Title: To Katherine, On Parting.

Rating: K. English - Hurt/Comfort/Angst - Kate B. & Rick C

Summary: Castle finally decides that he needs time away from Beckett. Will she let him go, or chase after? set late season 3.

Disclaimer: all the usual. I don't own Castle, etc etc.

Author's Note: This one, I have no idea what I was thinking, but I woke up with the last couplet from Richard Lovelace's poem 'To Lucasta, Going to the Wars' running through my head, and I just haven't been able to shake it. I wish this one were more cheerful, folks, but that's just not the way the cookie crumbled.

NevynR

Beckett made her way to her desk, bright and early Monday morning, a hint of a smile on her lips as she pondered her partner, and the morning coffee he always brought her. Not expecting to see him at such an early hour, she was surprised to see a cream envelope tucked into her keyboard, addressed in a graceful cursive script.

Curious, she sat down, tucked herself in, and picked it up.

'For the extraordinary KB.'

Smiling, Kate opened the envelope, knowing without a doubt who it was from. Coffee and bear-claws, she had become accustomed to of a morning, not handwritten letters. Curiously, she removed several pages of neatly written script. Before she started reading, Kate took a moment to trace the words gently with the tip of her fingers, feeling the impressions the pen had left behind, the fluent calligraphy a perfect match to the autographs that graced the inside covers of a number of her books at home. Dragging her wandering mind back to the present, she began to read.

My dearest Katherine,

You might wonder why I took the opportunity to write, rather than talking. Simply, I could not for the life of me gather my courage enough to say this while you stood in front of me. To say you steal my breath, my words is no empty statement: for a man who makes his living as a wordsmith, I am continually rendered speechless by you.

Fate, it seems, is a harsh mistress... Whenever I think I have finally rallied my nerves to talk to you, to really talk, something interrupts, and the moment is lost. When the chance comes round again, the shreds of my confidence have once more deserted me, and it is all that I can do to make light of it, and go on as we always have.

And so it is that I retreat behind the fortress of the written word, where I can lay my thoughts out in some kind of order, and hope that my feelings become clear to you in a way I seem incapable of doing when you bewitch my senses in person.

You would not be half the detective that you are and not realise that I hold you in the greatest esteem, and that my regard for you goes well beyond the platonic. I speak not only of the beauty that others see, your elegance and poise, that most exquisite of vessels with which you grace us every day, but instead of your calm assurance in the worst of times, your compassion, the bottomless well of your heart, and the way you give your all for those who need it most. Smiles, the briefest of gentle touches, and the sparkle in your eyes as your mind soars... All these have bewitched me, in every way that I know.

A day is not complete until I see your smile, my heart aches when I see your pain, and I am glad beyond words that I am fortunate enough to spend even a portion of each day in your presence.

Long have I been enthralled by you, and despite your continued deflection of my assertions, it has been all that I could do to restrain myself from making my intent more plain. It is to this end that I must speak, and the wounds of my heart.

I can no longer bear your presence, not knowing if your feelings are as mine. To see you happy is the greatest of my desires, but I would be happier still were I the one to bring such laughter to your heart.

Every time I see you happy with another, I am as a man trapped outside the walls of heaven, the joy and serenity within so near, yet unattainable. The gentle music of rapture drifts on the breeze, and torments me with it's song.

With the passing of time, and the clarity to be gained by denying myself your presence, I would be able to bury these feelings deep within, and continue as we have, ever your steadfast friend. I beg you, do not think of me as leaving, but as one who does as he must to harden his poor heart to the torment that seeing you with another must inevitably bring.

I know not how long I shall be absent, but know that I will return, should you but let me know.

I could not love thee half so much, loved I not thy happiness more.

Yours, always

Richard.

Kate stood up quickly, her breath coming faster and faster as she ran to the toilets, tears streaming down her face. She entered a cubicle, and sat on the lid of a toilet and pulled her legs up, tucking her knees under her chin, wrapping her arms around them as she cried harder. Her gut twisted in pain as she realised what he had done, and why. In her mind, she could see the hurt in his eyes every time he tried to talk to her, only to be interrupted by Demming, and the desperate humour with which he tried to conceal his dislike of Josh. Kate sobbed uncontrollably as she saw what everyone else had seen before her: that her running away, her flat refusal to acknowledge the feelings they both knew were there had driven her partner away. Her cries became a long, drawn out wail as she could feel her heart wrench, shattering into jagged pieces in her chest. Bawling, Kate let her grief and loss consume her.

Time passed, although Kate had no idea how long, and the door to the toilets opened hesitantly. Through eyes red and puffy with tears, she saw the head of her best friend look at her, Lanie's eyes filling with compassion.

Not knowing what was wrong, Lanie wrapped her arms around her friend, and began to rub small circles on her back.

"Hey, girl, what's wrong? What the matter?" Lanie had never seen Kate so broken up before, the nearest being the summer that Castle went tot he Hamptons.

"He's gone, Lanie!" Kate wailed, almost incomprehensible. "He's gone again, and its all my fault!"

"Castle, honey? Where did he go?" She steeled herself, mentally preparing to deal with the man that had hurt her friend so badly, not once, but twice.

"I don't... I can't..." Unable to force the words out past the sobs that wracked her body, Kate handed Lanie the letter, still crumpled in her fist. Wordlessly, she read the letter, and felt her stomach clench, knowing how much the words had hurt Kate, but knowing just how much they must have hurt Castle to write. Slowly, Kate's cries subsided, and Lanie could make out words buried underneath became understandable.

"What am I going to do, Lanie? How can he run away again?" She sobbed, her eyes panicked. Her voice as gentle and coaxing as if she were talking her friend off a ledge, Lanie whispered.

"You need to talk to him, honey, really talk to him. I know this isn't what you want to hear right now, but the man has a point. We can al see he fell for you ages ago. He has even admitted it to himself, and the only thing stopping you two is you... You are scared, girl, scared that he will break your heart. Can't you see you are breaking his every time he sees you with Josh? You'd have to be blind not to see the way his face falls when you get a text from that man. Can't you see how cut up he gets when he know you need somebody there for you, and your doctor is on the other side of the world, saving strangers, instead of holding you tight? You can see he wants to be there for you, but he can't because you won't let him. You keep him at arm's length so he can't hurt you, but all it is doing is hurting you both even more. Honey, answer me this: If Josh misses a lunch date with you, do you miss him? Compare that to a day where Castle doesn't come in, and for some reason doesn't call to let you know why...'

"Lanie, that's not..."

"Yeah, it is. With your boyfriend, I have seen you just shrug it off, the amount of time he's away, the way work comes first, the way you both just drift through the whole relationship. Now Castle, we have seen you stay up all night to work a case with him, he has saved your life more times than I want to remember, and you have done the same for him. You can order dinner for each other, call each other at any time of the day or night, and I've never seen anybody better able to read you, to know when you need coffee, or food, or rest, and he's the only damn person I know that can get you do all of that and not have you try to kill them for it. Face it, girl, you might as well be in a relationship with him already, except for the fact that you shut your feelings away from him, even more so than with Josh. You don't love Josh, but with Castle, you are trying so hard to not love him you are killing the pair of you. He has tried to show you how he feels for a long time, and you keep shooting him down. He's bared his soul to you in writing, Kate, you need to deal with this and stop ignoring it." Lanie folded the letter up and passed it back to Kate, and continued. "A man can only take so much pain, honey. You need to either let him love you, and the pair of you can be happy, or cut him loose. Anything else just isn't fair, to you or him..."

"What do I do, Lanie?"

"You get your phone out, call him, and as soon as you find out where he has gone, you get yourself there as fast as you can, and don't leave him alone until the two of you fix this, that's how..." She pulled a handful of toilet paper off the roll and passed it to Kate, who blew her nose and did her best to wipe up her tears. Drawing a shaky breath, Kate stood up and hugged her friend. Pulling back, she gave a worried smile and left the ladies room, her stride lengthening into a run as she rushed back to her desk. Fingers shaking, she hit speed dial and waited, her heart thundering in her chest as she waited for him to pick up.

"Ca... Castle?" She whispered, afraid. "I need you... I need to see you.. Where are you?" She almost collapsed in relief when she heard his voice on the other end of the phone. Even as distressed as she was, she could hear the thread of worry in his tone as he let her know where he was. "Castle? Rick? Don't move, ok? I'll be there as soon as I can..." Trying desperately to restrain the fluttering of hope that stirred in her gut, she grabbed her bag and left the precinct at a run.

Maybe, just maybe, this time they would be able to work it out.