Chapter Three

Eye for an eye, why tear each other apart?
Please tell me why, why do we make it so hard?
Look at us now, we only got ourselves to blame
It's such a shame.


This was a bad idea.

This was a terrible idea.

The worst ever.

Castle kept telling himself that. But of course, knowing something was a bad idea had never stopped him before, and he wasn't about to let it now. His innate curiosity always won out, and he had long since learned fighting it was futile.

He was walking briskly through Times Square. Jim Beckett had briefly mentioned yesterday – before Castle pulled a runner - that Kate was going for her final dress fitting during her lunch break today. It had stirred a memory for Castle, one from years ago, when she'd confided – under the influence of four glasses of wine - the name of the bridal store she'd always wanted to get a dress from . He knew it was a long shot. She could have found something in another store, or she wouldn't be there at the same time as him, or Jim could have had his facts wrong.

As Castle thought about what he was doing, he groaned. Definitely a bad idea.

He had to see her though. He spent most of yesterday afternoon thinking about her. Not with the bitterness that so often laced his thoughts of her, nor with the crippling nostalgia. Just thinking. Not about them, just about her. Her fierce intellect. The depths of her strength. The way her face lit up when she smiled. He thought about the four years they spent together before becoming a couple. As partners, as friends. And in the end, that was what made up his mind. He had to see her, just one last time. Not as her ex boyfriend. As her old friend. For that, he could put aside his vehemence.

Well, he would at least try.

He stopped up outside the bridal store. The windows were mostly covered by gowns and jewellery on display, but there was a break at his eye level that he peered through. There were a few woman browsing in the front of the store, but halfway down there was a right angle turn that blocked half the store from his view. He bounced up and down with nervous energy, and pushed open the door.

The shop smelt like carpet freshener and the cherries that were in a bowl at the till – though Castle suspected the smell was from scented air freshener more than the actual fruit. There was one store assistant here in the front from what he could see, but she was dealing with a customer and didn't pay him any attention.

He turned the corner into the second half of the store and stopped up in his tracks. There, standing on slightly raised circle in the middle of the floor, was Kate.

Her back was to him, and she didn't see him at first, but he could see her face in the mirror that faced. He struggled to put words on her. He drew in a sharp breath of air. That was what she was – she was breathtaking. Her eyes were cast downwards, long eyelashes flicking against her cheeks, as she smoothed her hands on the skirt of her dress. Her hair, dark, chestnut brown, was a cut a couple of inches shorter since he'd last seen her. In that moment, stunned by how beautiful she looked, Castle forgot his bitterness towards her. He wasn't sure if it was true that absence made the heart grow fonder, or if Kate simply grew more and more stunning with age. He suspected a mix of both.

He saw her eyes flick up, and in the mirror, they found his. Her mouth fell open into a slight o shape and she spun around.

"Castle?" she said. Her voice was uncertain, almost like she didn't recognise him.

He gave her a casual smile, as if the entire situation was perfectly ordinary. "Hey, Beckett."

"Why..." she started. "How? How are you here?" She was visibly startled as she struggled for the words to say what she wanted to. He had caught her completely off guard.

"I ran into your dad yesterday," Castle said. "Grocery shopping."

"And he told you I'd be here?" she asked, dubious. Her eyebrows were raised. She was on the defensive now. He could almost see her constructing a wall between them.

"I may have jumped to my own conclusion, but for all intents and purposes, yes," Castle said, his words rushing together like they always did when he was nervous of her reaction. He kept talking. "I just – he told me you were, you know," Castle gestured to her dress.

She stared at him, incredulous. Her mind was whizzing, and she was lifting her arm to point towards the front of the shop and spit get out, when Castle kept talking. "And I wanted to tell you good luck, or congratulations, or whatever." He cringed inwardly. Good luck or congratulations or whatever? Smooth, Rick. Real smooth.

She didn't bark him down. She didn't smile, either, but Castle decided he would take what he could get. "Thank you,"she said. Her voice was even, professional. She was detaching herself from the situation.

"So, can I ask who's the unlucky guy?" he laughed. He was half trying to inject some humour into the moment, but he was also curious.

"Hardly appropriate. You should go," she said. She turned away from him, but she could still see him in the mirror.

"Oh, come on, Beckett. Tell me," he said. He raised his eyebrows at her in a childish expression and said, "You know I'm not going to leave until you do."

And the worst part was, she did know that. She knew how ridiculously persistent Richard Castle could be, and she didn't for a second doubt that he would cling to her until she gave it up.

"Will," she muttered under her breath.

Castle's breath caught. "Will who?"

She ignored him.

"Not Will Sorenson?" he asked.

She didn't reply. And it might have been five years, but he still knew her. He knew her face – and he could tell from it that he had hit the money.

"Beckett, I know it's not my place, but really? Sorenson?" Castle said. His distaste was obvious.

Beckett felt flushed. She turned to the mirror and occupied her fingers in her hair. "People can learn to love again, Castle," she said.

He grunted something under is breath that Beckett thought sounded like, "I'd swear I remember you telling me the man didn't know how to make love well in the first place."

She whirled back around to glare at him. "Castle," she hissed. That had been one drunken conversation, and she hadn't meant it. Honestly.

The buzz of a phone across the room attracted both their attention. Beckett gathered up her skirt in one hand – Castle saw she was wearing black boots underneath, the kind she wore to work – and picked up her phone from the top of her bag across the room. "Beckett," she answered curtly.

Castle watched her expression on the phone. He couldn't make out what the person on the other end was saying.

"Right now?" Beckett asked after a minute.

A few moments passed. The corners of her lips twitched. "Are you sure?"

Another minute. She sighed. "No, it's fine. Right. I'll be there in ten."

She hung up the phone and pinched the bridge of her nostril. She held up her phone in the air. "That was the precinct," she said. She started to gather up her things – her phone, her wallet, her badge, all of which had been lying on the floor - into her bag. Castle felt bad for her. She was trying on her wedding dress, for goodness sake. Couldn't the damn precinct function without her?

"Did a body drop?" he asked. He coughed, his conscience pushing him to offer what he said next. "I could go and, you know, take notes for you."

She laughed, a cold, hard laugh. "Cold day in hell, Castle," she snapped.

Castle prickled. Their conversation thus far hadn't been necessarily friendly, but it had lacked malice at least. Now, any semblance of luke-warmth he'd retained vanished and he was reminded of all the reasons they'd fallen apart.

She caught the look on his face. Part of her felt strangely happy – she had spent the last five years being angry with him, and lashing out at him was almost therapeutic. But his puppy dog expression made her pity him at the same time, so she tossed him a bone.

"It's not a body. There's some crisis at the precinct," she explained.

"They can't last another hour without you?" Castle asked. He felt indignant on her behalf.

"No. I'm going to go back to deal with piles of paperwork and frantic unis now, probably," she sighed.

"Why?" Castle asked. Surely – surely someone else could have held down the fort while she was on her lunch break. Or was Gates just that cruel?

Beckett eyed him. "The boys didn't tell you?"

"We lost touch a long time back," Castle said.

Beckett nodded. "I was made Captain about two years ago."

"Oh, well, Beckett – congratulations. That's pretty something." His words were kind but he couldn't muster up a tone of anything other than neutrality. He was finding it difficult to be happy for her, and anyway, he wasn't necessarily surprised. He always imagined she'd end up somewhere high someday.

"Thank you," she accepted. Again, she had that professional tone with him. She wasn't letting herself get tangled up on any kind of personal level.

He nodded, and there was a moment of terse silence before Beckett said, "Well, I really need to get changed. So." She dipped her head towards the exit.

"Right, of course," Castle said. It felt odd, to both of them. Him having to leave while she changed seemed ridiculously petty after how they use to spend their nights – but it was the principle of the thing.

He took a half step away, then stopped. "Kate?"

She had already been walking away from him. She wasn't sure if it was the way his voice was so soft, or how he used her forename for the first time in this conversation, but when she turned to him, a tiny smidge of her resentment melted away.

"Yes?"

"You look great."

She rolled her bottom lip between her teeth. "Thanks, Castle," she said, giving him a small smile.

He nodded, and walked away. She watched him go. Again , not quite sure on what compulsion she was acting - maybe because all her other friends would be there, and Castle, above all, had always been her friend first and foremost – she chased after him, still wearing her big white dress.

He was on the street, just outside the main door. She stood in the doorway and shouted to be heard over the New York traffic. "Castle!"

He turned around. She was breathing heavily. "Do you want to come?" she asked him.

He had to hold back a smirk. Well, there it was. She had told Jim she sent him an invite – clearly, she hadn't. But if she thought he was going to grovel at her feet with thanks for throwing him a last minute pity party – there was no way. He'd done enough of that five years ago.

He took a few steps towards her, standing so close he could taste her mint breath. He smiled at her, and then spoke in a nonchalant tone.
"Cold day in hell, Beckett."


I'm not going to discuss details of Watershed in case someone hasn't seen it yet, but I just want to say that I'm in the half of the fandom that is feeling awesome about how it all went down and if any of you are feeling negative about it, send me a message and I'll try to show you all the reasons to be positive about it :)

On the topic of this story, I want to let you all know that I'm not just baiting with all the mentions of them falling apart but not actually telling you why. I have it all planned out, but it's going to be dealt with in pieces throughout the story. There a few are clues on one aspect of it that are a little less generalised in the next chapter (I'll tell you this right now: The break up was due to a lot of small events, one big one, and something terrible being said. It wasn't just one thing, which is why I'm taking my time with working them into the story. It'll all be explained as it fits naturally into the progression of this story.)

And lastly, a couple of people have wondered if there's going to be a happy ending. I'll say this: If you're not a fan of angst, this isn't the story for you. However, it's not pointless angst, and there will be resolution, and it will be happy.

This author's note has become ridiculously long, but I've one last thing to say. This is my first fic with this account and I've been blown away so far by the attention it has gotten. Thank you all very much!

Lyrics are from Only Teardrops by Emmelie de Forest (tonight's Eurovision winner.)

-Lauren