Originally Published: 03-04-11

Author's Note: Based on 'Count down' season 3 x17. Not proof read. Kindly excuse the errors which you may find.

A day of repentance

Date 28th Feb 2011.

-10 pm :

I'm too tired to write but somehow I need to write this to keep my sanity…to face the world…to face her tomorrow.

Past 3 days were what shall I say, umm… yes that's the word…'the most incredible days of my life' in somewhat a twisted sense of the word. We ,which is ofcourse me and Kate …we were pushed into 3 life defining moments of our life and every time I thought I lost her, somehow miraculously I got her back.(hah… "I got her back" seems somehow too hollow now, for she never was mine to start with… and sadly I doubt she ever would be…)

Hmm actually this is why I needed to write out my feelings today because today somehow I don't seem to contain it too well. I feel I'm going to burst out of all the pent up angst and sadness… I don't know I…

Ok let me start from the beginning, may be I will find where I'm going wrong then may be I will find why I'm not the one in whose arms my Kate found solace tonight…may be just may be I will find a way to win her back…

I met my future love of my life in one of my usual book launch parties...Well not so very usual because I had just popped a bullet through the head of one of my most prolific protagonist till then… Derrick Storm. And just when I hadn't even completed my sentence to Alexis about how uneventful life had become, there she came dashing in as a fresh waft of cherries. She pulled me with her into the twelfth with her some kind of magnetism that I didn't know what to call it then. And suddenly life had taken a turn for all things awesome… all things EXTRAORDINARY.

We solved a case together. (That was the first time I started using a 'WE'…and somehow seems so distant yet too close to me…) I was enamored not only by her beauty but by her intelligence too… she was nothing like any one else I had ever met… she was unique. I knew I needed to have her in my life and at that time when I really dint know what was it Do REAL, I casually yet hopefully suggested a dinner date to her. She being the ever smart one quickly without even batting an eyelid understood my hidden meaning and brushed me off. And the sweet whisper she whispered into my ears that evening still rings fresh in my ears from time to time… "You have no idea."(And I'm sure she really had no idea what those four words did to me for that was the first day she debuted in my dreams and had ever since possessively made it her own territory.)

Well now thinking back, I guess there lays my first mistake, by making her think all I ever wanted was to spend a night with her. I wouldn't deny that at first there was an indescribable physical attraction which was no way related to anything emotional but that had had changed from the very moment I saw her emotional ,compassionate side. I don't know whether it was Love from that very moment I came to know the real Beckett but it certainly was much more than that mindless physical attraction that had drawn me to her at first.

Then there was me poking and prodding into her mother's case. I really wanted to help her, but somewhere I guess my ego too was a cause, for I believed somehow It was up to me to solve it, that I was the one who was destined to solve it or something…I seriously don't know what had gotten into me that night when I saw those frustrated pent up tears in her eyes, I just wanted it to make it go away..To make her completely happy again even though I had never seen her like that; I simple needed to make it happen.

But I had unknowingly or knowingly crossed a line then which I ought never to cross. I guess that was my second mistake and that was the first time I feared loosing her… when she told me to go away and never to return to her life… I felt that my world was ending so untimely. (I should have known then itself how much I liked her…may be that was Love right there and I was a fool enough not to notice… sigh…)

Then there were the sagas of the 'deep fried Twinkies', Ellie Monroes, Bachelorette no-3s and so on which I mindlessly almost if I should say so now, stupidly regaled to her. (I mean what was I thinking? On one side I wanted her to take me seriously and on the other there I was regaling all these stupid tales to her! I must have had completely lost my mind then… But then again I knew somewhere in all those stories I wanted to see at least one emotion I was hoping for…I wanted to at least see a hint of Jealousy in her eyes… But somehow I did never see what I wanted…)

But funnily though she was knowingly or unknowingly able to evoke that emotion in me a numerous times; and yeah, so effortlessly too. Every time she showed a little more concern about some other man, something in me burned silently which always left me surprised rather than anything considering I never was so possessive about anyone in my whole life ,well other than my daughter ofcourse.

But strangely going through all this I actually don't know when it became Real with Kate… I mean who would believe Richard Castle; the ultimate playboy (as all the magazines dub me) would do real? I don't blame her that she doesn't believe me… but that doesn't shadow the fact that I'm hurt every time I think she doesn't believe me. Like the time I asked her to come to Hamptons with me for the weekend. I didn't have any wrong intentions (And hello! I'm talking about my Beckett; my Kate, how can I even have one?) But she, she just blatantly lied to me… and that too for what? For going out with that…that… I don't know for so many abusive words are coming but somehow don't want to write those words in the same page I'm writing about her.

And there goes my next mistake… My stupid heart got the better of my head and I ended up ruining something which I treasured the most and did exactly what I feared shouldn't happen ever…I left her alone. I had been so jealous and angry about the whole situation that that night I decided running away from her life that too with Gina of out everyone in this whole wide world was a better option than standing there and waiting for her to give me atleast a side glance. (I know there was no chance I would have known that he would be out of her life in no time… and by now I could have been in the palace of that wretched motorcycle boy. But that doesn't justify the very thing I was trying to prove to her…that I can do real too… for I just tucked my tail under my legs and ran away at the first sight of trouble leaving her alone. God forbid anything bad would have happened to her at that time…what would I have done? Would I have been able forgive myself? Or for that matter even live?)

But thankfully my fate had given me one more chances…I had won the bet (which I still doubt whether I had won it fairly…) and she welcomed me back into her life. She didn't know how much of my life depended on that stupid bet and how much I had missed her in those painfully slow three months. True I had Gina, but I have had Gina before too and had that ever made a difference? Almost everyone knew including me and Gina herself that it was just a distraction, just something temporary to keep our minds occupied. For her it was to keep her distracted from her busy professional life which didn't give much time to socialize with somebody new and for me it was simply obvious I believe for anybody who knew me… it was a distraction to keep myself away from her at first and then it became a distraction to keep her from knowing how much I cared for her fearing she might just shun me away.(May be all that was a mistake ,mistake of me thinking that she might get scared and shun me away …in fact I believe it was me who was scared of her rejection and just didn't man up when I needed to and tell her how much she means to me and now I may have just lost my chance.)

Then came the most frightening and at the same time exhilarating 3 days of my life. On first day when I was worried sick that we both may die of radiation poisoning and had lost all my hope, out of nowhere in that eerily white tent her words were like an enormous rainbow of hope. She for the first time in all the years I know her confessed to me about her relationship. And when she said that Josh might not be the one for her… my heart literally just jumped out of its resting place! It was a weird emotion I felt at that moment considering there she was; the love of my life telling me that she wanted someone which in every description felt like me to be with her but at the same time her sadness about yet someone else she trusted having left her alone and the fact that we both may not survive that very day as God knows we may just die of radiation poisoning that same day…was all too overwhelming. And at last when I found my voice to tell her something which I always wanted to tell her… there was the bitter good news being announced with the irritating sound of a zipper. (I didn't know whether to kill that man or hug him for that!)

Then the most frightening freezer incident happened and this time I was sure I had lost her. More than the chilling ice the thought that I might never see her alive and that she was dying in my very arms was more chilling than everything I had ever felt. But that made me realize one thing… the thing that if I want to die in some way it would always be in her arms for even the thought that I was dying would seem peaceful if I'm with her.

But then when I woke up to good news given by my worst nightmare. There was that Josh whom I wholeheartedly detest without any sane reason other than that he is the one in whose arms she always is… who was telling me something I very badly wanted to hear…that she was fine. (Somehow I keep wondering whether she wanted to actually say something to me on those very lines which I wanted to say to her in that freezer. Well anyways that moment had passed thankfully. )

Then later in the day there was the ultimate terror for everyone who was residing in our city… (Well not everyone knew they were going do die at that moment but still the threat was as real as it could have been) But for me being with her at that very moment didn't seem so frightening as it was in the freezer for there I thought I might survive and might not and that thought was more frightening to say frankly. But still the scare of getting blown away was there; after all I'm a human too. And by some fluke stroke of luck I just yanked all the wires holding her hand tightly in the other. And the result? Here I'm writing this and there she is well… there she is with him at the moment.

Then for the second time in past 3 days after 3 death defying situations I gathered my courage enough to ask her out and my villain fate played a dirty joke at me again. And I ended up watching her in the arms of another man once again while I retreated back to my fort here, defeated altogether.

And so here I am after watching that dreadful sight and returning to an empty house (which didn't help my mental state much) thought pouring my heart into paper will lessen it to some extent. But now I guess in the typical hopelessly lovelorn man fashion, I need to drown my miseries in that throat-burningly bitter amber color liquid till I loose my senses to completely to get over this sinking feeling in my heart. (I know the solution is not this simple... but well a man got to at least try to live right?)

hmm..so until next time my dear…

-Rick.