They finally switch drivers when Castle looks as if he's about to pass out against the steering wheel a few minutes after they abandon the cabin. Beckett speeds through the last thirty miles, following the map still glowing on the screen of Castle's phone, letting him drift in and out of sleep for the final stretch of their journey. But he's wide-awake once she's turning off the highway, down a series of desolate streets, one constructed of loose gravel and dirt that billows and clings to the edges of her Crown Vic.

"There," he murmurs, pointing for her to drive through a thin shroud of brush, and wow, this place is way more secluded than the cabin. They're practically in the middle of the forest and she's weaving through trees at his instruction. "Okay, here should be good."

He glances behind them, the stretch of road they'd driven down out of sight, but she can sense his anxiety intensifying as she puts the car in park; there's nothing here, no safe haven that he'd spoken of, and no signs of life.

"Castle, are you sure this is the place?" she asks, but Rick is already unlocking the door, stepping out of the car, and Beckett huffs, withdraws her gun.

"Dad-"

"Stay in the car, I know," Jim sighs, withdrawing his own weapon from the seat beside him, propping the pistol in his lap. "But I'll be right here if anything goes wrong, Katie. And if you aren't back within ten minutes-"

"Got it, thank you," she breathes, rushing out of her cruiser before Rick can wander too far without backup.

"Castle," she hisses, sprinting deeper into the woods after him, her eyes trained on the broad wall of his back, the width of his shoulders as they slow to a stop. "Rick-"

He's stilled in a small clearing, scraping a hand through his hair, squeezing his eyes shut once Kate reaches his side.

"They're not here," he rasps, his jaw a sharp line in its effort not to tremble, slicing right through her heart.

"That doesn't mean they aren't coming," she presses, stepping around to stand in front of him, gripping his biceps until his sorrowful eyes slit open to see her. "It hasn't even been a full 24 hours since all of this started. They could still be here at any minute, they could still-"

The crackle of dried grass, dead leaves crunching beneath the soles of shoes, has her mouth snapping shut, her gun rising, Castle's position echoed at her back.

"Dad?"

Both of their weapons slowly descend as the soft voice carries through the wind, the accompanying flames of red hair drifting into sight as Alexis comes into view through the trees, Esposito and Ryan at her back, the three of them a haggard looking trio.

"Alexis," Castle gasps, racing forward to sweep his daughter into an embrace, but Alexis grunts and winces when his arms come around her.

"Ow, Dad, I'm glad to see you too, but-"

"Sorry, sorry," Castle chuckles, gingerly releasing his daughter, blinking furiously to hold back tears that were inevitable either way.

Beckett is just infinitely grateful that they're tears of joy.

"Kate," he murmurs, seeming to realize that she's standing back, away from them, but she doesn't want to intrude on their moment of reunion.

But it's Alexis who lifts the shimmering ice of her eyes to Beckett, pins her with a nearly identical look to the one they'd shared at the bank. A silent thank you.

She isn't sure how to tell his daughter that she has absolutely nothing to be thankful for, not where Beckett is concerned, but before she can even begin to conjure up the words, her eyes are squinting, studying the apparent injury marring Alexis's typically untouched skin.

"Alexis, are you okay?" Kate inquires once his daughter is no longer engulfed in his arms, the afternoon light shining through the trees to flicker across the bruise on her forehead, the ragged wear to her clothing, as if she was in an accident. When her gaze swings towards them, she notices the boys' attire matches. "Guys?"

"It's a long story," Esposito sighs, rubbing at the back of his neck, Ryan practically a mirror image of weariness. "We're just glad we actually made it here in one piece."

"When the city gets blown up and the dead take over, evacuating unscathed is kind of impossible," Ryan mutters, rolling his right shoulder with a wince. "We had a slight accident on the way over, had to do a lot of walking."

"An accident?" Castle echoes, panicked eyes flying to his daughter, but Alexis touches her father's arm, offers him a reassuring squeeze of her hand. "Wait, how – Alexis, I called you yesterday, before we spoke to the boys."

Alexis sighs and combs a hand through her snarled red hair. "I know, but Gram wouldn't come with me, her acting school, and I – I didn't want to leave myself. I'm sorry dad, but then – then I realized why you wanted us to go. At that point, it was impossible to get out and I couldn't find Gram and I still don't know-"

Alexis chokes on her words and turns away even as Castle winds an arm around her shoulders, reels her into a gentle embrace.

"We found Little Castle outside the Twelfth while we were trying to get out," Esposito picks up where Alexis left off. "She thought you guys might still be there. So, we decided to just hit the road to your beach house right there."

"Lanie?" Beckett chimes in, inching closer to Castle and his daughter, but when Esposito swallows, directs his gaze to the forest floor, Rick shifts towards her, his side pressing against hers and keeping her upright.

"She was out of town, visiting her parents, I couldn't – I don't know," Esposito whispers, pushing a knuckle to one of his eye sockets. "I tried to contact her, left her messages. She's smart, hopefully…"

"She's smart," Kate echoes, but her heart is thick with the 'what if's, both the best and worst possible outcomes for her best friend.

"And Jenny?" Rick asks quietly, his gaze worrisome as it lands on Ryan.

"I called her the second you told us and I told her we had to go, we had to, but Jenny – she's so close to her family. She promised she'd meet us here after she met up with her family in Vermont," Ryan explains, his voice so strained, trying to be hopeful. "She promised."

"She'll be here, Ryan," Alexis rasps, lifting her head from Castle's chest, sharing a watery smile with the detective, and Kate purses her lips, hides the doubt in her eyes with the fall of her lashes.

This immediate family. That's all she had left, all any of them had left.

"I'm going to grab my dad, let him know everything's okay," Kate murmurs, but Castle snags her hand, stays her while he presses a kiss to the top of Alexis's head.

"I'll come with you, get our stuff and cover up the car," he insists, releasing his daughter. "Alexis, you remember how to get in?"

Alexis nods and blinks away the residual moisture in her eyes, plasters on a cracking smile for the boys and leads them towards the elusive entryway to Castle's bunker. Beckett watches his daughter, following some sort of path that only Rick and Alexis seem to be aware of, stopping in the middle of a distinct cluster of trees and clearing away dirt, leaves, and tree branches from a seemingly random incline in the ground. Like the entrance to a storm cellar.

Alexis descends to her haunches, crouching forward until her hands are curling around a hatch in the forest floor, shoving it open.

"The entry is a bit tight, but pretty cool, huh?" Castle mumbles from her side.

"Hard to find," Beckett nods, accepting the embrace of his fingers when they slide between hers, appreciating the newfound comfort in them.

"Exactly. We'll be safe here, I promise, Kate."

She glances up to him, watching her so solemnly, the promise in his words reflected in his eyes, and Kate raises her free hand to his cheek, touches two fingers to his jaw as she kisses him, slow but urgent, grateful. Castle releases a breath against her mouth, exhausted and shaken, but alive and… happy.

They've potentially lost two of their friends, he may have lost his mother (though, he seems to be doing his best not to acknowledge that possibility), and at some point, there will be grief. Debilitating sorrow that will rip them to pieces just as easily as the corpses she had seen on the streets of the city yesterday can rip into flesh. Their world is changed, altered in a horrific way, and she doesn't think any of them have truly accepted that, despite what they've all seen within these last 24 hours.

Regardless of it all, she has him. And she can make him happy. It's more than she had yesterday when the world and its humanity was still fully intact.

"I'll keep you safe," Castle adds, a whisper of his lips over hers, and Kate slips her hand free of his, uses the opportunity to wrap her arms around his neck, to graze her palm over the spot that must still throb with pain at the back of his skull, and hold on for just a moment.

His heart beats unsteady and hard against hers, but so long as it beats.

"We'll keep each other safe," she amends softly, brushing her lips to the bone of his cheek before stepping out of his embrace, extending her empty fingers for his to claim. "Partners, Rick. Always partners."