DISCLAIMER: I own nothing, seriously, I don't.
This is not my favourite piece but it's alright. Please review.
If somebody had told Kate Beckett at the age of twenty that she would one day meet Richard Castle, she would have laughed.
If somebody had told her that he was a player, she would have shrugged and not cared much at all.
When she met him, if somebody had told her that he could cheat on a girl, she might have agreed.
If somebody had told her the same thing a few months ago - even a year ago - she would have not believed it.
That was why she didn't. She didn't believe that he would ever cheat on somebody. She knew him. She knew him better than she had ever thought she would. She knew he had been hurt in the past by women who cheated on him. She knew that stable relationships were hard for him to come by and he cherished them.
She knew that he loved her.
And he would never hurt her, especially by cheating with some skanky entertainment reporter.
She knew that.
But that did not make it any easier to see her all over him like he was just another piece of meat, just another name to check off of some list. And it did not make it easier to see him like that. Because no matter how much she knew that he would never cheat on her, she had walked in on him with a bikini clad woman on top of him.
Even if he had figured out the killer.
It took everything in her to walk out of the precinct alone and decline his offer to walk her out. It took every ounce of self control that she had to go home alone.
She went home and changed into one of his shirts that he had left at her place. It would be comfortable enough to sleep in. She took off her make-up and pulled her hair back into a messy ponytail. She flipped on the news but shut the TV right off after she saw Kristina Coterra.
The television had just powered off when she heard a knock on the door. Fearing who it was, she crept over to it, peering out the peephole. Yeah, it was him, just like she'd thought.
For a minute, she seriously considered not answering. But no, she didn't have that much self control. She opened the door.
"I'm sorry," he looked it. He did.
But she tried to close the door on him anyway. He put his hand out and stopped it, letting himself in.
"I'm sorry. I should not have gone on that date. I should have said no," he said.
Yeah, now was the time to figure it out, she thought.
"Then why didn't you?" she asked him the question that had been on her mind since he said yes.
"Well, I'm no good at this," came his response. "Pretending to be single..."
"Yeah, but Castle, neither am I," she said. "And the last thing I want to do is to have to worry about you with other women."
"Wa-um-for the record, I wasn't going to sleep with her."
"I know," she sounded unsure. She did know. Her knowing was really the only thing that made her trust him. "Look - that's not even the point. The point is - is I don't even know how to do this. Do you remember that Miles said that it's inevitable - that this will fall apart, that it's destined to implode?"
Maybe Miles was not the best example.
"Just a reminder that Miles is a lying killer," Castle said what she had been thinking. Then he looked at her and said everything she needed to hear: "But okay, maybe people find out and maybe we won't get to work together and maybe we'll implode. Or maybe we'll continue to be amazing. The point is, we don't have the answers, we just to live with the questions and find our way."
Damn writer, he always had a way with words. He always made her weak at the knees.
"Okay," she agreed. She smiled too. Everything he had said was true. "Well can we just start here then? Can we say that we will talk about dating other people without actually dating other people?"
"Yeah! I can do that," he said.
"Good, cause I have a gun and you don't really have a choice," she smiled at him.
"Clearly I don't have a choice," he said.
"No," and she laughed. It felt good to laugh.
She leaned up to kiss him but pulled away just before her lips reached his. "I'm sorry. I can't. It's too soon. I just - I keep seeing her boobs in your face."
After that, she walked away and went to her room. She expected him to leave. She would if the roles were reversed. But he didn't. He followed her in after a second.
"Castle," Kate said in a warning tone.
"You're different," he said, ignoring her warning.
"What do you mean?" he heard the eye roll in her voice.
"You're special, Kate. You're real and you're smart and you actually have a personality beyond clothes and boys," he said. Her head faced away from him but he almost saw the smile on her face anyway. "And you're the only one that I want. You're the only one I've wanted for a long time. Kate, there hasn't been anybody - save Jacinda but she was just a rebound because I was upset - in a long time."
She shuffled over to face him and he was right - she was smiling.
"Yeah?" she said. "Same for me."
"You don't ever have to worry about other women, okay? I shouldn't have agreed to that date. Or I should have at least made sure she didn't pounce on me like that," he said. "But you know, seeing you barge in with your gun like that was incredibly sexy."
She laughed again, "I try. I do trust you, you know. I just don't trust all those other women who don't know you're taken."
"You trust me?" he said, shocked.
"Castle..."
"I mean, I know you trust me with your life, but...really?" he asked.
"Yes!" she said. "Castle, I trust you. End of. Now, can we please get some sleep? Chances are, there will be another murder tomorrow."
"Yeah," he said, "Okay. Sleep sounds good."
He put his arms around her and pulled her close to him. She didn't squirm away like he had been expecting. He thought she would pull away in anger, but he clearly managed to calm her down and cheer her up.
"You have nothing to worry about," he whispered in her ear just as she fell asleep. "I love you."
He stayed with his arms around her for the rest of the night.
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