I do not own a Castle. I also don't own Castle.

Seeing him standing there with her mother's necklace around his neck and sadness pooling in his eye broke her heart. It hurt doing this to him, but she had to, to protect him. He would follow her to the end of the world, he would follow her to his death and she couldn't let him do that to himself, to his family. She knew what it was like to lose a parent, and she would not let it happen to Alexis.

The truth was as undeniable as it was bitter: Richard Castle simply loved her too much.

He hadn't intended for it to be this emotional, dramatic, but now he realized that it could never have gone any differently. He had thought, honestly, that it was going better, that he was getting over it. It had been over a month since he found Ryan and Esposito standing at his door.

He had known it before they said it.
He didn't want to know it. They told him anyway.

They had found her not far from her apartment in a pile of garbage. Her ID and badge resting next to her. He had been told her body was badly charred and burned, that there was barely anything left of the Kate Beckett he knew. He had been holding on to that little bit of hope that perhaps there had been a mix up. That perhaps they had made a mistake. That perhaps the extraordinary Kate Beckett was still alive.

But she stopped calling him, stopped showing up at the precinct, and with every hour without her the reality started to creep in.

Still he didn't fully believe she was gone until he saw them putting her into the ground next to her mother. It only sank in after he had read the words carved in the marble stone resting above her head.

Katherine Beckett
Veritas vos liberabit

What was perhaps most bitter was that they never found out what happened to her. They all assumed it was connected to her mother's killer, but there was nothing to work with. In the end she ended up like her mother: trying to get justice for others, but never getting it for herself.

And it was so immensely unfair.

"Dad?" He startled at the sound of his daughters voice, jerked from the awful memory to the even more awful present. It was only now that Castle regained consciousness of where he was: Sitting in his car, the door still open as if he had plunged into it to seek refuge. His hands tightly grasping the wheel, knuckles white, trying to regain control of the emotions he tried so hard to suppress. "Dad we should go home." Alexis softly said and Castle numbly nodded. Unable, at the moment, to care where they were going, as long as it was far away from the spotlights, from people asking questions and most importantly: from Nikki.

Nikki was over. She was living happily ever after with Rook, he had said goodbye to Nikki. He knew he had to, and he knew it had been the right decision. He could spend his life writing about Nikki and Rook, drowning himself in the fantasy world he made for himself. Maybe he could even be happy there, but it would always be a story. He couldn't do that to his family. This was the first step, saying goodbye to Nikki hurt, because it was like letting go of the last piece of Kate Beckett he still held.

But it was also the first step to recovery.

He would be okay, eventually.
Just not yet.

She stopped counting the times she had picked up the phone, touched in his number and laid down the phone again. Put it away somewhere she could not reach it, where she could not be tempted. Those were the times she wished she could forget him, because no matter how much she severed all her ties to him, she couldn't sever him from her mind. His words were always on her mind.

She knew he loved her. She had been hiding from the words since she first heard them. Had been running from his love to protect herself from ever feeling completely abandoned in the world again. The truth was that now that she was alone hearing his words again, his promise of always, she felt more abandoned than she ever had before. Because now she really was alone, and he wouldn't be waiting for her, wouldn't chase her any longer.

There would be no one who would try to piece her heart together that had been broken all those years ago.

She just hoped that his heart wouldn't get broken like hers had.
She just hoped that some part of him would still love her when she returned.
If she returned.

She stared at the murder board she had created. The familiar photo's, faces and words blurring together until nothing was clear.
She had to stop him, she was prepared to kill him if she had to. She had to find him if she wanted to return.

She couldn't stop her silent tears at the realization that was slowly sinking in. She might never find him.
She might never return.

AN: Wow, I'm amazed by the response I got to this story in just a few days time. I'm really glad you like my story, I will try to keep updating regularly :).
Stay tuned for the next chapter.