Lily glances up at her before she takes a tentative step forward, inching towards Castle with the caution that comes with uncertainty, but the wonder of discovery illuminating her gaze. And it steals Kate's breath to realize Castle's expression echoes their daughter's in that moment, to see the similarities in person, the shared features on display.

Castle looks up to her before he speaks, as if he's seeking her approval, and Kate nods, holds her breath as he musters a smile for his daughter that breaks her heart.

"Hi Lily," he greets softly, working so hard to keep his voice steady. "It's so nice to meet you."

Kate watches Lily shift, shy and unsure, before her quiet voice breaks the momentary silence.

"Hi, you don't look the same," Lily comments thoughtfully and Castle tilts his head in question, glances to Kate for help. But Lily begins to explain before she has to. "In my picture book Momma made me, you don't have a beard. Or a sunburn. Were you lost on a beach?"

"I - I don't know," Castle replies, his hand rising to touch his own face, the heated flesh and overgrown stubble.

"You don't know?" Lily inquires, shifting in closer, intrigued and concerned. Kate opens her mouth to save him the trouble of trying to explain, but Castle lifts a subtle hand from atop his thigh to stop her before she can.

"My memory is lost right now," he reveals with a sad smile. "I'm trying to find it."

"Oh! Mom can help, she's a detective," Lily announces with a returning smile that brightens her entire face. "And I'll help too, since Momma always says I'm a mixture of you and her and she said you used to help her solve all the mysteries."

An ember of memory sparks in Castle's eyes and he grins back at her, nods his confirmation. "That's right, we were partners."

"Yeah, Momma said you were even better than some of the real detectives on the force," she adds with a proud curve of her lips that has Kate's cheeks going warm, because he certainly never needed to know that. "Are you staying?" Lily asks suddenly, clasping her hands in front of her, hopeful. "Can you be… my dad now?"

"I want to," Castle lets out, a little breathlessly, meeting Kate's eyes over Lily's head with so much hope burning in his. "I really want to be."

"Great!" Lily beams, taking the final necessary step forward to reach out and touch his hand, pleased when Castle flips his palm to clasp her small fingers in his. "I'm glad you came back. We've been waiting forever."

Castle's smile crushes her, the shine in his eyes that he tries so valiantly to blink away. "Sorry about that," he whispers, but Lily shakes her head.

"It's okay. I know it wasn't your fault," Lily assures him. "Momma said you had to be trying to come home the whole time you were gone."

"I was," he answers quickly, trying to clear his throat. But his words still scrape past his lips, rake like sandpaper over his tongue, over Kate's pummeled heart, along her bruised ribs. "Because even though my memories are missing right now, there's no way I wouldn't have spent every second of every day trying to get back to your mom, to meet you."

Lily lets go of Castle's hand to step into his side, wrapping her arms around his waist and pressing her smiling cheek to his stomach.

"Just don't leave again."

Castle's large palm hesitates midair, hovering over the back of Lily's head before gently descending to cradle her skull.

"I won't," he murmurs, lifting his eyes back to Kate, holding her gaze with too much in his. "Promise."

He learns all about Lily in the hours that follow, her favorite colors and books, her favorite subjects in school and how she hates math, how much she adores her mom and drawing pictures.

"See?" Lily murmurs. She sits beside him on the edge of the hospital bed with a battered old notebook open on her lap, filled to the brim with pages of illustrations that are actually quite impressive for a six year old. "That's where I imagined you went."

Lily points to a page covered in a melange of greens and browns, a dark sky. The woods.

"Lily," Kate interrupts from the chair in front of them, but Castle catches her gaze with a subtle shake of his head.

He can handle this, can handle witnessing his youngest daughter, whom he only learned the existence of a few hours ago, showing him physical evidence of the time she has spent wondering where her father went, where he's been throughout the entirety of her life.

"A forest?" Castle asks and Lily nods, sweeping her fingers over the page. "You think I may have been lost out there?"

"No, someone took you," Lily corrects, her brow scrunching ever so slightly as she stares down at the page. "Someone bad, like all the guys you and Mommy arrested."

"You could be right," he concedes, wondering just how close Lily may actually be to the truth with this theory.

The door clicks open as Lily turns the page, vibrant flowers blooming from top to bottom, and Alexis steps inside with an armful of folded clothes.

"Hey guys," she grins, lowering the pants and dress shirt onto the foot of the bed. "Dad, Doctor Xanders said he was going to be in to check on you soon, go over your discharge instructions, but you'll be free to go within the hour."

"You get to leave here?" Lily asks, her gaze swinging to her mother before he can answer. "Does he get to stay with us? Come home now?"

Kate sighs from the chair next to his bed and Castle quickly attempts to regain Lily's attention, pasting on a smile for her benefit even while his insides are twisting at the idea of going to a home without Kate, without Lily.

"I'm going to be staying with Alexis, but I'm sure you can come and visit-"

"No," Lily protests, closing her notebook and hopping down from the bed, leaving it at his side as she goes to Kate with a frown claiming her lips. "Momma, can't he come with us? Or can't we go with him and Lexi?"

"Lily," Kate murmurs, spreading her knees for Lily to step in close and reaching for her hands, but Lily holds them hostage against her chest.

"But we just found him again! He could disappear-"

"Hey," Castle calls softly, leaning forward to place a gentle hand on Lily's shoulder. "I won't disappear. I'm not going anywhere, trust me."

"You can't say that!" Lily argues, panic flushing her brown eyes, and Kate reaches for their daughter's face.

He watches Kate cup Lily's cheeks in her palms, gaining their daughter's reluctant but full attention.

"Lily, I promise, your dad's not going anywhere and you are going to see him all the time-"

"I want him to come home with us," Lily gets out, her voice beginning to tremble. "Why can't he? Don't you still love him?"

Kate's lips part and her cheeks flush, but the woman he knew is good at maintaining her composure, and she doesn't fail now. Kate reins in her surprise, her frustration, with a nod.

"Of course I do."

"Then-"

"What if Lily stays at the loft, just for tonight?" Alexis asks, shooting Kate an apologetic look. If Lily is anything like Kate, though, just as stubborn as her mother, Alexis's suggestion is probably as good of a compromise as they're going to get. "Like when she's stayed with me for a weekend?"

Kate purses her lips, but glances back to Lily. "Good idea, Peanut?"

"Yes, but…" Lily glances down to her shoes, pursing her lips in an exact imitation of Kate. "Can you stay too?"

"Lil, you and me always have fun together on our girls' weekends," Alexis chimes in, approaching their trio and descending to her haunches beside her younger sister. "Only, this time, it'll be a girls plus dad weekend."

"I want us all to be together," Lily whispers, huddling closer until Kate eventually hoists Lily into her lap. She drops her head to Kate's chest, muffling her next words, but not muting them. "I want us to be a family."

Kate closes her eyes, rests her chin to the top of her daughter's head, and he hates this. Hates that the premise of going home means separately now, hates that he has a little girl who barely knows him but is already terrified of losing him, hates the anguish carved into Kate's face at the dilemma.

"Okay," she concedes, wrapping her arms around Lily and rubbing her back. "But just for tonight."

Lily nods against her, Alexis sighs in relief, but the knot in Castle's stomach fails to loosen, the rock sitting atop his chest only growing heavier.

He wants to be a family too.

Kate allows Lily to ride to the loft with Rick, Martha, and Alexis, promising her daughter that she just has to return to the apartment to pack an overnight bag for them both and that she'll join them shortly, even though the idea still has her feeling as if she's on the verge of vomiting.

She isn't ready for this, could barely handle watching Lily with Castle all morning, the lump in her throat too thick to breathe past. She isn't ready to go back to the home she once shared with him, to be assaulted by the memories she has spent so much time mourning.

Kate collapses onto the couch in her living room with the packed duffel bag at her feet, buries her head in her hands and knots her fingers in her hair. She screws her eyes shut and practices those breathing techniques Doctor Burke taught her so long ago.

Oh, she should really call Doctor Burke.

"Kate?"

Her head snaps up at the sound of Tom's voice to see him coming through the front door, an ache beginning to form between her eyebrows, because she still isn't ready to handle this either.

"Hey," she murmurs, her brow furrowing as she checks the time on her father's watch. "What are you doing here?"

"Oh, it's my lunch break," he explains, lowering his keys to the kitchen counter. "I figured I should come by while you were at the hospital, get some more of my stuff. I packed a bag this morning, so I thought I'd grab it and take it over to Seth's now."

"Tom, I never said it was over," she sighs, but her husband purses his lips, comes into the living room to join her.

"Isn't it, though?" he murmurs, sitting down beside her on the couch, propping his elbows on his knees and twisting his hands together.

She doesn't know how to answer that.

"I knew from the start what I was getting myself into, that even if it was slim, there was this kind of risk involved," he adds, the corner of his mouth quirking with a hint of a smile that holds far too much sorrow. "I always thought you were the one that got away, that we could have been so great together. But I knew that you were still in love with someone else. That you always would be."

She can't gather the courage to look at him, to see the heartbreak on his face that she hears in his voice, and she hates herself for this, for hurting a man who has been nothing but good to her.

"I love you, so does Lily," she whispers. "And you do make me happy, make us happy, you have to know that."

"I do," he assures her, placing a gentle hand on her knee and squeezing. "And I love you too, Kate. So much. The last three years - getting to know you again, knowing Lily - have meant everything to me. Getting to love you for even a little while has meant everything to me. I just… know it's not the same for you, not enough. That it can't be."

She closes her eyes to stop the tears, her eyes already throbbing from the amount of them she's shed in just the last twenty-four hours, and leans into Tom's side, rests her cheek to his shoulder.

"If I thought you could love me while Richard Castle was alive, I would stay," he says, his breath shaking on its exhale past his lips. "But I can't - I can't watch you choose him over me again."

He kisses the top of her head and squeezes her knee one last time before he shifts to stand. And she lets him go.

"We can explain it to Lily together once things have settled down," Tom murmurs while she wipes at her eyes, staring out the windows behind the sofa and squaring his jaw to keep his emotions in check. "For now, just focus on making sure that you're both okay."

He forces a smile for her and turns towards the bedroom, but if this is how it ends, she has to say her piece too.

"Tom," she calls before he can go, standing from the couch and drifting close enough to touch his arm. "You always deserved more than this, deserved someone who didn't make you feel like anything less than first choice. Just - don't ever forget that."

He hugs her, strong arms around her that have comforted her too many times to count. But the embrace is brief, drenched in a goodbye, and he releases her after only a handful of seconds.

"I'll see you," he breathes, disappearing into the bedroom to grab a thick suitcase of clothing. He hauls it out the door without another word, without looking back.

She watches the door for a moment, allows his absence to spread through the apartment, through her.

When he proposed to her, her acceptance was reluctant, all wrong, but it felt like a logical next step, a potentially good example for her daughter. She didn't listen to the quiet but sharp revolt in the hollow of her heart, the tug in her gut when he slid the ring on her finger, and she regrets that even more now. For his sake, for Rick's too.

Kate stares down at the silver wedding band on her finger from the simple ceremony they had at the courthouse just under a year ago. He wanted a big wedding in a beautiful church; she deemed any kind of formal ceremony as cursed. And of course he settled for what she wanted, he was always settling.

She leaves her wedding ring on the nightstand that borders what had been his side of the bed and then follows Tom's footsteps out of her apartment.