Author's Note: Another long chapter about what's going through Kate's mind…

Accidentally in Love

Chapter 21

Lanie took one look at Kate when she walked into the morgue and blurted out, "Whoa, girl, what happened to you?"

"Nothing. I'm fine," Kate clipped out succinctly. "You got the lab results back to confirm cause of death?"

"Eh, they'll take another 15 minutes or so," Lanie shrugged.

Kate narrowed her eyes at Lanie. "Then why did you text me to come over?"

"Because Morales mentioned to me the other day that you've been going around looking like your dog just died and working crazy long hours and since I know better than to think you would actually come over to just chat if something's wrong, I figured I'd corner you when I know you can't leave."

Damn it, Lanie. "Morales should mind her own business."

"Morales was just being sociable. She knows we're friends and figured I'd want to know and now I can see exactly why Morales was concerned."

How she hated the precinct gossip mill. She was just fine. Really, she was. So maybe she'd been having a little bit of trouble sleeping the last few days but that was a passing thing and had nothing to do with anything. (Liar, a voice in her mind spoke up. Shut up!)

"I'm fine."

"You're not fine, Beckett. You look exhausted and from what Morales told me, you've been running yourself into the ground for a week." Her voice softened. "Come on, Kate, you know you can talk to me. I'm your friend so tell me what's wrong and don't tell me nothing is. You wouldn't look like you do if it was nothing. Is your dad okay?"

"He's fine," Kate answered quickly, the one positive thing she had right now. Her dad was fine, still sober. Even now, more than three months after finishing rehab. This time, this time, she was really starting to think might be it…

"Okay, good," Lanie's expression eased a little. "Then what is it? You've seemed so much better, happier, lately…" She trailed off and Kate tensed. She knew that look on Lanie's face. Lanie was putting two and two together and while she really really wished she could believe that Lanie would be coming up with ten, she didn't think she'd be that lucky. Lanie was too smart for that and knew her too well for that. It occurred to Kate she should have stupider friends; it would make this whole evasion thing much easier.

"Did something happen with Castle, Kate?"

She tried not to react at the sound of his name. It wasn't as if she'd been practically haunted by thoughts of him after all. Not one bit. She'd only thought about him every once in a while. (Sure, every once in a few seconds, a voice in her mind interjected. Shut up! It wasn't true. She hadn't thought about him that often. No, just a couple hundred times… every day...)

Fine, so maybe she'd thought about him a little in the past week. (A lot.) He hadn't texted her or contacted her in any way. Of course he hadn't. She hadn't expected him to—but somehow the lack of contact still… hurt a little. Ridiculously. Stupidly.

She just… missed him. Missed being able to text him teasing messages when she thought of them, missed being able to look forward to receiving a text from him that would make her smile, brighten her day. And it was so stupid because it wasn't as if she and Castle had been in the habit of texting every day; it had been maybe every couple days or so but somehow just knowing that he wouldn't be texting her at all made her feel irrationally bereft.

It was all stupid. She had done the right thing, had done what she had to do. For herself, for him, for Alexis. She knew she had. It didn't matter that she liked Castle, knew if she let herself that she could really fall for him. It didn't matter because there was no way it would end well, that she—as prickly and solitary and reserved as she was—could be enough for him. She couldn't be—she wasn't enough. And she couldn't let herself care about him—anyone—too much because people left or they tired of her and her issues or they died and she just couldn't deal with it. "Why would you think it had anything to do with Castle?" she tried to bluff her way out of it.

"Maybe because you don't have much of a personal life outside of your relationship with Castle and his daughter and maybe because you've seemed happier since you became friends with them and now you're not."

Kate really wished she could refute Lanie's statement about not having much of a personal life so she could deny that her mood had anything to do with Castle but of course she couldn't. It was true, pathetically enough. She socialized some with her co-workers and obviously Lanie, but beyond that, her social life was pretty much nonexistent aside from Castle, thanks to her work schedule being so unpredictable. And she no longer was someone who had a wide circle of friends, had lost contact with her high school friends because of distance and college. She'd lost contact with her college friends because they had eventually tired of her depressing self and then she'd transferred to NYU and left them behind anyway and at NYU, she'd been focused on surviving and worrying about her dad and making sure she had enough credits to graduate after transferring and so she could go abroad, put some distance between her and the city that suddenly felt cold and alien without her mom in it.

"Lanie…"

"Come on, Kate, talk to me."

Lanie's expression was kind, if also determined enough that Kate knew Lanie wasn't about to back down. Lanie was no sort of wilting flower to give way and as Kate knew from experience, was just as stubborn as Kate herself could be. And it wasn't as if Kate could really go anywhere, she did need to wait for the lab results to come back; Lanie had been right about that. And after all, maybe Lanie could help, could make her feel a little better about what she'd done.

"Castle asked me out," Kate finally admitted, her voice low.

Lanie frowned a little. "I thought he had a girlfriend?"

Kate was irrationally irritated at Lanie for even thinking that Castle might be so sleazy and crass as to ask her out when he knew she knew that he had a girlfriend already—or that if he had done any such thing, Kate would have suffered so much as one second of regret over rejecting him. "He broke up with her months ago."

Lanie's expression cleared, a smirk now tugging at her lips. "And he asked you out? Ha, I knew it!" She sobered. "Wait, if that's all that happened, what are you moping about? You should be celebrating, girl." She paused and then frowned, directing a rather direful look at Kate. "Beckett, tell me you did not just turn down Richard Castle. Katherine Beckett!"

"Don't Katherine Beckett me," Kate shot back.

"Are you out of your ever-living mind? You cannot tell me you don't want to be with Rick Castle. You're not dead or blind so you must be crazy."

"Of course I want to be with Castle!" Kate burst out, goaded into the admission she'd barely admitted to herself. "I just can't!"

There was a brief pause in which her outburst seemed to linger in the air as Lanie eyed her dubiously.

"You can't," she repeated slowly, giving Kate a supremely skeptical look. "Because… you're secretly a nun?" she asked sarcastically.

Kate glared. "Don't be ridiculous, Lanie."

"Because otherwise, I'm not seeing an obstacle here. He's single, you're single. He likes you and I know you like him. So why can't you date him?"

"Because," Kate retorted.

Lanie snorted. "What are you, twelve? That's not a reason. Now talk, Kate Beckett, and remember I have scalpels and I know how to use them."

Kate pulled a face at Lanie, aware that they were devolving into juvenile behavior but not caring that much at the moment. And didn't answer. Partly out of reluctance and partly because she was formulating what to say, how to even express her jumbled thoughts, fears.

"Beckett, I'm waiting," Lanie prodded after a long minute. "Why can't you date Castle?"

Kate sighed and allowed herself to slump a little. "Because I don't believe in fairy tales."

Lanie blinked. "Will you stop talking in riddles? What do fairy tales have to do with anything?"

"Because, Lanie, Castle might think he likes me now but it won't last. It can't last. I mean, think about it, Lanie! He's this gorgeous celebrity multi-millionaire and he's a really great guy on top of that, he could be with anyone he wanted—and I'm just a cop. I'm not some model or actress and I work for a living. I'm not Cinderella and I can't pretend to be."

"Who's asking you to pretend? Castle knows you're a cop and from what I saw, he thinks it's cool so what's your issue?"

"Because it could never work out between us and I'm not going to set myself up for failure."

"Kate," Lanie sighed. "You can't know for sure how any relationship will turn out. No one is saying you have to marry the man; just date him and see where it goes. Take a chance and hope for the best, that's all you can really do."

Kate tried but couldn't quite keep from wincing. "You don't get it, Lanie. I don't believe in hoping. Hoping hurts too much when it doesn't happen and I can't take it, Lanie. I don't hope for things that I can't control; it doesn't turn out well for me. Maybe for some people, it does, but not for me. Hoping didn't do anything when my dad was—" she broke off abruptly, almost choking as her throat closed on a knot of emotion, of memories. No, no, hoping had never gotten her anywhere with her dad, had only hurt, time and time again, when she let herself hope in his recovery and he had always, always relapsed before. Even now, after more than three months, she couldn't—didn't—rely on it lasting, didn't hope. She only waited, braced for the worst, and accepted every additional day that he stayed sober as an unexpected gift. That was all she could do.

It was Lanie's turn to wince but she didn't back down. "Kate," she said, her voice now soft, gentle, "this is different. Your dad—that's an illness, you couldn't control it and you weren't to blame for it. You know that. But a relationship is not the same thing."

"It's not just that, Lanie. You—you don't get it. I don't do relationships; I'm no good at them. I'm just… not enough and I'm not going to pretend that I am."

"Not enough? For a relationship? Kate, what are you talking about?"

She hadn't been enough for her dad, not enough to keep him from drowning. She couldn't talk about that. But it wasn't only her dad. "I'm not enough for a relationship to work. I've never had a relationship that worked. There was Pawel that I dated for a couple months in Kiev and after I told him about my mom, he dumped me, told me that I was 'too sad.'" She had told Pawel about her mom, back in college, when her mom hadn't been gone for even a year, and he had held her as she cried but then the next time she'd seen him, he had been making out with some blonde against his door and when she'd confronted him, he'd told her that she was hot but 'too sad.' Not that she cared anymore, thought he was well lost. But then…

"And then, there was… Royce, my—my training officer…" She trailed off. God, she was over Royce, she was, but how was it that just saying his name still made her heart react, her cheeks flush? She had—thought she had—loved him. Loved him, needed him, the way a drowning man loved and needed a life raft. "I was too young, too… green, for him. He told me so."

She cringed now at the memory, going to see Royce the moment she'd been promoted from being a rookie, made a full uniform and no longer his trainee. How young, how… hopeful she had been, more than two years ago now. She had… basically offered herself to him. Not in so many words, she'd only suggested that now that he was no longer her training officer, maybe they could go out for a drink or dinner sometime—but they had both known what she meant, her hot blush and her faltering words coming in wavering spurts of boldness and nervousness giving her away even if he hadn't already known how she felt. She knew he had; he was older than she was by more than 15 years, was experienced, and she had been starry-eyed, hung on his every word. And she'd hoped—she'd seen the way his eyes occasionally followed her form, looked at her body in her more revealing workout clothes when they sparred and some other times.

She still remembered the way he had looked at her that day, his eyes dark with something like… regret?—the way he had sighed. And she still remembered—oh did she remember—the hurt, the humiliation, of his response. "Ah, kid, don't, don't say that, you know we can't. You're too young, you've got your entire career ahead of you, your mother's case to solve. You're gonna go far, kid, I know it, but it won't be with me. You're not for me, kid."

"Don't call me kid," she had flared with sudden irritation at his nickname for her, the distance it kept between them. "I'm not a kid."

"You are to me," he'd told her quietly but firmly. "Good-bye, kid."

Another time she had allowed herself to hope for something good, something she wanted but was out of her control, and yet another disappointment as the hope was crushed.

She had only seen Royce twice since then, once briefly in her last stop at her training precinct before she was officially transferred to the 12th, as he finished processing her out, his last duty as her training officer, given her a brisk farewell and wished her luck, and then he'd left. And then the next time had been in passing a few months later, from across the street, and she wasn't sure if he had even seen her. That was all. For a year, he had been her mentor, her friend, her hero—and then he'd dropped her, just like that, the moment she had indicated she wanted more.

"And then, there was, well, Adam," Kate went on. Lanie knew the basics about Adam already. "He was barely a relationship at all but when he broke it off, he told me I was too focused on my work." Adam, her last attempt at a relationship, abbreviated as it was, almost a year ago. And that had only consisted of a few dates and two forgettable nights, punctuated by her having to cancel plans on him because a body had dropped and at the third time, he'd lost patience. Not that she'd cared all that much; her pride had been more involved than her feelings at that point, but still.

Too sad. Too young. Too focused on her work. But what it really came down to was that it was her, that she hadn't been good enough in some way. Not enough for her dad and not enough for any of the men she had tried to have a relationship with in her adult life. How could she believe she would be enough for Castle—handsome, smart, kind, funny Richard Castle, who could date any woman he wanted?

"Oh, honey…" Lanie sighed, stripping off her rubber gloves, and moving to Kate's side to slide her arm around Kate's shoulders.

Kate wasn't normally one for hugging (she'd liked Castle's hugs just fine, a little voice in her mind spoke up but she ignored it, that would never happen again) but she allowed herself to feel a little comforted at the warmth of Lanie's arm around her, the affection in the gesture. She wasn't entirely bereft; she still had Lanie. Supportive, loyal Lanie, even with all her sass and bluntness. "So you see what I'm saying, Lanie?"

"No, Kate, I think you're full of it," Lanie answered, her voice soft, entirely belying her words.

For a split second, Kate reacted more to the tone than to the words and then their import registered and she stiffened, jerking out of Lanie's arm. "Lanie!"

"Don't 'Lanie' me. I'm your friend and I care about you so I'm not just going to stand by and let you throw something like this away."

"It's my life, Lanie," Kate retorted, trying to sound more defiant than petulant. "I can make my own decisions."

"Normally, yes, but you've got yourself so twisted up, you're not thinking straight. So now, you listen to me."

"Do I have a choice?" Kate muttered ungraciously.

Lanie ignored this. "First of all, this Pawel you dated in Kiev, he was—what? 21 at the time?"

"22, I think," Kate answered grudgingly.

"Same difference," her friend shrugged off the extra year. "Boys that age are generally self-centered idiots so him breaking up with you after you told him about your mom, that just means he's a jerk, it has nothing to do with you."

Fine, she could admit that. "That's only him." Admittedly, he wasn't the only person who'd abandoned her because they didn't want to deal with her grief; her college friends had too. As the saying went, laugh and the world laughs with you, cry and you cry alone. As it was, even she had to admit that her lachrymose self could not have been any fun to spend time with, couldn't even blame her friends for gradually drifting away.

"You're allowed to grieve, Kate, and anyway, Castle knows about what happened to your mom, he has for months, so if he was going to be scared away by it, it would have already happened by now."

Maybe he did know about her mom but he'd never actually seen her cry about it. He didn't know about the nightmares she still had, of a faceless menacing figure stabbing her mom in an alley and then leaving her to die alone, or the nightmares of her dad drinking himself to death. Didn't know about the nights she still woke herself with sobbing. She'd never shown him just how broken she was, never showed anyone that. Royce had known the most and look how that turned out.

"And as for Royce, I know he meant a lot to you but, Kate, he was… kind of a love-'em-and-leave-'em type, didn't really do serious relationships."

"How can you say that?" Kate flared with sudden defensive anger. "You never even met Royce! You don't know him at all!"

Lanie kept her cool. "I might not have met Royce myself but I've heard things and people talk. You know how cops gossip so I've heard a lot about him especially because he was popular among cops, every guy's friend and the guy a lot of women wanted to be with."

Kate felt herself flushing in spite of herself. She of all people knew how attractive Royce was but she hadn't exactly stopped to think about how many other women would have thought the same. "It's gossip. You know gossip isn't always true."

"I know that but in Royce's case, the stories are too consistent to be entirely false. He wasn't a saint when it came to women—"

"I don't want to hear this," Kate interrupted, barely stopping herself from the juvenile gesture of clapping her hands over her ears.

Predictably, that didn't stop Lanie. "I'm not saying he was a total sleaze but he did have his fair share of women from all I heard. I mean, the guys I heard from thought it was cool, envied him, but among the women, he got a reputation, not for being a bad guy, but one who avoided relationships like the plague. He didn't do relationships, a couple dates, that was all, and then he was moving on."

Kate abruptly remembered, with a little sinking of her spirits, that that was borne out even in the year she had known Royce, spent so much time with him. Royce hadn't had a single real relationship in that time to Kate's knowledge and he'd never mentioned, even in passing, a real relationship in his past. She knew Royce had had some brief affairs but they had been just that, brief, meaningless.

"So what are you saying, that I was an idiot for liking Royce?" Kate retorted rather truculently.

Lanie only gave her a look. Fine, yes, she was spoiling for an argument. "No, Kate," Lanie said more gently. "I'm just saying that Royce turning you down probably had more to do with his issues than with you. And Castle clearly doesn't think you're too young and he's years younger than Royce anyway."

Mm, yeah, Castle was younger than Royce, younger and hotter and… (Shut up! That wasn't the point.)

"Look, Kate, all I'm saying is that you can't write off all relationships just because your last few tries have been duds. That doesn't mean you were the problem or that any of your future relationships are doomed. And Castle already knows about your mom and that your schedule can be unpredictable and he's willing to give it a try so why don't you?"

"Because it would never work," Kate muttered, trying to suppress the images forming into her mind, of feeling Castle's arms around her for more than just a brief, mostly platonic hug, of kissing Castle, going to bed with Castle—and other, more innocent images of cuddling with Castle and Alexis too on the couch-stop it! stop it!

"Kate, you can't know that for sure. You and Castle are already friends and you know you want him, Kate, and he wants you so I say you should go for it, go for him. You're overdue for some luck to come your way."

"Lanie…" Kate sighed. "I just can't believe that. I don't believe in luck. We're so different and he's… well, Richard Castle and I'm just a cop and Castle has Alexis to worry about too. He shouldn't have to deal with me and my messed up life." She didn't believe in luck, not for her, at any rate, not anymore. She was too damaged, too haunted by her mother's murder, her father's troubles. No, she had done what was right, what was best for both of them—for all of them, for herself, for Castle, for Alexis.

"Girl, one of these days, I'm just gonna smack some sense into you."

Kate narrowed her eyes at Lanie in a rather half-hearted glare. This was not sympathy and it wasn't helping her feel better.

Lanie's tone gentled. "Look, Kate, in all seriousness, I get that you don't believe in luck but you're forgetting that relationships aren't actually about luck; they're about putting in the effort and if you don't at least try, you'll never know. Failure by default. Give Castle a chance. Come on, Beckett," Lanie nudged her with an elbow and gave her an engaging, encouraging smirk. "Detective Kate Beckett doesn't back down from anything."

Kate managed a choke of laughter. "Maybe Detective Beckett doesn't but Kate does." No, Katie Beckett was the one who had been fearless—but Katie had never had the bottom drop out of her world, had never known how much life could hurt. And Kate wasn't that girl anymore.

Lanie slid her arm around Kate's shoulders again. "I don't believe that. You've got more steel in your spine than anyone I—" Her words were interrupted by the little noise that indicated lab results had come in. "Anyone I know, Kate," she finished. "Just think about it." She squeezed Kate's shoulder briefly. "I think you and Rick Castle would make a really cute couple."

She moved away, going towards the computer. "Okay, Beckett, you can relax now, the personal conversation's over. I've got the lab results here. COD was cyanide poisoning and I'm putting the time of death window between 4 and 7 a.m."

"Cyanide poisoning," Kate repeated in some surprise, snapping back into work mode. "That's a new one for me. Okay, I'll let Hassan know." She paused. "Thanks, Lanie." For the lab results and, well, the talk too. It might not have always been pleasant but Lanie meant well and Kate couldn't feel that angry at Lanie because she knew that at base, Lanie really did just want Kate to be happy.

Kate suppressed a sigh. Happiness wasn't something she expected either.

"Any time, Beckett. See you later."

Kate waved a hand in goodbye as she left the morgue, pulling out her phone to text Hassan the information.

Cyanide poisoning—god, Castle would think that was so cool. The errant thought darted across her mind and she flinched a little. She really needed to stop thinking about Castle so much. How had it even happened, that he had somehow become so much a part of her mental landscape that thoughts of him intruded so frequently? She'd never been like this before.

Get a grip, Kate. So she told herself sternly. She didn't have time to brood about her personal life now; she had a murder to solve.

Castle devoted himself to Alexis entirely in the days following the debacle that had been asking Kate out. Partly because he wanted to reassure himself that he could be enough for Alexis, be both mother and father to her, and keep her happy and cheerful, no matter how he himself might be feeling. And partly because he knew of no better cure for his unhappiness than spending time with his favorite person in the world, whose sunny smile lit up his world like nothing and no one else could.

He was fine, would be fine, he told himself. He hadn't actually lost anything, not really, since you couldn't lose something you never had. And it was stupid to feel so… bereft at the thought of losing, well, all he had hoped for, wanted, when it came to Kate, losing all that might have been—no, it could never have happened, he reminded himself sternly. He had been wrong about Kate, that was all. The woman he had started to fall for didn't really exist. He had made up an image of her in his head and bought in to his own imaginings. He did have a tendency to do that. He spent so much time making up stories about people, from passing strangers and acquaintances and people with whom he was friendly, and sometimes, the stories he made up became so real to him that he forgot that they were just stories, fiction. It was how he occasionally became infatuated with random women he talked to for a minute on the subway or saw in a coffee shop; he imbued them with imagined qualities and interesting stories and, Pygmalion-like, became infatuated with his creation.

And as for Kate, well, clearly he hadn't known her nearly as well as he thought he did. He had fallen victim to one of the classic blunders (not the one about never getting involved in a land war in Asia) but the other, more common one of assuming that someone who was gorgeous on the outside had to be just as attractive on the inside. And maybe after all, part of it was that he had just broken up with Gina, who was also all-business, and he'd assumed that simply because Kate was so different from Gina in just about every other way, she had to be different in the emphasis she put on her career. Of course he'd known that Kate was dedicated to her job, the hours she put in and more than that, the intensity he'd heard in her voice when she spoke about her job, her history with her mom's case, all that indicated that Kate was a dedicated cop. He admired her for it. He just hadn't thought that Kate, with her kindness and her humor, her warmth with Alexis, would prioritize her job over a relationship, a kid.

Over and over, he heard Kate's cool tone as she told him, I have to focus on my career… Getting involved with someone who has a kid—it's too much… And just like the first time he'd heard them, the words struck him like a slap in the face.

He had already given Alexis one woman in her life who cared more about herself and her career than she did about Alexis—Meredith—and while he hadn't consciously chosen Meredith to be the mother of his child, well, it was still on him. Every time Meredith hurt Alexis with her self-centeredness and her blithe disregard of promises, he felt the razor of guilt slicing at him, mingled in with the anger and the sorrow. And every time, he swore to himself that he would never, ever do anything to put Alexis in the position of being hurt by another woman again. Even if it meant he never found a woman to share his life with, he couldn't let Alexis be hurt again. Alexis came first, had to come first. He could never date any woman who would not accept and care about Alexis too.

He supposed he should be grateful to Kate for her honesty. He'd known some other women who were equally uninterested in having a kid around but who'd been more than willing to use him for a free meal and a ride in bed before showing that side of their character. Being disillusioned now was better. Better, before he could start to build any more fantasies of him and Kate as a couple, before he spent any more time falling for her because of her wit and her cleverness and her intensity and her drive.

Not that he was feeling all that inclined to be grateful. He felt almost savagely disappointed, felt a little boy urge to fling a toy to the ground after it failed to be magic, to break something just because he accidentally hurt himself on it. (Real mature, Rick. Shut up!)

He veered between anger at Kate and at himself for deluding himself so thoroughly and sick disappointment, mingled in with hurt. Hurt that no matter that Kate appeared to like him as a friend and was attracted to him, clearly she didn't want to date him, didn't want to be with him.

"Daddy? Daddy, you're not listening." Alexis's voice and her nudge brought him out of his thoughts and he turned to look at her, putting on a smile.

"What is it, sweetie?"

She gave him one of her adorable little irritated scowls. "I asked you if I could have another cookie and you didn't hear me, you were paying too much attention to the TV."

Well, not the TV but certainly he hadn't heard her question. He inwardly winced. Damn it, he tried never to get so lost in his thoughts when Alexis was around. "I'm sorry I was distracted, sweetie. Of course you can have another cookie."

Her frown cleared. "Okay, thanks, Daddy." She popped up off the couch to get another cookie before rejoining him while he put his arm around her and made a point of kissing her hair to make up for his distraction.

The show ended about half an hour later and he gave Alexis a little squeeze before nudging her. "Come on, baby bird, time to get ready for bed."

"I know, Daddy, and you have your poker night to get ready for, don't you?"

Oh yeah, that. "Yes, I do, thanks for reminding me, pumpkin." He teasingly chivvied Alexis up the stairs while he went to work clearing up some space in the library section to set up the small folding table and chairs that he kept for his poker nights. He couldn't decide if he was happy about this poker night or not. On the one hand, he could use the distraction and the male camaraderie of it; on the other hand, he wasn't precisely thrilled at the idea of having to pretend for the next couple hours that he was not distracted and, fine, a little depressed. Never mind, too late now.

His poker nights were one of the few events of his social life he allowed to intrude into the sanctity of his home now that Alexis was around. (Well, except for the times Kate had come over, he thought with a little pang.) It worked out nicely now that Alexis was older and could be trusted to sleep through the night because the evenings started around Alexis's bedtime so she was safely tucked up in bed while he and either his writer buddies or the Gotham crew played poker downstairs.

He heard the first knock at the door just as he was setting up the last chair and went to open the door to see Roy Montgomery. Kate's boss. Damn it, no, he was not doing this, was not going to start associating everything with Kate. He'd been friends with Roy Montgomery since well before he'd ever met Kate Beckett and he wasn't about to let that change. "Roy, good to see you," he greeted, pasting an easy smile on his face.

"Castle," Montgomery greeted, shaking his hand as he stepped inside. "How's the latest book coming?"

"Fine," Castle answered automatically—and somewhat less than truthfully. It had been coming along fine, had been coming along great, in fact, up until last week. He'd been more energized and inspired to write than he had in years, the words coming in a steady stream as he wrote Derrick Storm entering into a pseudo-partnership of sorts with a grieving son who was trying to find the truth about his estranged father's untimely death, imbuing the story (and Derrick) some of the drive and passion for justice that animated Kate. Giving Derrick Storm a final book that would please his fans (like Kate) who still liked the character. And that was the problem. He'd been writing for Kate, just like the top of his Word document read (he hadn't been able to bring himself to delete the planned dedication yet, stupidly), and after Kate had left, well, much of his own inspiration had as well.

Not helped by his brooding mood since he never tended to write well when he was depressed. (Case in point, the execrable piece of writing that was Hell Hath No Fury had been written in the aftermath of Meredith cheating on him and leaving him.)

Now, well, he was going to have to finish this last Derrick Storm book (even if he forced it) and then, he didn't know. He knew he still wanted to move on from Derrick; that hadn't changed but he couldn't move on to the new character he'd been (not so) idly sketching out in his head that was inspired by Kate, not anymore. Gina was not going to be pleased but he decided he would worry about that after he finished the last Storm book.

"Glad to hear it." Montgomery paused and then added dryly, "I could live without hearing you grumbling whenever you get stuck in your writing."

Castle forced a half-laugh, playing along with the teasing. "Your sympathy is overwhelming," he retorted ironically.

Montgomery grinned at that. "It wasn't meant to be."

He was interrupted by Alexis coming down the stairs, looking like the most adorable kid in the world (in Castle's entirely biased opinion) in her pajamas decorated with smiling turtles, a recent acquisition inspired by Barty the Turtle. "Daddy, I'm ready for bed—oh, hi, Captain Montgomery," Alexis greeted with just a touch of shyness.

Roy greeted Alexis with an ease that always reminded Castle that Roy had kids too and exchanged a few idle words with her.

"Roy, you know where the liquor cabinet is and glasses are out so help yourself. I'll be right back," Castle inserted.

"Bye, Captain," Alexis waved as she turned to go back up the stairs.

"Good night, Alexis, sleep well."

Castle gave Alexis a teasing nudge on the back, "Up you go, baby bird," to send her scampering up the stairs and tucked her into bed with a hug and a kiss. "Sweet dreams, Alexis."

"Night, Daddy."

He paused at the door of her room for a last look as she closed her eyes and snuggled into her pillow, his heart clenching at the wave of love that flooded his chest at the sight. She was so young still, his little girl, so vulnerable. And he would do everything he could to protect her from being hurt in any way.

He returned downstairs to see that Roy had poured himself some whiskey and he lifted his glass to Castle in a half-mocking toast. "Thanks for the drink, Castle."

"No problem."

"Say, Castle, since it seems like we have a few minutes before the others get here, I was wondering if you have any idea why my most promising detective is working herself into the ground and looking like she hasn't slept properly in a week?"

"You're talking about Kate, I assume," Castle responded with assumed blandness, trying to school his heart into not reacting at the mention of her.

"Yes. I only ask because things seemed to change right around when she passed along your message about scheduling this poker night and from then on, she's been working longer hours than ever and looking grim, to say the least. So I'm guessing you were one of the last people to see her when she was doing okay and now she's not so I wondered if you have any idea what upset her. Beckett's a tough one so it has to be something serious. I haven't said anything to her yet-she hasn't done anything to make it officially my business—but I thought I'd ask you since as a friend, she's more likely to have said something to you."

"No, I have no idea," Castle answered distractedly and was saved by the sound of a knock on the door heralding the arrival of Judge Markway, followed shortly afterward by Bob Weldon, completing their little group.

Castle greeted them both and did his best to appear his usual self, taking part in the raillery as they settled in to play poker, but he was distracted and it showed in his game. For the first time in a while, he made careless mistakes and played passively so the night ended with him on the losing end, much to Judge Markway's and Roy's unconcealed triumph.

He saw them out on a tide of teasing banter, assuring them that he would have his revenge next time, the usual sort of remark, and then cleared up the room, glad for the mindless task as his brain churned.

Kate was upset and it appeared to have started right after he'd seen her. He might be being entirely self-centered and egotistical but the timing of it, as Montgomery had noted, was a little too coincidental for his taste. And if Kate really was the self-centered, career-focused woman she had made herself out to be, what was upsetting her? What was there to upset her in turning him down? Something wasn't right with this picture.

It was niggling at him, his brain worrying at it, even though he tried to fight it. He didn't want to wonder, didn't want to be drawn back into his preoccupation with her, and yet, Montgomery's words lingered, nagged.

Images, memories, of Kate flashed through his mind, almost in spite of himself. The first time they'd met, the suppressed emotion in her face, the tears glistening in her eyes as she talked about her parents. The look on Kate's face when she had mentioned Thanksgiving to Alexis that day in the Park, the flash of dismay that she might have brought up a painful subject for Alexis. The look on Kate's face when she told Alexis about what happened to her mom. Her words later when he had thanked her for her candor: I don't know why you should thank me for making her cry and possibly traumatizing her.

And he remembered suddenly that she hadn't met his eyes, had not looked at him at all as she made that comment about not wanting to get involved with someone with a kid. And her tone had been unnaturally stiff—hadn't it?

She'd been lying. Or at least, was being less than candid, misrepresenting things in some way. He was suddenly certain of that. Mostly certain.

It might not mean anything, he tried to caution his unruly heart, calming it from bounding into hopeful life. She might still not want to be with him but he was suddenly sure that whatever her reason for turning him down, it wasn't because of Alexis, because she didn't want to get further involved with Alexis. He had reacted too fast, too viscerally, to the suggestion, primed as he was to be fearful of such a thing thanks to his experiences with Meredith but now, thinking about it with his head rather than his heart, he could see the picture didn't make sense, this story didn't make sense.

The Kate he had gotten to know felt deeply, was kind and compassionate. And she had always, always cared about Alexis's feelings, showed a concern for Alexis that was a major reason of why he trusted Kate with Alexis.

Unlike Meredith, not out of deliberate cruelty but simply because in Meredith's self-centered version of the world, it simply never occurred to her to wonder what effect her actions or her broken promises had on Alexis.

He might, he acknowledged to himself, be fooling himself again, not wanting to believe that he could be such a bad judge of character, that all his trust in Kate could be so misplaced. And yet… It really didn't fit. He didn't know why Kate had turned him down—she had said I can't, not that she didn't want to, didn't like him in that way—but he didn't believe the reason she'd given him.

Nothing he had seen of Kate in the last few months indicated that she didn't like kids, was so unwilling to get close to a kid. She already had gotten close to Alexis and in the times she had needed to cancel plans because of work, she'd always made a point of asking him to apologize to Alexis too. And even in that evening when she had been preoccupied over the Alisha Mattheson case, she hadn't shown it when Alexis was around, had been careful to pay just as much attention to Alexis as she usually did. So no, he could not believe what she'd said.

Which meant, he really needed to talk to Kate again.

Part of him was yelling that he was being an idiot—what was he doing, not putting Kate out of his mind entirely and moving on? A woman who had already turned him down! He never pursued someone who didn't want to be pursued so why wasn't he giving up on Kate?

Maybe it was just the mystery of it. He never did like to leave a mystery unsolved. And this one… seemed important. (Oh, who was he kidding, Kate was important. Still. In spite of everything.) He could not simply give up on the hope of what he and Kate could be, not without knowing the reason why.

~To be continued…~

A/N 2: Kate has a lot to think about…

Thank you (for not killing me) to all readers and reviewers.