Chapter Three

Castle's phone started to ring almost immediately after the elevator closed. Her familiar ringtone covering the quiet whirring of the elevator made him cringe. He wanted to hear her voice, he always wanted to hear it, but she was also the last person he wanted to talk to. He had to get a handle on all of this first, so he hit the ignore button and dropped the phone back in his pocket.

A moment later it was ringing again and he groaned as he hit 'silence call' and stepped out of the elevator. He made his way straight out of the building without acknowledging anyone, hailed a cab and was climbing inside when she called for the third time. She was persistent, he had to give her that, but with a swirl of mixed emotions he hit the silence button again, this time keeping his phone in hand so he could quiet it more quickly. He was tempted to turn it off, but he had Alexis on his mind and she might need him for something or want to talk to him before she headed out for the weekend.

He was just hoping they made it through their drive without a half dozen more calls.

To his relief the voice mail chime sounded indicating she had left him a message, so she probably wouldn't be trying back for a while. He played the message, short and to the point. She sounded annoyed, and he wondered if it was just his imagination or if she actually sounded a little concerned. That was odd, but he was probably just projecting.

The way she said his name was so familiar from all the times she had reprimanded him with it, but the 'call me' almost sounded pleading. He wanted nothing more than to call her back if for no other reason than to make sure she wasn't actually worried. His finger hovered over the button to return the call, but he couldn't bring himself to do it.

Once he spoke to her, he knew he'd crack. He knew, in his current mindset, the first thing he'd do was ask about the ring and he wasn't ready to hear her tell him she was starting forever with someone.

He wasn't ready to hear her gush on the proposal. He wasn't ready to hear the excitement in her voice or to hear her pity for him. He wasn't ready to let her go and he knew that was going to be the last conversation they had before everything changed.

A boyfriend was one thing, it was temporary, it was fleeting. A fiancé was a step off of 'forever' and he knew her. Kate Beckett was dedicated. She was dependable, loyal and trustworthy. He knew if she made a commitment to someone, she would honor that. He also knew that she wouldn't make a commitment of that nature unless she was certain. He was sick with the certainty that she wouldn't even accept the ring unless she was positive, unless it was love. Unless she was completely certain that Josh was her 'one and done' and he knew the decision was already made.

Once the cabbie dropped him near Central Park, he began to wander the area as his thoughts wandered entirely too freely in his mind. He walked aimlessly and wasn't even sure how long he wove through the park and then through the streets of New York. He let his mind play over everything and tried not to turn any of his thoughts away.

He couldn't have stopped the thoughts that swirled in his head, even if he wanted to. He was flooded with memories of her laughing at him over one of his ridiculous CIA conspiracy ideas, building theory over Chinese takeout, sitting together against her desk as they bounced ideas around. Then with vivid detail he recalled the night her apartment exploded right in front of him, close enough that he could feel the heat, and he knew she was dead. Knew he had lost her. Climbed the stairs and broke down her door calling for her, but never expecting she would answer. He relived the joy of hearing her voice acknowledge his cries to her.

After a while, his phone rang again, this time Esposito was calling, but he knew it was just Beckett trying to use the boys to get in touch. He didn't want to talk to Esposito any more than he wanted to talk to Beckett. His head felt a lot clearer than it did when he had first left the precinct, but it still wasn't on completely. He wasn't sure if he could talk to any of them right now.

Sure enough, almost as soon as Esposito hung up, Ryan was calling him. He didn't understand why they couldn't just accept that he didn't want to talk to anybody right now. Sure enough, a minute after Ryan's call wasn't answered, Beckett's ringtone was sounding again. He couldn't take it anymore. He couldn't listen to them calling him while he was trying to think.

As soon as Beckett was finished calling him, he shot a text message off to Alexis. It was just a simple note to tell her to have fun and not worry about him. He got a quick response that had him smiling because he knew she was in school.

"Love you, too. Try to have some fun this weekend, but not too much."

Oh, she had no idea how little fun he was going to have this weekend.

He was currently fluctuating between fond memories and now expired visions of a future with Kate Beckett. The second was the worst. Over the course of his time working side by side with Beckett, there were a lot of little fantasies. Any time he flashed on a memory of a dream or a fantasy or even that rare thought he'd had occasionally when he got caught in her eyes and wondered what she would do if he just kissed her, he'd feel a hitch in his breath.

His level of anger with himself for playing it safe and never taking a chance with her was building to a subtly burning fury. The anger and desire to stop hearing her ringtone playing on his phone drove him to do something he never did, especially when he wasn't with his daughter.

Castle turned off his phone.

He felt ridiculous. He shouldn't be upset over something as seemingly insignificant as another person finding happiness. Especially when he knew that the person in question deserved to be happy more than anyone else in the world.

Beckett, of all people, had earned the right to be happy after so much hurt and heart ache in her life. He knew that, and somewhere inside as his stomach knotted, he knew that he wouldn't be the one bringing it to her. Once again, he would have to step aside, because it was the right thing to do. If it meant that she would be happy he would do whatever it took. Just not today, not right now. He couldn't handle it right now, couldn't even think about it without wondering if his heart was going to literally crumble in his chest.

Today he'd take the time to mourn the loss of the last vestiges hope for something more than what they had always been. However, first thing tomorrow, he'd force himself right back into the mold he had made for himself. Friend. Partner. He'd smile and say congratulations and really mean it, at least try to mean it, or say it enough times until the words didn't make him want to throw up.

Despite his completely screwed up and unvoiced feelings toward the detective who inspired him, not just in literature, but in life, he would smile. He'd congratulate her and congratulate Josh, that lucky bastard. He'd go to the wedding and bring a nice gift that she would tell him was too much and he would make a joke. He'd wish her happiness always, and despite the fact that today a piece of him died, he'd be happy on that day. He'd be happy that she had found joy in a world that for her was all too often bleak.

Not because he'd be over her. He couldn't see that ever being the case. Katherine Beckett was not the type of woman you could lose and it wouldn't haunt you for the rest of your life. No he wouldn't be over her, even though he'd never actually had her in the truest sense of the word. He wouldn't get over the fact that she had permeated so much of his life. When they were just friends with no hope for anything else, he knew he would miss her smile, her frown, the little crinkle between her eyebrows when she was stumped on a case.

No, he'd probably never recover from letting her slip away, but he'd be happy. He'd be happy because she was happy and to him, that had come to have a great deal of importance. Some days, seeing her smile was the reason he didn't mind getting dragged out of bed at three in the morning to go stand over a body. Some days, making her smile was his only goal and when he succeeded it was like a junkie's rush, he wanted to do it again.

When things got hard, she stood strong, she rarely cried. She didn't break because of her nearly unshakable strength, but sometimes he could see it. Sometimes he noticed the glisten in her eyes that was a fissure, just a crack in the foundation that foretold of the collapse that was coming. One look and he knew she was about to crumble in on herself and his mind went to work a mile a minute, trying to find something, anything, that would patch the hole until she could get home.

He knew she'd break once she walked in the doors of her apartment, out of the prying eyes of all those who looked up to her, but he needed to hold her together until she could make it there, so he would try to make her smile. He knew that the last thing she would ever want is to feel like anyone viewed her as weak.

How that word could ever apply to her, even in her own mind, was ludicrous. She was the strongest person he'd ever met. Her strength was both his favorite and least favorite character trait that she possessed. The thought felt weird in his head, but he put it in context with what he had been mentally rambling around and he felt the first flicker of positive thought since he opened that drawer.

If she found someone she could be vulnerable with, someone she could let in those walls she built up so damn high, then he could easily be happy, not for himself, but for her. She deserved it. She deserved to be happy and she deserved him to be happy for her, not mope around or make all the snide comments that started running through his head since the moment he stepped out of the precinct.

She was his friend, his good friend, possibly the best he'd had since the day his books took off and people started seeing him as something he wasn't. When people stopped seeing Rick Castle the man and started seeing Richard Castle with dollar signs.

She saw him for who he really was, even if sometimes she gave him grief about the fake him that showed up on page six. She treated him like one of the guys and he'd never had that, not even growing up.

Traveling with a single mom and practically living in a theater hadn't been conducive to his development of real strong male influences. He knew, to this day, he wasn't a particularly manly guy. He wasn't rough around the edges, couldn't throw a ball to save his life, he didn't have a single story outside of the bedroom to define his masculinity. Not until she walked into his life. It was an odd thought that a woman helped him become a man, but it was true.

Beckett and the boys at the precinct, along with at least half the force now that he'd been around so long, just saw him as a regular guy. After so long of people looking for what they could get from him it was nice to be surrounded by people who didn't look to him for anything more than they would look to the next guy for.

Humor, theories, coffee. These were the things she got from him, she expected no more, in fact she expected nothing. He'd like to give her more. He'd give her the world if he could, if she'd let him, but that was just another dream to tuck away deep in his heart only to take out on rainy days when he'd curl up in the couch with a bottle of scotch, because the world wasn't his to give her. Her new world would be built around a certain handsome surgeon.

The thought of Josh and scotch so close together had him grateful for the yellowed and discolored sign he saw two and a half blocks ahead of him. The tattered sign had him assessing his surroundings for the first time in a while and he realized he had walked himself straight into a rather seedy part of the city.

The streets were lined with rundown apartments, little shops, a strip club on the corner and a dive of a motel with a sign indicating that they had beds by the hour was situated kitty corner from the liquor store. Without another thought he made a tentative plan and his pace picked up for the last two blocks before he headed into the store.

He found what he was looking for quickly and stepped over to the checkout line, surprised by the lack of traffic in the store for a Friday afternoon. There was no idle chit-chat as if the older man behind the counter could see he wasn't in the mood to talk. Castle suspected his unwillingness for meaningless conversation was probably written clearly on his face.

The worn features of the man cashing him out seemed to project that he understood, even if he wasn't saying anything. After passing the clerk some cash, he was handed his purchase in a paper bag. With the bottle of booze in his hand he headed for the door, but stopped as he pushed it open. Castle turned to get one more glance at the man with sad eyes. He hoped he wouldn't turn into that man, but he saw himself in a future as bleak as the eyes that watched him leave the liquor store.

x.x.x

A/N: Sorry for the delay in posting since last chapter. As I told you, this is currently a side project and I'm so close to the finish line on my main focus story right now that I can taste the sweet, sweet victory calling my name. As a result I'm writing like crazy on it, five chapters a week, and I find myself breaking my 'no writing on Tuesday and Thursday' rule just so I don't lose momentum on that one while I work on this one, too. If I keep this pace I'll be done with Retaliation in a week or so and fully focused on this story. Until then, you'll get updates on this one as often as I can find the time and energy.

Review that made my day: Divamercury, who gave me a phrase that has been spinning in my head for two days now. I have a fan of my work. It is work, but its fun and I didn't even think about the fact that I might have fans out there. That's really quite amazing to me.

Thanks for reading.