SEVEN

Kate awoke the following morning with a confusing mixture of happiness in her heart and dread in her belly. Her foremost emotion was definitely gratitude for the breakthrough that she and her partner had the day before. He was correct when he said that they had been building to that point, but she had never been confident she could be the one to push them over the edge. She was grateful for him for doing so, because he was also correct when he said they couldn't live in limbo, but if they didn't live in limbo, that meant they needed to move through the next, most challenging part of their lives.

The prior evening as they talked, Kate acknowledged that she would need to bring up the idea of divorce with Grant, but she also requested the ability to do so on her own time schedule. She assured him she had no intentions of waiting for months and months before breaching the subject, but she needed to prepare herself both emotionally and factually to do so. She needed to do some research and probably talk to a lawyer of her own, so she completely understood all the options available to her.

To his credit, Castle was endlessly understanding and acknowledged he felt similarly. He, too, had to go through the divorce process, though considering how strained his relationship with Meredith already was, he'd already had some preliminary conversations with his lawyers on the subject. Still, he had Alexis to think of, so he wasn't going to run off to his lawyers that afternoon but acknowledge he'd probably do so by the end of the week.

As Kate brushed her teeth and examined her weary expression in the hotel mirror, she reminded herself that no matter how miserable Grant made her in the coming days and weeks, it was a means to an end. She was fully confident in the fact that Castle was the man she was meant to be with. With him, she would feel more joy than stress, and laugh far more than she cried, of that she was certain. In the end, their relationship would be worth the strife she faced, but that didn't mean the next few weeks would be easy.

By ten after six the bleary-eyed duo were back on the road headed towards Manhattan. With so many of the roads still covered with water, they agreed not to go on a side-excursion for coffee, and just get right back on the expressway. Compared to the day before, their drive was downright reasonable, but they did have some slowdowns at the two major merge points they hit. An hour and a half later they were pulling into the precinct's underground garage, much to the relief of both parties.

"So, um, I'll text you later today?" Kate said hesitantly as they climbed out of the car, now for the first time feelings rather awkward about the state of their relationship.

"Yeah, but um, I'm actually just going to use the restroom real quick before I go." He gestured towards the ceiling with a bit of a guilty shrug.

"Oh, sure, no problem. I'd also say grab some coffee for the road but…"

Castle made a sound of disgust. "No thanks; not in the mood for a hole in my stomach."

She smacked his arm playfully with the back of her hand as they stepped into the elevator car. The ride up to the homicide floor was quick, with no one else interested in riding the car up from the lobby due to the early hour. When Kate began to walk towards her desk, she was surprised to see not only Ryan and Esposito already in, but a third figure who looked angrier than she'd ever seen him.

"Grant? What are you doing here?"

Her husband whipped his head in her direction with fury in his eyes and Kate immediately felt a tether snap inside her. Though it had fully been her intent to take several days to work through the anxiety that came along with going against societal norms by ending a love match marriage, seeing the enraged look upon her face had caused her brain to outright reject the notion of spending even one more night beside him. I can't do this anymore, her internal monolog told her; I'm done.

"Where in the hell have you been?" he spat at her.

"I told you—in Jamacia."

"No, no," he responded, sharply stabbing his finger in her direction as he approached. "The last I heard was you were going to try and make it home when it stopped raining and it's been done raining for almost twelve hours!"

Kate reached into her pocket to pull out her phone, but then realized there was no point. "I…I texted you last night around seven or eight to say I was just going to hunker down because I thought the roads would still be too flooded. We were having a lot of cell phone reception issues; I guess all the lines were just overwhelmed." It was true that she had briefly wondered why Grant had not replied to her text, figuring he'd send a snippy remark at the very least, but then she'd forgotten about him due to the fact that Castle was distracting her with…well, other things.

"Wha—we? Who is w—oh you have got to be kidding me!" Grant threw his hands up in frustration before gesturing wildly. "Him? You were with him?"

Kate looked over her shoulder to see that Castle had stepped up behind her. She'd thought he'd gone into the bathroom and thus would have avoided the argument she was about to have with her husband in the middle of her place of work, but apparently that was not the case.

"I told you I went to Long Island to interview a suspect," she told him calmly.

"And lied about not being alone!"

She swallowed, giving herself a moment to word her statement very carefully. "No, I didn't, I just didn't mention that Castle was with me." She took a step towards him, softening her expression. "I'm sorry I didn't call this morning, but it was so early. We just wanted to get on the road in case we ran into more flooding. I was going to call you as soon as we got back here."

Grant's gaze flicked between Kate and Castle for several seconds before he asked, "Did you stay in your car all night?"

"No, we stopped at the Jamacia Inn to use a bathroom, and we decided-"

"A hotel?! You were in a hotel? With him?"

Before Kate could attempt to diffuse his anger, her partner chimed in with a snippy, "Relax, Symon; the room had two beds."

Grant's ears began to turn an unnatural shade of red, but his voice was shockingly even as he looked to her and said, "You shared a room?"

In that moment, Kate wondered for the first time why neither she nor Castle had suggested getting two separate rooms in the hotel. It might have been possible as it did not seem like the hotel had been at full capacity. Then again, after they effectively made-out, what would have been the point? They both agreed no more intimacy would occur between them and they both slept fully clothed. Really, of everything that happened between them the prior night, sleeping in the same room was the most innocent—but of course she didn't need to point that out to her already furious husband.

"Two beds, Grant. We were just there a few hours waiting out the storm and that was it; no big deal."

"This is a huge deal!" Grant practically shouted.

As the floor was beginning to get a bit more crowded, Kate stepped towards him and said in a hushed voice, "Then we can talk about it at home."

"Great; let's go." He grabbed on to her right bicep and yanked her towards him with such force that she nearly fell over.

"Grant!" She protested with a yelp, struggling to find her footing with her still sore ankle and the slippery, recently polished precinct floor. He did not heed her warning, however, and soon was dragging her across the floor as she protested, "Stop! Stop!"

Castle darted around one of the desks with surprising agility and stood directly in Grant's path saying, "Hey—she said stop."

Knowing the situation was growing more volatile by the minute, she said, "Castle, don't. Please. I can handle this."

Fury in his eyes, Grant turned to the writer and spat, "Stay away from my wife. The world doesn't need any more of your mediocre novels anyway."

Kate saw Castle's jaw flex and though she didn't think he'd strike Grant, she was not one hundred percent certain, which meant she needed to end their disagreement immediately. "Okay, okay." She twisted herself so she was directly between them. Facing her husband, she spoke in as calm a tone as she could muster. "I'm going to come home with you right now, okay? Just let me put this on my desk and then we can go home and talk."

Grant stared at her for ten more seconds before releasing her bicep. She scurried over to her desk, put her paperwork down, and shot an apologetic look towards Ryan and Espo, who were watching the scene play out with no small amount of amazement. "I'll be back later to file my report," she told them quietly. Then, she spun around to see Grant and Castle still having a stare-down. Wanting to end the situation swiftly and conclusively, she announced, "Okay, I'm ready," and then moved past them, walking purposely towards the elevator. Grant trailed behind her a second later, obviously still seething, but at least neither he nor Castle had struck each other.

On the ground floor of the precinct, Kate tried to move towards the exit, but her progress was interrupted by a friendly officer who said he'd heard she was stuck in the floods the day before. She tried her best to only engage to the point where it was cordial, but the officer seemed insistent on being chatty, so finally she had to fib with, "I'm sorry; I'm on my way to an appointment," and then bid him a polite goodbye.

Once out on the sidewalk, Grant, who was obviously quite through with being pleasant, gripped onto her bicep again and began to drag her towards the closest street crossing. Using her fingertips, she began to claw at his grip while protesting verbally. "Grant stop—stop manhandling me! I'm coming home with you like you asked, but only to shower and change. I have to work to do today."

"Yeah, I guess you were too busy with Castle to get any work done yesterday," he snipped.

Huffing out a breath, Kate decided that she, begrudgingly, would need to soften her attitude significantly. She had to approach this situation from the standpoint of being peaceful, at least until she was able to pack her bags and put physical separation between them. "I am sorry that I didn't make it clear that he was with me. I shouldn't have left that part out, but I didn't-"

"You didn't want me to have confirmation that you're fucking him." Grant spat with more vitriol than she'd ever heard from him.

Furious, but still trying to maintain the calm in her voice, she said purposefully, "I have never had sex with Castle. Never. I wouldn't."

Grant's lips curled in displeasure. "And yet, he seems to spend an awful lot of time around you doing so-called research. Two and a half years' worth of it, in fact. With that much research, he could write a thousand books."

As his grip slacked enough for her to pull her arm free, Kate did so. Then, she stared at him for several seconds before admitting honestly, "I don't know what you want me to say to that." It was true that Castle's excuse of "doing research" had long-since worn thin in many people's eyes, not just Grant's. And while she knew there was a certain element of him simply wanting to spend time around her, there remained a more legitimate reason: he found fulfillment in solving the cases and bringing justice to those who deserved it, but she wasn't about to explain that to her already angry husband, who clearly only wanted to believe his own suspicions.

Grant folded his arms across his chest and tightened his jaw. He stared her down for a few moments then asked, "What really happened at the hotel last night?"

"We…played cards and ate stale crackers from a vending machine. Then we went to sleep in separate beds."

"Did you talk?"

"No, we were silent for twelve hours—of course we talked! We talk all the time," she added, hoping to solidify the fact that everything that happened in the hotel was quite ordinary, but she could see that it was a mistake when Grant's lips twitched. Clearly, he saw the fact that they spoke regularly as a threat, which she supposed she could not argue against. The bond that she and Castle had built over the duration of their partnership was the reason they were in love with each other—not that she needed to make her husband aware of that fact at the present moment.

"What did you talk about?"

Huffing out a breath, Kate turned towards the crosswalk, saying, "Grant, enough! I'm not in the mood for an interrogation."

He hurried around her so that he was once again blocking her path. "Well, this would be a conversation if you would participate in it!"

Frustrated and feeling a headache come on, Kate lost her keep-the-peace resolve and responded with her own snippy tone. "What do you want me to say? What do you want to hear, huh? That we played card games and laughed until we cried? We watched the news, and talked about the crazy day we had before we went to sleep? That for the first time in a long time I actually had fun?"

Though she had not meant it salaciously at all, her last sentence should not have been said, as she could see something snap behind Grant's eyes the moment the word "fun" left her lips. His upper body jerked forward and from her peripheral vision she could see his hand begin to rise. With her well-honed reflexes she jumped backwards and to her right, putting as much distance between him and his right hand as she could. "What—what was that? Were you going to hit me?"

"No," he responded, but his tone made him seem uncertain.

Feeling another snap inside her own brain, she let out a noise of disgust and stalked towards the street corner, where thankfully the signal allowed her to cross. She practically sprinted across the street and, despite the traffic, could vaguely hear Grant calling out for her. She intended to power-walk her way to the subway, but her normally athletically challenged husband caught up with her surprisingly quickly and grabbed her bicep once more.

Powered by fury, she turned around and slammed her palm into his sternum, startling him enough to slacken his grip. "Don't touch me," she spat at him. "I'm done with you; I want a divorce!"

The words that would have once seemed too terrifying to process, now only felt freeing. Grant had just proved not for the first time but certainly for the final one that he didn't truly love her. He didn't understand her and he sure as hell hadn't respected her since the day she put on a police badge. She was done; she was moving on.

"What? Wait—wait! Stop! We need to talk about this!"

"No!" She whipped around, planted her feet, and set her shoulders. "No, we're not talking about this; we're done talking. You need to go to work and I want to be alone in the apartment so I can pack."

"You're not packing!" he said using a tone that made it sound like she'd suggested a vacation on the moon than a dissolution of their marriage.

"Yes, I am."

"Kate, wait—I told you I wasn't going to hit you. I'm upset! Don't you think it's reasonable for me to be upset when you tell me you've had fun with another man, when everyone knows that fun means-"

"Laughter, joy, excitement." She cut him off before he could imply anything sexual. "When was the last time you and I had fun, Grant? When did we…laugh over a silly move or play a board game?"

His brow winkled. "A board game? Like, what? Monopoly?"

With a shrug she said, "Sure."

He shook his head and straightened his shoulders. "We're not boardgame people."

"Well maybe I am. Maybe I want to play Monopoly or Scrabble occasionally."

He pressed his lips together for a moment, obviously considered, and then nodded. "Okay—okay, if that's what you want, I'll buy us a game of Monopoly on my way home tonight."

"Wha—no! No that's not the point of this. It's too late."

"What—what do you mean?!" He spluttered, a small amount of panic notable in his voice. "How can it be too late? You just told me about something that would make you happier—how can you condemn me before you even give me a chance to act on that wish. That's entirely unfair. We—counseling!" He announced as though he'd just discovered the cure for a terrible disease. "We need to go to counseling."

Kate nearly laughed. "No. Can't you see how far past that we are? I'm not happy. I haven't been for years but I've been so tied to this love match thing that I didn't—I couldn't see a way out. Now, I'm just done. I don't care about what my friends think or if this means I'll never make lieutenant. I just want to be happy."

Grant narrowed his eyes at her. "We were happy, Kate, and then that writer came along and-"

"This has nothing to do with him!" Kate screamed so loudly that a woman walking past them actually jumped from being startled. "I'm not happy, Grant. That's all there is to it. Now, I promise I'll be out of the apartment by five. Please don't come home before then." With that, she turned on her heel and jogged towards the nearest subway line, hoping Grant heeded her warning, but even if he didn't she'd be undeterred. She was leaving that night and nothing was going to stop her.

As he cleaned up the kitchen after dinner that night, Castle was a wreck. After watching the elevator cars closed on Kate and Grant, he'd felt sick to his stomach. Javier and Kevin had convinced him not to go after them, but only just barely. The way Grant had grabbed onto her and tried to drag her out of the building had made his blood boil—and that had been in a public setting! What the hell was going to happen once they were behind the closed doors of their apartment?

Though it clawed at his gut, he knew he needed to stay out of it as best he could, so he texted Kate to contact him if she needed anything, but then he resigned to put her struggles behind him for the moment and address some of his own.

He arrived at his apartment that morning to find Alexis eating cereal and Meredith still sleeping. She'd run over and hugged him, saying how worried she was. When he asked why, he found out that Meredith had simply told her that he wasn't coming home, without further explaining about the storm or the fact that he would be home the following morning. Suppressing his annoyance over his wife's misleading statement, he forced a smile and asked his daughter if she had all her things ready for school. She confirmed that she did, and that her mother had told her she was big enough to walk herself. His anger near boiling over, Castle merely told her that he'd be too sad if they didn't walk together, and of course she agreed he should come along.

Castle lingered away from his apartment building that morning, grabbing his favorite breakfast sandwich and eating it while watching the city traffic ramp back up to its normal volume now that the storm had moved out to sea. When he did return to his apartment it was thankfully empty, which allowed him to dig up the notes he'd been collecting over the years during various conversations about divorce with his lawyers. He also gathered up a current list of his assets so that he would be prepared when the time came to discuss finances. His decade-long marriage had coincided with the bulk of his wealth accumulation which ultimately would probably cost him greatly, but he didn't care about that. Neither he nor Alexis would end up impoverished, so what did a few less million really matter?

As the afternoon wore on Castle obsessively checked his phone, only feeling slightly distracted from his thoughts of Kate when he was hanging out with Alexis after school was over. Even during dinner he checked his phone every five minutes, but still he heard nothing.

Just as he was wondering if he should call her, his phone began to ring. He practically threw the serving dish he held down into the sink in his haste to answer the call as quickly as possible. As it was he lost his grp on the device and had to juggle it for a moment before he was able to press it to his ear and ask, "Hey—hey, are you okay?"

"Ah, yeah. I'm okay."

As her voice made it sound as though she'd been crying, he followed up her response with, "Are you sure?"

"Yeah. I…I'm at a hotel. I left Grant."

Castle's heartrate spiked immediately at the news. Just that morning they'd talked about her needing at least a week or two before she would get to that place, which he found entirely reasonable. Sine her timeline had increased dramatically, he couldn't help but fear for the worst, and wonder what sort of fight the couple had had that day. "Oh my god. What happened?"

"I just…I just couldn't pretend anymore, not for another week, not even for another day. I told him I wanted a divorce."

"And…how'd he take that?" he asked cautiously.

Kate sniffled. "Um. Not particularly well. He's left me about sixty-seven voice messages."

"But are you okay? Are you safe? I mean-"

"I'll be okay, Castle. He doesn't know where I'm staying—not that I think he'd do anything."

Though he appreciated her assurance, he was still worried about her. He cared for her deeply—he loved her—and the thought of her alone and crying in a stark hotel room made his soul ache. She didn't deserve to be alone, away from the comforts of home. At least, not for long. "I'm going to talk to my lawyer tomorrow morning."

"You…don't let my decision pressure you, Castle."

"It's not," he assured her. "I already gathered some stuff this afternoon. You know as well as I this has been a long time coming."

"Yeah, I do know that, but only do this if you're really ready, Castle, okay? Promise me?"

He nodded for a moment then said. "Yeah, I promise. I'll um…I'll come see you at the Twelfth tomorrow?"

"Um…maybe just give me a day? Grant's being pretty persistent and I think he might show up there tomorrow and if you were there too…"

"Yeah. I get it. Just…keep in touch, okay?"

"Absolutely. Good night, Castle."

"Night, Kate."

He let the phone slide away from his ear slowly and then he placed it down on the counter by the sink. Bracing his hands on either side of it, he gazed down at the device, wondering what his approach should be. Kate was right; he did not need to let her decision pressure him. They both admitted they wanted to be together, but in order for their new relationship to work they both had to be free of the entanglements of their old ones. He had no feelings of love left towards Meredith, but they had a child which meant he could not be cavalier with the dissolution of his family. He'd start simply with a conversation with his legal team and then he'd decide on how he was going to address things with Meredith.

As Rick went about the remainder of his evening routine of kitchen cleanup and laundry, his thoughts were mostly on Kate. What had Grant done that pushed her to packing a bag so suddenly? Had he threatened her? Insulted her? Or, god forbid, laid a harsh hand on her? Castle felt sick at the mere idea of that, so he hoped it was not the case. Not that throwing insults her way was much better, but given the position Grant was in he could understand harsh words a bit more. After all, he would be quite devastated to lose Kate Beckett from his life and hoped to never experience anything like that.

After pulling a load of his t-shirts, socks, and underwear out of the dryer, he put them into a basket and carried them into the master suite so they could be put away. Meredith sat on her side of the bed, with her legs outstretched, and a magazine in her hand. She barely looked up when he walked in and put the basket at the end of the bed so he could fold and match socks in the center of the bed before putting them away. He was about halfway through this process when she placed her magazine down on the end table and curved her body in his direction.

"Before I forget, Ricky, I probably won't be around much this weekend."

Castle dropped the t-shirt in his hand and gazed up at her, curious as to what her latest excuse for this would be. "Oh?"

"Yes—so many rehearsals, you know? And there's a dear friend in town I should have dinner with. You'll be okay with Alexis, right? Saturday night could get late—I don't even know if I'll make it home before the wee hours."

Though she batted her eyes flirtatiously at him, he felt nothing but disgust. He knew full well what she would be doing that weekend and it had nothing to do with rehearsals for any production that would be seen by the public. It was bad enough when she would slink off during the day to do whatever she wanted with whomever she wanted—at least Alexis was in school then—but Alexis typically spent Saturday afternoons with Meredith. It was their mommy-daughter time, even if Meredith had been skipping it more often than not as Alexis got older and was less and less enthralled with Meredith's flighty persona. Though she had done it many times before, this incident of Meredith shirking parental responsibilities—especially after her attitude from the prior night and that morning—truly was Castle's final straw.

"What are we doing Meredith?"

She tiled her head to the side, gaze innocent as always. "What do you mean, kitten? I'm just pre-planning for the weekend. I thought you liked when I did that."

They'd had numerous fights about the fact that not only did she back out on her commitments, but she often did so at the last minute to the frustration of Castle, Alexis, and Castle's mother, Martha, who often had to pitch in if Castle was otherwise engaged. During one of their nastier disagreements he might have thrown out the threat of divorce. It had been nearly two years prior, but it seemed to scare Meredith into at least making a decent attempt to pre-schedule her dalliances. Always under the guise of something legitimate, but Castle had to at least give her credit for planning ahead as he requested.

"No, I…I don't want to pretend anymore."

"Pretend? Pretend what?"

He huffed out a breath and rested his one hand against the laundry basket while his other gestured wildly. "Pretend like I don't know that all your 'rehearsals' are actually just affairs. Pretend like you don't know that I know about your affairs. Pretend like I'm happy and I'm okay because I'm doing this for Alexis, but this is wrong, and we need to stop." He scrubbed one hand over the stubble on his jaw and then said conclusively, "I'm going to my lawyer tomorrow and I'm going to have him begin divorce proceedings."

Meredith's eyes went wide, and she slid off the bed. Raising herself up as tall as she could she said sweetly, "I don't understand Richard, where is this coming from?"

He let out a noise of disgust as he began to toss folded shirts and boxer-briefs back into the basket. "C'mon Meredith. Can't you at least respect me enough to be honest with me? I already know about the eight-foot-tall giant you've been canoodling with the last few months. Or have you moved on to someone else already?"

She stared at him for several more seconds before her expression morphed into one significantly more sinister. Pointing her nose higher into the air, she folded her arms over her chest and said, "I want the apartment."

In a tired tone he responded, "No you don't. It's too much space for you and you'd rather be in a hipper neighborhood."

"I want a lot of alimony."

"Great."

"And a percent of your book residuals."

"We can let the lawyers sort all that out," he said emotionlessly. Then, he began to pile his pillow and blanket into the laundry basket as well, figuring it could be used to carry what he needed up to the spare bedroom. He walked into the bathroom to grab his toothbrush and toothpaste and when he came out again, Meredith was half blocking his path with a curious expression on her face. "What?"

"What made her do it?"

"Excuse me?"

She tiled her head to the side and asked proudly, "What made Detective Beckett agree to leave her husband?"

As the boldness of Meredith's statement cause disbelief to cross his face, her expression became even more painted with satisfaction. She let out a cruel little laugh before she continued. "You're so pathetic Ricky. I knew you'd never leave me—not unless you actually had the opportunity to have what you really wanted."

Feeling the heat of embarrassment and anger creep up the back of his neck, he grumbled, "I'm not having this conversation with you."

"I'm only curious. Indulge me."

He threw his toiletries into the laundry basket and then gripped onto its sides with both hands and hoisted it up off the bed. "This isn't about Kate or Kate's marriage. This is about us and how we haven't been okay for a very long time."

"Fine," she sniffed. "Don't tell me."

"I'll be in the guest room. You should work on finding another place to stay."

With a bark of laughter, Meredith insisted, "Oh no—if you're divorcing me, I'm not leaving."

"You've been cheating on me for years, Meredith. That makes you the one in the wrong, here; not me."

"Well—well! You've been having an emotional affair!" she threw back at him, but Castle was tired of fighting with her.

"My lawyers will be in touch," he said before walking out of the room and leaving her—and their marriage—behind.