"All We'd Ever Need" -- Chapter 2
Title: All We'd Ever Need
Characters/Pairings: Castle/Beckett (eventually)
Word Count: 2,254
Spoiler alert: Season 3 -- this was written before season 4.
Summary: What happens to Richard Castle and Kate Beckett if she agrees to marry another man?
Author's Notes: This story takes place, let’s say around the beginning of season 4. Except in my world, Roy is still alive and Kate was never shot. Also - I’ve sort of seen this story before, so I apologize if it looks similar to anything you’ve read. But I actually got the idea from the Lady Antebellum song, “All We’d Ever Need.” This isn’t really a song-fic, but that’s where the inspiration came from. I hope you like it!
Thanks to callsign_buzz and sparkles_mouse for beta-reading! I really appreciate all your help.
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The next day, Kate Beckett sat at her desk in the precinct, tossing her phone back and forth in her hands as she stared at her partner’s empty chair. It was nearing lunchtime, and he still hadn’t arrived for the day. Sometimes he didn’t come in until she called to let him know they had a body, but most of the time he couldn’t resist, and would show up just to spend the day annoying her. And if she was honest with herself, she could admit that she missed that, missed his presence. There wasn’t even very much paperwork left to do, and she missed his ability to keep her entertained on slow days.
But today, today she just wanted to see him and make sure he was all right. She was worried about him. After she had announced her engagement, he had simply faded out. The Castle she knew and lo-the Castle she knew (certainly didn’t love), had left the building. The light had faded from his eyes and he had bolted as fast as he could. She hadn’t bought his excuse that he had to help Alexis study. She knew that he was fleeing, running away from her and her fiancé.
God, that still felt weird. Fiancé. She twisted the ring she was now wearing on her finger. It felt strange. She still wasn’t used to the weight of it on her hand. Butterflies started dancing in her stomach again at the thought of marrying Josh. He was a wonderful man, and she loved him, and this was right. You were supposed to marry the man you loved. Thoughts of Castle popped into her head again, but she pushed them aside. She loved Josh. It was something she had been repeating to herself through all of this, trying to calm her fears.
With a sudden fierceness that surprised her, she wished her mom were there. Tears sprang into her eyes and she bit her lip, trying to force them back. She just wanted to talk to her mom, sort all of this out with her. Her mother would know exactly what to say, would know exactly what to do.
Kate sniffed and then swallowed, forcing the tears away. She was not going to start crying in the middle of the precinct.
Her mind wandered back to Castle. Where was he? He never went this long without contact, and that made her nervous. She knew that she had blind-sided him with her announcement the night before, but his reaction, it had… surprised her, the strength of it. He had instantly shut down and ran from the situation. That was usually her modus operandi. She knew he would be surprised, but hadn’t expected the blank, pale look on his face.
She wondered about it. The emotions he had purposefully withheld from his face. That was so unlike him. Usually she could read him like a book, and the fact that he had shut her out made her think that something was wrong.
But what could that be? If she was honest with herself, she knew that her marriage would change her relationship with Castle. They had a tendency to flirt and tease each other, and some of that would probably dwindle. A small part of her could admit she would miss that, but they would still be friends, still be partners.
Though his lack of emotion, and the shutting down and running, told her that maybe he thought otherwise.
Maybe he loves you, a voice whispered somewhere in the back of her brain. It sounded suspiciously like Lanie. But she shoved it away. After last spring, at the beginning of the Hamptons fiasco, he had proven to her that they were just friends, just partners. And she had gotten over him, gotten over what she had almost done, and settled back into their partnership with a new outlook. She had moved on.
But maybe… No. She refused to go there, refused to listen to the Lanie voice in her head. Shut up, Lanie.
Maybe she should take a break and go talk through all of this with Lanie. But she shook her head, not sure she was ready for that. Lanie had a way of ‘hitting the nail on the head’ with her insights into Kate’s personal life, and it wasn’t always comfortable to hear or deal with.
No, she should really talk to Castle about all of this.
Kate looked back at her phone, sliding her thumb across the screen to wake it up. She looked at her text messages and saw that she didn’t have any new ones. She chewed on her lip, wondering if she should just text Castle and get it over with. As she was contemplating this, the phone buzzed in her hand and she nearly jumped.
Castle.
She sighed softly and tapped on the screen to open his text. Sorry I didn’t come in today, got caught up writing.
She frowned at his abrupt message then tapped one back to him. It’s okay. It’s really slow today. You’d be bored out of your mind. I’ll call you if we catch a body.
She sat, waiting for his reply, but it never came. Her eyebrows furrowed with her frown, and she sat the phone down on her desk and then reached over for a pen. She stuck the end of the pen in her mouth and chewed on the cap, contemplating his lack of response to her text. He always texted her back, like the long-winded man that he was. Maybe something had happened to him. Maybe he’d been kidnapped by an axe murderer, or the CIA, or aliens, or… She stopped herself. You’re not the writer, Kate, she reminded herself. He probably just needs some space. You did drop a bomb on him last night.
She sighed again and sat forward, reaching across her desk for the last little stack of paperwork. If he wasn’t coming in to entertain her, she’d better find something to do.
----------------------------------------------------
That night, Kate arrived home to her empty apartment, and tossed her keys on the table by the door before shrugging out of her jacket. She hung it up in the closet and toed off her heels, kicking them into the corner by the door. Then she stared into the space of her apartment, a frown on her face.
Now what? she thought. They hadn’t caught a case all day, and she’d finished all of her paperwork, so she had been able to leave a little early. Josh was working, so she was going to have to find something for herself for dinner. But she wasn’t really hungry yet. She was worried and nervous. She wanted to talk to Castle, wanted to see him and make sure everything was okay- that they were okay. But he hadn’t texted her since that one message before lunch and she wasn’t sure how much space she should give him. Then she wondered if he would be in to work the next day. God, she hated to think it, but she really hoped a body would drop soon so she had an excuse to call him, a reason for him to come to work with her.
Beckett whirled around at the knock on the door, her heart stuttering slightly at the abrupt interruption to her thoughts. She had been so lost in them that the knock just a few feet behind her had startled her.
She peeked quickly through the peephole in the door and her sigh of relief was immediate. She reached for the locks and pulled the door open.
“Castle,” she breathed.
He looked uncomfortable and… and… scared? She bit her lip and stared at him.
“Can I come in?” he asked finally.
She nodded and took a step back, letting him through. As he passed close by, the smell of alcohol swirled around her. She frowned.
“Castle, are you drunk?”
He turned back to her, looking embarrassed and a little guilty, with his hands tucked into his jacket pockets. He ducked his head. “No, I, uh, I was at the Old Haunt. I had a few drinks. But I’m not drunk.” He looked back up at her.
She nodded shortly as she studied him. That light was still gone from his eyes and she found no traces of the humor that she was so accustomed to seeing on him. It made her even more nervous than before.
His eyes dropped to the ring on her finger. She had unconsciously been twisting it again, but stopped immediately when his gaze fell on her hand. She tried very hard not to put her hand behind her back where he couldn’t see it.
“Is Josh here?” he asked, looking around the apartment for the doctor.
“No, he’s working,” she replied, her voice softer than before.
Castle bobbed his head once in a sharp nod. “Good. I need to talk to you.”
“I gathered that, Castle. Do you want to sit down?”
He shook his head. “No, I uh-I just need to get this out, okay?”
Uh-oh, she thought. She nodded her consent for him to continue.
“I’m not going to shadow you anymore. I’m… I’m quitting,” he said, his voice hushed as he stared at her.
She felt the blood draining from her face as she took one small, stumbling step backwards. She stared at his face, unable to look away, as the blood rushed in her ears, the sound a roar in the quiet apartment.
She had not been expecting that. At all.
“What are you talking about?” she finally managed when her voice decided to cooperate.
“I can’t do it anymore, Beckett.” His voice was strained and his eyes were tight with pain. She didn’t miss his use of her last name. Distancing himself, she thought numbly.
“I’ve shadowed you on something like 50 cases. That’s plenty of research for my Nikki Heat books. Or any other books I might write.” He stopped, but she remained silent. She couldn’t speak, something in her chest hurt too much.
“Gina thinks I need to focus on my writing, and she’s right.” Something flickered painfully inside of Kate at the mention of Gina. “I’ve been putting so much time in at the station that I’m behind. Writing one book a year is pretty slow for someone like me. I need to get back to that, focus on that, instead of playing ‘Cops’ with you.”
Her eyes burned. The tears were at bay, but something was pressing on them, making them hot and gritty. She blinked. “Playing ‘Cops’ with me?” she finally managed to say, her voice quieter than she wished. She wanted to yell and scream at him. “That’s what you’ve been doing?” she asked.
He glanced away from her, looked at their feet. “You know what I mean.”
“No. No, I don’t know what you mean, Castle.” She stepped forward this time, finding her anger. She grabbed hold of it like a life raft in a hurricane. “You’re my partner,” she spit out the words, poking him in the chest. “And partners have each other’s backs. They don’t abandon ship when things get rough.”
He swallowed. “I’m not a cop, Kate. I was never your partner. Not really.”
She stumbled back again, her eyes wide. This time the tears were there, pressing against the back of her eyes. She didn’t let them fall. “You don’t mean that,” she whispered, nearly choking on the words.
“I-“ He lifted a hand helplessly towards her. “No, I don’t. I just… I can’t do this anymore, Kate. It’s too much.” She could see the pain in his eyes, and the tears that matched hers. He glanced down at the ring on her hand again and then straightened. He met her eyes and she could see the renewed determination there. “I’m sorry, Beckett.”
She didn’t say anything, so he moved past her, towards the door. When his hand reached for the knob, she spoke to his back.
“Please,” she whispered, the sound broken and pitiful, even to her ears.
He froze and seemed to hesitate, but after a second, his shoulders tensed and he spoke. “I hope you have a wonderful life, Kate.” Then he opened the door and was gone.
She stared at the door for a moment before crumpling to the floor, her tears finally winning out.
----------------------------------------------------
Castle stood on the other side of the closed door, his heart pounding in his chest. He couldn’t make his feet cooperate and walk away.
And then he heard her broken sobs coming through the barrier between them and he sank to the floor in front of her door. He wanted to turn around, go back inside and gather her up in his arms and rock her and tell her that everything was going to be okay, that he would stay, that he would work with her and do whatever she needed him to do, as long as he got to stay in her life.
But he couldn’t. He couldn’t do that to himself. It would kill him, watching her marry Josh, eventually watching her grow round and soft with another man’s child. He would never survive that, any of it.
He wasn’t so sure he would survive this either, but he had to try. He had to try and move on with his life.
Even if he knew he would never love someone the way he loved her.
He picked himself up off the floor and walked away.
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Characters/Pairings: Castle/Beckett (eventually)
Word Count: 2,254
Spoiler alert: Season 3 -- this was written before season 4.
Summary: What happens to Richard Castle and Kate Beckett if she agrees to marry another man?
Author's Notes: This story takes place, let’s say around the beginning of season 4. Except in my world, Roy is still alive and Kate was never shot. Also - I’ve sort of seen this story before, so I apologize if it looks similar to anything you’ve read. But I actually got the idea from the Lady Antebellum song, “All We’d Ever Need.” This isn’t really a song-fic, but that’s where the inspiration came from. I hope you like it!
Thanks to callsign_buzz and sparkles_mouse for beta-reading! I really appreciate all your help.
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The next day, Kate Beckett sat at her desk in the precinct, tossing her phone back and forth in her hands as she stared at her partner’s empty chair. It was nearing lunchtime, and he still hadn’t arrived for the day. Sometimes he didn’t come in until she called to let him know they had a body, but most of the time he couldn’t resist, and would show up just to spend the day annoying her. And if she was honest with herself, she could admit that she missed that, missed his presence. There wasn’t even very much paperwork left to do, and she missed his ability to keep her entertained on slow days.
But today, today she just wanted to see him and make sure he was all right. She was worried about him. After she had announced her engagement, he had simply faded out. The Castle she knew and lo-the Castle she knew (certainly didn’t love), had left the building. The light had faded from his eyes and he had bolted as fast as he could. She hadn’t bought his excuse that he had to help Alexis study. She knew that he was fleeing, running away from her and her fiancé.
God, that still felt weird. Fiancé. She twisted the ring she was now wearing on her finger. It felt strange. She still wasn’t used to the weight of it on her hand. Butterflies started dancing in her stomach again at the thought of marrying Josh. He was a wonderful man, and she loved him, and this was right. You were supposed to marry the man you loved. Thoughts of Castle popped into her head again, but she pushed them aside. She loved Josh. It was something she had been repeating to herself through all of this, trying to calm her fears.
With a sudden fierceness that surprised her, she wished her mom were there. Tears sprang into her eyes and she bit her lip, trying to force them back. She just wanted to talk to her mom, sort all of this out with her. Her mother would know exactly what to say, would know exactly what to do.
Kate sniffed and then swallowed, forcing the tears away. She was not going to start crying in the middle of the precinct.
Her mind wandered back to Castle. Where was he? He never went this long without contact, and that made her nervous. She knew that she had blind-sided him with her announcement the night before, but his reaction, it had… surprised her, the strength of it. He had instantly shut down and ran from the situation. That was usually her modus operandi. She knew he would be surprised, but hadn’t expected the blank, pale look on his face.
She wondered about it. The emotions he had purposefully withheld from his face. That was so unlike him. Usually she could read him like a book, and the fact that he had shut her out made her think that something was wrong.
But what could that be? If she was honest with herself, she knew that her marriage would change her relationship with Castle. They had a tendency to flirt and tease each other, and some of that would probably dwindle. A small part of her could admit she would miss that, but they would still be friends, still be partners.
Though his lack of emotion, and the shutting down and running, told her that maybe he thought otherwise.
Maybe he loves you, a voice whispered somewhere in the back of her brain. It sounded suspiciously like Lanie. But she shoved it away. After last spring, at the beginning of the Hamptons fiasco, he had proven to her that they were just friends, just partners. And she had gotten over him, gotten over what she had almost done, and settled back into their partnership with a new outlook. She had moved on.
But maybe… No. She refused to go there, refused to listen to the Lanie voice in her head. Shut up, Lanie.
Maybe she should take a break and go talk through all of this with Lanie. But she shook her head, not sure she was ready for that. Lanie had a way of ‘hitting the nail on the head’ with her insights into Kate’s personal life, and it wasn’t always comfortable to hear or deal with.
No, she should really talk to Castle about all of this.
Kate looked back at her phone, sliding her thumb across the screen to wake it up. She looked at her text messages and saw that she didn’t have any new ones. She chewed on her lip, wondering if she should just text Castle and get it over with. As she was contemplating this, the phone buzzed in her hand and she nearly jumped.
Castle.
She sighed softly and tapped on the screen to open his text. Sorry I didn’t come in today, got caught up writing.
She frowned at his abrupt message then tapped one back to him. It’s okay. It’s really slow today. You’d be bored out of your mind. I’ll call you if we catch a body.
She sat, waiting for his reply, but it never came. Her eyebrows furrowed with her frown, and she sat the phone down on her desk and then reached over for a pen. She stuck the end of the pen in her mouth and chewed on the cap, contemplating his lack of response to her text. He always texted her back, like the long-winded man that he was. Maybe something had happened to him. Maybe he’d been kidnapped by an axe murderer, or the CIA, or aliens, or… She stopped herself. You’re not the writer, Kate, she reminded herself. He probably just needs some space. You did drop a bomb on him last night.
She sighed again and sat forward, reaching across her desk for the last little stack of paperwork. If he wasn’t coming in to entertain her, she’d better find something to do.
----------------------------------------------------
That night, Kate arrived home to her empty apartment, and tossed her keys on the table by the door before shrugging out of her jacket. She hung it up in the closet and toed off her heels, kicking them into the corner by the door. Then she stared into the space of her apartment, a frown on her face.
Now what? she thought. They hadn’t caught a case all day, and she’d finished all of her paperwork, so she had been able to leave a little early. Josh was working, so she was going to have to find something for herself for dinner. But she wasn’t really hungry yet. She was worried and nervous. She wanted to talk to Castle, wanted to see him and make sure everything was okay- that they were okay. But he hadn’t texted her since that one message before lunch and she wasn’t sure how much space she should give him. Then she wondered if he would be in to work the next day. God, she hated to think it, but she really hoped a body would drop soon so she had an excuse to call him, a reason for him to come to work with her.
Beckett whirled around at the knock on the door, her heart stuttering slightly at the abrupt interruption to her thoughts. She had been so lost in them that the knock just a few feet behind her had startled her.
She peeked quickly through the peephole in the door and her sigh of relief was immediate. She reached for the locks and pulled the door open.
“Castle,” she breathed.
He looked uncomfortable and… and… scared? She bit her lip and stared at him.
“Can I come in?” he asked finally.
She nodded and took a step back, letting him through. As he passed close by, the smell of alcohol swirled around her. She frowned.
“Castle, are you drunk?”
He turned back to her, looking embarrassed and a little guilty, with his hands tucked into his jacket pockets. He ducked his head. “No, I, uh, I was at the Old Haunt. I had a few drinks. But I’m not drunk.” He looked back up at her.
She nodded shortly as she studied him. That light was still gone from his eyes and she found no traces of the humor that she was so accustomed to seeing on him. It made her even more nervous than before.
His eyes dropped to the ring on her finger. She had unconsciously been twisting it again, but stopped immediately when his gaze fell on her hand. She tried very hard not to put her hand behind her back where he couldn’t see it.
“Is Josh here?” he asked, looking around the apartment for the doctor.
“No, he’s working,” she replied, her voice softer than before.
Castle bobbed his head once in a sharp nod. “Good. I need to talk to you.”
“I gathered that, Castle. Do you want to sit down?”
He shook his head. “No, I uh-I just need to get this out, okay?”
Uh-oh, she thought. She nodded her consent for him to continue.
“I’m not going to shadow you anymore. I’m… I’m quitting,” he said, his voice hushed as he stared at her.
She felt the blood draining from her face as she took one small, stumbling step backwards. She stared at his face, unable to look away, as the blood rushed in her ears, the sound a roar in the quiet apartment.
She had not been expecting that. At all.
“What are you talking about?” she finally managed when her voice decided to cooperate.
“I can’t do it anymore, Beckett.” His voice was strained and his eyes were tight with pain. She didn’t miss his use of her last name. Distancing himself, she thought numbly.
“I’ve shadowed you on something like 50 cases. That’s plenty of research for my Nikki Heat books. Or any other books I might write.” He stopped, but she remained silent. She couldn’t speak, something in her chest hurt too much.
“Gina thinks I need to focus on my writing, and she’s right.” Something flickered painfully inside of Kate at the mention of Gina. “I’ve been putting so much time in at the station that I’m behind. Writing one book a year is pretty slow for someone like me. I need to get back to that, focus on that, instead of playing ‘Cops’ with you.”
Her eyes burned. The tears were at bay, but something was pressing on them, making them hot and gritty. She blinked. “Playing ‘Cops’ with me?” she finally managed to say, her voice quieter than she wished. She wanted to yell and scream at him. “That’s what you’ve been doing?” she asked.
He glanced away from her, looked at their feet. “You know what I mean.”
“No. No, I don’t know what you mean, Castle.” She stepped forward this time, finding her anger. She grabbed hold of it like a life raft in a hurricane. “You’re my partner,” she spit out the words, poking him in the chest. “And partners have each other’s backs. They don’t abandon ship when things get rough.”
He swallowed. “I’m not a cop, Kate. I was never your partner. Not really.”
She stumbled back again, her eyes wide. This time the tears were there, pressing against the back of her eyes. She didn’t let them fall. “You don’t mean that,” she whispered, nearly choking on the words.
“I-“ He lifted a hand helplessly towards her. “No, I don’t. I just… I can’t do this anymore, Kate. It’s too much.” She could see the pain in his eyes, and the tears that matched hers. He glanced down at the ring on her hand again and then straightened. He met her eyes and she could see the renewed determination there. “I’m sorry, Beckett.”
She didn’t say anything, so he moved past her, towards the door. When his hand reached for the knob, she spoke to his back.
“Please,” she whispered, the sound broken and pitiful, even to her ears.
He froze and seemed to hesitate, but after a second, his shoulders tensed and he spoke. “I hope you have a wonderful life, Kate.” Then he opened the door and was gone.
She stared at the door for a moment before crumpling to the floor, her tears finally winning out.
----------------------------------------------------
Castle stood on the other side of the closed door, his heart pounding in his chest. He couldn’t make his feet cooperate and walk away.
And then he heard her broken sobs coming through the barrier between them and he sank to the floor in front of her door. He wanted to turn around, go back inside and gather her up in his arms and rock her and tell her that everything was going to be okay, that he would stay, that he would work with her and do whatever she needed him to do, as long as he got to stay in her life.
But he couldn’t. He couldn’t do that to himself. It would kill him, watching her marry Josh, eventually watching her grow round and soft with another man’s child. He would never survive that, any of it.
He wasn’t so sure he would survive this either, but he had to try. He had to try and move on with his life.
Even if he knew he would never love someone the way he loved her.
He picked himself up off the floor and walked away.
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