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

Doughnuts. His mornings revolve around doughnuts. Interesting, because doughnuts are round. They don't exactly revolve, but they're round. With his first cup of coffee, half an hour ago, he'd had a honey-dipped; with his second cup, a chocolate. He's considering a powdered-sugar one for his next caffeine infusion, any minute. The only doughnuts he won't permit in his personal orbit are the sprinkle-dusted, because they remind him of that smug Feeb Sorenson. Better to be reminded of him than of Demming, but still. Beckett's Demming.

Hey, there are plenty of other doughnuts in the sea. By the sea. He's by the sea, with his doughnuts. Other than that, he's alone. Doughnuts are his faithful companions, at least until lunch, when other things swim into his culinary awareness. He refills his mug, picks up a strawberry-frosted doughnut—he'd changed his mind about the powdered-sugar—strolls to the terrace, and stretches out on a lounge chair. It's a gloomy day, gray and humid and airless. Good. It's appropriate for his mood. He doesn't want sunshine, and he doesn't need stormy; he's been feeling stormy all month at the house that usually makes him happy. But now he's slid down the mud-slicked slope into glum. Morose. Depressed. Despondent. He can't write. He may be a writer, but he's run out of words. And he may not be a shrink, but he knows exactly why he's focussed on doughnuts: they're cop food. Beckett rarely eats them, but they're cop food, and he misses cops. Especially one cop. Badge 41319. It's easier to think of her that way, not by name.

He's grateful that he's alone in his misery, with no one to tell him to cheer up, to count his blessings. He knows about his blessings, acknowledges them, but he's not cheering the fuck up. Alexis is at the Princeton summer program and his mother is in Maine. Gina is long gone. Long, long gone. Seven and a half weeks gone. What had he been thinking when he'd asked her to come to the Hamptons? He'd just been so stung by seeing Beckett with Demming that he'd turned to the first warm female body. God knows Gina wasn't, isn't, warm: she'd just been available. It hadn't been his finest hour. Days. Not his finest three days. He'd driven her back to the city after their final, shattering argument. Gina wouldn't have deigned to go on the jitney or the Long Island Railroad; his Mercedes had been an acceptable offer.

"Twenty-six," she'd said that last morning. Spat, actually. She'd been literally spitting mad, and spittle had done nothing for her carefully lacquered, perfectly accessorized veneer.

"Twenty-six what?" he'd asked. He'd been mad, too.

"You've mentioned Kate Beckett twenty-six times so far today, and it's not even noon."

"Are you kidding me? You're counting?"

"You're damn right I'm counting, you son of a bitch. I only wish that I'd started yesterday. Must have been a hundred times."

"Yeah, well, I'm not apologizing for mentioning the person who inspired the best-selling book in your entire catalogue."

The conversation had ended soon after, but not before getting even nastier. He'd waited for her to pack, and driven her home in heated silence. She'd bolted at the curb, and her doorman had retrieved the suitcases from the trunk, so he hadn't even had to get out of the car. From there he'd torn back to the loft, parked angrily in the garage, gone upstairs, and drunk himself into a stupor. The following afternoon, with hammers clanging on anvils in his head, he'd gone back to the island.

He took a break after that, the entire month of June. A break from writing and, in retrospect, rational thought. There were parties everywhere, and he went to all of them. He hit every bar and every beach within 50 miles. He bought countless drinks for countless women—countless because, unlike Gina, he didn't keep count—and occasionally ended up in bed with one. But not at home, never at home. There were some four-star inns in the area, and that's where he went. All the women were gorgeous and none was memorable.

When he woke up the morning after the Fourth of July, unsure of the name of the lissome creature next to him, he faced the unpleasant truth that the independent life he'd been living had no appeal and no merit. After a shower (alone) and a pleasant if meaningless goodbye to Summer (of course her name was Summer), he went home. And that's where he's been ever since. For the last month, he's gone no farther than the edge of his lawn. He has his groceries delivered; the housekeeper comes two mornings a week; the pool man, every Friday. That's it.

He'd told Beckett that he had enough material for a dozen more books. It was technically true, but not emotionally. He has hundreds of notes on procedures and pathology, on the bureaucracy of the police department and the courts, on the camaraderie and the black humor and the compassion of the people at the Twelfth. He knows how to skate around the law and how to conform to it. He has ideas for scores of murders. It's not enough. It's not enough because he hasn't had, can never have, enough of Beckett. Not enough of her subtlety and her wit and everything that she keeps hidden under the most beautiful exterior he'd ever seen. He's called off their partnership, but the more he tries to purge her from his system, the deeper in she burrows. He can't write, and he doesn't know what to do.

So he eats.

At lunch every day he has thick sandwiches on an array of breads from the local bakery. Lakes of peanut butter and jelly and hillocks of chicken salad. Grilled cheese with double coatings of butter. Potato chips, corn chips, pita chips. In the afternoon he snacks on almonds, cashews, macadamia nuts, cookies from the bakery and box after box from Pepperidge Farm and Nabisco. For dinner he grills steaks and vegetables, or steams clams and lobster. He makes panfuls of home fries, and warms up fruit pies.

Before bed every night he brushes his teeth, avoids the scale, and tries not to think about Beckett. He does not succeed. Tonight he makes the mistake of looking in the mirror, and notices the doughnut-like roll of flesh that's developing above the waistband of his boxers. He grimaces, shrugs his shoulders, and turns out the light. When he sets his phone on his nightstand he's startled by the date. He's been paying no attention to time, and somehow it's already August 6th? He sighs, throws his arm over his eyes, and tries to will himself into a dreamless sleep, or any kind of sleep.

A hundred miles west of his bed, Kate Beckett is lying on her kitchen floor. She'd managed to pull her phone from her pocket, press 911 and gasp out her address to the operator, who'd promised that help was on the way. She wonders if this pain is endurable, wonders, as she stares at the screen of her phone, if her last conscious thought will be that it's 10:05 p.m. on August 6th. She wills herself, as her chest feels as if it's being crushed by a truck, not to think of that, but of Castle. Her last conscious thought will be of Castle and his eyes and his smile and his scent of lime and verbena—there's a noise at the door. The EMTs. They're here, and she's still here. On Earth. At least for now.

She's trying to concentrate and to remember, but it's hard. They're asking her questions, they're putting her on a gurney, loading her into an ambulance. The ride is bumpy. It hurts. Lights and sirens. Usually she's the one ordering the lights and sirens, but these are on because of her, for her. They're in the hospital now, this is a hospital and the lights are too bright. Does she have family? They want to know if she has family. Her Dad is in Colorado on a case. Don't call him. They can't call him. Call Castle. No, don't call Castle. Can't call Castle. Lanie. Lanie is her friend. Lanie is a doctor. She tells them Lanie's name. Her number is on the phone. They're doing tests, strapping things to her, machines. She just wants to think of Castle.

She doesn't know what time it is, how much time has passed, but she's fully awake–aware–now, in a room, a doctor standing next to her. It's not a heart attack. It's not. The doctor is telling her that. So what is it? It felt like a heart attack, or what she's always thought a heart attack might be like. She's too young to have a heart attack, isn't she? Even though people her age do have them.

"Kate!" It's Lanie, who has run through the door in very high heels and a spangled neon-green dress that could get her arrested in some counties. "What the hell?"

"'m okay, Lane. Not a heart attack."

"Not a heart attack. God, Kate." Lanie turns to the doctor. "I'm sorry"–her eyes move to his badge as she extends her hand–"Doctor Field. I'm Lanie Parish, Doctor Parish."

Dr. Field is trying to cover his surprise as he returns her handshake. "Doctor Parish. Are you Ms. Beckett's physician?"

"I'm a pathologist. City medical examiner. She's my friend. We work together."

He looks even more surprised as he turns back to his patient. "I'm sorry, is it Doctor Beckett?"

"No. Detective. Homicide."

"Ah." Another surprised look.

"Kate." Lanie has grabbed her hand. "Is it all right if I'm in the room while Doctor Field talks to you?"

"Yes." She glances at the cardiologist. "You can both say anything to me, just don't talk about me outside." She knows it's a useless request, or demand.

And so the interrogation begins. He's asking, she's asking, they're asking, so many personal, probing questions. Over and over. She'll give them "emotional stress" and "constant anxiety," but that's it. Those are two of the choices, and they're true, and it's enough for the diagnosis. She tells them she's still pursuing her mother's case, on her own, and that must have put extra stress on her. She will not mention Castle. She will not, even though Lanie is doing that thing with her eyes and lips that mean "you're holding out on me."

What she has is something that mimics a heart attack, but isn't. It's takotsubo cardiomyopathy, or stress cardiomyopathy, a sudden but fortunately short-lived weakening of the muscular portion of the heart that does no permanent damage. Brought on by stress, as the name implies. She'll make a complete recovery, Dr. Field says. She's heard of it and always dismissed it, this thing people call broken-heart syndrome. To her it's always sounded like something out of a cheesy romance novel, or on a tear-jerking holiday TV special. But now, loath as she is to revising her opinion, she has to. Her heart is broken. Emotionally broken. No. No. Get over yourself, she thinks. Get over Castle. You're supposed to tough. You're supposed to be kick-ass. Stop acting like a wimp.

Pushing the sheet away, she tries to move her legs to the side of the bed so that she can stand up.

"Whoa, Ms. Beckett. Detective," Dr. Field says. "What are you doing?"

"Going home."

"Out of the question."

"You just said that this is 'short-lived.' I feel fine."

"You're not fine, Kate." Lanie is as stern as she's ever heard.

"Okay, I'm not fine. But I will be. That's what you said, Doctor Field."

"We need to keep you overnight, at the very least. But we also need to discuss something else."

She tries not to panic. What something else? What? She'll just ask. "What?"

"Your weight."

"My weight? My weight is fine."

"You weigh a hundred and eleven pounds and you're close to five feet ten inches tall."

This feels intrusive. Over the line. "How do you know what I weigh?" she asks angrily. "You haven't weighed me."

"Actually, we have," he responds evenly. "Your bed is on a scale, which deducts the weight of everything but you. Not only are you seriously underweight, but you're anemic and your vitamin D levels are very low."

"I'm really strong."

"I'm sure you are. But keep doing what you've been doing and you won't be. I don't mean to sound like an alarmist, Detective Beckett, but it's clear that whatever it is that you've been eating—and medical experience tells me that it hasn't been much—lacks anything like the nutrients that you require."

"Fine. I'll start eating more. Better." She's 30 years old and he's treating her like a surly prepubescent.

"I'm glad to have that assurance. Nonetheless, I'm going to keep you here tonight and tomorrow night, and give you instructions to follow up with your own doctor immediately. This IV"—he taps the line that runs from a bag on a pole to her arm–"will help you immensely in the short term. While you're here. Now, you need sleep. I'll stop by in the morning."

She mumbles her thanks and exchanges glares with Lanie who, unlike Dr. Field, has not left. "Night, Lane. Thanks for coming over."

"Not so fast, honey. I'm staying."

"What? You can't sleep here. Go home, please. I'll see you tomorrow."

Lanie folds her arms tightly across her chest and waits a full two minutes before responding. "On one condition. You eat the breakfast I bring you, and change into the clothes I'm gonna get from your apartment. And some makeup. You're paler than most of the bodies I ever see on a slab. And one more thing? Our conversation is not over."

Does she have to agree to all this? She does think it would be nice to have something clean to wear, so she nods without actually signing off on anything. "Thanks. See you in the morning." And just like that, she's out.

Lanie is so hyper about Kate's condition that she can't possibly sleep, and decides to stop at her friend's apartment on the way to her own. She'll pick up the things she needs and then in the morning go straight to the hospital. She and Kate exchanged keys a couple of years ago, just in case. She's only used it twice, once when Kate had the flu and once when she'd had too much to drink. It had never occurred to her that she'd need it for something like this.

The cab driver waits until she's safely inside the lobby, and she steps inside the small, rickety elevator. "If I weren't wearing these damn shoes I'd have taken the stairs," she mutters. When she enters the apartment and turns on the light she sees at least half a dozen mugs on the counter and in the sink–one of them with a broken handle, which must have happened when Kate fell–and nothing else. "I bet you've been living on coffee," she says. "Lord, almighty." The living room is tidy, almost as though no one has been there in weeks, even months. Everything is precise and pretty and orderly. And then she gets to the bedroom. The bed is unmade, the covers a tangle. The floor is littered with tee shirts, shorts, and a pair of yoga pants. The wastebasket is filled with tissues. Kate had left her desk lamp on, so Lanie steps over to turn it off. That's when she sees it, the only thing there besides her laptop and a mug of pencils: a pink WHILE YOU WERE OUT pad. A blush-pink piece of paper bearing evidence thats as incriminating as anything she's observed at a crime scene: Kate Beckett's confession of love for Rick Castle, signed and dated just hours ago.

TBC

A/N Thank you so much for the wonderful reception! I'm very glad to be back.