Kate and Alexis had both tried to contact Castle several times after leaving Princeton. As had become his habit he had not answered. They left a number of messages on his phone hoping that he would at least check them. Eventually they settled for calling Martha. As it turned out Martha was well aware of her son's self imposed isolation. She had tried to call him herself after Alexis had first expressed concern.

"You mean you know that your son won't answer phone and isn't himself, yet you're not even slightly concerned?" Kate was indignant, how could any mother not be worried about her son given all the evidence they had. She and Alexis had met up with Martha at Castle's loft. Martha would be staying with Alexis for the rest of the summer break and had arrived at the same time as her granddaughter and the Detective. While she would be busy with her play for the most part it was still better than leaving the teenager on her own.

"Kate, dear, if there's one thing I've learned about dealing Richard Castle it's when to leave him alone." Recognizing the need to argue in Kate's eyes she pressed on. "I don't pretend to know my son's thoughts, but let's put this into perspective, take Ryan, he's the more emotional of your two colleagues if my read on him was correct," At Kate's nod she continued. "Well, if Ryan and Jenny had a fight and it started to effect his work, he wasn't finishing reports or was leaving out important details, you'd talk to him wouldn't you?" Again Kate nodded. She couldn't provide more of a response as she struggled to make the connection between the two scenarios, firstly she and Castle hadn't been in a romantic relationship or had a fight, secondly, she was certain that she had no real effect on Castle's work, regardless of what he told the tabloids. "Now, say you've spoken to him and he's tried to fix things, but every time he tries to talk to Jenny about it she or someone who's opinion means a lot to him shoots him down, telling him that it's all his fault, his job is getting between them and he has to choose. It's gotten to the point where he truly believes that he will have to decide between the woman he loves or his career, perhaps the very thing that defines who he is." Martha gave Kate a moment to think through the picture she had just painted for her. " There is no question that he would keep his job, he's a Detective through and through. He would hate leaving Jenny, but he can't change who he is that much as quickly as he's being asked to. Even if he could, the question remains does she really love him or just the idea of him...? Any one would need to retreat for a while after making a decision like that. Why then is it so hard to believe that my Richard would need to do the same?" Kate opened her mouth to explain the distinctions she had made to herself at the start of this line of conversation but was cut off. "I know, Detective, that you two were not romantically involved. However, Richard never made a secret of his affection for you, though I doubt he realised how deep those feelings ran until recently..." Martha waited for Alexis to disappear up stairs into her room to unpack before continuing. "This may not have been the sole reason for his behavior, but I have no doubt it played a part."

They were headed up to Alexis' room to look through her photos from Princeton as the doorbell rang. "I'll get it!" Alexis ran down the stairs two at a time and flung the door open. "Charlie!" The elderly door man from down stairs was standing at their front door holding a large box that looked quite heavy.

"Miss. Alexis, either you've grown a lot since leaving for Princeton or I've started shrinking." Alexis beamed at him.

"Come on in. Can I get you a drink?"

"No, thank you, sweetheart, I've got to get back and start my shift. I just wanted to bring this up for you as Mr. Rick's away and I don't think it's right that you should haul it all the way up here yourself."

"Oh, well thank you, Charlie. That's very considerate of you. You can just leave it there, we'll find a place to put it in a minute." The man did as she asked and they exchanged a brief hug and she thanked him again before he left. Martha found herself examining the box when Kate came into the entry room. "It's from Black Pawn, my guess is it's the advanced copies of 'Naked Heat'." She said to no one in particular. "It seems bigger than usual."

"How many does he usually get?" Kate was a little taken a back by the size of the box, she had expected that he would only get one or two advanced copies, not a whole box.

"Three or four. One for his study, one or two for the people helping his research, in this case you, and one to auction off for his favorite charity 'Kids Need to Read'... Perhaps they put his fan mail in there as well, he hasn't been around to pick it up in a while." Alexis nodded, clearly as puzzled as her grandmother but willing to accept her suggestion.

"Maybe we should put it in his study? Give him a surprise when he gets home." Alexis suggested hopefully. She didn't like not knowing what was going on with her father, it just felt wrong.

"I'll do it." It was Kate who spoke this time. When the other women looked at her questioningly she explained her offer. "Didn't you want to show your Grandmother something, Alexis?"

The girl's eyes brightened as she remembered the small box of souvenirs and photos she had been showing Kate on the trip back into the city that now lay on her bed. "Okay, thanks, Kate. Just drop it by his desk and come join us, you didn't get to look at some of the photos properly and I really want to show you."

"Sure thing, Alexis." She smiled at the young girl and watched them race up the stairs chatting away before picking up the box and heading off to Castle's office.

The room was dark, even the exposed window provided little light through the evening storm that had sprung up outside. Despite the lack of illumination Kate could see sheets of paper strewn across the desk and the ground around it. Entire chapters worth of pages lay crumpled in and near the bin. Kate hadn't been in this office often but on the occasions she had it was fairly clean and orderly. This didn't seem to fit with what she knew of Castle and his working habits. Though it had surprised her at first she knew he required some semblance of order and structure to work at his best. She accidentally knocked the box against the desk with enough forced to move his computer mouse as she lowered the box to the ground.

Kate jumped in surprise as she was startled by the sudden lighting up of Castle's plot board. She berated herself for being so jumpy and began to turn away but was stopped as the headings registered in her mind. 'Pros and Cons'. 'Pros and cons of what?' Kate was a Detective, it was naturally ingrained in her to be curious. Call it a character defect but she couldn't help herself from solving any puzzle put before her, or at least trying her hardest to do just that. It was one of the things that made her excel in her career. So she read what was written. He had mapped it out so that it was as plain as day, there could be no confusion as to the purpose of these mind maps. Detective Kate Beckett had just been granted a rare insight into the author's thoughts and feelings. She felt awkward reading such personal thoughts, almost like she was violating some trust, but she couldn't bring herself to look away once she had started. Things began to fall into place in her mind. Small changes in his behavior began to make sense and snippets of their conversations over the last few weeks of working together clicked in her mind. He hadn't been moving on to bigger and better things, he had been running away... and she had let him. The last part of that thought brought a bitter taste to her mouth. All the signs had been there, she just hadn't been paying attention. The cold realisation that everything she had feared had happened because she let her fear dictate her actions knocked the air from her lungs. She reread everything on the board, only then noticing the underlining of one point. 'No Trust'. Kate felt the world go cold around her. He didn't trust her? Or did he think that she didn't trust him? After working together for so long she had thought they had a pretty trusting relationship. He trusted her with his daughter's care, that in itself was the greatest declaration of trust he could give, she knew that, but she knew that he was aware of how hard it was for her to trust anyone and so the very fact that she had told him so much about her past and had asked him to back her up when she had gone in after Scott Dunn should have made it clear that she trusted him. She was unsure of how to take this new revelation. In some ways this should give her hope, but for the most part it just plain hurt her to see the pain she had caused the man who had become her best friend. Knowing that she would need evidence when she finally confronted him, which she had no doubt she would, Kate printed what was on the screen.

As she placed the now folded papers into her bag Martha entered the room. "Is everything okay, kiddo? Oh." She stopped abruptly at the sight of the lit screen and disheveled office. "That's strange, Richard never leaves that on. He likes to keep his work private until it's published." Looking to the Detective momentarily as she explained his reasons she noticed the strange expression on Kate's face, so she looked back to see what was so alarming to her. "Oh, that's not 'Naked Heat'." She read over what her son had written and understanding dawned on her after the first few lines. "Well, that certainly explains a lot."

"What do you mean? What does it explain?" Kate hated the neediness in her own voice but put that thought off while she waited for the woman to explain further.

"Richard never told me what had happened between you two. I assumed you had had a fight or he had done something stupid again. I never suspected it was because he was jealous." Even after everything Kate found it hard to think of Castle as jealous of anything or anyone. "He's not had to deal with that in a long time, except maybe briefly when Kyra Blaine came back into the picture, but nothing like this...not to mention the fact that he lost."

"He lost? How can you lose a competition you never entered?" Kate wasn't sure where that had come from, she was angry at him and at herself for not making the move they had both been so desperate to make without realizing it until it was too late, she knew now that he had tried, not particularly hard, but under the circumstances she didn't have to try very hard to understand why he left.

"Kate, Richard Castle, the famous novelist and ladies man extraordinaire actually used the words 'I'm' and 'sorry' in the same sentence, for you. If that doesn't show his interest I don't know what could." She was right and both women knew it. There was a not uncomfortable silence as both women thought over the events that led them to where they were now.

Eventually Kate broke the silence after realizing that the circles in which her mind was going would lead her nowhere. "What am I supposed to do, Martha? I can't just show up and tell him that I want him to come back, that I don't like it when he's with other women and that maybe I just might miss him when he's gone. He's in the Hamptons, with his ex-wife. He chose her." Her voice trailed away as she was once again confronted with the mental image of Castle's tender smile, a smile she longed to be on the receiving end of, being drawn out as he looked to the petite blonde woman in his arms.

"What choice did he have, Dear? You've read what's written on that board as well as I. What up there indicates he felt anything but cornered? It was a show for your benefit as much as anyone else's." She looked the Detective in the eye, making sure she took on board what she was saying and the implications it had for her. "And as for Gina, I always liked her, but not as a daughter-in-law, she's very good at what she does and always takes my advice when planning Richard's parties. We've actually been meeting over lunch every now and then for the past few weeks, organizing the guest list, location and the catering."

Kate didn't know how to respond to this new information or what it meant exactly for her. Martha liked Gina, but more than that, Martha and Gina were having meals together. She suddenly wondered if Martha was really the ally she had pegged her for or not. All she could say was, "You must be close if she'd drive all the way from the Hamptons for lunch, but couldn't Castle help with the planning?"

"Oh, dear, you really don't get it do you?" When the only response she got was a quizzical look from the Detective she shook her head sadly. "I suppose I'll have to spell it out for you, you're just like Richard sometimes. They aren't together, Kate. Gina's been back in New York since the book was finished, a month ago. They haven't been able to be alone together for anything but work since they were married. Too many painful memories if you ask me." Shocked, Kate just st down against the desk and looked into space. Asking herself the same questions over and over, getting no answers she turned to the woman who seemed to have them all.

"Why isn't he back then? Why won't he answer his phones or talk to his daughter? If he's finished the book and there's no one and nothing to keep him there, why didn't he come back early?"

A sad smile gripped the diva's features as she leaned back against the desk next to Kate. "Because he's doing what he does best..." She took a deep, slow breath and let it escape her slowly before continuing. "People think that your heart is guarded, and perhaps it is, but even you have nothing on the master of the macabre." Kate couldn't help but snort a little at the absurdity of the thought, even then she could see Castle's face expressing his every flippant emotion and thought. He was an open book when it came to his heart. As she thought it though, she realised that just maybe there was merit to what Martha was saying, after all it did take her over a year to realise that she held a place in his heart, however small. "Scoff all you want, Dear, but that doesn't change the truth of the matter. I know you see my son as an overgrown man-child with far too much money and influence to toy with, but do you really think that he could make it a a public figure without learning a few political tricks? My boy was the focus of a lot of attention from the time he was little. First it was because of my career and the society we had to keep. When he was in Junior High he became involved in the student council and was popular in a number of school and external clubs. Richard was Class President for his senior year as well as President of the literary and dramatic clubs. He even went so far as to join the school football team and was the star quarterback for a short time until a concussion took him out of the big game of the season. He has always been quite adapt at showing the world what he wants them to see. Kyra came and left around the time he had his first bestseller, he didn't have any trouble with the tabloids then, he was just a flash in the pan to them, that was until they got wind of the up and coming celebrity's heartbreak, which seems to be what everyone wants to read about. His sanity relied on his ability to hide behind a mask. Richard found the mask that would be most effective, and that is how the man-child came to be. He can be fun and immature, he has a good sense of humour, but the truth is that he knew no one would look too deeply into an egotistical, rich, playboy with no depth or substance to him at all." She stood and walked to the door looking back over her shoulder as she went. "Shall we go up stairs and reminisce with Alexis some more?"

"Actually, I think I'll say good night, I have to get back to the precinct in the morning and have a lot to think about before then."

Martha smiled at her, a warm smile once more. "Very well, Kate, I hope you figure out what you want before he get back, or you may be easily swayed by something you probably should discount. Oh, and by the way, when he does get back, be prepared for the performance of a lifetime."

T.B.C...

A/N:I know, it's taking a while nut this has taken on a life of it's own and while I only ever meant for this to be a couple of chapters at most it looks like it will be a bit longer than that. Don't worry followers of 'Changing Tracks' the next chapter will be up when my sister gives it back to me. :)