A/N: SO SORRY for the very late update! I had a family emergency that came up that ended up taking a lot of time to resolve. Long story.
But I'm back!

THANK YOU ALL so, so much for your responses! You have no idea how much they are appreciated.

Here is the third installment...hopefully you stick with me through this angsty beginning?

I promise, it gets better soon enough! ;)

Disclaimer: I own Castle.

In my dreams.

Chapter 2

December 3, 2012

Her thumb traced the soft skin of his hand, roaming over his knuckles.

She sighed as she looked fondly at him, taking in every feature of his face while she still had the chance.

"I'm so sorry," she uttered, choking. "I wish I could take it all back."

Kate was surprised that she found herself a bit disappointed over the fact that he didn't wake up and reply.

That he didn't wake up and tell her it was all okay, that they were more than whatever obstacles came up.

Because they didn't make sense on paper, but the songs did make sense. Because they promised each other 'always.'

And wasn't that all that really mattered?

She felt her eyes begin to well up as she looked at him, never taking her hand away from his.

"Please, wake up." A tear fell from her cheek onto his skin. "Please."

A knock at the door interrupted her soliloquy, and she hurriedly wiped at her eyes.

"Detective Beckett?"

"Yeah-yes?" She stood.

"I'm afraid visiting hours are over," the nurse said, giving her an apologetic look.

"Oh." Her face fell as she nodded. "Alright, thank you."

The woman before her nodded back, offering a kind smile as she turned to go back to her station.

Kate touched Rick's face with the back of her hand, and softly smiled at his unconscious figure.

She turned to leave, but suddenly turned back, and then ducked her head to place her lips against the stubble of his jaw.

"I miss you, Castle," she whispered into his ear, and then slowly withdrew from his presence until she found herself outside the entrance to the hospital, where she finally let the tears come.

December 31, 2012

The morning sun shot into Kate's room like a bunch of death rays, causing her to groan as she rolled over on her side, burying her face in the pillow to blanket her eyes in darkness.

She opened one eye, peering against the intruding light to see her alarm clock.

Eight o'clock in the morning.

'Wasn't it just eight p.m.?' She thought to herself, sighing inwardly.

She reluctantly flung the covers off, swinging her feet off the side of the bed.

A gasp erupted from her mouth as the shock of the freezing floor met her bare feet, and she danced across the room to grab a pair of socks from her dresser.

"Kate?" A female voice called from her living room.

She looked up in confusion. "Lanie?"

The M.E. poked her head around the corner of Kate's bedroom door. "You okay?"

"Lanie, what are you doing here?" She laughed, pulling on the socks.

"Freezing my ass off, for starters," she rose her eyebrows at the detective. "Is your heater not turned on?"

Another laugh. "No, it's been acting up for the past week. I've just been bundling up lately. I was gonna call to see about getting it fixed, but I just haven't gotten around to it with everything that's been happening."

"And that, my friend, is the other reason I'm here."

"What?"

"Javi told me about Castle. How are you holding up?"

"Ahh," Kate rose her jaw knowingly. "Okay, Lanie, I'm fine."

"You don't look so fine."

She scoffed. "What is everyone's deal lately? I am fine."

"Alright, if you say so," Lanie surrendered, but Kate could tell she knew better. "Well then, how's Writer-Boy doing?"

"He's fine, I suppose. He was discharged two days ago."

She was met with a blank stare, then a look that said she was waiting for the rest of it. "Well...? What else? Are things okay with you guys?"

"Um," she hesitated, then lowered her voice. "No. Not really."

Lanie's voice lowered too, as she gave Kate a sympathetic look. "Are you still fighting?"

"Yeah. I thought we were gonna be over it when he woke up, that we would fall right back into..." she trailed off, looking up.

"Into each other's arms, huh?"

"Yeah," she breathed. "But apparently that only works in the movies."

"A lot of stuff only works in the movies," Lanie replied, placing a hand on her friend's shoulder.

"I just...I thought I would be so happy to see him alive, and, I mean, don't get me wrong-I am. I'm glad he's okay, because I never would've forgiven myself if he wasn't. But there's still so many feelings laying underneath that relief, you know?"

Lanie nodded and remained silent, letting her continue.

"I still feel so much hurt from our argument before the...before the shooting," she forced herself to finish. "And anger, and rage, and sadness, and confusion, and happiness that he's okay, and...just, everything. I feel so many things at once, and I don't know what they create all together."

"You know what they create altogether?"

Kate looked up through blurred, teary vision at her.

"Love," she stated simply.

The brunette gave a small laugh, wiping at her eyes.

"You love him," Lanie goaded her gently. "Don't let him slip away while you are both angry and hurting."

"I just...I don't know how to get back to where we were. So much was said that neither of us can take back. We purposefully hurt each other in the worst way we knew, and that can't be so easily reconciled. It just seems impossible right now, from where I'm standing."

"Then stand somewhere different, girl! You're both crazy about each other, and you've been through too much together to just throw it all away so suddenly."

"Yeah," she nodded, her finger making one last swipe at the wetness on her cheek before falling to her side. "Yeah."

"Coming, coming," Castle groaned at the obnoxious pounding on his front door.

He flung it open, ready to yell at whoever the hell was stupid enough to wake him up and annoy the living daylights out of him this early in the morning, when her broken smile stopped him in his tracks.

"Hi," she whispered.

His jaw locked in pain and steely anger. "Beckett, what do you want?"

A flood of emotion hit her at the utterance of the question.

'Kate' was gone, and the cold and distant use of her last name was back.

But that question had also been the very same one spoken the night they consummated every feeling they'd felt for the past few years.

Those words had been the ones to leave Rick's mouth right before her lips met his for the second time in their lives, and it had been oh, so painfully sweet.

She briefly entertained the idea of making the same exact movements she'd made that night, but brushed it aside, knowing he was nowhere near the state she wished he was in.

Needed him in.

She hesitated. "I...I was wondering if I could talk with you."

"Talk with me, or talk at me?" He took his hand off the doorknob and turned to walk into the living room, where she followed him, closing the door behind her.

His sharp words fulfilled their purpose, stinging her like a slap across the face.

"Seriously, Castle?"

"Seriously."

"What is that even supposed to mean?"

"It means exactly what it sounds like. I mean, it's all you've done lately," he gritted out. "All we've talked about is what you've wanted to hear. You won't listen to anything otherwise-not anything I have to say. Or, basically, the ugly truth that you don't want to face-"

"Bullshit!" She interrupted him. "All you've done is blame me for fucking everything that's gone wrong!"

He scoffed. "I wonder why."

There was a moment's pause as what he said weighed down on her, heavy like a blow. And, suddenly, she shattered the silence with broken words.

"You know what? I'm sorry I even tried coming here."

Kate stormed to the door - the very same door their lips had once upon a time set fire to each other against.

"Big surprise, Beckett. There you are, leaving again!"

She froze mid-step in front of the entry, refusing to turn back and look at him.

He heard the tears she was fighting back with every choked-up word she uttered in the next second.

"Only because you're chasing me away, Rick."

He watched as she waited half a second and then pulled the door open.

His eyes closed with the closing of the door, and he stood silent, as their pain echoed through the room.

"Yo, Beckett! What are you doing here-"

Esposito stopped short at the sight of her face and immediately made his way over to her desk, where she was standing staring at the chair beside it. He took her by the shoulders. "C'mon."

He led her into the empty breakroom, closing the door behind them as she sat on the couch, dazed.

"What's goin' on?"

At her silence, he came to crouch in front of her, forcing her eyes to meet his. "Hey."

She inhaled. "He doesn't want me anymore. He doesn't...he doesn't feel the same way anymore."

"Hey, you guys have been through a lot lately. Just give it some time."

"No." She shook her head. "It's too late. He's given up."

"Beckett, that man loves you. I can guarantee that."

"Doesn't seem like it," came the mutter.

He sighed. "What happened?"

She hesitated. "I went to talk to him. To see if we could start moving past everything that's been said and done, and...just to see if we could start over again. But um, he...didn't go for it." Her voice quieted. "He just went right on the defensive and put all his walls up and wouldn't let me in."

Esposito looked down for a second, then back up at her. "He's wrong. But you were, too."

Kate looked at him in shock. "What?"

"I'm not saying going to him was wrong. I think you're doin' the right thing trying to fix things. He's being a jerk by shooting you down like that." He knit his eyebrows together. "But...what were you doing the first time you fought?"

It was her turn to look at her feet.

"Hey," he put a finger under her chin, and she met his eyes again. "I got your back. You know that. But give him some time to heal. He just woke up from a coma that he was put in by being shot, and no, that was not your fault," he added as she opened her mouth to argue. "And so to him, that fight just happened. It's still fresh. Give it time. Okay?"

She gave a slight nod.

"I just miss him," she whispered.

"I know," he patted her knee. "I know you do."

Kate sludged through the icy snow crowding the back streets of New York City.

The main streets were ridiculously crowded with obnoxious tourists celebrating the start of a new year, and she wanted to avoid their loud, overbearing excitement at all costs.

If that meant snow everywhere versus a cleared street, so be it.

She kept her eyes down on the ground in front of her, only looking up every now and then to stay aware of her surroundings.

Fellow native-New Yorkers that knew to avoid all main streets nodded at her when they passed her by, but remained silent as they continued on.

She wasn't sure why she had decided to just start walking everywhere instead of taking her patrol car, but she felt a strange sense of calm as the chill in the air filled her, clearing her mind of all that cluttered it.

That calm left, however, when a laughing couple passed by hand-in-hand as she crossed Leonard Street, sending a pang through her chest.

They would start the new year together.

In love.

Happy.

Jealousy and sadness surged through her bones as she remembered the plans she and Castle had once made long ago for New Year's Eve, which were now lost in the wind.

Their plans to be tourists, in essence.

Watch the ball drop in Times Square with thousands of other people from around the world, go ice skating at Rockefeller under the fireworks, hot cocoa in front of the fireplace...

Now she cynically laughed at the stupidity of it all.

What were they thinking? Who were they kidding?

Did they really think it would all work out perfectly between them? That they would live happily ever after?

They were two people with a lot of baggage to carry around, with pasts that seemed to haunt them everywhere they went, at every turn.

She mentally scoffed.

Why did they even bother to dream?

To wish?

To hope?

It was all pointless in the end, moot.

Like Lanie had said earlier, a lot of stuff only happens in the movies.

This was real life they were dealing with.

So who were they kidding?

Kate let out an unsteady exhale, watching the swirl of her breath float up into the air.

She would be alone for the start of this new year. And she would probably be alone for a long, long time after that.

All her hopes and wishes and dreams she had had for this new period in her life flashed before her eyes, seeming to reflect in the windows of the shops surrounding the icy-white street as she walked on.

She would never be the same without him.