AN: Altering the wedding planning timeline of season 6 a bit to fit with my plotline.

"No, no, no, we are not releasing doves," she tells him as she flips through a bridal magazine.

"Why not?"

She can hear the whine in his voice and her lips quirk into a smile. Of course he has the idea to make everything as extravagant as possible.

"Because they'll shit on everything," Kate explains as she eyes an atrocious gown on the page in front of her.

"You're so judgmental," he huffs, trying to hide his laughter and wandering into the kitchen to refill his drink.

"They're birds, Castle," she groans, shaking her head. "They'll get over it."

He returns to the living room, cup in hand, and sits next to her on the couch. He points at the wedding dress on the page she has open. "That model can't pull that off."

Kate looks over at him. "Could I?"

"Well you…I'm not answering that one."

She rolls her eyes, turning the page.

"Finding anything you like?" Castle asks instead, nudging her with his elbow as he takes a drink.

"Not really," she sighs, closing the magazine and laying her head on the back of the couch.

"Not finding the dress little Kate Beckett dreamed up when she was eight?"

Kate scrubs a hand through her hair and lets it cascade down the back of the couch. "I was thirteen actually. It was around Christmas and my mom took me to the Upper East Side to go window shopping. We were walking by the Vera Wang boutique and I just stopped walking. The dress in that window…" she trails off, smiling at the memory. "Anyway, my mom noticed how in awe of it I was and told me she'd make sure that I was wearing it on my wedding day. And now…"

Castle takes her hand closest to him and squeezes. "Hey, she'll be there in spirit. And we could find that dress –"

"Castle, do you realize how long ago that was? They probably don't even make it any more. Not to mention that it's probably not in style anymore either."

"We could always try –" he starts, but is cut off by her ringing cell phone.

"Beckett."

She listens as Gates informs her about the double homicide on 27th. She tells her she's on her way and hangs up.

"We've got a body," Kate says, moving back into the bedroom to find her boots. "Well actually, two bodies. Double homicide."

"Ooo do you think it was a murder, suicide?" Castle asks, following her to find shoes of his own.

"It would certainly make my job easier if it was, but Gates said Lanie already ruled that out."

"But still, a married couple murdered for knowing too much. A cheating husband and his lover killed by the angry wife. Oh the stories practically write themselves with this one."

Kate rolls her eyes as she zips up her boots. "Come on, let's go get the real story."

When they arrive at the scene, the first thing she notices is a young girl sitting on the floor outside of the apartment with a uniformed officer. Her heart breaks as she realizes the poor girl is probably an orphan now if the double homicide is what she thinks it is. It was hard enough losing her mother, she can't even begin to imagine having lost her father as well.

"What have we got?" Kate asks, as she and Castle enter into the living room.

"Dave and Allison Holdredge," Ryan tells her, reading his notes. "It's a real mess in there, blood everywhere in the bedroom."

The names sound familiar, but she can't place them. "Is that their daughter?" she asks, nodding to the girl outside.

Ryan sighs. "Yeah. Said she came home from school and found them like this. She called it in. Poor thing has to be traumatized. I couldn't even stomach being in there and I've seen plenty of dead bodies."

"How old is she?"

"14. She's in 8th grade. Says her name is Addison."

Kate looks over at the young girl. Her curly brunette hair falls over her face as her gaze is focused on the ground. She sees herself in the girl and assumes it's because she knows what it's like to lose a parent. She sighs and heads towards the bedroom. Ryan wasn't kidding, the blood splatter is all over the room.

"Uh Lanie?"

Lanie looks up from the deceased.

"Did the guy have a chainsaw or something?" Castle asks, coming up behind her.

"Not a chainsaw," Lanie corrects. "An axe." She nods to the corner of the room by a mirror. "He even left it here."

"Do you think he left any prints on it?" Kate asks.

"He might have, but since he left it behind, I doubt it."

"Maybe we'll get lucky and the guy was an idiot, leaving his prints all over it," Castle suggests.

"Or maybe he got spooked when he heard the daughter get home and left in a hurry," Kate says moving over to the window in the bedroom. She opens it easily and takes note of the fire escape. "Have CSU dust the windowsill for prints."

Castle winces as he looks down at the bodies. "Yeah I think I'm going to be sick."

He leaves Kate, Lanie, and two CSU techs taking photographs in the bedroom.

"The only reason I'm mostly unphased by this is because I cut up bodies every day," Lanie starts. "What's your excuse?"

Kate shrugs, taking another look at the bodies. "I don't know."

Esposito pops his head into the room. "Yo Beckett, want to come talk to the daughter? She might respond better to someone who umm…"

"Lost a parent to murder?" Kate asks with sad smile.

He nods and backs out of the room.

"Let me know when you know more, Lanie," she tells her as she moves back into the living room to find the daughter.

The girl is sitting on the couch now, the same blank expression she had on her face in the hallway. Kate takes a deep breath and walks over to her.

"Hi, Addison, is it?"

She nods in response but doesn't say anything. Kate sits down on the loveseat across from her.

"I'm Detective Kate Beckett."

Still nothing.

"Look, I know how hard this is for you," she starts.

"How would you know?" Addison spits, finally looking up to glare at her.

Her blue eyes are piercing and Kate swears she's seen them on someone before.

"Because my mother was murdered when I was 19."

She softens at that, her anger dissipating. "I – I'm sorry."

"No, I'm sorry. I can't imagine losing both of them at once or being the one to find her body."

"How do you get over something like this?" Addison asks, her eyes locking onto Kate's.

She shakes her head. "You don't. But one day you'll wake up and realize that it's become a part of who you are and that's okay. That it's a burden you don't necessarily mind taking around with you."

"I don't feel like that's ever going to be possible."

"I didn't either at first. I didn't want to go to her funeral because I thought going would make her death real. And then I spent a year feeling sorry for myself and completely wasting my life until I got a wakeup call. Everyone is going to be telling you that it gets easier and you're going to want to laugh in their face or maybe even punch them in the face. But it does get easier. It takes a while, and it hurts like hell, and there are days that are worse than others, but I promise you it does get better."

She nods, wiping away a stray tear from her cheek. "Thanks."

"Do you have any other family that you can stay with?"

"No," she sniffs. "Both of my parents were only children and my grandparents are all dead. Do you think you could like run my DNA through the system and see if I have any long lost relatives or something? I really don't want to go into the foster system."

"I umm, I'll see what I can do. Hang on."

Kate moves over to where Ryan and Esposito are huddled together by the front door.

"You get anything from her?" Esposito asks as she approaches.

"I think she watches too many crime shows. She wants us to run her DNA to see if she has any living relatives."

"Can we even do that?" Ryan asks.

Kate shrugs. "It's not like CODIS has the entire population in it. Just open cases, criminals, and federal employees. Our chances of us finding a hit for her are slim."

"But let me guess," Esposito starts. "You still want to give it a shot."

"Maybe we'll luck out and she'll have like a second cousin or something who works for the government."

"Yeah or maybe a convicted rapist," Ryan mumbles.

"Just have someone take a cheek swab, will you? She could really use some family right now, even if it's family she didn't know existed."

"Beckett –" Ryan starts.

"This isn't about me, okay? I'm fine. Now where did Castle go?"

They both point to the front door and she sighs and heads after him. She finds him sitting in the hallway where Addison had been earlier. She slides down the wall next to him, waiting for him to speak first.

"I couldn't do it, Kate," he says softly. "I've never seen a murder so gruesome, so vicious, before. At least not outside of movies."

She takes his hand, slipping her fingers in between his and squeezes.

"And that poor girl," he whispers.

"Why don't you go home?" Kate suggests, rubbing her thumb over the back of his hand. "I'll meet up with you later. We can have a late dinner."

"No," he says forcefully, shaking his head. "I'm your partner. I'm not going to let you go through this alone."

She gives him a soft smile. "I'm not alone, babe. And I'm fine, I can handle it."

He raises his eyebrows at her. "Teenage girl with murdered parents?"

"As I just finished telling Ryan and Esposito, this isn't about me. Really, I'm fine. Now go home and finish finalizing the guest list."

She places a kiss to his temple before she stands up and offers him her hands. He takes them and pulls himself off the floor.

"You don't always have to be the brave the one, you know," Castle tells her.

She nods. "I know."

He sighs, rubbing at her upper back. "Call me if you're going to be late."

She nods again. "I will."

Kate watches him leave before she turns around and heads back into the apartment. She really needs to solve this case.

She stares intently at her murder board, a jumbled mess of arrows and pictures. They've chased down lead after lead and have gotten nowhere. The phrase "random targets" sticks in her head. How many times has she been told that her mother was just in the wrong place at the wrong time? Hasn't she proved by now that wasn't the case? Kate shakes her head, reminding herself this isn't about her. She's said it to the boys so much by now, she thought she'd start to believe it herself. She still doesn't.

What she needs is this bastard to strike again. She would never wish that type of murder on anyone else, but he's got the M.O. of a serial killer. He's meticulous, careful, leaving practically no evidence behind. They have nothing to go off of. She needs him to strike again, to screw up.

"Hey, Kate, can I talk to you for a second?"

She spins around, finds Lanie standing in the bullpen.

"Sure," Kate says, trying to shake the fog out of her head. "Did you find something we can use? You could have just called, you know."

"I thought it would be better if I told you this in person." She wrings her hands nervously, never exactly making eye contact with her.

Kate feels her heartbeat speed up. "That bad, huh?"

Lanie leads her into the break room. "It's about that DNA you had me run, from the daughter."

"Did you find a match?"

She feels like she knows the answer before Lanie even tells her. Of course she didn't find a match. The CODIS database isn't all inclusive. But the way she's acting so nervous about it, maybe she did find a match. Maybe Ryan was right and the guy is a convicted rapist.

Lanie nods, chewing on the inside of her cheek. "Yeah, I did."

She pauses looking Kate directly in the eyes for the first time since she got here.

"And?" Kate presses.

"You," Lanie says softly. "The profile was a match to you."

Kate scrunches her eyebrows together in confusion. "Me?"

How is that possible? Who could that girl be related to? Unless…

"Kate, your profiles are so similar, you could be her mother."

She feels the color drain from her face. She can't breathe. This isn't happening. There's no way.

"Kate?"

She shakes her head. "No, no. It can't be. You must have made a mistake. No."

"I thought so too, but I had the CODIS administrator run it twice."

Kate sinks down into a chair, burying her face in her hands. She feels the sting of tears pricking her eyes. Lanie moves over to her and starts rubbing her back.

"I got pregnant when I was 19, after my mom died," she explains, her head still buried in her hands. "I gave her up for adoption."

"Oh Kate," Lanie breathes, keeping her hand on her friend's back.

"Castle doesn't even know. My dad is the only person still in my life who does." She lifts her head looking over at her. "I never thought I'd see her again."

Lanie moves her hand down and squeezes her arm. "Well, looks like you found each other again."