Demons and Druids

The heavy weight of the ring on her left hand is the only hope she'd let herself gracefully accept. It isn't so much about the broken promises that made her heart ache. There are moments she'd never be able to experience again because she's just not as good in letting go as he is.

It's raining and the gun in her hand isn't providing the same kind of safety anymore. The Sig Sauer feels wrong and she can't help but wonder if that's the first sign of her own insanity. She's almost laughing while the sharp metal of the gun is digging hard into her skin.

What she's going to destroy this night has meant everything to her and in some way it still does. Yet. She can't change herself and in the end he's been the one to open Pandora's Box. Now he doesn't have the right anymore to question her way of handling things. It's the only way to get to him and she's been drowning in this revenge for far too long.

The little stones under her shoes give away an almost scratching noise while she's moving forward – away from her own conscience.

The voices are thin where she expects them to be strong but nothing seems to be easy in the world she's about to step into. It's easier without breathing at a place like that so she just stops and realizes that her body doesn't seem to care. Maybe it's a twilight zone and nothing is real anyway.

The killshot is easier than she'd expected it to be. A mobster twice her size is kneeling in front of her and the adrenaline pumping through her veins makes her feel unstoppable. It's addictive but now she's a murderer and the perfect bubble she'd lived in during the past couple of month is breaking in an instant. Maybe she spent too much time with Montgomery.

Maybe it's in her blood. Good girl, gone rogue.

But she has to make sure that he knows that she's out there – waiting for him to make a mistake. She's going to take him down, she sacrificed too much already.

There's blood on her sleeves and her hands. Little droplets of crimson fluid. It's burning her skin and she's thinking about Castle and Alexis and that it has never supposed to be that way.

She briefly wonders if one of the boys is going to get the killshot because there's no way in hell she's going to stop before her body drops dead on the ground.

Her pants are black, her shirt dark blue – simple, like he loved her the most. But her hair is different. Short golden locks are curling into her neck and the grin on her face makes her look like someone else entirely. The brown curls are the only reminder of herself she'd left at the loft and somehow she can imagine him in their bedroom, with long strands of brown hair burrowed under his pillow.

It's a dangerous game she's playing but she's always been the risk-taker. Kate Beckett likes to think that this is just another part of her mother that survived in her.

Her phone is ringing and she shouldn't dare to look at the display. But he's been her life and it's hard to go without that. The sweet scent of skim vanilla latte is in the air, while her fingertips are hovering about the answer-button. It would be easy to pretend nothing of this really happened. But he showed her his world and in this everything is made of cherries, double-rainbows and love. She has to keep this in her head because otherwise the world she'd just stepped into would turn her into a monster.

"Richard…"

He says nothing and here she's been trying for years to figure out a way to make him shut up.

"Come home."

"I can't."

"Why?"

It seems to be the first time they really talk to each other because this situation just stripped him off his rapier wit. This deep and primal connection is making her heart clench but it's the corpse in the alley that is reminding her that nothing of this has ever meant to be easy.

"He killed her. I made a promise at her grave."

"What about the promise you made to me? To Alexis?"

She opens her mouth and closes it. Open. Close. There's an answer but he's not going to like it so she stops herself and lets him blame her. It's easier for both of them. With him being innocent and her being the self-centred bitch.

"I will make him fear me. He'll turn around when he's leaving his house, he'll always carry a weapon but he won't be able to see me. He's the one who created me. I have a right to destroy him."

"At what price…?"

"It's too late anyway, Rick. Just take care of yourself and give Alexis a kiss. I'm sorry."

"No, you're not."

It's an insult and it hits deep. He knows her long enough to know what punch to throw at her.

"Goodnight…"

"Kate, don't you dare…"

"I love you."

He has no response for her so she's throwing her phone along with her past in the Hudson River. Kate knows he's already regretting his words and now he's probably wondering if he's able to live with the fact that his last words to her were spoken out of anger. She on the other hand knows him and it's that obscure kind of pure love he's still able to feel, that made him so furious.

Right now she's too tired to think about anything but herself.

Manhattan isn't her home anymore so she's driving an old yugo down to Spanish Harlem.

Home is now a little room with a broken water pipe and a shabby bed in the corner. There is nothing warm about this place but there's a picture of Castle, Alexis and herself on the desk and that's enough, at least for now. The gun finds its way under her pillow and she falls into bed with wet clothes and tangled hair. Not that her looks matter anymore. She lost the man she loved to her own expectations to life.

Sleep doesn't come easily to her anymore. She is drifting in and out of consciousness and she can't remember why she agreed to come here – if it's really worth it. Or if agreeing to come somehow meant something important.

Lesson one: never play two truths and a lie.

She's aware of the fact that somewhere down the line there's going to be a sign about not being able to stop anymore. There are silent voices in the apartment next to hers.

"You know", a man admits. "You've done some dumb things. But this? You gotta stop trying to fix everything on your own."

She rolls her eyes at nobody and the voice doesn't say anything back. A rat is running across the dirty wooden floor and the sound is too loud for this room, slipping between her and the walls. The fluorescent light from the strip club down the street is hard too, casting over the lines of her sheets. She knows the mistakes but doesn't acknowledge them.

And that admission exists only in the room in her head. It's old, almost transparent. A yearly thing. They all know it. She wonders if it's worse this time. She should stop. There are other things to care about. It has nothing to do with her motivation to bring this case to an end. It's easier to say that it was a memory or two and then leave it at that.

The voice – this much she knows – only exists in her head and maybe it's another sign that there's no going back.

Perfection is only a fleeting moment and in the end she can still feel his lingering kiss on her lips while her fingers are grasping the gun under her pillow so hard that the metal is leaving bloody bruises on her skin.

TbC?

A/N: So I was bored at work and this just popped into my head. Kate gone rogue, hunting the guy who killed her mom. Do you want more? I might've some more Caskett moments for the next chapters.