A/N: This is kind of a weird one. I saw a YouTube compilation from a recent Nashville episode over the weekend. It was taken from a series I haven't seen yet. One of the scenes in the video really shocked me, and the words "Make me care" wouldn't leave me head. What I meant was that the writers on that show had made me care about these fictional characters, and I wanted to try and put some of that feeling into my own writing. This is what it turned into. Shouldn't be a long one. Famous last words!

Also, the next chapter of "Risking It All" is almost finished too, for those of you following that one.

This story takes place a couple of weeks after the Season 2 finale. When the action says "Present Day" that's the time period it's referring to: a little after 2x24. Love to know what you think.

Chapter 1 - Denial

"Make me care," she chanted, pummeling on his chest with her balled-up fists. "Make me. Make me care, make me care, make me care."

He held on to her firmly, felt the second exhaustion began to kick in: the drum beat of her thumping, clenched fingers slowing, her arms getting tired, the sobs wracking her chest easing to hiccups that stuttered around the breathless gasps she made for air.

"Make. Me. Care." She uttered the words one last time in a whispered, tissue thin voice, as cruel, embarrassing tears coursed down her cheeks.

"Too late, Kate. You already do."

Sixteen days earlier…

"Richard? You ready?"

She felt the scorch of humiliation begin to burn her cheeks the second blond, bubbly, perfectly presented Gina Griffin slipped her arm around Castle's waist, grinned her saccharin "he's all mine" smile, sending up smoke signals as to the reason for her surprise appearance in the precinct, as clear as if she'd struck the match herself.

Kate couldn't even manage to cover up her interest in the reason for the publisher's visit. She practically laid her heart on a platter when she said, "I'm sorry, I—I didn't think the two of you got along."

In retrospect, the air seemed to reek of sex when Castle explained, "We didn't. But then last night on the phone, we started talking..." and Gina added, "And we ended up talking for hours. Just like old times."

Their matchy-matchy, sickening grins, the touchy-feely familiarity between them, the knowledge that her colleagues were all watching her crash and burn through the break room blinds; all of it made her feel sick to her stomach. Finishing each other's sentences was supposed to be their thing, and here was this…this reject from the Manhattan chapter of the Richard Castle harem stealing her thunder. But then maybe he performed the same party trick with all women. Maybe it wasn't some special connection they shared after all.

Suddenly she wanted them out of there, and then she wanted to crawl into a hole and forget she ever met this man. But Richard Castle never did what she wanted, not without putting up a fight first, whether he knew what he was doing or not. And this time was no different.

"Yeah. So...I'm sorry. You were, uh, you were telling me something," he grinned, a special kind of smugness spread all over his face as he stood basking in the attention supplied by not one, but two young, intelligent, beautiful women.

Her cheeks ached, hell, even her teeth hurt when she forced out the words, "Yeah, I wanted to say, have a great summer."

His reply was delivered with the kind of finality that said ending all too clearly. "You, too. And like you said, it's…it's been really, really great."

Really great. Really?

Shaking her hand was the final ignominy. The female who had her arm wrapped around him was his enemy until eight hours ago. It was clear he was a fickle fool if he could perform a one-eighty like that for the woman who merely published his novels, while also holding down the dubious honor of being the second ex-Mrs. Richard Castle. What love was to be found in among that confused mess of roles? And his insincerity, his sudden smitten glow, the whole young love charade they were playing out fooled no one but themselves.

And yet, as much as he disgusted her and much as she felt betrayed, she couldn't let him go without one last humiliation.

"See you in the fall?" She couldn't help herself with the question, twisting the knife a little deeper when she should have turned on her heel already; walked away from this car crash of a scene to begin strategizing how to move on.

His reply merely echoed her sentiment, the words hollow: delivered, as an empty repetition of sound might be, not a genuine answer to her question. "See you in the fall." Just words. Definitely time to move on.

And move on she had, in some senses. Poorly maybe, but she had at least tried to move forward over the last two weeks. She had made positive strides to put him out of her mind via a series of rash, frightening deeds she deemed necessary to eradicate him from her life, since they were both proactive and therapeutic. She had switched from coffee to tea, for example - despite the headaches that felt like some sadist driving nails into her skull with a claw hammer. Drastic maybe, but she had made the switch, and now she was sleeping better as a result.

She had put in for a new partner, only slightly pleased that departmental budget cuts would preclude this from happening for several months at least, buying her a reprieve for this particularly irrational decision. Her thinking was warped: if she had a new partner, he could never come back and be her shadow ever again. Position filled, no vacancies here, keep walking please. The fact that she had no partner when he arrived, and had never actually wanted one since Royce left the job, seemed a minor point to overlook in this drive to clean house, to fill up every Castle-shaped hole with something new.

In the next phase of her campaign, she had also emptied her desk drawers of all the crap the writer had managed to secrete in there over the last couple of years, before he swanned off with his ex-wife leaving a slew of detritus behind him like the departing tide – all the paperclip daisy chains, the used Post-It notes bearing shopping lists, snatches of dialogue, scary little doodles she didn't want to attempt to decipher, even women's phone numbers! The half-eaten Clif bar and the stale packet of Planter's peanuts, the soggy pack of gum and the cherry flavored condom he insisted was "just a joke, Beckett" – all of this went into the trash the first day back after her disastrous weekend alone.

Her final act of defiance, of washing that man right out of her hair, had involved carting his tatty old chair off to the janitor's cubby: a maintenance room at the end of the hall. The bare, windowless concrete box that smelled of Clorox, provolone cheese and Listerine, for reasons Kate had never wanted to contemplate, now became home the this most visual reminder that Castle had left the building for good. And not only that – he had left her for…or rather with another woman on his arm, making no attempt to hide or sugarcoat what the pair of them were about to head off into the literal sunset to do.

Well, good riddance to bad rubbish, she said to herself as she gave the chair one final kick, sending it sliding into the back corner of the airless little room. Out of sight out of mind indeed.

And then this! Just as her heart was beginning to heal. A disaster too painful to face up to. She doesn't want to know.

Present Day…

Torrential rain on the Long Island Expressway.

Deep breath.

Diesel spill…speeding…some kind of argument…median barrier…out of control…

Deep breath.

Airbags…no seatbelt...guardrail…totaled…

Deep breath.

Next of kin…blood type…surgery…organ donor…

In and out the words had drifted, barely registering in between heartbeats, forming a dotted line in her conscious mind where professionalism should have drawn a full, clear picture, dot-to-dot.

"Beckett," said Ryan, cautiously holding out a cup of chamomile tea. "We'll all go together. Traffic should be easy at this hour…"

"Hell, we can light her up if we have to," chipped in Esposito, finally letting her shoulders go and guiding her to a chair by her elbows.

"I can't, guys," she murmured, taking a careful sip and allowing the hot liquid to warm her chilly insides. A summer's day and she felt frozen to the bone.

"What do you mean you can't?" asked Esposito, crouching down in front of her, holding onto the edge of her desk for balance and resting a tentative hand on her knee.

"Are you…deaf?" she muttered quietly, ignoring him after that to take another mouthful of tea.

He stood up to consult with Ryan, slightly turning his back on Kate to do so. He glanced over his shoulder, eyeing her cautiously before speaking. "What the heck, man? Did you see the state she was in just a second ago and now she's…she's what? Too busy to go to the hospital?"

"I'm sitting right here. I can hear you, you know," snapped Kate, her bite dying away to listlessness immediately. She looked like she was in some kind of trance.

Esposito turned back to face her. "Good. Well, if you can hear us, what's with the "don't give a damn" routine all of a sudden? He's your partner!"

"Was."

"Beckett," Ryan interceded, laying a hand on Espo's arm to calm him down and get him to back off a little, to give her space. "Castle needs you."

Kate stared up at him, a look of betrayal in her eyes. "Ryan, I thought you of all people would understand."

"I do. I know how much he hurt you…leaving with Gina like that. But in his defense—"

"His defense? You both want to defend him all of a sudden?" she asked, looking from one shocked face to the other. "What's that all about? You spent the last two years making his life unpleasant, poking fun, laying the big brother act on him any chance you got. So…what's changed all of a sudden?"

"You know what's changed. Guy's in the hospital, Beckett. Doesn't look good," Esposito reminded her.

She looked off to the side, moving her head as fast as if she'd been slapped, before rallying and turning back to face them. "Don't say that. Okay, do not say that!" she demanded, raising her voice again. "You do not get to tell me what to do," she tacked on irrationally.

"We're not trying to, boss. We just thought you'd wanna to be there."

"I already said my goodbye."

Ryan glanced at his partner, worry and confusion, maybe even a sense of powerlessness, chasing fear across his sharp, pale features. "You don't mean that."

"Try me."

In the end she only followed them out to their car because Montgomery made it an order. They handed their active case over to the day shift and headed out to the Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New Hyde Park. The car ride was silent. Kate rode in the back, her eyes unfocused, lashes flickering every few seconds as the changing scenery whipped by outside the window.

She felt as if her heart had been torn out of her chest, a hollow, empty cavern left in its place. She warred with herself while Esposito drove, every bump they hit a painful jar to her stiff, tensed up joints and muscles. She didn't want to care. Castle had his own life. Having Gina show up at the precinct that day had only served to underline that fact. Women were interchangeable to guys like him: guys with fast cars, good manners, multiple homes and money to burn. You ask one hot female to go with you to the Hamptons, she says no, you find yourself a replacement. Easy come, easy go. Even if the shallow pool you're now fishing in means the replacement model is your second ex-wife.

She hated herself for thinking like that. She hated that his departure had been eating at her for over two weeks. She hated that every time she thought about him, before today, the only picture available to her in her head, after two years of hard work, learning to trust, all the laughter and the fear, case after case, long hours, late nights and more coffee than she ever wanted to think about…after all that, the only picture she could find in her messed-up brain to remember him by was one of Gina with her arm around him and his around her as they walked away, leaving her alone and humiliated in her own precinct house.

But the thing she hated most of all was that she knew she was in large part to blame for all of this – start to finish. She had delayed, she had dragged her feet, she had played some cautious, coy little game, until she worked up enough courage to dump her own boyfriend for the chance to take up his offer. Only she delayed too long, and now they were headed out to Long Island to see her partner lying in some hospital bed, and yet again she might be too late.

"What do we know?" she finally leaned forward between the two front seats to ask.

Where the urge came from she couldn't say. He had humiliated her, but that didn't mean she had stopped caring. And the harder she had to work to forget him, the bigger piece of herself she realized he already owned. Besides, it wasn't as if he was completely clued in on her thinking the day Gina showed up. He'd spent days before that asking her to go to the Hamptons with him, facing rejection after rejection, her scoffing dismissals and ridicule while she carried on as if she was too good for him, and still he kept at it. Until he stopped. Castle blinked first, moved on first. Hell, maybe she'd left him feeling as emasculated and humiliated as she now felt. Whatever the truth, they had a past; a past she was now headed to some unknown hospital to confront.

"He's in the E.R.. Sedated, vented. That's all we know."

"And the car?"

"A total wreck. Nassau Country Highway Patrol said how anyone got out—"

"Anyone?" asked Kate, gripping the edge of the pleather front seat until the material compressed in her hand. "Was there someone else in the car with him?"

Ryan glanced at Esposito. The Latino cop nodded and then his partner swiveled in his seat to face the rear.

"Gina Griffin, his—"

"I know who she is," snapped Kate, a wave of nausea cresting in her throat. "What about her? She was in the car with him? Was she the driver?" she demanded, fury flooding her system.

"No. No, Castle was at the wheel," explained Esposito, studying Kate in the rearview mirror.

"And they both got out?"

One look at Ryan's face said it all, but he laid it out for her anyway. "Gina was pronounced D.O.A. on scene, Beckett. She didn't make it."

Kate covered her mouth and closed her eyes, panic clawing at her insides.

"Hit the lights, Javi. Hit the goddamn lights."

TBC...

Note: Gina is known by both the surnames Griffin and Cowell on IMDB etc. Not really sure why. I've gone with Griffin, just so you know.

So, that was a little dark and OTT. But it's fun to have a balance, a good helping of drama, when you're immersed in writing happy fic. Hope you'll give it a chance. Liv