Disclaimer: All things Castle belong to Andrew Marlowe and ABC.

Author's Note: A short plotless bit of fluff to tide you over until my next full-length fic is ready. Written because one line got into my head and refused to leave until it was written out.

A Truth in the Night

Afterwards, Castle decided that it was the best dumb thing he'd ever done.

He didn't know what woke him but he abruptly returned to consciousness and somehow, in one of those nocturnal epiphanies that occasionally struck (although those usually involved his writing), the understanding fell into place.

They'd been looking at the case wrong. That was how they could have found out so much about the victim, only to come up against a brick wall of the simple fact that no one seemed to have any real reason to wish the victim harm, let alone kill him. He'd led a perfectly normal life, had been killed on his usual morning run, nothing out of the ordinary in his life or his finances. And yet, this ordinary man had been killed on an otherwise ordinary morning and they hadn't had the slightest idea why. It had been a frustrating day, to say the least.

Until now.

It was right. It made sense, made the story make sense. They could do this. And it gave them a working theory to look into.

Without thinking, he automatically turned to the person he always thought of first, the one who was always the first to hear about his insights. (This was so much easier when she was there beside him rather than a phone call away.) "Beckett. Beckett, wake up."

The shadowy lump beside him that was Beckett stirred and made a mumbling sort of groan of protest. "Mmph. Cassle—what…"

He nudged her shoulder again. "Beckett, listen to this. I think I've figured it out. We've been looking at the case wrong. We've been focused on the victim but I don't think this is really about the victim at all!"

There was a brief pause, then a sigh, and he saw the shadow move as Beckett lifted a hand and rubbed a hand down her face in one of her occasional gestures when she was tired. "What? A homicide investigation always focuses on the victim," she sighed wearily, her voice a little rough from sleep.

"Yeah, yeah, I know, it's Murder Investigations 101 to focus on the victim but I think this is the exception that proves the rule. I mean, think about it, no one seemed to have a reason to want this guy dead. He was an accountant and not even a shady one. We've been looking at this wrong because it's not about him, per se, it's about him in relation to someone else. And my money's on the girlfriend."

"She has an alibi," Beckett huffed.

"No, no, I don't mean she did it. I mean, the murder is really about her, the killer maybe wanted to get rid of the vic because he saw him as a rival. Don't you see, we should focus on the girlfriend's life, not the victim's."

There was another pause in which he knew she was thinking about it (lasting a little longer than it normally would since her brain was still foggy with sleep).

"Okay, even assuming you're right," she sighed, "exactly what do you expect we can do about it now?"

He blinked. "Well, uh… nothing, I suppose. It just gives us leads to follow in the morning." Which was more than they could say when they'd gone to bed.

"Castle," Beckett grumbled, "you woke me up at… 3:49 a.m. to tell me you had an idea about the case that we can't even look into until morning anyway?"

Well, put like that…

"I… got excited," he offered lamely. Okay, so maybe he should have thought first. Oops.

Beckett turned over and away from him with a sound that was half a sigh and half a groan, burying her face in the pillow. "You're lucky I love you, Castle, because otherwise, I think I'd have to kill you."

Wait, what? Had she just— What? She—

He sat bolt upright, forgetting all about the case, let alone any idea of returning to sleep. For a split second, Castle was convinced he was hallucinating. Had to be. His overactive imagination gone wild—and god knew, his imagination always tended to work overtime when it came to Beckett. But no. because in all the times he'd imagined her saying those words, they'd never come before a threat.

"What? Say that again."

"I might have to kill you."

"No, not that part, although you know the threats when you're in my bed are still hot," the words fell out of his mouth without permission (damn it, he really needed to do better at restoring his brain-to-mouth filter), "the other part, the part where you said—"

"You mean, 'I love you, Castle'?" He heard the faintest hitch in her breathing just before she said the words again. Yeah, now she realized what she'd said.

His breath left him in a rush, his heart dancing a ridiculous jig in his chest. "Yeah," he breathed, sounding amazed even to his own ears. "That's what I thought you said." Oh god. She'd said it, she'd really said it. Kate Beckett loved him.

She turned over so she could face him and slid over in the bed until he could feel the warmth of her body along his side, his leg. "You knew that already." He heard a faint trace of amusement in her tone now. She paused. "Didn't you?" There was an adorable tinge of uncertainty in her voice, turning the words into a question.

"I… hoped," he answered candidly. "But I tried to stop assuming anything when it came to you a long time ago."

He didn't mean it as a reproach; it was simply the truth. Not only because he'd been waiting for so long and she had hurt him but because he didn't want to take her for granted. So yes, he'd hoped, thought, believed that she might love him but he had tried not to assume it, even if he could swear that love was in the way she kissed him, in the way she slept in his arms, in the soft smiles she gave him sometimes.

She turned her head to brush a kiss against his arm and then reached out to pull him down, closer to her. "Mm, assume all you like."

He huffed a laugh as he lay back down, loving the way she automatically folded herself against him. He loved loved loved that Kate Beckett was more of a cuddler than he'd ever expected, especially in the middle of the night.

"Can I get that in writing?" he quipped.

She swatted at him. "Shut up."

But her tone was soft, made the words a tease rather than a scold.

"You love me anyway, Beckett. You love me."

"I'm aware," she said dryly. "You can stop repeating the words."

"Nope, can't. I've been waiting to hear them for something like the last five years, Beckett."

"Five years ago, you were just annoying. No, wait, you're still annoying."

He only laughed (he might never stop smiling again because Kate Beckett loved him and she'd said so) as he leaned over to kiss her, his lips nuzzling kisses over her mouth, her chin, and then down her neck.

She promptly melted against him and gave a breathy sort of gasp (as he'd known she would when he kissed that particular spot on her neck) and tilted her head to give him more ease of access. "Castle…"

"Hmm?" he mumbled against her collarbone, his hands slipping beneath her sleep shirt to find the soft, smooth skin beneath it, carefully inching up towards her breasts.

"Wanted to—ooh—go back to sleep," she breathed against his ear, although the words were decidedly contradicted by the way her hands were making their own forays over his body.

"Sleep later," he murmured, reversing course so he could scatter a trail of kisses back up to her mouth. "First, I want to show you how much I love you too."

"Mm." She hummed that breathy little moan in the back of her throat that never failed to get to him. But then, being Beckett, she couldn't simply let him have the last word. "If you insist."

His huff of a laugh was cut off by her mouth and then he gave up the attempt to talk any further. Words were overrated sometimes (even for a writer). And besides, she'd already said the most important words anyway.

~The End~

A/N 2: Thanks, as always, for reading!