A/N: Hey everyone! Here is chapter one of my entry for the 2015 Summer Hiatus Ficathon! I've wanted to do this for a while, and this year I decided I was ready to go for it! Please let me know your thoughts, and I hope you enjoy it :)

His phone was lying on the desk in front of him when it began to vibrate, the display on the screen lighting up. He hoped for just a fraction of a second that it's her, but of course, it isn't. It has been exactly twelve weeks to the day since Kate Beckett ended their relationship to go to DC, and he was left with an engagement ring and a broken heart. Now, he sighed wearily as he reached for the squalling device, not even noticing the significant 202 area code. He barely had the energy to deal with the phone these days, but he was forcing himself to carry on as if nothing was wrong. He supposed somewhere deep down he hoped it would go away on its own eventually, the constant hurt he felt, the pain that flooded him with every heartbeat, the regret and anger that he felt every time he thought of her. But mostly, he hoped that the love would disappear someday. He could live with the pain, he thought, if only the bone-deep, undeniable, all-encompassing love he had for her would just go away. Then maybe he could be okay again. If only she didn't hold so much of his heart.

"Rick Castle," he said as he answered the call.

"Hi." The female voice on the line was unfamiliar. "I'm Grace Moretz, and I'm a nurse at Providence Hospital in Washington, D.C."

It was a sudden rush of emotion that filled him as she spoke. Washington D.C.The words struck him like a punch to the gut, a sudden shock that left him whirling. His first thoughts were, as always, of Kate.

"Is she okay?" he asked, his question a rush of whitewater, quick and blurred together in his haste to know the answer. Grace Moretz hesitated, possibly from the surprise his immediate question elicited when she hadn't even yet told him why she was calling.

"I'm calling about a Katherine Beck-" she began, only to be cut off by the man on the phone, this Richard Castle, with his impatient tone, laced with what Grace, if pressed, would have to identify as fear.

"I know who you're calling about," he said. "Is she okay?" There was definitely a hint of desperate fear in his voice, which he was doing a very poor job of concealing.

" , I think you should allow me to finish," she implored, but he sighed, his breath creating static in the phone speaker.

"Will you please just tell me if she's okay or not?" he asked. Grace sighed now too. She didn't know what there was between her patient and the man on the phone, only that he was her emergency contact. That, and the fact that he now sounded near tears at even the prospect of what Grace could tell him.

Now she really wished she wasn't the one making this call.

"No, Mr. Castle," she said gently. "She isn't okay."

It was exactly what he'd feared, those words that the nurse had just spoken to him. She's not okay. He was so angry with Kate, so hurt, so confused. And he wished more than anything in that moment that he didn't care. He wished that he could shrug it off, scoff at the nurse and mutter something about Kate deserving whatever she got, and hang up the phone then and there. He wanted so desperately to be able to do that. But he couldn't. Because his heart was hammering and he was nearly shaking with fear for the woman he loved more than life, despite everything. He was filled with the need to be with Kate, to do something-anything- that would help her. His imagination was already getting the best of him, coming up with twisted scenarios in which he envisioned all sorts of awful things having happened to her, and he pinched the bridge of his nose, holding back tears.

"I'm on my way, I'll be there as soon as possible." He hung up then, not wanting the nurse to explain anything just then. He supposed it could be better for some to know a thing like that, to hear the details as opposed to going on not knowing. But for Rick, the fear that the truth was too much to handle overcame the fear of the unknown and he simply hung up. He preferred to hope for something she could come back from, preferred to imagine that during the flight to DC over asking Grace Moretz for more information, in case she was about to tell him that Katherine Beckett was-

No. He refused to even consider it. That word would not come into play. Not now, and not ever if he could help it. He shook his head like a dog ridding its ears of water, shaking with it the thought that he refused to let himself think. He reached for his wallet. The worn leather contained everything he could think of that he needed right then, aside from the traitorous device he'd already slipped into his pocket and the moleskine notebook he would pick up as he left. The wallet held the money he would need for a plane ticket, and two photographs. One was of his mother and daughter, taken several years prior, the two redheads smiling at one another. It was a snapshot that captured their relationship perfectly, catching the familiarity and love in their gazes as well as the trust that was obvious, the inside joke they'd just shared apparent even in the still image. The other photo was of Kate. In it, she was sitting on the steps in her apartment, a book open in her hands, her fingers caressing its well-read pages. If memory served him, which he was quie certain that it did, the book was Anna Karenina by Tolstoy, in its original Russian. Kate, dressed in casual clothing, her long waves down, looked happy as she was perched there, her gaze and her smile directed not at him, but at something on the other side of the room, something which the photo did not capture. Now, Rick didn't know what Kate had been looking at, and he wondered about it briefly as he grabbed the notebook and headed for the kitchen. He had looked at the photo a thousand times at least, always enraptured by her open and carefree expression, the obvious happiness in this version of his Kate, who, he realized again with a sudden but familiar pang, was no longer his. And now, he couldn't even be sure she would ever again be anyone's at all.

"Richard, darling, I have a question for you!" Martha's voice struck a nerve in Rick just then. How could anyone be so happy? Why was everyone not as fearful and on edge as he was? He reminded himself that she didn't know, she couldn't have any way to, and he bit his tongue so as to avoid snapping at her.

"Not now, Mother," he said. His voice was tense and Martha's expression darkened immediately.

"Richard?" she asked. "What's wrong?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "It's Kate, and she's in the hospital, that's all I know."

"Kate?" Now her tone caught his attention. He turned to meet Martha's eyes. Her expression was guarded and he couldn't read what she was thinking.

"Yes, Kate," he confirmed. Martha sighed.

"Richard, you cannot be seriously rushing to that woman's aid yet again?" Her tone implied that, while she clearly knew the answer, she was hoping it would be anything but. Rick paused. He was torn. All he wanted was to go, to be on the next flight to DC and be by Kate's side as soon as possible. But, his mother was clearly trying to make a point here, and it seemed to be one she thought should be obvious to him. But it wasn't. He had no idea where she was going with this, and his patience was waning thin.

"What's your point?" he asked. "Of course I'm going." Martha stared at him, wondering how anyone so smart could be so stupid at the same time.

"She doesn't deserve you, Rick," she said. They stared at one another for a moment.

"I know that," he said quietly. "But Mother, I don't deserve her either. And neither of those things make me love her any less. I'm going."

Seat 14b.

That was where he found himself as the Delta Airlines plane lifted off from JFK. He sighed as he looked out the window, watching for a few minutes as New York City's familiar skyline became distant and the city, along with its eight million inhabitants, eventually disappeared from view altogether. When all his window offered were clouds, he turned away and pulled out his notebook. He'd opted for a seat in business class, not caring at that point about the luxuries first class could offer him. He saw no point in them, at least not today. Flipping to a blank page, he uncapped his pen and the tip hovered over the first line for a few seconds before he touched pen to paper and began to write.

My Dearest Kate,

I'm on a plane, on my way to you. I don't know what I'll find when I get there. I have no clue what's going on, or what's wrong. I just know that I have to get to you. I have to be there, no matter what happens when I get off this plane. When we land, I'll be in your city again, and it would thrill me, if not for the dread I'm feeling in the wake of that phone call.

I want you to know that I'm sorry. I'm sorry for whatever I did that made you not want to tell me about the interview in DC, and I'm sorry that I reacted so harshly when I did find out. But most of all, I'm sorry that, by letting you walk away from our life together, I inevitably allowed myself to be distant from you, and in that, prevented myself from being by your side during whatever took place that put you in the hospital. I'm so sorry, Kate.

If I had it to do over, I would change so much about our last days together. I wish, now more than ever, that I could. I wish I could've seen then what I see now; that the worst thing I could do was to choose then to stop fighting for you. I always have fought for you, because from the very beginning I could see that you, above anyone else, were worth it. You, with all your walls and mystery and damage and darkness, have always been worth every scratch, every wound, and every heartbreak. I never doubted that you were worth it all, and more. Not even in the last three months of regretting every step we took that brought us to that final day on the swings. And now? Now I regret it more than ever.

I love you, Kate. I love you more than I have ever loved anyone, outside of my daughter. I don't know what it is about you that I can't let go of, because believe me, I have tried. I just know that you are so extraordinary, and I know that I love you. I can't explain it. You frustrate me, challenge me, hurt me, and break my heart, over and over. But I still love you. I can't do anything to stop myself from loving you, and I don't know why. But I've given up trying to make it stop, because at this point I know I can't. You're irresistible despite it all, and I find that, ironically, the fact that I can't stop loving you is one of the things I love most about you.

I'm so angry with you. I am so incredibly angry with you for walking away. I have struggled for the past twelve weeks with why you would abandon us-abandon me-like that. Like we were nothing compared to your big DC job. Like I was of no importance to you after everything we'd been through. After all those years I waited for you, I still struggle to understand how you could possibly justify walking away. I never had the chance to finish, Kate. I never got to tell you why I wanted you to meet me at the swings. You were gone before I could. I was going to propose to you, you know. I was going to move forward, I was going to take that next step. I wanted to show you where we were going, and it was more than the bedroom. I wanted it all with you. Everything. Because you're so worth it. I was willing to endure all of it, for you. How could you walk away from everything we were without even letting me get there? I just want you, Kate. All of you. I wanted the rest of our lives with you. And you tore that away before I even had a chance to tell you. And I don't understand why.

But I love you. I still love you just as much as I always have, Katherine Beckett. Despite the hell you've put me through, I love you more than you know. More than even I know, I think. More than I even realize is possible. And this time, I'm here. I'm not letting you push me away again. As long as I get the chance, as long as I'm not too late...I'm yours now. Forever. Because I love you.

Always,

Rick