A/N: This story takes place approximately 6 months after the events of Kill Shot. Possible spoilers for Season 4 in later chapters, but this chapter includes nothing after the Season 3 finale. For the purposes of this story, Alexis has already left the Castle nest and is happily entrenched in her collegiate textbooks – hopefully at Stanford. No Ashley, though, because really – she's too good for him.
It's become almost biological at this point, the impulse to vacate her chair at the precinct every evening at exactly 7:12 PM. She's always been a creature of habit, and the bold-faced numerals stare knowingly at her from her father's watch on her arm. Sighing quietly, and to no one in particular (anyone in particular she might have sighed to had left hours ago), she rose from her chair, taking care to press the power button on her desktop monitor before grabbing her coat. Stopping in the break room, she remembers the paper bag Castle had pressed into her hand that morning with a conspiratorial grin. Cheesecake, he'd told her. Pumpkin and cinnamon. With a maple glaze, she remembers, grinning wolfishly as she remembers the childlike pride with which he had presented it to her. Tonight, the cheesecake would be her excuse, but the ritual would be the same as ever.
She would arrive home to a darkened apartment, the late fall sun having already tired, a summer's worth of endless days finally catching up to themselves – November in New York. Her coat would be abandoned quickly, draped over the arm of the couch or tossed on the pile of paperwork that littered the kitchen table. Before even turning on the lights, she would make her way over to jar where she kept her temporary high. Grinding the beans herself every evening, she would begin to brew the coffee. It was her constant, her ritual. Rituals were important, she admitted silently to herself. They kept you sane. Some days, she'd fight the ritual, fight the need behind it, fight against her own weakness – but as soon as she walked through her own front door, whatever weak arguments she'd cooked up began to fail. This daily ceremony – it had become something of an inevitability.
As soon as the last few drips fell, she was ready, mug in hand. Wrapping her slender fingers around the still too-hot ceramic, she stood silently at the window, reluctantly allowing her mind to wander. It was the only part of her day that she permitted herself to slip into the twisting folds of her memories – memories that sometimes felt as dark as the coffee she was drinking. She remembered the love and innocence of a childhood taken from her far too early, remembered the murder of her mother, the senselessness of the act, and the hopelessness she'd felt at her own inability to catch those responsible. She allowed herself to burrow deep into her own mind as she gazed out into the murky night, lost in reverie.
Something was missing in her life. Something had been missing for a long time, but she'd never been aware of its absence before. She didn't have that luxury now. He'd stormed into her life with his unlikely explanations and bizarre rationalizations, his incessant need to make life more like his novels, and in the process, he'd disrupted that balance, that equilibrium – that comfort of unawareness. If he'd never walked through the doors of the twelfth, never occupied that single chair beside her desk – she was sure she'd never have missed it. She could have lost herself in her work and allowed the world to pass her by. She could have blithely written off the living to give voice to the dead, continued the endless string of nowhere relationships with men she didn't love. And though she would always have known that she wasn't happy, she would never have seen a reason why she should or could be. It was only in these moments, watching the rain fall in sheets on the pavement outside as she sipped her communion of black coffee, that she admitted to herself that for the first time she could remember, she was aware of a great emptiness in her life. This was the true reason for the coffee – it bridged the gap between the truth that she felt sure existed, so close she could almost touch it – and the seemingly impassable chasm that separated her from it.
The truth – if only she knew it, she might finally be able to move on. Might even invite Castle inside, rather than barely tolerating his occasionally successful attempts to insinuate himself into her apartment, into her life. The dread didn't come from knowing that she hadn't yet found this truth, but rather from the feeling of impending certainty that soon she would have a decision to make, with or without it. The eleventh hour was upon her – Kate Beckett was running out of time, running from questions she still wasn't sure she wanted answers to.
But time – she knew enough now to know that time waited for no one. Time had finally come to collect its bounty from her, to make good on the deal with the devil she'd made so long ago. It was time to face up to the inevitable, imperishable truths that had finally caught up with her. She stood now at a crossroads between life and death – and she knew now that the line she had been walking between the two could be no more. She'd been running scared from the idea of really living for so long that she'd strayed dangerously close to the alternative. She was so close now – to answers, to her mother's murderer – and in her haste to get here, she hadn't realized how close she'd come to something else entirely. Sunshine-filled life called out to her with a voice that sounded suspiciously like Richard Castle's, teasing her with visions of a future as a wife, a mother, part of a family – perfect happiness. She could give up this chase – she could have it all, but a part of her still wondered – could she ever let it go? Could she knowingly walk away from the truth of her mother's murder? She knew the answer before she even asked the question.
No. She couldn't – this had started as a mission, but it had become her entire life, everything that she was. A silent tear slipped down her cheek as she thought bitterly of the life she might have had in another, better world.
This was the indulgence she allowed herself. She couldn't let Castle know that she loved him – he'd do everything in his power to stop her, and in her weakness, she would let him. But she could allow herself this one moment each night to grieve for a life which had never been, could never have been, but which had felt more real to her than even the ring around her neck.
A/N: To be continued...