Chapter Two: Dark skies tell no lies.

His legs are numb from crouching and the feeling is completely gone from his toes. When his back cracks as he finally straightens himself out to his full height, Castle bows his head – God, he feels old.

Raising his right fingertips to his lips he kisses them and then deposits that kiss gently against the cold headstone, fingers trailing over the roughened edges aimlessly. Eyes blurring as usual as the writer digs extraordinarily deep for a small smile, he can never bear to leave this marker of his son's small life without a grin for Jack. Jack just loved to smile and that's the thing about him that Castle holds onto now the most, the memory of those precious gummy, delighted smiles – and the pure joy they gave him.

I miss you, little one. I miss you so much.

The words echo around the empty spaces in his heart but stay trapped inside him, "Bye kiddo," is all he whispers into the early morning light, before he adds, "I'll be back soon." Because he will, he knows he will. For some reason although it always breaks his heart to come here, it brings him a weird sort of peace as well. And for Jack, it's the only parental duty left that he can fulfill.

The writer turns from the headstone with as heavy heart as he's ever had. He doesn't know why he felt the need to come here and confess to Jackson that he's filed for divorce from his mother, but he did. He confesses all his failures here now, makes all his apologies – and almost a year after Jackson Castle's death it's also the only place Rick can still manage to cry.

Away from the quiet sanctuary of line after line of memorial stones, lives lost, lives celebrated – emotionally Richard Castle's become something of a ghost. A shadow of a man who's 'larger-than-life' personality and charm once defined him as much as his chosen career did.

But that was before.

Before his baby died and his beloved wife vanished before his eyes, replaced by some 'emotional-fortress' dwelling stranger with blank eyes who couldn't seem to stand to be near him. His misses Kate every bit as much as the beautiful blue-eyed child she bore him, and he'll never get over the loss of either of them – not truly, but for his daughter and his mother he tells himself everyday that he will go on. That he has too.

Storm clouds are gathering as Castle heads for his car, but he doesn't even notice.

Back at the loft he mechanically removes his jacket and scarf, hanging them neatly into the closet before he pads with his head down into the kitchen on auto-pilot, startling enormously when he looks up enough to notice Alexis is waiting for him there.

"Jeez – honey, give a guy some warning," he says, determinedly twisting the corners of his mouth up into his best approximation of a smile as he wonders why she's here.

Alexis says nothing, just scans his face assessingly with wise eyes so very much older than her almost twenty-two years.

"You've been to visit Jack again," she says quietly and without judgment, but Castle still hears her silent pain even if there is not a trace of it in the carefully modulated tones of her voice.

He nods, "It's silly I guess, but-"

Alexis cuts him off suddenly as her slender form collides with his, and she hugs him as hard and as tightly as she can.

"Oh, Dad. It's not silly. It's not silly at all. It's just - you felt you owed him a confession about the divorce papers didn't you?" she whispers, and this time her emotions are carried in her voice loud and clear.

Castle bends his head and buries his face in his daughter's soft, sweet-smelling hair. Breathes the essence of her deeply into his lungs, and let's himself hold onto her for dear life now, when everything else – when all that remains is falling apart.

"Yeah," he murmurs, his voice breaking on the word. "I know it's crazy, but I wanted to tell him – I tried to explain – that it isn't what I want but that I need to set her free if I'm going to try and live any kind of life at all, I . . . "

He cuts off the rising swell of emotion, cuts off the flow of words, and Alexis just holds onto him, as she's been holding onto him for a year now. She's propped him up and tried desperately to keep him together in the wake of both her baby brother's death and her stepmother's desertion. It hasn't been easy. Not easy at all. Richard Castle is a man of deep emotions and hot passions, his devotion to those he loves almost limitless. Losing Jack was blow enough, but losing Kate as well almost ended him.

There were many days over the last year when Alexis woke from truly terrifying nightmares where the cumulative losses just swallowed her father whole. She still isn't sure that they won't, although since he got involved with the local SIDS support group a few months ago, she's been encouraged by the gradual but positive change in him. Being around other parents who've been through it, hanging out with the other Dad's – it's been a lifeline in the darkness that she's well aware her father has increasingly clung too as he came painfully to the realization that Kate was never coming back.

That she couldn't, because her husband was just too big a reminder of her son.

Alexis closes her eyes against the sting of tears and as ever tries desperately not to hate the woman she'd come to love so much, for doing this to their family. Kate lost her child, and Alexis always holds onto that fiercely as she tries to make sense of it. Of the way Kate walked away from all of them. Because Alexis lost her brother, and her father lost two of his three reasons for living, Martha lost her grandson. They all lost. Everyone lost. And things surely would have been better if they could have just stuck together.

That's where the reluctant hatred starts for Alexis, on those days when her own grief rises up and wants to swallow her; when she wonders whether she'll ever see a genuine smile from her father ever again.

Because the truth is she misses Kate too. Misses her steady presence, her gorgeous smile and her infectious laughter, the sound advice and the sense of security she'd come to depend on with Kate. She'd believed so fully that she'd always be there.

And it sucks to be wrong.

It sucks to see the guilt in her father's eyes just because he's realized the only way he can stay sane is to accept the truth that Kate Castle is gone, and that if he doesn't let her go, if he doesn't cut the ties – he isn't going to make it out of this.

And he shouldn't have to feel guilty about it. Hell her father has tried everything and then some. And all he's ever gotten in return from her since it happened has been a stone-cold front of silence. It's all that any of them have gotten from Kate. It's like they don't even exist.

Her father pushes himself gently out of her arms, disrupting her inner musings.

"You want coffee?" he asks suddenly, striving for normality she senses, "I want coffee. You can stay and join me right?" His face is still lined with that ever-present sadness she knows in her heart may never vanish, but he's trying – for her.

So she nods.

"But you have that flavored whitener right?" she asks, then she blanches when his shoulders tense and she remembers that he only ever bought that stuff for Kate. Before she can open her mouth to apologize he says, "I do actually. There's some in the top of the fridge door, can you grab it?"

Alexis nods dumbly, grabs it and hands it over before the question is burning so hotly in her mouth that she can't contain it another second longer.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but you hate this stuff," she says.

"I do," he replies, lifting his straight black coffee to his lips.

"Then why it is here?" she asks.

The writer meets his daughter's eyes, "I guess I keep buying it for her – just in case," he admits carefully. "And I guess it's time I stop."

Alexis bites her lip, pouring the heavily flavored vanilla cream into her own mug to buy herself the time to formulate an answer.

"I mean, the papers are filed, and . . ." he says weakly.

"They are. Dad we've been over this."

"I know."

"For your sake Dad, that's all I care about now. For your sake you have to . . . "

"I know."

Silence descends over the kitchen for a long while, it's Castle who finally speaks.

"I'm heading to group, and then I'm going over some fund raising ideas for the SIDS Foundation annual dinner with Paula. Will you come?"

He's changing the subject, Alexis knows this, but she also knows that he has filed the divorce papers and if he is still holding onto some things from his marriage that she wishes he wasn't, now isn't the time to push him. Not with the anniversary of Jack's loss looming so close.

"Sure," she says brightly.

Castle nods.

"I'm going to get changed then," he says, setting his half used coffee mug down, and exiting the kitchen. Half-way across the loft he pauses.

"I'm trying, Pumpkin," he says without turning back towards her.

He is. She sees how hard he is. "Forget I said anything," she replies, adding "Hurry, Dad. Group starts in less than an hour and we've got to get all the way across town."

She hasn't been here with him for months, and the truth is she wouldn't have come today except that he asked her. Alexis listens to the father across the circle as he tries to speak through an avalanche of tears and her own are cloying and scratchy and choking her.

She's grateful her father has these people, but sometimes the newer members with the freshest losses just emotionally drain her. She hates bearing witness to the devastation this causes, because it's not just the loss itself, but the lack of meaningful answers when a seemingly perfectly healthy baby just dies.

Like with Jack – she'd seen him just hours earlier and he'd been so completely fine.

Alexis doesn't realize she's reached for her father's hand until the strength of his grip engulfs her trembling fingers and some of the overwhelming emotion recedes beneath his quiet calm.

"You'll get through it," she hears him say, and her eyes dart back to the dark haired man across the room from her, whose tear-filled eyes are now riveted on her father.

"How?" the stranger asks.

"A day at time. As we all do."

"But my wife, she won't talk to me," the man adds. "That's why I came here; no-one wants to talk to me about it."

"You can talk to me." She hears her father reply.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" she asks him when the group session is over for the day. It's still early but she knows her father had meetings planned.

Castle nods.

"I've texted Paula that I'll be a couple of hours later than I'd planned. It's okay Alexis."

In a booth at the Old Haunt Castle slides a stiff drink across the tabletop to his companion. The man cradles it between his palms.

"Little early," he murmurs, but there's a grateful smile on his weary face anyway. "What do I owe you?" he asks.

Castle shakes his head.

"It's my bar."

"Oh."

"My name's Rick," Castle says encouragingly.

His companion looks sheepish.

"Yeah, I know. I used to read your books," he replies. "I'm Pete."

Castle tries for an offended look to lighten the mood.

"Used to?"

Pete looks startled, "Well, I mean the last one was a couple of years ago . . ."

Ah.

"I was almost finished with the next one when my son died," Castle offers. "I've tried, but I can't seem to finish it. Well, at least not yet."

It's what he always says when he's asked about his work, but the truth is Castle doesn't think he'll ever write again. All the words in his head, in his heart still belong to Kate, and without her-. Well there's nothing for him to say. No story he's compelled to tell.

Pete nods.

There's an awkward silence, and then Castle bites the bullet – he's brought the guy here so he can talk to him after all. So that he can try and help. It's why he goes each week isn't it? To seek that understanding. To draw strength from the shared experience so he can make it through this. He's made some friends there now, and he understands that it's all about giving back. He's not sure he's ready, but he's drawn to Pete somehow. Maybe it's what Pete confessed about the way his wife's reacting. Maybe it's because Castle can relate so specifically to that.

"Son or daughter?" he says gently.

Pete bites his lip.

"Daughter," he answers. "That was your daughter than came with you to the support group today right?"

The author inclines his head. "Yeah. Alexis is from my first marriage, she's all grown up now, though. Light of my life."

Pete hesitates before he says," How old was your son? When it happened I mean?"

Castle takes a deep breath, he's learned from group to open up about it, but it's always hard. At least until he starts and then it often just comes pouring out like a floodgate opened. How sudden it was – just out of the blue, how unforeseen. How all-consuming the loss is, how all the hope seems to have vanished from the world.

"Four months," he says, the air whooshing out of his lungs. Four tiny little months that flew by, and then Jack was just - gone. The world was bright and perfect one day, pitch-black hell the next.

"I'm so sorry. My daughter, Sophie – she was eight months. And we thought we were past that point you know, I mean you hear that from six months on the risks are lower and we just . . ."

Castle nods. "I know," he says softly. "We all blame ourselves, Pete. I can tell you from experience that there isn't a parent in the world who's lost a child to this who hasn't second guessed and turned themselves inside-out with the guilt. It's inexplicable and unexplainable and though you do the things that they say lower the risks – the truth is, sometimes it just happens. And there is no one reason why."

Pete takes a shaky sip of his bourbon. "It's good," he comments.

"My finest."

The two men contemplate their drinks for a moment, before Pete gets up the courage to ask, "Your wife wasn't with you today?"

Castle shakes his head.

"No," he says. "Kate, she hasn't – I mean we're not . . ."

He struggles to say it. He knows Pete is terrified of his own wife's reaction to the loss of their daughter. Can it really help him for Castle to confess this? Before he can decide, Pete's talking again.

"My wife, she won't talk about it. She won't let me near her. She won't cry and she won't even look at me. It's been four weeks and she's gone to stay with her mother and I'm afraid she isn't ever coming back, Rick."

"She might not, "Castle says carefully.

The other man's dark eyes latch onto his. "So your wife . . . "

"Kate doesn't handle loss very well. And I knew that about her when we met. She lost her mother when she was in college – violently. And it changed, Kate. She built up walls so thick around herself to protect her from ever having to lose like that again. And then she met me. And years later when she'd torn those walls down and we'd gotten together I thought she'd made that change permanent. I thought her walls weren't needed to protect her anymore because we had each other. But when Jack died, everything changed back again. I could see it almost instantly. She just withdrew. Physically first of all, I mean we'd held onto each other for dear life the first day. But by the next one, she wouldn't let me so much as touch her. Then she couldn't be in the same room with me, or under the same roof. Next she stopped talking to me at all. And in all honestly, Pete - I haven't even seen her in the last four months. Not because I don't love her, or miss her or want her with every fiber of my being, but because every time Kate lays eyes on me I think I put her right back there again. To that morning when she found him so still and cold in his crib and her screams – I'll hear them forever."

Castle stops, shaking. Not that he isn't used to it by now he starts shaking every single time he relives it.

"So what do I do?" Pete asks him helplessly. "How do I stop that from happening, Rick?

"You can't," Castle replies. "But you can be there. You can keep reaching out, and in the meantime you do what you need to do to take care of you. Seeking out the support group was a smart move – we've been there. We'll be here for you. Alexis had to find the group for me and I've only been involved the last few months, since I realized that Kate, well that she wasn't coming home to me."

Pete looks stricken even as he's nodding.

"Thank you," he says.

"No thanks needed, I'm not sure how much help I've been." Castle replies.

"It's good advice, Rick. And at least I've found a place I can talk about it – people I can talk about it to."

The silence this time isn't awkward, or heavy – more companionable, and then Pete breaks it.

"Do you resent her? Your wife I mean? For pushing you away"

Castle shakes his head. "I wish I could," he answers, "It would be easier to deal with than this ache, this endless ache that never – not for a second - goes away."