She pushed through the doors and walked down the hallway. She ended up sitting in front of the murder board, staring at empty white space. She didn't hear Esposito come into the room behind her.
"Beckett? You do know that murder board is blank, right?"
"I know. I guess I'm just so used to thinking here that this is where I ended up when I needed to think."
"Any answers?"
"No, not yet. It's a lot easier to come up with answers when I've got my team behind me I guess."
"You do know we are your team even outside work, right? If you need anything, you just need to ask."
Kate smiled at his concern and realized that she needed to put her head back into work for the rest of the day.
"I know, thanks Esposito."
"That offer includes putting a certain authors picture up on that murder board..."
Kate laughed and shook her head at him as she walked past him towards her desk.
"I'm okay with my murder board being blank."
Kate busied herself with paperwork for the rest of the day and did her best to avoid everyone. She normally found herself staying at work late, and showing up early but today she just wanted to be alone with her thoughts. A few hours after Ryan and Esposito had left she rubbed her eyes and stood up to leave her desk. She had slipped her jacket on and was headed towards the elevator when she heard it ding. She stopped just past her desk and unconsciously her hand drifted towards her gun. It was unusual for anyone to be coming upstairs this late. Most people had gone home. The elevator doors slide open and Castle stepped out. He looked surprised to see her.
"Beckett...you're still here..."
"Yes Castle, I work here. You on the other hand, don't."
"I know...I came to leave something on your desk but...you're still here."
"Yea well, I was just leaving, so feel free to leave whatever it was. I won't get in your way."
She spoke harshly and started to walk past him. He reached out and put his hand on her arm as she passed, stopping her.
"Kate...can we talk?"
Kate stopped and looked at the ground. She wasn't ready to talk to him, not yet. She needed time to sort through her feelings and figure out how to put all of her jumbled thoughts and emotions into words. If she talked to him now, everything would come out wrong. She looked up at him and he immediately moved his hand off of her arm.
"We can Castle, but not right now, okay? I need to...think."
Castle looked relieved and sad at the same time.
"Okay, take all the time you need. Call me?"
"Yea...I'll call you."
Kate turned and walked to the elevator, leaving Castle standing by her desk. She held her composure until the doors slid shut in front of her. Then she leaned back against the wall of the elevator and ran her hand through her hair. She stepped out of the elevator and heard the doors slide shut behind her. She heard it start to go back up to the second floor and, assuming it would be Castle on his way back down, hurried out the door and to her car.
She got in and pulled out of the parking lot without any specific direction in mind. Now that she was off, she didn't really want go home. She drove to a local coffee house and sat at a table nursing a cup of coffee and thinking. She had come so close to telling Castle how she felt about him before he left for the Hamptons. Then Gina had walked up and she thought she was going to die. When Castle had showed up at the precinct that morning unannounced it had been too much for her to process. She didn't understand why he would be coming back if he was still with Gina. He had done enough research to write twenty more books. She never really made a point of saying anything about it because she had come to enjoy his company. She would never admit that to anyone; she would hardly admit it to herself for a while. Once she did admit it to herself that lead to the realization that somewhere in all their crazy moments together she had started to fall in love with him.
That realization scared her. It was Lanie that had convinced her to say something that night, and she ended up being too late. Then in the morgue, finding out he wasn't with Gina anymore had come as a huge shock. Part of her was happy, and part of her was scared again. If he wasn't with Gina anymore, there was no reason why she shouldn't make her feelings known, other than the fact that she didn't know if she was ready.
She tried to imagine working without him now that he had become such a fixture in the team. She had a hard time imagining solving murders with out his quirky insights, that were sometimes more right than he intended them to be. The memories of some of his outlandish theories made her smile. She didn't want to never see him again; but she knew she had to resolve the tension between them, and there was only one way to do that: tell him how she felt.
