Forty-Seven: Chapter 5

DISCLAIMER: None of these characters are mine, but they are memorable. Thank you, Mr. Marlowe.

Still Tuesday Afternoon, March 27, 2012 - at the Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn

Richard Castle struggles to contain the anger that resurfaces. It is plainly visible in his eyes, and around the corners of his mouth, in his clenched fists. He doesn't want to argue – not here at least. Not at a place that he knows is sacred to her. Not a place that, over the past two years, has become somewhat sacred for him as well.

"And you kept this from me?" he thinks, recalling her words from mere seconds ago. Words that now propel him back to his feet, as he takes a few steps away from her, away from Johanna, before he turns back. Kate, for her part, is back-pedaling now, trying desperately to make it right.

"No, no, you're right, Castle. That's why –"

"I came here probably ten times last summer alone," he interrupts. "While you were off . . . forgetting."

His words bite deeply. She deserves it, she knows. She opens her mouth, but cannot find a single word in her own defense. She breathes a sigh of relief as he lets her off the hook.

"I couldn't talk to you, so I talked to her," Castle says, pointing back at the headstone in front of her. "Turns out she's a pretty good listener, too," he continues. "Helped me through a few things for those first few weeks of summer. But after six, seven weeks . . . well . . ."

He allows the thought to tail off, before continuing.

"Anyway, Johanna and I know each other well enough," he says with a sad smile. "I came today to tell her that I'm done. I can't do this anymore. I owe her that much."

"So that's it?" Kate asks, pointedly and angrily. He's giving up without a fight? This man that has pushed and pulled and prodded and yanked for damn near four years is walking away? Sure, she screwed up, she knows this - but does that have to mean that it's over? Before it even got out of the gate? Aren't they worth fighting for? Isn't she worth fighting for . . . at least one more time?"

She knows she has no right to be angry . . . or does she? Isn't something you desperately want worth fighting for? But how – or why – would he even know this? How would he know how she feels? Undeterred, she pushes on.

"After all we've been through, Castle? After all the missteps we've had, the little hurts here and there, and then I have one big fuck-up - and that's it? No second chance? No chance to apologize? No chance to explain?"

She's right, he knows, and he finds himself angry that he agrees with her. But she's right. If there is anything here, isn't it worth fighting for. Then again, fighting for her is what he has been doing for years now. And after watching her performance in the interrogation room, well, he's just tired of the fight.

Still . . .

"Okay, explain then," he grumbles, his eyes now burning into hers. No quarter, no mercy here.

"Well, I . . . uh . . ."

"Yeah, that's what I thought," he interrupts, now brushing himself off and turning to leave. He's made his peace with Johanna. That was the purpose of coming here to this site. There is nothing else keeping him here, now. The explosion behind him stops him in his tracks.

"Dammit Castle, I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" she yells at him. Both immediately glance around. It's not every day you see a full-fledged, high-volume argument being waged in a cemetery.

"I screwed up," Kate continues. "Big time. I know I did. I've known for months. Hell, for months it is all I can even think about. It's all my shrink and I talk about. Every time I see you – every single damn time – the guilt –"

"What shrink?" he interrupts again. "You're seeing a shrink?"

"Of course I'm seeing a shrink," she says, waving him off as if it is the dumbest question in the world.

"Castle, I was betrayed by a man I loved like a father, a man I trusted. Then I watched him die. Then I got shot, and listened to the best friend I've ever had tell me he loved me," she continues, her eyes misting now. "Then I lie and tell him that I didn't hear his words, and I break up with my boyfriend. That's one hell of a week, Castle! Then I disappear from all my friends and try and fight through PTSD episodes. So yeah, I think I'm allowed a little couch time –"

He interrupts her defensive response – he recognizes the fight or flight battle waging inside her.

"I didn't mean anything derogatory by it, Beckett. Just surprised."

"Surprised how?" she asks, calming slightly.

"That you'd let someone help you," he replies. He takes a couple of steps and now is right upon her, his face mere inches from her own. It is both comforting and highly wanted, and uncomfortable as hell, simply because she can almost feel the fury radiating from him.

"I'm glad for you, glad you're getting help," he continues. "But it doesn't change today."

She nods her head in agreement.

"Listening to your words back at the precinct, and then watching your eyes watch me through the window . . . it was like . . . I don't have the words."

"Of course you have the words," she tells him, her eyes not wavering from his, just inches apart. "You're a writer for God's sake."

He smirks – actually smirks at her, but his eyes never waver from hers. It's a surreal standoff in the middle of a cemetery. Under other circumstances this would be comical. Today, it is far from it.

"It was like a cloudy veil was being lifted from my eyes," he begins. "Suddenly, I wasn't looking at things the way I wanted them to be, the way I'd write it," he tells her, not moving back an inch. "I saw clearly exactly how things really are. I'm in love with a woman who doesn't love me back, or may not love me back – no one knows. But what I do know is that love isn't supposed to be this complicated. No, it's not easy, and it fights against you sometimes. It isn't safe, and it can get a little messy. But it's not complicated. At least it's not supposed to be. But what we have – this is complicated. Unnecessarily complicated.

She opens her mouth to speak, but he shakes his head at her, stopping her.

"For the last year – give or take a month here or there – you and I have both been silent. Me regarding my feelings, and you regarding what you remember, how you feel. We have been sinning by silence, Beckett. And that's not smart. It's not brave. It's cowardly. That's what we do. That's who we are with each other. Well, no more," he says, finally taking a step backward, again, ready to turn and leave.

"Castle, wait," she tells him, grabbing his arm and spinning him back towards her.

"After four years," he continues, surprising her. "After four years, I think I've done . . . whatever this is that we do, for long enough. I'm letting you go. I'm letting me go.

"What if that isn't what I want?" she asks. She thinks it is a harmless and honest question. She's trying to be honest here. It backfires.

"What you want? What you want?"

He shakes his arm from her grasp, and begins to walk away. He gets four or five steps away. She knows she has lost him now, but suddenly he turns back. The fire, the fight, is back in his eyes. He walks to her again – and again stops mere inches from her face.

"This isn't about what you want, Beckett! Not anymore. In a couple of months, my world changes, Beckett. Changes in a way that I have both looked forward to and dreaded for the past couple of years. Alexis graduates in less than nine weeks. She is floating somewhere between Oxford and Stanford and neither are right down the road."

He glances down at the headstone that sits beneath them where they stand. He returns his gaze to hers yet again.

"I have only weeks left with her before one of the two women on this planet who loves me unconditionally goes far, far away. For the past few years, I've split my time, my attention, my affections between you and her. So no, this isn't about what you want anymore. This is about me and my daughter. And you know what, Beckett? It's about allowing myself to find that woman who is out there who will actually feel the same way about me that I do about her."

"What if you already have?" she asks. It is a simple question. It deserves a simple answer.

"Have I?" he asks. "Tell me, Kate, what in the world have you done to make me believe such a question could even be possible!"

"Castle, I –"

"Kate, when you first told me you didn't remember – back in the hospital last summer, I didn't believe you. Not for a minute. I looked into your eyes, and knew you were lying to me."

She glances down, pulling away from his unrelenting gaze, but he grabs her face – gently – and pulls her eyes back to his. He sees the tears welling in her eyes, but they do nothing to alter his course.

"It hurt," he continues, undaunted. "It cut far deeper than walking in and seeing Meredith in bed with another man." Her eyes widen at the revelation. She has often wondered what exactly precipitated his first divorce. Yeah, infidelity would do it.

"Yeah, you wouldn't know that. And it hurt deeper than realizing – after a couple of months – that Kyra wasn't coming back. It hurt deeper than realizing – when Meredith left – that it really was just Alexis and I."

Finally – finally – he turns his gaze away from her. For an expert interrogator, she finds herself woefully ill-equipped to face his stone-cold stare.

"But over time," he continues, his back now turned away from her, "the further you and I got away from that moment in the hospital, the more I began to consider the possibility that perhaps you really were telling the truth. After all, I've never been shot by a sniper. I've never been resurrected from death. I don't know what that's like. I began to realize that you had to be dealing with a hell of a lot, and not just the physical pain. Maybe you did block it all out. Maybe the only way of dealing with it was to block every second of it out, shut everyone out.

Once again, she feels the guilt hammer at her, realizing now from his words that he indeed, had come to figure out what she was going through. He – on his own – began to understand how the mental anguish ambushing her was every bit as painful and destructive as the physical wound in her chest. She realizes – too late – that he really could have helped her, could have been helping her all this time. He really did understand.

"But the main reason I began to . . . to soften my stance that you were lying was because I just simply could not believe – could not accept – that you would continue such a horrible ruse for so long. Not about something this important. Not about me loving you. I couldn't bring myself to believe that with each passing week that turned into months, that you would keep so big a lie alive between us."

He turns to face her again, and this time his eyes, his tone, his countenance have all changed, softened. He looks weathered, beaten. It breaks her heart to see what she has done.

"I guess I miscalculated just how . . . calculating you can be."

Every thought, every defense, every excuse that flutters throughout her mind is rendered moot by his statement. Only now does she realize just how far she has fallen in his eyes.

"That's not fair, Castle," she finally tells him, able to get a word in. "I admit that this is all my fault – every bit of it. There is nothing I can say to justify my actions and the hurt I have put on you. On you and your family. I have no illusions that it has touched all of you. But Castle, it isn't as easy as you think."

He opens his mouth, nostrils flaring before she places two fingers on his lips. A simple act, of both intimacy and reflection. It stops his thoughts in their tracks.

"Let me finish. Let me have my say," she says quietly. "It's why I followed you here. It's why I left a perp in the interrogation room. I dropped everything to have this conversation, Castle."

He steps back for a moment, considering her. He drops to a knee, returning his attention to the headstone in front of them. His fingers once again highlight the last name BECKETT – on top of the stone. He nods his head.

"I'm sorry. Go on."

She manages a small smile that he doesn't see. It isn't a smile of victory, but of relief. She turns away for a moment, taking in the cemetery around her. She gazes down at her mother's tombstone, and decides that there really is no more appropriate place for them to finally have a moment of honesty. It seems that this place – this spot – carries importance for both of them. Yeah, life is full of surprises.

"Maybe it's easy to fix a lie on that first day, when it first escapes your lips," she begins. "Or in that first week even."

She once again drops to her knee, joining him at her mother's grave. She doesn't look at him. She stares straight ahead at her mother's headstone, silently praying for guidance, for the right words. For the miraculous words that could explain her actions.

"But the more time goes by, Castle . . . well, that lie grows. It digs deep roots, and those roots become stronger and stronger. It becomes enormous. That tiny little pebble that I just needed to cushion my fall, to give me a reprieve from everyone and everything – just for a bit – well, that little pebble became a small stone before I knew it. And that stone quickly became a large, jagged rock. A large jagged rock that became a boulder. And that was just while I was with Dad in his cabin."

She looks at him, and slowly raises her hand, touching his cheek, turning it so that he faces her. He has just told her that her eyes – last year – told him she was lying. She is hoping that now – once again - those same eyes won't hide the truth from him. He looks her in the eyes, neither one of them wavering even for an instant.

"By the time I got back to the city, Castle – by the time I got back to the precinct – well, that small pebble that I could have tossed away so easily months earlier had become a monolith, a Gibraltar around my neck. One that I have dragged around for almost a year now. I could have fixed this easily all those months ago, Castle. But after a while, it just became too big. Now it was just too big. And that's all my fault, I realize this."

He looks away again, returning his eyes to the three Latin words. They still mock him. He places his fingers along the words and she immediately recognizes the lunacy of this conversation in the presence of those words, of this place. Perhaps this was a mistake after all.

"Rick," she finally says, standing. He joins her as they both glance down at the headstone, neither now willing to face the other just yet.

"Rick, pray you never fuck up this badly. There is no relief, and no road back." She leans down and places her lips on the cold stone, offering a gentle kiss to her mother. She takes a step away, towards the path that will return her to the entrance, roughly a ten minute walk away.

"God knows that I am so sorry Rick. Not just that you found out. But for lying in the first place. And for so long. For being a coward. For ruining us before we could even become us."

She walks away, her steps slow and deliberate, putting distance between herself and her mother's gravesite . . . and the man she loves. The tears finally flow now, in this moment, as she is realizing now for the first time, accepting now for the first time that she actually loves him. It is too much.

"I love you Rick," she says aloud. She throws the words out there, back into the universe, hoping they will replace the words she uttered last summer. Her shoulders shake with each step, as she struggles to keep the sobs inside her, and she quickens her pace toward the entrance.