Work Text:
At first, it doesn't click in Kate's mind why she's so disoriented, then she realizes: there's a silence in the precinct that she’s rarely heard of late. It doesn't take her long to figure out why, and then it's head down and back to the paperwork, and don't you dare even think about that empty coffee cup that could be filled with a heavenly form of caffeine. She doesn’t use the espresso machine anymore—feels cheap for even looking at it. She doesn’t want reminding of the traditions that involved
him
. It’s what she has to do to get by.
If anyone asks, she's fine, just a little tired; she swears the cases have started coming in faster since—since spring left, and what's that? Castle? Oh, he's off doing what the rich and famous do in the summer, and she doesn't mind so much because now she has time to think again, and how is everything down in robbery, anyways?
The routine works on everyone who hasn't seen the way she looks when she's working with him. She’s learned to not try it on the people who actually know her well, and in return, they’ve learned not to ask. Ryan, Esposito, Lanie, and the Captain have reverted to giving her exasperated looks because they can't do anything to help her when she won't admit she's hurt—which, clearly, she is.
She's thrown herself into her work again, just like when she first came to the precinct with her mom’s death still clinging to her every part and weighing her down. This time, it's the sadness of the living that's got her, but it's taken over just as thoroughly. Gone are the days she'll smile at the scene or dally with the boys just to hear them talk. Shortly after Castle left, she actually snapped at Ryan and Esposito for not knowing when to stop joking around and start taking the job seriously, and since then, they've tried to keep it under control for her sake. They get resentful sometimes; curse being stuck with this new-old Beckett, but they can’t bring themselves to be unhappy with her. They know what happened, and why, and she wasn't completely to blame for it. Probably not even mostly to blame; probably only partially so. The remainder of that burden rests with Castle, and everyone wonders if he feels it as he lounges on the beach down at the Hamptons and does—whatever the rich and famous do with their summers.
As the heat rises and the bodies drop, the twelfth precinct counts down anxiously until the end of the summer. Each gruesome murder committed means there’s one less to go before he returns; every case solved is a step closer to the chill of fall and the resolution to the drama that no one wants to admit they’re in. Everyone who’s aware of what’s happened is waiting anxiously for an end to this hell—and all are hoping that Richard Castle will find his way back to Kate Beckett, and that Kate Beckett will have the heart to take him back in.