Chapter Three: Your face, oh your face.
He leaves Pete with his cell phone number and instructions to call him – if he ever needs to talk. And then Castle heads out to meet up with Paula and talk fundraising - because it helps, it helps to know he's contributing to research – to answers. It helps to know he's at least trying to prevent any other parent from ever having to feel this way. The way he feels.
Shattered.
It's going to be a long day.
"What are you going to do?" Lanie asks her gently, dark-eyes rising from reading the crumpled papers in her hands, compassion shining in the ebony depths.
Kate shrugs her shoulders helplessly at first, but then as Lanie's about to commiserate with her, the cop pushes herself up and off of her couch, straightens those same shoulders and declares,
"Fight. I'm going to fight," she says, a fire back in her voice that Lanie hasn't heard there in a year. A fire the M.E then promptly immediately misunderstands.
"Fight what, exactly? Kate – he's freely offering you half of everything," she says gently, pointing back at the papers in her lap. "More, if I'm reading this correctly."
Her best friend looks horrified.
Oh No.
"Fight to save my marriage," Kate clarifies quickly. "Lanie – the last thing I want is to lose Castle. I'd do anything to prevent that."
"Oh hunnie," Lanie replies, "Have you even stopped to consider that it might be too late?"
Kate's hazel eyes widen in fear, but she nods despite it.
"Of course I have," she says, the fingers of both hands rising and tangling in the honeyed mass of her hair, tugging on in frustration. "That's all I've been able to think about since those papers arrived. I know how badly I've handled this. I know what he must think," she says.
"Do you? Do you really?"
"Lane-"
"Kate, you abandoned them," she says harshly, using the tone as a wake-up call. "And I know your reasons must have seemed overwhelming at the time. I know you, I do. I know what you went through and I know you just vanished under the weight of it – but . . . "Lanie trails off.
"You can say it."
"Maybe you just aren't good for each other." Lanie says carefully. "No matter how much love there is there. Kate, when you're wounded you retreat. You retreat further than anyone I've ever met, and the wall you put up – Kate, it's impenetrable."
Kate sighs, "I know."
"It's hard to be on the outside of that," Lanie continues. "It wears a person down to be continually shoved away-"
"From the person you need the most," Kate finishes.
"You're both so different. You needed to grieve alone and he needed to grieve with you. And what got broken in the meantime – Kate, this may not be a fight you have even a prayer of winning. And for his sake – maybe you should consider that it isn't a fight you should have at all."
Beckett pales until she's almost white; flopping down onto the couch next to the M.E all the fight seems to drain right out of her.
"Please," she whispers as she grabs hold of Lanie's hand and holds on for dear life. "Please. Don't say that."
"I'm so sorry hunnie," Dr. Parish says in reply, "I'm so sorry - but I have too. Not just for his sake but for yours as well. You've both been through enough pain."
Kate lets Lanie wrap her up in a hug as her mind whirls. She doesn't want to cause Castle anymore heartache, that's the last thing she wants to do. Lanie's correct in that they've both had enough of that to last them ten lifetimes. But when she looks into her future – something she can once again do now after months and months of therapy – when she looks forward, she still sees him. In fact he's all she sees. And that's something that hasn't changed. The one constant of her life from even before they were together. He is still the one true thing that makes her life worth living, and without him – Kate can't think of a single reason she'd want to go on.
"I have to try, Lanie," she whispers against her friend's shoulder. "If there is any way, if there is any chance . . . "
Lanie hugs her harder, "All I'm saying is, you will have to live with it if there isn't. Can you let him go if it's better for him this way?"
No.
Kate's heart screams.
No, no, no. Never.
"Yes," is what she finally whispers into the air though. Because she knows she owes him that, more than ever before – to do what's best for him. "But I don't believe me signing those papers is what's best. Not in the long run. This is Rick giving up, don't you see? And he never gives up. Not in the face of bombs, or freezers, or hit-men. Rejections, odds, tigers – the man never, ever quits. He's saved me, the city, and the boys – more than once, because that's who he is, Lanie. The hero. That's what he does. And it can't possibly be better for him to change now – that would just be another tragedy."
Kate pulls back then, and the look in her eyes is so powerful that it steals Lanie's immediate response away. There's such a pure love, such a raw need burning in those gorgeous eyes of hers. And such awe, such faith in what she describes that it's stunning. Devout faith in her husband. Who he is, who he's meant to remain. Faith that she can overcome the gulf that's grown between them because of her, and most importantly – at least to Lanie, faith that it's the right thing, the only thing she can do.
Lanie smiles, she can't help it, because in her own heart she'd like nothing more than for her friends to be together again. "Okay," she says. "So then my original question still stands, Kate. What are you going to do?"
The cop swallows hard, her eyes showing her resolve but also an almost paralyzing fear.
"Go home," Kate says quietly. "I'm going to go home."
He get's back to the loft a little after eight pm and it feels like he's been going and going all day, and he has. Dropping his keys onto the kitchen counter Castle closes his eyes and takes a steadying breath, thankful that he's held it together today. His cell phone vibrates in his pocket and the writer pulls it free, lips turning up slightly when he sees it's from Alexis – checking in on him.
How did the meeting(s) go?
He knows she's not just talking about Paula.
Fine.
He sends back, before he adds.
He needed a friend. It's okay. I'm home now.
He waits on her reply, and when she just sends him a smiley face he knows she's stopped worrying and he's thankful for it. He's so sick of seeing worry in his daughter's eyes, can't honestly remember the last time he saw laughter there instead.
Things will get better, he tells himself. Even with the divorce looming and the financial settlement he's planned for Kate that will entail him selling this place and finding another – smaller – place to call home, it will get better. Shadows loom here, where everything both began and ended, and he's ready now, he's ready to let them go.
Shaking the thoughts away, for now at least, Castle heads for his bedroom and a more comfortable set of clothing as he tries to decide on whether or not he's hungry. He has trouble some days, getting food into his system, but it's been better lately and he thinks that tonight he might actually manage a proper meal – if there's anything in his fridge that is.
He pulls up hastily when he reaches the master bedroom though – the bed is rumpled as if someone's been laying on it, and Castle could swear he made it this morning. His eyes scan the rest of the space, before he makes his way into the bathroom, but when nothing else jumps out at him as disturbed he shakes it off. He must be forgetting, wouldn't be the first time his normally excellent memory and keen observation skills have lapsed this last year. He doesn't suppose he needs to dwell on it. Changing quickly into what was once a very fitted tee that now hangs on his thinner frame, and a worn pair of plaid pajama bottoms, the writer pads back out into the loft's great room. He's about to head into the kitchen and see what he can rustle up when he hears it – a soft thud from above.
Startled, Castle stands rooted to the spot.
It can't be his mother because Martha is out of town in the Hamptons. It can't be Alexis either because his daughter would not be texting to check up on him if she was actually here.
Listening intently he waits to see if he can hear anything else, and just when he thinks that maybe it's just his imagination running away with him he hears it again. A soft thud, and now there are footsteps, quiet – but distinctly there, and if he's not mistaken they're heading for the stairs.
Panicked the writer dashes barefoot into the kitchen, eyes scrambling for a weapon he rejects the idea of a knife outright, and instead grabs for the heavy iron skillet that sits on the stove. With it comfortingly in his hand he backs up, wonders if he should just leave the loft – raise a neighbor, surely this is the sensible plan? So he backs towards the door, grabs his cell phone as he goes past it and he's about to dial 911 when there's a movement at the top of the stairs that draws his gaze. And Castle drops both the skillet and the phone, knees almost giving out under him when he realizes who the intruder is.
No need for the cops apparently – seems they're already here.
Kate?
Oh my God.
Kate!
His wife has stopped just two steps down the stairs, and she's staring at him. Her mouth opens and closes but she can't seem to find any words to say.
He knows just how she feels and then his knees do give out on him, and the weight of four months without the sight of her, without a word of any kind all come crashing down on Castle.
The weight of bearing two losses, hers and Jack's just too great.
Castle folds in on himself as he hits the floor, and he wraps himself up tightly in a ball.
'Go away', he hears someone yelling, before he understands that it's him.
"Please God, go away."