TALKING

"You have no idea." She added a little extra sway to her strut as she walked away.

She'd refrained from responding to any of his flirts through the whole case. If she didn't flirt back, she had plausibile deniability. No one would ever know of her crush.

With the case over, she'd get the last word. She'd never see him again, so it was finally safe to suggest that he would really enjoy being with her.


"You want to talk about it?" Lanie asked.

She pursed her lips and looked everywhere but at her best friend. "No."

"All right. You keep bottling that stuff up, and you're gonna get an ulcer."

She told herself that Lanie was wrong. It was better for everyone if she didn't breathe a word to anyone about her feelings for Richard Castle. If she didn't acknowledge them, they didn't exist.


The searing kiss. It was imprinted on her mind. She got lost in it for a half-second. She lost awareness that the guard was approaching. Just for a half-second. But every millisecond replayed in her dreams and when she caught him watching her lips move as she spoke. If she didn't ask him if he meant it, he couldn't say that it was just to sell the drunken couple act. If they didn't talk about it, he couldn't say it was real. If she never asked, she'd never have to deal with it.


She was conscious but freezing. He wasn't awake yet. Josh was on his way. The medics said that he was still unconscious because he was wrapped around her, shielding her, trying to keep her warm. He was bigger, but he was more exposed. She couldn't let Josh hold her; she made him tend to Castle. It wouldn't be okay if he didn't wake up. She wouldn't be okay. She wrapped herself in blankets and waited. Did she really almost tell Castle how much she loved him? Almost, but not quite. If questioned, she could say she was delirious from her brain becoming a popsicle. Or that she was about to just say how much she liked having him around. She was immediately thankful that she hadn't been able to complete the word "love." Because her big hero of a boyfriend has there. He wasn't off saving Haiti, he was saving Castle. He deserved a chance. She could tell that to Castle when he woke up, and never mention that she wished the doctor who showed up had been a stranger, that Josh had gone to Haiti, and that she'd rather be warming up in front of Castle's fireplace, curled up in Rick's arms. She'd smile and she'd fake it and she'd never tell.


"I don't know what we are. We kiss, and we never talk about it. We nearly die, frozen in each other's arms, and we never talk about it!" She had hoped to keep it that way. It was safer.

"You hide in nowhere relationships with men you don't love." So they couldn't rip her heart out.

"You're afraid." No shit.

If she talks about it, it's real. All of it. She loves him. He just about said he loves her. He definitely implied it. He can't be ripped away like her mother was. He can't leave her like Will did.

"You know what we are? We are over. Now get out." Fight for me. Make it worth the risk. Make me say it, because I'm not strong enough to admit it. Find me inside my fear. Or leave me the hell alone so I never have to admit any of it.


Her last thought before she blacks out, looking into his eyes that match the sky behind him, is that she should have said all of it.

x

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A/N: Please review. They're addictive like the pictures on People of Walmart... the funny ones, not the ones that make you wanna puke.