Disclaimer: I do not own Castle, no matter how much I wish I did. I also have no affiliation with anyone who has anything to do with the show -I can tell you right now that if I did, I wouldn't be wasting my time with fanfic... hehehe.
Richard Castle was numb.
For the first time since he arrived at the precinct, he wasn't sitting on Kate's desk, nor was he in her chair. Instead, he was sitting in a hard, uncomfortable chair between Ryan and Esposito's desks, facing away from the only empty desk in the room. He quietly watched as Ryan and Esposito went about their work silently.
"How do you do it?" he asked suddenly, absentmindedly fingering the large, dark stain on his jacket. "How do you just keep working like nothing's happened?"
Esposito looked up from the telephone he was about to use. "We'll find her killer, first, Castle. Then we'll take time to feel. There's no point feeling while the bastard's still getting around buying groceries."
Rick shrugged, seeing the sense in the statement, but still refusing to understand how they continued to work like a normal day.
Now Rick understood how Esposito and Ryan kept working. The look on their faces as they faced the offender informed all that they weren't walking away from this until someone was dead. That someone was a tall burly man with a beer belly that surely had a higher IQ than his brain. Unfortunately for the NYPD, he also had a knife. A very big knife. A very sharp knife. In fact, Castle was sure that if the man were to make a guest appearance on Crocodile Dundee that his knife would rival Paul Hogan's.
But the NYPD had guns. Not very big guns – and certainly not very sharp guns – but a gun rivalled a knife any day. Well, most days. This was one of those days.
Ryan and Esposito both fired at exactly the same time. Their bullets pierced him in exactly the same spot of his body – right through his heart. Castle watched on, silently hoping getting shot through the heart hurt like all hell.
In the paperwork, Ryan and Esposito claimed they shot out of self defence. They claimed that the deceased was threatening their lives. Rick was glad that sometimes there were no witnesses (he didn't count – if he had a police issue gun and a self-defence cover to hide behind, he would have shot to kill too) to murder. But no matter what the paperwork said, everyone – even the captain – knew that it wasn't self defence. It was vengeance.
Rick went straight home. Esposito invited him out for drinks to numb the effects of the day, but he refused – he had a good enough store of vodka at home to last him several days of brain numbing.
He stepped out of the cab that transported him from the 12th Precinct to home – there was, of course, no lift from Kate on her way home – and immediately wanted to climb back into it and order the driver to go far, far away. There were reporters all over the entrance to his building. He was a strong man, though. Even though his strength had been tested today, he figured a few reporters couldn't hurt him.
"Mr Castle, what happened in regards to Detective Beckett today?"
"Mr Castle, is that blood on your jacket? Whose blood is that, Mr Castle?"
"Mr Castle, your fans want to know – what shall become of your new series, Nikki Heat?"
Okay, so maybe he was wrong. Maybe he couldn't deal with reporters. He pushed through the crowd, tears welling in his eyes. But no way would he let a tear drop in the presence of the media. Over my dead body.
Rick finally managed to get to the other side of the reporters – the safe, familiar side. As he waited for the lift from the foyer to his apartment, out of sight of reporters, he rubbed his hand over his eyes, lightly smearing his eyelashes with unshed tears.
With a ding at either end of the journey, he arrived outside the doorway to his apartment. Never in his life had the light oak door looked more unfriendly. It spelled out the certainty of questions from a worried family. It cruelly reminded him of the many times she came to his apartment, either to pick him up for work or to yell at him.
Feeling he'd already endured enough with reporters and the day itself and could cope with pushing through the twenty or thirty metres to his office, he bravely pushed open the door. The door was right – he wasn't denied the presence of a worried family.
"Dad!" Alexis cried, running to envelope him in a hug. "Are you alright? What happened?"
He said nothing, merely gently pulling himself out of her embrace and walking towards his office, his sanctuary.
"Richard?" There was no mistaking the worry in Martha's voice – never in his life had he ever rejected a hug from Alexis, nor looked like something the cat dragged in.
"Dad?" Alexis repeated tentatively, moving to stand beside Martha.
Feeling considerably worse, Rick pushed open the door to his office without responding to the two women.
He homed in on the bottle of vodka sitting on his desk. Unscrewing the lid, he took a swig and sat on the floor, leaning against the wall.
Looking into the bright night sky of the city that never sleeps, Richard Castle began to accept the impossible: Kate Beckett was dead.
A/N: Thank you for taking the time to read! I hope you enjoyed it. I love reviews, whether they be good, bad, or otherwise :D I also love constructive criticism, so if you think I need it, please tell me. I'm a big girl, I can take whatever you throw at me. :D