The oven door dropped from Kate's fingers, when the hesitant knock at her door startled her from her checking on the garlic bread she had prepared.
She shook her head at herself, feeling silly, before taking a deep breath, and pausing for just a moment to try and regulate her heartbeat.
"Take it easy, Katie." She murmured to herself gently, wiping her clean hands on her apron nervously. She gently smoothed the wisps of hair that were escaping her ponytail back, breathing slowly. "It's just Rick." She shook her head again, her heart already in her throat. She knew full well that this conversation could make or break them. "Okay." She sighed, moving towards the door before she could change her mind.
She eased the front door open slowly, peering round the edge to smile at her partner stood before her.
He'd changed his clothes from the dark trousers and dress shirt he'd worn to the precinct, not that she had expected otherwise when she'd asked him, all timid smiles and dipped eyes, to give her a couple of hours before coming around for his dinner. But she was pleased to note that he had kept it casual; a pair of light blue jeans that she had never seen on him and a very soft looking grey Henley, under his leather jacket, that made her want to run her fingers over it.
Kate tucked her hair behind her ear shyly, looking at him affectionately, as she leaned against the edge of her front door, watching him carefully.
"Hi." She murmured quietly, tucking one of her bare feet behind her shin, feeling awkward and a little silly still. He'd been to her apartment before, they'd had dinner together hundreds of times, why was this suddenly so hard?
"Hey." Castle smiled softly, still not sure what this was, but always happy to spend time with his partner. He lifted up the bottle of red wine that he had in his hand, wiggling it slightly side to side in front of him. "My mother always told me to never turn up empty handed, so…" he trailed awkwardly, tilting the bottom of the bottle towards her.
Kate smiled, gently grasping the base of the bottle, and cradling it to her chest once he had released the neck.
"Thanks." She murmured, smile growing in the face of his. "You wanna come in?" She asked, gesturing into the apartment with her head, never breaking eye contact.
Castle nodded silently, his eyes tracking her every move. Something was different about her tonight though he couldn't put his finger on it. He slipped off his jacket as he stepped over the threshold, letting Kate shut the door behind him, watching her as she curled her fingers around the lock and secured it. She shot him a small smile, which left him breathless with the openness of her expression, before she made her way into her kitchen, pulling glasses from her cupboard and a corkscrew from the drawer.
"You can hang your coat." She assured him quietly when she noticed he hadn't moved, shooting him a shy look. She gave him a gentle smile when he hung the jacket, loosely hanging from his fingers, up on the stand behind him. "Dinner won't be long." She murmured, stirring the pot closest to her slowly.
Castle watched her carefully as she pottered around the kitchen, fliting from one pot to the other, stirring things, and tasting things, and he couldn't help but be mesmerised by her.
He popped his hip against the counter, just watching her, acutely aware that she hadn't noticed him there, staring as usual, but his heart kind of ached at the domesticity of it all.
They'd been getting closer lately, he'd have to be deaf, dumb, and blind to not notice the change in her, but he still didn't know what to make of it all.
She was suddenly shy around him, which after four years was strange to say the least, but there was an openness to it, to her. Almost like something had changed, and she wasn't sure of her footing anymore, but in a good way.
He didn't know, and didn't want to presume, but she was cooking him dinner, from scratch.
She was cooking, and had an apron on, and looked adorable, and open, and he could almost imagine coming home to her like this. The home cooked meal, the welcome home smile, the kiss he wanted to give her, her belly swelling with their child, the diamond on her left hand. But he was getting ahead of himself, way ahead of himself.
"Cast... oh!" Kate jumped, giggling a little, having turned to ask him a question, not expecting him to be so close. Stood not two feet away from her, at the edge of her kitchen, apparently lost in thought given how he had jumped too.
"Sorry." Castle murmured, smiling at the sound of her laughter, he loved it when she giggled. It was such a rare sound, but such a lovely one.
Kate shook her head, granting him that beautiful smile. "It's fine." She chuckled. "I was going to ask if you'd mind setting the table? This is all nearly done." She asked quietly, gesturing to the bubbling pots.
"Sure." Castle smiled. "It smells delicious by the way." He felt his heart flutter at the shy head dip, the beautiful smile that revealed her teeth to him, gosh she was so beautiful.
"Thank you." She murmured shyly, opening the drawer beside her to collect silverware. "I hope you like it."
Castle smiled at her broadly, letting his fingers linger as he took the utensils from her grasp, gently easing them from her fingers. "I'm sure I will."
"I had no idea you could cook." Castle murmured appreciatively, wincing a little when he realised that talking with his mouth full probably wasn't the most attractive look, but Kate huffed a laugh, smiling brightly at her own plate.
"It's just pasta." She shrugged self-consciously.
Castle shook his head. "And home-made garlic bread, and a gorgeous sauce." He murmured. "Don't sell yourself so short." He chastised gently.
Kate looked up, meeting his eye for a moment, her heart skipping at the absolute adoration on his face. She smiled softly.
"It's really good." He assured her gently.
"Thank you." She accepted graciously. "I'm sorry it took me four years to cook for you." She shrugged, a shy smile flirting with her mouth even as she bit her lip.
Castle paused, his heart swelling at that. "Better late than never."
They ate in relative silence, exchanging small glances and shy smiles every so often, until Kate pulled her fork away from her mouth for the final time and wiped her mouth with the cloth napkin she had provided them both with.
"I have dessert, if you're still hungry?" She offered, standing, and collecting her plate while he finished his last few mouthfuls.
"You know you didn't have to go to all this trouble, right?" He asked softly, loving how much effort she was putting in, but needing her to know that he didn't need or expect it. Takeaway in the breakroom was lovely just the same, so long as it was the two of them.
Kate smiled shyly, making her way into the kitchen with their dinner things, collecting the tiramisu she had prepared earlier and placing it in the middle of the table, watching his eyes light up, gripping the back of her seat for a moment.
"You're worth the trouble." She shrugged, moving back to the kitchen to collect bowls and spoons, missing the breathless joy she'd washed across her partner.
Kate served him a generous portion, setting it in front of him before taking her own, much smaller, portion. Her stomach was starting to clench, anticipation and nerves of the conversation to come stealing her appetite for the treat.
Rick smiled at her, gripping his spoon if only to have something to do with his hands. "So, dinner was amazing, and I'm sure dessert will be too, but," he paused, not wanting to be the one to ruin their evening but getting the feeling this was leading to something.
"You wanna know why…?" Kate asked, her voice suddenly much melancholier.
Castle lifted a shoulder in a shrug. "Not that it isn't awesome." He assured her. "Just, we don't normally do stuff like this and I was wondering if there was a reason for it."
"This case, it, it put a lot of things into perspective for me." She murmured, swirling her spoon around her bowl nervously.
Rick watched her carefully. "It did for me too, Kate." He promised softly.
"And I, I have something I wanted to tell you, but I wanted to cook for you first. To make sure that if nothing else we had one evening of normality I could, treasure." She stuttered a little at the end, and Rick's chest clenched.
"Okay…" he said at length, worried now, and the tears in her eyes were only making it worse.
"I, I remember my shooting." She whispered, careful to maintain eye contact no matter how hard, no matter how much she wanted to hide from his gaze. She watched the emotions play across his face as he too remembered that day.
"You, remember?" He asked, wondering just how much she could actually retain given that she had been shot in the heart, had died twice in the ambulance.
She nodded. "I remember every second. I remember the speech, the bullet, you." She shook her head.
"You remember, what I said?" He asked quietly, his stomach suddenly in his toes.
Kate nodded, tears tumbling down her cheeks. "I never forgot." She whispered brokenly.
Rick's spoon clattered loudly against the table, making them both jump as it slipped from his hand in shock.
"I'm sorry." She whispered, shaking her head at herself, clenching her trembling hands into fists, stomping down the urge to run.
Rick watched her, stunned silence surrounding them. He couldn't speak, couldn't think.
"You, all this time and you…?" He muttered, clenching his fists. "You lied to my face, Kate."
"I know, and I cannot apologise enough." She babbled.
"Why?" He asked, anguish all over the word and it hurt him saying it as much as it hurt her hearing it.
She paused for a long moment before shrugging a little, and deciding brutal honesty was probably best, was what he deserved.
"I wasn't ready." She shrugged, her voice cracking as the tears started to pool in her eyes. "I wasn't ready to accept it, to admit that you were probably the last man to ever say that to me, and I," she paused, dropping her face to watch her hands as she twisted her fingers over and over, "I kinda hated that, the first time you told me that, would be forever marred by me nearly dying. I wanted it to be special, romantic, and it hurts that we'll never get to have that." She shrugged, staring at her fingers, unable to look up, unable to look at him.
"I get that." He murmured regretfully, truthfully. "Me too." He nodded slowly.
Kate nodded. "And I wasn't ready for that yet. I wasn't fixed enough to deserve something as pure as you loving me." She hiccupped.
Rick watched her, unsure what to say, knowing that she truly believed that, hurt his very soul. "You don't need to fix yourself for me." He croaked.
"I, I am trying to though, I want to be good enough." She promised, dragging her eyes up to his, her heart hammering against her sternum at the utter devastation scribbled over his face. "I, I understand if you aren't there anymore." She shrugged, swiping her hand under her eye, truly meaning the words she was saying. "If you don't, feel that way now. I really do. And I understand if this isn't what you want to hear right now, but I'm tired of dancing around in subtext, and figured we may as well lay everything on the table if we have any chance of going from here in any sense. No matter if that means that we continue as partners, or we shake hands and wish each other well." She tried to smile for him, but the latter option hurt to just talk about.
"You think we could do that?" Rick asked, his heart heavy and it leaked into his voice, even as he still couldn't look up at her. "You think we could just walk out of each other's lives?"
Kate shrugged, a broken sob escaping her downturned lips even as she did. "I, I don't want to." She shook her head, tears spilling down her cheeks again as her nails bit into her palms. "But I would." She nodded, determination shredding through her, her resolve strengthening when he finally looked up at her. "If you asked me to, I would." She gave a tremulous smile. "If that's what would be best for you."
He paused for a moment, processing it all, before sighing. They may as well at least get everything out of the way now.
"I've been investigating your mom's case, your shooting." He murmured softly, dropping her eyeline in favour of staring just past her shoulder. He knew there was no way they could move forward until they put all their cards on the table.
"You've…" she trailed off, not able to fathom what he was saying.
"There was a deal, made by Montgomery, and you had to stop investigating in order for it to protect you, to keep you safe." He told her slowly, his eyes falling from the middle distance to the uppermost closed button of her shirt, just between her breasts, staring where he knew the scar he'd never seen laid. Where the bullet had almost taken her from him. "So, I started investigating without you. Trying to solve it, to keep you safe." He murmured.
"By trying to get yourself killed?" Kate asked, her voice quiet and cracked, body aching with the need to wrap herself around him like Kevlar, scars pulling at the mere thought of him getting hurt for her.
He looked up at her crumbling face, his own face drawn, his eyes shimmering.
"Castle, this case, everyone associated with it is dead. It's," she shook her head, knowing her conclusion was correct but hating the implications. "It's toxic. And yes, I would love to see it solved but," she shook her head, reaching across the table to gently hook her index finger with his. "Not at the cost of anyone else I love."
"Anyone else you…" Castle repeated, breathless with it, his eyes piercing on hers.
Kate shrugged. "I, you didn't know that yet?" She murmured shyly.
Rick shook his head quickly, gripping her finger a little tighter.
Kate shook her head a little before shrugging one shoulder. "I," she sighed. "I'm head over heels for you, Rick. Have been for a while." She flashed him a small shy smile. "I'm sorry I've never been brave enough to tell you that."
Rick slowly pulled his finger out of her grasp but caught her hand before she could misinterpret his actions. He wrapped her palm up in his own, gently smoothing his thumb back and forward on her skin. "I love you too, Kate."
Rick jumped when Kate's free hand shot to her face, clasping around her mouth as she sobbed once, her entire body seeming to slump.
He flew out of his chair and was crouched beside her in seconds.
"Hey, what happened?" He asked, softly, his hand on her thigh, thumb stroking again, trying to comfort her.
Kate settled the hand, he had been holding, on top of his on her thigh, swiping at her eyes with the other.
"Part, part of me didn't believe that it was real." She shook her head. "Or that you'd just said it as some sort of deathbed confession." She wouldn't make eye contact until Rick gently took hold of her chin between his thumb and forefinger, tilting her head to look him square in the face.
"I said it, yes because you were d-dying," he tripped up on the word but kept going, "but not as some last-ditch effort to keep you alive. Kate, I'm not that arrogant." He promised sincerely, smiling a little when she did. "I said it, I told you I loved you Kate, because I did, I do. And I wanted you to know that. I wanted to get to say it to you at least once if that was the only chance we'd get."
Kate bought her hand up slowly, and carefully cupped his cheek, smoothing her thumb over his cheek bone, making his eyes flutter shut. "I'm sorry I handled it so badly, but those words got me through some very dark times." She confessed quietly.
Rick watched her carefully for a moment before pulling himself, and then her, up so they were standing, pulling her into a hug, cradling her with such reverence, cradling her as something precious.
Kate curled into him, it felt so good to be held by him like this. "Thank you, for loving me Rick." She murmured softly into his chest.
Rick chuckled, squeezing her a bit tighter. "Thank you for loving me back, Kate."
"Always." She promised, slowly rising to her toes to kiss him softly.
They kept it shallow, and sweet, both knowing that there was still a lot to talk about and a lot to work on, but they were both so glad to have everything out now, to finally be on the same page again.