Summary: An alternate storyline path beginning in at that moment where Kate confesses more than she meant to in the Interrogation room, and the aftermath that it rains down on Rick. Not much in the lines of case work on this story, it is more about what happens when a person thinks everything they feel for another is invalidated.

AN: This story came about as I was having a multitasking moment - watching an episode ("47 Seconds") of my favorite show, Castle, and happened to hear the song, "Say Something" soon after. The seeds of a story idea came to being at that point. What if Rick heard Kate's confession that she remembered, but he didn't handle it in the same way as he did in the episode and remaining episodes of season 4?

Despite any angst, shocking plot-lines and dramatic exclamations of "I can't believe she did that!", know that I am a die-hard shipper, and as such, I promise there will be a positive Caskett ending, but the road to that ending is gonna be a little bumpy and maybe even a little shocking and (heaven forbid), even thought-provoking ;). I hope you stick with my story, and as always, feedback is love, and so are follows and favorites. The story is complete, so no worries of me leaving ya hanging! :)

Thank you: A big note of thanks to my friend, D, for listening to me hash out the story line into outline form, and even threatening to come to town and tie me to the chair to finish this little story! LOL

Extra info: Rick and Kate's inner thoughts and inner dialogue will be italicized for clarity.

Disclaimer: This is a work of fan fiction. I don't own the characters related to the TV series, Castle, but there are a couple of mine in here that I do. However, they are too poor to go to acting school, and are just fodder to advance the storyline along. No infringement intended, no profit to be gained, and no harm intended. So there. Now, on with the story.

Saying Goodbye

Chapter One - Revelations and their Aftermath

The elevator ride up to the homicide division of the Twelfth precinct of the NYPD was quiet, save for the mechanical hum of the metal car as it slid up towards Richard Castle's destination. Mentally preparing himself, he took several deep breaths and tried to focus on what his end goal for this case would be - finally having a heartfelt talk with Detective Kate Beckett. Sure, he was shadowing her and basing his lead character, Nikki Heat, on her, for his current set of best-selling novels, but funny thing, no matter how many million words he had spun in the interest of creating a best-selling mystery novel, he seemed tongue-tied when it came to sharing his innermost thoughts and feelings with Beckett.

Kate. He sighed.

The Boylan Plaza bombing case had been horrific, at best description. Several dead, many injured, and the search for the person or persons responsible and the reason for this senseless destruction was still in progress. Immersed in the tragic loss of life and destruction, reality slapped him hard...he couldn't wait any longer to tell her how he felt.

He loved her... He was IN love with her.

He was fairly certain that she loved him, too, or at least was open to the prospect of being with him, and love could come from that. But as had been the case on several occasions, when he began to tell her, they were interrupted, this time by Detective Kevin Ryan, who needed them immediately, to share information related to the case. So, they agreed to continue the conversation after the case, Kate not knowing what the topic would be, and Rick, dying to open his heart after finally getting the nerve up to do so.

Rick had a late start getting to the precinct, as he was greeted with "Emergency cheering up pancakes" from his daughter, Alexis, who wanted to spend some time with her Dad. She had been impacted by the Boylan Plaza case, as well, since she was interning in the morgue with Lanie Parish, best friend to Kate and the Medical Examiner responsible for the twelfth precinct. So, Alexis, by extension, was sucked into the process of cataloging belongings, moving bodies and helping prep for identification by grieving loved ones. Despite the fact that she was almost a legal adult, and would be graduating high school in a few months, he still felt remorse for her being involved, and felt that it robbed his daughter of some of her innocence, in some way.

The elevator car lurched to a stop and the slight hiss of the doors opening brought Rick back from his thoughts to the present. Immediately, he was assaulted with the frenetic action of the bullpen. Phones rang from every direction, uniforms and detectives alike were moving about with great urgency, as this case was paramount on everyone's plate.

Almost on auto-pilot, Rick maneuvered his way through the bullpen, to Kate Beckett's desk. Finding her not there, he learned from the other team members, Kevin Ryan and Javier Esposito, that there had been a break in the case. Witnesses identified a young man, Bobby Lopez, that had been seen near the epicenter of the bombing. Beckett had him in Interrogation, hoping to get a confession or at least, pertinent information. Rick's pulse increased at the thought of finding the perpetrator of the bombing. Still holding Kate's daily cup of coffee, he padded towards the observation room, where he could watch the questioning unobtrusively through a two-way mirror.

Rick could hear Kate's rich voice, with a slight edge filling the room. She had Bobby ill at ease, as he could tell, by the vacillation of the man's answers. Bobby was claiming he could not remember what happened or how he got the backpack containing the explosives, that it must be some sort of trauma-induced amnesia.

Growing more frustrated and afraid, Bobby exclaimed, "I swear I don't remember!"

Castle nodded, he could see Kate circling in, and waiting with anticipation about how she would tear his story apart, to get to the truth.

Kate slid off per perch on the table next to Bobby and then circled back on him. She was tired, irritated and with the precision of a laser, stated, "The hell you don't remember! Do you wanna know trauma? I was shot in the chest, and I remember every second of it...And so do you!"

Rick Castle stopped nodding immediately.

The words coming from Kate hit him like an atom bomb, stripping away the outer layers of himself, to expose and destroy his hope, his innocence of love for this woman. His heart shattered beyond repair. He could scarcely breathe at first, let alone speak. He could not even feel anything, as he stood there trying to grab onto some shred of reality, to save himself. He could see Kate run her hands through her hair, obviously perturbed at revealing personal information to a suspect. But it really didn't register with him. He finally was able to find his voice. Seconds had only passed, but it felt as if he were glued to that spot for days.

His heart broken, hurt rampaging through him, he quietly spoke aloud to himself, "All this time...you remembered?"

Richard Castle was many things, and apparently a fool was on that list, as well. His pride destroyed, he was ashamed at his schoolboy crush on Kate Beckett. She had been shot many months before, by a sniper at Captain Roy Montgomery's funeral, and Rick was the first one to her. As she lay on the soft grass of the cemetery, bleeding slowly to death from a bullet wound to her chest, he could not hear the calamity around them, he could only see her. Holding her, begging her to remain conscious, he acted to tell her his true feelings. "Stay with me. I love you, Kate. Kate, I love you." Her eyes folded closed as she became unconscious. So close to death, she was saved, and asked to see him after the heroic measures to save her life. She claimed she did not remember anything about the shooting or after, until after she awoke in the hospital. Rick had no reason to not believe her.

Until this moment.

God, what a fool I've been, Rick thought to himself. She lied to him. It must have been because she didn't love him back. The only thing that came to mind was that he had to get out of there.

Now.

Numbly, he slipped silently out of observation, back to the bullpen, to return to the elevators. He noted the heat filling his hand - he still had a hold of the goddamned cup of coffee he brought Beckett. What a joke. He wanted to throw it against the closest wall, but he didn't want to bring more attention to himself, he just wanted to get the hell out of this building. Walking past the chair he had become so familiar to occupying over the past four years, he placed the cup of coffee on her desk, and kept going, speaking just enough to the boys to let them know he was going. The closing swish of the elevator doors dramatically drew Richard Castle's time at the Twelfth Precinct to an abrupt close.

Rick had arrived by cab, but he didn't want to go home yet. He couldn't. Rick didn't want to be found, or "talked to" by anyone just now. Stepping onto the sidewalk, the cool March air nipped at his skin, but he didn't focus on the temperature outside. He needed to think. He craved time to try and put what had just happened into some perspective, and he couldn't do that at home. Trying to get away from the precinct, he just began walking. He faded into the milling people on the sidewalks of New York, the site where he gained his broken heart, growing smaller and smaller in the distance behind him.

Rick walked for many blocks, just looking ahead. He was nearly struck by a cab as he almost walked right out in front of the vehicle. He honestly didn't see it, and frankly, didn't care. He could feel nothing at the moment but shame at how he had hung on Beckett's heels, like some sappy, love struck idiot, praying for the day she'd notice him. He came to an entrance for the subway. Paying cash for an unlimited ride card, Rick picked the closest train and got on board. The stale stench of body odor and sweat hit him as he progressed through the subway car, making his way to the very last row, and dropped tiredly onto the worn hard plastic seat. Reaching into his pocket, he turned his phone off, not wanting to be bothered right now. The car lumbered forward, starting its destination to deliver its occupants to their desired stops.

Except for him. He had nowhere he needed or wanted to be right now.

Rocked by the sway of the tracks, he allowed himself to recall the events of the morning briefly, as he tried to see it again, to be certain as to what he heard, and what the implications meant. His inner self begged for it all to be some big miscommunication, some misunderstanding that if he just retraced the steps of the morning, would reveal his error. But that was not to be. His recollection was crystal clear and it hurt just as much as it had when it happened, just a short time ago.

How had it all been a lie? How had he fallen so for the beautiful detective, and misread her intentions, at the same time? He knew that when they first met, there was so much friction, that it seemed that she couldn't decide if she wanted to arrest him or drop kick him for several weeks into their now erstwhile collaboration. He thought that with all that friction, he could feel sparks, as well. Their chemistry had been one of the things that drew him to her, to want to know the whole story, and to share it in some way in the form of Nikki Heat. He thought back to the times that he could have sworn that there was more building between them than cop and writer, partner or even as just friends - the trip to LA, where they were so close on that sofa, and talking of how he initially found her to be a mystery he would never solve; the talk in the isolation trailer, where she shared how she wanted someone to dive into things together with her; the bank robbery where she snuck in as a paramedic, and held his hand, promising that she would get him out, and then the clear look of happiness when she found him and his fellow hostages safe and sound. Also, then he recalled the kiss they shared while looking for Espo and Ryan, that they never discussed afterwards.

How had he been so wrong? The phrase, "Love is blind," filled his head at that moment. He had let his heart overwrite reality, it seemed. He misread every situation, every moment that she had shown him any consideration, friendship, or even just human kindness, as something more, and now he sat here, feeling like an utter sap. Rick's mind at that moment, went back to the night at Kate's apartment, where he went to her to convince her to step away from her mother's murder case. Not only had she refused, she reminded him that it was not his concern. When he pressed to talk about why he wanted to talk to her about what they were to each other, she called him the funniest kid in the schoolyard, and that her life, along with her heart, were apparently off limits, and at that, threw him out.

At that moment, he had an epiphany. Kate Beckett did not return his feelings, and had not ever been interested in a relationship with him. Hell, if he thought about it, he could probably see that she didn't even consider him a friend. His self-loathing convinced him that he had misread each moment they shared as more than work encounters, although a few had been of some highly stressful situations. He could not believe that it had taken him so long to see it, but he had been mired in the false hope of one-sided love.

He was deeply in love with Kate Beckett, but at that moment, he could see that she didn't love him back, that she'd never feel that way about him. The enlightenment made his heart hurt. Sure, he had been slow, but he saw it all now clearly, and for the first time, he got it. Rick's thoughts came to him at once. He could not work at the Twelfth along side as a colleague or more likely as a pain in the ass shadow to Kate Beckett. It would be painful to him, as he enjoyed the case work and camaraderie, but a clean break would be for the best, as he could not spend another minute with her, watching her live her life without him any longer, and possibly finding herself in another romantic relationship with someone other than himself. He thought to the things that he had left at the precinct - those Russian stacking dolls, his newest pair of sunglasses, and a few other knickknacks. She could toss them or whatever she wanted to do with them, he considered them forfeit at this point, and nothing that he couldn't either replace or need to toss, due to the emotional connection to Beckett.

His decision set in his mind, he looked up and realized that it was now the afternoon. He had been riding the train for hours. And although this rickety tin can had afforded him time to think about the situation, he was not out of the woods yet concerning his broken heart. He felt insignificant, and he knew that he was also embarrassed a bit, too. He needed to get away, to somewhere that did not have memories associated with...her, so he could try to get over her. Rick wiped the "angry tears" moisture that he discovered had accumulated on his cheeks with his hands and then dried his hands on his pants leg. Seeing the train slowing into a station, Rick stood and made his way to the nearest door that would soon slide open. Stepping off the train car and onto solid ground of the underground platform, he made his way to the entrance of the station. Hailing a cab, he got in and directed the cabbie to his home.

It was time to move on. He had things to take care of, he had somewhere to be, and now was as good a time as any to begin project "Un-love Kate".

To be continued in the next installment!

In the next chapter:

-Will Rick seek out an online dating site to help him get over Kate?

-Will Kate use the stacking dolls for target practice?

-Will Rick ever want to set foot on the subway again?

-Will Alexis cook us all some Emergency Cheering up pancakes, too?

These questions and more may be answered in the next installment! ;)

I will try to update every day or two, depending on wifi access as I travel, etc.

And as always, feedback is King! Thanks in advance for reading this story! :)