Disclaimer: I do not and will never own these exquisite creatures.

One but the Other

Kate stared intently at the black letters speckled across the white background of page fifty-eight, but still her eyes could make no sense of their deliberate arrangement, no matter how hard she tried. She'd taken a pass at the same sentence a laughable number of times already- so many she'd lost count- trying diligently to absorb its words so she could finally grant herself permission to move on to the next, but she hadn't yet earned that privilege, couldn't, really, her mind lost hopelessly in thoughts of another writer.

Utterly frustrated by her preoccupied brain, she broke from the page and glanced down at the sofa cushion next to her, shook her head crossly at the phone by her side, as though it bore some direct responsibility for the level of restlessness she currently felt. She really hadn't expected Josh to just show up at the precinct like that. She'd taken precautions. Dammit, she'd sent him that text message. She'd done her part. Why couldn't he have listened? Why the hell did he have to be conveniently nearby?

She leaned her head against the back of the sofa. And, more importantly, why, when she now had a man in her life that was sweet and spontaneous enough to surprise her at work at the end of her day and to spend a perfectly lovely evening with her was every thought floating around her mind tonight about Castle?

Kate leaned forward and reached for the mug of steaming hot tea on the coffee table, let her eyes fall softly closed as she sipped from its rim. A barrage of snapshots of Castle's face flashed behind her lids in an endless stream, until she threw them open again in an attempt to break the cycle. She ran her fingers through her loose hair and bunched it in a tight fist at the nape of her neck. She couldn't understand how she'd seen so many of them. Her eyes had been shut for mere seconds, but the images of him had invaded with full and relentless force, the final attack carried out mercilessly by a vision of the bewildered expression she'd caught sight of before she'd left the precinct earlier.

She remembered it clearly. She recognized it all too well. She'd felt the same, months before, when he'd walked away with someone else as she looked on, paralyzed. She wondered, now, if she'd done as poor a job of hiding it.

Kate gave up on the book entirely and closed it in her lap. That ship had sailed- well, had fallen victim to a tidal wave was more accurate. She flipped on the TV instead, hoped the mindless noise might provide enough of a distraction until she grew tired enough to go to bed. She felt grateful, actually, as she thought about it, that she'd be doing that alone tonight.

In reality, though, that was only partially true, and she chastised herself silently for even allowing the thought of Castle that followed to creep in, though control over any of her thoughts at all was rapidly becoming an illusion.

She looked up and the local news was on TV. She dealt with that horrible crap all day. She didn't want to hear about it when she got home, too. She surfed through channels aimlessly, granting no opportunity to anything that passed to woo her. The scenes spun by in mesmerizing fashion, and she felt her eyes blur over, this time in a way she surrendered to willingly. There was something freeing about it then, the lack of attachment, the absence of connection. The last thing she saw was an ad for laundry soap.

The sound was distant, but Kate registered it. Her head bobbed and she snapped awake, her neck stiff from the position it'd been in for seconds or minutes or hours- she wasn't certain which.

The beats came again, and she debated ignoring them, but she was a cop, and that felt wrong, somehow, to let them go unanswered. She switched off the TV and tossed the remote aside, rose from the sofa with a sigh, and crossed the room to the front door, her unfastened robe flowing behind her like the cape of a superhero. When the door opened and her weary focus landed, there Castle stood, in the dim light of the hallway, the very same pained expression from hours earlier still beaming like a beacon from his face. Yes, she knew it all too well.

It took her a moment to move on from the surprise of seeing him, to get her bearings, but she finally opened her mouth to speak and-

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have come." He turned to walk away.

The mere sight of her and he wanted to run. "Castle, wait." He'd taken a few steps but stopped at the call of her voice. "Why are you- is everything okay?"

"I don't know why I'm here." He didn't turn to face her as he spoke. She wished he would.

"I don't either, Castle." She didn't even think he knew where she lived.

She stood, and he stood, and both remained still and quiet, each wondering who'd break the silence first.

"Castle?" She gave in to the discomfort.

"Are you alone?"

"Am I…?"

Oh. Josh.

"Yes, Castle, I'm alone. Are you going to come inside or-"

He spun back toward her and approached in tacit agreement. His eyes found hers, but neither spoke a word as he inched by her and through the doorway. Something inside her flipped like a switch in their proximity and the butterflies were released, her mouth instantly dry, her hands beginning to gently tremble.

Castle made his way through the kitchen without pause, as though he'd been to that place a million times before, and he dropped into a chair at its edge, Kate following a few steps behind, leaving him the space it seemed he needed. Though, maybe she was the one that needed it. That may've been the true calculation.

"You didn't tell me." It came out gruffly, his voice deep and ragged.

It was as if the universe was playing some kind of cruel cosmic joke, him sitting in front of her like that. Go on. We dare you, Kate. Think of him and we can make him appear. She swore she could hear the fade of a sinister snicker in the air.

"What didn't I tell you, Castle?" She wasn't in the mood for guessing games. Too many things were uncertain as it was.

He looked her in the eye unwaveringly. "About him."

"About-" Her voice dropped off.

Oh. Josh.

"No, Castle, I didn't."

He pushed himself out of the chair and moved toward her, his hands in his pockets, his eyes heavy with confusion and melancholy. "Do you love him?"

She wanted to back away. The sadness radiating from him nearly burned her skin with its intensity. But his face- his face was still so beautiful to her, even in its despondency. How could she possibly have wished the image of it banished from her mind?

"I met him while you were away with Gina." God, she despised that she'd even said her name. And worse, it sounded as though she'd meant to use it as a weapon against him. And maybe she had. "He's a doctor and we-"

"Stop. Just, stop," he interrupted brusquely. "I don't want to hear this. It was stupid of me to come here. I'm sorry. I need to go." Castle hung his head and stepped around her, did his best to feign an air of resolve.

"It hurts, doesn't it?"

Kate didn't know where the words even came from. They just spilled out of her, uninvited. She turned and caught him as he stopped short along his path to the front door, the memory of that day, months ago, in the hallway at the precinct, striking her there like lightning, his back to her then, also, as he'd walked away with Gina. "I know, Castle."

"There isn't a word for what this feels like. I'm a goddamned writer and I can't find a word for it. So, on top of feeling like I've been blindsided by a speeding truck, I also feel like a failure." He chuckled quietly, though he found none of it amusing. "And, you know what, Kate? What is it you think you know?"

Her eyes trailed up his body. She wanted so much to see his face. A few more steps and he'd be gone, out the door, maybe out of her- no, the possibility of that was too much for her to bear.

"What it's like to feel something slip away." Her words were soft, laced with the regret she still felt to that very second.

Castle looked up to the ceiling, for what Kate wasn't certain, but he remained motionless for what seemed like an eternity. She began to wonder if he'd heard her at all, if he was going to say anything more. She longed for him to say something, anything. His words had made everything right so many times before.

He pivoted slowly and, once again, closed the gap between them. "I wanted to shout after you today. I didn't understand what was happening, Kate. I didn't understand who he was or why he was taking you away. But you were gone so quickly, tucked against his body, like it was the most normal, natural thing in the world to you, like it was just the end of another day."

"Castle, I- he wasn't supposed to-I didn't want him to come to the precinct. I didn't want it to happen that way."

"You didn't answer my question, Kate." He took a final step toward her, their hands hanging at their sides, nearly brushing together. "Do you love him?"

She looked down and his hand had clenched into a fist. It took everything in her not to draw her finger across his knuckles, to help relieve whatever his body was holding onto so tightly. "I care for Josh, Castle. He's a good man. You'd probably really like him, if you got to know him."

Sure, like she wanted to be friends with Gina. What a ridiculous thing to say. She instantly regretted it.

"Don't do that. Tell me you love him. Say it. If you do, I'll wish you every happiness in the world and I'll go right now." He'd never wanted more to act like an unruly child, to throw his hands over his ears, to scream and yell so he wouldn't have to hear her response. He wasn't prepared for it. His heart couldn't survive it. Not another man. Not again. Fucking selfish, he knew.

And suddenly he wished he could just take it all back. He wished he could rewind time, go back to the hallway, to moments ago, when he'd told himself he shouldn't even knock. He had no right to ask those things, to demand those things.

Kate knew she could hide. He was offering her a lifeline, a way to protect herself, as she always had. All she had to do was say it. All she had to do was utter a few words. They'd give her more time. She could remain in her bubble where it was safe. She wouldn't have to face it. He wouldn't have to know.

But, God, his beautiful, hurt face looking back at her, his hand she wanted to touch so desperately- his voice, his scent, the warmth of his body so close to hers. She never longed for Josh like that, no matter how much she wished it or tried to make it so. She cared for Josh. Cared.

"I wish I could, Castle. I wish I could say it. Everything would be so much easier." Her voice fumbled around the lump in her throat.

"Why would that be easier, Kate?" His heart was beating like he'd just sprinted around the block. A tear rolled from her eye and he brushed it away with the pad of his thumb. He'd never touched her that way before and he felt the newness of it wash over him.

"Because it's easier being with him than without you."

That was it. She knew what Josh was, what he could never be.

"Kate, look at me." He brought his hand up to her cheek. "Please, Kate, I want you to look at me."

She took a deep breath in and acquiesced. She knew him. He wouldn't give up. "What am I doing, Castle?"

"I hope what you're doing is telling me you want me as much as I want you. I don't want to play games anymore. I don't want to fight to hide it anymore. I don't want to be without you anymore. And this isn't because you have someone else. You have to know that. I feel like it's been this way since the very beginning, Kate. I feel like it's always been there, in me."

"You have someone else too, Rick." Her voice cracked under the weight of the reality.

"No. No, Kate, I don't."

"But, Gina and-"

"It's over. I ended it when I came back. Once I was back here with you, the very minute I saw you, I knew I couldn't do it anymore. It wasn't fair to her. It never was. The only thing I thought about for all those months I was with her was you. Every single day, it was just you."

Kate stood before him silently, their bodies closer than they'd ever allowed. She wanted to reach up and touch the skin of his cheek. It looked so soft and so warm. The compulsion wasn't at all foreign to her.

"Say something, Kate. Please. Let me hear your voice."

"I want-" she began, but cut herself off. She grasped his hand and used it to pull herself into his body. She leaned in and pressed her lips to his, the sound of delicious surprise that escaped his throat fueling her want of more. She released his hand and he grabbed at her waist, the shirt draped there underneath her robe held tight in his two fists. His mouth opened to hers and she welcomed him fervently, the fit more exquisite than she'd ever imagined. And she'd imagined it, more often than she'd ever reveal.

Neither wanted to break free. They fought admirably against it, their breath fading and their lips numb. It was a splendid release, a true awakening. It was raw and frenzied and brimming with everything they'd never dared say.

Kate pulled back at last, but she refused to separate her body from his. Every inch of her hummed with his energy. "This is all I've wanted." Her fingertip traced the line of his swollen, darkened lip. "God, I wish I could make you understand how much."

His fingers wrapped around the back of her neck, strands of her hair weaving their way between them. His eyes watched her wanting mouth as he guided it toward his. One taste would never be enough. Now he would long for it always.

Just as he felt its warmth tickle his lips, just as his heart began to thump wildly in his chest, the sound of her phone's ring from across the room startled her backward.

The noise sounded a million miles away, but she moved to answer it, still. It was piercing, a nuisance, and she wanted back into their moment fiercely. "Hello!" she barked, giving no time or attention to the caller's identity flashed across the screen.

"Hey, it's me," the voice said casually, as though expecting her to be able to think enough in that moment to recognize it. "I just wanted to thank you again for tonight and to say goodnight. I really wish I could've stayed, but I promise I'll make it up to you."

Kate blinked once and looked around the room. Her mug of tea was on the table. The TV was on- some ad for laundry soap, again. Her book was resting on the sofa cushion next to her. That was all she saw. Nothing else. No one else. No Castle, with his soft skin and his rosy lips and his strong hands and his words. She loved his words.

She'd been asleep. Just asleep.

"Kate? Are you there? Kate?" She heard it several times, couldn't catch her breath enough to reply.

Oh. Josh.