A/N: Last chapter before I'm off. Once again, thanks for the reviews for the previous chapters, I'm sorry I couldn't reply them (yet)... Here's your warning for profanity in this chapter - not sure if it's allowed in T-rated stories, but i'm just going to go with it. Beta-ed by Diana :)
The room remained silent for a few minutes after Kate finished her story. She looked expectantly at Lanie, who had yet to say a word. It was very uncharacteristic of her.
"Kate… Why didn't you tell me this from the start? And regardless of that, going to DC for 3XK? That may have been one of your reasons for leaving New York, but why couldn't you bring Castle along?"
"He wanted more, and I wanted to give him more out of life. Chasing Tyson's shadow would've-" Kate broke off, stopping herself. She'd gone over this in her mind too many times to count. Kate sighed.
"He deserved more than that, Lanie."
"What are you talking about, Kate? Three years ago, that man would've gladly followed you to the ends of earth! Do you know that?!" Lanie pushed.
Kate exploded. "I know, okay! He proposed to me!"
"What?!" Lanie asked, looking shocked. "Why is this the first time I'm hearing this? Why didn't you mention this before?!"
Kate got out of her seat and began pacing about.
"I kind of didn't want to bring that up."
"Wait, is this where you got the whole 'Castle wanted more, and I couldn't give it to him, so I decided to go to DC alone' thing?" Lanie mimic-quoted Kate's words back to her.
Kate gave her a look of exasperation, flopping back down onto her seat. She groaned tiredly. "Look Lanie, I don't want to talk about it, okay."
"Okay, I'll back off for now, but you know you gotta tell the boys and Castle soon. They deserve to know that."
Changing topics, Lanie asked the next biggest question on her mind. "Why didn't you keep in touch? I know that we're both busy, but at some point it was just radio silence from your end. I lost my best friend, Kate," she trailed off, some of the remaining hurt and insecurity showing through. "And the boys? Kate, they felt abandoned – you really hurt them, and they didn't even know what they did to deserve that. I can't even imagine what Castle must have gone through."
"I'm sorry, Lanie. I… I missed New York and my life here with you guys so much. I guess eventually it was just easier for me to stop trying to keep up with your lives here. Out of sight, out of mind, you know?"
"That was a cowardly thing to do," Lanie told her, frank but gentle.
"I know," Kate admitted. "I'm not proud of it."
They refilled their wine glasses, halfway through the first bottle already.
"How…" Kate cleared her throat, trying again. "How was Castle? After I left…"
"Did he take it badly?" Lanie finished Kate's sentence when she fell silent. At Kate's small nod, Lanie answered. "Yeah, what did you expect? He holed himself up for a week. Alexis even returned to stay at the loft for a while, and the boys and I checked in on him frequently. Then one day he just returned to the precinct. Gates didn't kick him out, so he's been working with the boys ever since."
"Has he… dated anyone?"
"Not seriously, no," Lanie told her. "And even when he does date, it's mostly for events and things like that. He's been focusing more on his work, and he's gotten quite active with getting students and kids to start writing and reading more, volunteer work and stuff like that."
"That's good for him," Kate murmured.
"What about you?" Lanie asked. "What's this I'm hearing about you and one of your agents, Dom, was it?"
Kate grimaced, tilting her head to signal Lanie to continue with her questions while Kate drank more wine.
"Javi says the two of you are… casual partners?" Lanie settled for the only polite noun in her vocabulary.
"You can say it, Lanes, we're FBs. No strings attached, no mess involved. Until my stupid team blabbed it to the boys, that is," Kate said wryly.
"So how long have you guys been-"
"Fucking?" Kate supplied, the alcohol lowering her inhibitions.
"I was going with friendly, but that works too," Lanie replied with a smirk, raising her wine glass at Kate in a mock salute.
"Four months," Kate told her, referring to Lanie's earlier question. She waited Kate out in silence, and soon enough, Kate volunteered more information on her own.
"We solved a huge case, and went out for celebratory drinks. I was so proud of my team, but there was no one else to share the news with. I called my dad, but it went to voicemail, and I'd lost contact with you for over two years at that point. I finally realized how lonely I was. We were supposed to be celebrating life, but there I was, with nothing to celebrate. I got so drunk that Dom had to send me home."
Kate stopped herself at that point, taking a healthy swallow of wine.
"Anyway, one thing led to another, and when we woke up the next morning, the both of us agreed not to talk about it. About a week later we were hit with this case that was really complex, and it felt like we'd been flinging ourselves against the wall for days with no results. I was stressed out, and so was my team. Somehow Dom and I got together and decided to blow off some steam, and it helped. So that's how our arrangement began. No obligations, no attachments, no emotions, no mess."
"Well, you're both consenting adults and a girl has needs, so who am I to judge you, right? But you guys are on a break now, aren't you?" Lanie asked.
At Kate's silence, she repeated. "Kate, you guys are on a break, right? Kate?"
Closing her eyes, Kate covered her face with her palms as she groaned out her reply. "I kind of slept with him yesterday."
"What? Has your brain been so food deprived that it's gone to mush?! New York? Castle? Any of those ring a bell? The least you should have done was to respect what you and Castle had, and at the very least put your activities with Dom on hold!"
"Coming back to New York and Castle and the 12th was the reason I went to Dom! I didn't want to think anymore, okay, I needed a distraction."
"Will you at least consider the idea now?" Lanie tried persuading her. She knew that Kate could be bull headed at times, so Lanie tried a different tactic. "Kate, do you still love Castle?"
"I don't know," Kate whined, "I didn't exactly leave myself with enough free time to think about it, okay! I've just been trying to keep busy all these while so that I don't have to face it yet. I'm still running, okay!"
"Well, whether you currently still love him or not, there was a time that you did, and you would have never hurt him like that. So listen to your best friend, and go talk to this Dom guy, let him know that your arrangement has been suspended until this whole thing is over."
Kate nodded along, too tired to even make her own decisions.
"Good. So what's this Dom guy like?" Lanie's curiosity has been more or less placated for the evening, so it was time to move on to lighter subject. Besides, Kate looked like she was about to fall asleep real soon and there was still gossip to be shared.
Kate laughed, noting the change in the atmosphere and thankful for Lanie's perceptiveness. "He's actually a pretty decent guy. Just too much of a workaholic to maintain a relationship."
"So he's the male you?"
Kate chuckled, replying, "Sort of, I guess. But he makes more effort to do things outside of work, I think. I immerse myself in work so that I don't have to think about other things, so I guess that's where we're different."
"And is he good in the bed?" Lanie asked mischievously, waggling her eyebrows suggestively at Kate.
"Would our arrangement have lasted until now if he wasn't?" Kate shot back, smirking.
Lanie's only answer was to roll her eyes and throw a pillow at Kate's head.
A/N: See you guys in two weeks(ish). And I've kind of accepted the fact that I won't be able to make the minimum word requirement for the Ficathon Challenge in time, but it was still a fun experience and I definitely plan to finish this story. Thanks for reading. Please Review!