A/N: Well, here's my first effort into the Castle fandom. Hopefully I can do this wonderful universe justice and keep the characters believable.

Any of you who have read my other story on here will recognize the formula - take an angsty moment from canon, throw in a wild card, and see what the ripple effects are. There will be a happy ending for everyone, I promise, but we have a long way to go before that happens, so stick with me.

I haven't gotten completely through the fandom - still have 200 or more pages of stories to sift through, so if this resembles anyone's previous work on here, it was a total accident!

It should go without saying that if I owned these characters or made any money off of them, I would be writing for the show :)

Enjoy!

Miscommunications and Misunderstandings

"I was shot in the chest and I remember every second of it. So do you."

Richard Castle was alone.

Alone not just in the literal sense – Alexis was at a sleepover and Martha was at some theater party – but also in the metaphorical sense. His only real companions at the moment were the tempting liquor from his cabinet and the burning pain between his shoulder blades. He tried relaxing in his office chair staring at his smart board, but leaning back in the comfortable chair only intensified the burning pain in his back, as odd as that was to think.

"You're a fool, Richard Castle," he muttered to himself as he turned his attention from the smart board to the blinking mockery of his cursor. Sorenson. Demming. Davidson. Stay with me, Kate. I love you. I don't remember, Castle. I remember every second of it. The math only added up to one conclusion: she never wanted him. She was never interested. I remember every second. Her declaration in the interrogation room echoed through his brain like a broken record. He'd escaped the observation room just after hearing those words, muttering excuses to Esposito and Ryan, and stumbled home in a daze, gratefully finding his refuge empty. The torment currently coursing through his soul should never have an audience.

Very few people knew that the playboy author persona he projected to the world was actually a carefully devised construct, intended to appeal to various population segments for various reasons. Women were supposed to swoon when he flirted, thinking they could be the one to tame him. Men were supposed to envy his lifestyle. All of it added up to over two dozen bestsellers to date, so the formula worked. It just wasn't real. What almost no one knew – by last count only the trusted inner circle of his mother, daughter, and possibly Nikki Heat's inspiration – was that he was a deeply insecure man, always worried that the female attention was due to either his fame, money, or both instead of the man himself.

He'd grown up under the specter of perpetual teasing, first for being too short, then for being too tall, then for being too heavy. That kind of verbal bullying combined with the lack of a father figure and a semi-perpetually absent mother drove his need for female affirmation. Exhibit A: Kyra. She was probably the truest love he'd ever had, but he was nowhere near mature enough to appreciate what that was at the time. She was the one that got away, indeed. Exhibit B: Meredith. Crazy people make for world-rocking sex, as he told the guys once. Exhibit C: Gina, a successful businesswoman who found him attractive and desirable. The end result was inevitable. She provided enough approval and balm to his fragile ego that his infatuation with her status and success was easily mistaken for love.

Kate was supposed to be different. She was a cop. More than that, she was a grounded, pragmatic detective. She should have been able to discern who he really was instead of his public image. She'd seen the doting father, the generous philanthropist, and countless other facets of his personality that he'd showed almost no one else. There were times when he would have sworn under oath that he saw love in her eyes, but the deeper he sank into depression the more he convinced himself it was just his imagination. She never cared for him beyond being his partner.

The burning in his back intensified with every thought of Kate and his wasted efforts. He kept looking at his liquor cabinet before shaking his head and pushing down the temptation once more. The alcohol wouldn't help him solve anything. It would dull the pain for this night, but the morning would be worse, and Kate would still be gone. Kate never loved him. He was never good enough for her.

As his malaise intensified, his tortured psyche decided it was the perfect time to revisit all of his missteps with Kate. Early on in their association, he honestly couldn't fault her for dating Will Sorenson. Not only was the man an ex-boyfriend, they were together well before the book signing and even longer before Kate began to look beyond his public reputation. Will wasn't the cause of his troubles.

Her mother's case lay at the root of all of this, but despite the trouble it caused, he didn't regret telling Kate about what he found, either. She warned him off after he already got started, but after the damage had been done she forgave him. She told him as much after shooting Dick Coonan: she wanted him there helping her, pulling on her pigtails, and had grown accustomed to their relationship.

Castle rose and slowly walked around his study, strumming his fingers along the spines of his books, each representing months of soul-draining effort. The last two were currently the most painful. His Nikki Heat stories were at once the most professionally profitable and most personally rewarding of his works. In their research and writing he had grown up, learning what it was to live his work, rather than merely imagine it.

When he and Beckett randomly found a case involving Kyra Blaine, he saw a deeper shade of green in Kate's eyes. The surveillance shots of them kissing on the roof got her riled up, though she did a good job trying to hide those emotions. After rescuing Kate from her apartment bombing and giving her his house until she could find a new apartment, he thought they might be on the road to something, but Demming put a stop to that. Demming pushing his way onto the team and the miserable summer in the Hamptons was an unmitigated disaster. Thinking he could reconnect with Gina was another mistake – she left before the first week at his beach house was over– and though he never found out for sure, he still suspected Kate was trying to tell him something more than 'have a nice summer' before he left.

Castle cast his gaze down to his feet before walking out of the office, giving up on writing anything constructive in his current mood. He moped out to the living room and flopped lengthwise on the couch, willing oblivion to come for the evening. It was not to be, however. His tortured emotions kept dredging up painful memories.

Not long after getting back, Kate was dating someone else. No one ever bothered to tell him what happened to Demming. Truth be told, he was too focused on getting the death glares to stop to inquire too much into the robbery detective's whereabouts. That whole year was a gigantic roller coaster. One minute he and Kate seemed to be getting closer and closer – oddly brought on by nearly dying in each other's arms in a freezer, physically beating the hell out of people trying to shoot them, or staring down a dirty bomb before ripping all the cables out – but every time he seemed to make progress against Kate's defenses, Dr. Motorcycle Boy was there to reap the benefits.

Castle sneered to himself at the thought. Josh Davidson. Perfect on paper, even he could admit that he fell short when compared to the doctor-motorcycle rider-humanitarian. After nearly dying in each other's arms, rather than be able to comfort Kate himself, he had to step aside and let the doctor handle her.

When Montgomery and Kate's own father tried to get him to persuade her to back off of her mother's case, it was the lowest point of their relationship. The fight they had in her apartment led to her telling him they were over – again. Regardless, he promised her 'always' and meant it. Carrying her kicking and screaming away from near-certain death at the hands of a hit squad was just part and parcel of promising 'always'. He looked out his window, snorting at the thought. She could hate him forever if it really meant she would have that forever to hate him. Nothing was worth her life, not even the answer to who ordered her mother killed.

With a huge sigh, he heaved himself off his couch and aimlessly wandered around his loft. The emptiness would be something he would have to get used to, it seemed. Alexis would be in college soon, and with as often as his mother talked about living somewhere else, the nest would be empty. His contract with Black Pawn only extended to one more Nikki Heat book and with his notes from the last three years supporting his current mood, the book would practically write itself, most especially the ending. He could maintain friendships with Esposito and Ryan outside their jobs, although Lanie would probably be more problematic due to her close friendship with Kate, who had made it abundantly clear she had no interest in pursuing a romantic entanglement despite the last three years. He could gradually fade out from precinct life and no one would even notice.

As much as the pain of learning that Kate ignored his confession of love burned, he felt light, free almost. As cliché as it sounded to a writer, he was about to start a new chapter in his life, and going forward he could go anywhere and do anything. His phone buzzed. Beckett. A fresh stab of pain worked its way through his back to the muscle barely beating in his her name on his phone screen made him grimace before turning the phone off. Dealing with her was not a very good idea given his current mood. Maybe ignoring her calls would be the best way to start distancing himself. With barely a pause, he shut the phone off. I'm sorry, Kate. I'll always be there for you, but I have to heal myself first. As he tossed the phone still showing Kate's face onto the couch, there was a knock at his door.

Not expecting any visitors, he slowly approached the door, looking through the peephole. A tangled mess of brown curls was all that greeted him, as his visitor was looking at her feet. There was only one brunette he knew of that would visit him just then.

"Beckett, I really need to be alone right now. Can't you guys handle the case without..." he trained off as he swung the door open. When the curly head lifted up at his words, the rest of his comment got lost in his surprise.

"Well that's an interesting turn of events," his visitor commented with a wry smile.

After her interrogation, Kate went in search of her partner, but he was nowhere to be found. She wandered out to her part of the homicide bullpen, but the chair next to her desk – his chair and no one else's – was conspicuously empty. She'd never even let anyone sit in that chair when he was gone for the summer writing, on book tours, or deep in her doghouse. Slowly, the rest of the precinct came to understand that was Castle's chair and stopped trying to sit in it or take it for their own desks.

"Esposito, Ryan, have you seen Castle?" she asked her team, busy handling the stack of paperwork related to the latest case.

Javier looked up from the document but left his pen in place. "Yeah, he left while you were interrogating the guy, something about not being needed since you had your man," and went back to scribbling.

Ryan also stopped what he was doing and glanced at his superior, but didn't elaborate further and continued working.

Beckett's brow furrowed. "Hmm, ok. Thanks, guys."

They continued working on their paperwork as she sat heavily at her desk and looked at his empty chair. It's really not like him to just up and leave that way. What happened? Is Alexis ok?

"Hey, did he say anything about if he was worried about Martha or Alexis?" Beckett pressed.

"No, just what Esposito said," Ryan answered her this time, but kept his focus on the desk in front of him, "He just muttered something about not being needed and wanting to work some more on Nikki Heat."

Kate's heart sank. There was no way he could have seen me, right? He wasn't in the observation room when I dragged that scumbag in there. Oh shit. What if he heard me? What if he knows I've been lying to him?

"Where was he? Was he bugging the Captain again?" She threw out the question in a rush, trying to relieve her suddenly racing heart.

Esposito looked up in all innocence. "Nah, he was in the observation room with us, watching you take that guy apart." After that statement, he almost got up to make sure Kate didn't collapse, she turned so pale.

Her shot into her throat as her worst fears were realized. Oh shit, oh crap, and oh shit! I wasn't ready for him to know. He shouldn't have found out that way. I was going to tell him that I love him, but I just had to get past my mother's case first. Oh shit, this is a disaster. I have to get over there and fix this. Maybe there's still a chance to fix us. God knows what he's doing now! "It - It's not like him to just leave," she stuttered, "I'm going to head after him to…make sure he's ok. Can you guys handle the paperwork?" Beckett was already packing up her phone and purse, unconsciously feeling the bulge of her gun at her hip as she barely waited to hear Esposito and Ryan's acknowledgement of her hastily-contrived excuse.

This wasn't her night, it seemed. It took her longer than normal to dig her keys out of her purse and then she seemed to hit every single red light between the precinct and Castle's loft. The traffic lights got so bad that she was halfway tempted to put her gumball on the dash just to get going, but she couldn't bring herself to abuse her power like that.

Just as she got her car parked in front of his building, she looked at the front door, only to notice a somewhat familiar brunette walk in, but she couldn't place who it was or why the woman seemed familiar. She hurriedly grabbed her purse and locked the doors behind her as she raced in, but the woman was already in the elevators.

She ran to the doorman. "Who was that woman who just came in ahead of me?" she panted, catching her breath. Stupid physical therapy. I wish I was back in my pre-shooting conditioning.

The doorman looked at her sadly. He'd gotten to know Detective Beckett well over the last few years, and he knew who the first woman visiting Mr. Castle was. This wasn't going to end well.

She looked shyly at him, but with an unfathomable glint in her eyes. "Hi, Rick. Can I come in?"

Castle just gaped at his visitor, completely missing the duffel bag at her feet. "Kyra?"

A/N 2: Well? Thoughts? Concerns? Reviews are always appreciated!