A/N: Now that just took me ages…And geez, I read chapter 3 again, I am SO terribly sorry for all the preposition mistakes I made! I almost ripped my hair out…I must have been very upset when I wrote that chapter xD Well anyways, that reminds me that I might state again that I am not a native English speaker although I wish I were ;D

Now here we go with chapter four, taking place during and after Headhunters, which I by the way loved so, so much!

Okay, now again, I do not own the characters and yes, I did quote some things from the actual ep which I of course don't own either. I am not such a writer genius as the team that writes Castle ;)

Anywas, have fun reading, I still don't know what to think of it but well…that's me xD

Chapter 4 -

"I knew it was a mistake to love you."

These words rang in his ears, hit him square across the face. She loved him. She just told him that she loved him. How did he ever doubt her?

"Dad! What are you still doing standing there like a fool? Go after her!" his daughter almost shouted at him. It was all he needed to wake up from his dumbstruck state of mind and he ran through the door. She was gone of course. She'd run down the stairs, couldn't wait for the elevator, standing there, waiting to see if he'd come after her or not so she'd taken the stairs. She had tears streaming down her face uncontrollably now and she was shaking but she managed to get to the car, wipe her face so she could see and drive away. She didn't see Castle running out the door of the building, looking for her completely out of breath from running down the stairs two steps at a time. She pulled over a couple of streets away from the loft, stopping the car, leaning her forehead onto the wheel and started sobbing. It wasn't like her but she couldn't stop it.

It was only slowly dawning on her what she had said upon leaving and that made her sob even more. Kate had told Castle once, very early in their days of working together, that she was the one and done type and she was. When she told someone she loved him, she meant it. That's why she never said it to, for example, Josh. But she had never wanted to say it to Castle like this, screaming it at him and mentioning in the same sentence that it was a mistake. Never.

After a couple of minutes of crying she managed to start the car again and get to her apartment. It was there that she took her phone out and saw several missed calls from Castle but now she was the one ignoring them. She wasn't in the right state to be able to talk to him now. She might be after some sleep.

Castle had returned to the loft and was still trying to call her.

"She doesn't pick up…" he said to his daughter who was still sitting on the couch where she and Kate had been waiting for him.

"What's going on anyway, dad?"

"I…I just needed time. And I probably behaved like an idiot but…no…there is not but. I did behave like a total moron. You know…it's the first time that she's said it."

"What?"

"That she loves me."

"Didn't you know? I mean, it was kinda obvious…"

"Was it? I guess it was. But I started to doubt it and I pulled away. Now she will need space again. She'll get that wall right back up… And maybe it is better like this. Maybe we actually need something like this… " He sighed and sat down beside his daughter, pulling her into a hug.

"How long was she waiting here?" he asked.

"Hours. She came right after work."

"Oh, Kate," he murmured to himself.

Father and daughter sat on the couch for another moment before both decided to head to bed.

The days passed by without Beckett trying to reach him again. They did shortly speak to each other when he called her to ask whether she had time for a chat but she had to decline not because she didn't want to talk but because she was busy preparing for a trial. And if Castle was honest with himself, he was busy too. With writing the last few chapters of "Frozen Heat". Only, he had no inspiration left, nothing good came to him and he started fooling around, procrastinating in every way possible one of which was getting to the mail before his daughter so he could hold back the letters from colleges she had applied to.

His mother caught him playing with dolls – action figures he corrected her – which was another form of procrastination. He even confessed that he couldn't write anything. He needed something to distract him, something that might get him back on track and that's when he saw the news – severed heads. Well wasn't that just perfect.

But how was he going to get to work with the guy? Beckett! He hadn't seen her in a while since both of them had kind of been avoiding each other in the hope of some improvement. Not that that was any way of dealing with it but it was typical for them.

He grinned at his mother and took off.

When he arrived at the precinct with the two coffees in his hands he had to wait for her but when she came it was as if the room lit up. She had had several days to straighten up again, get her act together and realise what she really wanted and the answer was always the same, no matter how she posed the question. Castle. But even though he had tried to reach her after her breakdown at his loft the ball was in his court now and she was too stubborn to contact him. So when she saw him waiting at her desk with the coffees – with the coffees! – she couldn't help but smile at him with all the love she had but of course, he had a completely different reason for coming. She had honestly thought that maybe her confession would change something no matter in what weird context it had been said. But it didn't appear so, so she walked away from him.

He followed her, sensing that he was being an idiot again.

"Kate!" he called after her and by the rise and fall of her shoulders he could see that she was sighing before she turned around, facing him.

"What, Rick?"

"I'll…I'll come back. I just, I need to see something new, okay?"

"Didn't you get enough new with that bimbo of yours?" she snapped, walking past him out of the room and to the break room just so she wouldn't start a fight in the middle of the precinct.

The next thing she knew she heard was that Castle had actually managed to convince Detective Slaughter to let him ride along and that's when she seriously started worrying about him.

That Ryan was concerned didn't make it much easier and as soon as the elevator doors opened up and she saw Slaughter and Castle walk through it with the two guys they had arrested, Castle with a paper tissue stuck in his nose, she almost had a heart attack.

He seemed to be fine though, full of adrenalin though, completely unaware of how worried she was. So worried in fact, that she forgot where they were and lightly touched his right cheek, trying to make him hold still so she could get a look at his nose. He shuddered at the touch of her hand, it had been too long since they last got into such close proximity of each other, let alone into direct contact like this and he could feel all his feelings stir up in the pit of his stomach, he could feel the electricity rising and his hand automatically rose to touch hers but that's when Slaughter called out his name and his hand dropped down at his side again. He looked at Beckett who held his gaze. He knew how serious she was with her comment of trying to not get him killed and he could see the sincerity of it in her eyes right now too. She sighed.

"Just…be careful, okay? I can't lose you…" she whispered, dropping her hand and walked away. He looked after her. How far could he go before ruining it all? The thing was, he somehow enjoyed his ride-along with Slaughter, it was so completely different from his work with Beckett. He realised, how much she actually cared about him, how much she always had. He realised that when she tried to hold him back, when she tried – and succeeded – to go first it wasn't to annoy him, it was to protect him, to keep him safe. But he could take care of himself, he had just proven that but still, it was nice to know and also, it was a pretty close call in that pub so maybe Beckett was right after all…

He sighed and followed Slaughter to the box. And saying that the guy was starting to scare him there was probably an understatement but it was so badass that he just loved it. For once he was allowed to do all the things that Beckett forbids him.

She didn't know what to do. She was so scared that he might be getting himself hurt or worse, killed and there didn't seem to be anything that she could do. Even though he'd let her touch him she felt like there was still a barrier between them. She had told him that she loved him in a terrible rage, he had told her that he loved her while she was almost bleeding to death. It didn't seem like those were the best moments to say those words. Kate saw no other way but to go to the one place where she could talk freely and that was with . He could annoy her, he could annoy her a lot with his clever answers, always seeming to have the right one, the one that hurt the most but – at the end of the day – it was what she needed most.

She ranted on about Castle pulling away and she even told Burke that she had told him she loved him.

"When did that happen?" he asked.

"Last week. I was so angry at him for not talking to me, for heading off to Vegas without a word and for going out with this bimbo of his while we were supposed to be making this relationship work! I went over to his place to talk but he was so cold that I shouted at him. I told him it was a mistake to love him."

"Maybe that wasn't what he wanted to hear."

"Well of course it wasn't! But I don't know what it is that he wants to hear. He doesn't listen to me at all anymore. Now he's off with that Detective and I'm just scared…"

When Burke asked her if that Detective was a woman she knew she wasn't going to like where the conversation was headed, that it would hurt again even though Slaughter wasn't a woman.

"What if I waited too long? What if he realised during the short time that we were trying to make it work, that he doesn't love me anymore and he just doesn't have the guts to tell me?"

"Do you really believe that?"

"At the moment? I'm not sure what to believe."

"Kate, you gave it a try, even though you were still healing, you gave it a try. You haven't waited too long, you needed that time to find out what you want. Now it is time to act on it."

"But what do I do?"

"What do you want to do?"

The look on Burkes face was exactly what she expected. It was always the same. He knew her, knew exactly what she wanted to do but also knew that she couldn't do it. But she had to and that's when she made her decision.

He was pretty shaken up, to say the least. Every noise, every movement made him jump. Had this guy really just killed someone? Just like that?

When they reached the precinct he saw Beckett looking at him, saw that she saw how he was feeling but neither of them went to the other, they were just too stubborn to do so.

He was so relieved when he saw the guy – Marc as he learned afterwards – alive but at the same time he felt awful, betrayed, played and it made him angry. For some reason though he laughed it off, pretended that he didn't mind when in fact he was just getting more afraid by the minute. Their little detour to the Jamaican guy did not help in the least to calm him, in fact, it had the opposite effect. The more time he spent with Slaughter, the more he wanted to go back work with Beckett. Their relationship may be strained and needed a lot of patching up again, but at the moment he would take that over the craziness of this man who had taken his coat. His thoughts were with Beckett pretty much the whole evening when he was out with Slaughter, celebrating the fact that he had survived the first day with him. Considering that, he was not at all in a celebrating mood and he realised that no distraction that he was ever going to look for would help him solve his problems with Beckett. But his sense for justice was too big to just drop out of this case. He only wished it would end sooner than later so he could go back, make amends and work with his partner again, the partner, who was at that moment still sitting in the precinct and digging in the case herself.

She could not let Castle down, no matter how stupid he was acting, no matter if he hurt her, he was her partner and she would always have his back, so she did something she would never have done before and interfered with another cop's case. It wasn't that she was not busy enough preparing for the trial but she really was concerned about Castle and she needed to make sure that – in case of anything – she could do something.

She worked pretty much the whole night, made the couch in the interview room her bed again and got woken up by Ryan in the morning. She freshened up in the ladies room and just when she walked back to the bull pen she heard Ryan's and Esposito's conversation about the Mexican guy that Castle and Slaughter were probably after right now. The boys saw the shocked look on her face, they knew she was afraid something bad would happen and so were they.

"Track his phone. Please," was all she said and they nodded. Thankfully they were able to locate him faster than they thought.

"Beckett, you coming?" Esposito shouted from the elevator to the bull pen already putting on his vest.

She shook her head no, "I…I can't!" she answered and it was the truth. She didn't dare going with them, not knowing what situation Slaughter had put her partner into and if he was unhurt or maybe lying on the floor, bleeding. She had to believe – even if just for a moment – that he would be okay if she didn't go with the boys.

The relief that washed over her when they were back was only short though. How did he dare putting himself into such danger? She wanted to punch him, wanted to kiss him too for being alive and well, wanted to break every bone in his body herself so he wouldn't be able to go out there again. Of course, she did neither.

"You need to do something." It was Esposito that pulled her out of her thoughts and she knew he was right but she still denied being able to do so or even wanting to do so.

That's when Castle walked past the room, like a pig that had to go to get slaughtered and knew it. It tore at her heart but she was still too stubborn to help him. Or at least help him with him realising that she was doing that.

When he came back he was glad to see that he seemed…a little less shaken, if that was the right term because he still looked pale, not like his usual self.

And yet, after she assumed the interrogation was over he came to her, trying exactly that, being his usual self with small talk and lovely smiles that made her insides melt a little more every time. She just couldn't see him shaken up like this anymore that's why she finally gave in and showed him what she or rather Ryan had found out. And she had no idea how inexplicably happy this made Castle, that she was having his back no matter how stupid he was behaving and although there was still a lot unresolved between them he wanted nothing more but to kiss her, make up for all the wrong he'd done, for all the pain he'd caused her. He was of course still pained himself and he would be until she told him the truth herself but the urge to kiss her was still there. Not that he gave into it, they were standing in the precinct after all. But her help gave him hope that it could get better again.

"Maybe we can find out." That's what she said and he knew it really could end well after all. He didn't realise then what she was actually doing for him but when they got to the crime scene and Slaughter showed up he did. Kate Beckett was putting her job on line for him. And she loved her job, it was who she was. Her love for it had drawn him in in the first place and now? He had no words to describe what he was feeling but he knew that he was going to do anything he could to save her from getting suspended – or worse – so he started theorizing and she caught up immediately, spinning the story with him like they used to do. He paused and looked at her, a smile on his face and when Kate realised that he was not speaking she looked up, met his eyes, saw his smile.

"What?" she asked.

"Nothing…it's just…it's nice to have this," he pointed his finger from her to himself, "back" and she smiled in return.

"It is…"

They wrapped the case, like they usually did but when Beckett went up to Valez, Castle got worried. That guy was a bad news and even though he knew Beckett had it under control he worried because who knew what Valez would do, knowing he had a cop out there who would make his life a living hell and for how long Beckett would have him under control.

The fist into his stomach he got from Slaughter hurt, but he probably deserved it – somehow at least and Beckett did make up for it when she bent down so their eyes were on the same level and patted his cheek and assured him again that they were partners. Also implying that she was behaving much more like a partner than he was.

When he went home he knew he had some decisions to make and when he found Alexis with a similar problem, ice cream really was the best idea. And it did help with his decision.

After eating the ice cream and considering pros and cons for Alexis's verdict of going to Stanford or not, he got up from the couch, his daughter looking at him with a surprised look.

"You in a hurry for something?" she asked and he nodded.

"I've made up my mind, I have somewhere to be."

Alexis smiled at her father. "I won't wait up then."

He grinned at her and shook his head. Then he kissed her on her forehead and headed out the door. He quickly managed to hail a cab and only a few minutes later he knocked at the door, nervous like a little boy on his first day of school, probably as excited as well. He had tried to get his thoughts in order on the cab ride over but he still wasn't sure what to say. He just knew that even though she had hurt him, he loved her enough to ignore that hurt for a while, until she was ready to tell him herself. For now it had to be enough knowing that she loved him back because honestly, who cared for how long she had loved him, as long as it was real now. He knew that maybe he should confront her but all he wanted now was taking her into his arms and hold her tight again, having her by his side.

When she opened the door he detected both surprise and joy.

"Castle? What are you doing here?"

"I…I am here to apologize. Kate, I am so sorry for how I behaved the last week, and before that. You don't deserve this, especially not after today. You had my back when I behaved like the biggest moron on earth and I have no idea how I can ever make this up to you. I have realised though, that working with you is way more fun for starts and also while talking to Alexis tonight I realised that I just can't lose you again. I am an idiot and I should've talked to you much earlier. I guess communication is not our strongest suits…" he was talking his head off, almost forgetting to breath between sentences because he wanted her to know, wanted her to listen.

"Castle. Shut up."

"Oh…I…sorry. I guess it's not the right time then…" he mumbled, looking at the floor and not realising that Kate was smiling at him.

"Castle? Rick?" He looked up, surprised that she hadn't yet closed the door in his face and then she saw her smile.

"I was an idiot too, Rick. I should've made you talk to me. I shouldn't have run away like I did the other night. I came to talk to you and all I did was yell."

He could hardly believe what she was saying but he dared to take a step closer to her, into the apartment and then hesitantly took her hands.

"You had every right to yell at me. I made a huge mistake there, I don't even know if I want you to forgive me…"

"Shut up, Castle," she said again, "you're not listening. You made a mistake, but so did I. What I told you that night, I mean, what I yelled at you," she corrected herself with an apologetic smile, "I should have said that much sooner and I'm sorry that I haven't. And I should have made you talk to me the moment I realised something was off…"

He looked her in the eyes, seeing all the pain he'd caused her but also all the forgiveness because she loved him and she could see the same in his eyes. She brought his hand up to her cheek, holding it in place with her eyes closed.

"I guess we're both some kinds of idiots then..." he whispered.

Kate chuckled and he could feel the vibration in his hand. "Idiots can be in love, right?" she said, blinking at him but closing her eyes again.

He thought about her words a while before replying.

"Hm…I'd say only idiots can be in love," he started, "Who else is stupid enough to fall in love and make himself – or herself – so vulnerable that the tiniest thing can almost break you…" He pulled her a little closer and waited until she opened her eyes and looked at him.

"Then here's to us idiots," she whispered, bringing her other hand up to his chest before continuing. "Cause it seems like I am terribly in love with you, Richard Castle and I am terribly vulnerable and terribly scared that this will end badly and I could not…" The rest of the sentence got cut off when his lips met hers, kissing her fiercely and it didn't take a second until she was kissing him back just as desperate, bringing her arms up around his neck, pulling him even closer, closing the door behind him.

Hihihihi, I'm a tease, aren't I ;) Well, let your own imagination run wild if you want, just not too wild because I want both secrets out first. Now, another two weeks hiatus that is going to kill me…While writing this I thought I should rather just write post-ep one-shots without any connection to each other, that would make it a lot easier than this…but I still hope you liked it and if you did, I always like reviews. If you didn't like it too xD

Oh and that "idiots" convo right there at the end...I've had that stuck in my head for the alst couple of weeks and just wanted to write it down now...I initially thought it would make a great ending for a huge fight but I was not in the mood to write a fight, so it's just there...like that...