Disclaimer: Yeah right. I don't own Castle.
A/N: The only problem... it's the next chapter that isnt finished yet... I have a thick skin - don't worry, whatever your reaction you won't offend me. Have at it. [If anyone does review: please no spoilers.]
Over the last couple of years Agent Beckett knew that she had built up new walls, a solid stone face blocking everything and allowing her to function perfectly in investigative role, undistracted from other concerns. Those walls had been refined in the fires of the job, compressed by its stresses. In the end, the heat and pressure had created something hard, protective, and beautifully stark when seen from the outside: a diamond fortress to hide herself behind. From the outside at least, from within all she saw was a ghostly, distorted reflection of herself.
Those walls had taken a beating recently, and Kate had finally realized her simple truth, the walls were hard, but brittle; and they had been showing cracks for months now. As happens with cracks, they had been enlarged by freezing and thawing, the hot and cold of emotions. Her run in with Will had taken its toll gradually, the impact sinking in over months as she had occasional moments of time sit and contemplate her life, reflect on her career.
The memories were old now but still fresh, it had been two and and half years since she'd walked this corridor; from the elevator to a door that had once seemed so familiar. She had honestly believed she would never be ready to face it again, but how things has changed so recently. The gradual creep of regret, the painful feeling of being alone; for so long the job had salved wounds and hurts. Until it had finally became the cause for them, leaving weeping sores as she lay alone at night in both familiar and unfamiliar beds.
Kate, for she hoped to rediscover some of the Kate of years past here, reached out, tapped on door and waited.
The whole edifice swung open rather abruptly, and she was confronted with the outsized reality of Martha Rodger, all glammed up to the gills with every appearance of being about to paint the town some kind of luminescent red.
"Katherine? Really, what a surprise; I honestly never expected to see you again." Despite the apparent shock in her words, Martha actually appeared to be smiling, did not seem to be unhappy to see her. For that Kate felt a renewed gratitude for someone who had seemed almost an adoptive mother to her those years ago.
A female voice called out for the rear of the loft, "Martha? Where did Rick put those cushions?" The voice was definitely not that of Alexis and Kate felt a pronounced nervousness effect her once again.
"Katherine, what can I do for you dear?" Martha was clearly trying to redirect Kate's focus onto her once again. To focus her, or to distract her from asking the wrongs questions, Kate was no longer sure.
"Is Rick here? Who is that?" While Kate was distracted by the bodiless voice, she had a reason for being here, and reason she was not willing to let go yet.
"That's Michelle dear. No Richard isn't here right now Katherine. He's at a meeting or something, I never bother to keep too close a track, he's a big boy. He had to eventually learn to look after himself, didn't he?" Martha had grabbed her coat and purse, stepping purposefully into the doorway, backing Kate up a little. Clearly it was time for her to go.
Kate did back up a little, she may never hesitate facing down a criminal, but Martha was an entirely different grade of unstoppable force. Nonetheless, she had something she had to ask, "When will he be back? I need to talk to him."
Martha stepped further forward, into hallway, backing Kate even futher away from the door and pulling the firmly closed behind her, jiggling the handle to ensure it was closed. Only then did she beginng speaking again, in a far less flippant than usual tone, "Katherine, you do know you hurt him? It was a long time ago now and he's mostly healed, but... Agent Beckett he may not be ready to see you now, he may never be ready to see you."