212. Chapter 212

After Eye of the Beholder, Yet Again

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: The ownership of Castle is in the eye of the beholder, or more likely with ABC, or someone, and not me. Rating: K Time: See above.

Kate felt much better coming to Dr. Burke's this time than she had the last time she had been there. She sat across from him and took off her shoes.

"How did your case go, Kate?" He began.

"It went well. We solved the murder and we recovered the sculpture. Everything worked out well."

"Everything?" Dr. Burke asked, smiling slightly.

She blushed slightly and nodded. "It's complicated."

"Can you break it down into smaller, less complicated sections?"

Kate looked at the floor for a few seconds. "I have no claim on Castle. I'm not his girlfriend, or his lover, or, really anything other than his partner."

"That's not quite accurate, is it?"

She nodded. "He's more than a partner, I'll admit that. But I realize it's unfair of me to just ask Castle to put his life on hold until some unstated day in the future when we can…." Kate stopped, not sure what would happen on that unstated day in the future.

"Be less complicated?" Dr. Burke suggested.

"Something like that." She conceded. "But I have no right to force him to live his life on the terms that I'd like him to live if I'm not going to be there for him. I could clearly see that he was interested in Serena Kaye and she was interested in him. He, sort of, asked me for permission to see her. I didn't feel that I had any business telling him not to see her."

"How did you feel when he asked you?"

"Hurt. Angry. And…." She stopped.

"And?" Dr. Burke coaxed her to complete the sentence.

"And angry at myself. I wanted to tell him that I heard him say that he loved me. I wanted to tell him that I would be there for him and that I just needed for him to wait. And then I thought, how long am I asking Castle to wait? I mean, it could be years. It's been years already. How can I ask a man to put his life in suspended animation for me? So I told him he should do what he thought was best."

"Did he date her?"

"Not exactly."

Dr. Burke laughed. "How do you not exactly date someone?"

"We thought that Serena was the thief for a while. I asked Castle to take her out to dinner so we could search her room."

"That's not exactly a date, is it? It's not a date at all."

"No." Kate replied. She was rather happy that the net result of the "date" was for Serena to consider her "date" with Castle to have been a sting. "But we did search her room. And we found…"

Dr. Burke waited patiently for her to continue.

Finally Kate went on. "I found she had a drawer full of sexy underwear."

"Hardly unusual. Many women wear sexy underwear." Dr. Burke waited and then continued. "But you were imagining her wearing it for Castle, weren't you?"

She nodded. "Esposito even mentioned that I wanted to bust Serena for more reasons that her being a thief. He was right. I was jealous. She could have someone I wanted and that I couldn't have. "

"Did you arrest her?"

"Yes. We walked out of her room and Castle was trying to…distract her."

"Distract her how?" Dr. Burke had a very good idea how Castle had distracted the woman, but he wanted Kate to tell him about it.

"He had pushed her up against the wall in front of her room and he was kissing her."

"And how did that make you feel?" Dr. Burke knew the answer to that question as well.

"Angry. Jealous. And then I just felt stupid."

"Stupid?" He hadn't expected that.

"I want Castle to push me up against a wall and kiss me breathless. I want him to kiss me and then drag me to bed and make love to me all night. And I've had hundreds of opportunities in the last few years to have that happen and I've never taken a one of them. When I start to think about that now, it just starts to bring back all of those memories of the shooting and Captain Montgomery lying dead and Evelyn Montgomery…" Kate stopped as tears formed in her eyes.

Dr. Burke handed Kate a box of tissues and waited for her settle down. "If you'd like to stop for today, that would be fine with me."

"No. I'm almost done with what happened. Just give me another minute. I'm always asking for more time. I want more time with Castle even though the amount of his time that I've taken up is far too much. And now I need more time with Dr. Burke. Will I ever get to the point where I can give Castle my time?

Kate took several deep breaths and went on. "We determined that Serena wasn't the thief. And it was Castle who broke the case open, literally. He figured out that if the thief couldn't have gotten the sculpture out of the museum, it must still be there. He found it inside another work of art."

"You were happy he solved the case?"

Kate smiled. "I was happy that he solved the case and I was happy that Serena didn't. My partner solved the case."

"So that was the last of Serena Kaye?" Burke asked.

"No." Kate said slowly. "As I said, I knew he was interested in her and she was interested in him. I thought I needed to be honest with her. I told her that Castle had thought she was innocent when I thought she was the thief. She seemed surprised that I told her."

"So they did go out?" Burke hadn't expected that.

"No. When I came back a moment later, she was gone and Castle was still there."

"So why didn't he go out with her?"

"He made an excuse, but I like to think he wanted to be with me."

"Was he with you, then?"

Kate nodded and smiled. "I took him out for a burger at Remy's. It was like old times. We sat together and talked about that case and others, and all sorts of things. It was almost like a date." I was happy to be sitting there with Castle, eating our burgers and chatting about nothing. I want that and more with him. I want that so badly, but yet I don't want it badly enough.

"Another one of those not exactly a dates, Kate?" Dr. Burke joked.

"Not exactly."