Disclaimer: I don't own Castle. The only profit being made is my own amusement (and hopefully yours).
March
Of course a promise from Donna is just about as reliable as Alexis' promises to never ask for anything ever, ever again if he'll only buy her a Hello Kitty lunchbox, or Star Wars lightsabers, or whatever she happens to want. He opens the gossip section of the Ledger one morning to find pictures of Gina and him having dinner at a fancy restaurant. In one of the photographs he's wrestling with a crab leg, while Gina has both hands over her mouth in amusement.
Gina. Smart and beautiful and not at all the bitch he'd convinced everyone else—and himself—that she was. Most of the screaming arguments between them had been his own damn fault. Picking a fight over the doll with scary eyes, waking her up in the middle of the night after she'd had a long day at work because he thought it might be fun to go out for ice cream, breaking one of her expensive vases in a living-room lightsaber fight with Alexis after she'd specifically warned him to play someplace else. Sure, maybe she shouldn't have been so condescending when calling him out on his mistakes, but maybe he shouldn't have been so defensive, just as he'd gotten defensive about Beckett and her mother's case: it's because you're afraid, isn't it?
He feels nothing but guilt now—for fighting with Gina while they were married, for getting back together with Gina because Beckett was seeing someone else, for being with Gina but still having dreams about Beckett almost every night. He's had dreams about Beckett since the day he met her, mostly salacious fantasies involving Beckett with handcuffs or Beckett in leather or Beckett sparring with him in the precinct gym. But now the dreams are different. Now in his sleep he plays poker with her and her team, challenges her to lightsaber fights with Alexis joining in, makes drinks for her at the Old Haunt (with a cherry on top), and kisses her in interrogation rooms when no one's looking.
"I can't see you anymore," he tells Gina when she comes over that night.
She doesn't look surprised. "Okay."
"I'm sorry I wasted your time. A wonderful woman like you deserves better." He's only half-surprised to realize that he means it.
Gina shakes her head. "You didn't waste my time," she says. "I'd just gotten dumped and I needed someone there."
"Glad I could help," he replies.
"I think I helped you too," she tells him. "I noticed that you grew up a little these past few months."
"Oh?" he says, with a raised eyebrow. "How so?"
"You actually apologize when you've been an ass."
"And you actually calmly tell me why I've been an ass, instead of screaming so loudly I can't understand the words."
She smiles. "I'm working on it."
Gina holds her hand out and he takes it without hesitation. They shake, one, two, three times, and then she pulls him toward her in a tight embrace, resting her chin on his shoulder.
"You know, Richard," she whispers, "you're going to make someone very happy someday."
(He wonders if Gina knows.)