Chapter Two
Bloodied and Bowed.

It had been only a week since they had arrived at the house in The Hamptons, but Rick Castle hadn't spoken to anyone since his muttered "Don't wanna..." when Ryan and Espo had helped manhandle him out of the loft and into the car. Not even to Alexis, who had tried every way she could think of in a vain effort to engage him. Even the "emergency cheering-up pancakes" sat on a tray on the end table only partially eaten. He just sat up in bed and stared blankly out the window at the ocean. It broke her heart to know that even this could not raise her father from the dark depression he had settled into after Kate had dropped her bomb on them and left.

For the first time in her life her father simply wasn't there. She looked into his eyes and saw...nothing. As if he had pulled himself all the way inside his own head and nobody could get him to come out. Nobody except for Kate, and she's abandoned him. She thought ruefully. Alexis fled to her room, buried herself in her pillow and cried. Her choking sobs echoed throughout the house.

"Damn you, Kate Beckett! Damn you to hell, you self-absorbed, arrogant, unfeeling BITCH!"

She hadn't realized she had yelled those words out loud until Grams appeared at her bedside. She immediately sat next to her and ran a soothing hand down her back. Alexis pulled herself up and latched on to her grandmother as if she were drowning.

"How could Kate do that to dad when he needed her most?"she sobbed into Martha's ear.

"I don't know, sweetie, I think she's just afraid...for him, for us..." but she stopped because her words seemed suddenly inaccurate. "She blames herself."

"I hate her." Alexis said, spite and venom dripping from every pore of her being.

Martha slapped her in the face. "Don't you ever say that again! She was wounded almost as much as your father, she just can't face it yet. She thinks she's doing what's right, she just doesn't know how much more damage she's done." She was on the verge of tears.

Alexis was shocked. No one had ever struck her before. Gramms hadn't hit her hard, but it had just enough behind it to drive her point home. She stared up at her grandmother who was just as shocked by what she had done and then was swept up in her embrace again as they both whispered apologies to each other over and over again.

They would do what they could to pick up the pieces. They had to.

….

Three weeks later

Kate Beckett surged into her apartment and tossed her empty holster onto the couch. Her face was a contorted mass of rage as she changed out of her business casual attire into exercise gear. Her latest argument with the new captain ringing in her ears. The two of them had never quite seen eye to eye, especially after she had shut down their investigation into Castle's shooting at the cemetery and turned it over to the detectives at the 19th. She had been skirting the line of insubordination and been curt and short with everyone in the precinct since she had made her break from Rick at the hospital. Even Lanie wanted little to do with her lately in her current state.

Then today she had gotten a bit too rough with a suspect, which had resulted in an excessive force complaint. Iron Gates had personally dragged her out of the bullpen shoved her into her office and slammed the door.

"Badge and gun, Detective, NOW." She'd said with cold clarity.

"What the hell, sir?" she shot back with a little too much venom.

"You're suspended, Beckett, thirty days, for excessive force." Gates said, glaring at her.

"Excessive?" she shouted, "you call that excessive?"

"And tack on another SIXTY days for insubordination. Badge and gun, NOW!" Gates' eyes were dark cinders boring into her soul.

Kate pulled her service weapon from it's holster, ejected the clip onto her desk, and worked the bolt. The bullet ejected from the chamber and bounced across the floor. She dropped the now safed pistol onto the captain's desk, then pulled her badge from her belt and dropped it there as well. Shooting Gates a dark, challenging look she stormed out and slammed the door shut behind her.

She grabbed her coat and ignored the questioning looks from Ryan and Espo as she stalked to the elevator. Not even their best whipped puppy expressions could soften the blow.

Back in her apartment, Kate was fuming, she needed to run, needed to empty her head. When she was working she didn't have to think about the terrible things she'd done. The godawful thing she'd done to the one man she would ever love, when she knew he needed her most. Now she had three months to look forward to with nothing to do but think. It was tearing her apart.

Kate stopped in her tracks when she heard a quiet, insistent knocking on her door. She thought at first that it must be one of the boys, she had been so unfair to them lately that she was surprised they would even speak to her again. It was like something out of Edgar Allen Poe. When she pulled open her door she saw the last person she would have ever expected to darken her doorway.

Alexis Castle.

The dark circles under her eyes attested to the fact that she had slept no better in the last three weeks than Kate had. Must she destroy everyone? Even this innocent girl?

"Kate, please, we need your help, it's dad."

The petite redhead's eyes were brimming over with tears, like a dam had burst.

"He doesn't sleep, doesn't write, he barely eats, and he hasn't spoken to anyone, not even me, since you left the hospital. He just sits in bed and stares out the window." Alexis' breathing came in short, ragged gasps between words, "Grams and I have tried everything, but it's like he's just stopped. Like he's willing himself to die. I don't know what to do."

Kate was stunned. She just stood there staring at the floor, unable to meet her eyes.

'What have I done?' Kate thought to herself. "I've only made things worse." Then it hit her.

"Alexis, how did you get here from The Hamptons?"

"I took the town car from the garage," she said dully, "It was the only one with an automatic transmission"

"Alexis, you don't have a driver's license, do you have any idea..." Kate was stopped short when Alexis dropped to her knees and began to sob.

"Dad said, that if anything ever happened to him, I was supposed to turn to you. That you would look after me, he said you'd promised. Are you going to abandon me, too? Like you abandoned him? Please, Kate, please, he's all I've got..."

Kate dropped to her knees beside the heartbroken girl, her promise to Rick Castle ringing in her ears. Her own composure evaporated. Tears were streaming down her cheeks as she repeated her apologies to Alexis, begging for her forgiveness.