A/N: So… When I decided to add to this story, it was only supposed to be one more chapter, but Ch. 2 had gotten past 3 pages, and I wasn't close enough to done, so I figured I had to split it up. I know where I'm going with this; it's just taking me a little longer to get there because I apparently get a little carried away with these two.

Disclaimer: And now for the necessary – Characters are not mine. They belong to ABC. Their actions in this story are the product of my dissatisfied, overactive imagination.

Chapter 3 – Separate Ways, Same Feelings

Kate stands in front of the mirror, gripping the sink so hard her knuckles are white because she's terrified of leaving the bathroom and facing Castle with the light of the "morning after" illuminating the reality of her impulsive behavior last night. She knows what it had to have meant to him, because if she's honest with herself, it meant the same thing to her. She was drunk, but she had been fully aware of the decision she was making, one hundred and ten percent, and she hadn't made that decision lightly. It was going to happen sooner or later, probably would have happened years ago if she hadn't been holding herself apart from him.

She'd begun to try and face the feelings she had for him before last summer, and even started to tell him when he'd asked her to go to the Hamptons with him. She broke up with Demming, and was ready to go with him, to take that leap and gamble on a relationship with him. But as usual, their timing had been off, because he'd given up on her and had taken his ex-wife with him instead. That had hurt more than she'd admitted to anyone, even herself.

After he'd come back in the fall, she had effectively buried those feelings, or at least she thought she had. As soon as she'd run into him at that crime scene, she'd been torn between wanting to throw herself at him and needing to keep him as far away as possible. The boys had stood beside her without question, hazing him a little before letting him back onto the team. And it had worked for a while. But the things the job had thrown at them through the year had brought them closer together again. He'd become her best friend in spite of all her efforts to hold him at a distance.

They had almost died together so many times it was past ridiculous. They certainly had a talent for getting into situations so far-fetched they could have been straight off the pages of one of his novels. He had been by her side, backing her up, comforting her, and standing by her through it all.

They'd been on the verge of admitting their feelings to each other that day the bomb went off in Bolan Square; they had both started to say the words, at the same time, more than once. But they'd been interrupted every time, finally promising to talk about it after the case was closed. Then he'd taken a break to get her some coffee, and she wasn't sure what changed after that. She'd come out of the interrogation room and saw the coffee sitting on her desk, but he hadn't been anywhere to be found. He'd come back a couple of hours later and had given her the cold shoulder through the rest of the case. Then he'd disappeared for the weekend, and when Monday rolled back around, he had showed up at a crime scene sporting a two-day beard and a blonde stewardess on his arm.

Her stomach roils as she remembers standing on the sidewalk in front of that dingy motel, watching him get out of his Ferrari, wrap his arms around that woman, stick his tongue down her throat in front of everyone, and then hand the keys to his prized sports car to her like it was just any other car. She knew she'd been staring with her mouth hanging open, but she'd been caught off guard by the blatantly lewd display because she hadn't seen him act that way in such a long time.

Reliving those events certainly wasn't easing her nerves any, so Kate pushes the memories to the back of her mind to deal with later. Taking one more deep breath to suck in all the courage she can muster, she quickly dresses and rinses her mouth out with the Listerine she finds in the bathroom then gulps some water out of her cupped hand. She knows she's out of ways to stall any longer and walks back out to see if Castle is still sleeping.

But he's gone.

The couch is empty, the blanket folded and laying across the arm. She knows that he isn't somewhere else because his crumpled up clothes are gone from the floor where they were laying when she went into the bathroom. The only thing left is his shirt, and that's because she was wearing it.

Her breath hitches with the beginnings of a sob, and all the courage she had mustered up before coming out of the bathroom rushes out on the exhale. She presses the back of her hand to her mouth to try and hold in the cry of frustration that's trying to escape, but the tears in her eyes betray her by spilling out of her eyes. As they carve salty tracks down her cheeks, Kate accepts defeat, walking over to collapse on the soft cushions of the couch. She absently runs her hands over the flat surface, imagining that she can feel the impression of her body as she lay beneath Rick, his weight pressing down upon her as he worked her into a writhing, moaning frenzy just a few hours ago.

She's devastated by the thought that he might regret what happened, and she can't understand what would make him feel that way. They've been doing this dance for so long, but she thought he wanted her, that he loved her, that he wanted to be with her. She never would have guessed that he would have given in to her advances out of some sense of obligation or unwillingness to hurt her by rejecting her, especially when HE told HER that he couldn't handle being a conquest or a pity case. Yet, it seems that she's turned out to be just that for him. She can think of no other reason that he would have left the way that he did.

The sound of chairs thumping on the floor and being slid around upstairs startles her out of her pity party, and she forces herself to stand. She wipes the tears away with a rough brush of her hand, angry at herself for feeling jilted. She can't even find the motivation to be angry with him, somehow feeling that she deserves his behavior because she kept him waiting so long. The question of what she'd done to upset him last week still hangs over her head. They certainly didn't waste time talking last night, and it wasn't like she was in an appropriate state of mind for serious discussion.

She gives herself a mental shake, a quick, silent pep talk that mostly consists of things she doesn't believe, and then she digs deep, searching for a shard of pride to get her through the next few seconds. Latching onto the small sliver of courage she usually keeps in reserve for the times when her mother's absence really hits her hard, she uses the advantage of her long legs, striding quickly up the stairs to the main level of the bar and breezing right out the door before any of the employees even have a chance to register her presence.

Once she's safely on the street with the noise of the city surrounding her, she allows herself a moment to breathe in the essence of life hurrying on about its course around her. People are going about their business all around her, completely oblivious that she's just had her heart crushed, and somehow that keeps her holding onto sanity long enough to trudge to the curb and hail a cab.

She needs to go back to her apartment and get some fresh clothes so she can drag her sorry ass to the precinct. But she can't bring herself to give the driver her address. She truly doesn't understand why Castle ran. That's usually her schtick. She's the one that hides from the truth. He always wants to talk about things, confront them, get all the dirty laundry aired out, washed, dried, and pressed all pretty. But now that she's finally ready to face her feelings, he's gone and disappeared on her.

Or worse, he's giving her space to collect herself and is waiting for her at the Twelfth. She definitely can't face him at work right now. She doesn't mind talking about what happened, but she doesn't think she can handle NOT talking about it and trying to concentrate on work. She damn sure can't face him and pretend that nothing happened, or look at him and see regret in his eyes.

"Hey, lady? I'm gonna need to know where you want to go." The cab driver's impatience jolts her out of her temporary stupor, and without thinking, she gives him Castle's address instead of hers or the precinct, and he speeds off in that direction.

While she's staring blindly out the window of the cab, she calls Gates to beg off from work today, saying that she's feeling under the weather. It's technically not a lie, but it's certainly not the actual truth. But she doubts the Captain would appreciate the fact that she's hung over and hiding from Castle after she had sex with him last night. That's probably a little too much information to share. She gets the standard platitude of "feel better" and agrees to do so, even though she doesn't know if that's going to be possible, especially not in one day. Maybe never if Castle truly doesn't want her anymore. If last night was his way of satisfying his curiosity of what it would be like before he moves on, she doubts she'll be able to accept it and just be his friend.

As the driver pulls up outside Castle's building, she automatically hands him some cash and gets out. The cab shoots off down the street, and she finds herself wondering why she's here. What if he's here? What if he is? What if he doesn't want to see her? What if he does?

Instead of standing on the sidewalk guessing what's going to happen, Kate forces her legs to move, trudging inside. She nods to the doorman on her way to the elevator. She's alone when she gets out on his floor, and it gives her more time to run through the possible scenarios in her mind. She stands outside his door for what seems like an hour, but is really only a few minutes. Deciding she might as well get it over with either way, she drags her arm from her side and knocks quietly on the door. When there's no answer, she pounds a little harder, but clearly no one is home, and trying not to overthink it too much, she pulls her keys out and inserts the spare he gave her when she was staying here after her apartment blew up.

Easing the door open and sticking her head inside, she calls out just to be sure there's nobody home. She knows that Alexis will be at school, and Martha is probably at the acting school, but she was hoping that Castle was here and just refusing to answer the door because he knew it was probably her. A quick glance around the loft, and it's clear that there really isn't anyone home.

Her shoulders sag in defeat and she wanders into the kitchen for a glass of water. After she automatically grabs a glass out of the cabinet, and is standing at the refrigerator looking for something to eat that will calm her queasy stomach, it hits her that she knows where everything is here. She feels at home, and more importantly, she feels safe. Not just in Castle's home, but in his life. She casts back through her memory for the last time she felt this way, but doesn't have to think hard to know that she hasn't truly felt like she was a part of a family since her mother was murdered. Back when she was young and invincible and definitely took it for granted like most other kids that age do. Her heart twists in her chest, because she's finally found that feeling again after over a decade of hurt and loneliness, and she's taking it for granted again.

Irritated with her inability to get things right with Castle, Kate slams the refrigerator door and stomps to the nearest barstool with her glass of water. She allows herself to regress to adolescence for a moment, crossing her arms on the bar and dropping her head to rest on them, letting the frustration take over. She knows she has a wonderful partner and an irreplaceable friend in Castle, and she just wants to get over herself already. Except, she sort of tried to do that last night, and thought she had gotten through to him, but even after she gave her body up to him, he still left her behind this morning. She can't help but admit that it's probably her own fault for burning him too many times, for rejecting and resisting his love for so long.

She finds she's not willing to give up just yet, but she can't really do anything at the moment since Castle isn't here. She wants to go track him down and have it out, but she's afraid that they'll miss each other by some timing misstep like they have so many other times over the past couple of years. So she's not going anywhere. She knows he'll be home at some point, if for no other reason than his daughter, so she resigns herself to waiting him out. She's decided she's not going to run, and that she's going to insist they talk through this when he gets back.

In the meantime, she can smell the alcohol leaking out of her pores, and figures she might as well take advantage of his bathtub while she's waiting.

A/N (again) - And, here I am... still continuing instead of ending this with Chapter 3. I still have quite a bit of them hashing things out that I need to fit in, and this was a good place to stop. I really think I can wrap this up with one more chapter.

Once more, all reviews are welcome, encouraged, and help convince me to go on. Yelling, griping, and all other forms of prodding are also welcome :)