AU after 8x04. I don't care at all for the season, but it has been inspirational in a way.

Dreams are like paper. They tear so easily.

—Unknown

X

The drive to the Hamptons takes a lot longer than it used to. Or it seems to. In the past, he'd listen to music or play audiobooks, but ever since his abduction, he prefers fewer distractions. He keeps an eye out for drivers who follow too close; he gives black SUVs a wide berth; he's always listening for suspicious sounds.

There's no one to keep him company on this drive. No one to provide conversation, so he replays the one with Kate, over and over again.

"I can't keep doing this. I can't see you smile at me and then go home and wonder how much longer it will be before you come home, if you come home. And though I feel I'm making one of the biggest mistakes of my life, I'm going to give you what you asked for." He took a deep breath and said, "Being here in the city, where you are, is too tempting. I don't do well with temptation."

"I know," she said, and she smiled.

He tried to return the smile, but it felt crooked and false. "I'm going to the Hamptons. I'll stay there until…until you no longer need space. However long it takes. Because if—"

"When." Her voice was vehement. "Don't you dare say 'if.'"

"When we are back together, it has to be for good. I need to know that we come first with each other."

Her beautiful hazel eyes were red-rimmed, and shiny with tears. "I promise. We'll make it work. Whatever it takes."

He wants so badly to believe her.

Castle arrives at the Hamptons house without incident. He walks in the front door, sets down his bags and his laptop case. The house feels much bigger than usual, and the echoes seem quite loud. Yet at first it seems less lonely than the loft, probably because he and Kate spent less time here.

He makes the mistake of taking his bags into the master bedroom; the moment he does, memory hits him, hard. Kate in white lace and, after a while, in nothing at all. Kate sighing and shivering in delight as he devoted himself to cherishing every bit of her with his hands and lips and body. Their wedding night. Less than a year ago. Don't tell me we won't even make it one year. He'd always thought that the traditional gift of paper for a one-year anniversary was silly; paper is so fragile. Now it seems very appropriate.

The master bedroom won't do. Castle rambles the house, finds a guest bedroom that has a nice view and no memories. He puts his clothes and toiletries away in the guest room, and then heads downstairs and turns the great room into a writer's den with his laptop, notes, and a thesaurus. He makes a dinner he won't remember eating, writes words that won't make it into a novel, and waits for a phone call from his wife.

Days go by. Weeks.

He spends a lot of time on the beach; when he's wandering the shore or looking out at the water, he can pretend he's not waiting for his phone to ring. He picks up seashells and puts them in his pocket and then throws them back out to sea—he'll wait until she's with him again to gather shells.

Every few days he has to fight the urge to get back to the city. Sometimes he catches himself heading out the door and forces himself to stop. Sometimes he makes it as far as the driveway. Once—just the other day, in fact—he was in the car, with the key in the ignition, ready to drive home.

Because she needs him. He knows this.

She finally, finally convinced him that it wasn't his doing. No mean feat, that. She once said he was the common denominator in his failed marriages, and why should this marriage be any different? In the end, he did come to believe her. But in a way, it's worse now. If she isn't running from him, what is she running toward?

Whatever it is, it's big. It's bad. Something she has to keep secret from him, from her father, from the boys, from Lanie. Something too big and bad for her to handle, no matter what she believes she's capable of. She's extraordinary. But even extraordinary has its limits.

Whatever it is, she needs him with her if she's going to take it on and live. But she's sent him away.

She says it's the right thing. She says it's what she wants. Everyone says he needs to do as she asks and give her space, give her time. If everyone says it's so, it must be true.

But it feels so wrong.

He tells himself it's ego talking. Kate Beckett was a great detective before she met him and would continue being great if he was no longer her partner.

It's true. But that doesn't mean she doesn't need him.

He should go back. He should use every wile and bit of strength to get the truth from her and then fight alongside her—he can't delude himself that he'll be able to talk her out of it. He recognized too well the light in her eyes, the look he calls dedication and strength but that he sometimes thinks of as zealotry. He should do that.

But he's tired. Tired of scratching and clawing. Tired of coming up against walls he'd believed—foolishly?—were long demolished. Tired of waiting. Tired of secrets. Tired of wondering if Bracken's taunt was indeed true—that she will never be content with merely being his wife.

It may be (he's so terribly afraid it will be) the worst decision he's ever made in his life. But for once, he's going to do what she asks. He'll give her space and let her be.

X

Alexis checks in with him. She's keeping the PI business going and doing a remarkable job with it, and has given in to his pleas to take no dangerous cases. Cheating spouses, dysfunctional families, missing pets—those are the ones she takes, and it becomes their evening ritual to have a FaceTime call so she can share details on the latest case and pick his brain for ideas. Her contributions to these calls are a lot more interesting than his, which, insights on cases aside, consist of his reports on the weather (autumnal), how his writing's going (not well), what he's reading (yet another re-read of A Song of Ice and Fire, even the Bran chapters), and other trivialities. She doesn't ask if he's heard from Kate, because she knows he'd tell her if he had. He doesn't ask if she's heard from Kate, because he knows she'd tell him if she had.

He hears from the boys every few days. He'd hoped that they might be able to get some insight into Kate's activities, but all they can offer him is that she is the first to get in and the last to leave the precinct, and looks tired. She's clearly burning the midnight oil, but why remains a mystery. They promise to let him know if anything changes. Castle invites them to come out to the Hamptons while the weather is still warm enough for Sarah Grace to play on the beach.

Two days after he extends this invitation, he gets a call. It's Esposito's number. "Hey, Javi."

There's a silence on the other end, a silence so long that Castle assumes the call's a misdial. Until he hears a sound he's never heard before, never would have imagined is possible. Esposito is crying.

To be continued…