Here's letter L of Castle's half of the alphabet. Just a quick one, mainly AU with just the final taken from the beginning of season 4. Enjoy the reading.

A/N: I do not own any of these characters.

LONELY

Dr. Burke heard the knock on his door and put the papers he was going through back into the folder on the coffee table.

"Hey Doc."

"Hello Kate." he replied welcoming Beckett into his office.

"Do sit down." he invited her.

"I'd rather stand, thanks." she said avoiding his eyes.

"Okay."

He realized just by looking at her that something was wrong. Almost three months had passed since their first encounter and he had learned to read her quite well. Of course he had gone through her file. Her case was a big one. One of those which inevitably challenged him not only as a psychiatrist but most of all as a man. Right in front of him he had found a stunning young woman, one of the best detectives in New York whose life had capsized not just once, as if that first blow hadn't been sufficient to crush her, but, because of one of those unexpected twists of fate, twice. And the second time had been the worst. She had come back from the dead. Shattered, altered and scared even of her own shadow. It had taken him weeks of therapy to make her sit down and look at him, longer than that to make her open up to him.

And now she was holding back again, keeping everything inside.

"Something is bothering you Kate..." he said breaking the silence.

Beckett turned toward him and held his gaze. Of course he knew. He was damn good. She had known that right from the start. They would not send her to any shrink. She deserved the best in the field. They owed her that. Risking your life is part of the game, being shot near the heart is something else. It's a scar you have to confront with every day of your life and not just physically.

He had been so patient with her the first times while she nervously tried to pull herself together. Her shivering almost uncontrollable. He had never pushed her. He had simply waited for her to make the first move.

"Yeah." she sighed.

"Anything you'd like to talk about?"

There was a long pause. Then she looked at the armchair in front of him and decided to sit down.

She took a deep breath and sighed again. "A dream..." she said.

"A new one?" he inquired calmly.

"It started Friday night."

"And you've made the same dream every night?"

"Every night..."

"Tell me your dream Kate." his invitation almost a whisper.

She looked at him like a child who's terrified of confessing a sin.

"We're in a dark alley..." she began.

"Who's we" he asked even if he knew who she was referring to.

"Castle and I. There has been a call... we are supposed to go and check..." she stopped.

"And..." he asked her after a while.

"We walk down the alley... it gets even darker as we move toward the back door of the place we're going to check...there's a man sitting down on a stool, bent down... I reach for my gun and turn to Castle to warn him as I don't like the look of it... he smiles at me..."

Beckett stopped and relived the scene in her mind.

He smiles at her, his usual reassuring beautiful smile when the game is getting tough. His way of telling her he would not leave her alone no matter what. He has done that so many times over the years she feels so secure with him having her back. He points proudly at his writer bullet-proof vest then his smile suddenly turns into a grimace with pain, his hand instinctively going to his throat. She forgets everything about the alley and grabs him as he's falling on the ground shielding him with her body. The blood flows quickly between his fingers... she manages to remove his hand and gasps. The wound is large and deep. She presses hard with both hands telling him not to speak as she perceives he wants to... she hears footsteps then Ryan and Esposito yelling, rushing toward the bastard who has shot at their partner. With one hand she keeps pressing hard on his neck... with the other she pulls his head slightly up toward her face... she lowers down and tells him desperately to hold on... to look at her... to stay with her... she begs him not to leave her alone because she would not survive... because she loves him. He smiles, happy to have heard her finally say those words... then his eyes turn to a darker shade of blue and she is so afraid... he opens his lips and lets out a death rattle... she pulls him up... to let him take in the air he needs... "Kate... I..." then the blood stops flowing... and he closes his eyes...

"… He dies in my arms..." She broke down tears rolling down her cheeks.

Burke didn't say a word and simply let her cry, her head buried in her hands. When she stopped sobbing she dug her red swollen eyes into his.

"What are you afraid of Kate? Of losing him or telling him how you feel?"

"Both." she confessed.

"So why have you punished him for so long, pushing him away?"

She looked at him with startled eyes. He had never spoken like that before.

"Because he has found the courage to say what he feels for you Kate? Because he loves you?"

"I am such a fool..."

"You are not. But you are afraid to be happy, he was right Kate and you know it."

Castle raised his head from the desk and he saw her.

"Kate, you can make it out to Kate." she handed him the book and she smiled.