Disclaimer: The only part of Castle that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

Kate Beckett and Rick Castle are still in bed. Still in bed at 10:45 in the morning, and actually still. They've spent a lot of time—an enormous, unheard of, spectacular amount of time—in bed for the last week. More often in his, but today they're in hers. Martha and Alexis are on vacation in Europe and Beckett is on suspension, which leaves her and her partner, her one-hundred-percent-in-every-way partner, free to do whatever they want. "Whatever" has involved a lot of sex, a lot of what Castle insists on calling canoodling, and a lot of talking. The first two whatevers have been perfect; so has the third, most of the time. There have been a couple of little flare-ups, but they've been easily put out with extraordinarily satisfying, invariably imaginative sex.

But this morning is different. Just a minute or two before, he had made coffee and brought it to bed. She had idly wondered what had taken him so long, and why there had been some noise coming from her living room, but had written it off to his insatiable curiosity. Maybe a book had caught his eye, one he had missed on earlier forays, and he wanted to grill her on it. But no. Not that. Not that at all.

"Beckett," he had said, passing her a mug. "We have to talk about something." He had looked serious, uncharacteristically serious, as he had climbed onto his side of the bed and propped himself up against the headboard.

Her antennae had begun quivering. "Of course," she had said.

"The sun's coming in through the shutters in your living room." He had stopped, and briefly closed his eyes. "It made me think."

Uh-oh. Antennae quivering had escalated, but she had tried to sound casual, tried to produce a goofy smile. "Think, Castle? So early in the day?"

He had checked his phone on the nightstand and frowned slightly. "It's getting on for eleven. Not early." He had cleared his throat. "With your shutters backlit like that, I could see the outline of some of your notes on your mother's case. Why don't you take it all down? I know you've looked at it, at least glanced at it, a couple of times in the last few days. I've seen you. Why do you torment yourself? You need to take it down."

She snaps to, and pushes herself up on her elbows. The air has completely changed. "What? Take it down?"

"You weren't going to work on this now, you said. You promised. You know, after Bracken. After you had your 'talk' "—he makes quotation marks in the air with his fingers—"with him last week."

She sits up straight, her spine all but locked in place, and glares at him. "My 'talk'?" She mimics his air quotes. "You mean when I pistol-whipped him?"

"Yeah. That."

"Castle, just because I've put this case on hold doesn't mean I'm putting it away."

"Why not?" Two one-syllable words, shot through with anger. "Why don't you literally put it away? It's not as if you haven't committed everything behind those shutters to memory. You did that ages ago. Let it go. You don't need the constant reminder, Kate."

She's seething now. "The constant reminder? I don't need any kind of reminder, Castle. My mother's murder is a part of me. There's not a single detail that I've forgotten, or that I can forget. Not the leads that fizzled out years ago, not the taste of dust in the archives, not the smell of Coonan's blood on my hands or Raglan's on yours. Nothing." She whips her head away. "Nothing."

"Then what's the point?" Castle's jaw is tight as he points to the open door to the living room. "Why does that have to be part of, part of—" He looks almost wild as he sweeps his arm around the bedroom. "Part of all this."

"Jesus, Castle, you're acting as if it's—as if this is decoration. Like it's a poster from a museum."

"Well, isn't that what it is?" he snaps. "Your own little museum?"

The blood vanishes from Beckett's face, leaving her as pale as her mother's ghost. She looks expressionlessly at him, turns to thrust her legs over the side of the bed, and stands up. She's not having this discussion while she's naked; maybe she's not having it at all. Her hands tremble as she grabs a tee shirt and shorts from the chair, and walks out of the room with what dignity she can summon, dressing as she goes. Grateful to find a pair of running shoes by the front door, she scoops them up, along with her keys, and leaves. She races down the hall, pushes open the door to the stairway and holds on to the bannister with one hand as she shoves her feet into the sneakers. The hell with the laces. She'll take care of them when she's out. She has to get out. Out. Anywhere. Out.

When she reaches the street, she turns the corner, ties her shoes and takes off. She doesn't stretch or plot a route or take the measure of her surroundings, all of which are routine for her. She just runs. Runs and runs and runs until pain almost cleaves her. On an oddly desolate stretch of riverfront, she bends over a railing and vomits into the water. And then she drops to her knees on the stained concrete, and sobs. She cries until there is nothing left, especially hope. Hope and trust, two things so long absent from her life that Castle had brought back to her like a gift. And then, just moments ago—or hours, she has lost sense of time—in some perverse, sickening scene, he took them back. No warning. Just tore them away from her. "Your own little museum."

She gets to her feet, with no notion of what to do other than to get rid of the appalling taste in her mouth, the physical one and the metaphorical one. She had told Castle that she could still taste the dust of the archives where the few official bits of her mother's case were stored. This taste is dry and bitter, but worse. It tastes like the end of love. She realizes suddenly that she has no phone and no money. She hasn't the strength, either physical or emotional, to go anywhere, so she waits. When she sees a young woman running towards her, she begins to wave a hand tentatively. The woman slows down, then stops.

"Are you all right? You don't look well. Can I help?"

"Your phone," Beckett says, timidly. "Could I use it for a minute? To call a friend. I'm going to ask her to come get me."

The other woman reaches into her pocket, extracts her phone, and offers it to Beckett.

"Thanks," she says, and punches in a number. The call goes to voice mail. "Lanie, please. Please. Pick up. It's Kate. Please call back. This number. Someone—" she looks a question at the runner.

"Liz. Liz Bennett."

"Liz Bennett lent me her phone. I'm at. I'm. Wait." Beckett looks again at Liz. "Where are we?"

"Near the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Gold Street."

Beckett speaks into the phone again. "I'm near the Brooklyn Navy Yard, on Gold Street. Please can you come get me?" She presses the end call button and returns the phone.

"Are you sure you're all right?" Liz asks uncertainly. "Do you need a doctor?"

Beckett manages a suggestion of a smile. "I just called one." She waits a few beats. "She's a pathologist. Perfect, right? For someone who's as good as dead. Sorry, I'm sorry."

"Um, Kate. Kate, right?"

Beckett nods.

"I'm going to stay here. We'll wait for your friend to call back. If she doesn't do it in the next ten minutes, I'll take you to an urgent care or something, okay? Or home? I could take you home. Do you live near here?"

Beckett looks around. "No. But we're in Brooklyn? I ran to Brooklyn?"

Liz takes Beckett's elbow and points to an empty bench. "Let's sit over here. Did you hit your head?"

"No. No. Not my head. It's—um. No."

The phone rings and Liz answers immediately. "Liz Bennett."

"Ms. Bennett, this is Lanie Parish. Doctor Parish. Excuse me, but did Kate Beckett just use your phone to call me?"

"Yes. I was running by her and she stopped me. Kate. Kate's here. I'll put her on." She holds the phone out to Beckett, who takes it shakily.

"Lanie?"

"Kate, what the hell? What happened? Castle called me. He's frantic. Are you hurt?"

"Not really."

"I don't even want to know what that means. I'm on my way. Stay there, please. Let me talk to Liz, okay?"

"Okay." She starts to hand over the phone, but pulls it sharply back. "Lanie? Castle called you? Don't let him come. Just you. You come. Promise me. Just you."

"I promise. Now please, let me talk to Liz."

This time Beckett completes the handover. "Hello?"

"Liz, thank you very much for your help. Can you tell me exactly how to find you?"

"We're near a coffee shop on the corner of Gold and Marshall. We can wait for you there."

"Good, fine. I'll be there in ten minutes, fifteen, tops. And can you tell me, just yes or no, if Kate is physically all right?"

Liz shifts uneasily. "Uh."

"Okay, can she stand on her own?"

"Yes."

"Is she bleeding?"

"No."

"Can she walk? Will she be able to walk to the coffee shop with you?"

"Yes."

"Okay, thank you. And listen, Liz? You're fine with her, all right? Kate's a detective. A homicide detective. NYPD."

Liz can't help but gawp. "Seriously?"

"Yes. I'm getting in my car right now. Thank you."

"Okay. No problem." Liz pockets her phone, and turns to the wraith she can hardly believe is a cop. "Kate? Your friend Lanie is going to meet us at a coffee shop just a few minutes from here, all right?"

Beckett looks ruefully at her. "All right. Thank you. But really, you should go. I'm fine, really. I so appreciate your help but I'll be fine there on my own. I've already taken too much of you. Of your time. You were on a run. Me, too."

TBC