Author's Note: This is completely unbeta'd, so please be kind if you review.

Disclaimer: They're clearly not mine. Also, the title is taken from the poem "a clown's smirk in the skull of a baboon" by e. e. cummings.

One

He finds her in a stairwell in the midst of a panic attack. He wraps his arms around her and calmly whispers into her ear. Once her breathing regulates and her shaking has subsided he picks her up and takes her back to his home.

Rick Castle had always dreamed of having Kate Beckett in his bed, but not like this; not curled up in a ball in the dark. He lies beside her, silently stroking her hair, wishing there was a way to fix everything.

"I don't get what you see in me, Castle." Her voice is quiet. "I don't deserve you."

"That's not true." His voice is just as quiet, but firm.

"Yes, it is. Look at me, Castle. I should be out there trying to catch a killer and, instead, I'm here being babied you."

His hand cups her cheek and forces her to meet his eyes. "You, Kate Beckett, are only human – no more than that and no less. You're allowed to breakdown, and, when everything is said and done, I will be here to help you get back up. We're partners, Kate, and I'm not going anywhere. I've got your back. Always. We'll deal with this and help you manage. You need to deal with the memories as they come back to you, confront them, and move forward. I'll help you. I'll find some way to help."

"God, Rick, I really don't deserve you," she moaned, burying herself into her pillow.

"Kate, don't say that. You –"

"I lied." She can't decide whether or not to look into his eyes so she settles for the collar of his shirt. "I remember. I remember everything."

"Everything?"

"The gunshot, you calling out my name and pushing me to the ground, hearing the screams and…everything you said. I remember it all. I always have."

"Then why didn't you say anything? Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because I wasn't ready, and I'm still not ready. I don't know when, or if, I'll ever be ready." She grows just a little bit bolder and glances into his eyes for a moment and winces at the hurt and confusion she finds there. "You told me you'd wait, but I can't make you wait forever. I can't. It isn't fair to you –"

"And it wouldn't be fair to you, or us, if I didn't," he tells her with a conviction that warms her heart just enough to believe him a little. "I told you, Kate, I'm not going anywhere. I made that decision a long time ago."

She bites back a sob but manages to say, "But I can't give you what you want."

"I'll take whatever you can give me, and, I promise you, it will be enough. I didn't tell you that I loved you so you could say it back. I told you because I was afraid that you would die without knowing how much I felt for you. I just wanted you to know."

"But, I do. I do love you. I'm just afraid it won't be enough for now."

He gives her a tiny smile, his eyes shining with relief. "It is enough. You will always be enough."

Kate closes her eyes as he places gentle kisses on her forehead and cheeks and the corner of her mouth and, despite her raging fear of phantom snipers and dark alleys, she feels as if a small weight has been shifted from inside of her; not entirely removed but made easier to bear.

Two

Kate has been in a surprisingly good mood for the past few days and he is glad. She is smiling just a bit more, is a little more flirty, and, for once, doesn't say anything when he sits by her desk and watches her do paperwork for a few hours. She even lets him pay for drinks at the Old Haunt and readily agrees to let him take her home instead of making him sending in a cab.

They walk into her building arm in arm, laughing and giggling at nothing at all. When they reach her door she leans against the wooden frame and plays with the lapels of his jackets with a seductive smile.

"Castle," she bites her lip, "Rick, come inside and have coffee with me?"

Tucking a strand of hair behind her right ear, he looks into her somewhat glassy eyes and recognizes that she is slightly more than tipsy but not quite entirely drunk and silently curses his mother for somehow managing to raise a good man.

"Kate, it's not that I don't want to – because, God, do I want to – it's just that when it happens, and it will, I want it be right, perfect. Okay?"

She sighs happily and says, "You're such a sweetheart, Rick. No wonder I love you so much."

He is surprised by the clarity in her eyes shining past the scotch-induced glaze.

"I hope to God you remember this in the morning."

She giggles and wishes him good night.

In the morning he walks into the precinct and finds her contemplating a box of stale donuts with an empty cup of coffee before her. Kate greets him with a warm smile and the smile grows brighter when he hands her the fresh cup of coffee and warm bear claw he bought her.

"I'll say it again -You really are a sweetheart, Castle," she says, kissing the corner of his mouth before making her way back to her desk.

As he watches her munch on her pastry Castle comes to understand that the clarity in her eyes finally matches his own.

Three

Martha calls her just as she is erasing the last names left on the otherwise blank murder board; her feelings of accomplishment leaving her once she hears the panic in the other woman's voice. All she hears is "Richard-hurt-accident-St. Vincent's" and she is gone.

She gets to the hospital while on autopilot and doesn't come back to herself until she sees Martha and Alexis huddled into a corner of a waiting room. They get up the moment they see her and Martha pulls her into a tight embrace while Alexis tearfully explains how her father had been on his way to a meeting with his publishers when a taxi cab ran a red light and his town car.

"He's in surgery now. They say he has a broken arm and some fractured ribs. Our driver's got a concussion and the other guy's fine."

There is a detachment in the girl's voice that reminds Kate of her own and makes her want to take Alexis into her arms and sooth it away. Instead, she strokes her hair and kisses her temple and is surprised, relieved, when Alexis leans into her side.

It's over an hour before the doctor comes out and tells them that he'll be fine, bruised and in pain, but fine. It's another twenty minutes before they get to see him lying in his private room and all three can finally breathe again. More hours go by and he is still out cold. They try to convince Alexis to go home and rest but she refuses, so Martha decides to head home and get some things while Kate stays behind.

As Alexis naps in a nearby armchair, Kate sits on a flimsy chair by his side, watching him the way she knows he sometimes watches her when he thinks she's not looking. She looks at him and thinks it ironic that, after following her into dozens of raids and being in the middle of another half a dozen shootouts, it's a car accident that takes him down. She looks at him and thinks of all the things she has been afraid to say to him – how she needs him more than he could possibly need her because he is so much stronger than anyone could know, and how grateful she is for teaching her how to have fun again. She wants to tell him about how his books had saved her and how she had stood in line for over an hour so that he could sign her book and, when she got to his table, he had hugged her, told her to keep her chin up, and how that had been the first good day she had had since her mother's death. She wants to tell him how ridiculously happy he can make her.

Instead, she simply says, "Please don't ever leave me. Rick, I love you. I love you, Rick."

She almost doesn't hear him say, "It's about time."

Four

Things change after the bank robbery, like something has shifted and settled between them. They find themselves spending more time together outside of work and not just burgers at Remy's or drinks at The Old Haunt.

Kate has dinner with the family every week and sometimes Rick convinces her to spend the night in his guestroom. In the morning he makes pancakes, unless a body drops; except for that one morning when he had woken up to find Kate and Alexis making breakfast together. That morning he had sat at the counter and watched them move around the kitchen, chatting, giggling, and teasing him. As he drank his coffee he had looked at Kate and thought, not for the first time, 'I'm going to marry you'.

Weeks go by like this, with them settling into a strange but comfortable and seemingly unnamable thing. Then, Rick gets a phone call from Paula, his publicist, telling him that he is number ten on The New York Ledger's "10 Most Eligible Bachelors List" and asking when he wants to do his interview. He asks if he can be taken off of the list and, when asked, why he simply says, "It's complicated". He doesn't bother reading the paper the day the list is published because he simply doesn't really care when there is a murder to solve and coffee to be given. However, he does begin to care a little when he learns that the paper's editor made a note to point out his voluntary absence from the list.

At the precinct, Kate asks him why he took himself off and he says that it felt like false advertising.

"I might be bachelor but I'm not an eligible one."

It's really that simple.

Sometime later they go to Ryan's wedding together. They don't call it a date (or they wouldn't if they bothered to actually talk about it at all).

The wedding itself is a beautiful affair and the reception is much better coordinated than they expected. Alexis catches the bouquet which makes Rick feel at once a little amused and a little worried and Martha drops several no-so-subtle hints throughout the day. Kate hums happily when he starts to trace abstract patterns on her back as they dance and the sound makes his whole day. That night he decides to look up ring designs.

They go on like this for months before Kate surprises him one night, after Alexis and his mother have gone to bed and they're sitting quietly on the couch watching some old movie he forgot he had. He catches her staring at him from the corner of his eye and nudges her sock-clad foot with his own. She smiles and traces his ankle with her toes.

"I love you, too," she says and the movie is forgotten.

Five

It finally happens. Fifteen years after her mother's death, the man who had ordered her murder was finally being brought to justice. A part of her wasn't too surprised that the order had come from within the D.A.'s office but the idealist in her is a little disappointed too.

When it's all over Rick drives her to the cemetery and waits for her in the car while she talks to her mother. She doesn't say as much as she thought she would, figuring that her mother probably has a better view of what happened than she did. She walks around the cemetery for over an hour before making it back to the car and finds that she can't help but smile when she sees him waiting, patient as ever.

He buys her ice cream, of all things; both for celebration and comfort. As they leave the store she takes his hand, threading her fingers through his. They eat their ice cream at her place and afterwards he watches her take down the pictures and notes from her window turned make-shift home murder board. Once she puts everything away he takes her hands and kisses her palms as she sighs contentedly.

"I'm ready," she says simply and he thinks he might fly.

One

She hates that she has made him so angry. She didn't understand, until that day, just how much he truly cared for her. Until the funeral she had thought that he was merely smitten, but then she saw the fear and pain in his eyes, heard the conviction in his voice and she came to understand. She spent her summer recovering and reading his books, seeking the comfort he and his words had always given her. In reading Heat Rises she came to understand just how he saw her, all of her strengths and weaknesses. In time she came to understand the love letters he had written her as being masqueraded as the pulp fiction that sat on her bookshelf.

When she returned she sought him out and, as much as it pained her to see his anger, she was relieved that he hadn't moved on.

"I lied, Rick," she tells him as she digs her shoe into the playground sand below her. "I remember everything. I remember the hearing the gunshot, and hearing you call out my name. I remember you pushing me to the ground and… I remember everything."

She finally manages to meet his eyes. "I'm sorry I hurt you. I needed time and in the hospital you were there and… You looked so happy to see me and just so hopeful and I needed time. I needed time to think and process everything that had happened. And, then, there was Josh. Poor Josh, who was trying so hard. I needed to figure what to say to him. I needed time to figure everything out."

"And I would have waited. I would have waited as long as you needed. I'd do anything for you," his devotion burns in his eyes, "Don't you know that by now?"

"Then can you wait for me now?"

There is disappointment and a glimmer of hope in his eyes now, mixed in with everything she now recognizes he could possibly feel for her and the sight makes her heart ache.

"After my mother's murder I built up this wall inside, I guess because I didn't want to hurt like that again. But I know that until that wall comes down I'm not going to be the kind of person that I want to be or have the kind of relationship that I want to have. Rick, I want this between us. You have to believe me when I say that. But, until we put this thing to rest, I just can't…"

He sees the earnestness in her eyes and hears it in her voice. He's still angry and hurt but a part of him doesn't care anymore because she's in front of him, saying the closes thing to "I love you, too" as she is going to get anytime soon and that's enough for now.

"Then, I suppose, we're just going to have to find these guys and take them down."

She smiles for the first time in months.