How can he still be tired? He went to bed before Alexis last night. Alexis has been disciplined about going to bed by ten ever since preteens. Maybe it's just from the gym this morning, venting out his despair and rage through breaking apart his muscles.

He wants to go back to bed, but he knows himself too much. He'll just wake up more tired and more angry with himself for having gone to bed and putting himself in the situation in the first place, starting the whole cycle over again. Scrubbing his face with his hands, as if the pressure would scratch away the laziness in his eyes, he throws himself back into his office chair, half annoyed and half amused by the squeak in the hinge. He pushes one hand through his sweat-stained, uncombed mess of hair and drags his fingernails through his two-week-old layer of darkened scruff.

It started as a concerted effort to grow a beard, then just morphed into not caring how presentable he was.

After the motions are done, he reaches forward and grabs his glass, sitting still half full next to his laptop and tosses the scotch down his throat. Sucking his teeth loudly, letting the burn swirl around against his teeth and gums, he swallows and puts his elbows down on the desk and leans his face down on a pair of entwined fingers. He's phasing out again, letting the already feeble shackles in his mind fall.

A part of him wants her to call. Just so he can see what it feels like to slam the proverbial door in someone else's face for once. He's always been the one to go back, to go crawling on his belly like a dog, begging for forgiveness just for a pat on the head and a 'good boy'. With Kyra, with Meredith, with Gina, and most of all with Beckett. Well, he's not doing it anymore. Two weeks and counting since the biggest wake-up call of his life. He's been offering affection and attention to women who look the other way and don't appreciate him his entire life.

He's not doing it anymore. He's done.

He's not putting himself through hell just to wind up alone and broken-hearted like he is now. Because he realizes now, after all this time, that maybe his mother was wrong, maybe he was wrong. Maybe it is better to be with someone you don't love as much as long as it means not ending up getting your heart broken. Maybe it is better in the long run to avoid all the pain and cynicism having a hopeless crush on someone brings. Because he doesn't want to feel this angry and cynical. He doesn't want to have to play a game of 4D chess just to get someone to crack a smile.

Just a few weeks ago, he would have told himself that it's worth it, that she was worth it as long as he could fool himself into believing that she was starting to feel the same way, or at least willing to get on the path needed to. Or maybe that she at least cared about him as a man, or a person, a partner, as he did her. But watching the truth spill out, the reality of the situation and the true nature of what their partnership is... was... it was a splash of cold water to sober him up to what she really thinks of them.

Well, he's not going to play into it again. After forty years, it's high time he grew himself a spine.

In a fit of self-determination and purpose, he throws himself to his feet, kicking his squeaky office chair back against the chest of drawers behind him, grabbing up the empty glass along the way. It's nearly eleven o'clock and he's still in his gym sweats. He doesn't need her to give him a purpose to get dressed in the morning. He quickly moves around his desk, setting his glass down next to the open decanter and marches into his bedroom, throwing off his shirt and tossing it against the wall as if going into battle.

The hot running water feels nice, the noise shutting up a lot of the background voices in his head. But after just a few minutes, he decides to give himself another wake-up call and reaches over to the knob, cranking it all the way to the right. He stands there under the water, bracing his muscles and his bones against the water that quickly turns ice cold. It makes him feel tough, rugged, like taking the first step into turning over that new leaf he promised himself. He pushes through it for another eight minutes until he's scratching his nails into his scalp after shampooing and reaching over with the other hand to shut the water off. When it stops, he flexes his arms and groans out loud.

"Rhugh..." He pumps his muscles as the water drips from the shower head. He huffs a few breaths, a bull challenging a red flag, and rips open the curtain. He does a meager job of toweling off, and it isn't too long before he's pulling on a pair of dark denim jeans, whipping the damp towel over his shoulder. He rolls his neck, feeling his joints crack with stiffness, and as he's bringing his hand up, he feels his scruff, kept out of self-punishment.

He marches back into the bathroom and grabs his straight razor from the drawer and turning on the sink with two hands in a quick motion. He lathers up the shaving cream and is dragging the razor across his face, the shave going as close as he can make it. And after the last bit of his face is done and his jaw is toweled off, he looks at his reflection in the mirror.

He's not bad looking. Doesn't look his age too much. He's a decent guy, not perfect, but decent. He deserves someone who can see that, at least. After a sigh, he turns and makes his way back into his office, a beeline made to the decanter and refilling his glass. Once filled, he lifts his glass, but his eyes fall on his phone, sitting motionless and lifeless next to his laptop. A small test couldn't hurt. Testing the waters to see how it makes him feel.

He reaches for it and slides the screen unlocked, and with a few quick, fearfully anxious moments, he taps his thumb against Beckett's picture.

And it's a test failed.

Still, even now, knowing full well what hell she's put him through, knowing she heard him, knowing she knew all this time how he felt and did nothing, knowing that she was able to look him in the eye every... single... day... and pretend like nothing had ever happened, throwing his confession of love back in his face day after day, knowing she didn't even care enough about him to tell him that she just didn't feel the same way... even knowing all that... looking at her now.

"Why do I still love you?"

He indulges his weakness for her and pets the screen with the pad of his thumb, stroking what would be her cheek.

This is just pathetic, Rick, he thinks to himself and rolls his eyes, locking his phone and letting it fall with a clumsy clatter back down to the surface of his desk as he downs half the glass of scotch. He lets out a deep sigh once the alcohol's burn fades and slides his palm down his bare stomach. If just looking at her picture is enough to make him question this new found confidence in himself, he still has a lot of work to do. And realizing this, he is briefly filled with a sense of hopelessness, a feeling of despair that he's just a slave to this.

Shaking his head in self-deprecation, he lifts the glass to the edge of his lips but is stopped, the sound of a knock on his door echoing through the silence of the empty loft.

"Oh, what is it now?" He asks and sets the glass down to the edge of his desk and pads quickly through the living room and to the door, unlatching the deadbolt and whipping open the door. And when he sees her, it all falls.

And for Beckett, everything she had prepared in her head, every word and inflection she had rehearsed in her head the past few moments waiting for the courage to summon itself to knock and the few seconds waiting for him to answer, it's all blank at the sight of him. A brand new sight of him she hasn't even had the privilege to glimpse in her dreams yet. Her partner, standing in front of her freshly showered, a pair of jeans hanging off his hips, a white towel slung over his shoulder and his bare chest and softly defined muscles, outlining with such hidden strength that it just makes him that much more attractive.

"Beckett?" He asks, not surprised his voice lifted more than he told it to. She just looks so... holdable. Like her body would fit perfectly in his arms. Even now, in her brown suit jacket, beige top, and dark slacks, with her hair falling down in those perfect curls.

Her head doesn't tilt as she meets his eyes, her lips tucked into a small dot as she wrings her hand against her thumb. "Hey, Castle." She says back, her voice sounding small even to herself.

Her eyes look away, but she can still see his arm fall off the edge of the door and swing back down to his side. "Uh..." he begins, and he knows he needs to be as emotionless as possible if he's going to get through this. They're over, he's done, that's it. "What are you doing here?" He asks her, making it drip with feigned casualness.

But his tone, she knows is faked. Two weeks and he still sounds as if he's angrier than he was when he heard what she said that day. And she can't just outright tell him what she needs without the door getting slammed in her face. She can't help her fluttering heart though, her knotted stomach, and very dry throat yet watering mouth that this new sight of Castle is causing her. She doesn't want to help it, she feels it's better to accept it as a punishment for what she did, but she doesn't have to accept it weakly.

She puts her head back and looks him in the eye... those deep baby blue eyes, and starts. "Mind if I come in?" She motions into the loft with her clasped hands.

His mouth closes and he shakes his head. Why does he still love her? Does she have it out for him, is that it? She just lives to watch him suffer or something, because she knows full well what he'll say. "Sure," He agrees and steps aside. He forces his eyes to the hardwood as she passes in front of him into the loft and looks away from her as he closes the door behind her. Sure, he's forced to be a gentleman, but that doesn't mean he has to be good company. "Something I can do for you, Detective?"

His voice is just stinging with impatience as she paces to a stop near the stairs. She turns to answer him, agreeing to his inhospitality because of what she did, but just sees his back facing her and is forced to watch him march back toward his office. "I-I..." She stutters to answer him, briefly caught up in watching the soft edge of his shoulder blades, "I just haven't seen you in a while."

He doesn't answer her as he comes to a stop in front of his desk.

She's following him slowly until she's stopping in the doorway. And it isn't until she sees him with his back turned and a half-full glass of whiskey in hand that a terrible, heart-breaking realization hits her. "A-am I uh..." she looks into his bedroom to his unmade bed, "interrupting anything?"

Castle just downs the rest of the alcohol and sets the glass back down with a thud. "Nope," he says in a strained voice. "Why?" He fires back and looks over his shoulder, seeing her in the doorway with one hand on the jam, leaned in with a worried crease in her brow.

She answers his question with an obvious pout of her lips, a shake of her head, and a lift of her hand toward him, gesturing toward his appearance. He looks down to himself unawares, realizing that he's half-naked, but doesn't respond with any care for modesty. "Right..." he sighs to himself and spins on a heel toward his bedroom. "Sorry about that." He mutters and disappears, whipping the towel off his shoulder, snapping it loudly in the air as he turns out of sight.

Left alone in his space, she gives herself a chance to reflect on it. It's not even noon and he's already drinking, by the sight of the half-empty decanter left with the lid off, has been for a while. His laptop is closed and shows no sign of having been used to write, he's not even dressed and didn't even care to put a shirt on before snapping the door open. She can see the drain of emotion in his face as he looked at her and the way he threw down the drink, like he was punishing himself. He didn't even say hello when he saw her again, just asked what she was doing here, like he wanted to ask why she bothered to show her face at all. And seeing all this, makes it all hit home.

She didn't just hurt him.

She broke his heart.

Beckett is snapped out of her tailspin by the sound of him coming out of his bedroom, clad in a dark blue dress shirt, button the cuffs awkwardly as he carries a pair of shoes under one arm. "Apologize for the indecency." He said without looking at her and sitting down in his office chair. "You caught me coming out of the shower."

She chuckles halfheartedly and looks down to the floor, "Yeah, I kind of figured at first."

There's a thick and all too awkward pause between them as she waits for him to put his shoes on. And once he's done, he doesn't stand to have an actual conversation with her, just pulls himself up to his laptop and opens it. "So, did you need something?"

That breaks her heart.

They haven't seen each other in over two weeks and he doesn't even ask her how she's been? Are they even friends anymore? "I can't just come and see you?"

He sends her a glare over the top of his laptop. No, he bitterly spits inside his head.

"I didn't think I needed a reason to see my partner."

Time for a little honesty, "Well, I've been a little busy." He snarks.

She could leave it there. He's clearly too upset with her to talk on a level field. And the more his words sting her, the more she feels his lashing out at her is because of a broken heart that she broke in the first place, the more she feels she just doesn't have the courage it would take to make it through this. If turning and running out the door didn't mean running out into a world that seems out to get her, she'd be making for it right now.

"So, if you were just stopping by, I do have a lot to catch up on."

She pushes out a sigh and grabs the glass sitting in front of her and lifts it up. "I guess that's why you needed the morning pick-me-up?"

His eyes go shamefully between her and the glass in her hand. "Let's just say I had a rough night." He says, hoping to end this conversation and stands up, going to the other side of the room and to the bookshelf, pulling out a random book that he makes seem he was actually going for and didn't pick at random to make it look like he's really in the middle of something important. He pats the random hardcover against his hand and looks back over to her, seeing her eyes had followed him. "So, did you want something or is this part of the NYPD's new house call policy?"

God, he's never been this spiteful and angry with me before. Does he even love me still? Was it that bad? "Actually, uh... th..." She can't even say it. She can't even ask her own partner for his help. "I was hoping that you'd look into something for me."

He's setting the book down next to his laptop and is stepping back around his desk to go back, giving her only a second of eye contact. "I'm kinda busy, Beckett."

And with that, his shutting her down, his lashing out at her and his passive aggressiveness, she snaps.

"So, if you don't mind, I-"

"Castle, I know you heard me say I remember my shooting, I know you know that I heard what you said that day, but I need your help!" She pleads loudly.

Castle just paces to a stop, turned away from her with one hand hanging from one of the shelves and cranes his neck. He lets out a hard sigh and turns back around, looking at her with an expression that's etched with impatience and anger. Her raw emotion is showing clearly with her eyes filled with tears and her pupils with fright.

She clenches her teeth and looks away from him, unable to take his glare. No taking it back now, it's all out there. She takes a hard breath and starts, "You have every reason to throw me out, Castle, but... I have no one else to turn to." It's then that she looks him in the eye again, feeling another hot tear sting a wet path down her cheek. "I need your help."

He knows he can't stand to see her cry but... this is exactly what he wanted to get passed. This rolling over despite every rational voice in his head telling him not to.

He watches as the tear she let fall comes to a stop at her jawline. "I need you."

A/N: Loved the response I got to the first chapter.

I was going to extend this, but I figured I could dedicate an entire next chapter to laying the rest of it out. Let me know what you think. :)