Two

She'd barely made it half a block before she was in a battle to the death with her own emotions. That's who she was; a fighter. Every time her lips would tremble, she would smash them together and force the tremors to subside. If her eyes began to burn she would clench her fists, digging her fingernails into her palms, using the pain to distract herself. She wouldn't break down, not here; not now. She feared—she knew—if the floodgates opened she would never be able to close them again. She just had to make it home—to his home, the loft.

As she walked, the cool autumn breeze dancing leaves around her, she hugged her elbows and remembered it: September 17th.

Just as he requested, she'd texted him shortly after noon, saying she needed a break and was going out to lunch. Within fifteen minutes he had not responded, which to her meant one of two things had happened: either a) he was actually in the writing zone and too preoccupied to respond or b) he was distracted with something (more than likely a video game) and didn't notice her text. She decided to call him, but the phone went straight to voicemail. Deciding he was busy, she hung up without leaving a message and went with Ryan and Esposito to get a pastrami sandwich.

After a monotonous afternoon of sitting at her desk, she was more than ready for a little quality time with her fiancé. On her way back to the loft she was mentally deciding the best way to rib him for being too busy to answer her text the entire afternoon. What, she wondered, did he have Nikki Heat up to now?

When she walked into the loft, she came face to face with Martha's crestfallen expression. "Richard isn't with you?" she asked.

"What? No. He's writing," she responded simply.

"He's not," Martha insisted. "I've been home for an hour and I haven't seen him; I thought he was with you."

Kate's brow furrowed and she pulled out her phone. She speed-dialed his number and once again it went directly to voicemail. "It's me; call me back when you get this. Where are you?" Her message was brief and to the point. She gave Martha a slight shrug before walking into the bedroom, removing her boots and hanging up her suit jacket. She exited the bedroom through Castle's office and gazed casually over at his desk. What she saw, or, rather, what she didn't see, caused her cop instincts to go on high alert.

"His laptop is gone." Kate informed Martha, rushing back into the kitchen area.

"Is it? That's odd." Martha commented.

This wasn't right; she just knew it wasn't right. Castle rarely left the loft to write. He claimed he was far too easily distracted when he went to coffee shops or other public venues. Also, frequent interruptions (like when fans recognized him) only slowed his already glacial-at-times process, so he preferred to stay in the loft to write, which meant his laptop also stayed inside the loft.

"Perhaps he went somewhere to write?" Martha speculated.

"Where?" Kate asked, mostly rhetorically. On the off occasion he did go someplace like the public library to write he always put his phone on vibrate and left it in his pocket so he would know if someone was trying to get a hold of him (aka if she was calling with a case he could use as an excuse to prolong completing his next chapter).

"I'll call Alexis—maybe she's spoken with him. He's got to be somewhere; he didn't just vanish," Martha said.

But that's what Kate's gut was telling her. Something was wrong. He wouldn't just disappear, turn his phone off, and not tell her. Even if he had carelessly let his phone battery die, he would not have been away from the loft past six. His stomach practically had its own alarm clock for dinner.

For the next three hours she called him every fifteen minutes with no avail; the number was still going direct to voicemail. As she dialed Esposito she tried to tell herself it was crazy; she was being silly. This was ridiculous and there was absolutely a rational explanation for all of it. She tried to laugh it off as she asked Espo to call in the favor he owed with one of the guys in tech. One phone trace; that's all she needed. He protested at first, but after she pleaded with him the third time, he caved.

A half hour that felt like several days passed before Esposito called her back. Tech was unable to trace the phone, which only meant that the phone was off and unable to be turned on, which meant the battery was dead or destroyed. "Don't worry Kate; I'm sure he'll check in soon," he had told her.

But she did worry. She sat up that whole night waiting for him to call or come home, but he never did. She went to work with deep circles under her eyes and sat ridged at her desk waiting for him to step off the elevator with coffee and an outlandish story, but he never did. When Esposito and Ryan arrived, they were laughing. They asked Kate what Castle's excuse was for not calling the prior evening and that's when she told them: she still hadn't heard from him. The three of them went to Gates to present their case.

"You know the rule, Detective. Forty-eight hours before reporting a missing person. How long has it been since you've spoken to Mr. Castle?"

"Twenty-five hours, forty-two minutes," she responded promptly.

Gates looked at the three of them, her expression slightly unnerved. "Alright, you can trace his phone but-"

"We, uh, may have already done that," Esposito confessed casually.

"And?" Gates asked. Espo shook his head. Gates suggested they look into his known hangouts; he was bound to be somewhere.

Except he wasn't. At the forty-eight hour mark, Kate's hands shook as she filled out the official missing person's report. Gates took it from her with a sympathetic smile and agreed with a nod when Kate requested to open an immediate investigation. Since then, their search had been filled with a never-ending series of dead ends, tireless false leads, and a whole lot of nothing.

When she arrived at the loft, she stood in the hall unsure of how to proceed with the day; her life. She'd been officially moved in for barely six weeks. When celebrating her reinstatement to the NYPD at the Old Haunt, Castle had asked her to officially move in with him. They were engaged so they should be living together, he'd said. Maybe it was the third glass of wine she'd had, but the normal hesitant Kate Beckett didn't feel the need to come out that night, she'd happily agreed and had been living at the loft ever since. Now, suddenly, being there felt wrong.

She stepped into their bedroom and looked around. Her knickknacks were mixed with his. Her clothing hung next to his. Everything that was hers or his, side by side, but this was not right. This couldn't be. How could she stay here if he wouldn't be next to her?

Fight or flight instinct hit her like a bullet; she had to get out of there. How could she stay one more second and stare at his empty side of the bed? How could she smell his pillow knowing that the scent of him was fading and mostly in her own memory? How could she sit on the couch and not think of his warm, solid frame beside her whispering ridiculous things in her ear during every commercial break?

She hurried to the closet and flicked on the light. She eyed her Louis Vuitton trunk suitcase on the top shelf, reached for it and missed. Damn, why did he have to store it on the highest shelf? She jumped and missed again. On the third try she grasped the handle, but failed to accurately remember just how heavy it was. The suitcase slipped from her grasp and she cowered to the side as it crashed to the floor, the corner painfully jabbing her arm as it did so. At least it was down. She dragged the item into the bedroom and flipped it open. God, why did everything have to remind her of him? Even this suitcase.

During their first weekend getaway to the Hamptons he had laughed at her suitcase. Laughed at it. It was, in his opinion, pathetic. She would be the first to admit that it wasn't the shiniest or newest, but it had served her well over the years. The American Tourister piece had been a high school graduation gift from her parents and she'd been using it ever since.

Just before their second trip together he'd surprised her with the Louie trunk. She'd initially refused, stating that the five-thousand-plus dollar piece was way too extravagant, but in true Richard Castle fashion he had not taken no for an answer. In fact, he'd made her accepting the suitcase gift a condition of traveling together. Begrudgingly, she'd accepted the gift, but always teased him about the "burden" he was putting on her each and every time she used it. Since the handle and wheels of her Tourister had "mysteriously" fallen off, the Louie was the only real piece of luggage she had, so she had no choice but to use it to pack up her things.

She grabbed an armful of bras and underwear from the chest of drawers and dumped them unceremoniously into the open trunk. She then went to the next drawer and did the same with her pajamas. By the time she was going for the third trip, slamming drawers and tripping over the trunk multiple times as she went, Martha had entered the room.

"My goodness—what's going on here?" she demanded.

Kate froze mid-way across the room with four pairs of jeans in her arms. "I can't stay here," She confessed before walking to the trunk and dumping the jeans inside. "I'm sorry. I have to… I can't…" The tears she'd fought so hard to suppress finally spilled out as she spoke to the older woman. Her hands began to tremble and she brought them up to her face, trying to hide her emotions.

"Katharine, Katharine. Calm down," Martha said, approaching and grasping each of Kate's arms in hers. "What it is? What's happened?"

Kate sat back on the bed with Martha beside her and sniffed. "Gates suspended the investigation today. She was right to; it's not her fault but… but it's over. It's done. We can't investigate and if we can't find…he won't…what if…what if he doesn't come back? What if we never find him?"

For the first time since his disappearance, sobs completely overtook her body. She wept violently as Martha pulled her into her arms and stroked her hair. Kate's hands remained pinned to her cheeks as though they would hold back the tears, but her efforts were fruitless. The stream of salty liquid poured from beneath her eyelids, unable to be stanched until it had run itself dry.

Martha rocked her gently back and forth as she rubbed her back, fighting back her own emotions. "Oh my darling girl. I know. I know, but you have to have faith. I know it's hard, but you've got to. Richard will be back. You've got to know that he would fight heaven and earth to get back here to us."

"But what if-"

"Shh. No buts. He will come back or you will find him. I would expect nothing less of the NYPD's finest detective." As Kate's sobs subsided, Martha pushed the younger girl up enough to be able to look into her face and force a smile. "Now let's forget about all this packing nonsense and go have ourselves a beverage, hmm?"

Kate's eyes darted to the suitcase and then back to her future mother-in-law. "But Martha, I shouldn't-"

Martha shook her head knowingly. "What did I say about buts? This is your home, Katharine Beckett; you're family and you're not leaving."