Disclaimer: Castle and all of its characters belong to Andrew W. Marlowe, Terri Edda Miller, and ABC Studio Productions. "You Don't Know Her Like I Do" belongs to Brantley Gilbert.

"You don't know her like I do, you'll never understand.

You don't know what we've been through,

That girl's my best friend.

There's no way you're gonna help me,

She's the only one who can.

No, you don't know how much I've got to lose,

You don't know her like I do."

~"You Don't Know Her Like I DO"; Brantley Gilbert

The silence in the bullpen was deafening, the only audible sounds that of the pipes clinking and the clock ticking as the seconds melted by. Ryan had been sitting on the edge of his desk and staring at Esposito and Beckett's empty chairs for much longer than he would have liked to admit. It was hard to believe that they had both been gone for three days already.

He hadn't meant for them to get suspended and he sure as hell hadn't wanted Beckett to resign. He just wanted to protect Kate. She had been one of his best friends so long that he considered her more of a sister than a friend and he couldn't just sit there and let her get herself killed.

He dropped his head into his hands solemnly and took a deep, shuddering breath. This wasn't right. They should all be at The Old Haunt, laughing and joking over beers. He shouldn't be sitting there, staring at the murder board and pondering over where he had gone wrong.

"Trouble sleeping, Detective?" The voice that sliced through silence startled him and he hopped off his desk, his hand reaching for his sidearm instinctively.

"Captain Gates...what are you doing here?" He asked quietly, disbelief dripping from his words.

"I thought that I might find you here. Have you even been home yet?" She questioned, crossing the bullpen and draping her coat over the back of his chair and leaning on Esposito's desk.

"Not yet. I have been trying to figure this out." He gestured to the board, where he'd spread out the photos from the Johanna Beckett murder file. A pair of young, scared eyes stared back at him from a black and white newspaper clipping on the board. The photo of a young Kate Beckett hiding behind her father's leg as he spoke with a uniformed officer always struck a cord in him. "I don't know if I didn't the right thing, sir." He whispered.

"Of course you did, Ryan. You knew that they weren't doing the right thing and you told me. You followed protocol." She replied, staring at him as though he had two heads.

"That's not what I meant. Esposito is my partner. Kate is one of my best friends. And I betrayed both of them." He snapped, no longer caring that he was talking to his Captain. "Sometimes it's not all about protocol. There is a code among partners, in case you've forgotten."

"You are the reason that Katherine Beckett is still breathing. If you hadn't told me, and we hadn't gone to find them, she would have fallen off of that building."

"I got my partner put on administrative leave, and Kate resigned. I can't think of a universe where that is me doing the right thing." He scoffed.

"I'm obviously not going to change your mind about this, Detective Ryan." She sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger.

"You don't know Beckett like I do, sir. She is the most headstrong, frustrating, brilliant, driven, amazing woman that I have ever met. I've seen her at her lowest, and I've seen her walking on cloud nine. When I first transferred to homicide, she had fallen down the rabbit hole that her mother's murder case created, and I helped pull her out." He stood, pacing the floor and gesturing angrily with his hands as he spoke. "We've been partners for longer than you can imagine, and she isn't just 'someone I work with'. She's family. And family means more than some God damned protocol ever will. I let my family down."

"Don't you try to tell me that I don't understand the way a partnership works, Detective. I worked as a detective for longer than you've been alive, I know what the bond is like. My partner took a bullet to the chest for me two years before I was promoted to Captain. We were at a crime scene and got caught in the crossfire of a gang fight and he threw me behind a dumpster. The bullet hit his throat and he bled out in seconds. So do not try to pull that with me." She snarled, snatching her coat off the back of the chair and storming toward the elevator. "You need to go make up with them, Detective Ryan. Why don't you take a couple of days and get your affairs in order." She snapped, stepping into the elevator.

"But-."

"No arguements. I don't want to see your face until next week." He stared after her as the elevator doors closed, his mouth hanging agape.

Ryan heaved a sigh and slung his suit jacket onto his shoulders, heading towards the door. Gates was right. He needed to apologize.

He arrived outside Beckett's apartment a few minutes later. Ryan ran his hand through his hair, which was damp from the sprinkling of summer rain that had begun to fall outside.

He had thought of a thousand different ways to tell her that he was sorry, but none of them seemed right. None of them seemed like they were enough, they weren't a good enough way to apologize for completely ruining her life.

He hovered at the door briefly before knocking. He chuckled when he heard a muffled curse and something falling to the floor. A disheveled Kate opened the door, holding the pinky toe on her left foot.

"Ryan? Hey. Please, come in." She muttered, sounding out of breath. He quirked an eyebrow curiously at her.

"Is this a bad time?"

"No, no I just..." She paused when an equally disheveled Castle shuffled out of the hallway in the direction of her bedroom, buttoning his shirt hastily.

"Kate that was...oh...Ryan...hey..." He muttered, flushing a bright red when he saw Ryan standing in the open door way. "I was just...leaving..." He stammered, dropping a nervous kiss to Kate's cheek and scurrying out the door. He stopped, however, when he got to Ryan. He pulled the younger man into a tight hug and muttered quietly in his ear. "Thank you, Kevin. For saving her when I couldn't."

"Every time, bro." Castle nodded and left them standing there awkwardly. Ryan moved into the apartment, shutting the door behind him, and smirked at Kate. "It's about time you two came to your senses." He chuckled, watching her settle onto the couch and following suit. The awkwardness of the situation finally settled over the pair of them.

"So, what are you doing here, Kevin?" She finally whispered, toying with the fraying edges of the throw blanket on the couch. Ryan wrung his hands together nervously before answering.

"I need to apologize." He held up his hand when she opened her mouth to protest. "I screwed up, and I'm sorry. I couldn't let you run yourself into the ground, and potentially kill yourself. Just because I'm saying sorry doesn't mean that I would change anything. You're my best friend, Kate. Sure, I adore Esposito, he's my partner, and I consider him to be one of my closest friends. But he's not you. We've been together through all of it, and I'm not going to let this ruin that. Gates was talking to me tonight, and she made me realize that I did do the right thing by protocol's standards, but I may not have done the smartest thing for you. For my family." Kate stared at him, her jaw hanging slightly agape.

"I...Ryan, that's the nicest thing that anyone has ever said to me..." She stammered, staring at him in disbelief.

"Yeah, well...I've got a lot to lose here. Like I said, you're my best friend and I've been through hell and back with you. Seeing you hanging on that ledge...I thought that my heart was going to stop. I never want to have to worry about you dying like that again. I've had to worry about it a hundred different ways before; shooting. Kidnapping. Torture. I've thought about all of those. But I never imagined having to watch you fall off a building when I could have done something to prevent it."

A silence stretched for so long between them, and Ryan almost thought that she was rethinking having him there, but she shocked him when her arms wrapped around his neck in a tight hug. When his brain caught up with the situation, he wrapped his own arms around her waist and buried his nose in her hair, sighing in relief.

"I love you, Kevin Ryan. You're like the brother that I never had, and I don't know what I would do without you. Jenny is very lucky to have found such an amazing man." He could hear the unshed tears choking her voice.

"I don't know, Castle's pretty lucky too." He replied as they pulled apart, grins on both of their faces. "You are an a amazing woman and he knows that." He pushed himself off of the couch and headed towards the door. Kate chuckled and followed him. "But, he still better watch himself." Ryan cautioned, playful seriousness sparkling in his crystal blue eyes.

"He knows that I would kill him if he hurt me, Ryan. Come on, now." She chuckled, resting her hand on his shoulder and he stepped out into the hallway once again.

"Kate, you know that's not true. He may think you'd kill him, but we both know better than that. He doesn't know you like I do." He smiled fondly, turning and walking towards the stairs back down to the parking garage. He paused at the top of the stairs and turned back to her. "Besides, Esposito and I would kill him before you even had the chance." Kate barked out a laugh and shook her head.

"Thank you, Kevin." She chuckled. He smirked and nodded his reply.

"Hey, what are brothers for?"

Thoughts? Drop me a review and let me konw what you think.

Much love,

J. Rook