A/N: Thanks again for patiently waiting for this. This is kind of a whirlwind of a chapter but that's what teenage girls are good for.

Disclaimer: I do not own Castle or the characters used in this story.

Chapter 10

The weight of the paper rests heavy in her hands, like an anchor weighs down a ship. A painful goodbye is spilled across it, words that she's completely unprepared for. And the thought of what Rick must have felt when he read them, the heavy brokenness of a woman he loved, claws its way up her throat, and she has to swallow thickly around it, has to bite back the bile and force herself to carefully unfold the letter.

Across the elegantly scribbled words are splotches, smudges where Kate's sure tears fell and blurred the words, though whom the tears belonged to remains a mystery to any reader who wasn't a witness to them as they landed. But the disturbed ink doesn't change the message of the letter, the pain and sorrow, the hitched breaths that choked thier way through Meredith's lungs, all still plainly clear.

Kate reaches for Rick's hand as she flattens the letter against her lap, anchors him to her as she loses herself to the final goodbye of a broken soul.

Richard,

I know that it doesn't matter what words I write here because you'll never understand them anyway. You've always had a way with words, but when it comes to understanding those of the people closest to you, well, you choose to see and hear what you want to rather than the truth.

I never asked for this life, I never wanted the same things as you, but as with all lessons in life, I didn't get exactly what I wanted.

When I met you, you were fun, carefree and uncomplicated and you just wanted to live. It was perfect. But then you started writing Derrick Storm and things changed. Your muses became obsessions and they changed you, that character changed you.

As an actress I never wanted to ruin my body, never wanted to worry about a child that I could nether care for nor wanted to care for.

I never wanted Alexis and I told you that the second I found out that I was pregnant with her, but you wouldn't let me make the choice that I wanted to.

And since I've had her things have only grown worse between us. Your nose is stuck in your computer almost all the time. You go out with these people whom you base your characters off of and I never know what's really going on.

I never wanted to be a mother, Richard and I certainly never wanted to do it by myself.

Everything about my life has become something that I never wanted it to be and I can't do it anymore, I just can't.

I can't live this life with you, I can't be a mother to a little girl that I never wanted.

And this is going to sound selfish to you, because like I said before, you'll never understand this, but I only see one way out. I only see one option.

Maybe it will be better for you in the long run, maybe raising Alexis on your own will help you become the man that you want to be but can't seem to find. And maybe one day you'll find a woman who can appreciate those things about you.

I wasn't made to love. How can you love someone when you don't even understand what the word means?

And even if I understood it, how could I love someone who never opens up to me? You want people to be an open book, but in return you give them no knowledge of yourself.

You could write multiple books about me, in fact, I'm not really sure why you haven't. Perhaps I'm just not muse material. But I couldn't even write a pamphlet about you.

That's not okay, it's just not.

You'll wish you had been here to stop me.

Don't.

You couldn't have stopped me even if you were here.

This is what I want, to be free from all of this.

Goodbye, Richard.

She didn't even sign her name. The woman wrote a goodbye letter, her final words, and she didn't sign her name or any form of endearment for the man she married and had a child with.

Without ever knowing the woman who wrote this letter, Kate still finds herself imagining her, feeling the pain that she was feeling. And her heart breaks for everyone involved. She can't imagine Rick reading this, doesn't think she could bear to watch him break apart the way she knows he did, because the way he's gripping her hand gives her a small look into the past and it's enough, it's all she needs to know.

She carefully folds the letter and releases Rick's hand to place it back in the box and close the lid. Somehow she knows that the less contact he has with it the better things will be, but she has no doubt that he knows every word of it by heart.

When she comes back to the bed she doesn't sit beside him, she doesn't climb into his lap and try to initiate something that she knows won't help him nearly as much as it does her. Instead, she drapes herself over him, wraps her arms around his shoulders and pulls him against her. It's slightly uncomfortable, but she stays like that until he melts in to her and she feels the released sigh of his held breath, hot and heavy against her skin.

He's quiet and awkward when he finally eases away from her and Kate finds herself scrambling for the right words, for any words.

"You can let it out, you know. Any of it, all of it. If there's something you need to talk about, something you need to say, I'm here."

Rick takes a deep breath, releases it with some sort of pained sounds that's both pitiful and heart wrenching.

"I don't know what to say. I don't know where to start. I just want to stop feeling the way that I do every time I think about what Meredith wrote, every time I think about our daughter finding her lifeless body while I wasn't here, because I was never here!"

Kate reclaims her spot beside him on the bed, but turns her body towards him and folds her legs underneath her. She doesn't take his hand this time, but rests her open palm against his knee, gives him the option to take it if he needs it.

He does.

"Is that why you killed off Storm?" she asks, weary of the words even after she's spoken them because of the way his body stiffens.

"For the most part, yeah. How could I write that story after the things she said? How could I write that after what I caused?"

"Rick –"

"No," he shakes his head, cutting her off. "She was right, I did lose myself in that story and all of the people who inspired the characters. I made that series of books my world because they're the only things that I accomplished that felt worthwhile."

"What about your daughter, your marriage, your other books? Those things didn't bring the same feeling. They don't matter as much?"

The soft lines of his face harden under the pressure of her questions and she notices but she doesn't back off, because they said they would push each other and if he wants her to back off then he needs to tell her with his words.

"Rick?" she questions when he remains stiff and silent.

"Yes! Okay, yes, those things matter. But not in the same way, not when my choices caused this mess. You don't understand. No one will ever understand the difference that writing Derrick Storm made in my life."

She's not letting him off that easy, so she tightens he grip on his hand, leans in until he's forced to look at her or move away.

He chooses to look at her. Smart man.

"You're right. I'm sure no one understands that, but how can you expect me to if you won't tell me why or give me a chance to understand?"

"I—it's not…it's just too soon. I can't do this right now," he shakes his head, wide, broken pools of blue begging her to let it go for now.

"Okay," she agrees, pulling her hand away from his and standing.

"Kate?" he questions, uneasiness creeping into his tone and she knows what he's thinking, knows he's afraid that at any minute she'll decide she doesn't want to do this anymore.

"I'm not going anywhere, Rick. You've opened up to me a lot this morning and I appreciate that enough to not push you when you can't handle anymore. Baby steps, okay?"

He comes for her, backing her against the door with the press of his body.

Kate laughs, winds her arms around the broad expanse of his shoulders and holds him against her.

"Thank you," he breathes against her neck, sending goose bumps over every inch of skin that his breath reaches.

"You don't have to thank me," she whispers, gasping when his hands slips low beneath the waist of her pants.

"Are you sure about that?" he asks, squeezing the twin mounds of her backside deliciously in the palms of his hands.

"Well, if that's the kind of thanking you want to do, I'm not objecting, but won't your daughter be wondering why you're hold up in your room?"

He sighs, practically groans his disappointment in her ear as he slides his hands back up her body.

"I need to go tell her that today is going to go a little differently than usual."

Kate nods her understanding, leaning in to press her lips against his in a hard, suggestive kiss.

"Kate," he groans, hips snapping forward against hers.

"Later, Rick. I'm not going anywhere right now. Go talk to your kid."

He reluctantly lets her step away, but chases right behind her as she turns to open the door for him.

"How can you not be having second thoughts after what you read?" he asks, just before she turns the knob.

She turns back, circles her arms around him one more time.

"I could lie and say that I'm not scared, but I won't do that. I'm not good at this stuff, Rick. I never have been. But I want to be here with you, if I didn't I would have already left. I don't really understand all of the things that Meredith wrote in her letter, but I won't base my opinion of you on what someone else thought. You deserve more than that. So I'll learn you on my own terms. It terrifies me how much I want you, but I do."

He smirks, presses a chaste kiss against her lips and lets her turn back around so that she can open the door.

"I want you, too," he breathes against her neck, and the shiver that wracks her body tells him all he needs to know.

Alexis is already seated at the bar when he walks into the kitchen and Rick sees the sadness draped over the young girl.

"Hey, Pumpkin," he greets, offering his daughter a beaming smile that hides the darkness that has plagued his morning.

"Hi, dad," the young girl replies, returning his smile.

"I know today's a hard day, so I thought maybe having someone spend it with us would make it better."

"Dad, Gram isn't in town, she can't spend the day with us."

"That's actually not who I meant. I've been seeing someone, she spent the night here last night. And I want her to spend the day with us."

The young girls face hardens, a mirror image of the way her father's does.

"Really, dad, another fling with a woman you don't care about? I thought you were over doing things like that."

"This is not a fling and I don't have to explain myself to you. Kate is different, I've never met anyone like her."

"Well, you can spend the day with Kate, but I don't want any part of it," Alexis bites before she storms out of his office and up the stairs.

And Kate isn't surprised when the harsh whispers of the young red-head filter through the open spaces where the bookshelves line the walls between Castle's office and bedroom. The girl doesn't want her there, doesn't want to share the day that her mother chose to take her own life with a stranger that she's never met before. And who could blame her really?

Kate's not really sure what she's even doing there. Playing house with a man that she's quickly falling for but hardly knows is not something she's programmed for. He needs to spend this day with his daughter, and he needs to do it without her there.

She promised to be there for him the same he was for her, but there's a difference in their situations. He has a daughter, and that's who he should be spending this day with.

So she waits until his footsteps descend up the stairs after his daughter and then she solves the problem for him. She collects her things and slips out of his room and out the front door, unnoticed.

But god, it hurts to leave, hurts to walk away from someone that she just agreed to try a relationship with. And each step closer to the elevator and further away from him brings an ache that she's not used to feeling.

It's for the best though. His daughter needs him more, the young girl made that perfectly clear with her tone of her words.

She'll send him a text to let him know where she's gone and he'll come and find her later, when his daughter is comforted and this painful day is almost over. And that's when she'll be there for him, that's when they'll figure out how they're even going to make a relationship work.

Would love to hear your thoughts! xo