Goodnight Little One

Writer's Note: This is dedicated to my amazing tumblr friend, lulani. I hope I will have done justice to her prompt. It's one of the longest one-shots I've ever written.

'Cause you can't jump the track, we're like cars on a cable
And life's like an hourglass, glued to the table
No one can find the rewind button, girl.
So cradle your head in your hands
And breathe... just breathe,
Oh breathe, just breathe

There wasn't a typical Saturday night when dating a famous author, Kate Beckett thought to herself.

Last week, she'd arranged a secret murder mystery culminating in a surprise party for her boyfriend. This week they were at a Black Pawn release party for one of Castle's friends. Castle was pouting; he hadn't been writing lately because he spent so much time with Kate, and his friends were giving him a hard time. Kate spent most of the evening twirling around in her long emerald dress, distracting him with the tilt of her head and a wink.

It didn't take long before Castle was dragging them away to a secluded coat closet, where he pushed Kate up against the door, with a growl. "You think it's funny teasing me?"

"I think it's quite fun, actually." Kate smiled at him, her tongue just barely peeking through her teeth, before their lips collided.

They fell together, a mess of limbs and unbridled passion. Ten minutes later, they emerged from the closet, cheeks flushed. In Castle's pocket was Kate's underwear. His mood markedly improved, they rejoined the party, where all remarked about how incredibly lucky he was to have found Kate Beckett.

"Very, very lucky," Castle would reply, "You have no idea."

It took exactly seventeen days before Kate got worried. Eighteen days before she bought a pregnancy test, and nineteen before she got the chance (and the strength, if she's being honest) to take it.

After she got the first result, she went back to the store and purchased five more.

Standing at her sink, knuckles white with the force with which she was gripping the counter, she stared down. All six tests glared back at her – all positive – the pink accusing.

The woman stood in silence for minutes, unmoving, just staring at the sticks.

Without warning, she sprung into action. With a small shake of her head, she adjusted her posture, staring at herself in the mirror, before her eyes darted down to her stomach. "Shit," she whispered, as a hand unconsciously went to her stomach. "Shit."

Twenty two days after the release party, he still didn't know yet.

She'd smiled in his presence, accepted the daily coffee with a smile before excusing herself to the break room where she'd dump it down the drain and refill her cup with decaf.

Her hands stayed in her pockets when they weren't busy typing reports – they were not to drift to her stomach.

He didn't know, and Kate didn't know why she hadn't told him yet.

At night though, when he was asleep, she'd trace patterns on her stomach, imagining the ritual would be soothing for the child. And just before she'd drift off, she'd say a whispered "Goodnight, little one."

It took twenty-seven days before she made the call to her doctor.

They had been chasing a subject, a real dirt bag, into an abandoned warehouse. The team split up, Kate with Castle and Ryan with Esposito. Sweeping methodically, she was taken by surprise when the subject tackled her from behind, and she hit the ground hard. In a moment, she managed to overcome the perp, and the commotion caught the attention of Ryan, who helped her cuff the guy.

When Kate stood, she hissed at the pain that shot through her abdomen. Castle swooped to help her, moving to place his hand on her stomach. Kate guarded her stomach with her arm, a loud "No" deterring Castle's action.

At the look of hurt on his face, she softened. "I just need a shoulder to lean on to walk out."

When they were back in the precinct, she excused herself, before making her way to a closet where no one would hear her.

"Dr. Applebaum? I'm pregnant." There was a pause, chatter on the other line. "No, I don't need any of that. I need an appointment for an abortion."

Silence fell, before the doctor spoke again. Kate was resolute. "Yes, I'm certain. I'm a detective." "No, I don't want to talk about it with the father." "Yes, I'll have a friend there with me." "Tuesday? Okay."

When she hung up, she buried her face in her hands. A few tears fell, but she allowed herself only a moment of weakness. She shook her hands out lightly and walked back into the precinct, into her job, into a place where she could not be a successful detective and a pregnant woman or a mother.

On day twenty-nine, she went over to Lanie's apartment. A glass of wine greeted her, and Kate shook her head no.

Lanie protested. "Wine is good for your health! I'm a doctor, you can trust me on this one."

Kate just shook her head silently, before sinking into the couch, wrapping herself in the blanket. She examined the weave in the blanket silently, curling inwards with every passing moment.

"Oh. Oh, Kate, no." Kate nodded. "You're pregnant?" She nodded again, a tear falling for the first time since she found out. Lanie set aside the wine, grabbing Kate's hand as she sat beside her friend. "It's Rick's, right? Are you keeping it?"

Kate shook her head no. "I need you to clear your calendar for Tuesday."

"Have you told him?" Kate just glanced at her friend, resignation in every moment. "Oh, Kate, you have to tell him. He loves his kid. He'll love this one too."

"I'll tell him afterwards. Lanie, just promise you'll be there."

For a moment, it looked like Lanie might protest, but with a slight squeeze to Kate's hand, she replied, "I'll be there."

Kate whispered, "Thanks." She shifted so that she sat next to her friend, and her free hand moved to her stomach. "Tell me about fetuses at twenty-nine days, Lanie."

With a glance at her friend, Lanie began to speak. The scientific tone lulled Kate into a sense of security, of understanding of what was in her body, of the life that could be born, and the life that would not be born.

"Do you think it'll know I didn't want it?" she whispered.

Lanie shook her head. "It's not aware yet. But if you're asking me as your friend… I think it knows that you're doing this for bigger reasons than not wanting it."

Kate turned her head away from her friend, silent tears streaming down her face.

On Tuesday, exactly thirty three days after conception, Kate called into work sick and called Castle to tell him her father would be taking care of her.

At 10:30 am, Lanie and Kate arrived at the office in downtown Manhattan. It was decorated in a upscale fashion, plush seats everywhere, more appropriate for a bookstore than a medical office.

At 12:30 pm, they walked out.

Her mind numb, Kate smiled goodbye to Lanie at her apartment complex, assured her that she didn't need to stay longer, that Kate was just going to relax and sleep and enjoy the rest of the day off.

After closing the front door behind her, Kate slid down the frame, head falling onto her drawn-in knees. She wished the tears would fall, but they refused. The seconds blended into minutes, the minutes into hours. She watched as the dust danced in the sunrays, as dusk fell over the city, as the streetlights blinked on outside. She imagined she could see the night sky, that next to one of the brightest stars in the sky would be a small new one, that if there's an afterlife her mother would have a grandchild to raise. Her heart pounded, a stark rhythm, disrupting her reveries. It overwhelmed her thoughts, shook through her body, until she realized it wasn't her heart that was pounding, it was the front door she leaned against.

She stood up, pulled open the front door.

Richard Castle. Oh. "Hello," Kate said, inviting him in with a wave of her hand.

"Hello?" Castle asked, incredulous. "Hello?!"

"Yes. Hello. That is a standard greeting, is it not?" In her mind, Kate was not totally aware of the words she was saying.

"Is it also standard not to open the door for two minutes?" Kate didn't register Castle's words. She was distracted. She wanted to see the stars again. "You're sick, your father's supposed to be taking care of you, only I called him and he didn't know you were ill at all. And then I visited Lanie, who apparently said I should talk to you, and she wouldn't look me in the eye. So Kate, what the hell is going on?" Kate's feet carried her to the window, where she looked up. Maybe she would be able to see some stars tonight, despite the brightness of the city.

Two hands grabbed her shoulders, turning her around. "Kate." The word held a hint of a question, but she didn't know the answer. "Come on, Kate, look at me. What are you doing?"

Staring into his blue eyes, she answered. "I wanted to see the stars. It's a pity we live in New York, isn't it?" She was aware the words had a certain dreamy quality to them, but she couldn't control herself anymore.

She'd lost a piece of herself, and she was pretty sure in the process she had lost him too. In thirty three days, she had grown to love their child, but she gave it up for justice.

That's why she'd never told him.

She had chosen the pursuit of justice over him and his child.

And her child, too.

The train of thought snapped her back into the moment, replacing her heart with a rock. With a shake, she broke free of his grasp, retreating a few steps away to lean against her couch. "What are you doing here, Castle?" She folded her arms across her chest, guarded. He was staring. She had no clue what to do. If she could just get through tonight, through this day of mourning, she could go back to being Kate, Castle's girlfriend. She just needed a night before she could go back to the way it was. "Castle, I'm still not feeling well. I just need some sleep."

He frowned. "It's midnight, Kate. Why aren't you asleep yet then?"

She shrugged. "I lost track of time."

"Of time?" He waited for a moment. "Kate, come on. We were past all of this. What's going on? Just tell me, Kate. It can't be worse than what's running through my head."

She moved around the couch so that she could sit down, her back to Castle. "Yeah, it can." She could hear him moving closer, so she continued, barely speaking. She didn't want to have to say the words out loud. "I was thirty three days pregnant today. It was yours."

"Was?"

Her hand clenched around her opposite arm, the nails digging into her skin painfully. She relished the feeling. "Today, at 11:48 am, the fetus was aborted." Her hand fell to her stomach, as though maybe she could still feel a heartbeat, maybe it was still there.

There was a hiss of sound, and she closed her eyes. She knew he was still there, could hear the occasional footsteps and the sound of his breathing. But she couldn't help but hope that when she would open her eyes, it would be back before the release party, before all of this.

A hand fell atop hers, fingertips brushing over her stomach, before contracting to grab her hand. "Kate, look at me." She opened her eyes, and wished she had kept them closed. Tears were shining in Castle's eyes as he kneeled on the ground, a single track running down his face. She looked down at their hands intertwined, unable to face the sorrow in his face. A word broke the silence. "Why?"

"Because I got tackled by a suspect. Because I was the youngest female cop on the force. Because I can't be a cop and raise a kid. Because I can't die in pursuit of justice and leave you to the bottle and our child to suffer what I did. Because I would make a terrible mother and I'm not sure whether the child would have been worse off with me alive or dead."

"Do you love me, Kate?"

She did not hesitate with her answer. "Yes." It hadn't been the special moment she had planned for telling him, but it was true.

"Do you really?" She glanced at his face. "Because this isn't love, Kate." He released her hand and stood up. "You just don't do this to someone you love. I think you think you love me. I think you probably even thought you did this out of love." He walked to the door. "But Kate? That's just not love."

Kate closed her eyes again, turning to her side on the couch. The door opened and closed.

"Goodbye." The word floated into the apartment.

Her hand traces the old patterns on her abdomen. "Goodnight, little one."

She called in sick the next day.

Castle never called.

She hadn't expected him to.

When she goes back to work on Thursday, Gates questions the absence of Castle. Kate explains in sparse detail. "We had a disagreement. I think you will be happy to know that our unorthodox partnership has come to a close, I believe." Gates frowned, before dismissing her. Kate waves off the questions of the boys with one word answers, and dives into the case.

In a relentless pace, she cracks the case in seven hours. She immediately takes a new one, closing it in nine. The boys go home, but she dives into the next case.

The pace continues for a week, while she sustains herself on espressos and naps on the break room couch. Beckett has Lanie bring in changes of clothes for her, unwilling to travel the twenty minutes to her apartment. In a week and a half, she has to give Lanie cash to buy her new clothes – she's dropped a size.

In two weeks, Gates orders Beckett home for a mandatory 48 hour cooling period. She sneaks four files of cold cases into her jacket before she departs.

In the absence of Castle, she's lost herself in the pursuit of justice.

The pursuit of justice lands her in the hospital within a month from exhaustion.

Beckett is back in the precinct in two days.

The boys whisper with Lanie behind her back, but she's relentless.

She's in the middle of typing up one case report while she reviews the evidence for another case she's investigating when a shadow falls over her desk.

"What do you have for me?" She holds out her hand, not looking up, waiting for Ryan or Esposito to give her the details. When the person says nothing, Beckett looks up at Castle.

Richard Castle. He's lost weight too. She can see it around his eyes; they sit deeper than they ever did, and his jacket sits loosely on his shoulders. He isn't smiling either, and it hurts too much for her to see him that way, so she looks back at the computer.

"I'm really sorry, but I'm afraid I'm busy at the moment. Can we talk some other time?"

"When?" His word is harsh, biting.

"Well… This case will take me until tomorrow, and then I have a cold case where I'm interviewing the arresting officer, so that'll be tomorrow night –"

He interrupts her shortly. "Damn it, Kate."

She stops typing for a moment, faltering. Quietly, she says, "It's Beckett."

"Yeah, apparently it is." A pause. "Kate, you can't keep running yourself like this."

She can't listen to this. She doesn't want to. "Excuse me." She stands up and heads away from him, into the break room. Shutting the door, she hopes he won't follow. She knows it's futile. Hands shaking, she puts on a new pot of coffee. The door opens, and she fumbles, but manages to latch in the piece. "Why are you here, Castle?" She watches for the fall of liquid.

"Because you're killing yourself."

"Thanks. You look great, too."

"Come on, Kate. You know it's true." The coffee drips into her cup, and she pulls out a full mug. Sitting on the couch, she drinks the liquid black. Every sip is rejuvenating. "Kate, what the fuck are you doing?"

"I don't care, Castle." She looks up at him. "I don't need to care anymore. It's the justice that matters, because guess what? I don't have a boyfriend and I don't have a child. And that's on me, because I wanted justice. So now, I'm going to get as much of it as I can, until one day I won't get it anymore." It's matter-of-fact. She's been saying this speech to Ryan, Esposito, and Lanie every time they ask, and it scares them away well enough that she can keep working.

"But I care."

"Like hell you do." Her voice is strong. His face is wounded by her words, but she keeps going, standing up and walking towards him as she speaks. "It's been one month, one week, and three days since we've last talked. You don't care, and that's okay. I wouldn't either. But don't come in here and tell me you care."

"You waited one month and two days to tell me," he whispers.

"I waited fourteen days." The math comes easily. She's done all these calculations before.

They stand in silence for a moment, before Kate moves past him to open the door. As she exits, she hears him call out from behind her. "Don't die, Kate."

She doesn't answer.

A delivery arrives for Ryan the next day, and he takes it into the break room. The next time Kate fills up her coffee, she notices a new blanket on the couch.

At lunch, a burger is delivered to her desk. Kate puts it in the break room for someone else to claim.

At dinner, Chinese arrives. She exits the precinct, walks a few blocks away, and hands the bag of food to a homeless man.

When she wakes in the morning, the new blanket stubbornly not pulled over her, there's a coffee at her desk and a change of clothes. They're new, and a size too big, so Lanie didn't bring them. She puts them in her locker and pulls out one of her other outfits instead.

The coffee is poured down the drain.

It takes five days before Kate accepts one of the gifts.

It's a single rose, with a ribbon that has "Johanna" embroidered on it.

She takes it with her to visit her mother's grave on her birthday, and places it on the ground.

Kate stands there unmoving in the pouring rain until the cold threatens to take one of her toes.

Kate stops by her loft to change on the way back to work. She's struck immediately by how clean it is. The fridge is clean, the trash has been (finally) taken out, and freshly laundered clothes sit on her bed. Kate pulls out an outfit, calls a locksmith to change her locks, and heads to work.

The gifts last for a month, a week, and three days.

That day, she wakes to a note taped to a coffee. She pulls off the note before drinking half the coffee in one sitting.

She opens the note and reads it.

She blinks, and reads it again.

Standing, she enters Gates' office, requesting a personal day. The captain happily grants permission and the boys watch as Kate leaves, note in hand. They exchange glances, before returning to the case.

She slips a note under the door of his apartment, before heading to the park to wait.

At 2 pm, she begins to worry he might not have been in his apartment – maybe he has a new girlfriend and he's at her place. Maybe he just doesn't want to see her. Her fingers run over the edges of his note, reassuring herself that it's real, that he really wrote those words.

She spots him approaching the park, and she leaps up awkwardly from the bench. "Hey."

"I got your note," Castle says, holding out his hand.

She leads him over to the swing sets, and they both take a seat. "I called you here because… I'm an idiot. And I was wrong. I came here and knew I was wrong for not admitting how I felt about you, and then I ran to your apartment. And I came here the day after my abortion, and I knew I had done the wrong things."

Castle looks at her as though he wants to interrupt, so Kate holds up her hands. "Wait. I'm not done. I haven't left the precinct much over the last few months – but the only place I ever go when I do, really, is here. And I watch the kids and their moms and their dads." Her feet play with the dirt below. "I still don't think I'll be a good mother. And I still don't think it's fair to know that death is a real possibility and that I could leave you both with that loss. But what I do know is that I robbed you of your kid too."

They sit in silence for minutes, looking at a boy who is determined to climb up a slide, despite the fact he routinely slips down.

"I still think, 'Goodnight little one,' every night. I tried to stop, but I can't. I don't think I'll ever forgive myself for it," Kate whispers.

"I didn't think I would either." Castle says. "But you made the choice out of love. You made the choice because you genuinely thought it was the right one. And it tore you apart, which is what really made me forgive you. You seemed so ambivalent about it that night."

"I was numb."

"And I realized that once the boys started texting me about how messed up you were. But I didn't believe it until I walked into the precinct – you were a ghost. You made the wrong choice and it nearly killed you. But that's what I love about you."

He reaches out, and pulls Kate's hand off the chain, wrapping it around his own.

"I love you, Castle."

She gets up, releasing his hand, and they begin to walk around the park, following the pathway. There's still a lingering tension between the two bodies, but it dissipates with conversation, disappearing when Kate bumps Castle's shoulder in a tease. He smiles at her, pulling her under a tree, and kisses her lightly.

After a moment, they begin walking again, disappearing around a bend.

From behind two trees emerge Ryan and Esposito. Esposito already has his phone up to his ear. "Hey Lanie. Mom and Dad are back." The sounds of excitement emit from the speakers of the cell phone.

Ryan and Esposito roll their eyes at the phone, but smile before high fiving each other.

"We're back," Ryan says softly, as Esposito talks with Lanie. Looking at the bend around which the pair had disappeared, he smiles again. "Hell yeah, we're back."

Writer's Note: I worried about the in-character-ness of Kate and Castle throughout, but the prompt originally asked for an abortion, so I delivered. I have a tendency for melodramatic moments, which I tried to control, but inevitably it slips in. As always, reviews are extremely helpful, especially when they address the changes I can make in the future! :)