"Kate?" Lanie shrieks, startled so badly that all the paperwork she held in her fingers is now drifting aimlessly to the floor in a flurry of white sheets and manila envelopes.

The last thing the medical examiner expected to see at eleven o'clock on a Wednesday night after entering her exam room was her best friend sprawled out across an autopsy table, on her back with her eyes closed, no less.

"Hey Lanie," said best friend replies somberly, her voice barely above a whisper. She tilts her head to the side, faces the doctor with a dim smile.

If that's not an obvious tell that something bad has happened, Lanie Parish doesn't know what is.

"Damn girl, what have I told you about showing up unannounced after hours? And for the record, Kate Beckett, I never want to walk in on you like this on my table, dead or alive, ever again, you got me? Gonna give somebody a heart attack."

"Yeah, sorry. Just...didn't know where else to go."

"What do you mean? What happened?"

Kate lets out a strangled breath of air, frustration and anxiety rippling through the exhale. The ME crosses her arms and lifts a curious eyebrow in her friend's direction. She has a sneaky suspicion she already knows where this is headed, especially after recent events and talks over the past few days.

"You don't want to talk about it," Lanie observes after the detective remains silent, and Kate gives her a wry look before tilting her head away, staring at the bright lights and equipment along the ceiling.

"No," she says simply. "Not really."

"So why're you here?"

Another frustrated sigh attached to a groan escapes the detective, and she lifts her arm, setting her wrist and forearm over her eyes, blocking out the light and everything else in the room. Fade to black. If only it were so simple to just shut out the world, turn off her mind and not think for a while, even if just for a few minutes. Just a few minutes free of the pain, of the hurt.

"What are you hiding from, Kate?"

"I'm not hiding," she says from beneath her arm, unmoving.

"Well I know you're not here about a case. You caught the guys; case closed. So what is it? More trouble with Writer Boy?"

"Lanie."

"Come on, spill. What happened this time? You try talking to him? Get in a fight?"

"We're not fighting." But I wish we were, Kate thinks. Then at least we'd be talking.

But no, they're not fighting. There's no opportunity to have it out with him anyway. Castle's not even giving her the time of day. He's off with "flight attendant" Jacinda on date number four in three days. She's the furthest thing from him mind now, and it's tearing her to pieces.

"Well it must be something big this time, otherwise you wouldn't be napping in my morgue instead of out for drinks or snug in bed at home."

"Tried that," Kate says, lifting her arm from her eyes briefly to look at her friend. Lanie sees the gloomy look to the green orbs, but her expression holds something else there as well. Pain, she thinks, and a little bit of fear.

"Tried it last week, too," she continues, "He blew me off then and did it again tonight to run off with his blonde bimbo again."

"I'm sorry, Kate." Lanie looks upon her friend with a sympathetic look, unsure of what else to say, how to console her.

"You know what's worse? After he ran off with his flight attendant, I went out for a drink with Hunt before his flight left for London. Charming, attractive guy asks me out, and I still couldn't get my mind off of him. I don't know what happened, Lanie. I try to figure it out and nothing works. Every time I try to approach him, something gets in the way or he just takes off again. Everything's just broken now. It's shattered into pieces and I don't know what the hell I'm supposed to do to fix it."

Kate's voice comes out broken itself and the sound tugs at the ME's heartstrings. In all the years they've known each other, she can't recall a single time where Kate Beckett looked so crestfallen. So lost. Not when it came to a man in her life. She wasn't even this despondent when Sorenson left her for the job in Boston, and she was actually dating the guy.

"God, I royally screwed this up. I never should have lied to him."

"Whoa, back up a minute," the ME says in surprise, "What do you mean 'never should have lied to him'? Lied to him about what?"

Kate lets out a ragged breath.

"It's a long story."

"I've got plenty of time to hear it."

"I don't even know where to start."

"How about wherever is relevant to now?"

Kate sighs. "You're gonna want to kill me for not telling you sooner."

"I wanted to strangle you the moment I saw you on that table. Spit it out already, Beckett."

Lanie pulls over a chair and sidles up next to the table, setting a gentle hand on Kate's shoulder. She's always seen it—that connection between her and the writer. She might not have been very vocal about it in the past year or so, but that didn't mean she was any less interested, any less curious as to where they stood. It was about damn time Kate started fessing up about everything and obviously there's more to the story than she originally thought.

"He told me he loved me."

"What!" Lanie squealed. "When did that happen?"

Kate's mouth twists and she chews the inside of her cheek. "The day I was shot."

The confession makes Lanie's eyes go wide.

"Kate that was ten months ago."

"Yeah."

"All this time and you haven't told me?"

The detective gives her friend a grim look before turning away again, eyes to the bright ceiling above. By her tone of voice, Kate can tell that the news has upset her, but Lanie is reining it in, holding back for now. For her sake. She's grateful for that.

The next admission is only going to dig her hole a little deeper.

"Haven't told him, either."

Lanie quirks a brow to that, but stays silent, so after taking another almost painful breath of air, Kate continues explaining.

"I lied to him, Lanie. I told him—I told everyone—that I didn't remember the shooting. But it was all a lie. I remember everything about that day. From the time I stood up on that podium until the moment I blacked out in Castle's arms, I remember all of it. Every single second."

Kate's face crumples into her hands and she has to viciously fight back the urge to just break down right then and there. Lanie is speechless.

"You know, he cried and he begged me, pleaded with me to stay with him," she goes on, in a tone of voice almost sardonic and self-pitying enough that it makes Lanie's lower lip lift into a sad frown.

"He told me he loved me and what do I do? I lie to him, abandon him, and keep the truth from him all this time. And now it's too late. Now he's moved on, is out chasing flight attendants and it's like overnight he doesn't give a damn about me anymore. Like the man I know, the man who loves me is nothing but a memory that's fading away before my eyes."

"Kate," Lanie sets her palm over Kate's forearm, tugs to pull the hand away from her face. The detective hesitates at first but finally meets her gaze.

"Why'd you lie to him?" And for that matter, Why'd you lie to all of us? though she leaves the question unasked. She has a feeling it will be answered regardless.

Kate averts her eyes for a moment, takes another deep breath then turns her head back to her friend, eyes glistening with unshed tears in the light.

"Because I'm an idiot?" she grinds out. "Because I still had a boyfriend I wasn't in love with. Because I was grieving my mom and Montgomery. Because I had just been shot and almost died, and I was a mess and my whole world was spinning out of control and...god, Lanie, I don't want to screw this up. I just...I couldn't, I can't—"

Kate grits her teeth and squeezes her eyes shut, willing herself not to cry, not to lose it. Suddenly she feels her friend's arms wrapping around her, and the ME's cheek to her forehead. It helps a little, having that support. She might not understand completely, but she's not judging. After all this time of keeping her miserable secret all to herself, having someone there to vent to and help her through things is a blessing in itself. She's needed this.

"You love him." Lanie says softly, and it's not a question because she already knows. She's known for a while. She could see it, far before even the detective herself did.

Kate had slowly fallen for her partner over two years ago, but she was too late to realize it back then. Rather than rub salt in the wound and throw out an "I told you so!" when Castle left for the Hamptons with Gina, leaving Kate brokenhearted and lonely, Lanie tried her hand at matchmaker again, and through connections with another doctor friend, Kate was introduced to Josh.

Josh was the exact opposite of Castle. He was taller, darker, serious and mature, and all about his job. Nothing about him would ever remind her about Richard Castle, and that was exactly what Kate needed that summer. To not remember. To forget. Castle left, and then he never called. She was just too late, and she needed to move on.

Even with Josh around though, the light in Kate's eyes still didn't fully return until Castle did that fall. Because no matter how hard she tried to forget, and despite the man she was dating who was nothing like the man who had left her behind, she still couldn't move past that hurt. She still couldn't forget him.

She might not have wanted to talk about the "interesting arrest" she had made that September morning, but Lanie could tell. Having him back in her life affected her in only a way that Richard Castle could, because deep down, she was still crazy about him. Still falling hopelessly in love with him the more time they spend around each other. Two magnets drawn together despite all the obstacles placed between them.

Even if they haven't discussed the issue in well over a year until recently, it's plain to see to Lanie that Kate's feelings have only magnified one hundred fold or more since then. The magnetic pull has just continued to intensify. She never moved past the hurt before, and moving past the hurt now? Currently looking next to impossible.

The ME feels her friend give a subtle but affirmative nod beneath her after a brief moment of quiet, and she gives her a firm squeeze on the arm, a nudge with her cheek.

"Girl, you've got it bad," she says with a lilt, pulling back away from her to find a smile on her friend's face, small but unmistakable.

"Yeah," Kate replies, and Lanie can hear the humor start bubbling up in her voice. "I really do, don't I?"

Then, surprisingly enough, Kate laughs.

"How the hell did that happen anyway?"

Lanie smiles and rolls right along with it, happy to see that her mood is improving.

"Honestly! I don't know how you managed to be so stubborn for so long. I've been telling you for years. Took you long enough to figure it out."

"Haven't really figured anything out yet," Kate corrects her. "He's hardly even looking at me anymore. Hell, you know what he told me tonight before he left?"

"What?"

"Jacinda is 'fun and uncomplicated'. That that's what he needs right now."

And just like that, the floodgates she'd be keeping tightly closed with lock and key just burst open at the seams. Tears fall unbidden down her cheeks at the recital of his words.

"It felt no different than had I been punched in the gut. Like he said it to deliberately tell me 'I don't want you anymore'. Fun and uncomplicated...how do I even compare to that when I'm the total polar opposite? When I'm anything but fun and uncomplicated right now? When I'm just a broken mess?"

Lanie wastes no time responding to that train of thought, because no, Kate Beckett, you are not just a broken mess, and some flighty blonde stewardess has nothing on you and don't you forget it. Now she just needs to get Kate herself to believe it.

"How?" The ME starts, and Kate turns to her with glistening, red-rimmed eyes. "By being you."

The detective swipes an unsteady hand beneath her eyes to catch the moisture and listens intently as her friend continues on.

"There is no comparison, Kate. You are the total polar opposite of that woman, and any other one he's been with since we've known him. Life can be complicated, and sometimes it's not always fun, but it's real, and you are real, Kate Beckett.

"I know you're having doubts because of recent events, but trust me. I've seen the way he looks at you. And now knowing what he said all those months ago, and how he's stuck around with you since then, it's only more crystal clear to me. He can't just turn those feelings off overnight. He's trying, Kate, that's where the trip to Vegas and the blondie comes in, but it's not going to work for long. Especially once he knows how you feel about him. He thinks it's going nowhere with you. He's trying to move on."

Lanie raises her eyebrow then and levels Kate with a look. Kate swallows hard.

"You need go to him and explain everything. Lay everything out on the table this time, because I'll be damned if I have to watch you go through another heartbreak over that man."

Kate tilts her head back, closing her eyes and draping her arm along her forehead again. She draws in a breath.

"I know," she says on an exhale. "I will. First thing tomorrow morning, I'll go to him—"

"And don't take no for an answer this time."

"Right. And I'll get him some place with no distractions. Come clean about everything."

"Good. And I want details when—"

Just as the words leave Lanie's mouth, the door to the autopsy room swings open. Lanie swivels in her chair and is surprised to find Castle, of all people, waltzing inside.