a/n – Thank you so much for the reviews, follows, and favs! This chapter continues our angst-athon. Yes the angst will continue, but I am still committed to a happy ending. Happy Castle Monday!

Disclaimer: Nathan Fillion will be on The Big Bang Theory later this season. I'm happy. But I still don't own Castle.

Done Waiting Chapter Three

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Previously…

On the elevator ride up to the fifth floor, she composed her opening salvo. She needed to be brave this time, and fight for the thing she wants above all else. As she walked towards his door she immediately noticed something was amiss. The door was open, with light shining out into the hallway. She walked up to it and pushed it gently open. "Castle?" she called out.

No answer. What the hell was going on?

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When she walked into the loft, she knew immediately that something was wrong. The place was trashed, furniture was ripped apart, books were all over the place; but there was no sign of Castle. She drew her gun out of her purse, sat the bag aside and continued towards Castle's study.

Opening the door, she saw his laptop on the desk, still giving off a soft glow in the dark room. She knew that Castle always shut the machine down after he was done with it, so something had stopped him from doing so this time. She looked around and saw the same evidence of a brutal search, but there was more here. It looked like there had been a struggle. The desk lamp was broken as if it had been used to bash in a skull. She looked at the floor for the first time and froze. In front of the couch she noticed a large puddle of dark liquid. She knew instantly that it was blood. No! she screamed in her mind. She made no noise, but started to shake with fear.

Something had happened here, and it wasn't good. Where the hell was Castle? Whose blood is that? Is he alive? Her head spun with all the unanswered questions as she cleared the rest of the loft. She found no one, but found that the rest of the loft had been searched as well. She pulled her phone out of her pocket and dialed Esposito's number.

"Hey Beckett, we got a drop?"

"No, but Espo, something has happened to Castle. His loft is trashed, there is a lot of blood here and he is nowhere to be found. Grab Ryan and call in CSU. Someone was looking for something, and they either grabbed or… or they killed Castle in the process." Her voice was shaky, but she gave out the facts as well as she could, knowing that she needed to be strong to get her partner back. Ex-partner a voice in her head mocked.

"We're on our way, be there in 20," he said, hanging up. She thanked the stars above for her team and their ability to move at a moment's notice.

She walked back into the living room and looked around. She considered the scene before her and started to ask more questions. She had tried to call Martha and Alexis before she had decided to come over, and she had assumed that they were ignoring her calls. Now she considered the fact that they might be victims of whatever had happened here as well.

She pulled out her phone again and dialed Martha's number again. It rang three times before she someone picked up. She breathed a sigh of relief.

"Katherine?"

"Martha! Where are you? Are you okay?" She rushed the words out, shaking with adrenaline.

"Of course I'm okay. Alexis and I are on our way back from a spa weekend. She wanted to be rested up before her graduation. What's wrong?"

"The loft has been trashed, and Castle is missing. When was the last time you heard from him?"

"Friday after the two of you wrapped up the bombing case. He was down and said he was going to write for a while. He said goodbye before Alexis and I left. Why do you think he's missing? Could it have been just robbery and he's out doing something?"

"There's blood, Martha. Something happened."

"We're on our way back. We'll be there in a couple hours."

"Don't come right here. Come to the precinct. I don't know if it will be safe for you to be here. I don't know what they were looking for or what has happened, but I know Rick would want you to be safe."

"Okay, darling. Why were you there tonight, if you don't mind me asking?"

She took a deep breath and said, "We had a fight, and I came to make it right. I noticed the door was opened and I knew right away that something was wrong. You didn't answer my call earlier so I thought that something might have happened to you too."

"We're both fine. We'll see you at the precinct in a couple hours. Please find my son, detective. Please."

"I won't stop until I do," she promised then ended the call.

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Kate stood in the loft as the CSU team did their job. She didn't know what was going on. How could this happen now? Nothing was making any sense, and she could feel herself spiraling down into a panic attack. She tried to take in deep breaths, but it wasn't working. She loved him. He might be dead. Those two sentences kept going through her mind over and over again, and she couldn't stop the tears from running down her cheeks.

She couldn't break down here, so she rushed out of the apartment and collapsed against the wall of the hallway, sliding down the wall and grabbing her knees protectively. Esposito saw her rush from the room and followed, knowing that his partner wouldn't be handling this well. When he found her out in the hallway, he sat down next to her.

"Breathe, Kate. Breathe for me. In for three out for three, can you do that?"

She made no notice that she had heard him, so he moved to kneel before her and said, "He's going to be okay, Beckett. We'll find him. Now you need to breathe. Just follow after me okay?"

He knelt there for several minutes as she finally started to follow his breathing. She calmed and wiped at her tears.

"What if it's my fault, Espo? I pushed him away. What if he dies? The last memory we'll have of each other will be of a fight. How could I let that happen?" she sobbed.

"It's not your fault. We'll get him back, and you can fix it. Nothing is ever beyond repairing, and Castle has forgiven you many times in the past. He will take you back this time too. I know you love him, Kate. You have to be strong for him right now."

She nodded and stood, sliding back against the wall to keep from swaying on her feet. "What do we know so far?" she asked, her voice still shaking.

He shook his head and said, "Not much. They've collected a sample of the blood and are going to rush tests on it, but we haven't found much else. Whoever did this disabled Castle, then trashed his loft. They were looking for something."

"But what? He has a safe in the bedroom closet, was it opened?"

"I don't know, but we'll look." She simply nodded and headed back into the loft. She had to hold it together. She had to find him, even if it was the last thing she ever did. She couldn't lose him. Not like this. She had to have a chance to fix them. So she took in a deep breath and started to look for clues. It was the only thing she could do.

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Two hours later at the precinct, she talked to Martha and Alexis. They hadn't seen nor spoken to Castle since Friday night, so there was no new information.

"I'm going to arrange for you two to go into one of our safe houses with a couple of uniforms guarding you. I don't know what is going on yet, but I know that if I didn't keep you two safe, Castle would hate me forever," Kate said to Martha after asking her questions. "So sit tight and a couple officers will come get you, okay?"

"Okay. Katherine, what do you think happened?" Martha asked. She had been stoic through the whole ordeal so far, but Kate knew that she was only holding it together for her granddaughter.

"I don't know. But I will find him. I won't rest until I do. I promise. And I will keep you updated as much as I can, okay?" She had to believe that she would find him. If she lost hope she would break.

"I know you will, dear. We believe in you."

Kate got up, hugged them both and went back to her desk. Espo and Ryan had put together the murder board, even though they didn't know if a murder had occurred. She looked up and saw his picture and nearly sobbed at the sight of seeing his face. She collapsed into her chair and wiped away the tears, which had been an almost constant companion over the last few hours.

"Beckett," Espo said, rushing up to her desk.

She looked up and saw the worried look on his face. She knew instantly that something else had happened. "What happened?" she asked, sitting upright.

"We just got a call. There was a break in at your apartment. One of your neighbors spotted a man dragging a large bag into your apartment about an hour ago. She heard noises like someone was trashing the place and called the cops. They just arrived on scene. They found…"

"Espo, what did they find? Come on, tell me." The look on his face was one she had never seen before. It looked like anguish.

"They found Castle…"

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a/n 2 – No! What happened to Castle? You'll just have to wait until next time to find out… Mwah Ha Ha HA!

Review if you like it or if you think you know what happened to Castle.