Castle 1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One**

**May 18th 2012**

* * *

"_Lx4 to NASA-1"_

"_BCS arm switch is on_

"_OK Victor"_

"_Landing rocket arm switch is on."_

"_Here comes the throttle, circuit breakers in."_

"_We have separation."_

"_Inboard and outboard zero on. We're coming forward with the side-stick"_

"_Look's good"_

"_Rodger..."_

"_I've got a blowout in pamper 3!"_

"_Get your pitch to zero."_

"_Pitch is out! I can't hold altitude!"_

"_Correction alpha hold is off, threat selector is EMERGENCY!"_

"_Flight Com! I can't hold it! She's breaking up! She's breaking..."_

* * *

Richard Castle snapped awake with a start, for a moment not knowing where he was other than a less than comfortable chair. He looked down and noticed he had laid across five seats in that row with his jacket, and his mother's laid across him. He hadn't dreamed about the crash in a long time. Since Alexis was four, if he recalled, and she'd been lost in the mall in White Plains for an hour.

It was the closest he'd ever come to breaking the cover story that the CIA had given him fifteen years ago after he'd been made and couldn't do covert ops anymore. That was until this morning when Kate had been shot.

"_How do I tell her father that I _could_ have moved faster to save her but didn't?"_ he thought to himself.

What good was it that he could see things a mile away out of his right eye, run sixty miles an hour flat-out, bend steel with his right arm or leap 30 feet into the air if he couldn't use those abilities to save the woman he loved from being shot. All because somebody _might_ see him?

He had seen the man who'd fired the shot, but didn't know how to broach that topic with Ryan or Esposito without explaining the _six levels above _top-secret project that had made it possible for him to get a clear view of a man looking down a sniper scope fifteen hundred feet away. The NSA would sweep _everything_ under the rug and then whomever it was that had Beckett shot would get away with it.

He had only been partly joking with Kate when he'd once told her that he had a guy _everywhere_. He did. He had contacts around the world the NYPD couldn't even begin to touch. Five years of working covert ops and another decade of consulting work with the FBI, the CIA and the NSA after he'd been made had left him with a network of contacts that rivaled some small countries. If anybody could find the guy responsible and make him talk it was him.

In this time since he'd been outed as a former agent he'd only ever been away from Alexis for a few days to a week at a time after Meredith had delivered her to his door when she was three and left her in his arms with the paparazzi in tow. It's how he'd gotten made in the first place, but he wouldn't have had it any other way. Alexis had enriched his life in ways he couldn't possibly have imagined before. She had been a life in his hands that needed him for everything who also loved him unconditionally. He'd needed something honest in his life...something real after nearly a decade of secrets and lies.

He took a look down and noticed he'd been gripping one of the steel legs of the row of hospital seats in his sleep with his right arm and had bent it savagely. Rick looked back and forth to make sure nobody was looking and as quietly as he could, bent it back then thumbed the two bolts that had once secured said leg a little deeper into the floor.

It was a reminder of what he could do, and an unwelcome one at that. How could he take the time to fix a chair, but not use that same strength when it really counted? In his mind he had finally come to an understanding. He was not gonna hold back anymore, not when it came to the people he cared about.

Never again.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

* * *

_Through the night...through the dawn,  
Behind you another runner is born.  
Don't look back, you've been there.  
Feel the mist as your breath hits the air.  
And it's underneath the moonlight, passing some;  
Still your heart beats in the moonlight like a drum._

And you will run your time, a shooting star across the sky.  
And you will surely cross the line, to pass on the flame.

Manfred Mann's Earth Band: "The Runner"

* * *

**Five Weeks Later  
1:45 AM**

Richard Castle ran, not realizing where he was going, nor how far. He just ran.

He hadn't spun himself up to his full speed of just over sixty MPH in over a decade. Nor had he meant to go running at all. His mother was out on a "date" and Alexis was staying over with Paige looking at college applications and he just could not bear to be in the empty loft anymore.

What had begun as a walk around the block to get some air had picked up to a jog and them before he'd known it he was running through the tunnel and out of Manhattan.

Kate had promised to call him in a few days...only she hadn't. A few days had stretched to a week...then to over a month. _"Of course she hasn't called...she has Doctor Motorcycle Boy...somebody completely human." _he thought to himself as he ran, _"What could a half-human freak like me possibly have to offer her. She has a bullet wound in her chest... because of me." _ He barely noticed where he was going as the miles sped by under the relentless pounding of his mechanical legs.

* * *

He remembered when Josh had stormed into the waiting room. He hadn't needed the man to tell him this was his fault, he was already in full agreement about that. Had even allowed Kate's erstwhile boyfriend to shove him backward into the waiting room wall, had seen the man's fist cock back and done nothing to defend himself. _"Good," _he'd remembered thinking, _"nobody else will do it...it's less than I deserve." _but when Alexis had stepped between them to intervene, the man had pushed her bodily aside to swing on him, knocking her off her feet. Once he saw his daughter go down, something in Rick had snapped.

"_Hit me if you want, if it'll make you feel better, but don't you _**ever**_ touch my daughter again, you son of a bitch!" _he'd growled, grabbing a fistful of Josh's shirt with his right hand.

Before he truly knew what was happening, he'd had Davidson lifted clear off his feet before pushing him bodily into the wall, his own left fist cocked back, ready to strike the suddenly wide-eyed doctor. Rick wasn't sure how far things might have escalated had Jim Beckett not intervened.

"_Stop it, all of you! Just stop it." _Kate's father had yelled, while helping Alexis to her feet and making sure she was unharmed before glaring at him and Josh.

"_I won't have you acting like three-year-olds while my daughter is fighting for her life!"_

Jim's admonishment had snapped him back to his senses and he'd lowered Josh gently back to his feet with a fierce glare at the doctor to make sure he'd made his point. The fear Rick had seen in Davidson's eyes had spoken volumes...and not in the way Rick had intended.

It had been a long time since he had felt so much like a freak.

* * *

The miles continued to roll by under the machine-like pace of his pounding feet yet still Rick ran...hoping he could outrun the pain he'd felt at Kate's rejection. Hoping he could outrun his own tortured memories.

It was dark, and the sensor in his left eye had long since automatically flipped it's view over into night vision mode when his running speed had left the normal human range at this light level. It had been one of the newer upgrades that had been added the summer that he had supposedly spent with Gina two years ago. Night vision tech had been made small enough to incorporate into his left eye's sensor package, and he was the natural test bed for the upgrade. Gina had come to pick him up at the 12th Precinct that afternoon not knowing, or caring, that pulling the "ex-wife card" was a bad idea.

Sometimes he honestly thought that Gina Cowell, his handler was less human than he was.

* * *

Rick had only known of two other agents who had ever been implanted with bionics to the extent that he had been. He had known their files nearly as well as he knew his own. He'd known them personally, too, having worked with them both. He'd tried so hard to help them, to spare them the worst of the emotional side effects of the transition. The things he'd had to go work out alone for the most part when he had been in their shoes.

Neither of their stories had ended well.

One had committed suicide shortly after he had recovered from the medical procedures and begun combat training. He'd walked right up to a high voltage box during a training exercise, torn off the cover and electrocuted himself right in front of him. What was left of the man's charred remains was barely enough for his family to bury. He couldn't say he blamed the man, he's wanted to kill himself too...at first. Rudy had helped him see he still had a purpose...something to live for. He wished he could have done the same for Jacob Marley.

The other was a female agent, Jamie Summers who had successfully completed training after her surgical procedures quickly and entered into a deep cover mission...some time during which she had gone insane. Nobody had been able to determine later whether she'd suffered from post traumatic stress from the mission that had left her a quadriplegic in the first place, if her transition to her bionics had not been nearly as smooth as anyone thought, or some terrible, unforeseen combination of the two.

After returning from her mission, she'd killed her handler, her therapist and two guards at the facility where she'd been recovering when she had made her escape and later threatened to kill Oscar Goldman, the Director of Special Projects. The natural result had been to call him out of retirement to bring Jamie in. He'd been the only man alive who'd had any chance of taking her on in close quarters.

The agent he was paired up with for that mission, Sofia Turner, had nearly been killed. She'd never known about his upgrades, (or Jamie's either, for that matter) only that he had been her training officer. Which was one of the few items in his file that _hadn't_ been heavily redacted, even at Sofia's clearance level within the CIA. The hope had been that Jamie would identify with him and he could talk her into coming back in.

In the end, Jamie had given him no other option than the use of lethal force. The fight between them had been titanic, they had wrecked a parking garage and then the lower two floors of an office building in Washington DC before they were done. In the end, they had done so much structural damage to both buildings that they'd had to be demolished. He was thankful that Jamie's death had been the only one he'd had to carry on his conscience because of his failure on that mission.

He'd had an on again, off again affair with Sofia Turner for over a year after that while she was on medical leave, which had ended shortly after she had gone back to active status. Mostly because of the secrets they'd had to keep from each other. He'd written her into the first Derek Storm novel shortly after that and that is how his time with the CIA had been officially written into the record.

* * *

By the time Rick had stopped running, he'd found himself standing in front of the house in the Hamptons in the early light of dawn. His cell phone had been on silent and he'd found fifteen missed calls, eight voice mail messages and about tenty five texts. Ten of the missed calls and three of the voice mail messages were from his mother and daughter and two voice mails each from Kevin Ryan and Javier Esposito, who had accounted for over half te texts as well.

"_Have I really been gone all night?" He thought to himself_

It was the last voice message...only ten minutes old...that truly caught his attention, mostly due to the identity of the sender.

Kate Beckett.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

* * *

_By the time Rick had stopped running, he'd found himself standing in front of the house in the Hamptons in the early light of dawn. His cell phone had been on silent and he'd found fifteen missed calls, eight voice mail messages and about twenty five texts. Ten of the missed calls and three of the voice mail messages were from his mother and daughter and two voice mails each from Kevin Ryan and Javier Esposito, who had accounted for over half the texts as well._

"_Have I really been gone all night?" He thought to himself_

_It was the last voice message...only ten minutes old...that truly caught his attention, mostly due to the identity of the sender._

_Kate Beckett._

* * *

**Beckett Family Cabin  
Adirondack State Park**

It had taken Kate most of the night to work up the nerve to bring up Castle's number on her phone. She had done it more than once in the last few weeks since she had sent Castle away. Every single time she had chickened out and stopped herself, feeling guilty for the lie she'd told. This time was different and she knew more was at stake, but she was still waffling.

Alexis had called her in a near panic two hours ago, the first few minutes of which were undecipherable word vomit which was how she was certain that the young redhead really was completely freaked out and not her dad trying to use the girl's phone to get an answer out of her.

Not that Kate even seriously considered the idea that Castle would _ever _so blatantly use his daughter that way. He loved her too much, and the girl was too respectful, too strong willed and too much her own woman to ever go along with her dad on such a stunt. She'd tell her father how stupid that was and talk him out of it should the idea were to ever enter his head, Kate was sure.

"_Not that I've given her much reason to respect me lately." _Kate thought to herself ruefully. _"If she knew what I'd done to him before I left, she'd never want speak to me again."_

Kate remembered what Alexis had told her, once she'd gotten the girl to breathe and speak in coherent sentences. The sheer terror in the girl's voice had made her wounded heart throb in her chest till she could hear the sound of it in her ears.

"_Paige and I had a stupid fight about Ashley and college so I came home early to have ice cream with dad...when...when I got there...the front door was ajar...the living room was a mess, I found an open, half empty bottle of Scotch on his desk and a glass broken on the floor next to the wall...dad is gone...I've called him a half dozen times and he hasn't answered...I've called detectives Ryan and Esposito even Dr. Parrish...but they can't seem to find him either...he never lets me go to voice mail...he's just...gone!"_

Kate, though her own fear and worry had begun to run away with her, had done her best to reassure the girl. She had told Alexis that she wasn't in the city, but she would do what she could to help. When she'd spoken to Espo, he had told her that Ryan was checking entry logs at the loft...Castle was clearly shown leaving the building after 8:30 PM They'd found security cam footage of him walking around the block and then nothing after 9:05 PM.

"_I don't know where Castle went, but 'Little Castle' and Mrs. R are really freaked out,"_ Ryan had said over speaker, _"it's like one moment he was there, and the next he just up and vanished right off all of the footage."_

Though Kate could neither see her nor sense her presence, a woman appeared behind her seemingly out of thin air. She watched Kate for a moment then began to shift out of phase again, but not before pressing Kate's thumb to the "send" button on her cell phone.

Though Gillian had taken herself out of phase and well outside of Kate's human range of hearing, she whispered into her ear, _"He is a good man and deserves better from you than this, human." _

When Rick's cell went to voice mail on the other end, it took a moment for Kate to gather her courage, but she too needed to know he was okay.

"Call Alexis and let her know you're okay, Castle," Kate said quietly into her phone, allowing a little anger to seep into her voice, "She came home and couldn't find you and she's scared out of her mind."

Before she could talk herself out of it, she added, "Call me back when you get this. I need to know that you're okay too."

* * *

When Castle listened to Kate's message he felt instantly guilty. He hadn't been thinking when he left the loft last night. He'd thrown his glass of scotch against the wall, grabbed his cell phone and was out the door, he'd only meant to go for a walk to clear his head.

He called Alexis as he let himself into the beach house and told her he was okay, then listened as she read him the riot act for scaring her like that. It took a half-dozen apologies and promises to take her out for ice cream when he got back before she would let him off the line. He was certain he'd hear it all again from both Alexis and his mother when he got back to the loft.

He sent texts out to both Ryan and Esposito to let them know they could call off the search parties, the boys were likely in enough trouble with Gates as it was after she had, to hear her say it, _"sent the dilettante writer playing cop" _packing two days ago.

"_Not cool, Castle." _had been the general consensus via text message from both of them.

He called the car service to pick him up in an hour, turned on the hot water heater and headed for the

master bathroom to take a shower. It wouldn't look good if he showed up at home smelling like he'd been running all night.

* * *

When he'd gotten out of the shower, he was mildly shocked (considering the girly shriek he made) when Gillian had appeared in the middle of his bathroom.

"_JESUS!..._Don't you guys _ever_ knock?" he managed to squeak out, grabbing a towel.

"Have you re-established contact with Katherine Beckett on your primitive communications device?" Gillian asked him without preamble.

Castle rolled his eyes, not realizing he was parroting Kate. _"No contact in nearly fifteen years," _he thought to himself, _ "and _this_ is what she appears out of nowhere to ask me about?_

"She's left me to stew for over five weeks, and only called because my daughter begged her to." Castle replied, irritated with the alien scientist's intervention in his personal life, "She can wait an hour or two."

"The one designated Katherine Beckett is injured, Richard, and she _does_ care for you." Gillian replied. She had promised Shalon that she would keep an eye on him, her mother had paid a heavy price to save his life.

"Kate has a funny way of showing it," Castle grumbled, "and I've told you to stop calling me Richard, it makes you sound like my mother."

"That is correct, Richard," Gillian replied, completely ignoring his complaint about her use of his full given name, it was an old argument Rick knew he would never win, "the one known as Katherine Beckett _should_ have treated you more fairly, but she is alone, and she is..._frightened_ is the right word, I believe. If I have come to judge your human vocabulary and emotions correctly."

"Isn't _Doctor Motorcycle Boy_ there to take care of her?" Castle asked sarcastically.

"If you are speaking of the human designated Doctor Joshua Davidson, no he is not. She had apparently dismissed him thirty rotations of your planet ago."

Castle did the math in his head. "That would be the day she left the hospital!" he exclaimed. "What about her father?" he asked next.

"According to Sasquatch," Gillian replied to his request, "the human designated James Beckett was last seen leaving their isolated structure by personal ground transport _seven_ rotations of your planet ago."

"Were you there when she was _shot_, too?" Rick asked.

"Richard Rodgers, you are fully aware that I am _forbidden_ to interfere in the socio/political affairs of your people. Our laws about inter-species interference are quite clear. That I have involved myself to this extent could have serious ramifications for me, and Shalon when we finally do go home as it stands."

"Then why _have_ you?" Castle replied.

"Among my people, much like yours, the familial bond is a strong one." Gillian replied, "It was Shalon's wish before I had her placed in TLC stasis that I maintain an..._interest_...in your welfare."

"So your _mother_ made you do it?" Castle asked, a wry grin on his face,

"I believe, Richard, that was what I just said." Gillian replied.

Right before she disappeared she stated, "Contact Katherine Beckett, Richard."

"Yes, mother." Castle said to empty air, knowing Gillian was long since gone.

* * *

_**Author's Note** RGoodfellow and I had an interesting conversation about what would most motivate Kate to call Rick so early and his apparent disappearance from the loft, combined with a scared out her mind Alexis did seem like the most likely scenario. Doesn't mean messing with RG isn't fun. Style points for anyone who recognizes the Six Million Dollar Man references. :-P_


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

* * *

_I told the starry sky to wait for you  
I told the wind to sigh like lovers do  
I even told the night you were true  
And you would be here soon  
And now I'm lying to the moon _

Matraca Berg: Lying To The Moon

* * *

_Previously_

"_Richard Rodgers, you are fully aware that I am forbidden to interfere in the socio/political affairs of your people. Our laws about inter-species interference are quite clear. That I have involved myself to this extent could have serious ramifications for me, and Shalon when we finally do go home as it stands."_

"_Then why have you?" Castle replied._

"_Among my people, much like yours, the familial bond is a strong one." Gillian replied, "It was Shalon's wish before I had her placed in TLC stasis that I maintain an...interest...in your welfare."_

"_So your mother made you do it?" Castle asked, a wry grin on his face, _

"_I believe, Richard, that was what I had just said." Gillian replied._

_Right before she disappeared she stated, "Contact Katherine Beckett, Richard." _

* * *

Beckett Family Cabin  
Just outside of Grieg, NY

Kate Beckett lay curled up on her floor doubled over in pain. It had been over two hours and yet Castle still hadn't called her back. She had long ago gotten text messages from Ryan and Espo that he'd called Alexis... even gotten a text from her that her father had checked in and had merely gone to the Hamptons on a lark and forgotten to lock the door and thanking her for her assistance.

"_Was this what it was like for him for the last six weeks? The not knowing?" _Kate thought to herself. She couldn't even really be angry at him for not calling. _"Unlike me, he'd given no promises to break...he doesn't even know I'm not with Josh anymore, even Lanie doesn't know."_

For the last two hours she'd waited near where her cell phone sat on the coffee table, her eyes dating to it as if she could will it to ring. All the while in her head flipping between telling herself she wasn't waiting by the phone for him to call her, hoping he would call, asking herself why he hadn't, fighting back tears and then feeling disgusted with herself for being so needy and weak.

She'd decided to try doing yoga to clear her head...her doctor had warned her not to...but she did it anyway. No sooner had she gone from downward facing dog to plank position, she was screaming in agony and balled up in a fetal position on her yoga mat. Pain was radiating from both scars like her torso had been set on fire.

Her pain meds made her nauseous and sleepy all the time, so she'd stopped taking them as soon as she'd pushed her dad out the door a week ago, accepting the minor discomfort she felt during that time as proof she could handle it with little more than Tylenol. She was curled in a ball on her yoga mat regretting that decision now. Yet still her eyes flicked back to her phone even through the red haze of pain and her own tears.

* * *

**A few minutes later**

Rick still hadn't called Kate back when the driver his car service had sent honked the horn. Whether it was because he was angry with her for leaving him hanging for over a month, with the agony of not knowing if she was alive or dead hanging over his head, or because he was miffed that Gillian had popped back into his life after fifteen years to once again meddle in his personal life, he truly didn't know. She'd warned him about Meredith too and he hadn't listened then either.

Gillian had always brought out the defiant, insolent teenage boy side of him with her smug sense of technological and cultural superiority. Even after he had helped defeat the renegades among their survey team who had poisoned her mother and left her hovering on the verge of a coma. She still saw him as a primitive from a backwater planet.

He owed Shalon his life for what she'd done, giving him her last dose of the medicine she'd needed to stay alive to get him back on his feet. She was in a suspension capsule the last time he'd seen her face - time for her reduced to a crawl to slow the progression of her radiation poisoning because she had put his life ahead of her own. The last words to him before Gillian closed the capsule "Y_ou have a destiny" _rang in his ears to this day.

Gillian, though she seemed to care for him in her own odd way, could be a bit more abrasive than her her mother...and creepy...she was definitely creepy. He'd thought that they had all gone home, or that had been his impression, but obviously some of their group had stayed behind to finish their mission...whatever that was.

"Guess I'd better do it before 'Nosy Nellie' gets on my case again." He thought to himself as he settled into the back seat of the town car while bringing up her number, the familiar image on his screen doing funny things to his insides. He was angry with her, yes, but he still loved her.

"Where to, Mr. Castle?" came the voice of his driver, Sergei Ivanov in his unmistakable Muscovite accent. Whenever he called the car service, day or night, the driver always seemed to be Sergei, or his daughter Ekaterina. Back in the old days, when he was more than just _Richard Castle Best selling author and Master of the Macabre _he would have found it suspicious. But Alexis loved riding with him, she and Ekaterina had become thick as thieves and she practically doted upon her daughter the violin prodigy.

"Back home, please, Sergei." Rick replied with a nod before Sergei slid the privacy screen back up.

He dialed Kate's phone but it went to voice mail. '_Typical' _he thought to himself. _'back to the silent treatment I guess.'_

Five minutes later, his phone rang, he didn't recognize the number, but he answered it anyway.

"Castle."

"Rick, it's Jim Beckett, Kate's father, we spoke once before, remember?" Jim's voice was plain as day.

"I stopped by the cabin, where she's recuperating to drop off groceries, and she was doubled over on the floor with pain, I think she's been skipping her pain meds since I've been gone."

_'Oh shit.' _Rick thought as his heart began pumping in his chest. He could feel the energy rippling in his bionic limbs - something that always happened when his adrenaline kicked in - making the joints where those three limbs connected to his organic body tingle.

"I think she was doing yoga or trying to..." Jim continued, his voice heavy with worry for Kate, "her doctor hadn't cleared her for that for another three weeks till after the stitches come out out. One of my fishing buddies up here is a doctor, I called him and he came by to check her stitches, she didn't pull any...thank god. He gave her something for the pain and she's sleeping it off now."

Castle breathed a little easier with the knowledge that her father had shown up to help her. Kate's stubborn streak was still intact, unsurprisingly. Anyone who told her not to do something she had her mind set on doing, Roy Montgomery included, could talk at her till they got blue in the face, Kate Beckett would ignore them or bulldoze over them and do it anyway.

"_Why Roy and her dad thought I would somehow get a different response from her, I'll never know." _he thought to himself as Jim Beckett continued his narrative.

"I saw the screen on her phone light up while Bill was reading her the institutional riot act for going AMA with the yoga, hopefully she'll listen this time. She'll be out for hours but I didn't want you to think she was ignoring your call. Seeing her crumpled on the floor whimpering like that scared me out of my mind,"

"Where are you guys?" Rick asked before he could stop himself.

He could hear Jim breathing on the other end of the line, mulling it over.

"I have a cabin up in the Adirondacks, we used to come up here a lot when Katie was little, but not so much since Jo died."

Rick wasn't sure if Jim was going to say much more than that, but Kate's father was blissfully unaware of the nature of his connections. He had held back until this point out of respect for the space she had asked him for, even after she'd remained silent long past the few days after which she had promised to call him.

Now that she had opened the door, he had no intention of staring at the ceiling in the loft and hoping she would call again. Thanks to Gillian, he knew that the last impediment she had placed between them, namely Doctor Motorcycle Boy, was gone as well.

He would find her, even if it was only so that they could have it out. He had spoken the truth in her apartment the night before Montgomery died. He had no idea what _they _were. But he was determined to find out. Even if they were nothing as far as she was concerned. He was no longer content to exist in limbo.

Her father had narrowed the search parameters for him without even knowing he'd done it. But first, he had to run the gauntlet that was Hurricane Martha and his angry daughter. He could run a cheetah to ground, see an owl from almost two miles away in the dark and crush a man's spine with his right hand, but nothing scared him nearly as much as his two favorite redheads when they were both angry and ganged up on him.

* * *

Kate woke up in the late afternoon, found her phone on it's charging stand and grabbed it, wincing when the stitches in her side tugged slightly. It had been on vibrate because she'd developed a strong distaste for loud noises.

When she unlocked it she saw Rick's missed call. He hadn't left a voice mail and hadn't called again since.

_'I'd practically begged him to call me, and when he had, I didn't answer'_ She thought bitterly to herself. _'My one chance to hear his voice, to make things right with him and I'd blown it to do yoga.'_

Kate curled herself into a ball around her cell phone and wept fat bitter tears thinking she'd blown her chance at a reconciliation with the man she loved more than life itself. She hadn't seen the note from her dad under her bed that had blown off the nightstand while she'd been sleeping as he cried herself to sleep thinking her life was over.

She had no idea that her father had called him back to explain her not picking up. She had even less of an idea that an hour later, her father had texted the address to the cabin to him or that Rick would be coming as soon as he sorted out his mess at home.

Nor had Kate seen the indistinct dark shape outside her bedroom window looking sadly in on her. The shape of Sasquatch, her unseen protector who had already torn a human (who'd been in a tree stand looking down a sniper scope at the cabin) limb from limb two nights before, leaving his various body parts deep in the woods to be scattered further by scavengers. Something he had carefully left out of his report to Dr. Gillian. He was not as simple-minded a creature as she thought.

The one called Richard Rodgers was his friend. Dr. Gillian had told him what the human woman named Kate Beckett meant to his friend when she had instructed him to protect her and her father from harm. Orders he would gladly carry out at all costs, to the death if necessary. Dr. Gillian did not believe he understood such abstract concepts as personal loyalty like Dr, Shalon had.

To Sasquatch, though, loyalty to the pack was not an abstract concept. To those he had come to care for, it was an absolute. It had been used against him to garner his cooperation once, which had lead to the near death of Dr. Shalon, to his deep shame. He served her cub as a penance for his misdeeds.

Anyone who sought to do his_ "pack" _harm (which he had now taken to include Kate Beckett and her father) would feel his wrath...and his fists.

_**Author's note** Some of you may have realized that I have strayed a bit off from TSMDM canon to include Gillian, Shalon and Sasquatch in this tale. You are absolutely right I have done exactly that. I hope you like the story anyway. And for the record...no...the man Sasquatch tore apart was _not_ Maddox...sorry to disappoint._


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

* * *

_When you cried I'd wipe away all of your tears  
When you'd scream I'd fight away all of your fears  
And I held your hand through all of these years  
But you still have all of me_

Evanescence: "My Immortal"

* * *

_Previously_

_Kate woke up in the late afternoon, found her phone on it's charging stand and grabbed it, wincing when the stitches in her side tugged slightly. It had been on vibrate because she'd developed a strong distaste for loud noises. __When she unlocked it she saw Rick's missed call. He hadn't left a voice mail and hadn't called again since._

___'I'd practically begged him to call me, and when he had, I didn't answer'__ She thought bitterly to herself. ____'My one chance to hear his voice, to make things right with him and I'd blown it to do yoga.'_

_Kate curled herself into a ball around her cell phone and wept fat bitter tears thinking she'd blown her chance at a reconciliation with the man she loved more than life itself. She hadn't seen the note from her dad under her bed that had blown off the nightstand while she'd been sleeping as he cried herself to sleep thinking her life was over._

_She had no idea that her father had called him back to explain her not picking up. She had even less of an idea that an hour later, her father had texted the address to the cabin to him or that Rick would be coming as soon as he sorted out his mess at home._

* * *

**Castle Loft **  
**12:30 PM**

Rick was in the middle of a very tense lunch with his mother and Alexis. Though they had taken his story about going for a drive to clear his head and ending up in the Hamptons, said story hadn't won him any points with either of them. Martha _had _been a little annoyed, but had taken it in stride when he'd reminded her about a few of her own escapades during his childhood.

Alexis, however, had been a different story. She'd hugged him fiercely when he'd walked in the door an hour before, but had been glowering at him ever since. She had let him know in no uncertain terms how scared she had been when she'd come home to find the living room in shambles, the front door ajar and him just...gone. He knew he was gonna be in the dog house for a while.

He almost thought his cell phone ringing halfway through "the lunch from hell" was a blessing in disguise. He retrieved the device from the breakfast bar to find that the number was blocked, which he thought was odd, but a lot of his fellow writers did it so he wasn't completely shocked.

"Hello?" He said, noncommittally.

"Mr. Castle, I'm a friend of Roy Montgomery's." the strange voice replied, "We need to talk about about Detective Beckett."

Rick visibly blanched, then excused himself from the kitchen, crossed the room and entered his office. He was gone for twenty minutes. When he came back, Alexis had disappeared. He beckoned his mother into the office and closed the door.

"Do you know who that was?" Martha asked without preamble.

"No," Rick replied, "Said he's a friend of Montgomery's. That Montgomery had sent him a series of files before he died that could ruin the careers of some very powerful people. Roy had kept them as leverage to keep his family safe. Apparently, Beckett's safety was part of the deal as well."

"But they tried to kill her anyway." Martha pointed out.

_'Thank you, Captain Obvious' _Rick thought to himself.

"Apparently," Rick replied, "this _'friend' _of Roy's didn't actually _receive_ said files until _after_ she was shot."

Martha sighed, with a sad withdrawn look on her face as Rick continued.

"He says he can guarantee her safety as long as she doesn't go near her mother's case, but if she starts digging, the deal is off and they _will_ kill her."

"And... this man, you believe him?" Martha asked.

"Not hardly, mother," Rick stated emphatically, "but right now I don't have much of a choice if I want Beckett to come out of this alive."

"You can't just keep this from her." Martha told him.

"If I tell her about this man," Rick said, "she'll insist on tracking him down and then jump right into the case again just like last time. In the physical and emotional state she's in now, she'll get herself killed. I can't let that happen. Not if I can prevent it."

Martha knew that look on her son's face, _'so like his father' _she thought absently_, 'of all the traits he could have gotten from him'_

"You are not going to stop her forever, Richard." she said in a heated stage whisper, "As soon as she gets back on her feet, she's going to want to start digging."

"Not if I can give these guys a reason to think twice...until then, I'll steer her away." Castle said.

"For how long?" Martha retorted.

"At least until I can find something to give her that can actually nail these guys without putting a target on her back." Rick said, "I almost lost her once. I'm not going to lose her again."

Rick walked out of his office, not seeing Alexis until she spoke up, startling him. He forgot how quiet his daughter could be.

"So I guess you're jumping right back into this with her again, aren't you?" Alexis whispered accusingly, trying and failing to disguise her hurt and anger. "The precinct too, I imagine?"

"How much did you hear?" He asked.

"Enough," Alexis replied coldly

"It's absolutely _imperative_ that you don't tell _anyone _what you just heard." Rick stated, trying to put enough command in his tone without pushing her too hard, "Especially not Detective Beckett. This is important, her life is hanging in the balance"

"You act like this is just about her," Alexis shot back to him, her fear and anger finally boiling over...fighting for dominance as she held back tears, "but you were standing right there next to her. You could have been shot! Hell, I could have been shot!"

Rick could tell she was on the verge of losing it and it tore his beating heart in two. He never wanted to hurt her...he'd given up his career as an agent, allowed Meredith to burn him to the press in order to be the father she deserved...accepted being a CIA lab rat once a month to not be pulled back to full active status. He'd wanted to be a better father for Alexis...the father he never got to have. The one his father had _chosen not to be._

Rick always new that one day his short, violent, secret past would one day catch up to him, but he couldn't bury his head in the sand anymore. He'd had the ability and the power to do save Kate from that sniper and had chosen not to, and he would never forgive himself for it. With great power comes great responsibility. If he walked away now and left Kate to die then what kind of man was he?

_'Not one neither Alexis...nor myself could respect' _a voice in the back of his mind replied bitterly. A voice sounding suspiciously like his father's. Unbeknownst to his mother, they had crossed paths a time or two when he'd been active.

"That's why I have to do this." He finally replied, "I put her in this position when I meddled in her mother's case that first time. I set her on this path as surely as if I'd shot her myself. I have to do _something_."

"Who's going to stop them, you?" She spat back, lashing out in pain and fear, "You need to grow up, Dad. You're a writer, not a cop. Stop pretending!"

Alexis voice broke on the last few words before she turned and bolted for the stairs leading to her room as she broke down. He could hear her sniffling and sobbing as she went and it tore his heart to pieces. He started for the stairs, but stopped when he heard her bedroom door slam closed. She very rarely shut him out so completely, but when she did, he knew better than to force the issue. She would sort herself out and give him a fairer hearing when she was ready.

Hopefully after he got back from the Beckett family cabin in a few days.

Rick turned and reentered his office, then walked into the closet, shutting the door behind him. He opened a small panel in the back wall and keyed in an access code then slid the index finger of his bionic hand into a slot.

Even if somebody knew his access code (Alexis' birthday) nobody fully organic would ever be able to unlock the panel. He'd had this small repository structurally reinforced so that even his bionics couldn't punch through the door. Not even Gina knew it existed.

The back wall of the closet slid back and to the side revealing a cache of small arms. One of the side benefits of his current status was a federal concealed carry permit. He'd rarely needed firearms with his bionic upgrades, but if things went bad while he was there, Kate might need something more than the few rounds in her Glock 26. He selected one of the smaller pistols, a Glock 19, checked the action, slid a loose round in the pipe, closed the slide and slapped home a magazine before slipping it into a holster along with two spare mags. They'd go in the glove box of his Mercedes.

Rick then took out a set of highly specialized tools, peeled back the artificial skin and opened the panel in his right palm. He double checked that the discharge nodes leading to his fingertips for the stunner were fully functional. He could set power discharge to either a non-lethal fifty thousand volts, or a higher setting that would permanently fry a human being's central nervous system leaving them dead in a matter of seconds.

Generally it would require a direct order from command to use it, but he'd long ago learned to bypass the lockout by disabling the governor chip in the power distribution node. Usually he left it alone as he'd rarely had call for even the stun setting, much less the lethal one.

One of the rare recent occasions he'd used the stun setting had been on Jerry Tyson last year when the man thought he'd had the upper hand. Tyson was currently "resting" in the secure medical supermax wing of Sing-Sing Correctional Facility with a permanent heart arrhythmia. Even fifty thousand volts could do permanent damage when repeatedly applied directly over the heart. He'd had it coming for what he'd done to Ryan and those women he'd murdered.

It had taken arranging a private meeting with the actress who played Lt. Chloë on a forgettably obscure sci-fi series called "Nebula 9" and the purchase of a working Thorian blaster to sweet talk that set of information out of Dr. Nicole Lewis's brain...but well worth it. Now he could switch between lethal and non-lethal settings at will with just a tap of his fingers to his palm.

If whomever this was wanted Kate dead, they would have to go through him and he was a _lot _more dangerous than anyone without a level six top secret clearance gave him credit for.

* * *

**4:30 PM  
The following day**

Kate Beckett lay in bed, feeling particularly sorry for herself. The popping of firecrackers across the lake the night before had done little to help her anxiety. She had gotten out of bed only when nature called and she had to change her bandages. She didn't see the point anymore. She'd finally found a valid reason to put her mother's case to rest...a reason to care whether she survived her decade's long obsession with her mother's murder and she'd screwed it all up.

Lying to him had been stupid. The most stupid thing she had ever done. She knew it had hurt him when she'd done it, but she hadn't realized just how much until Alexis' panicked phone call that he had disappeared.

She'd had her reasons for leaving the city...and for breaking her promise and not calling him. Most of them had felt reasonable and valid at the time, but after six weeks of reflection and a full night of panic that something terrible might have befallen him had made her re-think some of her reasoning.

_'I'd reacted out of fear and then run away, like I've always done' _she thought bitterly to herself, _'the one man outside the job that I could count on to always have my back, and I've hurt him almost as much as that bullet hurt me.'_

Kate heard the key turning in the lock on the front door and she stiffened at the unexpected sound. She checked the calendar on her phone. When she'd talked her dad into going home, he had relented, but only when she'd agreed to a weekly visit for Sunday dinner at the Pine Tree Inn in Brantingham.

Usually as a cop she had known better than to negotiate with a lawyer when she was in a bad bargaining position, but her dad knew how to push her buttons, he always had.

"Oh...god...it's Sunday," she groaned to herself, trying to come up with an excuse to get her father to go away, but coming up empty, "I can't handle this now."

She heard him walk through the house, he wasn't nearly as quiet as he thought he was. She practically winced when her bedroom door swung open.

"DAD!" she shouted at him, thankful she had at least thrown on a sleep shirt after changing her bandages before going back to bed "A little privacy!"

"Katie, you haven't called me since you almost pulled out your stitches with that silly stunt the other day, and you think I'm worried about your modesty?" Her father retorted.

Kate knew he had her dead to rights, she'd promised her dad she'd call him too. She should have known that unlike Castle, her dad would not respect her privacy, he never had when she was a teenager.

"Have you gotten out of bed at all, or done any of your _doctor approved _exercises?" he asked, making note of the _"doctor approved" _part in particular. "If you want to get your life back you can't spend all of your recovery time moping. What would your friends say if they saw you like this? Or Rick for that matter?"

Kate stared down at her lap, feeling tears well up in her eyes at the mention of Castle.

"What difference does it make?" she whispered, "I've...I've ruined _everything_ with him."

"Oh Katie-bug...no...of course you haven't," her father whispered, sitting down next to her on the bed and drawing her into his arms as she finally broke, the tears she'd been trying to hold back rolling down her cheeks.

"y-yes...'_sniff'..._yes I have...daddy..." she sobbed into his chest, hating herself the whole time for her weakness, "Rick...he told me he loved me...after I was shot...he tried to save me..."

Kate sobbed uncontrollably for a few moments as Jim stroked his daughter's hair. They had never been much of a touchy feely type of family, but he knew she needed to get this out. It had been what she'd been torturing herself with for the last month when she thought he couldn't see.

"I lied to him..._sniff..._told him I didn't remember...but I do...sent him away and told him I'd call...but I didn't...I ran away...and left him to suffer...I was worried he was dead...and the last things I said to him...were all lies. I...begged him to call me...and when he did I didn't answer. I ruined everything!"

Kate broke down again into another fit of sobbing, leaving her father shocked.

"Katie...didn't you read my note?" when Kate looked up at him with tears in her eyes and an expression on her face like her whole world was crashing down around her, it dawned on him that she hadn't.

"Oh...Katie-bug...I'm so sorry" Jim whispered into her hair as he drew her back into his embrace, trying desperately to soothe his baby girl's broken heart "you were sleeping when I left... I should have waited...told you in person...or texted you instead of writing that damn note."

"Told me what, daddy?" she sniffled into his chest

"After we got you back in bed, I picked up your cell phone and put it in the charger, when it lit up and I saw the missed phone call...I wrote down Rick's number and called him back for you...told him why you couldn't call him. I invited him to dinner with us and sent him directions to the cabin. He'll be here in a couple of hours Katie..you need to clean yourself up and get dressed"

Kate was shocked. Normally she would have been indignant that her father had meddled in her personal life, but right at this moment she could not contain her relief and gratitude that her father had gone to bat for her when she'd needed it the most.

She was still sniffing...still teary eyed when her head perked up and hugged her father earnestly for the first time. She knew she still had a lot of fence mending to do where her partner was concerned, but her father had braved her wrath to give her this chance. She wasn't sure how many she would get to make things right.

She knew in her heart she could not afford to waste it.

* * *

_****Author's note** Didn't think RG would let me get away without posting another chapter...don't want him to drive himself to distraction because my muse is a crazy person...enjoy.**_


	6. Recollections

**Chapter Six  
Recollections  
**

* * *

_So hold me when I'm here, right me when I'm wrong  
Hold me when I'm scared, and love me when I'm gone  
Everything I am and everything in me  
Wants to be the one you wanted me to be  
_

_I'll never let you down, even if I could,  
I'd give up everything, if only for your good  
So hold me when I'm here, right me when I'm wrong  
You can hold me when I'm scared, you won't always be there  
So love me when I'm gone _

* * *

_Previously_

_"After we got you back in bed, I picked up your cell phone and put it in the charger, when it lit up and I saw the missed phone call...I wrote down Rick's number and called him back for you...told him why you couldn't call him. I invited him to dinner with us and sent him directions to the cabin. He'll be here in a couple of hours Katie..you need to clean yourself up and get dressed"_

_Kate was shocked. Normally she would have been indignant that her father had meddled in her personal life, but right at this moment she could not contain her relief and gratitude that her father had gone to bat for her when she'd needed it the most._

_She was still sniffing...still teary eyed when her head perked up and hugged her father earnestly for the first time. She knew she still had a lot of fence mending to do where her partner was concerned, but her father had braved her wrath to give her this chance. She wasn't sure how many she would get to make things right._

_She knew in her heart she could not afford to waste it._

* * *

"Richard dear, wear this one."

Martha handed him a cobalt blue button-down shirt that set off his eyes. She had noticed more than once the way Kate had looked at him when he wore it, despite the fact that the detective had always gone to great pains to try to hide it. A mother simply notices these things. "Wear it with the dark blazer and don't worry about a tie, it's a four-hour drive, and this restaurant isn't exactly _Le Cirque_, you know."

"I'm having dinner with Kate and her father, I want to make a good impression." Rick replied.

"You tried get between his daughter and a bullet, kiddo," Martha told him consolingly, "I don't think you could ever hope to make a better impression on him."

_"You didn't try hard enough" _a small mocking voice in the back of Rick's mind said. One sounding suspiciously like Jackson Hunt. He had not counted upon how perceptive his mother was, however. She had seen the dark cloud chase across his face at the mention of Kate's shooting.

"She's recovering, Richard... she'll be back on her feet in no time at all."

"I could have moved faster," Rick whispered bitterly, slapping his right hand on this thigh, his whole being betraying his sense of guilt "I...should have moved sooner...I could have..."

"Oh, Richard!" Martha said soothingly, taking his face in both of her hands to make him look her in the eye, "My dear boy, you can't think about it like that. What's done is done, and she wants you in her life. When she thought you were missing, the _only_ thing she thought of was getting help to try to find you! You just be your usual charming self, _the man I raised you to be_, that's all she needs."

Martha waved a hand indicating his arm and legs, "These may be very lifelike, but they are _still _prosthetics. That you got to her _at all_ and managed to get her out of the line of fire was _nothing_ short of amazing."

Rick forgot sometimes what his mother had been told by the doctors about his bionic limbs, the story she'd bought hook, line and sinker in her joy at the very _possibility _of him walking again after the test flight accident had taken his right arm, both legs and his right eye.

* * *

The only reliable memory he had... after impact -_the one burned in his mind forever_- was when he'd awakened briefly in intensive care: his mother in tears, taking in his broken body... the dips in the sheets where his right arm and both of his legs should have been, the bandage over his ruined right eye, and the determination he'd seen through those tears telling him she would indeed drop _everything_ to care for him even if he'd been reduced to a bedridden, wheelchair-bound invalid for the rest of his life.

Rudy had later told him she'd been on the first direct flight she could get after the accident, that she'd left his bedside only for calls of nature from the moment she'd arrived. She had either charmed, browbeaten or otherwise twisted to her will any doctor, nurse, or hospital administrator who made even the most feeble attempt to dislodge her. A true force of nature, a red-haired angry, feral mother bear. To this day, Rudy still called her _"__Hurricane Martha". _The name had stuck with her ever since.

Unbeknownst to Martha Rodgers, however, it had been his father who'd gotten him into the bionics program. Jackson Hunt and Oscar Goldman had come up together in _"the Company." _It had been Oscar who'd later told him that, in spite of everything, Hunt had never stopped loving his mother. His father had watched her quietly break down outside of his room after she'd first seen what the accident had done to their son, and could not bear to see her in such obvious distress.

The rest was history.

Most of his early assignments had been disguised as testing the range of his new limbs. Each time he would come home to a feast she had prepared and as many of his NASA buddies as she could get in touch with. She had even gotten Buzz Aldrin to put in an appearance once, (Buzz was as much a fan of his mother's stage work as he had been Rick's inspiration to join NASA)

When that was no longer a practical alibi, _Richard Castle_ had been born. Before Alexis came along, he had gone on frequent _"writing trips" _for _"inspiration" _for his novels, most of which he had even written himself, having actually rediscovered a flair for and a love of writing he'd forgotten about from his childhood.

It had taken Rick a long time and no small amount of soul-searching to come to terms with what his father had done... abandoning them before he was born. Eventually he had come to understand that Richard Webb (he was one of the few people with the security clearance to know his real name) couldn't simply _walk away_ from the job - he'd made far too many enemies, both outside the CIA _and_ within its ranks - the kind of enemies that he could only keep away from his family by not being in their lives. But the moment Rick had looked into the eyes of his daughter on the day she was born, he knew he couldn't do that, couldn't be that man.

* * *

Meredith simply had never had it in her to be the parent his own mother had been. It just wasn't in her nature. Alexis deserved better than that, she deserved more. He was secretly glad his mother and daughter didn't know about his other life. He had caused his mother enough heartbreak and he couldn't bear to be the cause of more. So he played the role he always had with his mother when it came to things she was better off not knowing.

"Of course mother, I'll try." He said, giving her a wan smile.

"That's all anyone can ask, kiddo." Martha replied. A phrase she'd used often in the early days of his physical therapy, after the new limbs had been surgically grafted to him, hadn't been rejected and he'd needed to learn how to walk and perform physical tasks with his right arm all over again. His mother had been at his side the whole time...at least until the more... _secret_... functions had to be tested. It hadn't been easy to convince her to let him do those alone. He'd had to play the _"cult of manhood" _card.

As much as he'd hated concealing that from her, he'd sworn an oath when he'd joined the Air Force. He'd given his word, and been granted a high level security clearance - one he still had – and that came with a very large obligation. No matter how badly he might want to tell people that aliens _were real_ and that one was quietly guarding the love of his life and her father.

* * *

**Four Hours Later**

Rick had pulled off of State Route 12 and had turned onto the private drive to get to the Beckett family cabin, when he pulled to the side of the road, turned off the engine and the lights and got out of the car. He stepped just out of sight of the road and whispered,

"Sasquatch? You there, old friend?"

Unlike Gillian, Sasquatch had better manners. He made sure Rick knew he was there, instead of popping into phase right behind him. His vocal cords may only be able to form the most rudimentary of words in English, but Rick knew that there was a powerfully complex, intelligent mind at work behind those expressive eyes of his. Fifteen years ago, he had learned American sign language in a little under two hours, using only a child's picture book.

Sasquatch hugged him, he hadn't seen his friend in such a long time. It was good to see him again, even in these dire circumstances.

Rick scratched his chest the way he liked, in the many earth years he had served Gillian, she had never picked up on this like Shalon and Rick had. He would be glad when he could see her again, too.

"Hey, old buddy, anything happen since you took up guard duty?" Rick asked him.

"_There was one," _Sasquatch signed, _ "he had one of your long sticks. He will not be bothering her again."_

"Show me." Rick whispered.

Sasquatch phased out, then returned a moment later with the bent remains of an M-40 sniper rifle, the barrel twisted roughly upward back toward the stock. The stock and bold assembly were covered in dried blood.

"_He will not be found."_ Sasquatch signed, if he felt any remorse for killing the man, Rick could see no sign of it. "_The forest took care of what was left."_

"You did the right thing, old buddy." Rick knew the last thing Kate needed to be confronted with at this stage of her recovery was another sniper. He had an epiphany and got put his cell phone, he had long ago downloaded the image from his right eye onto it.

"Was this the man you killed?" Rick asked, showing him a photo of a man he now knew to be Cole Maddox.

"_No" _Sasquatch signed back, _"Different human."_

"If you see this man, if he comes here, _disable_ him but keep him alive and find me if you can. I have questions for him. If it looks like he might escape, or if he puts Kate in danger though, _kill him_."

"_Understood." _Sasquatch signed, his eyes darkening with intent. Rick was protecting his pack, this was something he understood well. He had seen Rick's cub with his own eyes. She was pretty and quick but she was also kind. He had raised her well. Sasquatch hoped one day to be returned to his own pack like Shalon had promised him. Until then, he would protect the pack he had adopted here.

Rick showed Sasquatch a few more images, two men and a dark-skinned woman he assured him were safe. They were part of Kate's pack, people she trusted. Any others were to be watched carefully, driven off if they posed a danger. Killed if they were actively hostile. Things Gillian would not appreciate if she found out, but some duties were greater than his obligation to Shalon's oldest cub.

When Rick finally went back to his car, Sasquatch melted back into the forest, the only place on this alien world he actually felt at ease.

* * *

_****Author's note** I was going to go a bit longer with this, include the dinner with Kate and her dad at the Pine Tree Inn, but I had just found out that RGoodfellow was going on a trip and I wanted him to get this before he left. This seemed like a good place to stop. It was getting rather maudlin and I want the dinner to be more upbeat and less like "Fall From Grace."**_

_**Mark**_


	7. Dinner in the Adirondacks

**Chapter Seven  
Dinner in the Adirondacks**

* * *

So close no matter how far  
Couldn't be much more from the heart  
Forever trusting who we are  
And nothing else matters

Never opened myself this way  
Life is ours, we live it our way  
All these words I don't just say  
And nothing else matters

Trust I seek and I find in you  
Every day for us something new  
Open mind for a different view  
And nothing else matters

Metallica, "Nothing Else Matters"

* * *

_Previously_

_"If you see this man, if he comes here, disable him but keep him alive and find me if you can. I have questions for him. If it looks like he might escape, or if he puts Kate in danger though, kill him."_

_"Understood." Sasquatch signed, his eyes darkening with intent. Rick was protecting his pack, this was something he understood well. He had seen Rick's cub with his own eyes. She was pretty and quick but she was also kind. He had raised her well. Sasquatch hoped one day to be returned to his own pack like Shalon had promised him. Until then, he would protect the pack he had adopted here._

_Rick showed Sasquatch a few more images, two men and a dark-skinned woman he assured him were safe. They were part of Kate's pack, people she trusted. Any others were to be watched carefully, driven off if they posed a danger. Killed if they were actively hostile. Things Gillian would not appreciate if she found out, but some duties were greater than his obligation to Shalon's oldest cub._

_When Rick finally went back to his car, Sasquatch melted back into the forest, the only place on this alien world he actually felt at ease._

* * *

Though it had been good to catch up with Sasquatch, especially in reference to Kate's security arrangements, it was finally time to beard the lion in its den. He took a deep breath before getting out of his car, carrying the bouquet of flowers he had bought from a seasonal roadside vendor just outside Lyons Falls.

The front door opened on the second knock to reveal Jim Beckett, who opened the door wide to admit him. He smiled broadly and shook Rick's hand vigorously. Though they had met only twice before, and not under the best of circumstances, the man seemed genuinely glad to see him, which made him feel even more guilty.

"Hurry up, Katie-bug, Rick's here!" Jim hollered up the stairs, before turning back to their guest. "Katie will be down soon, she's just indulging a woman's prerogative to take her time getting ready."

"That nervous is she?" Rick asked, a little nervous himself, at Jim's nod to the affirmative, he rambled on. "She and I didn't exactly leave things on a good note, Jim." Rick finally said, if she isn't ready for this...to go out...or for me to be here... "

"Rick," Jim said, resting a hand on his shoulder, "what came between you is as much my fault as yours or hers, son. I asked you to do something that was not your responsibility, but her father's... mine. Something I was afraid to do myself. She froze you out because of it when she needed your support the most. If Roy hadn't called you, she would likely have died with him in that hangar. You saved her life twice in the span of a week."

"Once." Rick said softly, "I didn't get there soon enough the second time."

"You did more than anyone else could have son, don't ever doubt that." Jim told him, "I don't know what you told her there in the grass, Katie still won't talk about it, not even to her therapist, but whatever it was made her hold on 'til help arrived. Made her fight to live. That means a lot in my book."

_"She's seeing a therapist?"_ Rick thought to himself, but let the thought go as Kate's father continued, unabated.

"She won't talk about this directly either, Rick," Jim whispered, a hushed concern creeping into her voice, "but I'm sure part of the reason she insisted on coming up here was that she's afraid her shooter will try again."

From what Sasquatch had told him not long ago, he knew that Kate's fear had been right on the money. Rick was absolutely certain that when the man his alien friend had killed failed to report in, another would be sent. Perhaps Maddox... perhaps somebody else. Either way, Sasquatch would be on them like white on rice. Which meant he might actually get some answers as to whom he was facing. The maxim from Sun Tsu came to mind.

'_If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.'_

Whomever this unknown mystery figure was, they obviously had no idea who they were dealing with. Even if they knew he had once been in the Air Force and then a NASA test pilot twenty years ago, the rest was black - redacted and buried so deep that even the last three presidents had never known about it – this _"Dragon"_ would be getting an education soon enough. The next hired gun they sent after Kate would tell him what he wanted to know, or he would end up like the last one. If nothing else, eventually whomever this was would either run out of mercenaries, run out money, or get impatient and make a mistake. The longer he kept Kate alive, better her odds would be.

If they made the mistake of going after his family, _Hunt _would get involved. Even Rick shuddered at the thought of the violence his estranged father was capable of.

"Jim," Rick whispered back, "I have made some private arrangements for Kate's safety. Somebody I trust implicitly...even with Alexis."

"Katie won't like that." Jim replied, but his eyes spoke volumes of his approval. Kate's safety was more important to him than her wounded pride.

"Neither you nor Kate will ever see him, or hear from him, don't trust anybody who tries." Rick explained, "He will never come to the door or call you, or announce himself in any way. But he _will_ be here. I've seen to it that he knows who is safe and who isn't. But he will be watching."

Rick debated telling him about the recent attempt that Sasquatch had taken care of, but he figured that there were some things Kate's father was better off not knowing. If any threat came up that a seven-foot-tall fully bionic behemoth who could speed up or slow down time, pass in and out of material phase at will and tear a man to pieces with his bare hands couldn't stop, there was very little a semi-retired corporate lawyer and recovering alcoholic in his mid-sixties would be able to do about it.

Jim would only stay...and hover... just like he would do if it was Alexis or his mother in danger. He knew that Kate wouldn't want her father in harm's way if the shit hit the fan, so he kept that information to himself. He implicitly trusted that Sasquatch had this handled, whomever had hired Maddox, (or the guy who's remains were now spread out over half the Adirondack State Park for that matter) really had no idea what they were messing with.

"Thank you, Rick." Jim told him, visibly relaxing for the first time, "You have no idea how much better that makes me feel about leaving Katie all alone up here."

"Trust me, Jim, over the past three years, I've learned that sometimes you have to do an end run around Kate's stubborn streak... I don't want her to end up like Roy."

"Neither do I," Jim replied solemnly before they heard footsteps causing them to turn almost in unison to see Kate round the corner at the top of the staircase.

Rick's focus was drawn entirely to Kate, a lavender sundress draped over her slender form, artfully flowing along her curves the soft material ending just above her knees as she navigated the stairs in a pair of matching wedge heels that were drastically lower than the four-inch ones she typically favored, bringing the top of her head just above his chin when she reached the bottom of the stairs.

He was captivated.

Kate looked so much better than she had the last time he had seen her, though the very slight shuffle in her walk and the haunted look in her eyes gave mute testimony to how much further she had yet to go to be fully herself again. She smiled brightly to see him, in spite of herself, but the first thing she did when she got within arm's reach was grab his right ear and give it a sharp twist.

"Oww!" Castle whined, wondering what it was about his ears that they generally seemed to be her first target when she was irked at him.

"_That_ was for scaring the crap out of Alexis the other day," she said in her interrogation room voice before rising up on her toes and wrapping her arms around him in a very light hug followed by a brief brush of her lips to his cheek, "and this is because I'm so glad that you're okay..." she whispered, "when I thought... something might have happened to you...I..."

Kate's voice was shaky as she trailed off, her eyes watery, holding back tears by force of will alone. Rick could tell she was struggling to keep her emotions in check, and could think of nothing to say that might put her at ease without making light of her feelings. In the end it was her father who had come to her rescue.

"How about we get going, shall we?" Jim said, breaking the uncomfortable silence, "We'll want to get there while there's still a decent table. We can take my Explorer.

* * *

Dinner at the Pine Tree Inn was everything Rick could have hoped for, from the log cabin facade of the exterior to the rustic Adirondack decor of the interior - complete with a real moose head over the bar - the place held his writer's fascination. He knew the place would more than likely find its way into one of his Nikki Heat books.

The portions were on the large side, and quite filling. He was more than surprised that Kate managed to put away most of her dinner of a burger and fries. Rick had ordered the honey glazed wings and they were to die for. Jim, to his credit, had kept the conversation light. He had been subtle in his manipulation, having maneuvered the two of them into sitting next to each other.

Jim Beckett felt a certain amount of guilt for pushing Rick to confront Kate after this Lockwood fellow had escaped from custody. He should have known how she would react, that she wouldn't dig her four-inch heels in and freeze Rick out like she had done more than once growing up. _'So much like her mother' _he thought to himself.

Though he usually stayed firmly out of her love life in the last few years, _especially _after that whole Sorenson fiasco, this time he felt the need to do... something... to set right what he had made a mess of when he had pressured Rick to do what _he _had been afraid to.

He had always seen the feelings Kate had for Rick, they practically poured out of her each time she spoke of him and his shenanigans... even when she had dated the doctor that was never really around for her when she needed him. Or the detective that had actively tried to replace him in her heart and compete for her attention.

Neither of them had really ever stood a chance.

He dimly remembered those first few months after he'd gotten out of rehab. He'd had to have someone stay with him who didn't drink and of course Kate had volunteered, he'd seen that tiny one room box of an efficiency apartment she could afford on a patrol officer's salary and was immediately okay with that. He'd recognized Johanna's collection of mystery novels when he'd helped her pack...only the Richard Castle novels had seemed to have multiplied and lacked the thin layer of dust the others had accumulated.

Katie needed that man who was now sitting next to her in the booth, so much so that he knew it scared her, so she'd run the other way... to somebody she felt nearly nothing for. Which, if he examined it closely, was no more fair to Josh Davidson than it had been to Richard Castle or herself.

He'd had a hand in pulling them apart before the summer, and now Jim Beckett felt he owed it to his daughter, and to Jo's memory to give her the little push (or the not-so-little push knowing Jo) in the right direction he knew she'd have given her if his position and Johanna's had been reversed.

"So, Rick, what are your plans for the next week?" Jim asked, unable to help the lawyer in him.

"Well, with Alexis giving me the silent treatment, I figure a tactical retreat is in order...give her some space at least until she cools off a little. She'll let me know when she's ready to hear me out, she always has."

"So, heading to the Hamptons for a few days?" Kate asked, but from the way she deflated next to him, he could tell it was more of a rhetorical question to her.

Jim's eyes bounced back and forth expectantly between the two of them, his expression to Rick saying _"fix this" _as he watched his daughter's face fall and her walls began to slowly go up.

"Well... to be honest," Rick replied, answering Jim's silent plea, and drawing Kate's attention back up from the napkin she was slowly twisting in her lap, "I was thinking of getting a hotel up here, it seems pretty peaceful."

Kate perked up a little at that, though she would never have voiced it aloud, she had been miserable since she had arrived in the cabin. Memories of herself and her mother haunted the place almost as much as her guilt about lying to Rick about his declaration of love for her and breaking her promise to call him. Only her pride would not allow her to beg him to stay now.

"Nonsense," Jim insisted, "I'm heading home as soon as I drop you two off from dinner, you are perfectly welcome to stay at the cabin, you can use my room, I replaced the bed with a single years ago and it's comfortable enough."

Kate opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again... unable to get any words to fall out...totally flabbergasted that her father would be the one to invite Rick to stay. Obviously some understanding had to have been reached between them when she had been in a coma the night of her shooting.

At least Rick wasn't walking away from her, wasn't pulling away like she'd feared when he hadn't returned her call right away. Perhaps there was time for her to fix what she had broken in that hospital room.

She hoped it wasn't too late.


	8. Encounter At The Cabin

**Chapter Eight  
Encounter At The Cabin**

* * *

_Hush little baby, don't say a word  
And never mind that noise you heard  
It's just the beast under your bed,  
In your closet, in your head_

Exit light, enter night  
Grain of sand  
Exit light, enter night  
Take my hand

_We're off to never never land  
_

Metallica: "Enter Sandman"

* * *

_Previously_

_"Nonsense," Jim insisted, "I'm heading home as soon as I drop you two off from dinner, you are perfectly welcome to stay at the cabin, you can use my room, I replaced the bed with a single years ago and it's comfortable enough."  
_

_Kate opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again... unable to get any words to fall out...totally flabbergasted that her father would be the one to invite Rick to stay. Obviously some understanding had to have been reached between them when she had been in a coma the night of her shooting._

_At least Rick wasn't walking away from her, wasn't pulling away like she'd feared when he hadn't returned her call right away. Perhaps there was time for her to fix what she had broken in that hospital room._

_She hoped it wasn't too late._

* * *

After Jim Beckett had climbed into his Ford Explorer and departed for his apartment in Chelsea, Rick and Kate were left standing on the porch looking each other up and down, neither sure where to begin. This circumstance had been unforeseen by both of them. Kate was still in shock from her father suddenly playing matchmaker. She stood on the porch twirling her hair in her fingers, trying to figure out what to say.

It was finally Rick who broke the silence.

"I think we've both had enough surprises tonight, and you look exhausted."

"Way to make a girl feel special there, Castle." Kate snarked.

"Not that you aren't totally fetching, but...but... you _are_ still recovering...and you must be worn out." Castle fumbled, feigning his usual confusion, but secretly glad to see she was able to fall into their usual banter.

"You coming, Castle?" she whispered,

Kate turned, opened the door and walked into the cabin, kicking off her short wedge heels once she was inside. He couldn't help but see her wince as she planted first one bare foot on the floor, then the other and her arm immediately clutched her side where he realized the incision to remove the bullet from her chest had to have been.

She seemed to deflate right in front of him, her face suddenly pale and her eyes devoid of any spark but that of intense pain, agony she had managed to keep well hidden during dinner. Suddenly her father's abrupt takeover of the table conversation had begun to make sense. He was covering for her so she wouldn't feel self-conscious in the moderately busy restaurant.

His examination of dinner was interrupted, when Kate turned her head toward him her eyes imploring,

"Castle, could you get my Percocet, please?" she whispered, "It's in the kitchen cabinet over the sink."

_"Classic Kate Beckett,"_ Rick thought to himself.

It did not surprise him in the least that Kate would intentionally keep her potent pain medication in the most difficult place for her to reach, given her injuries. That way she would have to really need them to reach up there for them. _"Neither her father, nor her doctor would approve."_ he thought to himself.

Rick shoved those errant thoughts aside, however and retrieved what she asked of him while Kate was in her room, presumably changing out of her sundress. His assumption was confirmed moments later when she reappeared wearing an over-sized red t-shirt (which looked suspiciously like the one that had gone missing from his wardrobe after her brief stay in the loft after the Scott Dunn case) a pair of well-worn yoga pants and fleece-lined slippers.

Kate held out a slightly trembling, almost reluctant hand for the pill that would relieve her of the pain for a few hours so she could get some sleep. He knew she would likely be out for hours, as he remembered the side effects of Percocet quite well. They'd put him on something similar after his implantation surgeries and then had to wean him off of it before he could begin mobility training.

Essentially, Rudy and his team had hijacked phantom limb syndrome to trick his body into accepting the new limbs and eye. He had, at first, received an overwhelming flood of random sensory information all at once, which his nervous system interpreted as pain. Pain that had been constant, intense and nearly unbearable until his organic brain and he slowly acclimated, eventually learning how to filter and prioritize the biometric input from them. Even now he still had migraines after an upgrade, especially upgrades to his ocular implant.

* * *

As Rick kept Kate company with stories of Alexis as a child while the Percocet took effect, and helped her to bed after she got drowsy, neither of them noticed the dark shadow approaching the cabin

He went by many names, as men of his particular skill-set, who went off the reservation into freelance wet-work were wont to do as a cost of doing business. He knew Cole Maddox only by reputation, but the man had vouched for him personally as a tracker, information gatherer and assassin. He could lie in wait for weeks without being seen or heard and then strike from out of nowhere, but he was particularly well-known in certain circles for his skill in arranging _"accidents"_.

He had been provided with the plans for the cabin, as well as how it got its electricity, heating oil and propane. He was thinking an _accidental _fire. Kate Beckett didn't smoke, so that was out of the question, so a propane or gas leak coupled with either a faulty electrical circuit, or the fireplace. He knew she took Percocet, and he had a sizable dose in a pressure injector, enough to show up as an accidental overdose, to be followed up by a house fire.

The fire marshal that his employer had in his pocket had provided a wealth of information about how to set it up to fool even the most hard-nosed arson investigation. He would even call 911 himself, when he was certain she was dead, to make sure the county coroner found enough of her body to identify, as well as come to the conclusion he desired.

In his musings, however, he failed to note his changed status from hunter to prey just like his predecessor had. The last pieces of information his senses collected before the lights went out, was a dark shape coalescing from out of the forest, a low, feral sounding growl, and the massive hairy arm that struck him down.

He never felt a thing as Sasquatch grabbed the back of his web-gear and hauled him into the forest.

* * *

**A short time later**

Rick had waited until he was certain that Kate was sleeping peacefully, and the death-grip she'd had on his organic left hand since he had returned from checking the doors and windows were secure and she'd practically begged him not to leave her had loosened as she drifted fully under.

He had promised to stay until she was fully asleep, and had sat next to her his hand wrapped around hers, as promised. He would not have left regardless, it was clear that something had shaken Kate badly the past week or so, even before Alexis had called her, most likely some yahoo with firecrackers in the middle of the night. He knew it was also likely the drugs talking, but having raised a daughter himself, he would not be surprised if nightmares were another motivator for her fear of going to sleep.

He gently slipped his hand from hers, tucked it into the blankets and made his rounds again when he heard an insistent scratching high up on the back door. When he opened it, Sasquatch was standing under the back porch, the top of his head barely clearing the awning.

_"I found a male human prowling in the dark,"_ He signed, handing Rick a silenced 9mm Tactical Sig Sauer, _"he was carrying this in his clothes."_

"Is he the man I showed you?" Rick whispered.

_"No...different human."_ Sasquatch signed, _"I took him alive, he is in the woods, near the water."_

"Show me." Rick whispered, checking the action on the pistol Sasquatch had handed him before slipping it into his waistband and pulling on his shoes.

* * *

He woke up propped against a tree, whomever or whatever attacked him had expected him to be out longer or he would likely have been secured to something. His head throbbed and his weapon was missing from his holster.

Nobody had told him about private security, or a protective detail. Only the old man and maybe the writer tag-along. The intel he'd been given suggested nobody else in New York even knew where she was, not even the medical examiner she hung out with. He would have to get clear and get more intel, before completing this task.

The man got his bearings dragged himself to his feet and trudged off toward the small black kayak he'd hidden under the dock by the lake. He had another weapon there, but more importantly it would get him back across the lake to where his black Escalade (with his sat phone inside) was parked.

The client had some explaining to do. He'd walked away from jobs for less.

* * *

When Sasquatch brought him to the place he had left him, the man was gone. He thought he had done a better job at incapacitating the man, but he had been trained more for bodyguard duties, chasing people away, not to subdue prisoners. Rick could sympathize. He could see the spot where Sasquatch had dumped him and tracks leading toward the lake.

"You can move faster than me, get to the cabin..._now_... in case he tries to double back there. He does _not _get inside, understand?"

Sasquatch growled and snapped out of phase without further comment. Rick knew that his large friend was angry now, as much at himself as anyone else, but if his quarry doubled back toward the cabin, he was in for a very nasty, dangerous surprise.

Rick flipped his bionic eye over to thermal imaging and followed the fresh tracks, powering up the taser in his bionic hand. He still wanted the man alive, if possible. He had questions. Questions which would not be answered if Sasquatch caught up to the man first in his agitated, angry state.

After following his tracks for a short distance, Rick could tell the man was obviously taking the short trail to the lake. He was able to surmise from the less than straight trail that his quarry was either injured enough to not take the long way around, or was trying to avoid detection, but at sixty miles an hour, he could swing around and maybe get ahead of him. His eye switched to night-vision mode as he powered up to his full speed and took the other trail.

* * *

He had made it to the clearing that opened to the lake, he knew he was almost home free. He'd cut through the woods after only a short time on the trail to shake pursuit, feigning greater injury in the tracks he left before slipping off the footpath. He slipped out of the treeline and was halfway to the dock when he felt himself lifted off the ground and flung ten feet away like a rag doll. He tucked, rolled and was back on his feet to face his assailant.

_"It's the writer...so much the better" _he thought to himself as he moved in to attack.

He came in hard and swung a kick low to take out the man's legs only to feel like he'd kicked a tree. Castle's right hand snapped in, lifting him clean off the ground by his combat harness and threw him into a tree ten feet away.

By the time he was back on his feet Castle was on him again, having crossed the distance in a matter of seconds.

_"God damn he's fast..." _ the thought had only just passed through his brain when the writer's right hand was once more gripping his web-gear and he found himself launched through the air again. This time skidding and rolling to a stop not far from where he wanted to go.

* * *

Rick had held back. He wanted to keep the man off-balance, knock him around enough to take the fight out of him...keep him away from Beckett until he was incapacitated. Then call in Sasquatch to play bad cop in the interrogation. After which he would call in support and they guy would disappear. Gina would see to that. She was ruthlessly efficient in that regard.

As he put on a burst of speed to confront him, he saw the man had crab-walked back onto the dock and was reaching for something. He heard the man pull back the charging lever on the silenced MP-5, saw it tracking upward and dove for cover just before the man opened fire.

A gun changed everything. He now had little choice. He could not let that man leave this area alive. The ring finger on his bionic hand tapped his palm once, changing the setting to lethal and three times the normal charge built up in his right fist. He could smell the artificial skin covering his hand smoldering as he rose to his knees to ground himself before planting his palm on the steel decking and discharged everything into it, electrocuting the man where he knelt on the wet deck as if struck by lightning.

The man's scream was blood curdling, but brief.

When Rick pulled his palm from the deck, the skin from his hand came away with it revealing the servos of his hand. Sensation was not reduced, nor was functionality impaired as he moved his fingers experimentally.

_"What the hell are you?" _

Kate's voice carried across the short distance separating them, her eyes wide, staring in horror at the exposed metal workings of his artificial hand and the shredded remains of still smoking synthetic skin clinging to it. Before she turned and ran.

"Kate! Wait...please..." Castle called after her, his worst fear realized...that she would see his half-human state... and be repulsed by it. What Rick didn't know, was that her terror had little if anything to do with him. In fact the icy tendrils of the panic attack had gripped her long before she had come this far from the cabin.

She only got a few paces up trail before she ran headlong into Sasquatch, bouncing off him with a loud _"oof!"_ When she looked up at the seven-foot tall fur-covered giant, it was more than her fragile emotional state could handle... she screamed and fainted dead away. With surprising tenderness for a creäture his size, Sasquatch gently scooped her up into his powerful arms and waited for Rick to come running.

He didn't wait long.

_****A/N sorry about the cliffy, but I'm setting up a chapter where Rick comes clean with Kate about exactly what he is and whom he once was. I'm going somewhere with this...honest!**_


	9. Revelations

**Chapter Nine  
Revelations**

* * *

_Where you gave me the world I was in  
And a place I could make a stand  
I could never see how you doubted me  
When I'd let go of your hand_

Yeah, and I was much younger then  
And I must have thought that I would know  
If things were going to end

And the Heavens were rolling  
Like a wheel on a track  
And our sky was unfolding  
And it'll never fold back  
Sky blue and black

And I'd have fought the world for you  
If I thought that you wanted me to  
Or put aside what was true or untrue  
If I'd known that's what you needed  
What you needed me to do

Jackson Browne - Sky Blue and Black

* * *

_Previously_

_"What the hell are you?" _

_Kate's voice carried across the short distance separating them, her eyes wide, staring in horror at the exposed metal workings of his artificial hand and the shredded remains of still smoking synthetic skin clinging to it. Before she turned and ran._

_"Kate! Wait...please..." Castle called after her, his worst fear realized...that she would see his half-human state... and be repulsed by it. What Rick didn't know, was that her terror had little if anything to do with him. In fact the icy tendrils of the panic attack had gripped her long before she had come this far from the cabin._

_She only got a few paces up trail before she ran headlong into Sasquatch, bouncing off him with a loud "oof!" When she looked up at the seven-foot tall fur-covered giant, it was more than her fragile emotional state could handle... she screamed and fainted dead away. With surprising tenderness for a creäture his size, Sasquatch gently scooped her up into his powerful arms and waited for Rick to come running._

_He didn't wait long._

* * *

It had begun to rain, and Rick stood by the woodshed behind the cabin, not caring as the rain-soaked through his clothes, his self-esteem at an all time low. Every one of his insecurities about his "prosthetics" raced through his mind.

_"I'm a freak...a half human freak...more machine than man. Kate knows...and she's afraid of me." _

Rick glared at the skeletal servos and mechanisms of his uncovered bionic hand, the look of terror on Kate's face as she'd stared at it, playing on infinite repeat in his mind. Enraged, he balled it into a fist and thrust it into the nearest stack of firewood. He heard not just the crunch of wood, but the strangely satisfying creaking of metal as well, - though he knew deep inside that his hand and arm had been specifically reinforced to prevent just this sort of damage - He could punch his fist through a reinforced steel door, or kick it out of its frame with either leg without sustaining serious damage. That was the problem.

Richard Castle wanted nothing more than to crawl into a hole and die.

"She's afraid of me."he whispered, not realizing he had spoken out loud.

"Richard, come in out of the rain," Gillian stated gently, "you _are_ still human, and you will do her no good if you make yourself ill standing out here soaking wet all night."

_"Obviously, Sasquatch called in reinforcements." _Rick thought to himself, unwilling to find the energy to care.

"What difference does it make, Gillian?" Rick whispered mournfully, "You didn't see her face when she saw _this_," he waved his uncovered hand at her, "didn't see the terror in her eyes," he looked down at the ground and whispered, his voice choked with self-loathing, "she's afraid of me... and she should be... I'm a _freak_!"

"Richard Rodgers you are not a... _"freak"_, nor will the human designated Katherine Beckett think you are when she wakes. She will understand when she is again in her right mind. You will be able to speak to her and reassure her." She let go of his bionic hand and took his face in both of hers, lifting his chin and making him look her in the eye. "Richard, you are more than the sum of your component parts, my mother saw it, I see it and so will she if you give her the chance." Gillian stated, in a rare show of heartfelt concern for her mother's friend.

"Now come inside the primitive domicile. I have brought what I need with me to repair your hand and forearm so the human authority figure designated Agent Gina Cowell will have less to be angry with you about." Gillian scolded before taking his organic hand in hers, stroking her thumb across his knuckles soothingly.

Rick blindly followed, uncertain where this sea change in Gillian's attitude toward him had come from, balancing it with the possibility that she had either always had these maternal feelings for him, or they had developed after fifteen years of watching and guiding his life from afar. When they got back inside the cabin, Gillian indicated the kitchen table where she unpacked her portable equipment while Rick went into the bathroom to change out of his wet clothes.

He had always thought it was creepy that she had watched over him, _at her mother's behest_ for years, to be sure, but no more creepy than when he'd found out his own father had done it.

He recalled caving in Alexei Volkov's face with this same bionic fist not four years ago when he'd tried to abduct Alexis from a violin recital. Jackson Hunt had come out of the woodwork to warn him that Volkov was trying to lure him out to get his hands on a living bionic test subject. That he'd wanted to use his little girl to keep him compliant while they studied him. The scrapbook his father had kept of him and Alexis had been difficult to process, even after years of soul-searching.

* * *

**An hour and a half later**

"What about the big guy?" Rick asked out of the blue, as he moved his fingers, testing the range of motion and fit of the new synthetic skin covering his bionic hand. In the end she had done the entire arm, not just his hand and wrist, the new covering seemed to allow more natural sensation that the original.

"If you are concerned about Kate Beckett's knowledge of, or reaction to Sasquatch, you need not worry." Gillian replied matter-of-factly, "I removed _that_ particular memory from her cortex shortly after I arrived. _That _is not her secret to keep. I have selected the most pleasant memory from her childhood that I could find so she will sleep peacefully for the entire night and wake refreshed in the morning."

Shalon had told him from her sick-bed years ago that they had met before she got sick, but she had removed the memory from his mind so completely that he still had no direct knowledge of it. He could attest to the veracity of whatever technique they used to wipe very specific sections of memory from the human mind. Kate would never be troubled in any way by an errant memory of Sasquatch, direct, fleeting or otherwise. As much as he loved the big guy like a brother, he was relieved, Kate had enough things in her life to have nightmares about. _"like me, I guess." _he thought bitterly.

"Gillian, did you..." Rick began, but trailed off.

"No, Richard, I did not remove _all_ of last night's events from her memory," Gillian replied tersely, "only those which duty to _my_ people required of me. We are here to observe, not to interfere, Sasquatch's overprotective intentions to the contrary."

Though Gillian was trying to sound like she was scolding a family pet for misbehavior, (knowing they were well within the bionic giant's range of hearing) Rick could sense from the inflection of her voice, the genuine affection she had for Sasquatch. She wasn't really upset at the lengths the big guy had gone to in the pursuit of her orders to keep watch over Kate for him, but was genuinely concerned for his welfare after they went home.

For the first time in fifteen years, he realized that Gillian completely understood that Sasquatch wasn't some simple-minded beast, but because her superiors likely felt that way, she played that card for the giant's benefit, so she could keep him from being put down when they went back to whatever planet they hailed from. That she apparently had the same affection for _him_ and didn't want to see him hurt either sent a shiver down his spine.

In that moment she was more of a parent to him than his own father (good intentions aside) had ever been.

* * *

**The next morning**

Kate woke slowly curled up in her own bed in the family cabin feeling drugged...like she had for most mornings since her shooting, though this time from the oddly pleasant dream she'd had. The most pleasant dream she'd experienced for a _very _long time. (Unless she counted the sex dreams featuring Castle...which she had always tried very hard _not _to examine too closely over the past few years, especially when she,was still dating Josh) A dream she had not been quite ready to wake from.

It was more a happy memory than a dream...the summer before she'd turned twelve, when she hadn't yet discovered boys or become _"Rebel Becks."_ The year her dad had first inherited the place from an old fishing buddy with no family of his own. Dad had been considering selling the place until she and mom had fallen in love with it. That summer had been magical for all of them, but especially for her. One of the last truly harmonious summers their family ever had.

She had no idea where such a pleasant dream had come from considering the disjointed, terrifying images that flooded back into her brain from the night before. Many of which she was certain must have been hallucinations caused by the nightmare she'd awakened from in a panic to find Castle gone, but his car still in the driveway, only to find him at the boat dock standing over a dead man, with something metallic protruding from the right sleeve of his jacket...a cattle prod maybe? It couldn't have been his hand...he'd just electrocuted a man with it.

Everything had gone dark after that.

_"Must have been hyperventilating and lost consciousness, or blocked the rest out." _She thought to herself. Her pride refused to allow her to even accept the possibility that she had simply fainted. _"Castle must have carried me here."_

She was unsurprised yet irrationally strangely disappointed that aside from her shoes and jacket she was still fully clothed in the sweatshirt and yoga pants she'd changed into after dinner. Though she would have been absolutely mortified had he done more than that before putting her to bed.

When she finally dragged herself out of bed and slowly opened her door, she found Richard Castle sitting on the floor his back to the wall next to the doorway, knees drawn up, his head pillowed in his crossed arms. _"Two arms that both ended in very human looking hands,"_ her brain supplied, for reasons she was not very clear on.

Her heart melted at the sight of him, unable to leave her, even to go to bed. _"Last night must have been a really bad episode."_ she thought to herself. She wanted so badly to believe everything she'd seen last night was just a panic attack...a nightmare fueled hallucination. The last time she had seen him standing over a body, (could it really be less than a year ago?) she had accused him of murder...unfairly as it turned out. She wanted desperately to be wrong now, too.

Contrary to what she'd told him in the hospital she'd heard every word he'd said after she'd been shot, _"Does he really love me so much that he would kill for me?" s_he asked down, she knew the answer to that _question_, and as a homicide cop that frightened her more than she wanted to admit.

Though he'd been careful to keep it out of his statement from that night in the warehouse, Ryan swore to her on his grandmother's grave that he'd seen Castle pick Hal Lockwood up by the throat with just his right hand shake him like a like a rag doll till he dropped his sniper rifle then thrown him _ten feet _into the nearest wall before he started hitting him and would have killed Lockwood with his bare hands

He'd held Lockwood down with his right hand and beaten the assassin's face bloody with his left, only stopping because _she_ had stopped him. For a split second before his eyes softened, she'd seen the fire there, the cold, barely controlled fury. Kate had a hard time reconciling that with the loving son and doting single father she saw whenever he discussed his family. The agony she'd seen crease his brow when he'd told her about the day he'd lost Alexis in a mall in White Plains when she was four.

Yes, Richard Castle would kill to protect her, without a moment's hesitation, like he would for his mother and his daughter. The reason that warmed her heart, terrified her and filled her with a crushing sense of guilt in equal measure. The reason he was camped out on the hard wooden floor next to her bedroom door.

Because he was in love with her.

_****A/N** You want angst? Ok, I've got your angst..**_


End file.
