Beatles 65
by RGoodfellow64
Chapter 4, I'll Follow the Sun
.
.
Disclaimer: Just look at Chapter 1 please; everything you've ever wanted to know but were afraid to ask about my disclaimer is there.
.
.
One day, you'll look / To see I've gone…
.
Everything was different now. Everything had changed. Everything was just…wrong. Wrong on so many levels.
Their Captain was gone. Kate was shot and now she was gone. Gone and evidently not caring whether her friends knew she was ok or not. And now Castle was gone too. Kicked out of the precinct by the new captain, a hard-nosed, no nonsense uncaring and unfeeling bi…she had to stop thinking like that.
Lanie sighed and put her head on her hands and just stared at the top of her desk. Castle, Ryan and Javier had worked almost twenty-four hours a day trying to find who shot Kate. Castle ran himself ragged and after a couple of weeks looked like he was the one who had been shot. But he kept on working. He worked so hard, and he worked so professionally that there wasn't a single person in the Homicide division of the 12th who didn't think he belonged there, unless you count Captain Gates.
Lanie sighed again. Evidently Gates was one of those people who had to make changes to prove that they are relevant. That they are in charge and know what they are doing, so the first thing she did was stop the investigation into Kate's shooting and then kick Castle to the curb. Not so much as a thank you, just get out of my precinct and don't let the door hit you on the way out.
Lanie picked up her phone again and thought about calling Kate. She knew the calls were going through, since Javier had Ryan test the signal and pulled Kate's phone records. Sure, it was illegal, but they needed to know what was happening and Kate simply disappeared off the planet!
The one person who never called was Castle. He kept saying that she would call him, and he seemed ok with that in the beginning, but as the days and weeks went by with no contact, you could see him literally fold in on himself as he wasted away. His shoulders slumped, he hardly took care of his appearance any more, and his eyes looked hollow and desperate.
She knew that he and the boys were still working on Kate's shooting, even though they denied it. They met several times a week at the Old Haunt, supposedly for a beer but they were always huddled close together, whispering, casting furtive glances all around the bar to make sure no one was listening. Because the Old Haunt had become more than a writer's bar, as Castle had wanted, it was also a cop bar and there were always members of the 12th there every night.
More times that she could count she'd walk in and see them all hunched over the table looking at something…something that would miraculously disappear by the time she got to their booth.
Yesterday marked the three month anniversary, if that's what you wanted to call it, of Montgomery's funeral, and Kate's shooting, and no one, not one of them had heard from her since she and her father left in June, and it was affecting Castle more than the rest.
While all this was going on, he somehow managed to finish writing a book and it was coming out next month. There were plans being made for him to promote it, and she didn't know how he would, or how he could. He had lost weight, his eyes seemed to be in a chronic state of red, and he looked and sounded exhausted. Beyond exhausted really, almost catatonic the way he acted at times. But somehow he kept on going, for her. For Kate.
Lanie sighed and looked at the calendar on her wall; next month Kate was supposed to come back to work. Lanie had no idea what she'd find when she did. Esposito and Ryan were frustrated by the case and cowed by the new captain, and Castle…Castle was a mere shadow of himself and was fading away with each day that passed without word from Kate.
Lanie found herself becoming angry. Everyone has been affected by Kate's shooting, not just Kate, but here she was running away and hiding from them all as she recuperated. Lanie knew how Kate operated, how she never wanted anyone to see her vulnerable, see her weak or perceive her to be anything other than strong and in control.
In a way this was also Castle's fault, since the first book came out, Kate has felt that she has to be as strong as Nikki Heat, has to be able to handle anything and everything on her own. Nikki just helped exaggerate those feelings in Kate. Still, remembering how ghost-like he looked last night at the Old Haunt, Lanie couldn't blame Castle for Kate's problems, he seemed quite capable of doing that himself.
She still felt angry and before she knew it, she had written a text on her phone. Before she sent it however, she stopped to read it again. It was full of anger. It was full of hurt. It was full of the pain of missing a friend and Lanie felt she had to send it to Kate. That Kate should be fully aware of what she was doing, not only to her friends, but to the one man who probably cared for her more than all of them combined.
She took a breath and pressed the send button, watching as the text made its way to Kate's phone. Because of Ryan they all knew her phone was receiving the texts, they just didn't know if she was reading them, although Lanie had a strong suspicion that she was.
There was a commotion at the door and she saw a body being wheeled in. She sighed and put her phone back in her purse, then walked out the door. She had work to do. She couldn't spend all her time worrying about her missing friend, even though she knew that is exactly what she will do.
.
.
.
AUTHORS NOTE: The Summer is flying by and still no Kate. We all know that Kate hid from everyone, not just Castle, and I wanted to show that it had an affect on those around her.