Summary: Sometimes it was better to end things now than to hang on until they inevitably fell apart.

Author's Note: Because sometimes you just need to write it out. Thanks to Andy for coming up with this title like 2 months ago...I finally have a story to go with it. And thanks to teelduo for the cover art.

This one goes out to everyone who has sent me virtual hugs and support the last couple of days. Thank you.

Disclaimer: Not so much.

A Cry In The Dark

Chapter 1

"Kate..."

"I can't."

"Kate, please."

"Castle..."

She stepped back, ran an agitated hand through her hair. She could not believe this was happening. Could not believe that after the past year, by far the best of her life, this was happening. That she was walking away from the one man who made her happier than anyone ever had, the only man she had ever truly fallen in love with.

But sometimes it was better to end things now than to hang on until they inevitably fell apart.

"I'm sorry," she choked out, already feeling tears pricking the backs of her eyes, her heart shattering in her chest.

Kate turned away, unable to meet his eyes for fear of what she would find there. The love she was in the process of destroying, the heart she was breaking, the life she was tearing apart. Maybe it was cowardly, but she knew that if she looked at him now, she would change her mind. And she could not afford to do that. She needed to walk away while she still could.

"I'm sorry, Castle."

With that, she slipped out of the loft, the door clicking shut behind her with a deep sense of finality. And Castle could do nothing but kneel there, small velvet box still clutched in his hand as he watched his future disappear in front of his eyes.

Kate made it as far as the elevator in his building before the tears overflowed, running down her cheeks in torrents and she could not even be bothered to be embarrassed because all she was capable of feeling at the moment was pain. Stabbing, blinding, debilitating pain.

She had been heartbroken before, but never anything of this caliber. Never had she had to exert so much effort to simply exit the elevator and walk out to the curb to hail a cab. Never had she collapsed against her front door because she did not possess the will to make it as far as the sofa. Never had she cried herself to sleep on the floor in her foyer.

Never had she felt so devastated and empty and utterly broken.

By three in the morning, Kate finally summoned the energy to lift herself off of the cold hard floor and flop down on the sofa. She was exhausted and hungry and thirsty and her head was pounding but at this point, tossing a blanket over her legs was really all she could manage. Any other energy was busy being spent on self-loathing.

She hated herself; for being afraid, for letting her fear and insecurities get the better of her, for being a coward, for walking out.

For breaking his heart.

He was the only person she had ever seriously considered spending the rest of her life with and yet, when provided the opportunity to do just that, she turned him down.

God, what had she done?

At some point following her unwanted departure, Castle collapsed to a seated position, hard floor uncomfortable against his bones, but moving would take effort and right now he had none to spare. It was taking everything he had just to hold himself together and even those efforts were failing. Because there were tears staining his cheeks and it felt like someone had shoved a knife into his chest and he just wanted to curl up in the fetal position and sleep until the pain was gone.

Which would probably be never.

He just...did not understand. Things were going so well. They spent nearly every night together, more of her belongings were at the loft than her own apartment. She loved him, reminded him of that on a daily basis, in so many ways. They had plans to go to the Hamptons in two weeks for Memorial weekend, even had tentative plans to take a week-long vacation together in September.

Sure, maybe the proposal had been kind of sudden, and he knew it caught her completely off-guard. But they had been talking about her moving in and planning for the future and he just assumed that she would not be planning such things if she did not intend to be around for the long haul.

Apparently that was where he went wrong.

Because somehow the concept of marriage had freaked her out, and now she was gone and she may have only turned down his proposal today but he was not stupid enough to believe that their relationship stood much of a chance after this. After all, if she did not want to marry him now, would she ever? He did not have his heart set on marriage necessarily; if she wanted to just be together forever but not get married, he could handle that too. But by turning him down today, did she not essentially just say that she was interested in neither?

Castle sighed heavily, eyes falling to the ring box still clutched in his hands, the diamond encrusted band that was supposed to signify forever. The only forever he ever wanted.

There would never be another. Of that, he was certain. But even so, he knew that at some point he would have to let go of the ring and all it symbolized and begin to move on.

He had no idea how that was even possible.

The loft was dark when she entered, silently turning her key in the lock and stepping inside. She slipped out of her flats by the door, deposited her jacket on the sofa, lingering a moment to allow her eyes to adjust to the blackness. There was not even light peeking out from the edges of the door of the master bedroom, meaning that Castle was either out or already asleep.

A sickening wave of jealousy rolled through Kate's stomach as she considered the possibility of him being out with some excessively busty blonde, already moving on, or at least attempting to, after only a day. But as much as it hurt to consider that he would begin to move on so quickly, that he would so rapidly to revert to his old ways, she also knew that he did not owe her anything, that she had broken him and that she should not expect him to sit around waiting for her to have a change of heart.

Though she would be lying if she said that she would not have preferred to find him curled up in a ball sobbing his eyes out. That way she would know that he was hurting as badly as she was, if not more so, because maybe in some twisted way that would give her some semblance of relief.

Once her eyes adjusted, she crossed the familiar path to the room that she had come to think of as their bedroom, detouring through the office to retrieve a couple of her books that she knew were on the shelf, mixed in with his. Upon switching on a lamp, she could see that the door to the bedroom was slightly ajar and after tucking the books under her arm, she stepped up to the threshold, froze in place.

Castle was here.

She could make out the lumpy outline of a person curled up in bed beneath a pile of blankets. The covers were haphazardly strewn across the rest of the bed as though someone had tossed and turned all night, not bothered to remake the bed upon waking in the morning.

Either that or there had been a second occupant of the bed and their...activities...had rendered the blankets a disordered mess.

She felt another sickening roll in her stomach, but a closer inspection of the bed revealed just one person.

Kate crept closer, was able to take in the scene before her in more detail. Castle was on his side of the bed, his back to her, but even from behind she could tell that his arms were wrapped around her pillow, hugging it to his chest. His hair was a mess and she thought she could see the slight shadowy darkness of a day's worth of stubble over the lines of his jaw.

There was a pile of clothing on the floor, a half-empty glass of water and a bottle of advil on the nightstand, and Kate could not help but wonder if he had even bothered to climb out of bed all day.

And there, on the other nightstand, taunting her, was the small velvet box that would forever be the reason for the demise of their relationship.

Except Kate knew better than that. She knew it was not the box's fault, or the ring's, or Castle's. It was hers. That burden fell solely on her shoulders, and for as much as people advocated not living with regrets, Kate knew that she would forever regret yesterday's events. Would regret losing him.

The past twenty six hours had passed absolutely miserably, Kate curled up on the sofa alternating between silent tears and hysterical sobs. Thank God it was her day off.

She ignored a text from Lanie this afternoon, ignored any other indications of the outside world. She could not even look at herself in the mirror so how was she supposed to face anyone else?

But by six p.m., her hunger had finally outweighed her grief, coaxing her off of the couch long enough to microwave a frozen meal and eat it numbly, the movements of her hand with a fork performed solely via rote memory.

It was only as she was tossing the fork into the sink that her mind flashed back to a dinner uneaten, the candles unlit, the romantic evening gone to waste last night. Which then led to more tears, combined with thoughts of the loft and all of her belongings that still filled the drawers and closets, adorned the nightstand and the bookshelves. And she knew that, no matter how much she desired to avoid reality, she needed to go retrieve everything. If he was home, she needed to face him tonight as well. Painful though it may be, dragging things along would be even worse in the end.

So she had hauled herself out of her apartment, into her car and across town to the loft. Her almost-home.

But now that she was here, the initial sense of relief she felt upon thinking he was not home was being overrun by so many emotions at seeing him here in bed, clearly as brokenhearted as she was. Regret, guilt, pain, love, and self-loathing were all battling for dominance as her eyes traced his form, so small and innocent in sleep, torn apart by her words and actions.

And in that moment, Kate knew with startling clarity what she had to do.

She had to apologize. She had to make this right. She had to stomp down her insecurities instead of allowing them to dictate her choices. She had to fight to win him back. She had to somehow find a way to erase what she had done, replace it with the answer she should have given him the previous night.

She would do anything, would beg if she had to, because at this point, there was nothing to lose.

Kate silently crept around to the other side of the bed, reached out a trembling hand and lifted the box from its place. With clumsy fingers she flipped open the lid, felt the air leave her in a rush as her eyes fell on the sparkling ring that shone up at her. She had been too preoccupied last night to even bother looking at it, but now that she was, it took her breath away. It was hard to make out too much detail in the darkness, but she could see multiple stones in varying sizes, all flawlessly cut and reflecting the dim lamplight that shone in from the office.

Nervously, Kate lifted the ring from the box, slid it onto her finger. It felt heavy but right somehow, and it fit perfectly. Her heart clenched in her chest as another wave of regret washed over her.

"Keep it," a voice rasped, and Kate startled, the ring box clattering to the floor as her hands jerked apart in surprise.

She opened her mouth to respond, though with what words, she had no idea.

"Keep it," Castle repeated, and though he was aiming for bored and unaffected, the pain was evident in every facet of his voice, his body language.

"I...uh..."

"I don't want it," he spoke into the darkness, words more confident now. "It was for you. I don't care what you do with it, but I don't want it."

"I..." Kate stammered, eyes dropping to the beautiful diamond band now adorning her ring finger.

"Beckett, why are you here?" he asked harshly, interrupting her musings.

"I...because..."

Because she needed to claim her belongings. Because she wanted to see how he was doing. Because she was worried. So many answers flitted through her mind, but in the end, she went with the raw truth.

"Because I love you."

"And you thought, what, that I would just welcome you back into my home with open arms?"

"N...no," she answered shakily, though every fiber of her being wanted the answer to be yes.

"I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you, Kate, and you walked away. So please just...take your things and leave."

"Castle..."

"I can't do this now," he stated firmly, ignoring her pleadings.

"Can't do what?" she pressed, unwilling to back down so easily. If she was going to fix this and win him back, she would have to prove that she was willing to fight for it. "Can't listen to my apology? Can't listen while I say that I've spent the last day in tears because I made a stupid decision and because if I can't fix this, I'll spend the rest of my life regretting it? Is that what you can't hear?"

"Kate..."

"I love you, Castle," Kate continued, voice low as she squatted down next to the bed. "Sometimes it scares me just how much, and I just...panicked. I let my insecurities get in the way. And I know I really have no right to ask this after what I did but just...please, give me another chance. Give us another chance."

Her voice broke on the final sentence, tears were sliding down her cheeks again, but she did nothing to halt the flow. Maybe if he could see how much pain she was in he would be more willing to listen.

"Why?" Castle asked abruptly, curling more tightly around her pillow.

She reached out to rest a hand on his arm, dropped it awkwardly to her side when he jerked away. "Because we deserve to have a chance at forever."

"We did," he answered flatly. "Until last night."

"We still do," she blurted, close to begging but so far beyond caring about how desperate she sounded. Then again, she was desperate.

"And what happens next time you get scared?" Castle asked warily, distrustingly.

"Then I take a step back instead of freaking out and running. Or you stop me. Or I go back to therapy, because obviously I still need it."

"And what happens when I'm standing at the altar waiting for you and you decide that you don't want to commit to marriage after all?"

Kate felt her heart break a little more at the insecurity in his voice and she knew without a doubt that she was the one who put it there. And she was the only one who could erase it.

She lifted her left hand, rested it on the edge of the bed where he could clearly see the ring on her finger. "I wouldn't have put it on if I ever planned on taking it off, Castle."

Thoughts?