A/N: You may not like this chapter, but I promise it will get better.
There's kind of a lot of swearing going on (I tried to hold back on really bad words though), because…well someone gets angry, but please see for yourself!
She woke up early the next morning, finding herself disoriented in a tangle of sheets in a bed that was hers but seemed different. He was gone.
The feeling of peaceful happiness she had embraced last night, the delight that had allowed lifting her up high, it all crashed down on her with unknown force. He that climbs high, falls heavily. Now Castle was gone and she felt like a fool. No, worse than that. She felt naïve, cheated and…heartbroken. Although she would not admit that last part just yet.
All her hopes had vanished in that first true moment of waking without him, and now sorrow weighed her down. This was exactly what she had expected of him. A quick tumble in the sheets – or a long, exhausting one in this case – and he would be gone.
And what would happen now? Would he come to the precinct as if nothing had happened and keep shadowing her? That was highly unlikely. He would probably wave goodbye to the 12th with a bright smile and never come back.
Her heart clenched painfully as she remembered last summer and the dreadful feelings that had overcome her every freaking time she'd looked at his empty chair. She would have to get rid of that chair, she mused, swallowing the unsought tears in her throat.
Kate tried to pull herself together. No, she would not cry, not mourn a lover that had only been a lover for one night. Though, what a night it had been. She could not remember a night as passionate as the last one. She blushed at the memories that flashed before her inner eyes, uncalled-for but tellingly sensuous. Images of naked skin and openmouthed kisses, recollections of the ways she'd called out his name in ecstasy.
Kate took all her willpower and got out of bed. She was a strong, independent woman, she told herself. She did not need anyone, especially not Richard freaking Castle. She did not need him in her life, not in her job and certainly not in her bed.
She stood up, tightly tucking the comforter around her nude body, bracing herself against the chill of her apartment and the coldness inside her heart. She was determined to go to work as if nothing had happened. She could do her job just fine without him, she'd been doing it all those years before he'd come around.
She trudged to her kitchen and started coffee for breakfast, already missing the Starbucks delicacies he'd always brought her. While the coffee was brewing she changed into her precinct attire, deliberately picking out an especially formal shirt in order to boost her self-esteem and convey professionalism. She put her hair up in a ponytail and walked to her door to get the paper. She remembered the last time Castle had stayed at her place – not only had the place blown up shortly after, they had also been greeted by a corpse in her hallway. She hoped for no surprises this morning, opened the door and let out a relieved sigh, thanking the powers that be for a lack of dead bodies down the corridor.
She leaned down and picked up the newspaper, but something caught her eye and she dropped it again in wide-eyed shock. This was worse than dead people, this was…. Oh no, that bastard! Sadness made room for anger immediately. "Cazzo! Fetente! Stronzo!" she cursed, reverting to Italian for her tirade. How could she have ever trusted that little…Kate turned her head left and right, expecting someone down the hallway to point a chubby finger towards her and start laughing. When she spotted no one, she disappeared silently into her apartment, feeling like an insidious thief taking the paper from her own doorstep.
Inside, she leaned against the wall and sunk down until she hit the floor.
"AUTHOR OF 'NAKED HEAT' SPOTTED MAKING OUT WITH REAL LIFE NIKKI ON NY STREET CORNER! PAGE 6" it said in the upper right corner of the front page. She would never leave her apartment again, Kate decided at that moment.
She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply, once, twice until her head stopped spinning. She peeked with one eye, opened her paper at page 6 and gasped.
Oh in God's name, what had she been thinking? There it was now, her disaster for everyone to see in colored print on white paper. Three big aligned pictures jumped at her, all shot from the same stupid angle from the same damn street corner across from the 'Enigma'.
The first one showed Rick and her strolling down the street, peaceful and unaffected in their own little world. In the second snap shot they were staring intently at each other and in the final picture they locked lips like Adrien Brody and Halle Berry at the Oscars. It was embarrassing.
Kate's eyes went red with rage and fury. Not only had this undeserving creature taken advantage of her, lured her into bed and then disappeared, he had also ruined her life, her reputation and possibly her career. Kate stood up, burning with spite and anger, and ripped the newspaper into tiny shreds. She ripped and tore and stomped her feet until all of her energy was drained from her. Still she would not allow the tears to spill.
She strode to her kitchen and gulped down the hot coffee, burning her tongue but not caring about it, not even feeling the pain. It felt like her mother's murder all over again, only this time she did not allow her heart to shine through, even in the secluded loneliness of her apartment. This time, she rejected the tears and the hurt and the feeling of great loss. She had to be strong, she had to function. This was just the loss of a meaningless guy anyway, how could she ever compare it to the loss of her mother?
But this guy hadn't been meaningless, this guy had made her laugh, had made her believe. And with great retardation Kate Beckett realized that she had fallen in love.
A/N: Yeah I know I'm really mean. I'm not even sure I like this chapter myself, I think it's way OOC. X(
I'll have a busy weekend but hopefully update on Sunday. Until then, please scream and curse at me via review if you feel like it!:)