Chapter Thirteen:

Three Weeks Later.

Beckett sat in the precinct, staring at the phone she had just replaced on the base. It was Friday, and she was looking forward to nothing more than going home and soaking in the bathtub. She hoped that she might be able to convince Castle to join her, but over the last few weeks, their intimacy levels had dropped… severely… right down to barely there. Oh, sure, they'd kiss and he'd ask her about her day, but it was eating at him every morning she went to work and he… didn't. When she came home, she'd find him with a vacant expression on his face because it was the best he could do to hide from her how hard this was for him. At least she let him think he was succeeding, but she knew. She was a trained detective, after all, and she had long since learned what Castle's 'tells' were.

She looked at the chair. His chair. She hated when other people sat in it, but she wouldn't tell anyone else that. She didn't want to show her possessive side to anyone other than the man she wanted to be handcuffed to for the rest of her life. There was five minutes left in her shift, and she prayed there were no more murders for her to investigate. She'd had her fill, and was looking forward to her glorious weekend off.

Part of her felt bad. She hadn't had much opportunity to spend time at home with Castle. She resented herself for that, just as much as he did, it seemed. Though she was looking forward to her weekend off, part of her wasn't at the same time. With how distant he'd become, and the fact that the written word seemed to be eluding him, being at work seemed like an escape from that, and it killed her to even think that. Sometimes, it was just easier to be around dead people than it was being around him.

She wished she could say it was temporary, but as each day wore on, as each night passed them by and he offered her nothing more than a kiss to the crown of her head before they rolled over on their own sides of the bed, she was losing her own positivity. She was getting tired, and for Katherine Beckett, that was saying something.

Five minutes were up. Thinking about Castle usually made time fly by, so she wasn't surprised when the clock on her screensaver struck five on the nose. Gathering her keys and phone, she turned off her monitor and headed to the elevator, missing her fiance's presence, the offer to head to Remy's for a burger and shake, or better yet the thought of ordering in.

Rolling her eyes to herself, she stepped inside the elevator and just accepted the fact that it was going to take however long it took for her to get home. She stopped for Remy's, craving it now, and grabbed some take-away meals for the two of them. Castle would appreciate a delicious burger, and she hoped that it would boost his spirits at the very least. She didn't care if they curled up on the couch and watched a movie - she'd see that as progress, and it was much needed.

Arriving at the loft, the juggled their meals and her keys and opened the door. "Castle?" she called out to him, but the wide space was quiet. She set the brown bag on the breakfast bar with her keys and phone and listened for a second. Hearing nothing, the click of her heels took her to the study, but he wasn't there, either. "Rick?" she called towards the bedroom, but he wasn't in there, either.

Frowning, she came back to the living room, and smiled when she saw Martha coming down the stairs from her room. She hoped the actress would at least know where her son was. "Katherine, darling…"

"Martha, hi. Where's Rick?"

"He left."

"Wh-what? Well, wh-where did he go?" she asked breathily, confused as ever. "Why wouldn't he call me?"

"He went to the Hamptons."

"The Hamptons!?" Beckett said loudly, and Martha flinched.

"He made me promise not to call you. And frankly, kiddo, if he needs to get away to find himself again…" she shrugged. "Well, it's better than moping around here."

The detective felt like she had just been sucker punched. "Does he think I'm not going to go up there and drag his ass back here? Martha, how could you let him go alone?" she growled. "And why wouldn't he tell me? Why wouldn't you tell me?"

"When Richard gets an idea in his head, you know there isn't anything you can do to talk him out of it, and he made me promise not to say anything," she finished on a light shrug. It was no big deal, she felt. If her Richard needed time to sort through whatever despair he was feeling, then she'd do her best to help him.

"Why?"

"Oh, something about you talking him out of it. Wait… Where are you going?" Martha asked as Beckett practically turned into a hurricane and swiped her keys up from the counter and headed for the door.

"To give him a piece of my mind," she snapped, and the door slammed shut behind her harder than she had meant it to. Frowning to herself, she wondered if she should turn back, apologize to Martha, because it really wasn't her fault. Whatever this was, it had nothing to do with the aging actress. However, Beckett's feet took her forward, not backward, and soon enough, she was in her squad car.

It was dark out when she arrived at Castle's place in the Hampton's, though she remembered him saying at one point that it was theirs now. The thought had warmed her, even though she resisted it. She was a proud woman, and the last thing she wanted was for people in general to see her as some gold digger - not that she really cared about what other people thought… well, maybe she did. A little.

She shut the engine off, irritation radiating from her in waves as she opened the door and stepped outside into the chilling air. Car locked, she headed for the door and found the key on her keyring that would let her inside. The door swung open violently. "RICHARD CASTLE!" she shouted into the large space, and stepped inside, reminiscent of the first case they had worked together. The door slammed shut behind her. After spending hours driving, she couldn't keep herself restrained.

"Well that tone's never good," Castle said from the living room. Following his voice, she found him on the sofa, looking at her with those puppy eyes that wouldn't save him this time.

"What the hell is the matter with you?" she snarled. "I could throttle you. What were you thinking?!"

Castle offered no response to her, and merely looked away. He knew what he'd done was wrong, of course he knew that, but he just needed the space. It felt like every few minutes he was being checked on, and it was suffocating him. To voice it out loud to Beckett, though? That's something he couldn't really do, and his throat constricted accordingly, trapping the words.

"Did you think I wasn't going to come up here?" she pressed, stepping forward.

"I know you're upset…" he started.

"You're damn right I'm upset," she scoffed. "In fact, I don't think upset even begins to cover it, Castle. Imagine my surprise when I come home after a long day, with dinner for you and I, I might add, and you're nowhere to be seen. Now, I would've bet my badge that you wouldn't just up and leave without telling me, but clearly I was wrong," she gestured towards him, "because here you are."

"Well, I didn't realize I was on a leash."

Beckett was reeling. "What? You're not… that's not… Castle, you can do whatever you want. I would not have tried to stop you from coming here." Castle's eyes cut sharply towards her. Okay, maybe she might've. Was it so bad that she didn't want to spend a day apart from him? Though, the real punch in the face was the fact that Castle seemed to want to spend some time apart from her. She swallowed thickly. "What's wrong? Is it something I said? Something I did?" she asked, parking herself on the arm of a chair, still at a safe distance from her fiance, as if it still represented the space he seemed to want from her.

"No," he said quickly… but the silence in the air gave him the time he needed to be truthful with her. "Yes? Maybe. I don't even know, Kate."

"You don't know," Beckett mused after a moment, nodding her head. "Well, I'll tell you what I do know." When Castle looked at her, she knew she had his undivided attention. "I know that you've been restless the last few weeks. Frustrated, even, because all of the things you would normally do to keep your mind off of your hand are just slightly out of your reach because of it."

Castle looked away, and Beckett let him because they both knew she was spot on. She knew she still had his attention, ear turned towards her.

"I know you haven't been sleeping well, if at all. Even when you thought I was still asleep and you crawled out of bed to spend hours in your office, or the living room. And on the nights when you do actually fall asleep... Castle, your nightmares are eating you alive, and you won't talk to me about them, so…" she trailed off with a shrug. She didn't know what she was supposed to do, and it was in his hands to tell her how to.

"I know you haven't been writing." Castle tensed at that one. "I know you feel…" she hesitated, trying to find the right way to put it so he wouldn't take any sort of offense, "less, but Castle, I promise it's just temporary. In a few more weeks, the cast will come off and -"

"And I have an eighty-five percent chance I may not regain the use of my hand," he cut her off.

"Eighty…"

"... five percent," he reiterated as Beckett absorbed the news. "I just found out today at my appointment."

"There's still hope, Castle. You're still healing."

He swallowed the lump in his throat, but the corners of his lips twitched upwards ever so slightly. Glass-half-full-Beckett. He rather liked it, because it was usually he who was so upbeat about dire situations. Sighing to himself, he leaned back on the couch and let his head fall back. Beckett came to sit next to him, hip to hip, and her hand ran along his chest as it expanded.

"Do you want me to leave?" she asked gently. He lifted his head tiredly and looked at her, hazel meeting blue. "I'll understand if you want me to go."

He believed her, too, reminded of the time apart after she had been shot. His adam's apple bobbed on a heavy swallow of bad memories, things they had moved past together. He shook his head in answer. "No, but Kate…"

Oh, God, there was a 'but'.

"I'm just not in a good place right now. I…"

"Shhh," she murmured, pressing her lips to the corner of his mouth. "It's okay. I get it. Maybe it's time you came back to the precinct. The boys miss you. I miss you."

"You're the one who told me I shouldn't," he shot back defensively.

"I know, Castle, but that was only until you were healed well enough…"

"Do you know what Gates is going to do when she finds out I can't use my hand anymore?"

"Babe, you don't know that for sure. You're jumping ahead of yourself…"

"I won't be able to go with you out in the field. I won't be your partner anymore."

She reached up, hand grazing along the stubble he'd left unshaven that morning, and directed his attention back towards her. "You will always be my partner, one way or another," she promised.

Castle's forehead came to rest upon Beckett's. "But I want both ways."

She did, too.

I'll be honest, this chapter took a long time, and I'm still not sure I even like it. I've never really been good at portraying depressed people, and doing it with someone like Castle... kinda a challenge. lol!

THANKS FOR READING, THOUGH!