A/N: I feel like a broken record, but once again thank you for all your follows, favorites, reviews, etc. I'm working on responding back to everyone. This chapter is a little bit shorter. It kind of snuck up on me and happened unintentionally, so I ended it where I thought was best. Hope you enjoy.

Chapter 6

She's standing, illuminated, in a dark room. Suddenly, a light shines down on Castle to her right. He's standing on a bomb, the clock ticking down from one minute. Then Josh appears to her left. He's standing on a bomb just like Castle, the same clock ticking, ticking, ticking.

"You have to choose, Kate." The voice comes from out of nowhere, echoing across the empty room.

"Who are you?" She blinks up into the light. She receives no response.

"Choose." The voice comes again.

"What does that mean?!" She screams out into the blackness. Then, her mom appears in front of her on her knees. Jerry Tyson has a gun to her head.

"Mom!"

"Choose one or they all die," Jerry sneers. She whips her head around to the people she cares about, unable to choose.

"I can't…" Sweat drips from her temple down her cheek. When did it get so hot in here?

The clock ticks down to ten seconds. That's when the yelling starts.

Castle and Josh are screaming her name over and over again, begging her to save them. She looks to her mom for advice, but her mom is suspiciously silent. Their eyes meet, and tears stream down both of their faces.

"Choose," her mom whispers. How she could hear it over the yelling, she doesn't know. The clock ticks down, 3, 2, 1.

"No!"

She sits up in bed, lungs gasping for air. She wipes the sweat off her forehead and throws the covers off. Just a dream. Just a dream. She puts her head between her knees and breathes deeply, hoping to stave off some of the panic. Then, she hears it. Her name.

It's quiet, and she almost thinks that she's back in the dream, when she recognizes the voice. Castle.

She's out of bed and down the stairs before she realizes what she's doing. Her feet propel her into his room almost without permission when she sees him sitting up on the bed, practically sobbing. She crawls onto the empty side of the bed and grabs him, cradling his head to her neck. His arm comes around her waist, steadying himself against her.

She whispers things in his ear, she doesn't know what, just murmuring soothing words and sounds until his breathing evens a bit. He tightens his grip on her and lets out one last deep breath. They sit like that for a moment until she breaks the silence.

"What's going on with you?"

"A dream. Just a dream," he exhales into her neck. "We were back in Dalton's apartment, but instead of a flash bang it was a bomb."

She begins making soothing circles on his back with her casted hand, continuing to wipe the tears that have soaked through the bandages and escaped down his face. He takes another deep breath.

"You died." The words come out mangled and wrong and like nothing she's ever heard from him. Tears drip down his face again, and she lifts his head off of her shoulder so that she can wipe them with both hands.

"I'm okay, Castle. I'm here." She pulls him back into a hug.

"I was so relieved when I woke up. I was so relieved, and I forgot…" At this admission, the tears that had been teetering on her eyelashes splash down her face. Oh, Castle.

"You forgot you couldn't see."

"Yeah," he breathes out. "I panicked." She nods her head against his in understanding. He feels a tear drip onto his skin and sits up.

"Kate, are you crying?"

Embarrassed, she wipes her tears away.

"No." The watery response is unconvincing. He tries to move his hands to her face, but gets her chin instead. Close enough.

"No, hey. Don't cry. I'm going to be fine. It's okay."

"Castle, you don't have to do that. You don't have to pretend to be fine when you're hurting."

"Same goes, Beckett." She pauses, then nods. "What's wrong?" He asks. Her tears begin again.

"This is all my fault. I don't know how you can ever forgive me." He slightly recoils in shock. His mother had mentioned to him that Beckett was taking this pretty hard, but he never thought that she blamed herself for it.

"Why would you say that?'

"You're my partner, and I let you down. I'm supposed to make sure you don't get hurt, and I failed." Her voice cracks on the last word.

He pauses in thought. He needs to word this just right.

"Kate, listen. I know it doesn't seem like it, but I'm an adult." She lets out a small, watery laugh, and he smiles. "I made my own decisions that day. I could have stayed with you or gotten you to stop, but I didn't. If you think this is your fault, then it also has to be Ryan's and Esposito's and Montgomery's and mine. None of us thought we were going into a dangerous situation. You did the best with what you had, and you are in no way responsible for this."

Her body deflates into his arms. She didn't think that hearing it from him would soothe her guilt - it certainly didn't when Martha told her - but she feels surprisingly light at his words. She takes a moment just to breathe him in, listening as their heartbeats align. Why on earth has she been fighting this when it feels like the most natural, inevitable thing in the world?

His hand moving gently along her spine brings her back to reality.

"And I'm nervous about tomorrow," she admits. The calming rhythm on her back stutters for a moment then resumes.

"Me too." It's whispered, as if letting it out into the world would make everything crash to pieces. She moves her arms from his chest to around his waist, turning their cuddle into a proper hug.

"I know I don't tell you often, and I know you try to hide it, but you're a rock, Castle. Martha, Alexis, they both rely on you so much. I rely on you so much." He holds her a bit tighter. "But you don't have to be a rock all the time. You're always there for me, so just this one time let me be there for you. Let me be your rock."

He crumbles at that. His face falls back into her neck, and she can feel his tears drip down her collarbones like raindrops, but she doesn't dare move. He needs this. If, God forbid, tomorrow doesn't go well, he's going to need her. He's going to need someone to support him, and she's more than willing to take that position.

His tears lessen, and he lifts his head. She wishes she could see his eyes, that she had x-ray vision to see through those ridiculous bandages so she could know what he was thinking. Suddenly, or maybe not so suddenly, he leans in and his lips are on hers. It's just a brush at first, like butterfly wings.

She's not sure who's responsible, but one of them deepens it. In that moment, she feels pieces of the universe coming together, like every mystery of the world has been solved in this one touch of his lips against hers. It probably only lasts seconds, maybe less, but to her it feels like hours and years and millennia and she never ever wants this kiss to end. It's as if someone heard her thought and wanted to spite her, because he pulls back and she's kissing nothing but air.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. So sorry," he babbles. Their foreheads are resting together, and she can feel his breath across her lips. Why is he sorry? Did the kiss not feel as cosmically perfect to him as it did to her?

"What?" It doesn't sound like her at all, but it's all she can get her mouth to say.

"You have a boyfriend, and you're taking care of me, and I shouldn't have kissed you. I shouldn't have taken advantage of you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You should go."

She's so shocked by the turn of events that she can't say anything, can't even move for a moment.

"Beckett." He turns his head away from her with guilt, remorse, and no small amount of pleading in his voice. If she doesn't leave now, he's not sure if he can control himself.

For some reason, she can't get her vocal chords to work. She wants to tell him that it's okay. It's wonderful, actually. She wants to tell him that he shouldn't feel guilty, because the kiss they just shared was so much more than all the kisses she ever had with Josh or anyone combined. She wants to stay, maybe kiss again. Maybe go further.

But she doesn't say any of that. She slowly slides out of his bed and walks to the door separating his bedroom from the living room. She's thankful for this door, because she's sure if she had to walk the extra steps through his office, her resolve would evaporate, and she'd come crawling back to him. In her heart, she knows she can't do that. She's not a cheater. Not any more than the now three kisses they've shared.

She looks to him as she exits the room, hoping to see something, but there's nothing. His posture is rigid and controlled, and his face has a deep frown on it. It's certainly won't be the last time that she wishes she could just look into his eyes. She's so bad at communicating with words. Words were always his. If she could just look into his eyes and tell him that it's okay, that it's all going to be okay, she would feel so much better.

But instead, she shuffles back up to the cold, empty guest room with rocks in her stomach and bile in her throat.