Kate Beckett gazed at the recently closed front door of her boyfriend's apartment, trying to sort out her raging thoughts. Castle's ex-wife Meredith had left several minutes before, yet Beckett was still dwelling on her parting words about the difficulties in reaching Rick. She didn't know what to think. On the one hand, this was the man who'd become her partner, who stood with her through thick and thin, the man she loved. She was able to admit that to herself at least, if not to him yet. On the other hand, she could see some of the point Meredith had made. She had given Castle a great deal about her past, things besides that which related to their cases, but there was a lot of his past that was still a mystery to her. It hadn't really bothered her before because having mystery was good for a relationship, but with what Meredith had said, she couldn't help but wonder...

"So about this breakfast, what- Kate, are you okay? What's wrong? Was it Meredith?'

Oh man, I must have let myself slip a little farther than I meant to. Kate briefly wondered if she could convince Castle that it was nothing, but the man was too smart and too stubborn for that. Besides, keeping things like this hidden away was what led to so many of the problems they'd had in the past, and now that they'd finally begun their relationship, she was determined to learn from her mistakes so they'd stay in it. So Beckett gathered up as much nerve as she could muster and launched into recounting the final conversation she'd had with Meredith before she'd walked out the door.

"A souffle? She really compared being in a relationship with me to a souffle? She couldn't have at least chosen something tastier, fudge cake, cherry pie..."

"Seriously, Castle? That's what you have to say to this?"

"You can't tell me you actually buy this? Come on Kate, you know more about me than anyone other than my bunny Stan, and he's been sitting on my shoulder invisible since I was 6."

"I know, it's just..."

"Kate... what is it? What' wrong?"

"You know so much about my past Castle, beyond my Mom's case, and I, I feel like the only things I know are the general story and the things we've had to deal with over the years. The feeling, the real core behind your past, I don't see it. I couldn't write a book with that, as Meredith put it. But you could with me, and that just makes me feel, I don't know, like I'm giving something but not getting back."

"Kate, it doesn't matter..." This wasn't the right thing to say, as Beckett proceeded to blow up in his face.

"What's that supposed to mean? I'm telling you the problem I have and it doesn't matter? I can't believe you... I'll see you later Castle." With that Kate sprang from her chair and made for the door, only to be stopped by a writer jumping in front of her and gripping her by the shoulders.

"No no no Kate, that's not what I meant, it's just... you make it not matter."

This shifted Beckett from confused rage to simply confused. "What the heck does that mean?"

Castle started massaging the bridge of his nose with his fingers, clearly wondering how to explain.

"Kate, Meredith was right in one sense. I do have trouble talking about my past. There are pains there that are hard to communicate, hard even for me to understand, because they're buried under so many layers. But it's different with you. With Meredith and Gina, I didn't get close enough to feel comfortable talking to them about it. But with you... you rendered it obsolete."

This was the last thing Kate expected to hear. "How... how could I have rendered pain obsolete? I don't..."

Castle guided his confused girlfriend to the sofa and sat her down. He took a deep breath before launching into the one story he'd had in his brain the longest, which ironically was the one he'd never told before.

"Kate you know I grew up with only my mother. No idea who my father was. My mother's acting career. You know she sent me off to boarding school, where I was pretty lonely. Man Kate, those days before I found writing... they were so hard. I was picked on, I was teased, and the friends that I did have... they didn't help." Castle paused, staring up into space, searching for the words to make Beckett understand.

"You see, my mother was an actor, and you know how much I love to read. Between the two, I grew up emeshed in the world of storytelling. I guess I... I learned what I know about love and friendship and connection from stories. Stories tend to teach this lesson a little differently than average social interaction. I saw the loyalty, the deep connections, the desire to get to know, to be willing to sacrifice, to share your essence that all great heroes seem to have. That's how I modeled my understanding. And the friends I had, they just didn't measure up. I wanted to give everything at first, but the relationships with them felt so much shallower and emptier than even that between friends in all the stories I'd read. And every time a friend did something that made it feel less like what I thought of as companionship, I felt somewhat betrayed, even though I knew it wasn't fair. So I grew to put on a different persona, to try to fit in. I hated it, but at some point I couldn't help it. I didn't know any other way to interact. it helped me find the ability to bury that pain that came from their relationships not measuring up, but it was still there, all that hurt stuffed into a place I couldn't get to, while i went around making myself into a different person, someone I didn't feel like I could really like. And what's worse is, it didn't help. I didn't relate any better. I just felt weird to myself as well as to everyone else. I grew to a point where I wondered if this was how I was going to go through life, and I kind of wondered what the point of each and every day was. "

Kate interrupted at this point, horrified. "OMG, Castle, you didn't..."

"No no no, nothing like that. It's not that I wanted to stop living, it's more that... It kind of felt like when someone wants to read the last page of a book before the first. It's like I could just skip to the end of my life, have all the memories of whatever happened in it, and that would've been fine with me. The individual days... I struggled to find some meaning that would make me want to live them. I retreated into fantasy to try and find it there but it was a stop gap at best." Castle stopped himself again, the weight of memories visible in his eyes.

"I went through friends, girlfriends, 2 ultimately empty marriages, and I couldn't find the serious, devoted relationship I was looking for. I thought I might be able to find it with Kyra but then she broke my heart. Meredith wasn't any kind of serious. Gina was so serious about everything that we couldn't connect. The closest I ever came was when Alexis was born, but she was more like being given a second heart than having mine filled up. Living your life simply for what you want for someone else... it was similar to before. As long as I could see Alexis's days, mine could just fall by the wayside. I wrote, I became successful, but none of it meant the things that I was looking for. Women threw themselves at me, but i didn't want any of them. The playboy reputation I built up over the years- it's a sham, a PR stunt. It sold books, so I let people think of me that way, and grew to act that way whenever anyone else was around. Nobody saw the real me, and eventually it was getting so buried that I couldn't bring enough of it out to create my stories, hence my lack of inspiration that led to killing Derrick Storm. My only oasis to be myself was at home with Mother and Alexis, but that was family by blood. Somehow it's not the same there. They kind of get a head start to knowing and loving you, so I always wondered if someone could come in fresh, find the real me, and actually like what they saw. And because I wondered that, I also wondered if I had some flaw that made it so hard to be known and loved by others."

By this point there were tears in both of their eyes, Rick's distant eyes watering in rememberance, Kate's for the pain she could see in the eyes of the vibrant, happy man she loved. Then his eyes focused on her and his hand came up to cup her cheek.

"Then one night, a miracle happened. This beautiful, tough, savvy NYPD detective came in to my book party to ask me about a murder. And before you ask, no I don't mean Esposito."

The two shared a watery chuckle, breaking some of the somber seriousness cloaking the conversation.

"I'm the first to admit, in the beginning, I fell in lust with you, but then you didn't just give in to my charms and popularity the way other women would've. I was curious, so I arranged to shadow you. And as we got closer and closer, spent more and more time together, I started to see what I'd been looking for. You hated my image, but you seemed to actually appreciate the bits of myself that I occasionally let shine through. So as time went on, I let more and more of myself out around you, to the point where I knew, you were it. What I'd been searching for. A reason to live not just to get to the end, but to get up each day just to be able to see you, talk to you, hear your voice. You became my muse, not just for my writing, but for my story. The story that is my life. Literally the love of my life"

By this point Kate couldn't hold back the tears that were streaming down her face at Castle's heartfelt confession. As she ruminated over the last few minutes she came to a realization. "That's what you meant before when you said it didn't matter." Castle nodded vigorously, seeming to latch on to her words and pick up from there even as the tears flowed down his cheeks as well.

"Yes, that's it, exactly. So much of the pain that I faced stemmed from the fact that I had yearned for someone like you all my life but never found anyone even close. I wandered around wondering if I'd ever find you. Once I had, it healed so much of that pain."

For so long after this the two lovers simply sat there staring at each other, having an intimate convesation which contained no words, only the feelings dancing in their misty eyes. Then, after what seemed like an eternity, Kate shuffled closer to Castle on the couch, and grasped his face with both hands. As their eyes continued pouring emotion into each other, Kate whispered "I'm really glad you shared this with me Rick. For the first time in so long, I feel as if our relationship is worth your while, that just maybe it wouldn't have been better for you if you could've simply moved on to someone else during all that time I made you wait."

Castle covered the hands still cupping his cheeks with his own larger ones and answered back with a look of pure adoration in his eyes, "Never, Kate. Getting away from you could never be the best option for me. I love you."

Kate took a deep breath in and exhaled as she replied, almost as if she were gathering strength to force up the words that had been stuck in her lungs for a year and a half, since a horrifically painful day in a sunlit cemetary. "I love you too, Rick. Always." She never could've believed it possible, but the light shining out of Castle's eyes grew impossibly brighter upon hearing this admission for the first, but if the look on Kate's face was any indication nowhere near the last, time. Through his unusually lumpy throat he choked out the word that had been tailored to have such meaning for the two lovers that had healed each other's battered souls. "Always."

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