SPOILERS: "Undead Again".

Author's Note: What happens when you're at the end of your undergraduate career, you should be studying for finals or finishing projects, but Castle has its lovely little self wrapped around your brain? Well, this. Inspired by the promo and one of the sneak peeks for "Undead Again", but written quickly and largely before the episode aired (thus, no beta and all mistakes are my own). I didn't have time to post until now. I'm posting before the awesomeness that will be the finale kills us all. I hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own them. Oh how I wish I did…

He was leaving. The realization thudded into her chest so hard she brought a hand halfway to her scar before she caught herself. He wasn't just pulling away from her emotionally; he was saying goodbye.

Now she knew why, after thinking back to when she first felt the wall looming between them that wasn't her own. It took longer for her to figure out than it should have, but personal things had a way of getting to her. Esposito had confirmed it for her: Castle came back looking for her right after they got Bobby in the box. She remembered coming out to find him gone, but with the coffee cup he left behind still hot on her desk.

So he had heard her. He must have.

When she had come to that realization, her breathing had stopped and she collapsed into her desk chair. She had yet to move. Head in her hands, she breathed hard through her nose to try to quell the frustrated tears and the voice in her head crying out 'it's not FAIR'.

Damn it, she had wanted to tell him, wanted him to know everything. She was going to do it over wine or dinner—knowing them it would have probably happened in the middle of a case over takeout and too little sleep—but the point was she wanted to. Wanted it so much it ached to keep it in.

What she would say that would make her sound less pathetic than she did when she talked to her reflection hadn't come to her yet. How to make things right when she knew she was going to hurt him before she was done was lost on her, too. None of that meant that she wasn't trying.

That didn't seem to mean much now, since she was obviously too late for any of it. As she stared blankly into the middle distance, the thought of him leaving—for good this time, she was sure—hurt so deeply that she didn't know how the event wouldn't crush her newly healed heart to pieces.

They were on the brink of something, she knew it. All of the interruptions, her disappointment mirrored in castle's expression when they happened, had been leading to something good. Something finally being timed right for them. Of course, that would have been too easy wouldn't it?

The humor of the cosmos was not shared by her in that moment.

"He's leaving, isn't he?" Esposito's voice cut through the maelstrom in her head. It lacked its usual confidence and made him sound like a dejected kid. She swept her eyes upward and noticed he didn't seem to be the hard-nosed Detective at the moment, but a brother torn between love of his sister and the potential loss of a great friend. She cradled her temple in her fingers, elbow on the open file she was supposed to be reading, and nodded wordlessly. She couldn't even find the words to say.

Movement at the edge of her desk caught her attention and she turned to see Ryan walk forward, fiddling with one of her elephants and not quite meeting her gaze. Before she could straighten herself and send them back to work, Ryan spoke up.

"So…what are you going to do about it?" Normally the less vocally opinionated of the two, his question surprised her for a moment. Her reflexive smile earned her two hopeful ones in return. Silence reigned as she pursed her lips against her fingers, considering the potential outcomes of what she knew to be her inevitable decision.

It was all up to her. She would never know if she was ready—hell she would never actually be fully ready—until she tried.

She had to try.

Standing abruptly, she grabbed her coat off of her chair and dug her keys out of a drawer. "Ryan, Esposito," their faces were a mix of brotherly concern and cautious delight. "Hold down the fort while I'm gone." They stepped away to let her clear her desk.

"You got it, boss." With a nod full of confidence she didn't feel, she strode for the elevators.

The drive to the loft took less time than it had ever taken before, and she had made a conscious effort not to speed her way through late afternoon city traffic. That added anxiety of having no time to prepare was nothing compared to what she felt during the seemingly interminable time the elevator took to get to his floor. The doors finally opened and she realized that all of the extra time she perceived left her with no further clue of what to say.

Conscious thought had left her and she moved towards his door automatically, feeling like she had all the grace of a marionette. Her arm felt like lead when she raised it to knock, and it opened almost immediately. "Oh, Detective Beckett! What a pleasant surprise." Kate tried a tentative smile in the face of Martha's polite but less than her typical exuberant greeting. She noticed the bag on Martha's arm and realized she may have caught the three of them headed out somewhere.

"I'm sorry Martha, if this is a bad time I can come back."

The older woman regarded her for a moment before turning slightly to peer over her shoulder. Kate couldn't see Castle behind her to know where he was. She fidgeted in the doorway, unable to stop her hands from moving; even shoving them in her back pockets wasn't helping. Martha turned back, a little more warmth in her face as she simply watched her and her obvious display of nerves.

"Not at all, darling. It's never a bad time when you're doing the right thing. The sooner my son realizes that, the better off you'll both be." The redhead breezed past her in a wash of color and soft perfume. She placed her hand on Kate's shoulder as she entered the hallway. "He's in his study. I'll see you later." With a sly wink, she turned and headed for the elevator. Kate stared after her, stunned. Entering the loft slowly, she felt her heart rate accelerate as the door closed behind her. Each step she took sounded loud in her own ears as her heels clicked across the hardwood floors.

He sat at his desk, hands parked over the home keys on the laptop open on his legs. A fleeting glance became a double take when he registered who was standing in his doorway. Kate pushed herself over the threshold with some effort and gestured vaguely behind her. "Your—Martha let me in. I hope I'm not interrupting."

Blue eyes bored into her with a different kind of intensity than she was accustomed to. It wasn't laced with the positive things she had come to associate with a look from him. This one had her swallowing around the hard lump in her throat. Oh yes, she had a lot to say tonight.

Suddenly that stare was gone, replaced by the neutral mask he had been wearing the past few weeks. He unfolded his height from the desk chair and set the laptop aside. "Not at all, Detective. What brings you here?"

Taking a deep breath, she decided to dive right in. "I've been seeing a therapist. I was just supposed to see him for a psych eval for clearance, but I kept going back. Since I came back to the twelfth." Castle's surprise was evident, but so was the softening in his expression.

"I didn't know," his voice was far gentler than when he first addressed her.

"Yeah well, it's not something I was ready to broadcast. Asking for help is—well, it's not always one of my strengths." Her attempt at humor got a slight twist from Castle's lips, and right now she would take that. "He's been helping me work through things. Learn to accept help. Realize a lot of things, actually."

"Like what?"

"Like who I am compared to who I want to be." They didn't do this, this talking openly about their issues. It was something that had to change. "Also…we talk about you."

"Me?" His eyes went wide.

She nodded. At the dismay in his eyes, she hurried to reassure him. "It's not bad, Castle," she started. "Okay, well some of it is me venting but not in the way you're thinking," she hastened to correct herself. When that didn't seem to ease his concerns, she stepped closer to catch his attention again. "Castle. We talk about you because you're a part of who I want to be."

His eyes snapped into focus on hers in an instant, the awareness and concentration in them sending tingles across her skin. Her own must have betrayed something because he shook his head slowly, the acceptance of what she was giving him—that she could see each time let her off the hook—written all over his face. "Kate, you don't owe me anything."

She huffed and swiped at the moisture beginning to pool in her eyes, meeting his gaze with an expression of mild reproach and disbelief. "You're wrong, Castle. I do owe you. My life...my words...the truth." The silence in the room was absolute, but the sounds of the city beyond the window reminded her that time didn't stop. It couldn't turn back either. This moment led to the next, and she had to make them count.

"I heard you that day. And I know that you know that now." There was no missing the pain and anger that flashed across his face, the way his jaw tightened with it. "I never wanted you to find out that way. I thought if I could make myself whole again, then I'd be ready to accept it. But I'm not whole, Castle. I'm," her voice caught in her throat. "I'm broken and I'm not what you deserve." She had to look away from the sheen in his eyes as he watched her break in front of him. Regaining her voice, she continued—she had one more thing she needed to say.

"I know you're planning to leave, but I don't know how soon. Maybe I'm too late now to tell you this, but before you leave you should know: I never meant for you to feel like I didn't care, like I didn't feel the same way about you as you do—did—for me." The past tense stung as if the word had barbs that caught her throat and tongue.

"I'm in love with you, Rick. I love you and I'm so sorry it took me so long to tell you something I've felt for a while now." Her voice failed her, the last words merely a whisper as if they were the last gasp of her emotions escaping. She closed her eyes then to quell the prickling sensation behind her lids that grew stronger by the second, willing the tears away. She had to make it out of here without anything to obstruct her view.

"No, Kate." His tone made her head come up sharply, vehemence on the 'no', but his voice strangling over her name. Suddenly he was in her space, his bulk surrounding her as he nearly crushed her to him in a hug. One arm was around her shoulders with his hand cradling her head, while the other wrapped around the center of her back, the splay of his fingers pressed into her ribs.

She could feel his pulse thrumming against her forehead in time with her own and buried her nose in the hollow of his throat. She inhaled the smell of him, strength flooding back into the spaces she didn't know were empty. Her arms snaked slowly up his broad back to rest on his scapulae.

"There is no 'did' Kate. I can't stop loving you—I never could," he murmured. Her breath rushed out of her, moist heat trapped between the skin of his neck and her face. It couldn't account for what was falling slowly down her cheeks, or the saltiness that crawled between her lips.

Castle's hands moved to cradle her face, his thumbs swiping softly beneath her lowered lashes; he must have felt her tears because he still had his face pressed into her hair. Her eyes squeezed shut against the tender touch and her hands fisted in the shirt at his sides when she felt him shift but he only pulled back far enough to press his forehead against hers. Their breaths mingled in the space between them, ghosting across lips and cheeks. "I accept you, Katherine Beckett, for everything you are. And there's no room in you for 'broken'."

Her body surged forward, hands grasping at his neck as she angled her head to seek his mouth. A heavy sigh left her as she felt herself melting into the heat of him, into what felt remarkably like coming home. He responded almost immediately, warm lips eagerly plying her mouth until she had to pull away to regain her breath. Brushing his lips with hers as she spoke, she whispered into the small space left between them. "That wall? It's gone, Castle. It's gone and I love you and I'm so—"

He swallowed the rest of her sentence as he pulled her into an almost bruising kiss, large hand cradling the place where her head and neck met. When they broke for air again Castle tightened his arms around her and slid his face alongside hers. Their temples touching, he spoke directly into her ear, tone low and resonating deep within her. "I love you too, Kate. God, I love you so much."

Kate traced the skin at his collar then stroked up his jaw to curl her fingers around his ear. "I don't want to mess this up," she whispered, uncertainty heavy in her voice.

"Hey," Castle pulled back to look her in the eyes. "I'd like to think I cornered the market on screwing up before I ever met you." A startled laugh escaped Kate's mouth and she nearly sagged with the relief it brought.

"How is it you always seem to know what to tell me?"

"Just lucky you're dazzled by my charm I guess," he said, pressing his lips to her brow and threading his fingers through her curls as she hummed in amusement. "We're both going to screw up sometimes, Kate. It happens. As long as we straighten it out together, that's all that matters."

"And no more secrets," she said softly, crowding further into his chest. She felt him tense against her and she pulled back, startled. "Rick?"

He regarded her solemnly, hands still tangled in her hair for a moment before he stepped away towards his desk. "No more secrets," he grabbed a remote from one corner of the dark, polished surface before turning back to continue. "Remember how I said we're both going to screw up?" Pushing a button, the screen to the left of the desk lit up. Kate saw herself, a picture taking up most of the space. Castle walked forward and touched it, almost reverent as he placed his fingers against the image of her face. Suddenly more pictures appeared—familiar faces, all. Words captioned each and she saw new information, new connections, things she didn't know, things he couldn't possibly know unless—

—he had been investigating without her. In a daze, she stepped closer, gaze darting rapidly around the digital murder board and absorbing all the new details. It had to be months of work. She could feel the anger coursing through her, a hot rush that accompanied the burning need to move, know, and seek out every new lead. The latter was what she always felt when she touched this case and she knew how easily it could swallow her whole.

The tension radiating from her left was palpable. Snapping back into herself, she reigned in the anger she felt over him withholding so much from her for so long.

Just ten minutes ago their roles had been reversed, and she came here because she needed to fix that. Now that she knew she hadn't lost him as a result of her fear, she was going to fight like hell to keep this.

Their tenuous start was about to get some help, because Castle was right.

"Together?"

A disbelieving half-smile tugged at the side of his mouth, washing his apprehension away. He stared at her the way he had so many times before: mystified, surprised, and with no small amount of awe.

It was the love that made her breath catch in her throat; the lurker he tried to hide or she tried to ignore for too long was front and center now.

"Together."

"I'm not happy about this. But I understand."

"I know. So do I."

"Okay," she breathed as she reached for his hand, wrapping her slender fingers around to curl into his palm and running her thumb across his knuckles.

"Okay," he replied and squeezed her hand.

With her other hand, Kate reached across Castle and plucked the remote out of his grip. Quickly finding the power button she pressed it and watched the screen go black, clamping down on the shudder that ran through her arm to her spine.

Turning, she pressed herself to him to deliver an open-mouthed kiss. He responded after a moment of shock while his unoccupied hand slid its way up her neck and into the fine hairs at the base of her neck. The heat of his body drew her to him the way the hot stroke of his tongue was drawing hers in to tangle against each other. Before she could become lost in the heady arousal that was rapidly suffusing her veins, she pulled back with a light nip to his bottom lip that she soothed with a light kiss.

"Got any food here?" The throaty quality of her voice made the blue eyes in front of her darken. She almost laughed when his brain caught up to her question because his brows knit together in confusion and his mouth hung slightly open.

"Huh?" He squeaked out then cleared his throat. Kate pressed her lips together and he narrowed his eyes. "Beckett," he whined. "That's not nice."

"Seriously, I'm starving. Let's get some food."

"So we're putting this…conversation…on hold?" He gestured between the two of them with a hopeful—and hungry—expression.

"It's the first date, who said you were going to get lucky? I thought that was the third date rule," she replied coyly, sliding off the desk and striding out the study door.

"Ha! I think that was fifty dates ago, which means we broke the rule." She heard him hurrying to catch up to her.

"What? We have not been on a date." She spun around and shot him a look.

"We so have!" He almost sounded offended. "There was dinner with each other after ditching our dates on that one case, and Forbidden Planet just to name two. Come on, Kate. We didn't call them dates but by anyone else's standards aside from ours, they were dates. The sheer number of them is probably criminal for not having ended in sex," he asserted confidently.

"Boy, Castle. You sure know how to show a girl a good time if she can't even tell you're on a date," she drawled sarcastically and turned back around to hide her mischievous smile.

Suddenly he was at her back, solid and warm and crowding her at the front door. His breath rushed across her ear as he leaned into her with a low growl. "Trust me, Kate. If you want the full experience, you will never doubt that we are on a date." He kissed a spot below her ear and she just barely stifled her gasp. "Or how that date will end," he finished with a swipe of his tongue to the same spot, making her shiver.

She turned slowly, the bracket of his arms on either side of her keeping her contained. Glancing between his eyes and his mouth, she licked her lips then met his heated gaze full on. She raised a challenging eyebrow and leaned in, her heels putting her almost on a level with him. "Prove it." Then she was out the door and headed for the elevator before he could respond.

Turning to check on him, she saw he was frozen in place with delight dancing in his eyes. "You coming, Castle?"

His smile was slow and full of a promise that made her flush under his gaze. Locking the door and pulling it closed, he advanced towards her just as the elevator doors opened. They stepped inside with matching smiles.

When the doors closed they reached for each others hands simultaneously, twining their fingers together. Kate turned and tilted her head in a silent question, to which Castle responded with a soft smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes. She nodded and faced forward again.

He wasn't leaving.

It goes without saying that I would love to hear what you think! Constructive criticism is welcome, especially since it's late and I may have missed some things due to lack of sleep. Please leave your reviews and enjoy tonight's Castle (for you fellow North American residents). Thanks for reading!