A/N: So I've been gone from here for a long time. Trying to be productive in real life. (I know, right? Crazy.) Anyway. If there's anybody left in the fandom after all that's been happening in season 8 (and yes, spoilers through episode 8x02!), I finally have found the words for a story. I am so ridiculously mad at this show right now. Inspiration goes to Selena Gomez's song for which the story is named, "Same Old Love", because the show is just not cutting it for me right now.

Disclaimer: I obviously don't own anything to do with Castle, or I would not be letting any of this happen. I wanted a senatorship and Caskett babies. Also, there are three song references if you can catch them. :) They're not mine either.

I stand in the middle of my study, feeling completely bowled over. I don't know what to do. My brain seems to have stopped functioning.

I'm on autopilot as I move over to the drawer where I keep my good scotch, the heavy stuff. The bad day scotch. I don't want to bother with using a glass even though it's sitting right there, so I take the cap off, slam it on the desk and promptly take a nice, long swig. God, it burns. Burns like the pit in my stomach.

No. Nothing burns like that.

I quickly follow it up with another two draws from the bottle. It's not good enough. Shit. There's nothing— nothing— to occupy my mind with, to distract me enough. I could get drunk off my ass right now and it wouldn't do me a bit of good.

Somehow, she took the all of the oxygen out of the loft.

Stop. I don't want to think about her, or any pronouns that allude to the female presence that just fled from the loft. Gotta keep the anger up.

Angry. I can do angry. In fact, I can more than do angry. I take another, spiteful drag of the alcohol; cough when it almost drowns me by inhaling the liquid instead of swallowing it correctly. Stupid, useless body. Maybe that's why she left me.

My desk chair decides to take me by surprise and leap out in front of me, and I come crashing down. The bottle shatters as it hits the floor just before I do, spilling what would have been a useful amount of the amber liquid onto my floorboards and that's why people use glasses, stupid.

I can't really get up, even though I belatedly just noticed the cut across my palm from glass shards. I should clean it before it gets infected— eh, the alcohol should help with that. And it burns. This burn is way worse than the burn in my throat, and quite possibly edging out the fire in my gut for first place in the competition to hurt me the most.

Kate gets the blue ribbon for that.

And then it all just lands heavily around me, sinking in even as I try to sink further into the ground, further on my knees. Kate left me. My wife just left me. What do I do now? Where are we supposed to go from here? Shit, is she going to be ex-wife number three? I can't handle that. I love her. I love her.

We were supposed to be different. We were special. Third time's the charm.

How does this keep happening to me? Same old song and dance, same old love. You'd think I'd have learned my lesson by now. I can pretend, argue that I didn't ever really love Gina, but I did. At least at some point. And Meredith, I loved her too. And not just for Alexis. It tore me up when I caught her cheating on me. I loved them both, and they betrayed me. Why should Kate be any different? Why can't I get this right? What did I do to deserve this, any of it? Am I just doomed to a life of lonely misery?

Same as it ever was. Stupidity, love. There's no difference. Kate, Gina, Meredith... all unavailable, emotionally closed off, and left me in the end. It's not fair, but it's no worse than love was before. Love is always the same, at least for me.

The burning in my stomach says I'm lying.

I turn onto my side, lying down, careful not to lie directly down on a shard of glass, but not much caring beyond that. I am lying. Kate was different, what we have is special. She's just... she's—

I don't have the words for it yet. Which is an odd experience for me. But I don't care right now. Right now, my body's too focused on putting out the fire in my stomach, hardening and cooling until the emotion is all gone, extinguished.

She's not the only one who can put up walls.

A small, still spiteful and angry part of me wishes she could see me like this, see how much she just hurt me, how she's blowing up my life. Our life. Maybe she'd have second thoughts.

There's an abrasive ringing that sounds throughout the loft, but I can't be bothered to identify it. If it was Kate, she could come find him like this. She deserved to.

I just can't believe it. I don't know if I believe in anything anymore. I'm just sick of it all.

"Dad... Dad?" Alexis' voice rings out loud and clear, but it feels far away, like I'm underwater still. But being under water is better than being completely consumed alive by fire.

I could hear her running around the apartment for a little bit, doing something and making weird noises. Whatever it was, one of the things shut that persistent ringing off, which brings some small measure of relief. Very small.

"DAD!"

"Pumpkin," I try and speak, but my throat is dry and my head is foggy and my stomach is roiling and my hand is bleeding and oh yeah my wife just left me...

She's on the ground beside my head in an instant, one of her slender hands lifting my face to hers. "Dad, are you okay? What happened? Do I need to call the cops? Where's Kate?"

"No," I moaned, in part at the name, part at the idea of anyone else seeing me in this state. It's bad enough that my daughter has to see it.

"Dad, I came up here and the door to the loft was open wide and the kitchen was on fire and I come in here and find you like this? Talk or I'm calling 911."

I don't want to tell her. She's had to pick me up and dust me off after too many of these situations. And saying it aloud makes it much more real. Saying it aloud means consequences, and damaging relationships, and Kate and Alexis had gotten so close since his disappearance, and it would only make things harder for Kate if she wants to come back to me. "Don't wanna."

"I'm calling the police." Her eyes— my eyes— are staring back at me, and they broker no concessions. She's serious, I can tell, and she's worried about me.

I take a deep, shaking breath. I take another, just for good measure. And maybe to stall a little bit. I feel a wave of emotion well up inside me as I say the words, crashing over my puny walls. "Kate's gone, Lex."

Her brow furrows, concern only increasing. "Gone? But you just found her. You said she was okay."

My heart clenches tight like a fist in my chest and it won't let go. My emotions are ragged and I know I'm not gonna last much longer. "She left."

I watch as the realization processes in her face, as she travels from worry to confusion to shock and horror to anger. I watch as she wrestles with that anger, for me, and I watch, heart breaking apart one more time this evening, as she bottles that anger up and puts it somewhere far away so she can focus on taking care of me.

Did I do that to her? Did I teach her to hide her emotions away like that? Am I the reason she doesn't have the same faith in relationships as I tend to? Have my up and down relationships done that to her? I always thought I was a good father, provided a steady home.

Maybe I didn't.

"Come on, Dad. Let's get you cleaned up." She helps me to my feet, carefully navigates me to my bathroom, cleans and bandages the cuts on my hand, then tells me to shower because apparently laying in a puddle of scotch doesn't make you smell huggable. Fun fact, it also makes you sticky.

Luckily, I held it together until I got into the shower, shuddering and sobbing and letting all of the emotions out finally. I could pull myself partially together for Alexis, but not quite yet. I can't do anything right now other than cry.

And at least this way, no one will see my tears.

A/N: Review if you please! I might add a little bit more to this, but most likely will not, so it's marked complete for now. Just wanted to explore some of the emotions that Castle hasn't really exuded on the show yet... hope you enjoyed!