The response to part one of this story was lovely, thank you all very much for your reviews/favs/follows. One more part after this.

Ruins

Part 2:

The whiskey wasn't helping; not that Beckett had really expected it to. But there had been a moment when she'd just entered her apartment and she'd told herself that the whiskey would help. She'd told herself it was the better option. In that moment, before she'd set her things down or turned on the lights, she'd felt the bile of the last weeks rising from the pit in her stomach to the ache in her throat and threatening to come wailing out. She had closed her eyes and felt the pull of despair and the passing desire to collapse and cry.

But that was not the version of herself that she was willing to be yet, at least while she still had some fight in her. So she'd turned on the lights and put her things down and retrieved a tumbler and a bottle of Basil Hayden that Castle had brought her one day saying it was, "The best whiskey he'd ever tasted" and to, "Save it for a special occasion."

Well, Beckett thought wryly, this probably wasn't what he'd had in mind. She poured herself a glass and took a sip while she was still standing in the kitchen, leaning a hip against the counter. It was as good as Castle had promised, but she didn't find any pleasure in it. Sliding onto a barstool, she sat numbly and turned the glass in her hands, looking into the amber liquid like a lonely person might look into a fortune teller's crystal ball. That is, not believing in any magic, not seeing any answers, but hoping they were in there anyway.

Beckett set her phone down next to her glass on the counter and considered her options. She could drink herself into oblivion, or she could give him a call. She drummed her fingers on the countertop, one hand teasing the edge of her phone case, wondering at the implications. But the thought of being on the wrong end of another of Castle's bitter quips sent a wave of anxiety roiling inside of her.

So she tossed back the drink, curling her lip through the burn and wishing for either courage or apathy. Whichever the alcohol would like to provide was fine with her. She quickly poured and tossed back a second glass but hesitated when she tipped the bottle to pour a third. Was this really the gravel road she wanted to go down tonight? Drinking socially was one thing, but she'd seen what the acrid combination of alcohol, grief, and loneliness had done to her father.

She set the bottle back down and let her head fall into her hands. She sat there for long moments, feeling too much but not thinking, wondering only if she should just go to bed. Then her eyes fell to her phone again and she straightened up. To not make contact tonight would be an admission of defeat. And Kate Beckett rarely accepted defeat so easily. So Beckett inhaled noisily through her nose and woke her phone with a tap and held it gingerly, as if the device itself was coiling to strike.

The loud knock at her door startled her so badly she fumbled the phone and then inadvertently kicked it when she tried to use her foot to break its fall. She teetered dangerously on her barstool while her heart rabbited in her chest. Her reflexes were too slow for the knocker and they knocked again even more loudly. Hands shaking with adrenaline and now something very close to fear as she realized there was only one person who could possibly out there hammering his fist on her door at eleven o'clock at night, she walked nervously to let him in.

Castle stood rigidly in her hallway when she opened her door, glaring at her with that same look he had used right outside the bombed-out bank that afternoon. When he said nothing, Beckett found she had no idea what to say. She wondered what she would have said if she had worked up the courage to call him, but her mind was blank. She stood gaping at him and wringing her hands.

"Can I come in?" He growled the words.

Beckett stepped back and let him in. Silently, she shut the door and locked it, perhaps a subconscious desire to keep him there with her. Castle was prowling, moving slowly through her living space and radiating a kind of anger she had never seen in him before. She slipped past him and retook her spot on her stool, facing him over the wide expanse of the room. She waited, physically biting the inside of her bottom lip to keep from saying the wrong thing.

After a circuit of the room Castle turned to face her. Study her, she thought. He didn't appear to find the answers he was looking for, and he blew out a loud and aggravated sigh. Hands clenched at his sides, he finally said, "I'm really, really angry, Beckett."

"I can see that," she replied quietly.

"Don't you know why?"

When she shook her head no, his anger and disappointment visibly melded into a deeper bitterness that carved lines in his face while she watched. "I thought we knew each other," he muttered. "But maybe not."

"We do," Beckett countered quickly. "I know you Castle. But just… please tell me why you're angry."

"It's not your fault, I know that." She couldn't be sure if the sidestep was intentional, or if he was even really talking to her now. He seemed to be self-soothing, and she frowned that it was even necessary. "And maybe I overreacted."

With that thought, Castle turned to look at her intently. He seemed to be reaching conclusions while he stared, and Beckett tried not to squirm in her seat. Her favorite author, the person she trusted most to make sense of the world when she couldn't, was only confusing her tonight. She could make almost nothing of his words, other than the fact that he was, as he said really, really angry.

Some time passed in silence while the two troubled friends looked at each other. Beckett was waiting, because they were so obviously at a precipice here, a shockingly quiet ultimatum of fate, and it seemed it was Castle's place to make up his mind. The signs were subtle, yet positive. She watched his shoulders drop as he relaxed a bit, and he took the final steps to stand at the counter with her. His gaze fell to the whiskey between them.

"That's not really a whiskey for getting wasted," he remarked, once again letting a non sequitur divert the conversation.

Beckett shrugged. "Well I didn't end up wasted, anyway." It sounded a little defensive, but only just so, and she could live with that.

Castle tilted his head slightly, the first animation from him in many minutes, many days really, and asked, "What stopped you?"

Beckett ducked her head and felt the rare stain of shame on her cheeks. "I didn't want to drink, uh, to excess while I was… sad. And alone." The thought sounded even more pathetic when she voiced it. She wished she hadn't.

Castle stood looking at her with his face telling her nothing, every aged line a deep shadow telling a little bit of his story. Finally, he said, "Then don't drink alone." He took the bottle and glass, and with a brow furrowed in unnecessary concentration, he refilled her cup. "How many have you had?" he asked.

"Two." Beckett watched him frown at the glass and again he went still for long enough that it began to feel like regret. But then he looked up at her, their eyes meeting as he tipped the liquid down his throat in one swallow. One eyebrow lowered at the burn but he remained otherwise unmoved.

"Now we're even." He spoke quietly, and Beckett wondered at his choice of words. Then he filled the glass again and slid it toward her. Meeting his eyes where they hid in the stark shadows of his brow, Beckett drank about half of the glass and slid it back to him. He finished it off and brought it down with a too-loud clunk on the counter.

The alcohol was only beginning to buzz in her head, in her lips, in her fingertips. There was still this palpable tension and residual anger, uncertainty in the way they stood on opposite sides of the counter. But that whiskey induced buzz at last gave her the smallest boost of courage, so she swallowed hard and dragged a hand through her hair. She poured again, the slightest tremor clinking the bottle to the glass, and paused. She sipped and extended her arm along the counter, glass in hand. Before she relinquished it, she asked softly, "Have we ruined any chance of us?"

Castle gently took the glass from her, both of them watching as their fingers brushed before she released her hold. But he didn't drink. Instead he let his chin drop to his chest and heaved an exhausted sigh. Still speaking in his disconnected, stream-of-consciousness way, Castle said, "I almost died today."

That was neither an answer nor a revelation but somehow it felt like an opening, or maybe an offering. So she rounded the counter and took one of his hands to lead him to her couch. Castle blinked in surprise but followed with only the slightest hesitation, his fingers loose in hers. She gestured for him to sit first and then sat very close to him, so close that their shoulders brushed. She leaned in, risking another rejection and ignoring his widening eyes, and brushed her lips against the stubble at his cheek, as close to his mouth as she dared. Because even if he was angry, she cared too deeply for him to not show some physical sign of affection. Then she turned her head to rest her chin on his shoulder, avoiding his gaze so she could whisper, "It would have killed me, too. I wish…"

But her courage waned and Castle grunted his discontent and prompted, "You wish what?"

There was a pained pause in which Castle could feel her swallow harshly again. Then finally she mumbled, "I wish I could have been there for you. After."

She moved her hand as if to take his again but wavered and rested it just above his knee. Castle's fingers flexed but made no move to bridge the gap. "I wished you were there, too. But…"

He sighed, and Beckett wondered if he was going to continue. Then he did.

"…you lied."