Title: Unfinished

Author: eyrianone

Rating: T

Spoilers: Future fic – spoilers thru season five.

Summary: It should have brought them even closer together, not torn them apart – she understands this now. What she doesn't know is whether any way back for them still remains.

Disclaimer: (From ViaLethe) – 'Words are mine. World ain't.'

A/N: I'll keep it brief. This idea has been in my head a while now and finally I thought to hell with it I'm going to write it. This story will be angsty, it will involve heart-ache, and it might be tough to read. But it will also be about destiny, forgiveness, and the scope of Castle & Beckett's love. A happy ending is guaranteed.

Prologue:

June, 2016.

It's too wet for June. Cold and grey the sky is oppressive over the city of New York as Detective Kate Beckett dashes down a sopping, slippery sidewalk. The heel of her boot catches on the rim of an office building doorway as she enters it, and it sends her stumbling into the polished marble foyer.

She takes a moment to ensure her feet are beneath her solidly again before she heads routinely to the in-building Starbucks, and the dark black roast that's currently calling her name.

Loudly.

Unfortunately, there's a stockbroker in the line up in front of her, delaying everyone while he tries to get the app on his phone to update the DOW index, and when he's already been asked three times for his order and he raps out her old one, Kate's eyes close on an automatic wave of pain.

It's silly - it's just coffee.

But she hasn't had a latte in the better part of a year now, just hasn't been able to face it. And like everything else that she's avoided it's time to stop that, step forward once more. And Kate's finally reached a point where steps forward again are possible for her to make.

You have to start somewhere.

So she takes a deep breath and tries it out, tries that first baby step. Her palms begin sweating and goose bumps break out across her pale skin as the words slip past her lips with more than a little trepidation.

"Skinny, two-pumps sugar-free vanilla latte, please."

The cop swallows hard.

Step accomplished.

"Sure thing, hon. Anything else I can get you?" The cheerful barista cocks an eyebrow at her expectantly.

Kate shakes her head, pays in a bit of a daze and waits for she knows not what exactly, moving to the pick-up end of the counter with a thousand butterflies in her stomach and a nervous, shaking heart. It's not like this should be a big deal, its coffee – it's just coffee.

And yet, when her order arrives and the first sip bursts its sweet familiar flavor over her tongue and she finds herself managing a small smile – it feels like a milestone victory to Beckett.

The tiny tremulous smile is still adorning her face ten minutes later when she takes her customary seat in Dr. Burke's expansive office.

It doesn't go unnoticed either.

"You look better, Kate."

The tall, distinguished, African American psychiatrist folds himself elegantly into his usual chair opposite her, dark eyes smiling even though his face remains impassive.

Her grip tightening on her coffee cup, Kate meets his eyes with a small nod.

"Thank you," she says softly, raising the coffee cup up in a mini-salute. "Latte," she adds shyly.

Dr. Burke looks surprised at first, he knows all about her resolute avoidance of it, and then the corners of the shrinks' mouth turn up and he nods his approval at her.

"Congratulations."

"First step," she says, and Dr. Burke nods again.

"Coffee is significant to you," he acknowledges. He's heard about the ritual more than once in the last year, and at the sight of Kate voluntarily allowing herself to have something of that ritual back – well it's progress. And progress for Kate the last year has been very tough to make.

It makes him wonder what else he can ask her to tackle, wonders whether he can risk bringing up the 'name'. It hovers on the tip of his tongue for long moments, moments when he tries to decide, tries to get a read on how far she'll let him push her here.

"You can say it." His beautiful patient decides for him, and he's pleased to note that her eyes are clear.

"Castle," he says quietly, experimentally.

Something flashes in her eyes, but for once it's not despair, not darkness, not loss, he notices. For the first time in a year, hope has entered her face. Love is what's flashing in her eyes, he thinks, and though the suddenness of it startles the doctor a little, frankly it's about damned time.

And Beckett is nodding at him.

"Castle," she repeats, so softly it's nothing but the merest whisper, but she says it. The word might be quiet but it's there.

"Have you seen him, Kate?"

The cop shakes her head, her long hair falling across her face and she tucks it back behind her right ear, her gaze dropping down onto the carpet.

"No."

"But you're ready to?" he asks.

Beckett shakes her head at first, but the shrug in her shoulders tells him she's not sure.

"What?"

"I don't think he'll want to see me," she says. "And I don't blame him."

"Grief is a strange emotion, Kate. What the two of you went through . . ." Dr. Burke stops for a moment, waits until Kate chances a look at him before he continues. "In an ideal world no-one ever goes through that. It's not a loss anyone should ever have to live with, but of course this isn't an ideal world. Nor is it ideal that you couldn't seem to deal with it together Kate, but you aren't the first couple to break up over something like this."

Kate shrugs, she's heard this before.

"It's my fault," she says, the words laced heavily with regret. "He needed me, and I failed him."

Dr. Burke frowns, "We both know it wasn't that simple," he says.

"No," she agrees. "But I'm the one who closed him out. I'm the one who couldn't see past her own grief for long enough to know he was right there with me. It was the worst thing that has ever happened to either of us – the worst thing that could ever have happened, and he needed 'us' to get him through it."

The shrink nods.

"But I couldn't give him that support," she continues. "Just like my Dad was lost to me when Mom died, I was lost to Castle. He tried, he tried so hard – and I continuously pushed him away."

"Kate-"

"It's true. You know it is. You've agreed with me it is. I let myself drown in my loss, and it was never mine alone."

Dr. Burke sighs softly, but says nothing in the moment. Dark, wise eyes hold hers and wait for her to go on. She's voiced all of this to him before – more than once, but something in her voice, in her demeanor today tells him she's taking charge again. That she's made progress enough to fight for a change.

Beckett continues.

"I gave him no choice but to leave me," she says matter-of-factly. "For the sake of his own sanity he had no other choice left but to walk away. He had others he had to consider."

"That didn't make the loss easier on him, Kate."

The cop nods, "I know that - now. Though we both know I didn't at the time. And I may never forgive myself for holding that against him – how could I?"

"You were lashing out-"Dr. Burke begins, but Kate interrupts him.

"I held the fact he still had Alexis against him, more than once. As if that made any difference at all to the pain he was in. And I will always hate myself for that, for throwing it at him like a weapon."

Tears have crept into Beckett's hazel eyes, shimmering hard there, until she deliberately blinks them back and just holds the emotion behind them in her gaze. It's powerful. Unyielding in a way he's not seen before, there's an ownership to all that has occurred that she's not demonstrated to him until now.

Too much ownership he thinks – under the circumstances.

"Grief, Kate. Grief isn't rational," Dr. Burke replies. "Therefore the choices you made, the things that you allowed to happen under its influence; you can't apply a logical filter over that," he pauses to make sure she's hearing him, before he continues. "Your grief, it's not a crime that you committed."

The cop pushes to her feet and paces the short distance to the office window. Staring out into misty grey her shoulders slump for a moment, then she straightens them with determination, before she spins back around.

"Neither is it an excuse," she throws back at her shrink adamantly. "And I can't let it be an excuse any longer either. I can't let it take away the rest of my life, and it has, it will, it's going to steal all that's left unless I stop it. Maybe it already has."

Dr. Burke narrows his dark eyes, his gut feeling that something has changed since he saw his patient last week getting stronger moment by moment. The psychiatrist thinks back eight months and how Kate was when he first started seeing her again. Dragged into his office against her will by her friends, it was only their prior relationship and all they'd previously accomplished that persuaded the devastated cop to stay that day. In all the time since then, she's gradually clawed her way back. Some weeks have shown more progress than others, but she hasn't leapt forward like this before. She hasn't walked in and opened up, and been so crystal clear. It's very interesting.

"Has what," he says neutrally.

"Castle's filed for divorce," she says quietly, carefully. Very carefully in fact, he can tell speaking those words is killing her. The news doesn't completely surprise him – yet it does. On the one hand it's been almost a year since it happened, and eight months since Kate first re-appeared here. Her husband has been patient, has reached out (by Kate's own account) many, many times, trying to re-connect.

"What grounds did he cite?" he asks her gently.

Beckett bites her lip.

"Irretrievable breakdown."

Dr. Burke nods.

"He was being kind," she says brokenly. "We both know he could have used 'abandonment', he only had to wait another month after all."

The shrink nods again. "From all I know of him he wouldn't do that," he says. "He wouldn't choose to make it your fault so publicly."

Kate stares at the floor.

"No," she agrees. "No, he wouldn't. Rick has too big a heart for that."

Silence stretches between them.

"You don't want this do you, Kate?" her doctor asks at length. "You don't want this chapter of your life behind you. You don't want this to be the end."

The detectives' beautiful eyes rise to his immediately.

"No," she says firmly. Resolutely. "We've already lost our son, our precious baby boy. Getting those papers, it made it real; made it clear – finally – what else I stand to lose. And I don't know how, I don't know if it's even possible any more. But I can't let the fact that we lost Jack mean that we lose each other too."