Title: The Kick
Spoilers: Up to "Undead Again"
Pairing: Castle/Beckett
Summary: It's amazing what you think of when it's girls' night out and the rain is pouring.
Disclaimer: I do not own Castle or any of Andrew Marlowe's toys. I just graciously savor the moments that I get to play with them. I do not own Christopher Nolan's Inception movie, or the quote that appears in my story: again, I just play with the toys, not claim that I own them.
Author's Note: This is my return to fanfiction, and it felt good to tap a few thoughts out on the keyboard. I hope that you all enjoy what little I have to offer in terms of a Castle fanfiction. Believe me, I had a lot of fun writing it, and it took quite awhile to get it; though this version is good, the original decided to die when the power went out one stormy evening... Not a fun experience, and it made me double check and make sure that my MicroWord saved every minute from that moment onward. Please feel free to comment or like, dislike, whatever your heart desires, and please, let me know what you think. Thanks!

Ariadne: What's a kick? ...

Cobb: It's that feeling of falling that jolts you awake. It snaps you out of the dream.

-Inception (2010)

Somewhere in the back of Kate Beckett's mind, she registered the fact that it was a "dark and stormy night" like many a mystery novel started. She always found that literary device to be overrated, cliché and kind of sloppy, but then again, her tastes had changed since she was a kid. Nowadays, the rhythmic tapping of the rain hitting her loft windows was a comfort to her, something to beat the errant thoughts out of her mind or into submission, into something that made sense. But, tonight's staccato was becoming less and less orderly as time went on. With every passing moment, it was sounding more and more like bombs dropping, exploding on the glass and leaving nothing but a watery mess behind. Rain had a reason, a purpose, a... Heck, a character even. It meant something in its own way, something important if you didn't think about it. It was cold, and dark, and fluid. It never really stayed in one place until it slipped back into the ocean where it all came from. But water was always changing, moving, going somewhere...

"Kate?" Lanie's voice broke her thoughts, guiding her derailed train of a mind back onto functioning tracks. "Hello? You need to stop staring out that window and start tellin' me why you're a million miles away. I know you didn't call me over here just so I could stare at your profile for awhile. I do enough of that at the morgue."

She sighed. That's right, she'd called her best friend over again for a reason, didn't she? She smoothed out the wrinkles on her faded college T-shirt, nonchalantly wore away at a few on her blue jeans. "I don't know, Lanie. I just don't get it. Something's different. Something's wrong, and I can't seem to figure it out. It's right there in front of me but I just can't...can't grasp it."

"I'm assuming you're talking about you and your lovestruck writer boy."

"Actually, it's less of both lately. If he wrote as much as he complained about writing, Frozen Heat would have been done a month ago. He keeps saying something about 'no inspiration', and Martha's told me he's been stalled for weeks. It's like he's just given up or something."

"Well, has he? Knowing what you two have gone through? What you're keeping from him?"

"But I wasn't... Wasn't ready then, Lanie. And now, it looks like I'm too late. He started acting like he's from another planet all of a sudden, and he's stickin' me with the backlash."

"When did it start?"

"I don't know."

"Katherine Beckett, don't you dare stand there and tell me you don't know. Something happened, and you're the crime solver. You're the one that puts all the pieces together. Figure it out."

"But I... I don't..."

"You don't what? Do that kind of thing without Castle? Aren't as good at it?"

"Castle writes the stories. He thinks outside the box more than I do, and he catches things that I don't."

"You were solving murders long before he swept you off the literary staircase and into your enchanted coach, Cinderella. If anything, you two have been dancing around each other long enough to get into each others' heads. If you can't solve this one as Kate, solve it as Castle. Think. What would he do?"

"He'd... Paint the scene. He'd go back to the time where he first noticed something was amiss, no matter how small it was."

"Ok, when was that?" Lanie jabbed the couch next to her with her index finger. "Sit down and recap. Paint the scene for me."

Kate took a seat, took a breath, took a shot."The… bombing case. I started noticing something going on during the bombing case a few weeks ago. At first, everything was fine. We were pulling together all our resources, trying to get a list of all the people who could have seen what happened. Castle and I were standing there, and we were talking about what we didn't want to hold back on anymore… He said he had something to tell me later on, but he never… it felt like he didn't get a chance to ever say it, you know? And what he did say… it didn't feel like what he wanted to say. Does that make sense?"

"Yeah, like you guys missed your moment. I know how that goes. But if everything was great, and you two were getting closer, why did he pull away? What happened?"

"I don't know. The case? I mean, we were great."

"Walk me through it."

"Ok… Castle said he had something to tell me, then Ryan had this idea of tracking the people who were there by their cellphone GPS's. We found that Reynolds guy, and I did my thing in the box, then we found out it wasn't him who was near the bomb, it was that Bobby kid. So we picked him up, and…." Kick. Click. Boom. She shocked out of her seat so fast, Lanie about spilled everything left in her glass. "Oh God… Lanie, you have to go. Now. I… I think I know what happened. You have to go."

"Wait, what? Kate!"

"LANIE. NOW. I can't… I can't leave it like this…" Shoes. Jacket. Keys? Where in the world were her keys? Frantic, her wide eyes were haunted, desperate for some semblance of normalcy, for a way to make things right, and that wasn't here. No. She had to go. Now.

She didn't know how her car managed to roll its way to his penthouse apartment. For all Kate knew, it started and drove itself on autopilot, because she sure as heck didn't turn the key. Did she run a few stoplights? Who in their right mind knew? All that consumed her thought was haphazardly parking the car, floundering out in the rain, and bolting up the stairs, stairs, to the stainless steel surface that was keeping her apart from him. She knew it wasn't the only thing that divided them, but definitely the most immediate one. The other she'd tear down with her bare hands until they bled; she'd see fit to that. But this stupid door… "Castle? Castle!"

A minute or two passed before he cracked open the door, disheveled, his cranberry tie loose and crooked. Eyes slightly bloodshot, he blinked his baby blues and gave her a half-smirk. "Detective Beckett," he said cordially, when the alcohol on his breath proved he was going to be anything but. "What do I owe this surprise?"

"You know." That's all she said, and all she needed to catch him off-guard.

"What?"

Kate shouldered her way through the threshold. Maybe, just maybe... "You knew what happened the day I was shot. You knew what happened, and somehow, you know that I know."

Castle blinked, closed the door slowly and shook his head. "Beckett, I don't—"

"Cut the crap, Castle. I know you know. It took a little time, but I figured it out. Is that why you've been so cold toward me? Why you've been picking up every bimbo you come across on the street? Answer me that, please."

"Answer you? Answer you!" his mouth spat the words out like acid, so sour they started burning holes in her heart. "You never answered me for months. MONTHS. I said what I did. I said it, and you didn't even have the decency to not only answer, but face it like a human being. You pretended it never even happened! What kind of answers are you looking for, because I'm not sure I can give them to you anymore. I'm done. I'm done playing this little kiss and tell game between us, and it stops now. You obviously don't feel the same as I do, so put the nail in the coffin, I'm done."

She bit her lip. "Say them again."

He didn't expect that; she could read that all over his face. "What?"

"I said, 'say them again'. You tell me exactly, word for word, what you told me the day I hit the dirt with a bullet to my chest. Say them again."

"Why?"

"Because that answer you're looking for, the one you've been badly wanting to hear for months now? Yeah, I'm ready to say it. I had to go to hell and back to deal with everything that happened to me, but I finally have the guts to say it. So say it again, Castle. Like it's the first time: say them again."

Castle hesitated, and in his eyes, she could read the pain, the anguish, all the things he wanted to say but didn't, all the things he couldn't. "Kate, I…"

Kate took that moment to draw closer to him, trace the curves of his face with the tips of her fingers. She half-smiled, nodding her head "yes" before he got any further, and cut him off with a kiss, soft and warm that deepened into something fare more than a goodnight smooch. It was apologetic, and euphoric, chaotic, and somehow making sense in its own twisted, unconventional way. Then again, that was them: four years of insanity chalked up to one enchanting and messed up kiss.

They'd figure it all out in the morning. Nothing between them was ever easy, and building back what was damaged would take time. But tonight, it was him and it was her. Castle and Beckett, Rick and Kate. That's all that mattered. And that's the way she wanted it. Always.