A one shot that contains spoilers and my own speculation on the upcoming episode.

"My people will hunt you down, and they will kill you." Kate knew that she was beyond saving. It would take a split second to pull the trigger and that time, she wouldn't survive the bullet. She'd barely hung on this long, and the last moments of her life were going to be spent with flames licking at the inches of her skin.

Then the gun exploded and she snapped her eyes shut as the searing pain ripped through her chest. She was slammed onto her back, her fingers tearing through grass and dirt as she was torn apart from the inside. The sky was bright, harsh and blazing with misplaced sunlight. How could it be shining when the life was pouring from her heart? Then it was blocked by the shape of Castle, his face a reflection of her terror.

"No, no, no." She was looking right at him, searching for the silver lining, the happy ending in his desperate eyes, but there was nothing there but stricken terror and his words floated around her, stringing themselves together in fragmented sentences.

"Shhh."

"Love you."

"With me, Kate."

"I love you."

Her hands clawed, nails scraping through wet dirt and leaves. Leaves? And why could she feel their texture between her fingers? Where were her gloves? She opened her eyes and Castle's face did not disappear, but now it was bathed in the faint glow of moonlight, all the harshness of the sun's rays banished. "Kate? Hey, look at me." She was looking at him, but he was strange and out of focus so she blinked and his features sharpened. She blinked again and the pinched look morphed into a smile. "Hey," he repeated.

She twisted to one side, ignoring the jarring pain through her body, squinting through the darkness. "It's okay, he's dead. Espo and Ryan have a team bringing down the others right now, you're okay." She didn't feel okay, but his hand brushing along her cheek, and in her hair, was starting to help.

…

"Katherine!" Martha's arms flew out to embrace her, but Castle leapt between them like she'd pulled a gun.

"Woah, Mother. Cracked ribs."

She settled for taking Kate's head in her hands, carefully avoiding the angry bruise that marred almost an entire side. "Thank-goodness you're okay. We've all been out of our minds. Oh, how do you and Richard always get into such messes!"

Kate smiled, faintly. "I'm sorry."

"Oh nonsense, dear. You just let yourself heal before you go leaping off buildings and tackling giants."

"Gates has banned me from the precinct for at least a week, so I won't be tackling anyone for a while." She said it with another tiny smile, but the weight to her voice was impossible not to hear. Castle laid a gentle hand on the small of her back, the only part of her he could touch without worrying about hurting her, but she knew he was more than thrilled about the arrangement. Otherwise every morning would have been a row.

"I'm really tired, I'm gonna head to bed. Night, Martha."

"Goodnight, Katherine. You sleep well." It was more a demand than a good wish and a real smile tugged at the corners of Kate's mouth. It faded as soon as she closed the bedroom door behind her and was faced with only the crashing images of ice floating in water, a cruel face twisted in pleasure, the dark shadows of trees with gnarled branches that tore at her weakened body, the cocked gun held in a coldly steady hand. And then there was Castle and his careful touch, like she might shatter if he held her too hard.

Then she was faced with the task of pulling her t-shirt over her head without straining her aching ribs. She worked slowly, tucking her arms through her sleeves and underneath rather than raising them right over her head, but she still had to bite down on her lip to muffle the whimpers of pain. For a second she was blinded to her surroundings as she worked it over her head, and when she could see again, Castle was standing on her side of the closed door, watching her as if she were a puppy crying over its dead mother.

"You should have let me help you." He said it like she'd swallowed every pill in the medicine cupboard.

"And what, Castle? I just let you dress me for the next few weeks?"

Guilt immediately coiled around her insides. She was reverting back to how they used to be. Him following her like a lost puppy, begging for something, while she just slammed the door in his face to let her wounds bleed in private. "I'm sorry," she muttered towards the ground. "I'm not trying to push you away."

She just didn't know how to act in any other way.

"I know. Just-" he closed the gap between them, resting his hands on her bare, bruised shoulders and stroking them gently with his thumbs. "Just know that whenever you're ready I'm right here, Kate. I'll always be right here." She nodded and dropped her head against his shoulder. His arms embraced her, steadily but gently.

"Hey, Castle," she mumbled into his shirt.

"Yes?"

"I still need help getting out of my jeans."

…

She woke to a darkness that could still have been the woods and her eyes flicked from wall to ceiling, ceiling to floor, floor to shadow filled corners and corners to the end of the bed. The bed she shared with Castle. In their home. Home. The word settled the panic pounding through her heart, but it didn't stop the shattering against her chest, or the tremor that had found its way into her hands and crept through her body. She might have been shaking, but she was hot. Far too hot.

The blankets found a new home crumpled at her feet and Castle's voice cracked through the darkness. "Kate?" His hand brushed her arm, but she batted him away and pushed herself up. "Sorry Castle. Not you. It's too hot in here." Even the cool boards against her bare feet didn't help as Kate almost ran towards the window, flinging it up like she was on a desperate suicide bid.

She heard Castle get up too, but he hung back, his presence close enough to wrap pleasant tendrils of comfort around her thumping heart, but not close enough to suffocate her. He knew perfectly what she needed, as always, as if there was a thread connecting their two brains.

Even the bitter night air wasn't helping. Waves of heat rolled through her, as her very insides were baking in a furnace. She breathed in in anyway, allowing the threatening frost to crystallise in her lungs,

"Kate?" came Castle's distant voice. "You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine, Castle. I will be. It's just when I panic-" she leaned right out, her wrists bent against the window sill, ignoring the protest of her aching ribs. They hadn't appreciated the kick start either. She kept her gaze staring down at the still frantic streets of New York until the fire dimmed to a faint glow and finally she rolled back onto the flats of her feet.

"Better?"

Kate nodded.

"Bad dream?" his voice was matter-of-fact, but underlined with a layer of concern. She leant back against the wall and held out her hand. Castle's closed with it and she gently pulled them both to the floor, backs against the wall.

"I don't know," she admitted, a frown in her tone. "I woke up and my heart was pounding and I was burning. It might have been a noise that woke me up, a shadow in the wrong place, or a dream I forgot. For a moment thought, I thought…that I was back in the woods. And he was still pointing a gun at me."

Castle crushed her hand in his.

"It was awful, Castle," her voice cracked like glass against a bat. "They tried to drown me first. The bucket was full of ice, too and it was so cold. It stole all of the breath from my body and it hurt. He kept putting me back in, over and over and eventually I had to breathe, even though I was still under and even when he yanked me back out again, I was choking too hard to catch my breath.

"When I still wouldn't tell him anything, he hit me. Again and again with every question I didn't answer. I thought he was going to go on and on until he killed me, but then he forced me to my feet and told me we were going for a walk. I could hardly stand, but he had a gun pressed to my back and he said if I fell down, he'd shoot me. So I kept going, because I knew I had to get back to you, back to my dad.

"He made me walk right into the woods, with that gun still right there and then he told me to kneel and pointed it at my forehead. I thought this is it, no one survives a bullet twice, but I wasn't going to just sit there and wait for it. I told him that my team would find him, and they would kill him."

That was where she stopped, gasping for a failing breath and Castle broke apart their hands to wrap an arm around her shoulders, tucking her in close. He kissed the crown of her head. "We would have done," he admitted, blankly. "We would have all queued to put a bullet in his brain, but we found you. He didn't do that, Kate, he didn't take you from us."

Kate balled his shirt in her fist, her head pressed into his shoulder, as if she was afraid he was going to fade from her where they sat. "I know, Castle," she gasped. "But that wasn't-" he breath shuddered, but when she let it out again, it tumbled with her next words, so fast that it was hard to catch them. "He offered me more time, said he'd give my 'people' another hour to get there for each time I had sex with him and I thought about it, Castle, because no one was there and I could see the barrel of the gun and I just couldn't do it to you or my dad, or the boys, or Lanie, I wanted to live. But then I knew I wouldn't if I did that with him. I wouldn't live with myself, even if I was alive. So I didn't, Castle, I promise, I didn't, I didn't-"

"Hey, hey-" he interrupted, his fingers so tight around her shoulders that he left imprints. "I believe you, Kate. But sweetheart, even if you had, I wouldn't blame you. Having sex with someone in exchange for your life isn't consent. I wouldn't for a second have thought you anything less than extraordinary, okay? I love you, Kate." He rubbed her back, squeezed her shoulders. "But now I'm kinda wishing I'd put that bullet in him anyway."

Kate laughed with her mouth pressed to his shoulder, and it sounded like her cheeks were bulging with marshmallows. "I think Espo and Ryan are gonna aim for every sentence they can pin on him. He won't see the outside of a prison again, none of them will."

"Are you sure?" Castle said into her hair, "Because I know a guy."

Kate frowned without looking up. "That's sweet, but no thank-you." She let her legs drop against his, ready to fall asleep again right there with the cold creeping through the open window.

"Rick?"

"Hmm?"

"I love you too."

She closed her eyes, comfortable, despite the hard floor beneath them, and the still open window that was starting to let in a less than welcome winter breeze.

He smiled down at her hunched form, his lips brushing the crown of her head.

"I know."

Reviews are always appreciated, but I'm not gonna track down your IP address if you don't.