Author's Note-Kind of a post ep for the Limey. I've been thinking about this idea for a little while and inspiration struck tonight. For this, let's pretend Rick's secret doesn't exist, because I couldn't deal with writing it in and ruining the happy ending, so let's just pretend.

For those following my multi chapters, I promise I am still going to write them, I've had an awful lot going on in the last few months, with my health, and moving house twice, and getting engaged (squeee), but I promise there will be an update soon. Much love, NYLF xx

The knocking at the door was insistent, attention gaining and not just a little frantic.

Castle sighed deeply, heaving himself off the couch, away from the blank page he'd been trying to cover in words for the past hour, trudging towards the door.

The persistent pounding confused him. He hadn't ordered food, and both his redheads had plans for the evening.

He stopped at the door, leaning his forehead against the wood to peer through the peep hole.

He sighed again, deeply, feeling it crackle in his chest, when he saw who was on the other side.

He really wasn't in the mood for this tonight.

He slipped his hand over the handle, and opened the door all the same, though.

"What do you want, Beckett?" He murmured, but he barely had a chance to finish his sentence before she was barging past him, running a hand through her wet, tangled hair, messing it up only further, before she came to a halt in the middle of the room, one hand on her hip, while the other stayed in her hair.

Rick closed the door, steeling himself for what now felt like an inevitable fight, leaning back against the frame to look at the detective.

She looked stressed, more stressed than usual, and somewhat fragile. His heart worried about her before his head could stop it.

She looked torn apart.

She just stood there, breathing shallow and fast, unable to bring her eyes from the floor. She'd made it all the way here on nothing but frantic energy and guilt, but now she was stood in his living room, stood not ten paces away from him, she couldn't move. She could barely breathe.

Oh god, she really was going to break now. Have a full blown breakdown in his living room. Her heart hurt, and her scars pulled, and her throat burned, and oh, she was going to cry, wasn't she?

She shook her head, her hand catching in the tangled mess of her hair. She couldn't cry, she wouldn't cry, oh god, what had she done?

"Beckett? Look, alright? I'm not in the mood to fight. Can we do this at the precinct tomorrow?" He knew he was about three marks away from begging, but he'd had enough of fighting with her.

He wanted a clean break, had already planned on making tomorrow his last day at the precinct, but tonight he didn't want to think about her, or his unrequited feelings, or cemeteries, and snipers. Tonight, he just wanted to do some writing and fall asleep.

She looked up at him, at the awful tone in his voice, and felt her chest crack just a little more. She didn't want to fight either but, she didn't know what to say. How to stop it.

"I, I was sad." She murmured, her voice as broken as her heart, but she still didn't look up, couldn't.

"You, you were sad? What do you mean?" Castle asked, against his better judgement. She fascinated him, and he was always a sucker for a story.

"Tonight." Kate whispered. "I was sad." She shrugged. "You, you left, and you've been weird, and Jacinda is fun and uncomplicated and I was sad." She murmured, her excuses all rolling into one now. She was babbling, she knew that, but she was powerless to stop it. "And Colin, Colin wasn't sad, and he was kind, and he looked at me, instead of through me..." she swallowed hard, trying hard to keep some semblance of control, but she was failing fast.

Castle watched her. Carefully. Scrutinising her.

He'd thrown the line out, knowing, and intending on it, to hurt her and yeah, he was a little ashamed of it now, but it's not like she wasn't hurting him. Okay, that was petty but he felt a little petty right now.

"He offered to buy me a drink, and I said no, but then you..." she shook her head. "So I agreed to meet him. For a drink. Or two. Or a few. I can't," she shook her head again, tasting the whiskey he'd bought her at the back of her throat again, and it burned more the second time round than it had when she'd gulped them down like water. "I can't remember how many. But he was warm, and he was gentle, and..." she cupped her hand over her mouth, keeping the words locked inside.

"So what, you're here to tell me what, exactly?" Castle threw, aggressively. He wasn't in the mood for her to rub it in his face that she got laid by someone else tonight.

"I slept with him." She confessed, pushing the whisper out with all her might, sobbing on the last syllable as she collapsed back to sit on the couch, head in hands as she wept.

Castle froze, not entirely sure on what to do next. She said "slept", it sounded mutual, so why was she so upset?

"Beckett?" He asked, warily, closing some of the distance between them to perch on the edge of the other end of the couch.

"I," she gasped, shook her head, begged the universe that she could just wake up now, and this all be a horrible dream. "You don't even care about me any more, and I still feel like I cheated on you."

Rick stopped short.

She what?

"You, I'm sorry?" He asked, needing more than that.

Why did she feel like she cheated on him?

Why was she so torn up about this?

What?

Kate slowly drew her head up, looking at him for the first time since she'd arrived.

Her face was wiped clean of all her make up, making her look so much younger, so much more fragile. Like those eye liner wings were her body plate and shield, and without them she was defenceless.

Her eyes were bloodshot, both probably from the alcohol and the tears that were still streaming down her cheeks.

She was a mess.

"He kissed me, and I let him. I let him take my hand, and take me to his hotel room, and I let him undress me, and..."

"I don't really want all the gory details, cheers." Castle grimaced, holding out a hand in effort of stopping her from telling him any more. He didn't need the in depth visuals of another man's hands on her body.

"He kissed me goodbye, apologised that he had to leave. Told me he'd call when his plane lands. I held it together until he left, and then I couldn't stop crying." She sobbed, shaking now, wrapping her arms around her waist to try and hold herself together. "I showered until I couldn't feel my skin, until I was red raw all over, but I couldn't wash it away. That feeling. I, I've never cheated on anyone in my whole life, but I just felt so dirty and unfaithful." She spat out the last word, disgusted with herself. "You don't even care about me, have gotten over me, or something, but you have Jacinda, and don't care, and I just, I feel like I cheated on you, on us. I feel like a harlot and I hate it and I hate myself for doing it." She sobbed.

Castle's heart broke.

He needed to protect his own heart sure, but he never wanted this, whatever this was.

"Beckett, we, we aren't together. I don't, I don't understand why you feel like this." He struggled, watching her flinch at his words.

"I know." She murmured, devastated. "I don't know what happened, what I did wrong, but now you don't see me any more, and I thought, that day on the swings, I thought you understood, but you obviously didn't, or just got bored of waiting, but you don't want me." She let her hair tangle around her face, hiding herself from him.

Castle's mind was working a mile a minute.

She sounded almost, but no. She didn't. She couldn't. She had lied to him for a year.

He didn't know what this was but it wasn't, that.

"I need you to leave the precinct." Kate murmured, her voice void of everything now, her face wiped clean.

"Excuse me?" Castle gasped.

So what if he'd been planning on leaving? He wanted to leave on his terms, not have his life dictated by her again.

Kate shrugged. "I, I tried to be strong, but I can't, Castle. I can't be the bigger person, and watch you move on with someone else. Someone who is my complete opposite. I can't feel like this all the time. I, I need to try and move on, and to do that I need time away from having to watch you not," she swallowed, but if this was the last time she saw him, she might as well be honest, "watch you not love me any more." She hung her head, unable to stop the sobs tearing apart her throat.

Castle sat in dumb silence. Unable to move, unable to process what was happening.

"You knew. You knew all along." He murmured, his voice tense but soft.

Kate nodded hesitantly.

"You knew, how I felt, all this time." He shook his head. "If you didn't feel the same Beckett, you should have just said it. I would have got over it, it would have been okay..."

Kate's head snapped up, her eyes meeting his. "I..." she shook her head. "Castle, Rick, I. It wasn't ever, I," she bit her lip, still, after all this time, and heartache, still unable to just come out and say it. "Rick, I've loved you for years."

Castle honestly thought his heart had stopped beating.

She said what?

"I, then, why lie?" He begged, imploring her, completely at a loss now.

Kate sighed, pressing her hands together, squeezing them between her knees. Now she had to be honest. If this was the last conversation they would have, then at least let it be honest.

"For the first few months, every time I thought about it, thought about what you said, I had a panic attack." She shrugged, not watching him, though if she had been she would have seen the pain that outlined his every feature.

"You, you never said you were having panic attacks." He murmured, garnering another shrug.

"'Hey Castle, you know that thing that we're not talking about? Every time I remember what you said, my lungs stop knowing how to breathe'." She shook her head, a wry smile on her face. "I don't think that would have gone down too well." She shrugged again. "Once I'd started to work through it all, once I'd started to untangle the bad from the, well from that, it had been too long. I just thought, if it's gone this far, maybe if I could just fix myself, and work on it, maybe we'll get to the place that you'd want to say it again, and that could be the first time?" She smiled sadly. "Plus at least a third of me thought I'd imagined it."

"You didn't." Castle murmured.

Kate nodded. "The intelligent part of me knew that."

Castle took a deep breath. She was pulling her psyche apart for his benefit, the least he could do was grow up and be honest back. "I heard you."

"Hmm?" Kate hummed, looking at him, confusion wrinkling her brow.

He shrugged. "I was in observation for the bombing case, I heard you tell Bobby that you remember your shooting."

Kate sighed, dropping her face to her lap again. "I, I'm sorry, Rick."

Castle shrugged. "I was devastated, Kate." He shook his head, disappointed with himself. "I, yeah I jumped to a conclusion, and yeah, maybe I should have stuck around to hear what you had to say but I just, I couldn't. I thought you were just stringing me along and I," he shrugged again. "I'm an idiot, and immature, but I wanted to hurt you back."

Kate nodded, those pesky tears creeping back into her eyes. "I, I get it." She slowly pulled herself back together, rising to stand. "For what it's worth, I'm truly sorry for lying to you." She smiled sadly before turning to leave.

"I never stopped, y'know?" Rick confessed quietly, stopping her mid stride as she half turned back to him, wary and afraid, but maybe just a little hopeful. "I tried. Oh boy, did I try, but," he shrugged, "You're pretty unforgettable, Kate."

Kate turned back to him, keeping her body small even as her chin rose bravely. "What are you saying?"

Castle shrugged. "I'm saying maybe, we start again? Clean slate? We start slow, but maybe we try?"

"But, Jacinda..." She murmured, that deep seated hurt still curing at the edges of the other woman's name.

"She, I was unfair to her too, but it was never going to go anywhere. She went back to Vegas a few hours ago." He confirmed slowly. "She wasn't you." He shrugged.

Kate sobbed, unable to stop now, the sound only getting louder when Castle closed the gap and gently folded her into his chest, wrapping his arms around her, holding her close.

"I'm so sorry." She sobbed.

"I know." He soothed, leaning into the top of her head, breathing her in. "Me too."

"I, I slept with him." She whispered, wedging her fists into his shirt, silently begging him not to let her go.

"It's okay. Honestly, Kate, it's okay." He murmured softly. "You didn't cheat, it's okay."

She pulled back, wiping her face with a small wry smile. "I'm a mess." She shook her head when he smiled at her.

"Cute though." He shrugged, smiling when she giggled, the outcome he'd been aiming for. "You got a cab here, right?" He asked, suddenly aware that she'd been drinking.

"Yeah." She nodded. "I'm definitely over the limit."

"So, how about I make us some coffee, and we'll talk some more? Then see how we proceed?"

Kate smiled softly. "I'd like that."

"Me too." Castle murmured.