamina as me, you know."

Maddox glared again. "Shouldn't you be in there with them? Since you like to do things together and all."

"Like imagining the three of us naked, do you Captain?" Castle quipped, finishing his last set, then standing. He picked up his towel and slung it over his shoulder as he walked toward the door, stopping briefly and looking down at Maddox, barely a foot between them. "Have a nice workout" he said harshly, then continued into the locker room.

Castle entered the bullpen of the twelfth an hour later, four coffees in hand. "Gentlemen, as promised" he said as he sat the coffees on Esposito's, then Ryan's desk. Kate watched him carefully as he made his way to her desk and sat her coffee down as well, with his customary "good morning, Beckett." Damn, he looked good, she thought. His jaw was squarer, his stomach flatter, and his muscles rippled under his shirt as he shrugged out of his coat. But she missed the twinkle in his eye, the carefree manner he once had.

"Hey Castle" she said. "You didn't have to come in today, you know. We don't even have a case."

He shrugged. "What else am I gonna do?"

"I don't know, write, maybe?" said Kate sarcastically. "Or do you have writer's block again?"

"No" said Castle, giving Kate a look of mock exasperation. "I'm procrastinating."

"Uh huh, that's what I thought."

"What? I just finished Heat Rising, I've earned a break." Castle insisted.

"So, on this break, you come here to watch me do paperwork?"

Kate had been hoping for a classic Castle comeback. She'd been hoping for him to lean over, raise an eyebrow with a twinkle in those incredible blue eyes and say something in that seductive voice of his. That's what she had been hoping for, but it wasn't what she got. Instead, Castle glanced around briefly and then looked back to her, no twinkle in his eyes at all, and said "you're right. I should go get some work done." He stood, slipping his broad shoulders back into his jacket. "Just call me when a body drops, if you want."

Confused, disappointed, and too concerned about her partner to worry about what anyone else thought, Kate stood and grabbed Castle by the arm, draggling him into one of the conference rooms and closing the door behind them. "Okay, what's going on?" she asked, oblivious to the whispers and stares on the other side of the door.

Castle smiled slightly, looking confused. "You tell me. You're the one who dragged me in here."

"You never just leave when I ask you to. And I didn't even ask you to this time!" said Kate.

"I just thought-"

Kate cut him off. "And that 'call me when a body drops, if you want,' what the hell was that? If I want? I wanna know what's been going on with you."

"Nothing" Castle insisted, sounding defensive.

"Bullshit. I've been back on duty for over a month now, and you haven't come up with one ridiculous theory, haven't mentioned the CIA once, and not one stupid little innuendo has come out of your mouth. I'm starting to think you were taken by bodysnatchers while I was in the hospital and they replaced your brain or something."

Castle grinned genuinely this time. "That sounds like something I'd come up with."

"Exactly!" Kate almost shouted, frustrated. "I sound more like you than you do." Without thinking about it, Kate took a step forward and took Castle's hand. His eyes seemed to soften just slightly as he glanced down at their joined hands. "I'm worried about you, Rick. Please tell me what's going on."

Kate watched Castle carefully, her hazel eyes never leaving his blue ones, still holding his hand. He swallowed hard, and she could see an internal debate raging within him. It was almost as if there was something he wanted, desperately, to tell her, but couldn't. A moment later, however, the conflict was gone, and Castle pulled away and leaned against the table behind him, tearing his eyes away from hers momentarily. "I'll answer your question with a question" he said, his eyes meeting hers again. The hardness hadn't quite returned, there was no trace of happiness either.

"Okay"

"Why didn't you tell me you broke up with Josh?" he asked. He looked genuinely curious, and Kate knew that this wasn't an easy subject for him to broach, but she had a strange feeling that this wasn't the source of the trouble.

On the off chance that it was, however, she decided to answer. It was, after all, a legitimate question. "How long have you known?"

"Since I showed up at the hospital after…after you were shot" said Castle, crossing his arms. "I brought my mother, and Alexis, and your dad up. Josh was in the waiting room. I wanted to know what was going on with you, you know, what your condition was, but he had more questions than I did. Where were you when you got shot, who shot you, when Montgomery died, who was Hal Lockwood…questions I figured your boyfriend would know the answer to. That's when he told me that you broke things off with him in early April." Castle chuckled humorlessly. "Here it was, almost two months later, and I didn't know a thing about it."

It was Kate's turn to swallow hard. She hadn't known, she still didn't know, how to tell Castle that she had broken up with Josh because she wasn't in love with him, she was in love with Castle. She had almost told him numerous times, even managing once to tell him that she was a "one writer girl," but she had been afraid of how he would react. She had been, and was still, scared of a relationship with Castle. "You never asked...it never came up."

Castle laughed humorlessly again, throwing his head back. "Okay" he said, his voice dripping with disdain. "You and I both know it did."

Kate knew what he was referring to: the night he had come to her apartment, just before Montgomery's death, that argument they had gotten into. The one where she had told said they were over, told him to get out, words she had regretted almost as soon as the door had closed behind him. He had brought up Josh's name, something he rarely did, and she had skirted the question. "The truth is, I just didn't know how to tell you." Kate said after a moment. "I wasn't ready to get into that conversation with you, Rick…I wasn't ready to give any explanations." Castle was silent for a few moments, studying her carefully, then he nodded. "Okay" he said finally, not wanting to push. "I still wish you would've told me."

"I should have" said Kate, honestly. But she still had the feeling that this wasn't what had caused Castle to change so much over the past few months. Something was eating at him, it had been since she had been shot. He had supported her for every step of her recovery but, in all honesty, had been around less than Kate had expected him to be. He had given her space, when she had expected him to hover. "There's something else going on, Castle. Please?" She sounded like she was begging, but she didn't care.

Castle opened his mouth for what Kate knew was going to be a denial, but the door opened and interrupted his response. "Why the hell are you two in here having a social hour when there's work to be done?" Maddox demanded, barging in.

"Sorry, Captain" said Kate "we just had some business we needed to discuss."

"Personal shit has no place in this office, Detective" Maddox spat. "Get back to work, or I may have to rethink this little arrangement."

Castle actually laughed. "Right" he said. "Kick me out if you want, Maddox, I'll be back by the end of the day.'' He pulled the phone out of his pocked and held it up. "One, maybe two phone calls and I'm back. Or did you forget that the mayor and the commissioner are poker buddies of mine? And trust me, they like me a hell of a lot more than they like you."

Kate stifled her own laugh. She had to say this for the new, hard-ass version of Castle, he was downright ballsy when it came to the new Captain. Not that she blamed him. And Kate had a few words for her boss as well. "And don't forget our last conversation on the subject, Captain. Castle's my partner. He goes, I go, remember? And I know two other detectives who would be happy to come with me." Kate had told Maddox as much the week she returned from medical leave, when the Captain had tried to ban Castle from the precinct. Kate knew that she and the boys had the highest case clearance rate in the city, and Maddox wouldn't let them leave. Kate didn't know where she would go or what she would do if she left, but she was fully prepared to walk away and figure it out if the Captain tried to call her bluff.

"Just get back to work" Maddox snapped, stomping out.

Castle and Kate snickered, exchanging looks, before leaving the conference room and returning to Kate's desk. Castle plopped in his chair and shook his head. "She's not very smart, is she? Either that or she just doesn't know you at all."

''What do you mean?" asked Kate, perplexed.

"To fall for that bluff? You gotta be kidding me. You're not gonna give up your career."

Kate looked up from her paperwork and met Castle's eyes. "I wasn't bluffing" she told him. "You're my partner." She wanted to tell him that she couldn't stand the thought of coming to work everyday without him there, that he made it bearable, but she couldn't. She hoped he understood the meaning behind her words.

Castle gazed at her in surprise for a moment, before a small smile crept onto his face, his eyes twinkling. Finally, she thought. But something was definitely going on with him.

"Yo Beckett" Esposito called across the bullpen. "We caught a body, 68th and Broadway."