Chapter 5

Kate got halfway home from the bar before she turned around.

So many times, she'd almost: almost called, almost texted, almost dragged Rick off to somewhere, anywhere to try to get him to open up to her about what was going on between them. Until that night, she hadn't found it in her to take a step as bold, and whether its spur was her conversation with Jordan or with Javi, or because she was told he was supposed to be out and likely wouldn't even be there, allowing some net of safety for her nerves, she now found herself knocking at his door.

To her surprise, he was the one who opened it.

"What are you doing here?" Rick asked absent any trace of gladness for the unexpected visit. To be fair, she wasn't entirely glad he was there, either.

With his arms crossed at his chest, he positioned himself like a guard across the entrance, protecting the doorway to his life as if she were a threat to it.

"I figured you wouldn't have answered if I'd called." He affirmed the assumption with cold eyes and a hard jaw. "I actually didn't think you'd be home. Espo said you were…that you had plans. Can I just maybe come in for a minute, Castle?"

As vulnerable as she appeared-for Kate, a state uncommonly bared, and for Rick, a state uncommonly witnessed-it couldn't compare to what his stoic exterior masked, seeing her like that and not being able to offer himself to her in any and every way she might need.

"It's late, Beckett, and I'm in the middle of something. Can it wait?" Eventually, he relented when she neither responded nor made a move to go. "Fine," he said and headed off toward his office, leaving her outside the open door to follow or not.

Kate did, the loft's light dim with the hour, quiet save for her heeled footsteps on what felt like an endless walk to reach him.

But endless she could handle. Hopeless was the notion she couldn't bear.

He was already seated at his desk and typing away at his laptop when she caught up, and had she not been the first to say something, she wondered if he would've even acknowledged she was there.

"I don't want to keep you from whatever you're in the middle of, Castle. I know we're not really doing this right now, but I wanted to talk to you about something. I just, I wanted to be the one to tell you. I didn't want you to find out another way."

Rick snickered at the richness of the irony, but let his reaction linger between them without any commentary.

"Tell me what?" He folded his arms again, but she couldn't know there was genuine curiosity buried beneath the nonchalance.

"I've been offered a job, and I think I'm going to take it."

"Acting job?" he shot back without a breath, as though he already had the barb chambered.

A crease formed between Kate's brows. "No. What does that mean?"

"What job?" he asked, brushing aside her confusion.

Kate paused before going on and looked around the room she'd been in countless times before. Everything about it was familiar to her, but it'd never felt so cold.

"You know Jordan Shaw, obviously." She watched as the name from their past hit. "She left the Bureau to lead her own team working on fugitive cases. She's asked me to come to D.C. to join them. And she says hi, by the way," she tacked on, hoping it might soften him some.

It didn't.

"How nice." Rick nearly choked on his own sarcasm. "So, you're moving to Washington then. You're just leaving the NYPD and moving to Washington. When is that happening?"

"I'd have to be there in a few weeks." He pushed up out of his chair but remained behind the desk. It seemed he preferred having the barrier between them. "She wants to get someone in there right away."

He crushed his knuckles against the desk in a fist until they faded to white.

"Right away, great, sure."

"It's not up to me, Castle." His body language, his tone, his whole manner of detachment all had her sliding swiftly toward anger. "Yes, the job is now. Why not now?"

"I guess there isn't any reason, is there?" Overwhelmed to the point of not knowing what to do with his body, he rolled out his chair and sat again. "Well, good luck with it. It's always nice being wanted. I'm sure you'll do great as a…whatever you're going to be."

Kate waited, gave him a minute when he pulled his attention away, hoping he'd say something more, something remotely like the Rick she knew. The Rick she loved.

When he didn't, she tried to make herself go, but didn't even make it as far as the threshold. He might've been able to leave it that way, but she couldn't.

"You know, what the hell is your problem, Castle?" She returned to where she'd been standing. "Seriously, why are you being like this all of a sudden? One day we were fine and the next you were treating me like you barely knew me. That's how it's been ever since.

"When, or I should say if, you show up at the precinct these days, I occasionally get a few words grunted in my direction, and the rest of the time it's like I'm invisible. Forget about away from work. I leave you messages. You don't call me back. I text you messages. You don't respond. I come here to share something important about my life with you and you act like you couldn't care less. Clearly, I did something, but you won't just tell me what the hell it is."

Rick picked his head up, and she knew. She knew she instantly had to brace for impact.

"No, Beckett, I did something. I made a mistake, but I'm done making it now. Good luck in D.C. I hear the cherry blossoms are gorgeous in spring."

Her chest felt like it'd been pierced by the burn of yet another bullet she hadn't seen coming, this one even more cruel than the first. When she was finally able to gather her balance enough to put one foot in front of the other and walk out, it was difficult for her to imagine in that moment it wasn't for the last time.

"Katherine?" Martha called out to stop her as she passed, seeing the look on her face and how upset she was, and when her simple effort failed, she went after her, managed to catch her out in the hallway just before she reached the elevator. "Katherine, please, a moment," she implored and closed their distance when Kate acquiesced.

"I need to go, Martha. I just need to go."

Her voice was brittle, filled with the tears she hadn't yet allowed to fall, and Martha took her hand, cupped her cheek with the other. Across the years, Kate had come to live in her heart as a daughter did a mother's, and the pain in her eyes made it ache.

"He's hurting, kiddo." She brushed Kate's cheek tenderly with her thumb. "You are, too. I can see how much."

"But why, Martha?" Kate looked away as her resistance began to falter. "Why won't he talk to me about it? I don't know what I did that he's pulling away from me, and the thought of going down there and never seeing him again, I…how am I supposed to leave it like this?"

"You're going to have to help me out on this one, darling. Going down where?"

"I got offered a job in D.C.," she said and caught a tear with her knuckle. "If I take it, I have to be there, move there." Her eyes drifted back down the hallway toward the loft door. "He doesn't even care."

Martha squeezed Kate's hand, spoke in a voice at once gentle and firm.

"Now, Katherine, you listen to me. I might not know much, but I do know nothing could be further from the truth. My son cares more about you than he does about almost anyone or anything in this world. Whatever this is-and it wasn't her place to say, but she knew what it was-I'm sure Richard just needs time."

"I don't have time, Martha. I've been trying for weeks, since before I even knew about this job, and now I don't have any more time. You know, I thought…" she started to say then hesitated.

"Go on, you can say it. I promise you, darling, anything you tell me will stay with me alone. You have my word on that."

"I felt like I was so close to being ready for this, Martha, for what I've wanted us to be. I know how patient Castle's been, and I know it hasn't been easy. It hasn't been easy for me either. Now it's like everything we've both done to get here has been for nothing, and, apparently, I'm the one to blame for it."

Hearing herself say those words made her sick. She pulled her hand free of Martha's and backed away.

"Katherine, please don't go. Stay and we'll talk some more, all right? Better still, how about I change my clothes and the two of us go for a walk, get some air."

Kate pressed the button for the elevator. The door slid open right away.

"You raised the most wonderful man, Martha," she fought through heartbreak to say and disappeared inside.

Upon which, Martha marched back into the loft and straight to Rick's office.

"Congratulations on a job well done, Richard," she snapped. He barely even glanced up. "You are positively crushing that girl with this need of yours to prove to yourself, at whatever cost, that you can just turn off your feelings like a switch, when you and I both know damn well you can do no such thing."

She raised a hand to her forehead, began pacing back and forth.

"My god, how is it that two people as profoundly connected as the two of you can talk until they're blue in the face but never say what it is they really want to say to one another?"

"I said what I wanted to say, Mother, and she heard it, remember? I don't need you in the middle of this. And stop pacing. You're going to make us both dizzy."

Martha stopped and curled her hands around her hips. "Well now that is just too bad, my boy. You pulled me into the middle of this, and I love and care about you both. I can't bear to see either of you hurting this way."

Stepping up to his desk, she continued.

"Richard, I am telling you if you let Katherine go without talking all of this out, you may never see her again. I simply cannot believe that's something you would ever want. After all the years, after everything the two of you have been through, that can't be what you want."

"What I want is to be left alone, Mother. I'll see you in the morning."

Neither of them would be getting much sleep that night.

xxxx

It wasn't the new home Kate would've chosen for herself with the luxury of greater notice, but limitations were what they were, and she'd already seen too many, liked too few. By that point in the day, she was all but at the mercy of her frayed patience, and the least of all evils felt as good as it was going to get.

With one week down of the three she had left in New York, Lanie accompanied her on an in-and-out trip to D.C. for the weekend to lock down an apartment. On the face of it, the neighborhood that hosted their seventh stop of the day seemed pleasant enough. There were trees and a charming fence or two, pots of flowers that decorated the stairways of the residences that lined its streets, couples and families out walking their dogs. It certainly painted a fine picture.

But it didn't look like New York. It didn't feel like New York. Kate was sure of that.

"You're having doubts," Lanie observed when Kate wandered across the room to the unit's front windows and stood gazing out onto the street. "I know what your head's doing when you get quiet like this. It's not perfect, but you could do worse, considering. Plus, my room for when I come visit is big. We both know that's the most important thing."

There wasn't even a hint of a laugh.

"Honestly, I just want to be done looking. The manager said they'll do a six-month lease, and the weird furniture comes with it. With the hours I'll probably be working, it's not like I'll be here that much anyway. It doesn't matter."

"This place is going to be your home, Kate, of course it matters. Six months or not, you're still going to sleep here every night and wake up here every morning. Okay, you know what, forget it," she said into the silence. "Let's go. We can find you something else. Come on."

Kate pushed the fingers of both hands through her hair, hung her head. "I'm tired, Lanie. I'm really tired."

She hadn't been sleeping well, not for weeks, but the toll of it was more emotional than physical.

"You're sad," Lanie replied after a beat. "You're sad and you're lonely, and one of those things is hard enough without the other. You haven't heard from Castle at all?"

Kate finally came around. "Not since I went to the loft that night and told him about the job. Ryan and Espo said they haven't either. All of this is happening, and I miss my best friend, Lanie," she admitted and promptly felt bad about it. "I'm sorry. I know I have you, it's just, it's different."

"Yeah, I know it is, because you don't want to jump my bones. I get it. No offense taken." A soft smile passed between them. "That kind of love makes it different, and I wish I could give him to you. I wish I had the magic answer to make it all better, but maybe time really is it, like Martha told you. I know that sucks to hear because it already feels like it's been forever, but maybe. You can't put your life on hold, Kate. It wouldn't be fair to you."

"Lanie, I can't keep losing the most important people in my life. I don't know how to be strong enough to keep going through this."

Lanie met her where she stood, wrapped a hand around hers.

"Hey, of everyone I've ever met, Kate Beckett, you're the oneI know is strong enough to take on any damn thing, okay? Look where you are, what you're doing. For right now, you focus on that. You show Jordan Shaw and all the rest of 'em how to do it and do it right. Everything else will work out. I believe that."

"Thank you, Lanie." Kate hugged her tight. "I love you."

"Good thing, because you're never losing me, you got that? Now, go sign the paperwork for this weird-ass furniture, and then buy me a glass of expensive wine to toast it with. I've sure as hell earned it today."