Alright, I know I promised this yesterday but I couldn't sneak away yesterday so you're getting it now. My life has been so chaotic lately it's been hard to find time to write this. Right as I promise to update much quicker my life gets so busy. The title of this chapter comes from the song Haunted by Taylor Swift. I think it really fits this chapter, that is, if it was from a guy's point of view instead of a girl.
One last thing before I release you from this author's note. This story was nominated for a Castle Fanfiction Award and I just want to say thank you to everybody who has stuck with this story. I love all of you! And a giant thanks to all of my reviewers, you guys never cease to make my day. Without your support this never would have been nominated so thank you everybody! Now that I'm done blathering, go on and read.
Martha stared at the door willing it to open and reveal her smiling son, willing it to tell her what he was doing in there and what had turned her usually joking son into the epitome of gloom. She wasn't used to this. She wasn't accustomed to not knowing what was going on in this household but more importantly she wasn't used to not knowing how to make him feel better. He wasn't a little boy anymore, she couldn't place a kiss on his wounds and make them go away. She couldn't protect him from the cruelties of the world. Despite what he told people of his childhood she'd always tried her best to protect him, to keep him from anything that would hurt him.
She knew she couldn't protect him now that he was grown but she'd always prided herself on the fact that no matter how old he got she'd always be there to make him feel even a little bit better when something knocked him down. But now she couldn't do that, now she hadn't the slightest idea what was wrong. He always made fun of her for being an eccentric person, a tad out there if you will, and for giving him an unconventional childhood but there was never any doubt that she loved her son with all of her heart. She would do anything for him and it killed her to have to sit by and watch him hurt.
"Is hey okay, Grams?" She whirled away from the door to find Alexis standing on the bottom of the staircase, her face encased in worry.
"I don't know, darling. I just don't know." Both women turned towards the door to his study where he'd been hiding for what seemed like forever. Her granddaughter walked towards her tentatively before the redhead wrapped her arms around her grandmother's side, both of their eyes still trained on the door in case anything changed.
Five days. Five days since she'd ended their relationship. Five days since she told him she never loved him. Five freakin' days since she broke his heart and slammed the door in his face on her way out. It felt like it had been years ago and only minutes before at the same time. He thought he knew her so well. That's what prompted him to chase her, to go to her apartment the next morning. Maybe she was just running like she'd always done, taken off when she got scared. He thought he had her all figured out, he seemed to think he could read her. How wrong he had been about all of that. She wasn't running, at least not in the way he'd thought, she was just going back to Will. Looks like the bastard had reeled her in after all. And in realizing that his heart had not only broken, it had shattered.
He'd felt pain like this once before, when Kyra left. But that pain still wasn't the same as this newfound feeling. The hurt of Kyra leaving him had been more of an inconsistent stab, it would come and go as it pleased. But this, this was a slowly burning yet powerful ache deep within him, it hurt all the time. There was no moment of peace, no minute where the pain went away. After Kyra he'd sworn to himself that he would never feel pain like that again, that he was never again to be heartbroken. People thought Kate had walls but his fortress was almost as impenetrable as hers. The difference was he'd seen how special she was from the beginning, he'd let his guard down for her. And look at where that got him.
After Kyra he'd built up the playboy persona, the one-night stands and the bimbos only an act to protect him from actual feelings. And in turn, actual hurt. He made everything into a joke to prevent situations from getting too serious, from turning into something where he might walk away with a little bit of pain in his chest. Only he'd slowly brought his walls down for Kate, one by one. Some she'd just somehow wormed her way over or under, he still wasn't sure how, but others he had lowered for her. He'd let down his carefully constructed and basically impenetrable mask because he thought that she just might be the one who wouldn't hurt him, she may have just been the right woman, only to be rewarded with a pain he could never have even imagined. And he had one creative and overactive imagination, he wrote novels for a living after all. He was paid to imagine things and yet this hurt was too unreal to ever put on paper.
But he didn't regret it, not one bit. Even if it had turned out this way he still thought she was worth it. He still loved her, and that's what made him angry. To have it be going so great only to find out it was all a lie, to love her and find out she never loved him back. It was torture. But he didn't, couldn't, regret a single moment he spent with her. Having her let him in, even if it was only for a fleeting moment, was exquisite. Being able to touch her for even the quickest of seconds was heaven. Any ephemeral memory he had of her was priceless, nothing could come close to its value.
He was in love with her. And he'd had her for the briefest of times until he allowed her to slip through his fingers, her form slowly retreating until she was ripped away from him altogether. He was an idiot. He hadn't seen the signs, if he'd done even one thing a different way maybe she'd be with him right now, sitting on the couch in front of him reading a book as he spun his tales. If he'd done something differently or had never done something at all maybe, just maybe, she'd love him.
"Richard, darling, may I come in?" His head whipped up to see his mother solemnly staring at him from the doorway. He could see flashes of bright orange behind her, obviously Alexis retreating back up to her room.
"Mhm." He looked back towards the window, the only sounds in the room being the soft padding of his mother's footsteps and the click of the door as it closed. He could see her out of the corner of his eye as she sat on the edge of his desk, craning her head to look at his computer screen. Obviously not so surprised to find the document he had open completely blank.
"Kate broke up with me." She always waited for him to start talking, it was something he'd always loved about her. She didn't make him talk to her, she was just always there when he was ready to.
"Oh, Richard," she swiftly stood up and wrapped him in a hug, rubbing soothing circles on his back, "I'm so sorry."
"Thanks." It was the polite thing to say, it was more of a habit than anything to say it. He knew that right here, right now, he didn't need to bother with unnecessary things such as that but somehow it felt like the only thing he'd be able to muster up in return. They stayed like that for a while, him sitting in his chair as she leaned against the corner of his desk, both cloaked in silence.
"Well," she, as usual, was the one to break it, "you know how Kate gets. She gets scared so she retreats. I'll bet that she just needs some time, in fact maybe–"
"No, mother," he cut her off, "this is for good." He looked up at her, pleading with her to understand that it hurt, that it hurt so goddamn much.
"How do you know that?" She put a hand on his shoulder, squeezing ever so slightly to let him know she was there. She was there and she wasn't leaving.
"She's with Will now." He turned away as he said it, he couldn't take the look on her face when she realized what he was talking about.
"What?" It was abrupt and obviously not captured by her lips before it slipped out.
"I went to her apartment the morning after she…ended it and Will, her ex-boyfriend, was there. In fact, he answered the door like he owned the place." He neglected to mention that Will had been wearing his robe or that Kate's face was stony, completely expressionless.
"I'm so sorry," she moved again to envelope him in a hug, "I'm so sorry, Ricky." There it was, the nickname she only broke out when she was desperately trying to comfort him. She used to call him that all the time as a kid but as he'd grown up he thought it sounded too childish so she'd cut down. Now she only used it when she was trying to push away all the evils in the world, when he needed to revisit a world of innocence where there was no pain. They stayed that way until the sun was far below the horizon, leaving them encased in both silence and darkness.
She didn't ask what he was going to do about the Nikki Heat series, she didn't bring up whether he was still going to invite the boys over for their monthly video game tournament. There was no getting into logistics, no planning ahead. They were both just content to sit there, her comforting him while he thought about anything and everything. She sat on the arm of his chair, rubbing slow circles on his back as he stared at the perfectly white document and blinking cursor. She stood behind him, hands on either of his shoulders, while he talked to her about subjects that didn't relate to each other at all. But most importantly she held him, whispering meaningless phrases into his ear, when he cried.
So did anybody else notice in Close Encounters of the Murderous Kind that Esposito kept relaying all of the information from Lanie? Hmm, wonder what's going on there.
Review? Pretty please? I live off of reviews, they actually make me so happy. It's an addiction, though we won't question if that's healthy or not.
Okay, so in the sprit of Christmas I wanted to do something nice for the wonderful people on here. So I'm taking an idea from hallow777. You can PM me and tell me the basic, or detailed I don't really care, plot and pairings (if any) of a one-shot you'd like to read and I'll write it. Consider it a Christmas present.
