Hi everyone! This is a one-shot set after 6x02 "Dreamworld" and before 6x03 "Need to Know"

Spoilers for everything in general.

Light in My Darkness

by keeperofthetardis

Kate rolled over in bed onto her right side, closer to him as he slept. She blinked slowly, her eyes tired with the weight of... everything. Outside, the wind rustled soft and gentle through the trees surrounding the house. It was theirs actually - bought with both her money and his. But still it didn't yet seem like home. She thought back to the way the loft's easy warmth wrapped around them, the gold, red, and brown tones doing something for her heart, when it ached. Her own apartment was only ever filled with memories of the years during which she'd known Castle, the process during which she went from scared and alone, to loved, and more complete.

The house in DC was beautiful - small, bright and very them. They'd investigated a bunch of properties together before they settled on that one. Kate knew it was probably a temporary place - they hadn't discussed whether they'd be buying a house or really, doing anything different after the wedding. There was already enough change in her life, so much to adapt to that she didn't want to even think about future big decisions. Yet still, her mind wandered, sleepless and so weary. Kate looked past Castle's sleeping form and to the window, with its white sheer drapes, the moonlight streaming in through the panes. It was a beautiful sort of grey light which cast over the things in the master bedroom. There were four smaller boxes stacked in the corner, each marked 'books'. Castle had helped her move all of her things - rented a Uhaul, and they had made the drive down together. A small smile graced her lips as an image flickered across her mind, of Castle with the boxes of books in his arms, stacking them in the corner as she'd asked. She had finished instructing one of the hired movers in the living room, and walked back into the bedroom to find Castle placing the last of the book boxes in the stack, standing up with a grunt and an accomplished sigh.

"Books huh?" he had grinned at her. She recalled leaning on the door way, and quirking her lips at him.

"Yup, books!" she replied, a hint of mischief in her eyes, then walked back out into the living room again. He had followed... Of course he had.

Her heart didn't exactly hurt to remember it, nevertheless, something akin to pain twinged there. She drifted her gaze back to the man asleep beside her, flat on his back. Silently, she watched the rise and fall of the planes of his chest as he breathed. Kate pushed herself down into the covers a tiny bit more, shivering. She was perpetually cold during the nights here, from the draft. Kate sighed… she should let him rest, let him regain his strength, but she wanted nothing more than to shift closer, wake him softly, and talk to him… The poisoning had taken a dark toll on both of them. He seemed to be able to sink down into sleep easily, and no wonder. His body was still a train wreck from the toxin.

He'd been released the day after he'd entered the hospital, but he'd been warned that fatigue was inevitable. They'd gone to a little burgers place and eaten something, but he just picked at his food, and nearly fell asleep in the booth. In the car on the way back to the house, his lids drifted shut and when she woke him he had walked like a dead man from the car to the door. As soon as he'd entered he'd made a beeline for the couch and flopped onto it, soon asleep again. Kate had covered him with a blanket and made them both some soup while he slept, turning the tv on volume and letting a sitcom drone on in the back ground. She'd kept it warm on the stove until he woke up three hours later, around 9PM. She'd gone over as he sat up and knelt on the floor in front of him, reaching for the blanket and wrapping it closer around him.

"I have soup for you," she said softly, and brought him a bowl, setting it carefully into both of his hands. She watched for signs of trembling, but his grip remained solid.

Castle looked down at it, his breathing deep, yet labored. Kate knelt down again, on the rug in front of him, so she could look up into his face. Alarm shot through her as she saw - his already bleary eyes were filling with tears.

"You always take care of me," he said, his voice gravelly and weak. "I love you." That was all, but it was enough to make the tears slowly drip down his cheeks.

"Hey," she said, bringing her palms to his face, and brushing the tears away. "I love you too." She pressed a kiss to his skin, beneath his eye where his nose met his cheek. They stayed like that a moment longer, skin to skin, shared breathing.

Since he'd broken his leg and she'd stayed at the loft so much, he'd been able to see how good of a caretaker Kate actually was, how she looked after those she loved in and even closer way than how she'd handle a grieving victim. Kate knew it had changed them both, experiencing a life for a time where one was less capable in than the other in certain valuable areas. Culminating with the birthday party close to the end of his recovery, it had brought them closer together, and quelled some of the fear in Kate's heart about her abilities to be able to truly care for someone else the way she had only ever truly experienced with both of her parents.

"I think the meds they gave me are making me sappy. And making my eyes water," he whispered.

Kate chuckled softly, this time pressing her lips to his in a chaste, gentle kiss.

"I think you're always sappy. But cry away, love, if it makes you feel better."

Castle looked back to the bowl.

"I'm ok. Thank you – for the soup."

Kate sat back down on her knees and hummed her 'you're welcome' but stayed close, brushing her fingertips through his hair,

"Think you can eat some of it?"

"Yeah. I can," he said, and lifted the spoon to his mouth.

All told he'd managed to eat three quarters of the bowl before he yawned again, telling her he was going to sleep again. She'd helped him to the bedroom but he'd managed on his own after that – pulled on his pajamas, crawled under the covers. Kate cleaned up the mess from dinner and did some laundry long overdue for folding. She'd tried reading for a little while, but it couldn't keep her attention, so she'd found her way to the bedroom, and gotten ready for bed.

Then, there she was, after two hours of tossing, turning, and thinking, and trying in vain for sleep. With an exasperated sigh, she moved closer to him, on her side, pressing her forehead against the skin of his bicep, her forehead to his arm, her nose close so she could smell his scent. He still smelled faintly of hospital – there hadn't been the energy for the shower, but his unmistakable musk, the unique smell of his skin was still there.

"Beckett?" he mumbled, rousing slightly, turning his face towards her.

"It's ok. I'm ok," she said and nuzzled slightly against him.

"I didn't say anything was wrong," he said softly, then shifted to roll slowly onto his side. He slipped an arm around her back and pulled her into him, curling around her body. Her small frame settled easily into the space - like a little cave – created by his, and he cradled her head into his neck. At once, her spirits seemed to ease, with her nose at his collar bone, and his fingers in her hair. She could feel the slight scratch of the stubble on his chin where he rested his head at her temple. "I didn't say anything was wrong, but you answered as if something was. So something must be…" he murmured.

Kate splayed the fingers of her right hand over his heart, feeling the pleasant thud beneath them.

"I can't sleep," she sighed. "Can't turn my brain off. It's not that I'm not tired though, I just…" she trailed off.

"When you feel so tired, but you can't sleep… could it be worse?" Castle sang softly.

Kate smiled,

"Nice Coldplay impersonation there."

"Mm, I do try," Castle said, and shifted his head to take a deep breath with his nose and mouth pressed against her hair.

Kate sighed again.

"I'm sorry for waking you. You need your rest. You should sleep."

"So should you," he pointed out, rubbing gentle, soothing circles with his palm on her back. "What helps? When you can't sleep, what helps? I know you have weird sleeping habits."

"I…" Kate sighed in defeat, "Actually I… well. You."

Castle hummed a low, pleased hum, the rumble of the vibrations going straight from his chest to hers. Ah, that was nice. Yet, it seemed to hit her like a strange stab of urgency, pressing at her. The books. She needed to tell him, and she didn't know why. But she needed to.

"Rick, I was going to wait to tell you… I-" she paused, and he went very still at her words, "There's… a lot I haven't said. About my life."

"Um. Are you about to tell me a story?" he asked, the adorable edge of confusion in his voice. Kate smiled an awkward, hesitant smile, and nodded.

"I was uh… well, I was 19. It was maybe two months after my mom died. So, March. Close to St. Patrick's day. I remember because there was a parade going on the weekend I found this… stack of stuff. In my mom's closet. My dad was at work, and I hadn't yet decided what I was going to do with myself. I'd mostly been reading… trying to drown myself."

"Kate," Castle let out on a broken sigh, his arms tightening around her.

"Not like that. Not literally. I would… I would never, Castle. But, I needed something to drown in – metaphorically. My dad had his alcohol and I had books. TV. People watching. Stories, mostly. When you first came to the precinct, I'm sure you remember I made Ryan and Espo read up on your work."

"Yes, of course."

"You also know they were my copies. Of your books."
"I… yeah. Where are you going with this?" he asked hesitantly.

"You'll see," she soothed, bringing her hand up to run them through the shorter hair at the nape of his neck. "I found this stack of stuff in my mom's closet. She had a walk in closet. And at first when I walked in it was… the smell got to me first. I mean, if I shut my eyes, it was like she was there. I just sort of sank into the clothes and sobbed for like… an hour. Actually, I sat on the floor, among her shoes. I take after her – with the shoes thing. I have a lot of shoes, and so did she. Then I saw this, pile of stuff. I figured my dad must have put it in there, because it was things like her makeup bag, and a t-shirt, and a curling iron, and a stack of library books. Mom was in a book club, with some friends. A thing she liked to do. She loved justice, the hunt for it. It possesses me because of what happened to us back then, but I first learned it from her… it was an obsession my father and my mother both shared. My mom would read a lot of different types of books. Classics, sci-fi… the sports books were more my dad's thing, but we're a family of nerds, deep down." She could feel Castle's grin against the top of her head. "But she would also read mystery novels. I never questioned it. People's taste in books says a lot about them, but it isn't always something to over-analyze, you know? But then one day I questioned it, and from what she said I basically concluded that she'd made something she was obsessed with finding in her work, justice, and answers, she made that a part of her life too. Not a bad part, but a part that she enjoyed, something that made her life better. That's why she'd read mysteries. Not because she needed more questions in her life, but because answering the questions made her whole."

Castle sighed, gently.

"Do you think you inherited that?" he asked.

"For a long time, I thought so. When I gave Espo your books to research info to help us with that first case, he told me that he saw death all day… why would he want to go home and read murder mysteries? I didn't have an answer, exactly, to that."

"What about now?"

"It took a lot of thinking, and God knows I've had time for that. Back during that March… on the floor of my mom's closet, I picked up her library books. In A Hail of Bullets was there."

The thud of his heart quickened against her hand.

"Oh." He said, and was silent for a long moment. "Oh."

"She would put these post-its on the inside of the covers, so when she brought it to the book club meeting to discuss, she'd remember what it was she wanted to say. All the other books said things like, 'engaging,' or 'a bit slow' or 'Mary's acceptance of her fate seemed a little unrealistic', or 'why would Jack give up his son like that?' but yours… yours was different. She wrote, 'This voice is strong… these words could hold somebody. Perhaps not me, but someone, somewhere.' Is it any wonder that those words were the ones I clung to?"

Castle let out a shaky sigh, his breathing fast.

"Kate I… I never knew. I never thought… I hated some of my work back then. I could never see what others saw in it. And… just…" he stopped when she put a finger to his lips.

"I never told you. You wouldn't have known. It's ok. A few weeks after that I had read that book twelve times through. I think now, I was memorizing it. Each time I read, trying to figure out what my mom thought when she read each phrase. Crying at the character's motivations… at their choices. Searching for truth in it all. It took time, but I did find it. Those words did hold me, and they healed what little of me could be healed at the time. I didn't have a lot of money, and I was trying to get my dad into rehab, but once a month I'd buy one of your books… it was like a stroke of light in the darkness. It was summer, so I guess maybe it was four months afterwards I was in the bookstore, and I had just finished purchasing one of yours when I heard this discussion towards the back of the store, and I looked up and I saw this guy, maybe in his mid fifties. He was a local author, and I guess this bookstore hadn't exactly been following his wishes about where to place his books on the shelves. He and the manager started raising their voices, fighting, and I pretended to look at some cookbooks because I wanted to overhear. And listening to the author guy talk… that's when I realized that authors, they were just people. I'd seen his name on things, he was relatively famous. But he was just a person. And it didn't matter if people knew him or not, he was just a guy."

Castle nodded,

"That makes sense. So that changed how you viewed people?"

"All people yes, but famous people especially. I used to view all artists, actors, writers as somehow different than the rest of humanity. People famous in those spheres of influence I had put on a different plane in my head than the people I walked past in the street, or the people my parents worked with. Seeing the author guy changed how I viewed writers. You in particular, seeing as it your stuff I was obsessed with at the time."

Castle sucked in a deep breath,

"I'm not that famous. I mean I kind of am. People recognize me in the streets sometimes, and I've been on tv, and I've sold a lot of books and own a fancy loft. But I can still walk out of the house without hordes of paparazzi."

"But to people who admire you? From afar? We view people through a very specific lens directed at them, and even then through another one where we view the entire world from our perspective. It's really easy to feel like you know more about someone because you know their work, and it's also easy to idolize them."

"Don't I know it," Castle replied.

"What, you mean because you're that idolizing fanboy?" she smiled.

"Sometimes. I definitely went through times where I was stuck on one particular thing. But more because of all the… unnecessary attention I've gotten over the years. The people who know more about you than you do. The… women." He cringed as he said it.

"Yeah well, a few years ago you didn't seem to mind all that attention."

He sighed, and she caught the hint of shame in it.

"There's a hole, Kate, inside people. And those types of idolizing people can't fill that hole. They can make you forget about it for a while, but eventually you remember, and it's never enough."

"I guess it's good that I don't idolize you anymore, then, huh Castle?" Kate grinned against his collarbone.

"Anymore?" Castle said in surprise. Kate laughed in return, and rested in silence for a moment.

"Let me tell you something else?" she half asked.

"Go on, keep talking," he prompted.

"Ok. After my mom died… everything was quieter. Reading helped fill the silence with the words to fill my brain, but without her… the laughter was gone. The sound of my dad and mom conversing in the kitchen as they made dinner, talking in the living room late at night after I'd gone up to my room. For a while I simply lived with that silence, but then I couldn't take it anymore, so I got music. But it was the audio books that made the difference. You remember when you came out with that limited edition four pack set of audio books that you narrated?"

"Ah… yeah. They weren't super popular, so they didn't last too long."

"Yeah, well. I bought those. I um… used to fall asleep to them. It was the only thing that seemed to help."

"Oh. Oh wow."

"You have a nice voice, Rick. Gentle. Powerful," Kate said, quiet and shy, her hand resting on his chest. She could feel tremors beginning to run through him. He was silent for a moment longer.

"Are you ok?" she asked.

He let out a breath he didn't know he had been holding.

"Yeah, I'm good. I'm just… my brain is exploding."

"Yeah," Kate smiled, pressing her face against his shoulder. "I can feel you shivering."

"I'm not cold. I'm in shock," he said.

"I know. That happens to you when something floors you, doesn't it?"

"That, shortness of breath… ha, I thought I was through with that after today…"

"Sometimes I think that behind your laughing eyes and kind words, you're afraid to value yourself. You don't realize the weight of your goodness. But it's there. And I want you to know it. I want you to know I love it. I wanted to thank you for holding me – for holding me up for longer than you ever knew."

"Kate I… I don't know what to say. I just… are you telling me this because I almost died? Because I almost left you? I didn't mean to… to-"

"Hey no, shh. It's not that. At least, not all that. I felt it was time you knew. If I ever lost you… it would ruin me. I wasted years not telling you. I felt you should know how much you've done for me and how much you mean to me. How much you meant, even then. I was ashamed back then to adore your work so much but it was a pure type of adoration. I knew you were just a person. And I didn't think I'd ever know you, let alone marry you. I was in pain… I mean you saw, when you first met me."

"Sitting in that room, with the letters, guessing at your history… I could see it in your eyes. Your gorgeous eyes," he smiled softly and rolled towards her again, to rub his thumb gently over her brow. "I'm sorry I wasn't gentler. I'm sorry I ruined your image of me."

"No, no… don't be sorry. You were yourself. You were flawed, and perfect, and human, and the light in my darkness. And I needed you to push me. It led us here, didn't it?"

"Yeah," he replied, contemplative, his chest spreading with warmth.

"Except… the book party was the second time we met."

"What?" his sharp intake of breath was enough to reveal his shock.

"I attended a book signing at that same local bookstore about three years after my mom died… I had a copy of In A Hail of Bullets which I'd purchased brand new from the bookstore. I could have kept the library's copy but Mom was a stickler for getting books back on time and… that was something I felt I needed to do. I… I stood in line for hours. To get my book signed. That's when we met."

"I… don't remember," Castle breathed, barely a whisper. "What bookstore? What was the date?"

"Paul's Bookshop. Just a little place. It was April, 2002."

"I… ok I sort of remember a book signing there. I've been there maybe five or six times… there was probably a few smaller last minute signings I was trying to sneak in at the end of a spring tour."

"You were wearing a light blue dress shirt that day."

A smile spread over his face.

"I'm sorry, I remember none of this…"

"It's ok. I wouldn't expect you to. I had waited a long time because I was towards the back of the line, and I came up to your table, and I said hi, and you said hello, and I handed you In A Hail of Bullets. And you looked surprised. And young, Castle you were so young. You said, 'Not the new one?" because that's the one everybody had been bringing to get signed. And I smiled sort of this awkward smile and said, 'I've read the new one. But In A Hail of Bullets was the first one I read.' And you smiled and said, 'Well it's good to see you've been with me since the start!' And I think I may have laughed. When I laughed you looked up from signing and grinned at me. And that was it really. I said thank you… I mean, for what your work meant to me at the time, it could never be enough for what I wanted to say. But your eyes were warm, and friendly. And I wasn't any different to any other girl in that line but you were kind to me. And with all I'd lost, and all you'd already given, that was really something for me."

"Oh Kate," Castle murmured and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close with his face in her neck. "I don't remember. But thank you for telling me. I'd never known the story of how you came to know my work but that… that's just. Insane."

"It is, isn't it?" she said, and pressed her lips to the skin where his neck where it met his shoulder.

"And what I said to you? Is that ironic to you at all? I mean, 'been with me from the start'? And now we're here…"

"Sometimes I look up and I see you and I forget for a moment that all this has happened. I'm still twenty-two and smitten with the idea of you, and for a moment it's actually… blinding. How far we've come."

"Actually I think I know the look you mean. When I'm in the office, or I'm on my laptop writing… is that why you're always looking at me funny when you're standing in the doorway? You've got a thing for writers? Words?"

"Just one writer, Castle. One."

Kate settled in his arms, curled close into him, their faces close.

"Please pick me," Castle whispered like a little boy, his eyes wide and filled with joy.

"I have, Castle, and I will. It's always you. From the start, right?"

His reply was the gentle press of his lips against hers in a long, grateful kiss.

She sighed.

"I'm really glad you're ok, Castle," she said.

"Me too," he smiled, stroking the hair back from her forehead. "Me too, love. Do you… want me to talk to you? Or read to you? Would it help you fall asleep now? I can do that. I would do anything…"

"I know. It's alright. You're here, and that's enough. I think I could sleep now. You should rest up again as well…"

"Ok," he sighed sleepily and pulled the covers up closer around them. They were silent a few minutes, not yet asleep but still in the reverent silence.

"I'm trying to think of a meaningful and poigniant way to end this conversation," Kate finally let out on a soft chuckle.

"What is it you said earlier? I was the light in your darkness? You should know, Kate. You're mine. You're my light too."

"See that's… that's beautiful," Kate sighed.

"It is. We are." he murmured.

"Until tomorrow, then," Kate replied, feeling the tendrils of sleep reaching out for her.

"Until tomorrow, Kate."

Thanks for reading! Reviews are welcome and make my day!