A/N: Woo, woo! Thanks for all the reads/favs/reviews. I really really appreciate them! Couple of things for this chapter: 1) you've got to suspend belief about the amount of time it takes to get from point a to point b in Manhattan traffic and 2) there's some slight language. I'm keeping the rating at T for now but if they continue to insist on dropping four letter words, I'll upgrade it.
Also, the song for this chapter is by Shawn Klaiber but Sara contributes some piano playing and background vocals. (I'm only cheating a little!) It's not on iTunes as far as I know, but you can find it on YouTube if you'd like to listen.
Was I so wrong being such an open book?
Trusting so soon, losing all the tender time it took to love you,
Just to crawl away with broken wings,
and the pieces of my heart still splintering.
The rain had been steady ever since she had sat down to dinner, lingering over burgers and fries with her dad while he made her laugh. Being apart from him was one of the worst things about her move to D.C., and though he was good about visiting, though they had begun a ritual of a trip to the cabin and to some other place in the world that he'd always wanted to see every year - that and regular phone conversations just weren't enough.
Her dad was the only person she had left in her family. Her last blood relative. Of course she knew he was proud of her, she'd heard his encouragement to keep her head up and keep pursuing her dreams for the past decade but it wasn't the same. She missed their regular diner chats, their trips to Citi Field when she had a day off that coincided with a home game.
She missed home.
They had parted with a long hug after their two block walk from the diner to his building, Kate promising to call him the following morning to find more time to spend together. Her dad had offered his bed, asked her to forgo the government paid hotel in favor of his one-bedroom apartment. She'd declined on principle, unwilling to send her own father to an indefinite number of nights on the couch and also aware that she needed her own space to work.
With her dad safely inside the lobby, she turned back towards the downpour that coated the streets. Finding a cab would be a nightmare in this weather, though Kate also didn't cherish the six long blocks to the closest subway station. It was better to take her chance with a taxi.
Five different yellow vehicles rolled past as she stood in the rain, her bag providing very little cover for her head as one four door sedan slid to a stop and deposited two passengers. The men scurried across the sidewalk to the Italian restaurant as she slipped into the cab and doled out the address for the hotel.
The cabbie was preparing to merge into traffic when the door opened again, leaving Kate's space invaded by a black trench coat and dark hair as the man struggled to also close his umbrella and the door at the same moment. "Corner of Broome and Crosby, please," the man says as she sits pressed against the opposite door.
They notice each other at the same time, the odd synchronicity that had once made them such a good team manifesting itself in something horrific as Rick's head turns towards her and Kate steels herself for whatever will come next.
She gets a stuttered swear, voiced so low that she would miss it if she didn't know him so well and, after a beat, his body lurching towards the door he just used to enter the vehicle. He doesn't want to be near her, she knows that, but Kate's body reacts before she can stop it - her long fingers grasping the thick material of his coat to reign him in, "Don't,' she says quickly, withdrawing her hand as he jerks his arm away, "It's raining, and I'm going the same way."
She expects a direct no, for him to scoff at her and maybe tell her to go to hell. This neutral expression and rigid tension is a new side of Castle, but she takes the bull by the horns and instructs the driver to deliver him to the address provided.
They make it four blocks before he snaps out of his daze, slumping against the seat with a grunt as his face remains turned firmly out the window. It's such a contrast to the early days when she had given him the cold shoulder, when he had prattled on constantly and rooted around until there were tiny little chinks in her armor that he could worm his way in.
It's less than three feet of space between them, but Kate feels like its an ocean. With each wave brings a new emotion, her fondness for the good times at war with the utterly wretched way she felt as he overlooked her for Gina. She misses him desperately at one light, wants to scream and rip his hair out at the next while Castle sits unmoving like a statue.
Times Square's bright lights glow as they slide past the intersection of 42nd and 8th Avenue, the billboards and flashing signs making her brave with the familiarity. Usually Times Square is the last place she ever wants to spend any length of time with its crowds and bustle, but part of her feels called to the iconic sight when it speeds past.
Instead, she angles her body towards the writer at the window, "Castle, about this case…" Kate begins, taking a deep breath to organize her thoughts.
"Don't," he says abruptly, cutting his eyes towards her as his jaw tightens, "I'm not involved in this case, nor do I want to be."
She tries not to let the surprise and the hurt show on her face, furrowing her eyebrows and the muscles of her jaw to eliminate whatever waver that tries to make itself known. She can read him exceptionally well, almost as good as he can read her, though its not as it the subtext had been subtle.
He doesn't want to work on the case because she is here. He doesn't want anything to do with her.
The thought rolls around in her mind as they continue along 8th Avenue, jerking to a halt at the 23rd street intersection for sudden red light when she sits up straight and levels her full glare at him. "What is your problem?" she finally asks, ignoring the myriad of other questions that she could begin with, forgoing all the tip-toeing and dancing that had made up every waking hour of their time together, "I'm just here to do my job. I wouldn't have removed you from the case, you are a valuable asset to that team….'
Rick snorts in reply, and she makes out the outline of his eyes as they roll in her direction. It's the dismissiveness of that action that burns her, adds another level of heat to the annoyance that had already curled in her gut. "It has nothing to do with my value, Beckett," he spits at her and, in an instant, Kate sees red.
"Then what the hell, is it?" she snaps, beyond caring about keeping her composure. She's moved from nostalgic to livid in the space of fifteen city blocks. To hell with it all.
"It's you," Rick breathes out, 'It's the way you walked in that damn place like you owned it, how you expected the entire fucking precinct to be thrilled to see you. That no one should be a little angry or upset that you boxed up your life and left without a goodbye. Kate Beckett, Federal Agent, come down from her mighty perch to mingle with the lowly ones who built her up,' he hisses, turning his face towards her own so she cannot miss the full extent of his glare.
"So no, I don't want to be involved. I don't want to know about suspects or phone records. We don't need you anymore, we've gotten along just fine without you and your federal task force. I've gotten along just fine without your eye rolls and dismissive nature and, in a couple of weeks this will be wrapped up. You'll tiptoe back out the way you came, expecting praise for a job well done. Go back to your life in Washington," he continues without pausing for a breath, "and we will go back to existing without your insufferable presence."
The cab comes to a stop again, this time at the intersection of Houston and Broadway, and he takes the opportunity presented by the red light to toss a couple of twenties towards the cabbie and instruct him to take her to her hotel.
He's out the door and lost in the crowd of pedestrians before she can blink.
They sit in silence, the steady drip of the faucet in the corner accompanying both of them while Lanie digests the replay of her cab ride with Castle.
When Lanie finally speaks, it begins with a sigh and a slow pat against Kate's hands where they lay folded on the tablet.
"Sweetie, I'm sorry to have to say this but, what did you expect?" she questions softly, watching as Kate's face shifts into one of surprise, "Now, I'm not saying that he did the right thing by unleashing it all on you like that but, honey, you hurt him just as much as he hurt you."
Kate bristles at that, huffing out a series of breaths even as she comes up short with a legitimate protest. Because she did know that leaving was going to hurt Castle, that her choice to ignore his attempts to contact her would make him angry.
The trouble was that she thought he deserved it at the time. Now, when faced with the consequences of it all, she's not so convinced.
Retaining even the most fragile methods of contact would be better than the complete barrage of hate she'd seen directed at her in the backseat of that cab.
"I just couldn't face it Lanie," she finally says, "He spent all that time trying to become part of the team, and then it was so much more than that. Even when I kicked him out, I missed him and how he made a bad day better. That's why I let him come back, it's why I broke up with Tom and then he just…..dismissed me," Kate finishes softly, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth as the memory replays in her mind, "It's what I was always afraid of with him, that I'd be another conquest, just another through the revolving door. In the end, I wasn't even worth that much, not really."
Lanie gives her a long look once she falls silent, and she can see her best friend measuring up how much she wants to say versus how much she should say.
"Kate, you have to forgive him. He spent all that time waiting for you, trying to get the smallest bit of leverage, and then suddenly you were with Tom. Have you ever thought about why his ex-wife was suddenly back or have you been studying this entire situation with your stubbornness to be right leading the way?" she asks her friend, "I know you. You get hurt and you shut everything and everyone out until you can process it. You analyze it and find the faults, then you hold on to them like a lifeline. But it's not always that simple, life is usually more than black and white."
She has other things to say, more questions piled in her mind that Kate needs Lanie to help her process. Instead, Espo breaks up the meeting with a text for an abandoned warehouse in Brooklyn and Kate departs the morgue with guilt and regret added to an already heavy load.
Song: 'Splintering' by Shawn Klaiber (feat. Sara Bareilles)