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A/n this directly follows "Countdown." Watch out for spoilers. Please enjoy
Lucky
Looking back, he realized one important fact… Life wasn't a book. You couldn't write your way out of, through, or around the big moments in your life. Dealing with the curve balls thrown at you by fate, God or the universe didn't come with an instruction book. You couldn't outline your life and fill in the blanks ahead of time.
When he found himself standing next to a dirty bomb with twenty seconds on the clock, he wondered how he'd got to this point with so little time. If this were one of his books, he would've given Nikki Heat or Derek Storm, or any other hero the means to solve the mystery with at least enough time on the clock to figure out how to disarm said bomb. He'd have his characters arrive with a number on the clock that ensured a tense outcome, but not an impossible one like right now.
He looked up at Beckett and saw in her eyes that she couldn't believe their predicament. He saw that she wondered how they got to that place, not once, but twice in twenty-four hours. He saw that she was thinking the same thing he was thinking that all of it had to be a huge joke. Why save them from nearly freezing to death in that freezer container only to place them in front of a huge bomb?
Then, she said his name and her hand was holding his hand. He saw that there was so much more she wanted to say to him. He saw the same conflict he felt in his heart. If this were one of his books, he'd blurt out something like "I love you," because he'd think he was about to die. He could feel tears welling up in his eyes because it was ending too soon. It was over and he'd chickened out.
His eyes flickered back to the countdown. It raced on to zero as his free hand reached out, seemingly at its own volition, and yanked all the wires out at the same time. He didn't know why he did it except that it was the act of a desperate and utterly human man, not a character in one of his books.
Beckett was starting at him like he'd gone nuts and then they were embracing. The smell of her hair, the softness of her cheek and the pounding of her heart racing in time with his, shoved everything out of his mind. It didn't matter that if this were a novel, yanking out all the wires from a bomb would be the exact wrong thing to do. It didn't matter if he never touched Kate again. She was in his arms, voluntarily, for the second time in the same day.
Later, in the safety of the police station surrounded by his friends, it was easy just to laugh it off when Kate told the story. He made it out to be that he thought one of the wires had to be right, but in reality, he'd been utterly clueless. All he'd wanted to do was make sure that Kate went on. It didn't matter if he didn't go on. The city needed her. So when Javier said they didn't know how lucky there were, Castle had to disagree. He knew how lucky he was to know Kate, to have her friendship and reluctant affection. It didn't matter if he didn't have her love, if Josh stood between him and the most beautiful, sexy and brilliant woman he'd ever had the privilege of knowing in his life.
He was lucky because Kate deserved better than him and yet she let him hang around. Maybe if his luck held, one day they would be more than just detective and quirky sidekick. He couldn't write life like one of his books, but maybe a happy ending was coming despite anything he did to make it so.