Disclaimer: If I owned them, I would be watching the premiere of season 5 now, instead of in two weeks. (TWO WEEKS! Is everyone excited?!)

Post-Always. A collection of questions they've wanted to ask, and secrets they've wanted to tell. Spoiler free, for a moment, though that may change once the season premieres. Also, I didn't actually intend for this one to end this way...but that's how they wanted it!

(And one final bit - I quoted the line from the Acknowledgements of Heat Rising from memory, since the copy I was reading was due back at the library...if anyone has a copy handy and would like to check my memory, please do! I'll correct it if I'm wrong.)

He waited nearly a week to ask, which was longer than she'd expected. And of course he asked when they were in her bed, naked, and there was nowhere to hide. Not that she could ever really hide from him.

"Kate." His voice was soft, careful. His lips were gentle against her temple and on her forehead, and then his eyes were on hers, and oh, god, she loved his eyes. Even when, like right now, they were just a little bit wary. Like he was about to say something he knew she wasn't going to like. "Kate. Why did you lie? About remembering?"

She'd been expecting it, but that didn't make it easy.

She needed…clothes. Space. Armor. Something. Anything. She'd wanted…she thought that if she managed to fix herself, to break down the wall, she'd be able to tell him right here, curled up in his arms, skin to skin. That explaining would come easily and she wouldn't struggle for words or be afraid he wouldn't understand, or that she'd just hurt him more.

But she wasn't there yet. So instead she sat up and pulled on the first thing she could grab from the floor, which happened to be his shirt. Ironic, that even when she was trying to put some distance between them, she was still comforted by the feel of it against her skin, and the way it wrapped her in his smell. She paced her bedroom, slowly, trying to find words. She only realized after a minute that she was unconsciously rubbing her thumb over her bullet scar.

Castle had pulled himself to a sitting position in bed. "Kate," he began, sounding worried.

Kate held up a hand. "I'm not running away, Castle, I just…I've spent almost a year trying to figure out how to say it, and I don't know if I've got it yet." She saw him open his mouth to say something and shot him a look, and he subsided, resting his elbows on his knees and watching her. She kept pacing and rubbing at her scar as she spoke. "Do you know what I remember from that day?"

She looked up in time to see a shadow cross his face. "Everything," he said quietly.

"How do you know that, anyway?"

He sighed and raked his fingers through his hair. "I was in observation when you were interrogating that guy after the bombing," he admitted. "I heard you tell him that you remembered everything that happened."

Oh. She wanted to go over to him and hug him close. "That wasn't how I wanted you to find out, Castle. I was going to tell you, I just was trying to figure out how."

There were those eyes again, intent on her. "So tell me now," he said, and he didn't sound angry. Just…like Castle. Who'd promised to be there, always. She took a deep breath.

"I remember you yelling and slamming into me, and being afraid something had happened to you. And then we were on the ground, and you were looking down at me and I was so relieved you were okay."

She skipped over the part where she realized she'd been shot. It still hurt to remember, and she knew it would hurt him to hear it.

"That's the last thing I remember hearing, is you telling me you…loved me. And I thought that at least…" She swallowed, hard, staring unseeingly out the window. "At least if I were dying, I got to hear you say it once. And I was happy. And then…" she waved a hand vaguely, "nothing."

Silence for a moment. Then –

"Twice," he said, his voice not entirely steady.

Her head snapped back towards him. "What?"

"I said it twice," he told her. "Though you might have missed one of them. There was a lot going on."

Tears pricked at her eyes. "No. I heard both. I just meant…that one time. Not that you only said it once." She gave him a small smile. Castle was looking at her in that way he had, like he still wasn't entirely sure that she was real, that they were real. Then it shifted to confusion. "But if it made you happy, then why –"

"Because it was…huge, and scary, and I just needed a little time to process it, so I lied." She was still pacing, twisting the collar of his shirt between her fingers. "I didn't really mean to not call, not for three months. But in the hospital I had nothing to do except lie there and think, and we'd had that fight, and I was still with Josh, and everything hurt, Castle. Everything. It hurt to move, even to turn my head to talk to my dad when he came to visit. It hurt to think about moving. It hurt to breathe. And you…You always see me as so strong. Like I'm indestructible or something. I love the way you see me. And I didn't want you to see me like that."

"Kate." His expression almost hurt her. "I never thought you were indestructible. I had your blood all over my hands to prove it. I watched you die. I just wanted to know that you were going to be okay."

"Me too." Her thumb was worrying at the bullet scar again. "I thought I'd call you once everything stopped hurting, and I could figure out what to say. And then once I could think again…I was flinching at every glint off a mirror. Every time a car backfired or a door slammed, I had to stop myself from jumping behind a door or under a table. I went to my dad's cabin because I had to get out of the city, away from the lights and the noise and the people, because I was afraid of my own shadow." She looked at him, wondering if he could understand. "You…you always want to fix things, Castle. You can't stand to see people you care about hurting. You would have wanted to help, to fix me, and I couldn't stand the thought of you watching me in the middle of a panic attack and not knowing what to do, not being able to help. And in spite of that, part of me didn't care – sometimes I missed you so much it was all I could do not to pick up the phone – "

"So why didn't you?" The words seemed to come out without his permission, because he immediately looked slightly guilty for interrupting her.

"Because I needed to know that I could do it myself!" Her breathing caught raggedly in her chest, remembering those days – loneliness, panic, the fear that she'd never be whole again. "I needed to know I could get better, Castle, that I could be functional again, and I needed to know that I could do it without leaning on someone. Anyone. Even you, even if I wanted you, if I needed you. I needed to save you from seeing me like that, and I needed to know I could put myself back together." She swallowed hard. "And then I came back, and you weren't there. I read Heat Rises, and I could tell how you were hurting. And…" Her eyes met his. "I read the acknowledgements."

How do you know when you're in love?

All the songs make sense.

Memory sparked in his eyes. "…for helping me understand the songs," he quoted slowly.

"You make them make sense," she said softly. "The pretty ones, the sad ones, the happy ones, even the cheesy ones." She gave him a tiny smile. "Especially the cheesy ones, sometimes. Reading that…I wanted to be…not just better again, but really whole. Like I haven't been since my mom died. I wanted us to have as good a chance as possible at making this work, and we wouldn't unless I could get rid of that wall. And for the first time I could remember, I wanted to."

Kate dropped to the bed by Castle's feet, drained – but feeling lighter, somehow. She glanced up, and Castle raised his eyebrows at her, tilting his head fractionally towards her spot on the bed, next to him. A smile tugged at her lips, and she scooted herself across the rumpled sheets until she was curled into his side, her head on his shoulder. "You screwed it all up," she told him. "I had it pretty good – I was pretty content, had a boyfriend I liked well enough, and you hanging around all the time, always showing up. Just there for me." He rested a hand on her knee, palm up, and she laced her fingers with his. "Always. And then you had to go and screw it up by telling me you loved me. You just can't stop messing with my life, can you Castle?"

She felt him press a kiss to the top of her head. "I'd like to remind you that in this case it turned out okay. Eventually."

A slight turn of her head, and she brushed her lips across his neck. "Eventually."

They were quiet for a while, his thumb tracing circles on her hand. "I love you too, you know," she said at last.

His entire body went very still against hers. She lifted her head to find him staring at her, and it was funny – most of the time Castle was as transparent as water, but whenever she particularly wanted to know what he was thinking, she couldn't tell.

"Yeah…?" It came out as an odd half affirmative, half question, and she realized that he hadn't known, which was incredible to her since she felt like it just spilled out of her, all the time. She could feel it bubbling up in her whenever she looked at him, overflowing when she smiled. She could almost see traces of it wherever she touched him, smudges like fingerprint powder.

And yet he hadn't known. Or at least hadn't believed what she'd been showing him since the moment she'd shown up at his door, dripping with rain and with her heart in her eyes.

Kate tugged him back towards her and rested her forehead against his. "I love you," she said softly. "I love you, I love you, I love you…" It was still spilling out of her, just in words this time, and if he'd been afraid to trust his eyes before, she forced him to trust his ears now.

They stayed in bed until noon.