Rick woke up alone in the guest bedroom, realizing he had been alone for a while as he smoothed his palm over the cool sheets where she had slept. He pressed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets and sighed. He had been hoping that for once things would be easy, but the fact that she hadn't even remained beside him for the entirety of their night together said otherwise. Their relationship had yet to begin, but it already felt demolished. He never should have given in and let her into his bed.
Castle swiped his boxers from the ground, slid into the underwear and the robe he had hanging on the door. It was still early, barely six in the morning, and he figured she had migrated back down to his bedroom whenever she had slipped from the guestroom. It would work better this way, give him the time to avoid her and whatever reasons she would have prepared for why she doesn't want to get involved, why her words of wanting more last night were now void this morning.
But when he reached the bottom of the stairs, he saw that she was in his kitchen, in his shirt, making coffee.
She smiled when she saw him, a radiant grin that contradicted every negative thought he had just so bitterly had about her.
"Morning," she hummed as he came up beside her. "Made you coffee."
"Thanks," he said, dumbstruck over seeing her in nothing but a button down she must have stolen from his closet and over the brilliant and unwavering smile she hid behind her hair, mussed and tousled from where his hands had been the night before. "How long have you been up?"
She shrugged, sipping slowly from her cup. "About half an hour. I usually get up around five-thirty to go to the bathroom, thought I'd make you breakfast. Kind of," she chuckled, demurely lowering her eyes, but stepping closer to him. "But I was actually ready to go back upstairs and wake you up."
His eyebrows rose comically as she slid a hand onto his hip, canted her body into his, and looked up to him with a mischievous twist of her lips.
"Are you feeling okay?" he asked out of habit, saw the split flare of annoyance that she tampered down.
Kate laced her arms around his neck. "You cleared me for sexual activity, remember?"
"Yeah," he nodded, dropped his hands to her waist. "And it was definitely warranted."
"So you liked it?"
"Yes," he answered immediately. "Loved it, all of it."
She beamed up at him, toyed with the fine hairs at the base of his skull as she lifted on her toes, pushed her body into his. "Me too," she murmured, painting her lips along his jaw, down to his throat. "I think we should do it again."
Oh… no, he hadn't been joking the night before, Kate Beckett was actually going to be the death of him.
"I need to take a shower," he replied distractedly, his hands slipping under her shirt, skating up the curve of her spine.
"So do I, let's conserve water and put the shower chair to good use."
He was late for work. They broke the chair.
She was in the middle of the yoga tape she had picked up the other day when Rick entered the loft and abruptly slammed the front door closed behind him. She grunted and gracelessly stumbled out of her warrior pose, wincing at the tugging soreness in her lower body.
"Castle?"
He didn't meet her eyes, but she could see from the set of his shoulders that something was wrong.
"You're home early," she commented quietly.
He turned to her and - oh, he was angry. She stopped a few feet away from him and waited, giving him time to offer an explanation, but when he still didn't speak, only glared at her with fire in his eyes, she tried again.
"What's wrong?"
"You tell me," he spat, storming past her.
"What are you talking-"
"Don't play dumb with me, Beckett," he growled, jerking a bottle of golden brown liquid from a cabinet in the kitchen and slamming it down on the countertop. But she didn't understand.
"I'm still not following you."
"I lost my job today. Fired."
Her jaw fell. "What? Why? You're-"
"Because someone leaked my identity, Kate. Everyone knows. Fucking paparazzi are swarming the sidewalks right now."
"But how…"
Wait.
He was blaming her for this?
Kate crossed her arms defensively. "I didn't do this, Rick."
"Who else then? The only people who knew my secret were my agent, my publisher, and you. They have no reason to out me, so-"
"And I do?" she snapped back, stepping forward and invading his space.
He shrugged coldly, lifted the tumbler of scotch to his lips, but Kate snatched it from his hand before he could take a drink, poured the liquor down the sink.
His nostrils flared.
"I have no reason to share your secret either. I haven't said a word to anyone," she insisted, but the flaming anger in his eyes failed to dim. "You know what? I don't have to take this," she muttered, spinning away from him and heading for the door. She was not going to stand there and be accused of something she was positive she had nothing to do with, especially by someone who had claimed to care about her.
She had just slammed the door behind her - with far more force than necessary because if he could be immature, she could be too - but seconds later it was swinging open again and he was right on her heels.
"Kate."
She ignored him, punched her finger into the elevator's call button.
"Beckett, come back inside."
She kept her eyes on the elevator, waiting patiently for the doors to slide open and offer her an escape.
"I'm sorry, I was - I'm upset and I jumped to conclusions and I was wrong. I'm sorry."
"You don't trust me," she murmured quietly, still refusing to acknowledge his presence beside her, but not stepping into the elevator when it finally opened either. "I thought - after everything we've been through together, after last night…" she paused and breathed through it. "I thought trust was a mutual thing between us."
She glanced to him from the corner of her eye, saw the guilt and anguish blooming across his face, and she wanted to feel the satisfaction of making him see what he had done, but the mirroring pain in his eyes only made the wound he had caused plow deeper.
Kate scraped a hand through her hair and walked around him, back towards the loft's entryway.
"And now I can't even leave because I live here and there are people with cameras outside," she grumbled when she felt him fall into step behind her. He tried to touch her arm once they were inside, but she dodged his hand.
"Kate, I-"
She shook her head and looked back at him tiredly. "I need some time to myself, okay?"
She retreated into the office, into his bedroom, before he could say anything more. She couldn't handle anything more from him, not right now, so she stripped out of her workout clothes and slid into her nightshirt instead and crawled into his bed. Being engulfed in his smell as she burrowed beneath the covers wasn't much better than arguing with him, but at least here she could allow her face to crumple as she buried it in his pillow and cried freely.
He could hear her crying softly in his bedroom when he hesitantly ventured into the office. Castle - Rick - whoever the hell he was - fell into the armchair closest to the study's door and dug his knuckles into his eye sockets. He had made her cry.
It was obvious that Kate had not been the one to spill his secrets to the press, he knew that now and he had known it before, but he had just been so angry and overwhelmed and confused. Because it didn't make any sense for Paula or Gina to share his identity with the world, especially when they had signed papers to do the exact opposite. There was no motive either and before he had even properly taken the time to think it through, his mind had jumped to Kate – the only other person who knew the truth – and he had marched inside his home and thrown accusations at her like knives, watching as each word pierced her, but unable to stop until it was too late.
She wouldn't have done this, never would have done anything to cause any sort of betrayal, and he was an asshole for placing irrational blame on her simply because she was the only suspect left. He knew better than anyone that there was always a story, a chain of events behind every action, and he had failed to find it, failed to even look.
He wasn't sure he would ever be able to make this up to her.
His phone vibrated in his hand, shocking him out of his defeated state of loss and self-loathing, and Rick quickly stepped out of the office, traveled back towards the kitchen before he answered.
"Hello?"
"Oh, Richard dear."
Castle sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger.
"Mother, it's great to hear from you, but could I call you back? Now's not a good time."
"I know, darling," she sighed. "That's why I'm calling."