Anger Chapter 2
Disclaimer: Still not mine. Pity.
AN: Can I just say, "WOW!" I'm blown away by the support that I've received for this little piece. Thank you for your kind reviews, and I will attempt to answer each one individually, and I appreciate your patience. So, by popular demand, here is the second chapter.
Before.
If anyone had bothered to look at the stairs of the 12th Precinct, they would have noticed a shattered man trudging down to the footpath. The tears were held back by a superhuman effort, and all Richard Castle wanted to do was to return to the safety of his home. As he turned homeward, his shoulders slumped even further as he recalled the words that broke him.
"I was shot in the chest, and I remember every second of it."
Rick stopped and put his head in his hands. The words ran around inside his head, echoing through every neuron.
"I was shot in the chest, and I remember every second of it."
His heart clenched, again, and he continued his walk home. With every footstep, the words reinforced themselves in his brain.
"I was shot in the chest, and I remember every second of it."
"I was shot in the chest, and I remember every second of it."
"..every second of it."
By the time he reached home, the numbness was starting to wear off, and being replaced by anger. And it all swirled down into one simple phrase: 'she lied to me'.
Richard Castle was known to be a fun-loving, gentle man, who loved his family deeply, and was generous to a fault. In fact, he was known for a lot of things, one of which was not a bad temper.
'She lied to me.'
What people generally weren't aware of is that Rick did have a temper, but he controlled it very well. After all, he was in the business of writing books, and those books were much easier to sell if the author was pleasant and approachable.
'She lied to me.'
Right now, though, the anger was gathering in much the same way as thunderheads would roil and grow as they announced the coming storm. In Rick's case, that anger manifested in an Arctic coldness, and he was grateful that both his mother and his daughter weren't home. It wasn't their fault that the woman he had fallen in love with years ago didn't feel the same way about him, and he didn't want to hurt them by lashing out. So, he went into his office and contemplated what to do next.
'She LIED to me!'
He went over all of the small moments that had occurred between he and Kate Beckett, and as he analysed each one, he came to a surprising conclusion.
For every comment that seemed to hold some promise of a 'together' future, like 'next time, let's do it without the tiger', there were several 'there is no big deal - sleep with whoever you want, the more the merrier' that seemed to indicate the opposite. The deeper he went, the more the evidence started to stack up - and it wasn't positive.
After spending some time processing the evidence, the only conclusion that he could come to was that Kate Beckett might have feelings for him, but it wasn't love. At best, it was a deeper care and concern than you would have for an acquaintance, but it wasn't love.
That speech on the swings was beginning to sound like she needed him, but not as a prospective life partner. No, all Kate Beckett needed Rick Castle for was to be her coffee boy and plucky sidekick.
All at once, Rick came to a decision - not any more.
Never again.
The rest of his evening flew by. He packed a couple of bags for himself, and planned where he could hide out for a few weeks while he licked his wounds and plotted the last of the Heat novels. He knew that he still had stories to tell about Nikki Heat and Jameson Rook, and he would use this away time to get the outlines completed so that he could pitch the works to Gina, and give her estimated completion dates.
The other thing that he did was gather everything about the Kate and Johanna Beckett cases so that he could hand them off in the morning before he left town.
He had told his mother and his daughter what he was doing, and that he would call when he reached his destination. Paula had been informed that he was going under the radar for a while, and that he would be in touch via the usual pre-arranged channels. He called for a car to take him to the precinct, and then to the airport.
The last thing he did was to talk with the doorman, and gave him strict instructions.
Under no circumstances was Detective Beckett be allowed access to the loft, even if she had a warrant.
Richard Castle was done with Kate Beckett.