A/N: If you're still hanging in there, I'm still writing. Allons-y...

Chapter 6: Night Caller

Previously...

"Good night," Kate whispers, stretching up on tiptoe to kiss Castle on the cheek. She lingers for a second with her hand on his arm and her lips by his ear, before she drops back to the floor, her scent filling his nostrils and making him woozy. "I'll call you when things get a little clearer."

Castle gives her a questioning look.

"With Gates," she clarifies, walking out the door.

"Right," he mumbles after her retreating back, so bitterly disappointed with himself.

He's scuffing at a mark on the hall floor with the toe of his shoe when she turns back to impart a feeble smile, her cheeks stiff from holding onto it, her facial muscles trembling.

"Text me when you get home?" he asks, giving her a hopeful look, since this is all he appears capable of offering her right now.

"Promise," she nods, raising her hand in a fleeting wave.

After Kate disappears through the open elevator doors, she manages to hold on just a second of two longer before crumpling back against the rear wall of the car, quickly having to press a hand over her mouth to stifle a despondent sob.

By the time she unlocks the door to her apartment she's more or less back to normal. Her tears dried even before she strode out into the lobby of Castle's building. Just a quick wave to the doorman and she was stepping out onto the corner of Broome and Crosby to hail a cab home, wind whipping at her hair, the mask concealing her heartache dropped firmly back in place.

She's trying to view tonight as a setback. While she might have had her eyes opened by seeing Castle again today, his epiphany may take a little longer. She assumes that he's been working hard to get over her, since some point in the last twelve weeks when it finally became apparent that she'd decided to forget about him, that she wouldn't be calling any day soon.

Her head feels heavy, her body sluggish, laden with an ache that permeates all the way to her bones. She flicks on the shower, leaving the water to warm up while she heads back to the bedroom. Kicking off her suede heels, stripping her grey t-shirt over her head, followed by her jeans, she's soon down to her underwear. Exhaustion licks at her skin, and she knows that if she sits down on her bed for even a second she'll simply lie down and fall asleep. So she forces herself back to the bathroom to shower.

She catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror above the sink. Her face is insipid, as if her makeup has somehow worn off through the emotional battles of the day leaving her looking pallid and about as exhausted as she feels. Even her hair looks limp and out of sorts.

She pauses in front of the mirror to examine her scar. With the tip of her finger she traces the indented roundel of the bullet's entry point. With the pads of her other hand she follows the outline of her surgical incision. They're both completely healed and pretty well settled now: a baby pink color she knows will soon fade to a permanent white. She pauses, giving them one last look after she removes the distraction of her bra and simply stands there bare and vulnerable, and stares.

She knows she's too thin, her bones protruding at her hips, ribs and collarbones most notably. What will Castle think of these scars when he sees them, she wonders. There is no room for ifs in her thinking tonight. If she gives way to doubt she knows she will crumple. To have told him that she loved him was supposed to be the key, the magical key to a new future filled with happiness for both of them. To ask him if he still loved her was supposed to elicit and instant, unequivocal "yes". Instead she got a grilling about her disappearing act and a stony silence as to the state of his feelings towards her as things stand today.

She grabs a hair tie from the little dish on the shelf above the sink and wraps her hair up into a tight bun before stepping over the edge of the bathtub and under the steaming hot spray of the shower.

She soaps her body, watching as the suds slide off her slickened skin, pooling at her feet and circling the drain before disappearing from view. She lingers for a few minutes under the cleansing gloss of warm water, letting it loosen her muscles, relieving some of the tension in her neck and back. Her eyes slip closed and she drifts, longingly thinking of him.

When she sinks onto the bed five minutes later, wrapped in a warm towel, the lure of sleep tugs at her like a drug. She's been sleeping so much better lately; her dreams less troubled than those at the cabin, when she was stalked throughout the night by a band of faceless men armed with M40's, Kate's head centered in the etched reticles of their telescopic sights.

She quickly towels dry and then crawls beneath the covers wearing a long cotton nightshirt. When she reaches for her phone to set the alarm, she's surprised by the time. It's close to midnight, her angst-filled evening with Castle a black hole of time that swallowed whole minutes and hours without her even registering.

He asked her to text him to confirm that she made it home safe. She remembers this suddenly, teeth sinking into her lip with regret. Tucked under the covers in the dark of her bedroom, the phone screen's glow her only light, she debates the words she might use for such a text. They're in uncharted territory now – caught between their old world and a new one, whatever form that might take; together or apart.

She thumbs the screen, tapping the fingers of her free hand against her forehead. "Come on, Kate," she sighs, opening the Messages facility, "just write something."

She told this man that she was in love with him today. A text message should be nothing. It's only as she closes the Messages feature and taps his name in her contacts list that she acknowledges that a text message would indeed be nothing.

No more half measures. Time to step it up.

"Hey, it's me," she says, when the call connects, her voice warm and gentle, befitting the late hour and the cool silence in her bedroom. "Sorry I didn't text right away. I took a shower...lost track of time."

There's no reply on the other end of the line, though the whisper-soft sound of breathing tells her that he is there. She just hopes he's listening.

"Castle? You there?" she checks, pulling her ear away from the phone to make sure that the call is still live when he still doesn't speak.

"Yeah…here. I'm sorry too." His voice is heavy and dull-sounding; an echo in an empty drum.

Kate frowns, forgetting that Castle can't see her. "Why…what are you apologizing for?"

Castle snorts, a derisory sound that she takes to mean 'where do I start?'

"I behaved like an ass."

He sighs, and Kate waits to hear if he's going to say anything more. She doesn't want to talk over him if he does, so she remains silent, and, eventually, like a perp in the box, her silence works and he doesn't disappoint.

"You…you just make it so hard sometimes."

She chews on her nail. "I don't mean to. It really was great to see you today," she confesses, biting her lip once the words are out of her mouth.

"D'you mean that?"

"You have to ask? Castle, come on, I just—"

"So, you made it home then?" he says, cutting across her to change the subject to a safer question, one he already knows the answer to. He doesn't need her reminding him that she told him she loved him today, particularly when he feels so heart sick about his own pathetic, ungenerous response.

"Safe and sound. I'm in bed already. Lights out."

"Right," he sighs, listlessly.

"You?"

"Just…trying to get some work done."

"Writing?" she asks, her voice perking up. She has no idea if he's been working on something while she's been away. Maybe there's another Nikki Heat novel under construction. She feels a stab of guilt when it hits her that she didn't even ask him about his work today, and she makes a mental note to change that. She'll quiz him everyday from now on, if he gives her the chance.

But then she hears the unmistakable tinkle of ice cubes circumnavigating the perimeter of a glass and she shakes her head.

"Drinking," she says, her voice falling, tone coated with a hard shellac of disappointment.

There's a sharp crack when Castle sets the tumbler down on the surface of his desk just a little too hard.

"You know that won't help."

"And how would you know?" he nips back.

"Because I've been there, tried that. And I watched what it did to my dad. Drinking won't help, Castle. Get some sleep," she says, preparing to end the call.

He catches her just in time. "Kate?"

"Yes?"

"I don't want to be angry anymore. Not with you. You've been through enough already."

"We both have, Rick. This isn't all about me."

"Yeah." His flat, hollow answer tells her he doesn't really believe her.

"Look, get some sleep. Things will look better tomorrow. I promise."

She pauses for a few seconds, letting silence drift between them to see if he'll share anything further.

"You okay?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'll be fine. Nothing another Scotch won't fix."

Kate balls the comforter in her fist as anger swells in her chest at his self-pity. She won't be party to this dark, self-indulgent drinking session. She was shot, and yes, she hurt him badly when she took herself away to heal alone like a wounded animal in its lair, cutting him out of her life in the process. But she's back now, and she has offered him more than she ever has before. If he wants to wallow in the past, there's nothing she can do about that. But she won't be his enabler, letting him think his behavior is okay. She let her dad off the hook too many times in the beginning and look how that turned out.

"I'll call you tomorrow, okay. Get some sleep," she says softly, making her care for him abundantly clear, before she quickly ends the call.

Castle stares at the black screen on his phone, his silence brooding enough to fill his office space with a bad atmosphere that hangs in the air, pervading each nook and cranny like a bad smell.

He flops back in his leather desk chair, bouncing heavily when it flexes as far as it's meant to go. He sighs, covers his face with both hands, and then he drags them down over his closed eyes, cheeks and jaw making his skin flush red at this rough treatment. He roams the room with a lazy gaze, stalking the bookshelves with the predatory care of a hunter. When his scrutiny settles, it's on a small stack of Heat Rises, mint condition copies sitting in a box that Paula sent over for him to sign as prizes in a fan competition she's currently running on the website.

He gets up from his chair, the springs squeaking with relief, while his own joints creak in protest. He briefly sways over the stack of hardbacks, before he picks up a copy, studies the cover art, and then returns to his desk to sit down heavily once more.

He traces the outline of Nikki's profile on the cover, the black silhouette of the Glock in her hand, and then he picks up his cell phone and thumbs through his contacts. The call connects just as he flaps open the front cover of the hardback with the accompanying new book crack of the spine, preparing to read the dedication it took him weeks to write.

"Hey, it's Richard," he says into the phone, managing to liven up his voice just enough that he doesn't sound as low and lacking in fun as he feels. "Yeah, long time no speak," he laughs with hollow heartiness in response to the quick-witted retort on the other end of the line.

He can do this. He's Richard freaking Castle and he's still got game.

TBC...