It's half two am and I'm not even tired, this is crazy, I haven't been able to stay up this late in moooooooooooonths. It also really does not help that iPlayer has a load of films AND I WILL KEEP WATCHING THEM, CURSE YOU BBC. Currently watching Flushed Away. Mmm Hugh Jackman with an English accent. Now he's singing. Halp. (No, I clearly don't have a crush on him).

Disclaimer: I got so much chocolate for Christmas help me I can't stop eating it.

"You think I'm crazy."

"You're not crazy, Rick. You're grieving."

"Feels a lot like going crazy," he grumbled, "seeing my dead wife everywhere."

"And you know that this version of Kate you're seeing isn't real. You know that she's dead. Some people, they start to believe that who they are seeing is real, they interact, go about their life like it was before. But you know, and that's the first step."

"What's the second step?"

"Well, why do you think you're seeing her?"

Castle ran a hand through his hair and turned towards the window, staring out of it at the pure sunshine outside. He likes this room. The height gives him a panoramic view across New York, right now, clear and bright from the clear blue skies. The sound of traffic doesn't reach them up here, and even though he hasn't left the city, he feels like he's broken away from it. Has left it behind. "Rick?"

"I guess… there's part of me that doesn't want to believe that she's gone. I still believed that she was still in there, when she was in the coma, that they were wrong to turn off the life support, that she'd still come back. And maybe I'm holding onto that. Maybe this… the Kate that I'm seeing is the part that I'm holding on to."

Diane nods, unfolds her legs to cross them the other way. Castle isn't quite sure what he makes of the therapist. She's nice, sure. And she doesn't mollycoddle him, doesn't tell him he's wrong or he's being stupid, or crazy. And he likes her. He does. It's just… there's something that he can't quite put his finger on. Her eyes seem a bit too blue and her hair a bit too blonde. Too perfect. Trying too hard. But, he's not going to lie, she's good at her job.

"Does that make sense to you?"

"I… I guess. I mean… it still doesn't explain how I get rid of her. If I know she's not real…"

"Maybe you need to convince yourself. You know she's not real. You know she's not your Kate. But maybe you need to be convinced that Kate really had gone when you switched off the machine. What did the doctors at the hospital say?"

"That she was gone. That there was nothing they could do, and I should let her go."

"And as clever as you are, surely the doctors would know more about her condition than you would. They were doing their job, Rick, if they had any hope that she would come back to you then they'd be doing everything they could to make sure that happened. But all the tests they'd done, they would know. You have to trust that."

"What if the tests were wrong?"

"You sent her to one of the best hospitals in the city, the best doctors money could buy."

"Money doesn't stop tests being wrong. It doesn't stop something malfunctioning, or something to print out wrong, or-"

"Richard. It's happened, and you need to move on."

Castle huffed and tipped his head back against the chair. "She won't let me."

"Is she here now?"

"Not today. She's sulking. Doesn't want me to do this, she thinks I'm abandoning her."

"She's told you that?"

"No. She doesn't talk much. I can see it in her eyes. It's like… she's disappointed in me. And I've only ever seen her look at me like that four times. There was the time when I looked into her mother's murder, even though she told me not to, the time when I was stupid enough to invite my ex-wife to the Hamptons, when I kept her mother's murder from her, and this morning, when I left. And I've seen her angry, she's yelled at me and she's screamed and cursed and walked out, and I can handle that because I knew she'd come back, but this…"

"Except she's not disappointed because she's not real."

"Doesn't mean that it hurts any less."

"I know, I can understand that. Okay. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to visit her. Before our next session, I want you to go and stand at her grave, for however long you're comfortable with."

"And what's that supposed to do?"

"Well, you've not visited since the funeral, and she appeared as soon as you got back. So, maybe, if you visit her grave, that part of your brain will realise that she was gone. Can you do that?"

"It's worth a shot."

"Okay, good. I think we'll end it there, same time next week?"

The sun is shining straight through her when he gets home. It makes her seem ethereal, like there's light spilling out of her skin, running like gold thread through her veins. He leans back against the door, listens to the click of the lock. She doesn't turn around to look at him, stays curled up on the window seat, forehead pressed against the glass. She's sad, he can see that, but at least she's not looking at him with those bottomless hazel eyes. Alexis has left him a sandwich wrapped in cling film on the kitchen counter, along with a note telling him that she's gone to the cinema and she'll be back soon. He eats because he knows he has to, rather than because he wants to, and it tastes like cardboard against his tongue. He doesn't want to go visit the grave. It's the one thing that he's sworn he would never do, can't bear the idea of standing in front of a stone that has her name on it, followed by two dates that are too close together for his liking. For anyone's liking. He'd rather make peace with Jim Beckett than visit her grave, and he hasn't spoken to Kate's father since the hospital, couldn't even look at him at the funeral. He supposes, now that he's had time to actually think about it, to think about Jim's reasons, he can understand why he felt he had to sign the papers. Really, did Castle ever really believe that he wanted to lose his daughter, the only family he had left?

Maybe he should go and see him, make amends. Even if it's too late, and his friendship with Jim is permanently ruined, at least he's tried. So that's two things. Two things that he'd rather not have to do, or think about, but he supposed he has to. He just needs to decide which one to do first.