Something was wrong. Terribly, terribly wrong.
Kate was gone. No explanation to anyone. One day a few weeks ago, she just didn't show up to work. Nothing was missing from her apartment besides a single outfit; there was no sign of forced entry, nothing. She just vanished.
And that was worse than anything else. Castle was a wreck. He could not remember the last time he had a full nights rest. All he would do was sit in front of the murder board at the precinct with Ryan and Esposito helping in between the cases they were forced to work. He couldn't sit at her desk without her there, so his chair had migrated to sit next to Ryan. That's where he sat from the day she was gone until the day he left. He brought coffee for the pair instead of Beckett. He needed to do something useful, not like what he had been doing with her mother's murder. That had been fruitless, idiotic, and a waste of time.
The second he found Kate, he would tell her these things. He would tell her how horrible and selfish he had been. Then he would call her out on hiding from him. Then everything would be okay. Everything would be perfect, and they would be happy, and no one would hurt them ever, ever again. Castle refused to see the flaw in that plan. There was a total possibility for this to happen. For them to get a happily ever after. To just be happy. But everything got in the way, always.
Ryan would always try to crack jokes at the precinct. Esposito would get lunches and make sure Gates wasn't always breathing down their necks. They still made a good team, but just not good enough.
But what Rick didn't tell them is that almost every night was spent at her apartment. He would lie on her couch, breathing in her faint scent. It would be a lie to say he hadn't fallen asleep in her bed before, face scrunched into her pillow, wishing she was there with him.
It took them a month to even find her trail. Wisconsin. That was the first sighting they had of her. She looked the same to Castle. Her clothes were different, but even through the camera screen he could tell it was her. The way she walked, the way her hair was styled, the clothes she had bought. It was her.
He thought it was her. Her eyes, something was wrong with her eyes. They were darker than her remembered. The pixels could have changed it, but the hazel was gone. It was almost black, but that was impossible.
Castle paid for first class for Esposito and Ryan to fly with him to the city. But he could not stay with them. He went out at night looking for her alone. But the trail went dry within a few days. No sign of her anywhere in the town they had landed and the two cops had to return to New York and back to their jobs. But Castle didn't need too. Alexis was old enough to be alone, and she really wasn't alone that much with Martha there.
It took Castle a week after his friends left before his hope began to dwindle. He kept walking around, stopping at stores with her picture, eating near windows at different restaurants.
It took him five weeks since Kate disappeared to see her. She turned on the street he was walking down and strolled past him, ignoring him completely. There was a brief moment in his mind where everything went blank. There was a buzzing in his ears as he watched her figure move away.
"Kate?" She kept moving. "Beckett!" She turned to look at him with a strange look on her face. But she kept walking. Castle began to sprint towards her and he grabbed her arm over the thick grey coat she had on.
That was a mistake. She turned around, her eyes flashing black, and slapped him across the face. There was a force so powerful behind her swing that Castle flew into the brick building five feet behind him. The noise of his shoulder poping was the last thing he could remember before he crumpled in a heap on the ground.
