A/N: Would have tacked this onto the bottom as usual, but I want to let you know what this chapter actually is before you read it (for those of you who read the author's notes). There are certain dialogue exchanges and scenes between Castle and Beckett that I get in my head and they get stuck there. Most of my stories were written simply to incorporate scenes that I couldn't get out of my head. For instance, my last story was pretty much written for chapter 12(?) where they're on the roof.
This story was pretty much started and catered to this one chapter. I've had this chapter in my head for a really long time, and I pretty much developed this story line thus far just so I could write this one chapter.
So, enjoy. C:
Kate drags herself through her door, pulling out her keys from the knob with a lethargic yank and letting her bag fall down just ahead of the entrance to her apartment. With a few tired steps inside, she closes the door behind her. The door clicks shut and she flicks the deadbolt over, leaning her weight back against the door for a moment as she tries to gather herself. The ambient noise of the city outside seems so loud. She can't feel her chest, she feels... hollowed out. The past week, she's been asking herself what she wanted her life to be, what she wanted out of it, where she wanted to end up going. But now... she feels lost.
She can't go back to the precinct. After everything that happened, the changes that she felt seemingly the moment she walked in... it's as if they never wanted him there to begin with.
Kate lets out a dry, ragged breath and pushes off her door jam and puts her foot up to peel her heeled boots off, letting them fall down to the floor. She kicks them against the wall and moves through her apartment in a daze. She sniffs in a short breath as she stops near her coffee table. Her eyes soon fall on Sherlock, still sitting cozily in between her Union Jack pillow and a dark orange one. Looking at him, a source of comfort, she feels a smile, albeit a sad on, flash onto her face. At least she'll always have Sherlock.
She hopes. His speaker is starting to crackle and fizzle.
Kate shakes her head hard enough to make herself dizzy, hoping the hard motion will jolt some pieces of her brain into giving her some semblance of an idea as to what to do now. She just walked out of a job that she'd never imagined having to walk out of, just ended something that she lived her entire life by. But maybe that was the problem. Maybe that's why she exploded the way she did at those narcotics detectives, those stupid potato-headed goons. The precinct, her job, her badge, changed after she was shot. And if she continued on like everything was fine, she'd have to change with it.
This recovery has already given her an identity crisis to deal with.
Still standing cemented to the same spot near the coffee table, she looks over into the darkened end of her apartment next to the kitchen, over to the closed shutters where the last intact pillar of her life sits that's still here to hold her up... or pin her underneath it, she feels more the latter after this. Kate pads through her apartment, flicks open the latch on the shutters and swings them apart. Sadly, it's just as she remembers it.
All the note cards and pictures, all the strings tied and names marked all lead to the same place, nowhere.
Kate swallows thickly passed a bundle of nerves and makes a sharp turn over to her desk, grabbing her red sharpie out of the cup next to her monitor and a notecard off the stack sitting on the edge. John Doe, friend of Montgomery, she writes down on the card and grabs a thumbtack. She pins the new notecard at the very bottom of the left shutter and then grabs a new one; what's in the file? She pins the new notecard right next to it.
It was a chore, nothing more. A way to busy her limbs and expel energy she doesn't have.
She can't stare at this for too long because she knows that if she does, it won't be to think about where she can get to on the case... it will be to ponder just how much time each one of these notecards represents, how many months or years each one of these names and questions represent in her life, how much pain, anguish, heartbreak is attached to each one... and how many more cards will have to go up on this board before they all lead somewhere tangible, and just how much of her life those cards will represent.
A soft, yet forceful knock suddenly sounds at her door. "Kate?"
She recognizes the voice instantly as the concerned voice of Lanie. Her heart feels heavy, but she's missed her. The last time she saw her was the day she woke up, about an hour or so after the last time she saw her partner. Lanie mentioned wanting to visit her during her recovery, but nothing ever came of it. She would have liked to see her.
"Come on, girl, I know you're in there." Lanie calls again through the door.
"Come in." She calls back through her apartment, tearing her eyes away from her shutters.
She hears the knob being tried, "Kate, the door-" the knob is jiggled hard again, "is locked!"
Kate breathes a heavy breath and moves through her apartment, making a quick detour of just two large steps and reaches over to her couch, pulling Sherlock with her by the arm. With a few more steps, Kate flicks the deadbolt back over and twists the knob to crack the door open where Lanie quickly forces herself through the small opening.
"Oh, girl, I am-" Lanie stops, a storage box under one arm and wrapping the other arm around her friend's shoulders, "so sorry."
Kate just stays silent and hugs her friend, a small part of her enjoying the friendly affection while she can get it.
Lanie steps back with a worried arch in her brow and a friendly light shining in her eyes. "Javi told me what happened this morning and I got here as soon as I could." She quickly explains and closes the door behind her, whipping back around once it's closed. "Are you okay?"
"I just walked out on my entire career, Lanie. You really want to ask me that question?" She shrugs, glad she chose a loose-fitting shirt for her first day back.
Lanie's brow knits a bit. "Well," she starts, looking away from her, "Javi gave me some things you left back at the precinct."
Kate takes the box and the first thing she spots is her mother's elephants. She smiles to herself, finally seeing them again. They sat on her desk, always a constant reminder of just how important her family, how important she and her dad were to her. Kate nods, giving Lanie a quick glance. "Thanks, Lane."
Kate slowly moves into her living room, clutching the box with her forearm and Sherlock's forearm with the other. Kate sets the box down onto the floor and pulls the elephants out, setting them in the center of her coffee table. They look good there.
"So," Lanie begins, sounding like she's making her way through Kate's apartment behind her, "what happened, Beckett? I thought you'd be eager to get back on the job after this long."
"Lanie, I-I..." she sighs, pacing in the opposite direction of the box on the floor, Sherlock still hanging from her hand and seemingly unnoticed by her friend, "I don't know, I just know that I don't belong there anymore."
"Well, what's this whole thing about you going off on some narcotics detectives then? I heard you threatened to shoot a guy." Lanie throws out her arms, her brow still twinged with concern.
"I did not threaten." She defends herself. "I told him that I would plaster his brains all over that breakroom if he didn't get his dirty, oversized feet off of-" she cuts herself off, her chest already tightening with the same anger that she let loose just this morning. It's probably pointless to explain to anyone but herself... or maybe the bear, if she decides to get that pathetic as to talking to him thinking he could offer sound advice.
"Kate," Lanie starts, letting out a breath and shaking her head, "is this about your shooting? Did you recover okay?"
"I recovered just fine, Lanie." She answers stubbornly and turns around, taking a seat on the arm of her couch, bringing Sherlock to rest on her thighs, hanging by the pads of her fingers. "I just know that I don't belong at the precinct anymore."
"Well, where's Castle? Didn't he come back with you?"
She didn't realize she'd have this much trouble hearing his name out loud. It sends a jolt of nerves up her spine, a twinge up the middle of her heart, an uncomfortable coil in her gut. She can prepare herself when she has to say it, but with everyone else... it's like it's being hurled at her. "No, I haven't heard from him." She laments, tossing Sherlock aside and down onto her couch. "It's just been me and Sherlock the past couple of months."
Lanie's brow quirks a bit as she watches Kate pick at the edge of her thumbnail. "Sherlock?"
Kate looks up for a moment, eyes Lanie's confused expression, and reaches back down, grabs his leg and tosses Sherlock over to her.
Lanie catches him by the head and turns him around. Lanie smiles as she moves his magnifying glass about. "Aww, he's so cute. Josh give you this?" Lanie asks.
Wordlessly, Kate pushes off the arm of her couch, takes a few steps forward, reaches up, and pinches Sherlock's hand. Castle's voice tugs at her heart as she moves through her apartment over to her shutters. "How do I... wait, like, now? Check one, is it... hello?" His speaker in his stomach crackles slightly near the end.
She hears Lanie stifle a chuckle before following Kate into the other room. This bear has Castle written all over it now that she thinks about it. "He couldn't have recorded something more... I don't know, appropriate?"
Kate stops near her second couch, adjacent to her shutters. The memory of him sitting in the chair at the hospital, leaned off to one side, tongue stuck into his bottom lip with his fingers tapping against his chin flashes clearly in her head. "He accidentally recorded that in the store when he bought it and couldn't figure out how to record over it before he gave it to me."
Lanie chuckles again at that. Kate's soft smile as she looks down to the bear still in Lanie's hands goes unnoticed by her brain. It soon falls though when she turns away from them to face her shutters and hears Lanie set Sherlock down on the table.
"So, is this about Josh?" Lanie asks behind her, sitting down on the couch as Kate meanders over to her murder board. "Did something happen with him?"
"No, Lanie, Josh and I are fine." She answers plainly, crossing her arms in front of the shutters.
There's a small knot in her gut telling her that Lanie is intentionally beating around a bush for some reason. "Well, what about the case? Have you made any progress?"
Kate lets out a dark chuckle of self-deprecation and shakes her head. "Where do I have left to go, Lanie?" She asks, eyes roving over the notecards and pictures. "Everything here is," she shrugs her shoulders, waving her arms out before letting them fall down to her sides, "a dead end. I have... I have nothing to go on. I have no leads. I have no one to go to."
"Oh, Kate, what are you talking about?" Lanie asks incredulously.
"What am I talking about?!" Kate parrots back, looking over her shoulder with an emotional glare.
But Lanie is seemingly unfazed, still looking over to her friend with the same concerned gaze.
Kate looks back to her shutters and grabs a notecard near the top, ripping it from the thumbtack and showing it to Lanie. "Dick Coonan... is gone." She says, tossing the notecard away and goes for the next one. "Hal Lockwood? He's gone." She tosses the notecard, going for another one, not bothering to show them before tossing each one away as she names them. "John Raglan, Gary McAllister, Joe Pulgaty, are all gone."
Lanie watches painfully as Kate moves away from her shutters, hunched forward slightly and eyes staring hard into the floor as she paces.
"My shooter is gone. Montgomery" Kate says, voice shaking, "is gone. My mom... is gone!" She cries, finally turning to face Lanie with hot tears pooling in her eyes. "Even Castle! My own partner! The guy who said that he'd always be here for me- abandoned me. He's gone! Everyone... is gone, Lanie!" Kate sobs and turns around, pressing her palm to her forehead.
"Well, what about Josh?"
"I don't love Josh, Lanie!" She emotionally exclaims, turning around and hunching toward Lanie with her tears finally falling off her lashes. "I only started seeing him because Castle was still with his stupid ex-wife!" She yells and tosses her hand out, spinning around and putting a hand on the back of her waist.
"Wait," Lanie starts, adjusting herself on the couch, confused, "I thought you said that you and Josh were giving it a real shot."
"Oh, Lanie," Kate sighs, slumping her shoulders, "I only said that because Castle and I had just been frozen to death sitting in each other's arms and I tried to tell him how I felt." She admits, coming around the table and letting her legs give out to fall back into the cushions. "I needed a reason to push him away." Kate falls into her couch and quickly leans forward, grabbing for Sherlock out of instinct and clutching him in her hands, pressing her nose and mouth to the soft fuzz on his stomach, large tears still sitting in her eyes as she starts off into space.
She feels Lanie's eyes on her, but doesn't have enough care to do anything about it. "I..." Lanie starts hesitantly, "think it's high time we stop pretending like we both don't know what this whole thing is really about."
Kate knows. She's always known. Her heart has been trying to break through to her for a long time. And now, she just can't bring herself to stifle its voice any longer. She takes in a shakey breath in her nose, through Sherlock's warm fuzz, letting her eyes drift shut at the feeling... the feeling of her partner's caring for her. That's why she can't let this thing go. This stupid little stuffed bear has brought her more comfort that her own relationship has this whole recovery.
Why is she even bothering with a relationship anymore?
"Kate," Lanie prods, "how long are you going to go on hiding from the truth?"
She just moves to bury her face deeper into Sherlock's fuzz.
"I mean," Lanie chuckles, "until about an hour ago, you used to ferret out the truth for a living, Kate, and you were damn good at it. But... when it comes to accepting it..."
The truth... her heart knows the truth. All those feelings and thoughts she's spent so much energy stomping out like a spark ready to set a dry forest ablaze.
"Stop fooling yourself, Kate." Lanie softly urges her. "Because... I hate to be the one to tell you this," she says, her tone shifting, "but the only person that you are fooling... is you."
Her eyes slowly open, half-lidded. "You're right, Lanie."
Her thumb slowly starts to pet the inside of Sherlock's fuzz.
"If there's one thing this recovery has been trying to tell me, it's that I don't- have- time... to keep lying to myself. I have to start listening to my heart... accepting the truth."
"And... is the truth that you're crazy for Castle?" Lanie prods again.
"Lanie, I'm in love with him." The words seem to fill her heart, but empty it at the same time, giving her body a light feeling lifting off of her, a weight seeming to pull her up from a darkness she has been trapped in. "And the truth was never about getting myself to admit it, because Lanie, I've known... that I'm in love with him. I was just so god damn determined to push him away because I couldn't be this dependant on someone. But the truth is that what I was afraid of... what I was hiding from... it's already happened."
She feels Lanie's smile soften and she pulls her lips off of Sherlock and looks over to her.
"Lanie, we aren't even a couple. If I go this crazy now when he's gone, what's going to happen to me if we jump into it and he leaves?" The tears return, furious and hot. "Or if he's killed, or taken from me like my mom was?"
"But Kate, what if none of those things happen?"
Kate sniffles and lets the bear fall down to her lap as she leans back in her couch. "Doesn't really matter anyway. He's gone, he hasn't called me since the hospital, he didn't even say goodbye. I don't even know where he is, Lanie."
"Well, it's a good thing you used to be a detective then."
Kate's sorrow is betrayed by a small belt of laughter at Lanie's quick-witted joke. Kate nods to herself, "Josh is supposed to come over in a couple hours. I'll talk to him. And then I'll go find Castle."
"How do I... wait, like, now? Check one, is it... hello?"
She just misses him so much. With Sherlock tucked safely under her arm, sitting on her couch against her leg as she sits curled up in the corner, she pets his fuzz with her thumb, losing herself in memory. It took a lot of digging, but she finally found one. She started to lose it a little bit when she thought that after three years of a partnership with him, that they didn't have a single picture of the two of them together. But she finally found one, tucked away in a box, showing the two of them and everyone else from the precinct at the bar of the Old Haunt the night Castle bought it.
Serendipity seemed to grace her for once since the two of them are standing next to each other, and she isn't even smiling at the camera, but up at him.
Another knock sounds in her apartment and her heart feels heavy.
But she has to be honest. She doesn't have time to keep lying to herself. And it all starts with being honest with everyone else. It will hurt, but they both deserve nothing less than the truth. "It's open." She calls over to the door, pressing Sherlock's hand for strength.
The door opens and Josh quickly steps inside, closing the door behind him with a smile. "Hey, you."
Kate doesn't answer him and just simply sits, listening to Sherlock's voice box. "How do I... wait, like, now? Check one, is it... hello?"
She can see Josh's demeanor shift, but she doesn't tear her eyes away from the picture in her hand. "Is everything okay, Kate? I thought we were going to spend the night in."
"Josh, I have to be honest." She says in a low, emotionally drained voice. "And you're probably going to hate me for it."
"Kate," Josh nervously chuckles and shifts his feet, "what's going on? You look like you've been crying."
She takes a breath and forces every ounce of strength on listening to what's in her heart, what the truth is. "Josh, we were a mistake." She tells him and finally tears her eyes away from the picture.
Josh's brow is hard and straight, his eyes cold and far away. "W-what are you talking about, Kate?"
"I can't let this go on. It's not fair... to either of us. I have to accept the truth." She stares up at him from her place in the corner of her couch, seeing Josh stand dead still in her living room. "And the truth is I've had feelings for someone else for a while."
She can hear Josh's hard breath from here. "You mean him." She can't really decide if it's better or worse that he drew the right conclusion. But it's a waste of time deciding now. "You mean Castle."
She doesn't like the way his name sounds in Josh's voice. "Yes."
She watches as Josh's jaw clicks and his eyes twinge.
"I'm sorry, Josh, but I can't let you go on not knowing the truth. I don't want to lie to myself anymore. I'm in love with him, Josh. The whole reason I started seeing you was because he'd left for the summer with his ex-wife, and it hurt more than I wanted it to. And as long as we were in a relationship, I had a reason to deny my feelings for him."
"So," he strains, looking down to the floor, "you were what... using me? This whole time?"
"I... I didn't go into it thinking that. And I'm not saying our whole relationship was based on that, but... Josh, I can't hide from it anymore. We've both wasted too much time on this."
"What..." he tries, having a hard time looking up from the floor, but eventually manages it. "What could I do, Kate? If we could go back, what could I do differently?"
Kate softly shakes her head, "Nothing," She answers softly. "Because if we could go back, I would be with him." She knows it's not the answer he wanted, finding out there's nothing he could ever have done, that despite everything, he just wasn't Castle. "I'm sorry, Josh."
"But Kate, I..." he abruptly cuts himself off, reaching into the pocket of his jeans, pulling out a small box that she instantly recognizes the significance of.
"Oh, Josh..." she sighs, looking away from him. "What made you think we could ever get married?" She asks him, her voice still soft and hushed.
"You said you wanted to give it a real shot, Kate. You said that... that we had a chance."
"Josh," Kate tries, "Castle and I had just been locked in a freezer. We were dying locked in each other's arms." She says, a sad smile shining across her face despite herself. "I tried to tell him how I felt then before it was too late. When I woke up and came to my senses, I needed a place to hide. As long as you were around, I could pretend that those feelings never existed. I'm... I'm sorry, Josh, but... you need to know the truth."
Josh sighs a hard sigh and looks down to the felt box in his hand. "I knew I shouldn't have listened to him."
"Who?"
"Castle," Josh says, lifting the box and still not meeting her eyes. "When I talked to him at the hospital, he... I don't know how, but he somehow knew I was planning on proposing to you. He told me to wait until you recovered. He said... I wouldn't forgive myself if I got anything but an honest answer." Kate's heart hardens in her chest. "I knew I shouldn't have listened to him."
"You talked to him at the hospital?" She asks, her voice sharpened with a warning. All Josh does is stay silent and look toward the kitchen. Kate's jaw clicks, her mind putting the pieces together. "What did you say, Josh?"
Josh looks into the other room and she knows the look of a man readying a defense. "Kate, I just wanted us to move on from all of that!" Her chest tightens again, her anger and fury quickly swelling up in her system. "I told him that you'd been through enough without him coming around and pushing you, so... so I told him to leave. But I-"
"You told him..." she stops him, her voice shaking with a held back rage, her eyes glaring darkly into him, "to leave?"
All this time she spent angry at him, blaming him for abandoning her, for leaving her side when she needed him... and it was because of Josh? "He was the one that pushed you to look into your mom's murder, Kate!" He defends himself. "You think I haven't seen what's behind those shutters?" He asks, waving into the other room. "He got you shot, Kate. It was because of him."
Never, for an instant, did she ever put any blame on that bullet going through her on her partner. For leaving, for what he said the night before, maybe... but never did she put a single ounce of blame on him for what that sniper did to her.
Kate's jaw is clenched and her teeth are grinding together as she glares at Josh. A harsh, violent whisper is all she can risk. "Get out."
"Kate, I was only trying to-"
"Get-" She starts to shout, silencing him, "...out. Now."
She stares Josh down for a moment. After a pause of fighting with himself, he squeezes the box in his hand, turns around and whips her door open. She jumps slightly when she hears it slam, her heartrate coming back to normal at the sound of his footsteps storming down the hall. With a sigh of relief, Kate looks back down to the picture, where she remembers smiling up at him that night at the Old Haunt, probably unaware of just how bright her smile is.
Entranced, she reaches over to Sherlock. "How do I... wait, like, now? Check one, is it... hello?
A/N: Yep, this whole story was just to cater these two scenes. Doesn't mean I don't have the rest of the story lined up though. What'd ya think? :)