Thanks to Carto for reading 8 million versions of this.
(If there were no secrets revealed, she wouldn't feel like this)
His silence is painful. It spreads over her skin, blisters, and she can't take it anymore. "Castle," she snaps.
He pushes his hand through his hair, looks at the floor as he shakes his head. "You weren't supposed to see that yet."
"Well, I did. Explain. Now."
He finally looks up at her. "I've been working on your mother's case."
"Without me?" she asks, though it doesn't sound anything like a question. More like an accusation.
"Without you," he echoes.
"For how long?"
He stares at her. She raises her eyebrows, furiously impatient. He swallows. "Since you got shot."
A wave of nausea sweeps over her. "You've been working on my mom's case for a year and you never said anything?"
"I was waiting for the right time—"
"The right time would've been when you started."
"I was trying to protect you—"
"Protect me from what? It sounds like you should've been protecting me from yourself."
He shakes his head. "That's not fair."
"You know what's not fair?" she shoots back, nearly shouting. She shoves her index finger toward the smart board. "This. And this. All this information that I've never seen before. Information that could've been followed up as new leads—"
"I've been following them," he interrupts, pointing to himself. "They're dead ends."
"You're not a cop!" she snarls. "You don't have access to what I do."
"I've done okay," he answers defensively. "And I've saved you a lot of heartbreak." He must see the incredulity on her face, because when she opens her mouth to argue, he holds up a hand to try to stop her. "I mean it. All of my dead ends—"
"They're not yours!"
This time she does shout. He falls silent immediately. She doesn't continue right away. Her blood is pounding in her ears. Her hands are shaking. She feels a little bit like throwing up, or punching something. Someone, maybe. "You did the work," she starts again, quieter this time. "But they're not yours. They're mine. And you took them from me."
She sees the regret on his face, etched into the blue of his eyes, but it's not enough for her. This isn't he-made-an-inappropriate-joke or she's-being-guarded or they're-both-stressed-from-a-hard-case. This isn't a lovers' spat. This is real, and it hurts. She clenches her jaw, forces herself to keep going.
"Where'd you get it?" she demands, pointing at one of the pieces of information she didn't know.
"I got a call."
"From who?"
"I don't know. A man. Mr. Smith. He said you were safe as long as you weren't actively pursuing the case."
Kate bites her lip but says nothing.
He takes a step toward her. "I was trying to protect you."
"You don't get to make decisions for me."
"I know you. If I'd told you, you would've gone head first down the rabbit hole."
"It's my rabbit hole."
"And it's my responsibility to make sure you're not destroying yourself—"
"No," she cuts him off. "I'm not your responsibility. You don't get to make decisions like this for me. Christ, Castle, you don't tell someone you love them and then take away their right to—"
"Whoa, whoa," he hollers over her. "Hold on a minute."
She stops abruptly, confused, and then it hits her. Oh shit. She shakes her head. "Rick—"
"You said you didn't remember," he interrupts. "You lied."
"I didn't lie—"
"You did! I knew it. All this time you've watched me flail around, trying to give you the space you needed, and you knew. You knew, and I was, what, this pathetic, lovestruck idiot who followed you around, hoping you'd figure it out?"
"I wasn't ready for you. I would've broken your heart."
"And that's such a change from what you're doing now," he spits at her.
She swallows the hurt. "This isn't the same as what you did."
"How?" he demands. "How is this not the same? We both lied to protect each other."
"I didn't take anything from you. I couldn't give you what you wanted, but I didn't take anything." She points at the smart board. "This is who I am. This made me. And you took it from me. Yours wasn't a lie. It was betrayal."
The last word hangs in the air, suffocating and heavy. Kate's heart continues to pound in her ears. Rick stares at her, clearly hurt, but she's too consumed by the truth in her words.
That's when she hears it. A shrill ring from the bedroom. Her phone. She glances at Rick.
"Don't answer it," he whispers.
She pushes past him. "I don't have that luxury."
When she gets to her phone, she sees that it's Esposito. "Beckett," she answers. She half listens while he tells where the body dropped. "I'll be there in twenty," she says. She hangs up. She pulls on a pair of pants hanging in Castle's closet, then a blouse. She zips her boots up, holsters her gun and clips her badge on her belt. When she gets back to the office, he's waiting.
"We have a case?" he asks.
"I have a case," she corrects, heading straight for the door.
"Kate," he calls after her.
She turns on him, nods at the smart board. "You already have a case to finish."
She leaves before he answers.
X-X-X-X-X
Kate thinks the universe has it out for her today.
When she gets to the scene, it's a bloody mess. The vic is a 49-year-old white woman, dressed like a soccer mom and wearing a huge ring on her fourth finger. Kate's listening to Lanie's explanation of the two GSWs in the woman's chest when she hears the scream.
She and the boys turn, moving their hands toward their guns. It's a young girl, maybe around Alexis's age. She's trying to get under the yellow tape, but a pair of uniforms are holding her back. Tears are streaming down her face.
"Mom!" she shouts.
The coffee cup in Kate's hand lands on the concrete with a sickening splat.
"Beckett," Esposito says. Kate doesn't turn, just stares at the girl, memories flashing through her mind like a lightning storm, burning her skin.
"Kate," Lanie calls. Kate feels a hand on her back. She turns, sees Lanie standing next to her, looking worried. Kate looks past her, sees the boys hastily dropping an extra sheet over the spilled coffee so it doesn't seep into the crime scene.
"Sorry," Kate murmurs. "Sorry, I...here, I'll do it," she snaps, waving the boys out of the way. She knows they're all sharing a look behind her back, but she ignores them. She carefully arranges the sheet, mopping up the mess. When she stands, dripping sheet in her hand, she levels an all-business look at the three of them.
"Call me when you get more," she says to Lanie. "Start the canvas, guys. I want to know why she was here, how long she was here, everything." She glances at the crying teenager. "I'll talk to the daughter."
"Beckett—" Ryan starts.
"Do your job," she cuts him off. She throws the sheet in a nearby trashcan and then moves toward the girl.
X-X-X-X-X
When she gets back to the precinct, Rick is there. He's sitting in his chair, shaking his leg nervously. There's a cup of coffee sitting by her keyboard. She pauses, the slightest hitch in her step, and then keeps going.
She breezes up to her desk, stubbornly avoiding eye contact. He gets to his feet. "Hi."
"Hey."
He rocks nervously from foot to foot. "I brought you coffee."
"I see." A moment passes. "Thanks," she adds.
"Always," he murmurs.
It's like salt on a fresh wound. She bites her lip, fighting the emotion. She leaves the coffee on her desk and heads for the murder board. He waits until she's filled everything in before he joins her.
"Kate."
"I've got work to do, Castle."
He nods. "I know that. But you're waiting for the boys to get back from the canvas, I bet. Lanie needs to do the autopsy. You've got ten minutes to spare." She finally looks at him. Their gazes hold. "Gates isn't here," he continues. "The conference room is open."
She stares at him. "We can do this later."
"We both know we can't. Your walls are growing as we speak."
"Don't psychoanalyze me."
"Don't shut me out without a chance."
He stares her down, unmoving. Finally, she gestures toward the conference room.
He shuts the door quietly behind them. She stands on the other side of the room, her back to him. Silence reigns for a while. Finally, she turns to face him. For one silent, beautiful second, she thinks about what could be. About him and her, about the possibility that they'd been basking in all afternoon before the bomb dropped. She could be out to dinner with him right now, letting him kiss her in public, letting herself be happy. Instead here she is, trying to fix a broken relationship that started knee-deep in deceit on both their ends.
"Why are you doing this?" she whispers.
He doesn't answer right away. Finally, lacking all the eloquence of a world-famous novelist, he whispers back, "Because I want to be with you."
She shakes her head. "That's not always enough," she answers. "Maybe it's not worth it."
"You're worth it."
"That's not what I mean." She gestures between herself and him. "This might not be worth it."
"You don't know that."
"Yes I do. What would happen? We define the relationship, try to get past the fact that we've been lying to each other for a year now? Maybe we do, and then it's resolved, but something else comes up and you decide to protect me again. Or maybe I'm not as fixed as I think I am, and I start shutting you out. Either way we'll fight again, we always do, and it'll be messy, and we'll end up hating each other. Why go there? Why put ourselves through that?"
"You can't start at the end, Kate. You start at the beginning."
"Whether you read the first page or the last page first, the book always ends the same."
Rick shakes his head. "You deserve better than that."
She laughs humorlessly. "Better than what?"
"Haven't you been happy?" he asks. "With me? Don't you think you deserve that?"
She looks away. The moment stretches on, her silence answer enough. She has been happy. Very happy. But that's what's made his betrayal hurt so badly, and that's what's made her second guess her culpability in this mess, too. If they could both keep secrets like that for so long, what hope do they have in ever making it?
"I'm sorry I hurt you," she finally says.
He doesn't answer until she looks at him again. "I'm sorry, too." They stare at each other. He offers her a small smile. "See how easy that is?"
She shakes her head. "It's not that simple."
"It could be. If you let it."
She watches him. He's trying so hard to restrain himself, not to blurt it out. She can feel it welling up inside of her, too. She couldn't fight it if she tried. So she doesn't bother.
"I love you too," she whispers.
His expression changes, morphs from shock to joy. He steps toward her. "Kate—"
"Don't," she says, taking a step away. He freezes. She shakes her head. "It's not enough. I…we're broken." He's going to say something, she can tell, so she rushes to finish. "I don't see how we can keep doing this. I mean, isn't this the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over again and hoping for a new result?"
"Walking away makes it the same result," he argues. "But we're different now, we've been different since the day the bank blew up. If you stay, if we both stay…" he trails off.
"If we both stay, what?" she presses. "How can we trust each other when we've both been lying all this time? Every moment has been rooted in a lie, Rick. None of this was real."
He doesn't answer.
She takes a deep breath. "Every time I let you in, you clobber me. And I clobber you too, I know that. I know I hurt you. Don't you see it? That's all we do, we clobber each other, and I can't take it anymore. I'm tired of being clobbered."
He stares steadfastly at his shoes.
"You should be too," she adds. "I'm not good for you."
He finally looks at her. "You're wrong."
She can't look at him anymore. She's chewing on her bottom lip so hard she's afraid it might bleed.
"I'll go," he whispers.
Stop him, her heart demands. Don't be an idiot.
But she can't. She's thinking about his smart board, about how many times she's fallen apart in front of him because she couldn't solve the case that's been haunting her for more than a decade, and all this time he's been hiding possible solutions from her. She's thinking about lying in his arms in the dark, whispering secrets against his skin, trusting him with everything she had, and then watching it shatter into jagged pieces on his office floor. It's Royce all over again, and Montgomery, and the moments are all blurred together and she can't find the words. Maybe there aren't any.
He leaves. She doesn't stop him.