Fallout

When she knocks on the door and he answers he's still cold and angry. He'd hoped for contrition, some sign that she was sorry, or regretted her actions of the last two months. Maybe now she'll show some.

One look tells him that's not true. Sure, she looks as if she's been crying. But she's also furiously angry and it seems to be directed at him. It fires his temper straight back up again.

"Can't you even pretend to be upset?"

"You don't need to worry. Not about me, anyway."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I've come to pack up the rest of my stuff."

"You what?"

"Orders." She pushes past him towards the bedroom and the closet where the suitcase lives.

"Orders," he says bleakly. "Quitting me for the job again? Okay. This time, don't bother coming back."

"That won't be a problem for some time." He suddenly realises that she's crying, soundlessly.

"What are you talking about?"

"You just couldn't trust me for another week, could you? I nearly had it. Nearly managed it. But you couldn't leave me to do my job. I begged you to trust me, and I really thought that you would. But you didn't. Well, you've just blown up all of our chances for a happy ending."

"What?"

"I didn't involve you because someone else already had. All that crap they fed you about where you were when you disappeared – well, Rick, you were in Mexico. Tamaulipas, in fact. You were set up, Rick, and I had just about proved it. Right up until you tried to hack my system. Why do you think I had to nuke yours? Unfortunately, that set off flags all over the shop. The DEA shop, to be precise. Vikram was theirs."

The colour is draining from his slack, suddenly terrified face. "The DEA?"

"Yeah. I've been suspended and I have less than fifteen minutes left before they get here. You'll be taken in and I can't stop it now. I've been told that if I contact you after this I'll be fired. They graciously allowed me to collect my things, because they'd be right behind me."

"You… me… DEA? Arrest?"

"Yes. Your only chance is that they pick up where I left off and prove the sting. What do you think the chances are, with me suspended? The Mayor isn't going to help you now. I was your only chance and you couldn't trust me."

"You could have told me."

"I couldn't tell you because that would taint every piece of evidence I have. I had to do this alone. But you wouldn't leave it be and by trying to hack my system you've hung us both. I love you so much that I tried to protect you and save you, but you didn't love me enough to trust that I really did have the best reason in the world to do this. You couldn't forgive me for going and you couldn't really trust me."

Tears stream down her face as she packs. "After this – if we ever get through this – you'll be notorious and I'll be quietly dismissed without a fanfare. Where's our happy ever after now, Rick? Where's it going to be if you're in jail and I'm unemployed? The DEA will confiscate all your assets. You'll have nothing but a prison cell."

"No…Kate, no! I do love you, trust you. I do!" She doesn't meet his eyes.

"You can't stop the DEA with charm and contacts, Castle. I can't pull your ass out the fire if I'm in jail too. I love you more than anyone, but I have to leave now. There's no way I can help you." He doesn't understand the emphasis, too shocked to comprehend. "I'm tainted too." She's finished packing up everything she'll be taking.

"Kate, please. I didn't know. Surely there's something…"

"I have to go." She's weeping.

"Kate!"

Five minutes after she leaves the men from the DEA arrive. He doesn't resist in the slightest when they cuff him and perp-walk him out.

Beckett goes straight to her dingy sublet in Queens, using public transport and hoping that will let her avoid a tail, thanking her stars that she rented it under an assumed name and fake ID. She's there for less than ten minutes, then back to Manhattan, again on public transport. She gets off the train at City Hall and makes one short call. Then she waits. And waits. And waits.

"Beckett."

"Sir."

"You're in some deep trouble this time. Why did you call me?"

"You're the only one I trust to see this through and keep it honest. I couldn't call anyone else."

Gates produces a glare that should level Manhattan – and everything else all the way to the Florida panhandle. "What is going on here?"

"You… you know what went down earlier today."

"Of course I do."

Beckett pushes a thumb drive at Gates.

"I was one step from proving that Castle was framed. Then it all blew up…" She sniffs, and then reinforces steel-hard control. "This is all my evidence and conclusions. I want you – no. I am begging you, sir, to finish it for me and get Castle out. Whatever it takes. Fire me if you want. Just prove it wasn't him." She can feel the traitorous tears sliding down her cheeks, and stands to leave the greasy café. "Please, sir. Please just save him."

"You know that I will not bend any rules, overlook any evidence, or shade any truth I find?" Beckett stops in her tracks, and turns back.

"I know. That's… that's why it had to be you, sir."

"Where are you going to be?"

"I can't touch it. I can't see Rick. I can't go to the loft." She pauses. "I'm going to go upstate. That way I can't make the same mistake he did." She stops to control her voice again. "He blew this up because he couldn't resist trying to get involved. I can't afford to do the same." She takes another step, and then turns back one last time. "Tell him why I left. When you can. I couldn't tell him I would come to you because the DEA would get it out of him and then there would be no chance. Just save him. Please."

When DI Gates comes to visit Castle in custody, he doesn't care. He's had two days to think about how badly this has all gone wrong and right now he doesn't see a future. He'd had dreams of magnanimously forgiving Beckett, after she'd done some serious apologising, and instead he's got it all wrong.

"Mr Castle. Not your usual accommodations."

"Captain Gates. Oh – DI, now. Come to gloat?"

"No. Come to tell you that your wife still believes you're innocent." She gives him a meaningful look. "It's looking pretty black for you. However, I am led to believe you still have friends." Her voice drops to a whisper. "Friends who are seeking the truth." It rises back to normal. "A sad story, Mr Castle. You should have trusted the right people."

She leaves him there, alone and confused, to be led back to his lonely cell.

Four weeks later, during which time Beckett has barely left her solitary cabin deep in the Adirondacks, hasn't really slept and hasn't really eaten, hasn't contacted anyone, her phone rings with a familiar number.

"Beckett."

"It's done. Your work was sound. You can return. Your reinstatement is effective as of Monday. No penalties."

"Not tomorrow?"

"No. You need some time. Go fix things, Kate."

She doesn't stop crying for almost an hour: relief, stress, adrenaline, and pain. Because she wasn't the one who could save him, and he doesn't trust her like she had trusted him. And now they're broken, and she has no idea at all where to start to put it back together again, the way it used to be. She's not even sure it can be put back together.

She doesn't know where to go. She can't go to the loft. She'd let the sublet lapse. She doesn't have a home in Manhattan any more because she'd given it up when she finally moved into the loft. And their last fight keeps playing in her brain on continuous loop, because he'd been angry and she'd been so furious that all her efforts to save him had been wasted and she was completely unable to protect him from the DEA, and she'd left him to be arrested without even a last kiss. Trying to save him doesn't seem to be enough to wipe that out. It's all such a fucked up mess.

She'd hurt him so badly. Maybe he was right. She's too broken to fix, and too broken to care. She remembers his words. "Go do your job. You're good at that." Until it came to saving him. Then she wasn't. Maybe she should just stay here. Resign. Transfer to the Saranac Lake PD. Fall off the grid.

She should have told him that he couldn't be involved. She thought she had, but maybe what she'd said hadn't meant to him what she'd meant to say. Maybe it's all her fault anyway. Not his for interfering, but hers for not telling him just a little more, enough to keep him away.

She starts to sob again. What a fucked up mess. Her, her job, her marriage, her life. She should never have believed they could have a happy ever after. It doesn't matter what she does, she screws it up. The only common factor in her fucked-up life is her. Therapy hasn't fixed her, being a successful cop didn't fix her, and Castle's endless, infinite love for her didn't fix her. She's simply… not fixable. Maybe the easiest thing would just be to let him divorce her. She won't argue. Her love for him couldn't save him, because somewhere along the way she'd mishandled it and then he'd taken his own path and it had all come crashing down around them.

It's all her fault. It's all her fault.

She lies on her bed and weeps until she falls into drained, exhausted sleep, wakes in the dark of the small hours and can't stop her thoughts running round the same prisoner's wheel. It's all my fault. He doesn't trust me and it's all my fault. She supposes she'll only have to face up to it once. Manhattan's a big city, after all. It's not like they'll be bumping into each other. She falls back into sleep, tears still slipping down her cheeks, cold and bleak as the December weather and the snow falling icy around the cabin.

In the morning, she packs and leaves for the city, and the rest of her shattered life.

Castle can't believe it when his attorney visits to tell him that he's being released that afternoon. He'd long given up hope. There are no repercussions. No confiscations, no electronic tags. The DEA is wholly satisfied that he's completely innocent. A statement is being made to the press. He's reissued his clothes and possessions, and walks out to a hail of questions and flashbulbs. No, he doesn't resent the DEA: in fact he's glad that they do such a good job and that they follow the evidence wherever it leads. Yes, he's delighted to be going home. Of course his family are delighted too.

He cuts it all short after that. Of course Alexis and his mother are delighted. But Kate isn't here. She hasn't come to see him freed, to come home with him. He's lost her. He didn't trust her and he's lost her. He'd lost her the instant he tried to hack her system and he was so angry with her and she didn't even kiss him before she left and he was arrested. It's all over. He'll give her a divorce, when she asks him. It's all his fault. All his fault for not trusting her, for not loving her as much as she had loved him. As she used to love him. But he didn't trust her and it's all broken. He has no idea how to fix it. He doesn't even know if they can fix it.

He looks down, once he's in a car going home, to find a text on his phone. It's not from Kate. He wants to cry, but grown men don't cry. It's from Gates. It says simply Call me. He doesn't want to. But he has to.

"Gates." She answers like Kate used to, that snap of command, and his throat tightens till he can hardly speak.

"Castle."

"Mr Castle. I'm glad to see that justice has prevailed. It took a little longer than I'd have liked."

"You did this? Thank you."

"Save your thanks for your wife. I just built on what she'd done. She's been reinstated without penalty, from Monday."

"Monday? But it's only Wednesday. Why isn't she back tomorrow?"

"I thought that you two needed some time to talk." His throat closes again.

"She didn't come. She isn't here." His voice cracks.

"She doesn't know. I was about to call her when you rang. She isn't in Manhattan. She left to go upstate so that she wasn't tempted to interfere." Gates may not have meant that to bite, but Castle is gnawed by guilt all the same. "She had to leave it to me. She told me to tell you that she left so I could try to prove you innocent."

"Thank you." He cuts the call. Hot tears are gathering in his eyes. He looks at his phone and dials a number. It goes straight to voicemail. "Kate. Please. Call me." He wipes his eyes and stares out the window at the bleak, wintry streets, dirty and sulky in the December gloom.

His family are loving, and delighted, and surrounding him, but all he can do is choke out "Why isn't Kate here?" and then hide in his office, alone except for the Scotch, their last fight playing on his mind. He'd said Quitting me for the job again? This time, don't bother coming back. Seems like she believed him. It's not like he'd taken it back.

It's all his fault.

His phone remains obstinately, obdurately silent for hours, through the night. When it does beep, it's hardly hopeful. I'll see you tomorrow at ten.

He doesn't sleep.

Beckett doesn't sleep, tossing and turning in a washed-out, grimy SRO near Hoboken. Tomorrow… she'll go to the real estate agents early and get some details, to look at places in the afternoon. All her things will fit in the trunk of the car. It's not like she'll want the memories that would come with the mementoes.

By nine-forty-five she's got a sheaf of possible apartments, as far away from SoHo as she can manage and still be on Manhattan. At two minutes to ten, she parks below Castle's building, breathes deeply, and goes in, game face on. She knocks once. The door is opened, and Castle looks down at her. He's indefinably older, bruised in spirit. All her guilt rears up.

"Thank you for seeing me," she starts, formally. "I won't take long. It's my fault this happened. I won't stand in your way. Just send the papers when you're ready." She hasn't even come inside. "Tell me when you want me to collect my stuff. I'll do it when you're not here."

"Kate… no. It's my fault. I should have believed in you. You got me out."

"No. Gates did. It's okay. I should have explained better right at the start. Everything fell apart right then. I get why you don't trust me. I broke us." She pauses. Castle says nothing, struck speechless. "Guess this is goodbye. I just wanted to say it face to face." She starts to turn.

"No." He hauls her in the door and kicks it shut. "I don't want you to go. I don't want you to leave. We can work this out. We both screwed up and we have to try to fix it. We have to try to trust each other if we're going to be able to fix it." He stops, and pulls her into his arms, tears on his cheeks soaking her hair, her tears soaking his shirt. "We have to try, however long it takes us. Please, Kate. Try with me."

"I'll try. I want to come home. However long that takes."

"Then come home, Kate. Come home to me now."

Fin.

Thank you to all readers and reviewers. Hope that those from America had a Happy Thanksgiving.

I promised myself - and a number of you - that I wouldn't do a post-ep. I even asked DrDit (thank you) to put that on twitter, because I really was not going to do this. I'm still not able to take up a variety of requests from some of you to write the M-scene that was heavily flagged (though I'm very flattered that you want me to). I found the last three minutes of 8.08 were utterly ridiculous, to put it mildly, but then this wouldn't leave me alone. Some of you may notice a certain similarity of the theme to Private Investigations. It's deliberate: merely moved on the idea by a few episodes. I will now retreat to the nuclear bunker before any of you can lynch me.

Trolls do not get airtime. Don't bother. You bore me.