Author's Note: This is my first attempt to a Castle multi-chapter story. I hope you all like reading this as much as I have enjoyed writing every single paragraph. A huge part of the credit goes to Ella for being such an amazing beta-reader; she has done a wonderful job, and I wouldn't be posting this hadn't she told me she had loved it so much. I wrote this to give my ideas for a Caskett story a try; I hope you want to give them a try too. Please review, comments feed my inspiration!

Rain was pouring down New York, the sound of water cascading down the city that never sleeps. Katherine Beckett layed awake, sleepless, motionless... breathless.

Her lips were sweet and swollen, throbbing deliciously as she was reminded of his touch that she thoroughly remembered. Hours had passed since he dared to steal a piece of her, their mouths crashing together for the very first time, sealing a pact no one had ever spoken of. In the middle of a crisis, a poorly lit alley, what was cold and what was dark had met what was warm and what was bright, and she had suddenly felt she was drowning in a sea of fire, and to her fright, neither her head, nor her body or her heart had wished to be rescued.

Melodious words she had tried to forget with all her might tortured her ears like some old, melancholic song mixing with memories of his hands roaming her back, stroking her hair, his strong arms pulling her closer and wrapping her tight to protect the woman who swore she needed no protection whatsoever for she could protect herself very well. Her tongue and his tongue dueling, dancing, caressing and teasing each other.

Always…

You will meet an Alexander…

Why do you keep coming back, Rick?

He's sweet on you, makes him brave…

Plucky sidekick always gets killed…

Thank you. For having my back in there…

I'm your partner, then…

I will do anything you need, including nothing, if that's what you want…

He's not buying it, Castle…

When I saw the blood on your t-shirt, I thought you'd been shot…

Thank you, that's really sweet…

She wanted to scream. She literally urged to scream, to fill the silence that her apartment was merged in with the sounds of her pain, her frustration, her confusion, her fears... her agony. Frustrated and confused - those two adjectives suited her well. So did wounded, frightened and agonizing. Heartbroken, that she was too. And scared. She was scared even though she so kept selling herself lies, insisting that she was okay, that everything was okay.

She was not. It was not.

With her thumb she caressed her swollen, throbbing lips, slowly and timidly as to not wash away traces of him with her own fingers. The memory of him... the taste of him. She involuntarily closed her eyes in pleasure for a moment, remembering what it had felt like to be kissed by the man that had later saved her life, but then when she suddenly realized what she was doing she opened them up again and gazed intently at the ceiling, trying to erase it all.

What an idiot she had been, thinking a shower would wash away emotions she had never felt before in her existence, emotions that were still there because they were the kind that you cannot get rid of easily. What an idiot she had been, her mind fogged and her thoughts clouded; to think that kiss would not affect things. Reality had struck her all too sudden, and it had not been nice, for she now feared what the future held for them.

Kissing him had been Heaven that she could not deny just like she couldn't deny the passion that had flowed freely and naturally between them during those mere seconds they had been so engrossed kissing as if there were no tomorrow. The feeling of his hands' ministrations; the sensations that his eyes brought as he looked into hers right before he kissed her had broken the walls she had built to protect her soul from being damaged again; the butterflies that had flown happily in her stomach right before she kissed him back, it had all been so magic…

But it all was, like Nikki Heat, an illusion. He was enchanted by the idea of her, not by her. He was in love with the idea of her; he wasn't in love with her. He was not one to fall in love and settle down, that she knew, that she had learned by watching him interact with all those women that flew over his head like vultures waiting impatiently to have their piece. He was a playboy, a womanizer with two failed marriages weighting on his shoulders and he had a bad habit of liking to be seduced by gorgeous models and actresses that were only after his money and fame and all those things Kate was definitely not interested in. One night stands were his thing and she was not going to be one of his conquests. Something which she had decided a long time ago. First out of respect for herself, and then because – whether she was willing to acknowledge it or not - she had fallen head over heels in love with him and the last thing her poor, fragile heart needed was to be crushed by the man she adored.

She could not afford to risk so much for so little. Those two kisses, they felt like heaven. They truly did. The images her mind was conjuring of the two of them kissing each other senseless again in different circumstances and scenarios, she was sure they were bound to feel like Heaven too if they were to ever come true. But they couldn't become a reality. They couldn't go out of the limits of daydreaming and fantasy (not that she was happy she daydreamed of him and fantasized with him so much) because she would get nothing but a heartache and several headaches. Because even if he cared for her the way a friend cares for another friend, he would never be able to care for her like a faithful man cares for a woman; it simply wasn't in his nature to belong solely to a single soul.

Too many thoughts, too many reflections, too many realizations, too many doubts... too many feelings were consuming her up. She was in so much pain, she was so scared. She was scared of her feelings; she was scared of how hard and how fast she had fallen for a man that wasn't right for her; she was scared of whatever was in store for her.

She just wanted to scream; she just wanted her brain to shut up; she just wanted her heart to shut up; she just wanted to fall in a dreamless sleep so she wouldn't have to relive over and over again everything that had happened, including his sweet kisses. So she wouldn't have to face the nightmare she was sure she would have: Castle getting himself killed in his attempts to save her from the death that she would have met had he not been there willing to risk it all for his partner.

But any kind of sleep – dreamless or not, nightmare-free or not – was avoiding her. Playing a sick, unhealthy version of hide and seek with poor Kate, who lay wide awake, trying to escape her memories, her feelings, her fears to only be forced to face a fact that she had been tiptoeing around for way too long and that could not be ignored anymore.

She had fallen in love with Richard Castle, hard, so terribly hard. She had fallen in love with him like she had never fallen for any other man, because no other man had ever made her feel the way he did. Extraordinary.

She didn't believe in forever. She had never believed in forever for all things must come to an end, even those things that we think are meant to last for eternity. Yet there she was, 4 o'clock in the morning wishing Richard Castle could promise her a forever and ever. Three years ago she would have sworn up and down she did not believe and would never believe in the existence of that forever. She wished he was willing to sacrifice his lifestyle just like he more than once had been willing to sacrifice life itself for her. Just for her. His muse, his extraordinary KB.

How she wished she hadn't started to want forever.

How she wished she hadn't started to believe in forever.

How she wished the voices in her head, telling her forever was what she had wanted all along but that she hadn't realized it before because she was yet to meet the man that would be the love of her life, would just shut the hell up and leave her alone.

How she wished she wasn't agonizing over the fact that forever wasn't something Richard Castle could offer a woman like her.

How she wished that that kiss hadn't made her feel as if forever with him was the only possible happy ending for her.

How she wished she had been able to stop it all before he had become her moon, her sun, her stars, her blue sky, her Universe. Even if a part of her told her there was nothing she could have done in order to prevent that from happening because that fate, that destiny he believed in while she didn't had had it all planned all along.

How she wished she wasn't dying to dream of him that night (or whatever time it was left until dawn). Promising her forever, a forever she thought he couldn't give, not to her, not to any other woman.

How she wished her happiness had never come to depend on a man that she knew would only break her heart; even if she was sure he would put every ounce of willpower in protecting her. She was also sure he would, sooner or later, find himself unable to succeed and she would be left with her heart and hopes broken, abandoned once again and poisoned with memories, unable to recover from the wounds a failed relationship with him she knew would inflict.

How she wished she could afford the luxury of taking a risk with him in the hope of finding out she had been wrong all along every time she thought forever was something Richard Castle couldn't promise a woman.

How she wished she wasn't so madly in love with him, and only him.

How she wished a part of her wasn't so strongly tempted to throw herself in the arms of danger and run the risk of being loved, at least just once, by the man she wanted forever with, even if that meant ending with her heart broken, even if that meant ending torn apart, even if that meant ending with her soul cut into pieces when the time came for him to end it all and go find his next conquest. His next muse. Another woman to write about, another woman to call extraordinary... another woman to play the hero with.

How she wished she could convince herself she could be his one and done. How she wished she could convince herself he would be able to stay faithful to her. How she wished she could convince herself no one else would be as extraordinary in his eyes as she was, ever.

She caressed her lips once more, her throbbing, swollen, sweetened lips, fighting the urge to scream.

All those things she wished, just as strongly as he wished she could only see forever was the only thing he would promise to her, even if up and down she always swore forever wasn't a thing she believed in. But she didn't know that she has yet to see that. She has yet to see the man behind the playboy, the womanizer, the mystery writer, the novelist. Just like he has yet to see the princess behind the detective, the crime fighter, the mystery solver, the murderer's catcher.

It wasn't the differences between the two of them. It was bad timing and the incapacity to see that, different and all, from two worlds that had nothing to do one with the other and all, they were meant to be each other's eternity and that they could only have forever if they fought for it together because this forever was the only thing they would ever be able to promise each other.

Forever had begun a long time ago. The day she had first read his work and fallen in love with the idea of him; long before he met her just to fall in love with the idea of her; long before she became her favorite writer's muse; long before they became friends; long before they started to risk their lives for the other; long before they both realized what they wanted from the other.

Katherine Beckett finally knew what she wanted from Richard Castle, but she thought it was something he would never be able to promise her, given his nature.

She had no idea just how wrong she was.

She had no idea what the future held for them.

To Be Continued.