I search your profile for a translation

I study the conversation like a map

'cause I know there is strength in the differences between us

and I know there is comfort where we overlap

"Kate, shh… Kate. Stay with me, Kate. Don't leave me, please. Stay with me, okay?"

Kate Beckett is looking up at him, and the fear in her eyes is what gets him. He's seen her scared, he's seen her heart breaking, he's seen her vulnerable, but never has he seen such raw terror as he does now.

It frightens him more than he can say. Moments flash before his eyes, the hangar, the precinct, life bleeding out of Coonan, the hotel room in LA, but he's not coherent enough to see the irony that it's her life flooding out of her. Every time he moves he sees more red, juxtaposed horribly with the bright green of the grass, alongside the clear green flecks in her hazel eyes. She blinks at him, and every time her eyelids flutter closed he's sucker punched with the realisation that this could be the last time he sees life in those eyes.

He's willing, all too willing to stand with her, but he was crouched over her just days ago, in the hanger, pressing into her and begging her to stay, and he thought he'd won, damn it. He thought he'd won and that arrogance is killing him now, that he thought they were done, that they were immune. That it's Kate, not him, on the ground before him is meaningless, because her blood is flooding over his hands, and he sees it all, his thoughts flying between Kate and his daughter, and he sees Alexis slipping away too, just for a second it's his daughter before him, and he blinks and it's Kate again, but God, she's meant to be the one, and how did they get here?

A single tear escapes and he's struck again by the futility. In his mind he's begging her to give him a sign that she's going to be okay, but she just looks scared, and he hates himself that he can't reassure her. With every fibre of his being he's praying to a God he doesn't believe in, and it tumbles from him, unbidden. Richard Castle can give himself to her, but it's just not enough, and he doesn't even mean to say it. The words spill from his lips simply because they can't remain trapped inside any more.

"Kate, I love you. I love you, Kate."

Castle brings a cup of coffee, because he doesn't really know what else to do. Showing up empty handed is out of the question, so he picks up two cups at the cafe around the corner from her place and buzzes her door.

When Beckett opens the door and lets him in, she scowls at him, but takes the coffee. "You're early."

He shrugs. "Couldn't stay at home. Martha and Alexis went out- they're coming today too, but they'll meet us there."

She nods, and sips the hot drink. He sees her relax marginally as the caffeine touches her lips. "I still have to get ready."

He takes her in. She's certainly a lot more casual than he's used to. Jeans, which of course he's seen before, but there's a rawness to her, and he realises this might be the first time he's seen her without any make up. "Of course." Castle takes a seat on her sofa. "Go on. Get ready." He thinks she'll turn tail and head into her bedroom to get changed, but she perches on the edge of the sofa too, alternating biting her thumbnail and drinking the coffee. He sips his own too, nervous. He should have gotten decaf. Her leg is jiggling up and down. For both of them, he thinks.

"The other night-" she starts.

He closes his eyes. Which one?

"When you- when we were fighting- here," she adds, and now he knows which night she means.

"Kate- I'm sorry, okay."

"No-" she shakes her head. "No, Castle. I'm sorry. I shouldn't- I shouldn't have pushed you away like that. I should have trusted you. Listened to you." Beckett looks down at her cup, tracing circles on the lid. "I'm sorry," she sighs.

Castle nods, and turns to face her. They'd sat down on opposite ends of the sofa, and he wants to close the distance. He scoots a little closer, and she turns too, so she's facing him. They sit there facing one another for a moment, and he's eerily reminded of their hotel room in L.A. "You're not so bad yourself, Castle," he hears inside his head, and he reaches for her, but before his hand can brush against her knee, she's standing and turning.

"I'm going to go get changed," she calls over her shoulder, and he nods, standing as well, and watching her disappear into her bedroom.

The last few days have been hell. Absolute hell. So when Kate called him this morning to ask him if he'd drive with her to the service, he hadn't hesitated. "I'll meet you at your place," he'd promised her. They've hurt each other in recent days, he knows that, but as she'd sobbed over Roy's body in the hangar, she'd looked up at him watching over her, and reached her hand up, letting him take her hand and pulling him down next to her. They'd both been crouched over Roy, and she'd clung to his hand even as she called in the shooting, remaining there until the uniforms came, and then Ryan and Esposito.

Beckett had beckoned him to her as she'd given her statement to the boys. He'd mistaken her intention at first. Stay close, listen, get the story straight. But as she'd spoken her hand had betrayed her, reaching out and brushing his arm. She needs me, he'd realised. Kate, God, Beckett of all people, clinging for physical comfort is what had broken him, and he'd stood beside her, trying his best to be stoic and strong, biting back his tears and the howls in his brain that screamed at him that he should have done more.

Now he's pacing in her living room in his suit, sunglasses in his hand. He texts back and forth with Alexis and his daughter confirms that she and Martha will be at the service and then the cemetery. He's grateful. They didn't know Montgomery, but they'll stand with Rick there. And he'll stand with Beckett.

Beckett emerges from her bedroom, polished and stoic. Her eyes are severe with make up, lashings of dark mascara. Her hair is up in a bun- no nonsense, and he's struck by the urge to pull it from its clasps, hold her, freeze time, stop them from ever going to this funeral. He shakes his head. "Wow," he says, swallowing hard. "So, um- uniform?" It's not the time for jokes, but what else can he say? She gives him a look like come on, and he groans. "Seriously, Beckett? You didn't think I wouldn't be into your uniform did you?"

And she chuckles, and it's the sweetest sound and it makes his heart flutter, just a tiny bit. This is the day from hell, but in spite of himself he grins back, because if he can make her laugh, just a little, lighten her burden just a little, then all the inappropriate comments in the world are worth it.

"I wish I'd known you, when you were a uniform," he tells her wistfully. He leans into her, in the guise of straightening a button, or fixing her collar, he doesn't know which, and he doubts she falls for it, but God, today cannot get any worse, and he needs to touch her.

"Really?" She looks like she's going to say something more, but she quiets, and bites her lip. He thinks she probably needs the connection, too, because she leans into him, just a little, rather than retreating like he knew she would. His writer's imagination fills his head with visions of Josh comforting her and he's the first to flinch back, cursing his mind for betraying his body and denying him the moment.

She jumps back too, when he flinches, and another giggle escapes, but this one is nervous. They've both been through the wringer these last few days, and he's determined that they'll drown their sorrows at the Old Haunt come day's end.

"We have to get going." She's reluctant, her body language countering her words, because she's still standing there, rooted to the spot. "I told my Dad I'd meet him before the service."

"Your Dad's coming?" Castle's surprised.

"Yeah- you'll get to meet him."

"Great." Castle winces internally. He met Jim just this week, and Beckett has no idea. He knows, now, what it is that he feels for Katherine Beckett, and it hits him in the gut that he didn't get to meet her father the normal way, wishes he'd been interrogated and intimated the same way he's messed with Alexis' boyfriends in the past. He wonders whether Jim likes Josh. Why didn't he knock on Josh's door and ask Beckett's boyfriend to make her stop? "Did you Dad ever meet Montgomery?"

She smiles sadly. "Yeah, actually." She draws a deep breath. "When I was an Officer- well, you know my Dad drank- I had to-" Kate hesitates, and shrugs, almost whispering now. "I had to arrest my Dad, one time. And Roy- well, he was there. Later, when my Dad got out of lock up, he shook Montgomery's hand, and thanked him for looking out for me."

Damn. Castle wants to bury his face in his hands. This is all so messed up. She brought her father back from the brink of the grave before he could drown himself, and today she'll bury her mentor, the man who had her back right through from the early days of her career.

Kate looks up at him, unshed tears welling in her eyes. "Let's go."

They're in the car before she speaks again. She's driving of course, gripping the wheel with unnatural ferocity, and she turns to him as they wait at a light. "Will you stand up there, beside me, when I speak?"

Castle can only nod. "Of course. Always."

He sees the waver in her eyes again, but the light changes to green, and he sees her steel herself as she hits the gas. They don't speak again for the rest of the ride.

As brutal as today is, he's proud to stand with Beckett, Esposito and Ryan, proud to stand with the twelfth for the Captain. The coffin weighs a figurative tonne, and Castle is glad for the sunglasses that create a barrier between himself and this moment. He watches as the flag is folded and presented to Evelyn. Montgomery's girls are so young, and he has to blink and look away, lest he see Alexis in their place.

"… And in the end, the best you can hope for is to find a place to make your stand. And if you're very lucky, you find someone to stand with you."

Beckett meets Castle's eyes, and he tries to silently assure her. Yes. I stand with you. He thinks in this moment she knows it, understands what she couldn't as he carried her pitching and screaming from Roy in the hangar.

"Our Captain would want us to carry on the fight…" Castle sees a flicker of light even as Kate is speaking, "…and even if there is…" From then it all happens in slow motion, in a rush he's helpless to stop, as he leaps upon her, knowing all the while that he's too late, he's too late, of course he's too late.

"Kate, shh… Kate. Stay with me, Kate. Don't leave me, please. Stay with me, okay?"

He gazes at her, meeting her green eyes in horror as the red rushes from her chest.

"Kate, I love you. I love you, Kate."

The sirens howl, and Castle can see colours- lights flashing, and his mind rests for a second on the first time Beckett turned him down, her slender form framed by the garish flash of the gumball. No idea. He lets Lanie push him away from an unconscious Kate, watching in silence as the ME's hands dive gloveless beneath Beckett's shirt, searching in vain for a way to stem the bleeding.

Martha and Alexis crowd in beside Castle, their faces identical masks of terror. He sees Jim, pale and unsteady and the horror in Evelyn's eyes as she rushes to catch Beckett's father before he collapses. At her husband's funeral. Castle thinks he'll be on the ground next too, and he unwillingly catches onto Alexis' arm, hating himself for needing to steal comfort from his teenage daughter- if he could only keep her innocent forever.

The paramedics are loading Beckett up, raising her up onto that stretcher like they do this every day of their lives, and before Castle can blink, Lanie's in, riding beside her. He flings himself into the front seat of the ambulance, strapping his seatbelt shut as a matter of habit but then clinging to the seat and twisting back to chance a look behind him. If she dies, if he sees her die- he squeezes his eyes shut, wishing the screeching of the monitors in the back wasn't so jarring, and then the rhythm of the beeping falters to a low roar. His eyes fly open and he's praying for the sound to just come back as he watches her code before his eyes.

"C'mon Kate. You do not die on me! Stay with me! Stay with me!" Lanie's riding on the side of the gurney, and Castle can't keep up- he doesn't want to. He's just watched her die once, and he doesn't think he can do it again.

"Single GSW to the left chest, initially unresponsive, lost vitals right in front of us," he hears the paramedic call out, instructing the doctors who are ready for the incoming trauma- just one gunshot victim among many in New York City, to them.

"Stay with me! Do not die! C'mon, girl!"

Castle watches as Lanie relents and lets them take Kate from her. He watches her for a second, before beckoning her, and she follows him back down the hallway.

Ryan and Esposito look like hell on a bad day. Her brothers, he reminds himself. Their family. They're each barking down their phones, demanding answers and facts before ending their calls.

"How is she?"

Esposito folds Lanie into a hug as she answers him. "They just took her into surgery, but…"

Castle hears the words she can't say. It's not good. "What about the shooter?"

Ryan hesitates. His one word answer sucks the air out of Castle's lungs. "Gone."

"Gone? How could he be gone?"

"We don't know, but he left his weapon behind."

Esposito nods. "It's a Mark 11, modified sniper rifle. Favourite of Special Forces. We're checking for prints now."

Fuck.

He looks up, and sees his mother and daughter.

"Richard!"

"Dad!"

"Oh my God!"

His mother and daughter both embrace him and he breathes them in, finding a kind of raw solace for just a second. "It's okay, it's okay."

A lie, it's a lie, it's not okay, not the slightest, because Jim's here too. Beckett's father is calm, scared and angry all at once. "Where's Katie? Where's my daughter?"

It gets worse, all at once, when Josh arrives. Is this why he wasn't at the funeral? On shift? Castle had wondered why Jim had made it to Roy's funeral, but Beckett's boyfriend hadn't been there. Josh doesn't have answers for them, only angry questions. "Snipers? At a funeral?"

Esposito is the first to speak up- "We think the people that sent those guys after Montgomery targeted Beckett."

"I tried to get to her. I tried-" Castle wants to apologise, not just to Josh, but to Jim, to all of them there, but Josh is shoving him into the wall before he can protest.

"Hey!" Esposito sounds ready to explode, pulling Josh off him.

His mother's voice is there too, sharp and angry- "What the hell do you think you're doing?" and he hears Alexis cry out. God. What is this doing to his daughter?

"This is your fault!" Esposito is holding Josh back, and Ryan and Alexis are pushing him back toward the wall. "You did this! This is your fault!" He wants to run at Josh, dare the man to touch him again. "You pushed her to look into her mother's murder! She was shot because of you and Montgomery is dead because of you!"

Just like that, Castle wants to weep, doesn't need to dare Josh anymore, and he can hear his daughter's pleading again, "Leave him alone!"

"Stop it!" Martha calls out, but it's Jim that really shames the two men.

"Stop it, all of you! Just stop it. I won't have you acting like three year olds while my daughter is fighting for her life."

Castle moves away from the others and settles down on a chair. It is his fault. All of it. Starting three years ago, when his curiosity- stupid insatiable need to know- started something he was helpless to stop. She'd warned him, and he hadn't been able to take her seriously, hadn't believed just what the rabbit hole was. He'd pushed and pushed, and he'd fucked it all up again when he'd let Coonan take him hostage. What kind of man was he, that he could let the woman he loved go through all that?

So he hadn't loved her when he first met her. He knows that. It's kind of snuck up on him, but he's seriously furious with himself, that back in the beginning he'd just been too fascinated by the whole of macabre plot to leave well enough alone.

Martha's tread is gentle, deliberate, as she comes and sits beside him. He feels like a child, ready to be chided after being taken into time out. "He's right, you know. This is my fault."

"Richard Castle, don't you dare blame yourself. You are not the one that shot her." His mother has always had a rather practical world view, and he can tell she believes her own words. He wishes he could believe them as easily.

"No. But I put her in the crosshairs."

Martha sighs.

"I told her how I felt." He looks up to see his mother looking sadly at him. "I told her I loved her."

He walks back to the others and sinks down into his seat. If only the floor would open up and swallow him. He doesn't know how long they've all been waiting already.

"Why is it taking so long?" he asks Lanie.

She shakes her head. "We'd have more to worry about if they were out already," she tells him. "They need time, it's not simple. She's a fighter, Castle."

"Yeah, bro," Esposito chimes in, and Castle looks at them both. Lanie believes what she's saying, he can tell. Espo, on the other hand- well, he thinks Espo's just paying lip service to the notion, keeping the peace. Ryan catches his eye, and quickly looks away.

A nurse walks past them, coffee in hand, giggling into her phone. Is this what it's like for the families of their victims? They pass on the bad news, do their best to get answers, find some justice, but really, their lives just go on. How often does Castle come to a crime scene, coffee in hand, solely intent on torturing Beckett with another annoying theory? Life goes on, he muses, but he knows- if Kate's doesn't, if she doesn't make it through this surgery, his life will be over too. Oh, sure. He'll go through the motions. Make an effort for Alexis, but really- Castle knows that his life might end tonight too.

It's dark outside before the doctor's voice jolts them from their restlessness.

"Mr Beckett?" Jim jumps to attention.

"Yes?"

"Your daughter is out of surgery." The doctor is calm, much like Beckett is when she delivers bad news, and Castle's not holding his breath for any guarantees.

"Will she be all right?" Everyone is watching the doctor, waiting on his answer to Jim's question.

"Well, during the surgery she experienced cardiac arrest. Now, we were able to get her heart beating again on its own, but we'll need to watch her very closely."

"When can I see her?"

The doctor regards Beckett's father. "Once the nurses get her settled we'll bring you back to her. The rest of you should go home, get some rest."

Esposito shakes his head. The energy has changed, and there's a slow burn of anger in the hall now. "I don't know about you, bro, but home is the last place I'm going. Not until we catch the son of a bitch who did this."

"Right behind you," Ryan agrees.

"We're fine. Go," Martha urges Castle, and he turns and follows the boys. To the precinct. Their home. To work out just what went wrong.

The call comes when he's asleep- on Beckett's desk of all places. Esposito and Ryan have been working around him, the three of them have barely slept, catching just snatches of rest on their chairs or the break room couch. Jenny had come by, bringing burgers, and Castle knows none of them would have eaten if she hadn't stared them all down and threatened bodily harm if they didn't force the food down.

"Castle."

"It's Lanie," comes the voice on the other end. Redundant, because he's seen his caller idea. "She's awake, you can come see her."

"Are you sure?"

"Am I sure? Of course I'm sure!" Lanie snaps back at him, and he's reminded again of just how tightly they're all strung at the moment. No matter now. Kate's awake. That's all that matters. They'll get through this, they'll find whoever is responsible, and they'll bring justice down. Together. They need to stay safe now, stay together. The time for vengeance has passed.

Castle feels lighter than he has in days, since before Montgomery was shot, even. She's awake, she's awake, he repeats to himself, like a mantra. He hightails it out of the precinct. "Kate, I love you. I love you, Kate." What will she say, when she sees him? He's scared, excited, wound up, and he forces himself to take a few deep breaths. She's awake. She's alive. That's all that matters.

He puts on his game face, wills the fear away from his eyes. He nods at LT as he makes his way down the hall to her room, and he wants to hesitate when he hears Josh in there with her, but he barrels through.

Her voice, from across the room, sounds a million miles away. "Hey, Castle." She sounds groggy, but it's the sweetest sound he's heard since her throaty laughter as they got ready for the funeral together. It feels like years ago.

"I'll see you after rounds," Josh tells her, pointedly ignoring Castle. He stands, and kisses her forehead, eyeing Castle as he exits.

"Hey." Castle can breathe again, now Josh is gone. That fight shook him more than he cares to admit. He's a writer, dammit, not the person who fist fights over a woman in a hospital corridor.

"You're staring at me. I must look- really bad."

Castle smiles at that. "No. I just never thought I'd see you again." She looks beautiful, and its all he can do to maintain this distance, because he wants her in his arms so badly. "I heard you were opening a flower store, so I thought I'd pitch in."

Beckett smiles ruefully. "They were all here when I woke up. I think they're mostly from the precinct. I don't think I'm going to live this one down, Castle."

"Probably not."

She smiles again, and his breath catches. "I hear that you tried to save me."

"Yeah, I um- you heard? You don't remember me tackling you?" His head is swimming. He'd run this conversation through his head a dozen times since he'd been told she'd woken up, and he'd never considered that she might not remember.

"No, I don't remember much of anything." She doesn't seem to notice his hesitation, or the way his face has fallen. "I, um, I remember that I was on the podium and I remember everything just going black."

He tries to prompt her, "You don't remember-" but he can't bring himself to do it, bring more confusion into her world. She's just woken up, and she looks amazing, but he realises that as the drugs wear off, she'll have a whole lot more to process. "-the gun shot?"

"No. They say that there's some things that are better not being remembered."

"Yeah."

"I keep seeing his face, Castle. Every time I close my eyes I see Montgomery lying on the hangar floor. You should have let me go in there."

Fuck. He wants to shake her, restrains himself. She's here in front of him, right now. It's enough, he tells himself. "They would have killed you."

"You don't know that."

"Kate-" He sees blood pouring from her chest again when he squeezes his eyes shut, for a split second he's back in the cemetery leaning over her, and she just got shot, so how does she not see that she's not bullet proof?

"Castle, I'm really tired right now."

She's shutting him down, but he's helpless to fight it. "Of course. We'll talk tomorrow."

She blinks. "Do you mind if we don't?" He turns back to her. What? "I just need a little bit of time."

Castle doesn't know what to say, he forces himself to smile, pretend like this is okay. "Sure. Sure. How much time?"

"I'll call you, okay?"

He half shakes his head. She's been shot, she's got drugs coursing through her system, she lost a lot of blood. Of course she needs time. The thing is, he's not her boyfriend, not her anything. She's with Josh, she doesn't remember a thing, doesn't know that he loves her. So why does he feel like she just broke up with him?

A/N: Thanks for reading my offering of hiatus fic. The title, chapter titles and lyrics are from Overlap by Ani DiFranco. As you'll have seen, a whole bunch of this dialogue isn't mine- you know what's mine and what's not. One more chapter til I go AU and stop borrowing the words. :)