Chapter 3

"Earth to Richard, come in Richard." Martha's pursuit of her son's attention grew more persistent with her third effort as she stood, still robed, in the doorway of his office. Her blazing red hair was tightly secured in large curlers and draped in a scarf bathed in color - the likes of which would've made Crayola envious - and to say that she was a vision impossible to miss wouldn't have been an overstatement. "Oh, for heaven's sake," she mumbled under her morning coffee-laden breath, lobbing the quilted hot pad from beneath her mug in his direction.

The checkered disk landed on the desktop before him and propelled the loose papers there aside, his hand slapping wildly at them in his surprise. "What the…Mother? What're you doing?" Rick asked her as he eyed her up and down from across the room. "And what's happening with your head?"

Martha took a few steps into the office and perched herself on the arm of his leather chair. "Now, is that any tone to take with your mother?" she posed rhetorically. "If you must know, I have an audition in a little while and it requires a very particular guise, and Martha Rodgers is nothing if not committed."

"I see," he told her, swallowing a smile, "and why exactly are you in my office throwing things at me? Is that some sort of bizarre role prep, too?" Rick straightened the disturbed papers back into a neat pile and leaned back into his chair.

"No, no, kiddo, that's called improv. Absent a bullhorn, I did the only thing I could with what I had. I called your name three times and nothin'." Martha inched sideways and let her body drop into the soft of the chair, her eyes on the melancholy she found unhidden in his. She'd been witness to his dejection for days, ever since he'd been banished from the Twelfth and from Kate's side, and it was a state in which she was most unaccustomed to seeing him. "What's going on in that beautiful mind of yours, huh? Where are you today?"

Rick stretched his arms and clasped his fingers behind his head in a move too calculated in its nonchalance to fool her for even a second. "I'm fine, Mother. I'm not sure what you're-"

"Richard," she interjected, "do you honestly think I can't see that you're hurting? Besides being your mother - and a proud one at that - I do have two very capable eyes." Her voice faded to gentle. "You still haven't heard from her, have you? From Katherine?"

Rick dropped his chin and shook his head just once, both without a word.

"Have you tried to reach out to her since the hospital? Maybe she just needed some time to…her mother's case, Richard." Martha left it at that. The gravity in those words alone was enough, she knew.

"I, ah, I went by the precinct early this morning, actually, but she wasn't in yet. I guess Will was being discharged from the hospital today, so. Espo said she was probably with him."

Martha sensed how difficult that seemed to be for him to say. "So, you'll try again, of course, and then again, if need be. One thing I know you to be, Richard, is relentless in your pursuits - admirably so." She pushed herself from the chair and stepped up to the desk, reaching over to pluck her hot pad from his effects. "You get that from yours truly, of course," she said with a wink.

"I left a note," he said, and that was all.

"Good boy," she replied reverently and turned for the door. "Take it from an actress, darling, persistence pays," she said, her voice softly fading as she walked away.

xxxx

Kate drew her hand to her desk drawer for the fifth or seventh or tenth time that day, never, until that moment, able to actually pull it open to reveal what waited inside. She'd dropped the envelope out of sight that morning through hastened breath, as the sensation of dry cotton overwhelmed her throat, and though it had since remained unseen, the urge to tear it open had picked at her over the many hours like a bird with a worm.

Kate tried all day to convince herself it wasn't fear. She was stronger than that. She was stronger than anything and anyone. But as her fingertips now clutched the envelope's edge, her heart raced with the pounding of a hundred nightmares. She could hear the echo of its beat in her ears, the bull pen around her finally absent the bustle of the day, and she attempted to calm herself with one very deep breath.

"Love note, huh? He spray it with cologne?" came a voice from behind her. "Knowing Castle, it's probably filled with that obnoxious confetti crap that explodes everywhere when you open the envelope. That shit's impossible to clean up." Espo stepped up beside her with a chuckle. Kate quickly pushed the envelope into the side pocket of her blazer and turned to him, knowing full well he'd witnessed her overt move. "Everything okay?"

"Fine. Why?" she answered too quickly to sound anything but purposefully deflective.

Espo was her partner, her friend, and he knew her well enough to leave it right there, exactly where she wanted it. "Carlton'll be in at 8 AM with his ambulance-chaser," he told her, dropping a file folder over her shoulder onto her desk. "You want in?"

"Like I'd miss that circus," Kate assured him with as much of a smile as she could muster. She wished silently as he walked away that she could just close her eyes and fast-forward the clock to the next morning, to 8 AM, to Carlton and his greasy lawyer in the box, to the distraction of work she so often leaned on. Her hand slipped furtively to her pocket and she drew her finger along the coarse edge of the envelope's thick paper.

"Bright and early," Espo called back to her. "I'll bring the coffee and doughnuts."

"Thanks, Javi," Kate replied, for the offer and more.

xxxx

Kate flipped open the note again as she sat in her car around the corner from Will's apartment building. Darkness enveloped her, save for the faint glow of a streetlight a few paces up the sidewalk, but that didn't matter. She'd already memorized the words Rick had written on the page, the lines and swoops of his letters, the triangle indentation left by the turned up edge as it was stuffed into the envelope. For a prolific writer, his sentences were few, but their impact was absolute. Kate recognized the words as though they'd been penned by her own hand, from thoughts she'd had herself since their abrupt end:

Kate,

I'm sorry I didn't listen. I'm sorry I ruined it. I'm sorry I hurt you. Thank you for awakening my inspiration. I'll miss your voice.

Rick

She wondered if she could go back, if she could silence the anger he'd stirred in her. Even as she sat there, staring at his apology, it bubbled to the surface. Anger is what helped keep her whole, though, helped keep her from shattering into a million pieces, helped keep her heart shielded from further casualty. She'd clung to it ever since her mother was ripped so violently from her life. It helped drive her as a cop, as a seeker of justice. And yet, in short time, Rick had somehow managed to peek beyond the wall she'd constructed, and that both rattled and excited her. She didn't know how. She fought so hard against it - still. But he was the one.

The screech of a nearby car alarm shook Kate from the stalled moment she'd fallen into and she reached for the bag of food on the passenger seat. The four flights of stairs up to Will's apartment afforded her time to summon the semblance of a smile, and he returned it tenfold when he opened his door and found her on the other side. He looked settled, rested, already, and Kate marveled silently at his resilience. He was always better than she was at moving on. "You look good," she told him and she meant it, as he ushered her inside for the second time that day.

"I do look pretty good, don't I?" Will quipped and drew a laugh from her. "Oh, and you think that's funny, Ms. Beckett? Hey, you said it, not me."

"I…no, you just reminded me of someone. That's all." Her words sounded more apologetic than they needed to given his playful tone.

"Someone, huh?" He stepped closer and held out a hand. "What's in the bag? Is it what I hope it is?"

Someone, she thought but didn't say, Rick's letter burning a hole in her jacket pocket. "I, uh, I stopped and picked up some Chinese. I thought you could probably use some edible food after a week eating cardboard at the hospital." The room smelled the same as it had that morning – like Will, like she'd remembered so vividly even after all the time they'd spent apart. Kate's eyes wandered while he rifled giddily through the bag of tiny cartons and aluminum tins. The plate and mug from the morning were gone and the solitary tie nowhere to be seen. The stack of paperbacks remained, though, one of them cracked open and flipped upside down, evidence of how he'd spent part of his day. "I miss reading a good book," spilled out of her in little more than a whisper.

"What?" Will followed her eyeline to the books. "Seriously? You used to read three books a week. I used to have to resort to extreme measures to pry your attention away, as I recall." His words were heavy with suggestion and fond memory. She knew precisely the measures he spoke of and just how successful his extremes once were.

"Yeah, I remember," Kate said with a hint of blush. "It isn't as easy to find the time these days, I guess. Work is-"

"Even with your extra helper?" There was a hint of disdain in his tone.

Kate bit at the inside of her cheek and turned to him. "So, you ready to eat? It's probably getting cold." Her attempt at a change of subject was both jarring and unsuccessful. She reached for the bag of food and Will's hand came down gently on her forearm.

"Are things not…This is me, Kate. I know you, remember? I can tell when something's wrong." He set the bag down on top of the blue suede chair where her day began. "Are things not okay with your writer?"

Kate looked away. Somewhere. Anywhere. He wasn't her anything anymore.