Yeah, I thought this was done too. I lied... but after a cliffhanger like that how could I not write? (yeah, so 6x03 spoilers... maybe 6x04?)

I don't own, because I was blindsided by that ending.

All the air left Kate's body. Visceral, overwhelming shock enveloped her body. This had to be a joke. It had to be. She had been fired?

"I shouldn't even be telling you this," McCord stated. "I don't know why they gave me a heads up. All I know is that they're going to drag you over hot coals in your review tomorrow. You're going to have to come up with something amazing if you've got a hope of keeping your job." She paused, looking into both of their stunned faces. "I just thought you should know," she finished lamely.

Castle looked at his fiancé. He'd never seen her so pale before. "Thanks, Rachel," he murmured. He knew Kate's by-the-book partner was taking a huge risk in coming to spill the beans and he was grateful Kate wouldn't be blindsided.

Rachel nodded and shrugged. They had a strange sort of understanding: the partners of the formidable Kate Beckett. "I'll see myself out."

The door shut with a snick. Castle turned to face Kate.

"So, I guess we don't need that apartment anymore," Kate mused, her voice monotone. She didn't even realise that she'd started shaking. She looked up at Castle. "I don't regret it," she sighed. "I did the right thing." She paused, finally making eye contact with Castle. "I did the right thing, didn't I?"

"You absolutely did the right thing," he reassured her. "You wouldn't be the Kate Beckett I love if you didn't." He stepped toward her.

"Please don't hug me," she requested quickly, her hands thrown up as if to fend off an attack. She saw the hurt look on his face. "If you hug me, I'm going to lose it and I don't think I'm ready to lose it yet," she warned him.

She was trying so very desperately to keep it all together. He knew that she needed to fall apart, but he also knew she needed to have control over when that happened. "Okay," he agreed, pulling out his phone.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"I'm booking a ticket on the 8am flight to DC," he replied. "Did you really think I was going to let you go back to the wolves alone?" He asked.

"You just don't want to be here when the whole motley crew comes back from their yoga retreat," she accused him, the teasing bite noticeably absent from her tone. She scraped a hand through her hair. "I need to be alone for a little while," she told him. "I'm going to go take a bath."

"Do you want a glass of wine?" Castle asked her.

She wrinkled her nose and shook her head, brushing a kiss on his cheek as she walked past.

Kate slipped into bed hours later, her skin prune-y, smelling strongly of her favourite bath salts. She curled into Castle's side, her head burrowed against his neck. Kate sighed and breathed deeply, the smell of his warm skin comforting. "What happens next?" she whispered.

"We go pack up your things and you come back. Or we stay there if that's what you want. We'll figure it out, Kate."

"I don't know who I am anymore," she admitted.

"You're not the job, Kate. You are so much more than that. You always were. Now you have the chance to redefine yourself as whatever you want to be."

His fingers traced up and down her bare arm, eliciting a shiver. His touch and gentle words were a balm on her aching heart and she gave in to the whirling storm of emotions. "I got fired, Castle," she sighed, words hitching around the lump in her throat. The weight of the world on her shoulders was simply too much. The gentle brush of his lips on her forehead was the straw that broke the camel's back; she succumbed to the tears that had been threatening to fall since the moment McCord broke the news. The abject feeling of failure was all consuming and she let herself weep away the pain, her tears soaking the fabric of her fiancée's shirt.

His words of comfort were a tender hum in her ear, a tiny reminder that she wasn't alone in her ocean of pain. She slowly calmed down to stuttering hiccups, her eyes sore and puffy.

"Just sleep, Kate," Castle breathed in her ear. "We can figure this out, I promise. Just sleep first."

He was her calm in the storm. Her warm, familiar presence in the midst of chaos. In the darkness of his bedroom, she trusted him to keep her upright, allowing herself the vulnerability to fall into a fitful sleep.

By the time he woke up the next morning, her armour was back on. The vulnerability of the night before had dissipated, the tough face of Kate Beckett, justice crusader firmly applied.

The immaculately presented façade wavered for just a second when he presented her a latte, signature foam heart atop the caffeine jolt he knew she desperately needed. She gave him the same broken look that had shattered him for years, accepting the cup without a word.

He knew slipping his arm around her shoulder as they waited to check into their flight was strictly verboten and that he'd probably have his arm snapped off for his efforts. He conceded that, but he couldn't stop himself from resting his hand on the small of her back as they waited in the queue.

She didn't want to leave his side. He'd already given up so much so that she could chase her futile dream, surely she could be selfish and keep her partner with her through the upcoming ordeals.

He was on her wavelength, as usual. Wordlessly, he stepped over to McCord and plucked the boarding pass from her hand, passing her his business class ticket in exchange. McCord only nodded.

Castle sat quietly in his seat on the plane, all too aware that complaining about the fact that his knees were jammed up somewhere near his armpits wasn't exactly what Kate needed to hear. She buckled herself in, her stoic silence speaking volumes. When she reached out to take his hand, the presence of her engagement ring on her finger put a smile on his face.

Kate had endured her fair share of chewing outs over the years, but this one was of epic proportions. She sat, straight backed as vitriol was thrown her way, accusations of threatening national security and going rogue for her own misguided sense of glory thrown at her like barbs. Her sleeves were rolled, top button undone in her own tiny sense of rebellion.

"Do you have anything to say for yourself?"

Kate stared down the Attorney-General's lackey, ice in her glare. "I would do it again in a heartbeat," she announced.

That was it. The final tie was severed. She stood and walked out of the room, walking to her desk. She stood tall, unashamed in the face of the staring. She neatly stacked her belongings into a box, the piercing stare of her former partner heavy on her back.

For the first time, Kate was actually grateful she hadn't bothered to unpack properly. It only made it easier for her return home.

"Maybe we can just stay here," Castle suggested.

"If you don't want the weird fruitarian kid in your loft, tell him so. You own the place, remember?" Kate reminded him, linking hands with him and pulling him off the couch. A strange lightness had replaced all of that morning's unease. She just wanted to go home.

"And have Alexis more determined to run away forever into the sunset with him?"

"I'll tell him then," Kate suggested.

"Did you just invite yourself to live with me?" Castle asked.

Kate stuck out her tongue. "Well, I am about to become homeless. I guess I could hock this pretty, pretty ring for a nicer square of pavement in Alphabet City." She wiggled her fingers playfully.

Castle grabbed her by the waist, blowing a raspberry into her neck. "Don't you dare," He growled against her skin, fingers tickling against her ribcage.

A knock at the door punctuated Kate's shrill giggles. She pressed her lips against Castle's in a loud, smacking kiss before dashing over to the door.

She swung the door open and instantly felt like a bucket of ice water had been poured all over her. "Rachel," she gasped. Her unease lightened when she saw Tim next to her. "Hi," she greeted them, a frown on her face as she felt that familiar spark of awkwardness that always marked her social interactions with Rachel. "Come in."

"We figured you'd be packing and that you might want dinner," Tim explained as he rolled through the frame. "But then I realised that I have no idea what takeout you guys like and I figured that Castle might want to check out my pimped out mobility ride and we could discuss manly things like beer and cigars. Takeout is on me," he offered. He was clearly just as metrosexual as Castle and was trying to drag her fiancée out of the house so that Kate could have a moment with Rachel.

It worked. "I love being manly," Castle agreed, checking his pocket for his wallet as he strode toward the front door, gesturing for Tim to roll out before he pulled the heavy oak door shut behind him.

Kate shot Rachel a closed mouth smile and shrugged.

"Kate, I'm sorry," Rachel implored.

"Don't be," Kate interjected, holding up a hand to stop what was probably going to be a long apology. "I'm not. I'm relieved."

"Relieved?" Rachel echoed.

"This job was never the right fit for me," Kate admitted. "Letting people escape justice for the sake of the bigger picture? I can't do that. I don't know why I pretended I could. Takes a different kind of strength than I have. I don't know how you survive it."

"I'm far less content with not seeing the whole picture than you might imagine. I'd love to ride in on my white horse and shut down the bad guy. But I can't."

"Why not?" Kate asked. Rachel McCord was a phenomenal agent, but Kate couldn't understand how she had managed to lock away her humanity so tightly.

"Tim," Rachel replied, her voice soft.

Kate closed her eyes. She remembered the story of the mysterious car accident that robbed Tim of the ability to walk all too clearly.

"I nearly lost it all once before and I can't bear that again. So I grit my teeth, let scum like Michael Reed get away with their indiscretions against the people they're supposed to be serving, not for national security but because I don't want to be without him."

Kate knew what it was to expose something so vulnerable. She deftly changed the subject. "Being fired was for the best. I never would have quit on my own. I stick things through, so I would have stayed miserable, slowly letting the job eat me alive."

Rachel pondered her words. "What are you going to do now?" She asked.

Kate shrugged. "I have no idea," she replied. "I joined the police academy when I was barely legal." Yes, she decided. It was time to share the story. "My mom was murdered when I was nineteen," she explained. Rachel's eyes softened into the usual mask of sympathy people wore when they heard the news. "It was never solved and was eventually attributed to gang violence."

"So you decided to solve it," Rachel surmised.

"You got it," Kate replied.

"Did you catch him?"

Kate bit her lip. She could not make accusations to a government employee about Senator Bracken without iron clad proof. "I know who did it," she enunciated finally. "Justice is coming for him, and when she catches up to him, she'll be merciless."

"You're not telling me who he is. He must be powerful then," Rachel extrapolated.

Her former partner was too damn good. Kate racked her brain for a way to say something without saying it. "If you're au fait with the latest developments in climate change initiative legislation, you might find yourself on the right track," she hinted, casually mentioning Bracken's latest political manoeuvring.

Rachel nodded, filing away the information carefully, ready to pounce at a moment's notice if anything suspect came her way. If she ever got the chance, she would go after him with her teeth bared, no sense of the bigger picture, if only to honour the best agent she'd ever worked with.

"So you're gonna be okay?" Rachel checked.

Kate nodded. "I'll be more than okay. I think I'll be extraordinary."

Dinner was shared on the outdoor table, Castle finally realising that they would have to drive out to the Hamptons if he ever hoped to barbecue again.

Kate trusted her gut as they said their farewells for the evening. She pulled Rachel into a hug. "Thank you for everything," she said quietly.

"You're welcome," Rachel replied.

"Don't be a stranger," Kate reminded her, as they broke apart. "If you're ever in New York again, feel free to drop into the madhouse."

"I might even bring this clown along for the ride," Rachel chuckled, ruffling her husband's hair affectionately.

Castle wrapped an arm around Kate's shoulder as they waved off their guests. "You okay?" he asked her, peppering a kiss on her temple.

She nodded. "I think I'm going to be," she agreed. "But I'm ready to go home."

Gushing in my inbox would be MOST appreciated. (hint. guys, that was a hint)