A/N: I stopped watching Castle after 7x08. I have yet to pluck up the courage to soldier on. This is why my stories are all stuck in seasons gone by. Since they got married, and even before, I feel as if very little about their relationship has been handled well, or even realistically. I wonder what personal lives the writers lead. I wonder if anyone ever taught them anything about how to hold onto a loyal audience after you've pushed them to the brink and back so many times. I wonder why they rubbished the "Moonlighting curse" and now play right into its hands. I wonder if they even like their jobs anymore...all of them. I used to love Castle. It gave me a start in writing and it brought me many new friends. Now I just feel sad at how it's gone.

But I digress...

Somewhere No One Knows My Name

Chapter 2

Castle's first problem when he gets back home, he assumes will be Alexis. As it turns out, he couldn't be more wrong. His daughter is sick of seeing him slalom between pitiful, morose moping and reckless, dark anger. So this shift in mood towards purposeful activity, even if she isn't one hundred percent on board with the intent of his purpose, is a welcome change.

"How long will you be gone?" she asks, helping him refold sweaters, tees and casual shirts, and then place them into the largest acceptable size of carry-on suitcase.

"Depends," the writer murmurs, crouched in front of his office safe counting fifties and twenties before reaching back inside for his passport.

"I thought you said you were going to Portland," Alexis asks, her voice betraying her suspicion, as she leans against the doorjamb watching his every move.

"This is Beckett. Pays to be prepared," her father tells her, while he relocks the safe and turns to stand.

"I hope she's worth it," the girl mutters sullenly, her eyes trained on the floor.

"She is."

"And I hope she appreciates what you're doing for her."

"Trying to do, sweetie," he says, pausing by the door to stroke his daughter's hair. "I don't even know if she'll listen to me yet."

He plants a quick kiss on her forehead as he explains this, before moving on.

Alexis' pale face flushes pink when she say, "If she doesn't she's—"

"A mile, Alexis," Castle calmly interjects to smother his daughter's flash of anger. "What have I said about—"

She sighs. "I know, I know. Walk a mile in her shoes…but it's so unfair."

"What's unfair, pumpkin?" Castle murmurs, distracted by packing his laptop and chargers into his leather messenger bag.

"That you have to do this…again. Chase after her."

He drops the pair of socks he was holding to focus completely on his daughter. For years he has tried to be a kind, tolerant man, to forgive rather than bear grudges for the good of himself and those around him. He had hoped he led by example. He hates that his daughter might view him as something of a pushover, a doormat where Kate Beckett is concerned, for deciding to live this way. He tries to see the best in the world and the people in it, while making a lot of money from writing about the worst that human beings can do to one another. So this is his way of paying back - by being good, generous, forgiving and kind-hearted - and trying to teach his daughter to do the same is part of this quest.

"I've been pretty difficult to live with lately. Don't think I don't know that. And I'm sorry you had to watch that, Alexis." He clears his throat, picks up the socks and stuffs them into a free corner of his case. "But that's over now. One way or another I'm going to fix this or..." He breaks off, doesn't like thinking about the alternative.

"Or?" Alexis prompts.

"Or move on with my life." He sounds resolute, truthful. He sees this reflected back in his daughter's pleasantly surprised expression.

Alexis takes a deep breath and draws herself up, trying for magnanimous when she says, "I hope you can fix it, dad. I know how much you care about Detective Beckett."

Castle gives his daughter a hug. "You're so, so smart," he tells her, squeezing even tighter. "I'll call you tonight when I get there, okay?

Then he shoulders his bag and wheels his suitcase out of the bedroom, giving his home a fond sweep and his daughter a (somewhat forced) smile before he opens the front door.

"Look after grams. Hide the vodka if you have to," he adds with a braver wink than he feels. "I love you, okay?"

"Love you too, daddy. Be safe," Alexis says, waving her father off with a brave smile to match his own.

The one hour twenty minute flight from JFK to Portland's main airport passes in the blink of an eye. The airplane is somewhere over Boston before he even registers the mountain climb he has ahead of him. He's been thinking about how insufferable he's been - moping all these weeks - when, if the boys are right, Kate has felt in equal pain watching him run around with an unscrupulous, dangerous bully. He could kick himself for being so pigheaded, for not simply having it out with her the second he overheard her conversation with Bobby Lopez. How much easier that seems now - to call Beckett out on her lies, to demand an explanation that would have moved them forward in some direction, either together or apart. Yes, how much easier, were it not for the old, dysfunctional patterns of behavior that exist, ingrained, between them. Far easier than tearing up the coast to try and find her in a city of over sixty-six thousand people with no leads and no one else to help him.

With no luggage to collect, he's standing at the AVIS rental desk within a half hour of landing. The female rental agent asks him a list of perfunctory questions he's heard tens of times before: information about returning the car with a full tank of fuel, asking whether he wants the optional navigation system, roadside assist, blah, blah and finally whether he would like to upgrade for just an extra $100 a week. He takes a Standard Elite SUV since he has no idea how traceable Beckett will be, whether she's staying out of town or in the city itself.

He finds the red Chevy Traverse, with only 4,000 miles on the clock and that new car smell, sitting in bay 57, as promised. Once he gets inside the vehicle he lets out a long breath and drops his head into his hands for a second or two of thinking time. It's approaching half past eight at night, the lighting in the parking structure is harsh and depressing. He wants to drive out as soon as possible, to begin making inroads into his search. Only then does he realize that he has no idea where to go and no hotel reservation for the night.

The Hilton Garden Inn is situated on Jetport Boulevard, right next door to the airport itself and only a few minutes drive from downtown. It's clean and bright and all he needs for the night. His muscles are aching, his back fraught with tension his body has been harboring since his confrontation with Gates and the boys, and their refusal to help him this morning. Other than that she was travelling to this city, Castle has no further information from anyone to help him track Kate down. He also has no idea why she chose this town specifically, what her intentions are in coming here and how long she intends to stay. It's a puzzle, that's for sure, one he feels under-equipped to tackle right now.

He calls Alexis just to check in and let her know he arrived safely. Then he takes a long, hot shower and changes into sweats and a t-shirt. His room comes equipped with a microwave and a refrigerator, so he goes down to the hotel's cutely named "Pavilion Pantry" to select an over-priced microwave meal, a drink and some chocolate. He spends the rest of the evening eating mediocre pasta, while he lays this mystery out like it's a missing person case, which in a big way it is.

The person who's missing is not, of course, at issue. He knows a lot about her, about what drives her. He knows her background, her friends, work colleagues and family. Well, he knows her dad. Motivation is still partly a blank. She loves her work so much he can't imagine her wanting to be away from the precinct for too long. But from what the boys have said, she basically up and left town (and the job she loves) because of him. She left because of his stupidity in getting tangled up with Slaughter and his cowardice at not flat out asking her about her memory of the day she got shot. This last part is the missing piece in the puzzle between them that Kate doesn't know. She has no idea he overheard her in interrogation and she therefore has no idea that he knows she lied about hearing him tell her he loved her. This gap in her understanding must have made his surly, cold, petulant behavior towards her seem a complete mystery. She left town with no idea how he feels about her, other than that the warm friendship they'd cultivated recently, the closeness they had begun to share, had been turned off quite suddenly, like a faucet capped at source.

For Castle's part, he is rightly hurt by her lie, and he still doesn't understand the reason for it. They talk in riddles and subtext a lot of the time, and they're more careful and guarded with one another than they are with many other people they know. But he thought that boundary line was blurring, softening. That's why her lie hit him harder than it might have before. Trust was one of the few things he believed he could count on as a non-negotiable between them. So to discover her deceit rocked him to his core. This is one of the things he hopes to confront her with when he finally tracks her down. Plain speaking once and for all, lies and cowardice be damned.

He opens his laptop, generates a new spreadsheet and begins to tackle the issue with a timeline of what he knows so far. But it's only as he lays down the bare facts that he realizes, with horror, that he's been so caught up in his rollercoaster ride with Slaughter that she has a six-day jump on him already. He hasn't seen her in nearly a week and he didn't even notice, so deep was his head up his own ass. She could be anywhere. Last headed for Portland doesn't mean she ended up in Portland or stopped here for any longer than a day or two before moving further on up the coast or inland. She could be deep in the mountains of Vermont by now. Hell, she could even be in Canada at this rate.

He finishes his congealing pasta with a mindless round of feeding fork after forkful into his mouth, just like he used to with Alexis when she was a fussy baby and seemed to take hours to eat even the smallest snack. Then he deals with the trash, brushes his teeth and climbs into bed. The TV screen lights the room with a bluish glow that flickers and changes color from time-to-time. He picks up his cell phone for the umpteenth time that day and checks for messages. When he called Beckett earlier he got only an impersonal, generic voicemail message from her carrier that related to her number alone, but no name. Her usual message has been erased and it makes him wonder if she's even using the same phone anymore. Leaving her job is extreme behavior for Beckett, leaving town even more so. Just how much more effort has she made to ensure she can't be tracked down, he's beginning to wonder?

He dozes off without meaning to, waking half an hour later with Dateline on the TV and his phone stuck to the side of his face. He checks the screen but there's still no message from Beckett. He debates the time, gets out of bed to pace, and then after a minute or so of wearing out the carpet, he shakes his head in a "what-the-heck" motion before hitting the number he has pulled up on screen.

He clears his throat several times while the phone rings. And then, before he feels anything like fully prepared, his call is answered with a quiet, clipped hello.

"Mr. Beckett? Jim? Rick Castle, sir. Hope I'm not calling too late."

Short message for the cowardly "guest" anons out there: I will not apologize for my view point, since this is MY story. There are stories out there to suit everyone's taste. Since you know my work and dislike it, stop reading. That is my gift of advice to you. Go in peace...somewhere else. If you read and review any more chapters of this story, you will only confirm to me that you are secretly enjoying it. You know who you are. Grow up and stop wasting my time.