Disclaimer: The only part of Castle that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

Over coffee and homemade raspberry sorbet last night, Martha had laid out her plan, insisting that she be the one to tell Castle about Gina. "I'll take the heat for this, Katherine. There are too many things that could go wrong if you do it. And besides, as you said, you don't want to look like a tattle tale."

"Or jealous. Even though I am."

"Well, if things go as I expect they will, there will be nothing, no one, and no reason for you to be jealous. And when I tell him, I'll have to stretch the truth only a tad."

"What do you mean, exactly, by 'stretch the truth'? I don't want you to feel you have to lie to him."

"Honey, given the lying—not to mention the laying—that Gina's been doing, it's nothing. The truth stretching is only that I'll tell him that I was the one who saw her, and that it was at the hotel this evening. That's all. Not for nothing am I an actress." Martha had cocked her head then, and looked serious for a moment. "You're actually doing me a favor, you know. Getting that harpy out of Richard's personal life will be a wonderful thing." She had reached across the table and patted Kate's hand. "Now, it's almost eight, and you should be on your way."

Kate had driven Martha back to her cottage, then gotten out of the car to give her a hug. "Thank you again. This means everything to me. I could never have done it without you."

"Nor I without you. It's our own little secret mutual admiration society. Drive safely."

"I will. And you'll call me after you talk to him? Let me know how he is? How it went?"

"Of course."

Half an hour after she'd gotten home, a nervous wreck as she'd waited to hear from Castle's mother, her phone rang.

"Martha? How did it go."

"He was upset, but internalizing. I'd say what he was most was bitter. When I said that I was sorry that he had to take this from her, he said he didn't. And at the end he said, 'Please excuse me while I hang up and figure out what the hell I'm supposed to do with my life.' And that really did break my heart."

"Oh, God, what have I done?"

"The right thing, Katherine. We've both done the right thing, even if it doesn't feel like it at the moment."

"What do you think he's going to do?"

"About Gina? Kick her sorry derrière out of his house. And by the way, I think she's had some work done on that derrière of hers."

At that point Kate had started to laugh, and it had taken a while for her to recover enough to reply. "You really know how to break up the tension. Thank you."

"It's too bad Richard won't literally kick her derrière, it might dislodge some of that silicone."

Then they'd both laughed until Kate had said, "I know the next move's up to me. I'll work on it tomorrow. If you hear from him, will you call me? Right away?"

"Of course. Now don't stay up all night fretting. I have confidence in you."

"Hope it's not misguided."

They'd said their goodnights, but Kate hadn't gone to sleep for hours.

Shit. Her alarm. Again. She's late, she's late, she's late. She takes a shower, dresses in half the time and with half the care that she usually takes, and tears off to the precinct.

"Rough weekend, Beckett?" Espo asks as she sets two large paper cups on her desk.

"What makes you say that?"

"The double coffee order, unless one of those is for me, and the fact you've got make-up on only one of your eyes."

"Javi!" Ryan says, glaring at his partner.

Her hands shoot up to her face. Crap, he's right. "Couldn't sleep last night is all. Now forgive me while I go to the ladies room and make myself at least sort of presentable."

While she's there she takes a good look in the mirror. She adds eyeliner and mascara to the unadorned eye, and concealer under both of them, trying to mask the purple circles there. Her hair needs a little attention, too, so she gives it a good brushing and puts it in a bun. "There," she says to her reflection. "You look passable now."

All summer she's been hoping for fresh cases—an appalling thing to have to admit—because they keep her occupied. Today, though, she's praying that they'll be in a homicide-free zone so that she can map out a way to approach Castle. When she gets back to her desk she turns on her computer and begins to go through the email, much of it boring. She's antsy, waiting to hear from Martha, just as she had been last night. But it's not even nine, and she doubts that her co-conspirator gets up at eleven, at the earliest. Still, she leaves her phone on, and on her desk.

When time drags its leaden feet to 12:30, and there's still no text or call from Martha, she stretches and gets up. "Going out for lunch, guys," she says. "I'll be back in forty minutes. Maybe less."

"Yeah, it takes you forty minutes to eat half a burger, Beckett," Esposito says.

"Remind me of that in December. I'll put 'eat faster' on my list of new year's resolutions." She drops her phone in her bag, and takes the stairs down to the lobby.

Castle and his laptop are by the pool. The courier had picked up Gina's bags at nine and they've probably already been delivered to her doorman. It's past noon now; he can have a drink, can't he? It's reasonable. It doesn't make him a lush. People drink at lunchtime constantly. The entire nation of France has wine for lunch. He's going to go inside and get something, as soon as he checks his email again. It's been five hours since he'd emailed her. Nothing. Still nothing. Maybe she's on a case. Maybe she was in some disgusting alley with a rotting corpse at the time he emailed and she hasn't had a chance to check her email. Maybe she read it but can't think of a way to let him down easily. Maybe she's thrown away his chair. Maybe she and Schlemming have eloped.

He needs more than a glass of wine.

In the kitchen, he eats a handful of raspberries as he pours himself a Scotch. Maybe he should have some raspberry schnapps instead. Or raspberry vodka. Nah, he'll stick with what he knows best. "Salut!" he says to himself. His old friend, single malt. Too bad he doesn't have a friend named Walt. Hey, Walt, how about a single malt? He'd rather have one with a friend named Beckett, even without the rhyme. He should have asked her for a drink more often, back when they were pounding the pavement together. Reminds him of that Adele song from a couple of years ago, "Chasing Pavements." Great, great song. He should never have quit singing when he was a kid. He loves to sing. No one's here, he's gonna sing full out, dammit.

Should I give up,
Or should I just keep chasing pavements?
Even if it leads nowhere,
Or would it be a waste?

Why had he sent that stupid email? He finishes his Scotch, and refills the glass. He should go for a swim, unless he's had too much to drink to get in the water when he's on his own? He'll make a sandwich and take it outside. Sitting in the fresh air is supposed to cure all sorts of ills. Let's see if it works on him. He slaps together a PB&J, wraps a paper towel around it, and goes back to his chaise. He could take a nap. Should take a nap. Two bites into his sandwich, he's out. A dab of grape jelly, right in the middle of his chest, glistens in the sun.

She's in the diner, too nervous to eat, but she hasn't had anything except coffee since that sorbet more than sixteen hours ago, so she orders a BLT and scoots into a corner booth at the back. She checks her phone again. No missed calls, no texts. Might as well kill time by checking her emails; she hasn't been online since Saturday evening, before she went to That Bar. There could be great offers for all kinds of enhancements. Enticements. There could be anything. She scrolls, stops, reads, deletes, scrolls. She stops, hard. Holy shit. Castle. She triple checks the time on his email before she clicks it open, holding her breath as if it might exude toxic fumes that would render her unconscious in the middle of this greasy spoon.

It's the opposite of toxic. She reads it over and over, her sandwich frozen halfway between the plate and her mouth, and doesn't even notice as first a bit of tomato slides out, followed by a mayo-slicked lettuce leaf and then half a slice of bacon, all of which land soggily on her lap, leaking through the flimsy paper napkin.

He misses her. He wants to come back. Soon. Way before Labor Day. August, which is only a couple of weeks away. He misses her. She can hardly breathe. She returns the under-filled sandwich to the plate, and makes a call.

"Martha?"

"Hello, Katherine. I'm sure you're anxious about Richard, but I've not heard a peep."

"That's just it. I have." She recites the email, which she has already committed to memory.

"Oh, my. When did you get that?"

"Just now. I mean, he sent it early this morning but I overslept and I didn't check my personal emails until a minute ago when I went out to get something to eat. I'm there now. In the diner."

"Are you going to call him?"

"No, email. I don't trust myself with the phone just yet, you know? I have an idea, though. You'll probably think I'm crazy."

"I'm a big fan of crazy. You want to run it by me?"

Kate feels unaccountably giddy, or maybe very accountably giddy, and smiles the entire time that it takes to tell Martha what she intends to do. They finish their conversation not long after. All that remains, for now, is composing her email to Castle. She wishes she had his felicity as she keeps trying to write a message, and deleting it before she can finish. Finally she sends something relatively short and not at all personal. Personal can wait.

"Hey, Castle. We're fine, but we all miss you. You'd have loved the three-day old corpse we found in a bathtub during the heatwave, especially the exploding hand. Right up your alley. Let us know what day you're returning so we can have a welcome-back doughnut ready. Beckett"

She goes back to the precinct. When it's almost three, and still no one has been murdered in their jurisdiction, Kate knocks on Montgomery's door.

"Hi, Captain, do you have a minute?"

"Way more than a minute, Detective, if it means I can stop reading this latest piece of—" he pushes a piece of paper away from him, and grimaces. "Piece of nonsense from One PP."

"Sir, it's very quiet today."

"I noticed. Ryan and Esposito were shooting baskets with rubber bands, always a tip-off."

"Right. Well, I have quite a lot of time coming to me and I was wondering if I could take a bit now?"

"What, you mean this week?"

"No, no sir. I know we're short-handed around here at this time of year. I meant just a few hours. If I could leave now, before my shift ends? I'll be here tomorrow, usual time. I just just need a bit of—. Just have to take care of something."

"Go, Beckett. Go. You have my blessing."

"Thank you, sir."

Back at her desk, she shuts down her computer and picks up her bag. "Taking a couple of personal hours, guys," she says to Esposito and Ryan. "See you in the morning."

"You going to the dry cleaners, Beckett?" Espo asks.

"What?"

He points at her legs. "Cause it looks like you're wearing your lunch."

"No, I'm going home to take a nice long bath. With my pants on. Saves a lot of money."

She turns and walks to the elevator, rather than the stairs, repressing the urge to sing or break into a dance. Please, God, let this work.

TBC

A/N Thanks to everyone who's reading. And maybe singing along.