Author's Note: My job requires me to spend a lot of time in my car. Over Christmas, my lovely family and friends gave me the gift of Sirius XM, which means I can listen to whatever music I want. Sara Bareilles has been one of my favorite artists for years and, after stumbling across a station that plays her music, I spent an entire four-hour road trip listening to her stuff. This idea sparked off her song 'Manhattan', but the plan is to weave many of her songs into the story and use them as a soundtrack of sorts.
So what is the story? Simple. What if Beckett's DC job offer came between season 2 and 3? What if she ran before they ever got started and, most importantly, what happens when she comes back?
Disclaimer: I still owe thousands in student loan payments, if I owned Castle that wouldn't be the case.
You can have Manhattan,
I know its for the best,
I'll gather up the avenues and leave them on your doorstep,
And I'll tip-toe away, so you won't have to say,
You heard me leave.
The threat of tears holds off long enough for the elevator doors to slide closed, for Kate to give half a wave that Castle never sees while he has eyes for his ex-wife.
It's all so embarrassing, she thinks as she spins on her heel and tears down the main hallway. She's a detective, has always prided herself on keeping a professional front inside these walls, but on the day she takes a chance and truly, finally, decides to lay it all out it ends with a petite blond hanging on his shoulder and a half-hearted farewell.
Happening in front of her team adds a layer of shame that adds a hot slice of anger to the emotions churning in her gut, bringing the irrational urge to throw her beer bottle against the brick wall as she passes the women's bathroom.
It's the obvious place to go. Kate knows that she has, at most, a minute before Lanie is hot on her heels, so she takes a sharp left and heads into the corridor that leads to the back stairwell. It's not one that the precinct uses all that much, filled mostly with extra chairs and miscellaneous items they only need on occasion.
But she knows this place, has investigated every nook and cranny and it affords her the ability to get the drop on her best friend as she shoulders between two towering boxes of files and nudges open a door that sticks with age and disuse.
Once it had been an office - a desk and two chairs and crammed into the room - though now it mostly serves as storage. Montgomery had briefly worked out of the small space a few years back when his office ceiling was leaking and needed repair, but Kate can't recall another instance that anyone has set foot inside.
She locks the door as an added precaution, her hands sliding off the doorknob with a slight shake that, again, sends her blood boiling in anger even as her eyes begin to prick and her throat closes up. For a moment, she hates herself as the tears finally flow over the rim of her eyes and streak down her cheeks. She hates that she is 29 and crying over a damn boy while hiding in her own workplace. But she is, and its the ugly sort of crying, too. The kind that requires a night full of boy-bashing and pints of Ben and Jerry's with your best friend. It's the kind of night that Kate Beckett will never allow herself to have with Lanie because it will eliminate plausible deniability.
If she gives up the ghost, the game is up and it becomes impossible to deny just how thoroughly Richard Castle has worked his way into her life. Of how completely she cares about him.
And if she gives up that secret, voices the words, she knows that she'll crack. That the looks and tough love provided by Lanie will break her into confessing to him.
So she resolves to stay quiet, to pour her broken heart out on the floor of an abandoned office in the 12th Precinct and then to pick herself off the hardwood and get back to work.
Because she lost him, long before she ever had him.
You can have Manhattan,
I know its what you want,
The bustle, and the buildings, the weather in the fall,
And I'll bow out of place,
To save you some space, for somebody new,
You can have Manhattan,
Cause I can't have you.
"Yes, sir, I understand exactly what you mean," Kate says, waiting until the deep voice on the line cuts her off for another long explanation before she pops three M&Ms into her mouth. They are some of the last in the bowl, which is the last personal item aside from her parade of elephants that remains on her desk, and she makes a mental note to purchase some bubble wrap at the corner bodega before the end of the day.
Because the elephants and the bowl are going with her - after 5 p.m. she no longer works for the NYPD.
"I'm flattered, sir. And it really has been a pleasure to serve the city. I'm certainly going to miss it," she replies with complete honesty, ignoring the slight fracture of her heart at the idea of leaving this place behind. It comes up whenever someone mentions her imminent departure, and she's ignoring it with all of her might.
Analyzing what it means might give her cold feet. And she doesn't want cold feet - she wants monuments and politics and a spot on a federal task force that will leave her absolutely no time for a personal life and a broken heart.
Yes, she's running, but that doesn't mean she has to care.
The mayor bids her farewell with a few more words of praise, and Kate drops the phone back onto the cradle with a long sigh. It wasn't as if she had a personal relationship with the man, so when Ryan had told her there was a call waiting from him she had been confused. One brief meeting at a charity auction and a couple of poker games warranted a personal phone call to thank her for her service to the city? She supposes she should be flattered, and on some level she is, but it all just screamed of favoritism, of Nikki Heat and Richard Castle, and all the things that still made her throat seize up and her heart ache.
Six weeks without a call or a text. Six weeks of silence. Six weeks where she spent a ridiculous amount of time with her fingers lingering over the screen of her phone and debating on making the first move.
In the end, she never had. Instead she'd worked a case involving a drone strike and secret agents - she'd worked with his voice whispering insane theories in her ear and the phantom taste of the coffee he brought her in her mouth. And, in the end, when she'd nearly caved from missing him, Agent Stack had presented her with an offer.
Kate had jumped at it, had been flattered by the praise of her talents and the lure of making a difference on a national level. She'd reveled in the idea of leaving behind her hometown and making a name for herself.
She'd been relieved at the opportunity to leave his ghost behind. To know that she'd be able to quietly excuse herself from his life and never have to face his eventual return and, by extension, the heart he had unknowingly broken.
Two days until her flight departs from JFK.
She ignores the apprehension that curls along her spine as the Captain gestures for her to join him in his office.
You can have Manhattan,
The one we used to share,
The one where we were laughing and drunk on just being there,
Hang on to the reverie, could you do that for me?
Cause I'm just too sad to.
You can have Manhattan,
Cause I can't have you.
Crisp fall air, a cloudless blue sky, temperatures that are just cool enough to need a light jacket.
It's his favorite time of the year in Manhattan, the point where the city comes alive with an energy that is somehow both bright and lazy. There's none of the sluggish thump of summer, the cold bite of winter, instead the city simply seems to breathe. To acknowledge the color and the last remaining days of comfort.
Rick falls back into his routine as if he hadn't taken almost a four month vacation from the Precinct. He sends Alexis off to her first day of school with a big hug and a brief kiss to the crown of her head, showers, eats breakfast and heads directly to the coffee shop two blocks from the police station.
In the end, he decides to surprise all of them. They had never agreed on a specific date for his return, and he spends the time waiting for his orders imagining the pleased responses. Of course, he'll have to smooth things over with Beckett, he knows she'll be annoyed with no contact from him but they've done it before.
He's not worried when he takes the carrier and the box of pastries. He even finds himself humming as he steps into the building and tosses a hello towards the desk sergeant. The head of close cropped brown hair and the black suit jacket sitting at her desk alert him that something is wrong - for the first time that morning Rick's step falters as he searches for the straight chestnut hair and slim figure of Beckett, listens for her heels tapping across the wood floor.
He sees and hears nothing, and his heart inexplicably sinks a bit before Espo's form comes into view.
"Castle, what are you doing here?" There's no joy in the detective's expression, no hint of friendliness or teamwork and Rick immediately takes a step back.
"I...uh...coffee…." he eventually stammers, holding up the carrier as Kevin Ryan rounds the corner and plucks it from his hand. The three of them are strolling towards the break room before he's even processed that they are both furiously angry with him and, still, there is no hint of Beckett about the bullpen.
The anger doesn't seem to translate to coffee as both men take their cups and dig into the box of pastries. Rick has to bite his tongue when Epso lifts out the chocolate bearclaw he'd purchased for Beckett. He mourns a little for her breakfast once the man has taken a giant bite.
Others wander in and out while the two of them eat, saying hello, patting him on the back, making coffee from the machine he purchased for them a year ago. And it's all fine, it's all pleasant and perfectly well minus the gaping absence of Katherine Beckett.
It's when Ryan reaches for Beckett's travel mug that he finally snaps, finally levels his eyes at the man and demands to know where she is.
To his credit, Ryan doesn't flinch though he notices Esposito hold his arms across his chest and sit upright in an unconscious move to protect both Beckett and his partner.
"Beckett doesn't work here anymore, Castle. She moved to Washington D.C. a month ago," Ryan responds, a hint of sadness and satisfaction to his voice.
It's nothing that Rick is able to process, he's beyond thinking about the over-protective brother act being given to him, because his world has suddenly screeched to a stop.
Kate Beckett is no longer a cop.
She no longer lives in New York City.
And she left without saying goodbye.
Lyrics: 'Manhattan' by Sara Bareilles from 'The Blessed Unrest'.