Disclaimer: Castle belongs to ABC studios and Andrew Marlowe. 'Good Goodbye' belongs to Diana DeGarmo. I own absolutely nothing, and make no profit off of this.
A/N: This is actually my first solo piece in ages. I usually collaborate with Tori – haha8248 – so this makes me very nervous. Please send honest feedback; it's greatly appreciated!
Sometimes, silence can be the most sonic of booms.
-x-
He sits outside her apartment door well after ten o'clock that night, his knees drawn up, arms resting atop. Waiting for her, as he's always done. He's not sure how he got here, or even why. He doesn't know what he plans on saying when she arrives home from wherever she happens to be. He doesn't know much of anything, really.
All he knows is that he has to say something; because silence is just no longer an option. Not after today. Not after all this time. All these months. He's angry. He's hurt. He's downright pissed. It's physically eating him up inside. He can feel his heart cracking and breaking in his chest, falling like shards of glass into the pit of his stomach.
She lied. She remembers everything – she remembers his words, his pleas, his softly spoken confession and promises that lay beneath. She remembers all of it – and brushed it off as if it meant absolutely nothing.
Maybe not 'as if'. Maybe it truly doesn't mean anything at all. Not to her. After all, if she could look him in the eyes every single day for the last ten months and not say a damn thing, it has to mean nothing. Otherwise, nothing makes any goddamned sense.
It boggles his mind, really. The silence. How loud it is, despite its name. It's the most sonic of booms. Deafening. Piercing. Shrilling.
"Sinning by silence. It's not smart…Not brave. It's just cowardly."
He never thought in the four years that he's known her that he would ever refer to Kate Beckett as a coward.
-x-
He feels the deepest and most burning sense of dread in his chest when he first hears the clicking of her heels down the hall, then again when he sees them on the ground in front of him.
Shit. He really shouldn't be here.
A gasp. "Castle?"
He squeezes his eyes shut at the instinctive urge to look up at her. He breathes deep and slow. He can't look up into her face. His knuckles turn white as he balls his hands into fists. His chest aches. Simply from her speaking his name softly off her lips.
He's screwed.
He feels the sharp, jagged edges of his heart splintering again, and he can feel it bleeding in his chest.
"What are you doing here?"
He sighs. He decides he can't be anything but honest with her. There are so many lies between them already – too many - that adding another wouldn't serve any purpose. Too much damage has been done.
"I don't know."
He doesn't recognize his own voice. It's so thick. Thick with raw emotion and unshed tears that have lodged themselves in his throat. It's tired. It's strained.
He's tired.
Here we are, again.
All alone.
Standing here with you, now I see.
We fought so hard, now there's just one thing left to do.
She must sense the pain and unfamiliarity in his voice, because laced in hers is concern.
"What is it? Are you okay? Is Alexis-"
"She's fine."
In any other situation, on any other given day, he would smile at her concern for his daughter. He would be touched, he would appreciate it. But he can't tonight – he can't appreciate or be touched by anything she says or does. She's hurt him so deeply, so menacingly, that he's lost the ability to think or see clearly.
He watches her feet as she steps to his left and slides down her doorframe to sit next to him. She takes off her heels before drawing her knees up to her chest, parroting his current position.
She lays a hand on his left, and he jerks it back sharply as if she'd burned him.
She furrows her brow, and she can feel the fear and panic creeping up into her voice.
"Castle..what's wrong?"
He refuses to look at her. He refuses to acknowledge her. He can't. He doesn't know what to say. Any words he planned on speaking had long since died on his tongue.
He cranes his neck back so that his head is resting completely on the dark wood of her door. He squeezes his eyes shut, feeling the prickling at the corners of his eyes. He clenches his fists.
He can't do this.
He can feel her eyes boring holes into his torso; he can feel it burning.
"Rick, please...You're starting to scare me. Talk to me."
Rick.
Something deep within his soul snaps and he feels every last bit of his resolve crumble and fall away.
"I heard you." And he finally finds the courage to meet her eyes. He stares at her, hard. His voice is harsh. Cold.
It's not him. And yet it is.
He watches her reaction carefully. Her eyes widen in shock for the briefest and fleetingness of moments before she tries to mask it and put on a façade. She plasters the fakest of smiles to her lips. She opens her mouth to speak, but her words are drowned out by his.
"Don't try to play stupid, Kate. It's not flattering." He narrows his eyes and looks at her with such disgust and disdain. Her name is like venom off his tongue, something so foreign that it surprises them both.
So she doesn't, and instead, crinkles her brow again and opens her mouth ever so slightly, letting the realization slowly dawn upon her.
"I heard you while you were in the box with Bobby." He spells it out for her, because for some reason, he feels that she still isn't quite getting it. "All this time….you remembered. And you lied to me. For almost an entire year."
Her mouth is completely agape, she blinks rapidly, and she can no longer hold his gaze. She focuses hers somewhere else – anywhere else - besides his cold-blue eyes. Her breathing begins to quicken. She is so completely shell-shocked and stunned that she feels momentarily paralyzed.
Oh, God.
"Rick…please," her eyes meet his again, begging, pleading. "You have to understand…I never meant to -"
He scoffs in disbelief, shakes his head, and stands up off the ground. He faces her.
"Never meant to what,Kate? Lie to me? Hurt me? Make me feel like a completefool?"
"No. I didn't. I didn't mean to lie to you or hurt you. I just, I couldn't …"
I couldn't tell you that I don't feel the same way.
He puts his hand up to silence her. He sighs deeply, and his eyes suddenly soften. He swallows all that's left of his beaten pride.
"No...I get it." He meets her pleading gaze and offers her the saddest of smiles. "You lied to me…because you didn't want to hurt me."
Relief washes over her, but immediately drains as she listens to his soft, pain-laced words.
"You don't feel the same way."
It's so matter-of-factly.
His eyes burn, they sting. Tears begin to slip out of the corners, and he doesn't try to stop them. Not now. He's done trying to shield his feelings from her. He's done pretending that he's okay. He's finished, he's through. Because he's not okay, and he's not sure he ever will be again.
"You didn't want me to know you remembered, because then you would have had to tell me the truth about how you felt. And you knew that above all else, that would hurt me the most."
Kate stares at him in bewilderment, the blood draining from her face. Out of all the things she expected him to say, that was not one of them.
"So I guess I should thank you for that."
A pause.
"Thank you."
Her head is spinning - this conversation is getting way out of control. How could he think...
She stands up off the ground and looks at him dead in the eye.
"Castle…no. That's not -"
Every word she speaks, he can feel himself falling deeper and deeper into abyss.
"Kate," he cuts her off. "Please. You don't need to explain. You don't need to say anything. I would rather you didn't."
This is our good goodbye;
Been coming around for some time.
We gotta let go of the lies,
We gotta move on with our lives.
This is our good goodbye,
But it's never a good goodbye.
Kate grabs the lapels of his dress shirt and pulls him towards her, shutting him up instantly. "Listen to me, Rick. That's not why I did what I did. At all."
Seeing that she got his full attention, she releases his slightly crumpled shirt and drops her arms to her sides.
"I lied to you because I wasn't ready – I'm not ready. I can't do this right now. The wall…it's still there." Her voice is pleading, begging for him to understand. Begging him to remember that day on the swings.
Castle shakes his head sadly. "Kate. No. I don't think…" he breathes deeply. "I don't think that's it."
She gives him a look that says, oh, really?, and waits for him to continue.
He turns his back and takes a step away from her, needing distance, and runs his hand through his hair while the other rests on his hip. He scrubs his face roughly.
"I think…I think you don't trust me. With your heart." His voice finally cracks from the emotional deadweight, and swallows hard. "More than that," he glances over his shoulder, "…I don't think you love me. I know you don't. Not really."
He closes his eyes briefly and lets the tears flow freely down his cheeks, and he's grateful she can't see. He shudders in a breath, trying to swallow past the sudden, enormous lump in his throat.
He sniffles. "I know you care about me; I know you love me as a friend. But I know you're not in love with me. Like I'm in love with you."
And there it was.
"How much longer are you going to drag your heels before you tell Beckett how you feel? And I mean while she is awake, not lying on the ground with a bullet in her chest."
-x-
Kate stares at his back, a single tear rolling down her cheek. He said it. Again. Her heart swells at the same time it breaks, because here was the love of her life, pouring out his right in front of her outside her apartment door.
He thinks she doesn't love him.
Oh, Castle.
She takes a step towards him and reaches out her hand and rests it on his shoulder. He flinches. Her chest aches.
"Castle." she tugs on his shoulder, urging him to turn around. "Please look at me."
He turns, and when Kate meets his eyes, she wants to cry because there is so much pain and heartbreak in them and she knows it's her fault.
He's dying inside.
"Please...try to understand. I'm not ready… I'm just not ready."
"Then she never will be. And you move on."
Here we are, again.
And I just don't want to face it.
We ran so far, now there's just one thing left to do.
"Do you love me?"
He needs to know for sure. He needs to know before he makes a decision that will affect the rest of their lives forever. It's so blatant, so straightforward, that it takes them both by surprise.
She answers faster than he anticipated.
"Yes."
A mix of emotions, shock, happiness, joy, hope, and love ,wash over him. His eyes light up, but everything dies as soon as it had come.
"But I can't do this. I can't do 'us'. I'm not ready."
He hangs his head, his shoulders slumped. He knew it. He meets her eyes again.
"Will you ever be?"
"I don't know."
At least she's being honest. He smiles sadly. Two big tears roll down each of his cheeks.
"Then I guess I just love you more."
This is our good goodbye;
Been coming around for some time.
We gotta let go of the lies,
We gotta move on with our lives.
'Cause...I know, I know that we are both not meant to be together.
I know, I know I guess I just love you more.
He reaches for her hands and clasps them together in his. He brings them up to his lips and kisses them softly.
"I will always love you, Kate Beckett." He looks up into her eyes, and he can see her tears flowing freely in the soft fluorescent glow of the hallway.
"Always."
A sob escapes her mouth and he envelops her into his arms, comforting her, soothing her as much as a broken man could.
He knew she knew this was goodbye.
She sobs quietly into his chest, her tears making dark wet stains on his shirt. She grips him tightly, never wanting this moment to end. Never wanting to lose him. Never wanting to say goodbye.
She wants to love him forever.
But she knows she's not ready, and she knows she won't be for a long time. And she knows that Castle shouldn't have to wait around for her after this past year. He deserves better, he deserves the best.
"I don't want to lose you," she cries into his shoulder as he rocks her on his feet.
He kisses her head, letting a sob of his own escape his throat.
"I'll always be there for you. Always. We just…we both need time."
But being "there" is not the same as being "here", and they both know it. They share their pain of grief and loss, crying into each other while clinging on for dear life.
"I love you so much, Kate. More than I've loved any woman in my entire life. You're extraordinary."
A loud cry escapes her mouth and she shakes with sobs, gripping him so tightly she's sure she'll leave tiny half-moon marks on his back.
"I love you. God, I love you."
At least he knows that now. Maybe, in the future, his hopes and dreams of a future together will no longer be but a dream – maybe, someday, it will be a reality.
Until then, they both need time.
He tilts her chin up with his index finger and kisses her deeply, passionately. She returns the kiss with equal fervor. He runs his tongue across her lips, and she lets him in. He grazes the roof of her mouth and they both shudder, because it's the most beautiful feeling in the world.
He parts from her for a moment before giving her one last kiss.
"I love you."
She stares at him one last time, wanting to memorize every single detail of his face, his mouth, and those stormy blue eyes that she fell in love with so long ago.
"I love you," she chokes out around sobs.
"Goodbye, Kate."
She doesn't watch as he leaves. She can't. She closes her eyes and instantly feels the warmth of his presence cease to exist.
She walks to her door, slides down the wall, draws her knees to her chin, and sobs violently in her hands.
This is our good goodbye.
But it's never a good goodbye.