AN – Thank you for the overwhelming response to the last chapter. Really people, you are the best! Also, want to see a mirror story to this? Where the roles are reversed and the writing even better? Go check you Muppet47 – Castling story, it's fabulous!

CASTLE AND HIS FAMILY

It's been three days. Three days since Castle opened his front door and found Kate Beckett standing at his doorstep. Three days since his world has been turned upside down and he's tried to find his way out of the jumble of thoughts in his head.

Kate is alive. God, she is alive and breathing. And she told him she loved him, openly, unashamedly, certain.

Yet it hurts, still hurts so much to even breathe her name or imagine her face. It's been tainted with pain and loss for so long, how is he supposed to overcome that? How can he go back to how the world was before? How can he turn it all back when he just barely learned to live with it upside down?

He wanted to call her, wanted to talk to her, but he doesn't know what to say, how to react. It would just hurt too much to even look at her;it'd still feel like a dream, or a nightmare, he isn't sure.

If not for the two paper cups of steaming, never touched coffee, left on his living room table, Castle would have believed it was all just a dream.

But the two cups of coffee were still there even once his mother came home hours later finding him hiding in the darkness of his bedroom, curled under the covers and refusing to face that huge, confusing world outside.

Kate was alive, Kate was back, and he sent her away. He didn't know how to feel about it, didn't know much of anything that night. His mother asked him what was wrong, called him up on his hiding, inquired about the abandoned coffee cups. He told her then, told her that he saw Kate Beckett that very afternoon, apparently very much alive. Told her that her death had all been just one giant lie. Either that or he's officially going crazy.

He could tell his mother was clearly upset by his confession, looked at him like she thought his other suggestion was the one more likely. Still she pretended to stay calm, patted his cheek. "There is only one way to find out, kiddo," she said, leaving him in his room in order to retrieve her phone and came back a minute later to sit at his side.

She dialed a number, held the phone to her ear, her fingers coming to comb through her sons thick dark hair affectionately as they waited. She never looked more concerned, yet still stayed collected, for his sake, Castle knew. He was so tired, so confused. Maybe he was really going crazy, maybe this was all just another cruel dream, a sick elaborate construct of his tired mind. Maybe his wish for her to be alive caused his mind to short circuit, conjured up an image of her coming to his doorstep, an elaborate scheme of how she could have survived.

Finally, somebody seemed to have picked up on the other end of the line, for his mother started speaking at last. "Yes hello Jim, this is Martha Rodgers," she said into the receiver and watched Rick's eyes go huge, his head starting to shake violently in panic and refusal, but she merely squeezed his forearm, never wavering as she continued; "I have a question for you if you don't mind. No, no it's fine. But first, let me tell you how awfully sorry I am to bother you with this, however, I am afraid I have no other choice." She listened to the other end of the line, silently bobbing her head a couple of times, "Yes, yes, dear. You see," she looked at Castle. "Richard here, he…" she paused for a moment, pondering about how to phrase her inquiry, "he is under the impression that your daughter is alive and that she came for a visit a couple of hours ago…" she dropped her voice in favor of what Jim had to say, listened to the other end on the line for quite a time. "Ah, alright, I see. Well, I am really glad for you then, yes. I understand."

Not a figment of his imagination then.

Castle couldn't help but be astounded by the dignity and calmness with which his mother appeared to take in the shocking news she was receiving. His head was still spinning. She wrapped up the call with a few pleasantries before she finally put the phone down, looking at her son.

"Oh Richard," she pursed her lips and he was shocked to see tears in his mother's eyes. "Oh darling," she didn't say more and that was good, because there really wasn't much to say. She offered her arms and Castle was shocked at how gladly he sunk into his mother's embrace, finding refuge in the cocoon of her arms at a time when everything around him seemed to be in shambles. She was stroking his hair, gently rocking them back and forth.

"What am I going to do?" Castle croaked after a while into his mother's neck, his voice feeble and broken.

Martha took a moment to think about her words, for once apparently at a loss for words. "I don't know, kiddo. What did the two of you talk about? Her father said she got back just this morning that you were the first person she went to visit." There was a lot implied in her sentence. He didn't answer. "Jim also said she returned to his place an hour ago, half frozen and soaked to the bone by melted snow, not in the mood to talk." More implications. Again, he didn't know how to answer that. "I take it your talk didn't go that well?" his mother asked sympathetically.

"I…She came to apologize. Explain." He croaked. "I…I sent her away." He said and felt his mother's arms squeeze around him.

"I'm so sorry Richard." She repeated helpless. "But the question now is, can you forgive her?" his mother continued, pressing ever so quietly.

"I don't know," he moaned.

"Do you want to?" she asked again.

"I-don't-know!" He keened. "I don't know if I can, nor if I even want to. It's all just so confusing, Mother," he said, hiding his face in the crook of her neck.

"Oh Richard, darling, I am again, so sorry."

She fellsilent after that, merely cradled him for God knows how long up until a point when he startedto feel slightly ashamed by the fact that he was a grown man being rocked in bed by his nearly seventy year old mother. He disentangled then, looked at her sheepishly and she seemed to understand. She patted his cheek one more time, gave him a sympathetic look, sighed. "Why don't you get a couple of hours of sleep?" she suggested gently and he nodded, crawling under the covers once again.

When he woke much, much later, it was already after three am. The loft was dark, his mother long gone, sleeping in her bed upstairs. He walked to the kitchen, opened up a cabinet to take out a glass to fill with water, up to the brim. He gulped the liquid down, filled the glass again. He was suddenly extremely thirsty.

He took a paper napkin from another cupboard, ran it over his sweaty face. He felt like he was running a fever but it was probably just the elevated heating in the loft and the fact that he spent the last couple of hours holed under a pile of covers and pillows, willing them to protect him from the outside world. Though maybe, Castle thought, it was really just the shock of the news he received today, playing on his already frayed nerves. Because she was alive. Kate was alive and he still couldn't wrap his head around it.

His heart thrummed painfully, his chest swelling to a point when it felt like he was suffocating. He opened the bin to throw away the damp napkin and that's when he saw them; the two cups of untouched coffee. His mother must have thrown them away when she was tidying up earlier. His stomach churned and he suddenly felt sick.

He barely made it to the sink heaving violently, the water he just drank mixed with the acid of his stomach coming right back up. He gripped the counter for support, the news just really starting to sink in. Kate was alive; God, she was never dead in the first place. She had lied, faked her death in order to solve her mother's murder for good. And now she was back, wanting him to take her back.

But he didn't know how to feel about that, God, he didn't even know how to feel about her being alive yet. It was probably a horrible thought to have, but it was all he could think and everything was so damn confusing. Only this morning she's been still dead to him, to the world. And only a couple of hours later, she's been knocking on his door, very much alive. It didn't make any sense.

He was tired, sick and devastated. He should probably be happy, glad, exhilarated to see her. But all he could think about is how he fought to stay above the water for the past eight months while it has all been for nothing. She had lied to him, to them all, she didn't care enough about him, them, to let them know. She had wanted him to think she was dead and now he didn't know how to undo those feelings anymore. It all felt so surreal, so bizarre. Maybe he needed to sleep on it, look onto it with fresh eyes in the morning, in daylight. Maybe then it would not appear like a nightmare, or a desperate wish. So Castle returned to his room and forced himself to sleep.

But the next morning felt still as frustrating and confusing as the day before. He had to reassure himself that yesterday had really happened, secretly opening the trashcan again while looking for the two paper cups; then for good measure asked his mother about it too because he didn't trust himself anymore. She confirmed it, of course she did, sadness in her eyes, sadness for her son. Silently, he took out the trash.

Alexis came to dinner the next day. His mother, not very considerately, told her the news, though Castle knew she would have found out eventually anyway. Still, it felt strangely prematurely to tell his daughter, when he himself had such a hard time accepting it yet. Alexis' reaction was surprisingly fierce. And angry. She viewed Kate's actions as an unforgivable betrayal, immediately picking her father's side, although Castle didn't feel like there was really a side to pick. There seemed to be no victors.

She was angry with Kate, so very angry, all on his behalf as she kept talking about it through dinner. Castle didn't contribute to her heated arguments and accusations much but couldn't begrudge his daughter her anger. After all, it's been Alexis who had to pick up the pieces after Kate left. Yet strangely, he couldn't say he completely agreed with Alexis' anger, some part of him oddly feeling like he should be defending Kate, defending her actions. Mostly though, he jus felt depleted. Empty. And thoroughly disappointed. He really thought Kate cared about him, cared enough to let him know, cared enough to be willing to spare him the nightmare of the past eight months. And he couldn't phantom how he was supposed to get over that.

So it's been three days already since she came to his door and he still hasn't called her. He desperately wants to hear her voice again, but he doesn't know how, or about what. Kate suddenly feels like a stranger, like an impostor. Because his Kate had died. He knows because he buried her, stood over her grave, mourned her loss for months. Brought flowers to her grave, her empty grave, every fucking month. Flowers for your grave. How disgustedly ironic.

It's the evening of the third day when somebody knocks on his door. Softly, but assuredly. Castle doesn't want to go to answer the door, since his curiosity didn't pay off the last time.

Instead, he stays holed up in his study, the glass of bourbon resting on the table already half empty. He hears his mother get the door, listens to the quiet chatter coming from outside. One voice is his mother's, the other voice is male. For an instant, it makes him deflate, whether with relaxation or disappointment, he doesn't know. Because it's not her. But then he hears the voices grow nearer and he gets curious once again. Who could be visiting?

His questions are answered when his mother firmly knocks on his study's door, then opens without waiting for an invitation. "Richard, you've got a visitor," she says, ushering somebody inside. "C'mon, don't be shy, he won't bite." She says and a timidly looking Jim Beckett, a wooly hat squeezed in a tight ball in his hands, slowly walks into the room.

TBC