Chapter 3

Disclaimer: The characters are not mine. Someday I'll have my own characters, for now I'm borrowing these.

"Dad thank you for a wonderful dinner tonight" says Alexis

"You're welcome kiddo." says Rick, smiling just for his daughter.

"I just wish Detective Beckett could have come too Dad. Are you sure nothing's wrong? You seemed distracted tonight"

"Alexis, things were just difficult at the precinct today. There are good days and bad days, sooner or later they get better. Usually. It's time to call it a night sweetheart. Sleep well. Tomorrow will be great!"

As Rick walks into his office, Alexis notices he leaves the lights off in the room, but sits down and just stares in the direction of the smartboard. Alexis gives some thought to walking in there, but eventually decides to just turn around and walk up the stairs and to her room instead. She senses that pushing right now may not be best.

Rick knows that Alexis is watching him through the bookshelf. Sometimes he wonders what the wisdom is in having his office built to be so open. But it's never really been a problem. He doesn't believe Alexis will choose this time to push and he is right. He knows his daughter.

Rick sits in the course it isn't really very dark. The lights from the city always provide a certain ambience to his office that is kind of nice in the dark of night. Mostly what Richard Castle was feeling is just darkness. A darkness he never thought he would feel in his soul. It's beyond depressing. He sits staring at the smart board, knowing that with a flick of the remote it would open onto the Johanna and Kate Beckett case files.. He picks up the remote and holds it in his hand. It's black and cold and steely. It reminds him of a gun, with one simple motion it can cause devastation.

He will dump all the information he has on the case away. Just like with one pull of a trigger someone will likely end Kate Beckett's life.

So, with a click of a remote and a click of a trigger all his dreams for a life with Kate will die.

Kate. Kate.

Rick can no longer sit in this chair and dread what is coming. I's time to hit the shower and go to bed.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

As Kate drags herself to the shower, she sees her work calendar hanging by the door in her bathroom. Kate keeps the calendar neatly laminated, on the wall in her bathroom. It has her duty roster for the month, and any appointments she's made. She always laminates it to protect it from the dampness of the bathroom. She lay her fingers on the calendar and thinks about all the things she and Castle have been through this last year. Nearly a year has gone by and she's still alive. Now she knows why. It's taken the deception of the man she loves most to keep her alive, and she can't forgive him for not being honest with her. They could have come up with a . They didn't have to lose each other because of secrets. Kate thinks about how ironic it is that this thing tearing them apart could've brought them together had they just been honest with each other.

Kate finally sheds her clothes and steps into the shower knowing this coming morning is going to be difficult. She so badly wants to find the man who shot her and bring him to justice. But for now she is distracted. She is thinking about all of the last year. The three months away from her friends while she was recuperating. How hard that had been, hiding away. She hadn't wanted any of them to see her, especially not Castle. Kate had wanted to protect him from the mess she had become.

"Katie?" There is Kate's mother's voice again.

"Why are you so angry with Rick? Didn't you try to protect him from how wounded and broken you were?"

"You were keeping yourself away from him to protect him, in case someone came for you again."

"It was ok for you to hide from him, to try and protect him? But it's not ok for him to want to keep you alive"?

Johanna Beckett's voice fades into the sounds of the water washing down over Kate.

As she stands under the water, so hot it's nearly scalding, she thinks back over the last year. The year that she apparently had, only because of a file, and because Rick insisted she wait to go after Johanna Beckett's killer at a different time. The water pounding down over her body reminds her of the Hudson river, of nearly drowning, but making it out alive because of Castle. There are several times they should have died, but they didn't. Castle and Beckett always stood together and found a way to get justice and be there for each other. They made a great team.

But not now. Now that is over. Those hopes and dreams are gone. Kate tries to concentrate on washing the day away, washing all the anger she is feeling towards Rick, but all she really feels is the heat pooling at her center. The longing for what is never going to happen now; Castle's arms around her, his mouth searing hers with his kisses. They'd only kissed once, but she knew when he kissed her again, she would never let him stop. That's the real reason why she kept him at arms length. She was afraid. But now, in the aloneness of her shower, all she wants is him. She wants his hands around her back, over her breasts, down her sides. She wants to feel him, be with him, Kate wants to break apart for him. Kate wants Castle, She just wants Rick.

That is lost now. Or maybe it was never meant to be to begin with, otherwise Castle would never have cut that deal. Never been so selfish to think he could make a deal for her life. Not his! Hers! Her own life. The life she was living being with men she didn't love to keep Castle at bay. And now here she is alone in the shower. Unfulfilled and facing the battle of her life without him.

"Fuck Him!" she thinks. " He made his bed. Now he can lay in it alone!"

TBC

A/N Thank you Diana for all of you help and encouragement.