A week. Seven days. One hundred and sixty eight hours, give or take a few. That's how long it had been since Beckett had last seen Castle, outside that bookstore as he walked away from her. She'd spent three months without seeing him while she recovered from her shooting, and yet this past week had been hell, absolute hell. It was being back at work, being back in the place she loved, the place Castle had firmly situated himself in over the past three years..except now he wasn't here. No chair by her desk, no coffee in front of her every morning. No childish jokes, no inane theories about aliens or the mob or the CIA. Richard Castle was gone from the precinct - and it didn't look like he was coming back.

"Come on, Lanie," Esposito pleaded, "just tell us already!"

"No!" Lanie replied, for what had to be the tenth time in the last ten minutes. "Whatever has happened between Kate and Castle is none of your business. Besides, I don't even know myself."

"Oh you don't expect us to believe that, do you?" Ryan added. "You're her best friend, I know how girls talk and stuff..you should hear Jenny with her friends!"

"She hasn't told me," Lanie reiterated. "And even if she had, the last thing I would be doing is telling you. Now, unless you actually need to be here for a professional reason, get out of my morgue before you end up on my autopsy table!"

Esposito and Ryan knew when to leave, neither of them had any doubt that they would become Lanie's newest patient if they hung around for much longer. "She definitely knows," Esposito said as they left.

"Uh huh, one hundred percent," Ryan agreed. Little did they know, Lanie had actually been telling the truth.

Back in the morgue, Lanie was still shaking her head at the two idiots Kate had to put up with. She wasn't surprised Kate hadn't told them if that's how they acted! She was a bit worried though, Kate hadn't even mentioned to her what was going on and she'd learnt from the boys that Castle hadn't been around all week - since Kate came back after her shooting. Something was going on and she was going to find out what.

"Beckett," Kate answered flatly as her cell rang, not even bothering to check the caller ID. Unless it was Castle, she didn't really care.

"Kate! Girl what is going on with you?"

Oh, it was Lanie. "Nothing, Lanie. Why?"

"Because I've just had tweedledee and tweedledum down here interrogating me for information about you and writer boy!"

"Oh," was all Kate replied.

"Oh? That's all you've got to say? Katherine Beckett I want answers!" Lanie said, not giving up. She didn't care if Kate didn't want to talk, she always bottled things up and it wasn't good for her.

"I'm fine, Lanie," she lied. In fact, she was a mess. Her partner and her best friend had given up on her walked away when she needed him the most. She could understand why, waiting three months couldn't have been easy but it didn't mean it hurt any less.

"Uh huh, and I'm the queen of England. Tonight, 7pm, you and me are going out for drinks. And don't even think about using work as an excuse, I know for a fact you haven't had a case since yesterday afternoon."

Kate sighed, Lanie was right. They'd wrapped their latest case yesterday afternoon and no bodies had dropped since then, looks like she had no choice but to agree to drinks with Lanie. "Fine, I'll meet you downstairs at 7," she relented.

"Perfect. And you can tell me all about what's going on with you and Castle," Lanie replied cheerfully before cutting off the call. Kate groaned, dropping her head to her hands. The last thing she wanted was to talk about Castle..but what choice did she have?

Seven o'clock rolled around far to quickly for Kate's liking, even with no open case. She'd spent the rest of her afternoon catching up on paperwork, desperately trying not to think of the many ways Castle used to try and distract her from it. When she could deny it no longer, she packed up her things and headed down to meet Lanie.

"There you are!" Lanie exclaimed when Kate exited the elevator. "I was about to send out a search party!"

"Lanie, it's ten past seven."

"Well you had no case so no excuse to be late," she said. "And don't even think about saying you were doing paperwork," Lanie added as Kate went to speak, "I know how much you hate it and I also know you would have dropped it the second you could."

Kate rolled her eyes but kept quiet. It was going to be a long evening, that much was obvious. The two of them hailed a cab, asking to be dropped outside one of their favourite little bars. They did great cocktails, which, Kate surmised, could help her get through the evening - she knew Lanie wouldn't believe her little 'I'm fine' act for half a second, she knew her too well. Hell, even the boys knew something was up if they'd gone to Lanie. It was sweet really - they might try and act like they didn't care but she knew they missed Castle too, he hadn't been in to explain why he wasn't coming back yet, not when she was there anyway.

"So," Lanie began as their drinks arrived. "You gonna tell me what's going on?"

"Noth-"

"Don't make me call Castle," Lanie threatened and Kate knew she had to admit it then.

"He isn't coming back," she said quietly. "I went to his book signing last week, let him know I was back and stuff and he..said we were done."

"Oh honey," Lanie soothed. She could tell from Kate's behaviour this last week that it wasn't good but she never expected anything that bad. "Did he say why?"

"Just that he spent three months waiting and I didn't call," Kate shrugged, fighting back the tears. It was her own stupid fault for not calling but she never in a million years imagined he'd be this angry. "I needed that time, Lanie. I was..a mess after the shooting and I needed the time to get to grips with it and get back to my old self again." Not that she was there yet, not really. She'd mastered the art of acting like she was but she still had weekly physical therapy sessions and at least twice, if not three times weekly sessions with her therapist, Doctor Burke.

"I know you did sweetie, and that's why we left you alone!," Lanie said softly. "Because you can be sure that if we thought it would have helped, we all would have been up to see you as much as we could. But we know you, Kate, we know you needed that time to heal."

"I know, and I appreciated it, I really did," Kate said, attempting a smile. "I guess I just thought Castle felt more for me than he does." She hadn't told Lanie about what he'd said as she was shot, she hadn't had the chance.

"I'm sure he cares about you, Kate, that won't ever stop."

"He told me he loved me," she whispered, looking down at her drink.

"He did wh- when?!" Lanie screeched, earning looks from other customers in the bar.

"When I was shot," Kate revealed, "just before I blacked out, he told me he loved me."

"Wait, but Castle said you didn't remember anything from the shooting..did your memory come back while you were away?" Lanie asked, slightly confused.

"No it uh..never went," she admitted. "I was scared, Lanie. Someone had just tried to kill me and I was still with Josh and then Castle comes along telling me that..I just didn't know what to do and I thought if I just pretended I didn't remember, then it solved everything.."

"Except now it's made things a hundred times worse?" Lanie asked and Kate nodded. "Wait, are you and Josh.."

"No," Kate said. "I broke up with him the day I was discharged from the hospital. Castle was right - I hid in relationships with men I didn't love so I didn't have to face the truth. It wasn't fair to Josh to keep going when my heart was..somewhere else."

"With Castle," Lanie added and Kate nodded again. "Can't say I'm surprised, sweetie, you and Castle have had something since day one."

"Yeah and now I've ruined everything, just like I was scared I would." God it was such a mess.

"I take it he doesn't know you remember what happened?"

"No," Kate replied, shaking her head. "I didn't really get much of a chance to speak to him before he left, he doesn't know I've broken up with Josh, either."

"You think it'll make a difference?"

"I thought it might but now..now I'm not so sure. He hates me anyway, I don't think being single is going to change that."

"He doesn't hate you," Lanie counteracted with a wave of her hand. "He's just angry - and he has every right to be. We all know you needed that time but you probably should have called, or even text, just to tell him you were okay. He was a mess when you were shot, Kate, beating himself up for not getting to you in time. You can't blame him for wanting to be kept in the loop."

"I don't blame him, I blame me. If I hadn't been so stupid and stubborn and just called him then this wouldn't be happening! I want to be enough for him, I really do..but I'm not, not yet and now I doubt it'll even matter if I am because he isn't coming back."

"Well you aren't going to know unless you try," Lanie announced. "I'm assuming you're seeing a therapist?" Kate nodded..how did Lanie know- "you were shot in the chest, Kate, it was only natural that you'd see someone about it. Now, you're going to talk to him about it, okay? And you're going to work on getting yourself better - both mentally and physically and then, when you're ready, you can talk things out with Castle, okay?"

"If you say so," Kate agreed half-heartedly. No matter how much Lanie tried to help, she wasn't sure much short of a nuclear bomb threatening the city could get Castle to talk to her again. She hadn't called, not yet. She was going to, she just wanted to give him time to cool off, perhaps next week she could try, see if he'd meet for coffee or something. She might not be ready for a relationship just yet, but she wanted her partner back.

"Dad dad dad," Alexis called as Castle walked back into the loft. He'd been in meetings with Black Pawn all morning but it seemed he'd missed something while he'd been gone.

"Woah," he laughed, "what is it?"

"I got in!" Alexis announced, "Stanford! I got the letter today!"

"Alexis! Oh honey, I'm so proud of you!" Castle beamed, wrapping his daughter in a tight hug. She might be all grown up and heading to college in a couple of months, but she was still his little girl. "I know how hard you've worked for this and you deserve all the offers you've got. So, know where you're gonna go yet?" This was her third offer from the top universities. A couple of the less academic - but still brilliant - had offered her places but he knew she was only using them as a back up if she didn't get accepted where she wanted to go.

"No," she laughed nervously. "I was waiting until I heard from Stanford..I mean, getting accepted to Colombia was amazing, and then Oxford as well - I never dreamed Stanford would offer me a place too!"

Oxford. God his daughter was seriously considering moving to England for university, that was scary. "You've wanted to go to Stanford ever since you were three years old," Castle reminded her. "Well, apart from that brief month when you were about ten where you decided you wanted to go to Princeton."

"Because that's where the princes go," Alexis laughed. "That was only because I was obsessed with A Cinderella Story at the time." She had made her father watch that movie every night for a month and he did, without complaining. "It's just..Oxford is amazing but so far away. I mean I know Stanford is the other side of the country, but it's not the other side of the Atlantic!"

"Sweetie, if you want to go to Oxford, then go to Oxford." He'd miss her terribly but he had to accept she was growing up. "But don't give up on Stanford just because you can go to England. You can visit anytime time you like. We can even go this summer, if you want."

"Thanks dad, but maybe next year, hey?" She laughed. "You're right though, if Oxford wasn't in England, I wouldn't even be considering it. Colombia would be good, because it's not far..but at the same time I want to move away..hey, you could always move to California too! And then I could see you on weekends!"

"Sounds great, honey," he joked but thinking about it..she might actually have a point. What better to start afresh, without memories of Beckett than a whole different state?

"Well, I'm going to go and call Grams, tell her about Stanford. I wanted to tell you first."

"Thank you, sweetie," he smiled. "And I really am so proud of you."

Alexis had just disappeared upstairs when there was a knock at the door. Hopping down from the bar stool he was sat on, he walked across the loft to answer it - and found Esposito and Ryan outside his door. Yeah, moving to California was starting to look more and more appealing..

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