Unrequited

He has no idea how he does it, every day he walks into the Precinct to see her. Helps with the case and leaves. Knowing he will never take her home, never feel her love or even tell her how he feels.

She chose the other man, Josh in this case. He had hoped after she was shot that she would remember, go with him but instead the doctor and her got closer. They married six months later and he stood by watching the woman he love flutter away, into someone else's arms.

Yet he does it, for nine months he has. Working, loving and mixing the two in order to keep it a secret, while she goes home every night to another man.

"See you Castle," Kate brushed past him on the way out, she had dinner plans but he it had come to the point he kept silent about her plans. He did not want to know what they did; it made him feel even worse.

"See you Beckett," Rick replied politely as they went their separate ways. He towards his car and her to nothingness as far as he was concerned,

"Another day gone," he told himself, reaching inside his pockets for the keys. Then he checked is coat, his jacket and everywhere in between; he had forgotten.

"It's a bit early Castle," Esposito joked, bumping into the man in the hall,

"Well I like to get an early start to the day, that and my keys happen to be on Beckets' desk," he explained putting an end to the conversation somewhat quickly but here he was. He would go home, talk to his mother, and maybe even call Alexis. He knew he would have to move on eventually but he preferred not to think about it as he slipped into the darkened room he had solved many murders from.

"Ah," Rick announced aloud seeing the glint of his keys on the floor, he had been slightly worried someone would steal them but it seemed everything was fine. Then he heard a noise. A stifled sort of noise that made no sense to him, was someone upset? But he could see no one else around and more importantly who would choose a police station to cry in?

Then he saw a light, a small lamp one coming from the captain's office, no one was around. They must have been downstairs as not many homicide detectives were working; if any. So he moved to investigate, not connecting the dots because they were too farfetched.

"Captain?" Castle questioned in complete disbelief as he saw the woman propped up on her desk, tears in her eyes and a used tissue on her face. He was stunned; she was the captain, the strong scary woman who kept everyone else in line. Someone who did not cry.

"Mr Castle?" she seemed just as shocked but her emotions quickly deteriorated once more.

"What's wrong?" he asked, unsure of how to comfort this woman. She looked up,

"How do you do it?" she asked, taking a deep breath while mopping at her eyes. Rick just looked confused, what was she talking about?

"How do you cope seeing someone you love, with someone else?" she asked closing her eyes and wincing in unseen pain.

"You know?" he questioned, he thought it was a secret, that no one knew about his affection.

"Do you think I'm an idiot?" she demanded in a voice that would have been sarcastic in another situation. Instead she just buried her face in her hands, not wanting to show she was crying.

"I caught my husband with another woman, an officer from vice," Gates confessed with a deep sigh not looking up.

"It's already set, we're divorcing and I just wanted to know."

"I don't cope," he answered after a few long moments, she looked up. Bleary eyed.

"Every time I see Kate with Josh a little part of me dies. I don't cope, I try to just let it all out when she's gone," Rick confessed moving over and putting a hand on her shoulder, she leaned her head against him.

"Then why do you do it? Why not leave?" she asked

"Because what I do makes me feel like I'm doing something for the good," was his response.

For a few long moments they stood in silence, Gates tried to clean herself up

"Come on Captain," Castle muttered after a moment, she looked up confused.

"Look if we're going to be sad and lonely, we might as well do it together, I know a great place," He offered knowing she needed cheering up and he was not overly content with spending another evening cooped up at home.

Later

"Javier you've been staring at that menu for ten minutes, are you going to order?" Lanie asked looking at Esposito slightly disapprovingly. They had to wait a long time to reservations here and it seemed more of her evening was being spent watching him pick something to eat.

"Yeah, yeah one sec," he excused

"You said that ten minutes ago," she responded sounding somewhat annoyed.

"Ok ready." He confirmed looking slightly happy and ignorant of the state of his girlfriend.

"Took you long enough, and that's coming from someone who spends her work hours waiting for tests to come back," was her response but she was relieved to find his menu closed and them both descending into chatter. Though as the conversation progressed it started to feel like they had said all this before, even through dinner and drinks Lanie wanted something different. She wanted something exciting to happen.

"What are you staring at?" she demanded seeing her boyfriend gazing directly forwards and after looking down to make sure the girls weren't out she did start to wonder.

"Look behind you, don't make it obvious," he ordered.

"Oh this had better be good if you're going to...what the hell?" she said aloud but too loud, they didn't hear.

"Are you seeing this? Are you seeing this?" Esposito asked again and again, looking like he was seeing something impossible.

"No of course not, if I had seen something so shocking I would be drawing attention to it," was her dry reply but she couldn't help turning around to take another look. This was strange and she had no idea how Beckett was going to react.

"So has anyone won the pool do you think?" his voice pulled her out of her thoughts and into a scathing look.

"Javier! You see this and your thinking of money loss! Besides Beckett's married, the pool ended when she went off the market. Besides no one in the world would have guessed this." Lanie hissed unsure of how she should be feeling.

"But it's just,"

"I know," she finished "But let's not draw attention to it, or us!"

"Yeah let's do that, oh look the waiter's here," Esposito smiled,

"Yeah let's get dessert," Lanie agreed trying not to think about what she was seeing.

"Does this mean we call them Castle-Gates?" he suggested after a moment, looking over at the table.

"Shut up Javier!"

Later

"Thanks Mr... Rick I had a lovely time," Gates told him as he pulled up outside her house, her husband was evidently vacant.

"Me too, it was nice to get to know you," Castle answered, she had hated him for a while. A long while but it seemed that it was all water under the bridge now. She had warmed up to him anyway.

"And you, goodnight... Rick," she seemed slightly unused to saying that however feeling the need to transmit her shock she leaned forward and gently kissed him on the cheek. Then she was out of the car without a word.

"Bye," he heard her shout as he wondered what exactly had just happened.