Hi guys! This is my first Castle story. Reviews are appreciated. It's heavy angst at the beginning, but... well - I'll let you see for yourself. I'm considering turning this into a multi-chapter fic. Let me know what you think. It's set at the beginning of series 4.

Disclaimer - I don't own Castle.

It's eating him from the inside, and he can't even say it's eating him slowly. It's devouring him fast, pulling him into this sea of darkness, and dreams filled with blood, and terror, and anguish. Loss. Love. Lost love. Lost chances.

This is his life now. Or it's what his life has become. He longs to be free, but the only thing that can truly free him is her. It's like the tagline to a horrible, cheesy film. If only.

She'd been shot. And he couldn't stop it. He told her he loved her. She'd been taken to the hospital, and she'd survived. She didn't remember. And she wanted time.

So at first, that's how it began. Richard Castle went home to the loft and threw his keys on the counter, grabbed his phone, sat down on the couch, and waited. He got up to eat dinner, and talk to Martha and Alexis, but ultimately, he kept going back to that same position. On the couch, staring at his phone, waiting for her to call. He would unconsciously tense up his shoulders, then he'd get to the point where he was like a taught wire, holding his breath, waiting to snap. And then he'd let out his breath and collapse in on himself and throw the phone aside on the pillow. He'd let a few more minutes pass, but then he'd reach for the phone, and resume waiting for her to call again.

Martha finally persuaded him on the fourth day that he couldn't sit around doing nothing. He had to get up and do something with himself to make him feel better. She reassured him that being shot was such a traumatic event, and that Beckett would probably call him when she was ready.

But she didn't. And he could only assume that she wasn't ready. But how long would it be?

A week passed, and intense worry built in his chest. More than before. Before, there had been that anticipation. The knowledge that she would be ok, and that soon they'd talk, and soon he would be there to be whatever she needed. Everybody just assumed that once the physical wounds healed she would be just fine. But he knew her better than that. And he wanted to talk to her. He wanted that more than he wanted anything. But he wanted her to want that too. And worse, what if she was just ditching him in favor of talking about all her pain with Josh? The thought made his skin burn. He wanted to be the one to be there for her. Surely it wouldn't take forever for her to call… would it? That's why he worried for her.

He thought about her all the time. She was a current running through his brain. Even when he focused on Alexis or his mother, or any of the other people he knew he should pay attention to, his thoughts were with her.

It would be so much easier if he just knew something. Anything. He had phoned Ryan and Esposito to see if they knew anything, but they really hadn't a clue. Apparently she was giving all of them the silent treatment.

And that's when his heart began to bleed, his soul began to cry, and his brain began to sink into darkness.

Nightmares. He dreams of her, almost every night. He dreams of the shooting, and all the possible scenarios. Things that could have been different… ways it could have been worse. His mind hates him, but it's not just his mind. It's stemming from his broken soul. He sees images of her when he closes his eyes, bleeding out in front of him. He relives the moment he tells her that he loves her, but then her face contorts and she's dead. Or worse, she spits his words back at him telling him she could never love him. That she's never loved him at all. Ever.

Other times he dreams that instead, he's the one that gets shot. He takes the bullet for her and it makes him feel brave. It makes him feel a hero, as he falls to the ground. He dreams her face above him, and her voice, encouraging him to hold on, and stay alive. But then he realizes something is dripping onto his face, and he looks up to see that the bullet has hit her in the chest too. He took a bullet for her but he still couldn't stop it. And then they're both dying in a haze in which he's silently screaming, and grasping for life, as he feels everything within him burning. But there's nothing he can do. He's helpless.

Sometimes the dreams where they both die are the ones he thinks are the worst. But he knows they're not. The dreams that are close to the worst are the ones where she dies before he can tell her he loves her. And there's the ones where instead of the shooting, there's all those other moments she's been near death. Encounters with criminals and their weapons. All those times they could have died… he relives them. And she dies.

Still the worst dreams of all are the ones where she lives, but she doesn't care. She doesn't remember.

And this is what's eating him alive. This constant nightmare. Because the dreams that hurt the most are the ones that are the closest to the truth.

He awakes often, sobbing, crying out her name. Kate… Kate. Shudders wrack his body and he weeps in the night, trying to stifle the pain within him but failing miserably and only managing to stifle the volume of his sobs. It takes him a long time to realize what it is that is making him like this. He almost considers writing it down on a list, but that would make it final, and he wants to keep this in his head. He needs to keep this inside him.

He loves her. He wants her. In fact, he positively longs for her. That's the biggest thing of all. Longing for her presence… to be by her side, and to hear her voice. To be able to see the smile on her face, and her beautiful eyes, and to catch a subtle brush of their fingers as he hands her a coffee in the morning. And it wasn't a physical thing so much as it was a desperate longing to be with her. And knowing that she wouldn't call him. That hurt.

And he's not ok. He's so not ok. He could have done it… he could have taken that bullet for her, if only he had been faster. He could have saved them both the trouble they were going through right now. Or that he was going through. For all he knew, she was probably doing amazing, now discharged from the hospital. But he blames himself. He was supposed to be standing with her. Protecting her.

It occurs to him that he doesn't know exactly when he took it upon himself to be the one to always keep her safe, only that he must. He feels it's his responsibility. He pushed her to reopen her mom's case, and now this is his fault. Inside he knows that she eventually would have gone back to her mom's case anyway. But as it is, somebody needs to take the blame for all that's happened, and it might as well be himself.

And so he unwittingly punishes himself. Every moment of happiness, even though it's not real happiness, not yet… even if it's with his family… it feels like a sin. He'll smile, and then a guilt will fill his heart, and he will frown again and walk away.

He begins to try and track down leads on who the shooter was… on her case. But it leads to nowhere, and only serves to make him more depressed. What's the point, if she's not here?

One month after the shooting, when he's almost resigned himself that Kate has given up on him, his mother walks over to him as he lies on the couch, mindlessly watching tv.

"Richard, this simply can't go on!" she insists.

"What?" he asks, as if he doesn't know.

"You know what, Richard. If that girl is going to call you, she will. If she isn't, she won't. Either way, you have to stop being so miserable all the time. You have a daughter who needs you. She doesn't need a grief stricken father who refuses to even look at her because he loves her and at the moment, love hurts. And there's also me – God knows it hurts watching you act like this. Richard, we need you. The world needs you. When are you going to pick yourself back up and pull yourself together? It's not like she even died!"

The tension has been growing in him again, with each passing sentence his mother says. She's right. Oh, she's so right. But instead he sits up and snaps back,

"She didn't die? Don't you even try to talk to me about the fact that she didn't die! I watched her die, Mother! I watched the life drain out of her body. I held her when it happened! So don't you dare try to tell me that it's not like she died. She may have lived, but she doesn't want me… so even if she did survive, I don't think it matters now." His voice had grown in volume until his final words were yelled out. Almost a scream. He stands up, his mother left speechless at his outburst.

"If you'll excuse me, I am going to my room," he says, and walks toward the bedroom, grabbing a bottle of wine he'd left on the shelf as he went. He slams the door behind him, and stands there, breathing in and out in heavy bursts of hair. He feels like an angry bull. But then, in a matter of a few seconds, he transforms into a whimpering, tiny animal. It doesn't matter which one. All he knows is that he's small, and helpless, and he doesn't know how to make it stop hurting.

So he drinks, much too much. He cries himself into exhaustion. And for the first time in weeks, he sleeps without dreaming.

The following morning, Gina calls, to remind him that he's not submitted the next Nikki Heat story to her, and if he doesn't do it on time she'll have a billion people pounding on her door, so he'd better follow through. So he sighs, and realizing she's right, hangs up the phone, grabs his laptop, and tries to begin writing again. It feels all wrong. He's a writer by nature, but writing Nikki Heat has always been a particular way. There was a particular feel to writing it. Now, with Beckett ignoring his existence, everything felt off. Still, he forced himself to continue the story. He wrote words… thousands and thousands of words.

In the end, however, he didn't connect with them. It just felt like the right thing to do. He finished the book and sent it off to Gina. It was published, and he began his book tour.

He still dreams of Beckett and the shooting at night, but now, when he awakes gasping her name, he pulls his fears back inside him, holds his breath, and refuses to let himself break. He can't go on living if he's going to let himself fall apart. And so he pretends that everything is fine. He goes to fancy book signings, and events, and he flashes the signature smile that makes the girls swoon. He comes home and sometimes he cooks, and he talks to Alexis (although talk of Beckett is strictly forbidden), but even their usual games of laser tag lack the usual energy. But this is his life now. He is moving on in the only way he knows how. He does what seems right and resigns himself to the fact that his life won't have the same sense of meaning that it used to. And that's not a problem. It's just life.

Three months. He's all but given up. And he's gotten better at acting like everything is ok. Still, with every book he signs at this thing he senses himself growing more tired, and hollow. He wants to go home. He signs, and takes the book to sign from another woman in line's hand.

"Who should I make it out to?" he asks.

"Kate. You can make it out to Kate," she says, and at the sound of her voice his heart stops, and he looks up, and there she is. He can't stop the flood of emotions overloading his brain, so he doesn't say anything at all, only stares at her in shock for a moment with a thousand unanswered questions and unresolved anger in his eyes, then he signs her book, hands it back to her (without a brush of their fingers), swallows hard, and tries not to look as she walks away.

She's there when he exits the bookstore, but he doesn't know how to deal with her. In fact, he's not sure he wants to. He'd spent the rest of the book-signing with a hidden wrath burning in his heart. So he walks past her.

But she calls for him to wait.

Oh, but he did. And he tells her so. Short. Simple. Just like the goodbye she gave him that he didn't even know was a goodbye in the first place.

She should have told him that she needed more time. She should have. And she should have told him that she'd come back. And what did she mean she was trying to distance herself? From what? From him? And then he cracks a remark about Josh.

"We broke up," she says, like it kind of hurts.

Oh. Well. There is that. And she's walking away again. For one blindingly horrible moment he stands there watching her go. And he hates himself for it, but suddenly, being angry isn't enough. He needs answers. Answers for everything that's plagued his mind for the past few months. They broke up? Why? He needs to know. Because… through his anger, he still loves her. So he follows her across the street and to the swings, and he sits down next to her. He waits a moment for her to initiate something.

She comments about the ending of his book, and his dedication to Montgomery. He replies that it seemed right. Ugh, that was his whole life. Doing what seemed right. It wasn't enough. He addresses his own pressing question.

"So why'd you guys break up?"

And then Beckett… Kate, starts to tell him. He catches the extra significance in her words, and it tugs at his heart. And suddenly she's talking about these walls inside her, and he realizes that in her own way, finally she is opening up. To him. It's enough to make him turn his head to look into her eyes, and to gauge what he sees there. It helps some of his anger begin to fade.

"It's not going to happen until I put this thing to rest," she says. He knows her. Or at least, he knows her enough to know that tiny piece of hope in her eyes. He searches his brain for something to say, a way to respond to what she's just admitted to him. A relationship… even if they're not together, outside his mother and Alexis, this is the most important relationship he has. And then he just knows.

"Well then, we'll have to find these guys, and take them down."

He'll do it. He'll be there for her. He's willing to stick with her, no matter how long it takes. And somehow he's always known this. She smiles at him, and thanks him for what he's done for her, and then the familiar banter of trying to solve a mystery returns. He missed this… how he missed this.

When they stand up, he gives her a small smile, which she returns. He will follow her. And she's willing to let him.

They begin to work together again, and he's dedicated, there by her side. To be all the things now that she wouldn't let him be before. To keep her grounded. He watches how she's breaking, and even though it's not really even the same at all to what he went through in those three months, he understands what it's like to feel like you have no control of your life. So he tells her that she's not alright. And he lets her lose it and become emotional in her apartment as she cries that she's lost everyone. That everyone's gone.

And he wants to stand up, and hold her, and tell her that he's there, but he's perceptive, and doesn't think she can handle that just yet. So instead he stands up, and goes over to stand a few feet in front of her. She's trying to hold it together, trying not to cry, and running her hands through her hair. She paces back and forth a few steps. He waits.

When she doesn't stop to stand still, and her breathing comes in short rasps that tell of sobbing ahead, he reaches out and grabs one of her hands in both of his, holding onto it and forcing her to stay still.

"Hey," he says softly. "Look at me. Kate. Look."

Kate raises her eyes to meet his. There's so much pain in her look. He takes a deep breath.

"I… can't say that I know what it's like to have person after person taken from you. I don't know how it feels to lose everybody. But, I do know what it's like to lose one."

Kate looks confused.

"Castle, what are you talking abou-" she stops, and then her eyes widen a little bit. He looks back at her and wills her to understand. She blinks fast and looks away.

"Oh," she whispers. He still keeps hold of her hand.

"You'll get through this. We'll find something. I promise," he says.

"How can you be sure?" she says back, and while his thumb, rubbing circles on her hand disconcerts her, she's too much in need of comfort to care.

Because I love you.

"Because we always do. And we won't stop now."

The next few days he spends beside her working on the case. He admonishes her to be careful, and to give it time. But he assures her that they'll get through it. And at the end of the day he says to her,

"Oh and hey. We'll figure it out. That wall inside, won't be there forever." It feels right. She smiles at him, and nods, and he thinks she understands. He watches as she walks away. For a moment, fear strikes his heart again… that she won't be able to let him in, that she'll break even further and there's nothing he will be able to do to stop it. But he pushes it away. She smiled back. And she let him stay. Warmth floods his heart.

It isn't enough. But… it's enough for now.