Hi everyone! So… this winter hiatus… it's really long, but only seven more days, right? *deep breath* I cannot wait for this episode. Thank you for reading & reviewing, I do enjoy hearing what you all think, so continue to let me know. On with chapter 7…

Oh. And I own nothing.

Castle only needed thirty seconds to decide between the couch and the nice, big, warm, fluffy, bed. Definitely the bed. He didn't even bother to clean up the blankets and pillows on the couch before he entered the bedroom, with the bed Beckett would be sharing with him. Wow. He couldn't even begin to wrap his head around that. He was cautious and left ample space between the detective and himself when he slipped into bed—she did still sleep with a gun, after all.

…

When Beckett woke up the next morning, she slowly became aware of a radiating heat behind her that wrapped around her side and ended on her stomach. She eventually recognized it as Castle's hand and was unsure whether she should move it or not, but she liked the warmth, so she just went back to sleep.

When Castle woke up, he instinctively felt happy. He found that he was holding something… or someone. He realized that he had his arm around Beckett and his hand rested on her stomach. On its own accord, his hand started to draw small circles on her stomach. His brain eventually realized what his hand was doing, and began to wrestle with the desire to continue because it felt right, and the desire to save the hand that Beckett would surely cut off if she woke up. He settled for halfway, left his hand, stopped the circling, and went back to sleep.

At 9:45, Beckett rolled over to realize again that she was in the arms of Richard Castle, gazing into his sleeping face, the only time he ever looked completely innocent, she came to another realization: no nightmares. Did it really take getting into bed with Castle to stop having nightmares about her shooting? That really didn't seem like herself to need a man for anything… well just for that one activity. Coincidentally, that usually took place in a bed, too. The third and final realization of the morning was the time. They had to be at jazzercise in fifteen minutes!

"Castle!" She gave him a playful shove in the chest, "Stop feeling me up and get ready!" Within seconds, the stomach thing was forgotten and they were both well on their way to questioning the suspect.

At 10:02, Beckett and a very groggy Castle stormed into the hotel gym where jazzercise was starting. Beckett wore yoga pants and form-fitting yellow top, while castle wore a maroon t-shirt and sweats he had just bought at the gift shop and still had the tags on them (apparently he hadn't packed any sweats; he really was one to dress well almost all of the time).

"Okay! Hello everybody! My name is Adi, and I'll be your instructor this morning! It's nice to see you all here, are you all ready for some fun jazzercise?" Castle decided Adi was excessively chipper right now. I mean, nobody should be that cheerful about exercise this early.

Adi started the music, and Firework by Katy Perry came on. Secretly, Castle and Beckett were relieved that it wasn't some song from the 80s that would bring back memories of bad dances and even worse clothes.

Only a minute into the song, Beckett glanced over at Castle to find that he was having a hard time moving… and breathing.

"Pete are you okay?" Beckett whispered loudly, she started to shuffle closer to him, keeping up with the jazzercise, too.

He didn't respond.

"Castle?" Beckett whispered, quietly this time. She was genuinely concerned for him, and a even a little freaked out. He could keep up chasing the bad guys all over New York City, and now he couldn't even do a little a little exercise indoors?

"Oh. Hi." He could barely get the words out. "Did I mention that I never really got the clearance from the doctor for exercise after the whole lung thing?" That's all he could say before he passed out.

"Pete…? Peter wake up!" Beckett was furious with herself for letting Gates shove Castle into another case, furious that she could not keep him from harm. The rest of the people in the room had noticed by now, and were forming a circle around the couple, but Beckett could only pay attention to the passed out Castle in her arms on the floor.

When Castle finally came to, he heard somebody calling out for a man named Pete. Then he became aware of hands behind his head and comprehended that the speaker was talking to him. As his consciousness continued to return to him, he recognized the voice as Beckett's. Oh, right! The undercover mission! But… then why is he unconscious on the floor?

"Bec—" Beckett heard Castle start to utter her name… if he did, he would blow their cover. Instead, she gushed, rather loudly, "Ohhh honey you're awake!" to drown out his voice and smashed her own lips onto his to prevent him from talking. It was much like their first undercover kiss, only Beckett-initiated this time. Just like the first time, all spectators bought it.

Wow. If unconsciousness was the price to pay to kiss Beckett, Castle might just come back for more jazzercise tomorrow. But he had to get these thoughts out of his head, they were just role playing for the sake of an undercover murder investigation, and Beckett made herself perfectly clear that there couldn't be a them.

Beckett, after making sure her "husband" was okay, began to reassure Adi and the fellow jazzercisers that they did not need to call an ambulance. What she didn't say was that it was because the EMTs would need to know a real identity. No, she would drive Castle to the hospital herself, where no suspects could start suspecting anything.

On the way there, Castle kept protesting that he did not need a doctor; he just needed rest.

Beckett needed to hear for herself the true extent of his injuries for herself, though.

At the hospital, Beckett listened intently to the doctor say that by this point, any pressure on his chest, any exercise, among some other activities probably brought him pain, which is maximized by the broken ribs he has healing surrounding the healing un-collapsed lung, but slowly all of the pain would go away completely. Beckett just looked at Castle. He had let her use him as a human pillow, she physically laid on top of him his all her weight pushing down on him. Why would he let her do that if it hurt him so much?

The minute the doctor left the room to run some tests, Beckett turned to glare at Castle. He just put on his best innocent face and smiled back. Beckett countered with an eyeroll. Castle's smile grew wider and he winked. She felt the corners of her mouth start to pull up, but stopped it immediately, she was mad at him.

Maybe this is what Lanie meant when she said that they had a lot of "eye sex."

"Castle! Why on earth didn't you say that half the things you do cause you pain!"

"Well… it's not that bad."

Beckett just raised her eyebrows. That was all the questioning she had to do.

"Okay, look, I'd rather hurt a little and have you with me than not hurt at all. Last time we were here, you said you loved me and I said I loved you. Now, even if you don't want to admit it again, or if you just aren't ready to talk about it, the fact of the matter is that when you love somebody, you tend to enjoy their company. For example, when you asked me to accompany you to bed last night. We didn't do anything, but that was okay, because love isn't about the sex it's just about being close with another person. So what if it hurt my chest a little, I was just so happy to be near you without you pushing away, that I wasn't going to be the one to start pushing. Really, a little chest pain is nothing… although… I might be done with jazzercise for now."

"But, I hurt you. And you're not supposed to hurt the person you love, so I'm not good at loving people. I haven't really figured out how to love…" she trailed off because until now, she hadn't really figured that one out. She thought she had loved before. But now she realized she was never really in it for the long haul, it wasn't really love, not the love she had for Castle. It was a committed relationship, sure, but love—well she was finally discovering the true sense of the word.

"And that's okay, we can figure this out together, because I thought I knew love, enough to marry two other women, but they didn't work. Our relationships were held together by a glue stick and when they were poked a little, they just fell apart. Us, we could be like Rhino Glue! Now, you might be thinking, 'huh? I thought Gorilla Glue was the good sticky stuff.' But, Rhino Glue, not too many people have heard of it, but it is the world's strongest glue. We could make it, you and me, stuck together with Rhino Glue." The writer in him decided to take a pause, or maybe it was the Martha in him that decided to pause for dramatic effect, then the ADD side of him took over and he exclaimed excitedly, "Oh! And, if we were together, like more than we are now, you could watch over me! Like my special sexy cop bodyguard! That's why you're worried, right? Because I'll get hurt? Not that I really need the protecting, I am a man and all. A big super cool man with lots of hidden ninja skills. I could handle some bad guys, but really Kate, I'm probably safer with you."

"Rick…" She was honestly speechless. Maybe it was worth a shot…

"You used my first name! Do you have any idea what that does to me?"

"I imagine along the same line of what happens to me when you call me 'Kate'." She surprised even herself when she admitted this aloud.

"Oh really, Kate? You get a funny feeling in the pit of your stomach, Kate? It's a good feeling, though, right Kate? Like a hundred little butterflies have decided to move in down there, Kate? Kate? I like calling you Kate. It makes me feel good, too, Kate." He overemphasized every single unnecessary 'Kate,' but Beckett was more shocked to see that the feeling he described was exactly the way she felt. Maybe they really could make it though. She was insanely worried about the relationship not working out, because then she wouldn't even have him as a partner in crime solving. One thing was for sure, they have many decisions to make.

"Okay, Rick, let's give this a shot." She cursed herself for not being able to say anything eloquent to the writer-boy, but at least it got her point across.

"Really?" His smile was larger than a child who just got a shiny new toy.

Just then, because the doctors at this particular hospital had excellent timing, the doctor walked into the room to give Mr. Castle the all clear for going home. The doctor made Beckett promise to take good care of him. He would be fine, just no more jazzercise for the time being.

Jazzercise! In the mess, she had forgotten all about why they are there in the first place! They still had to talk to Adi.

Beckett and Castle walked back to the Plaza, hand in hand. It wasn't an undercover show anymore, it was simply them. Finally, they were together. Castle brought their hands up to his mouth and kissed the back of his hand and Beckett smiled. They didn't talk on the way home, but it was a comfortable silence, one of two people that didn't need words to communicate.

Castle always thought they would get together at some point. At first, it was about shagging the hot detective, as much as he hated to admit it now. Then, their relationship grew and he wanted the whole package, Beckett and Castle, together for a very long time. And he smiled.

Beckett always thought letting Castle into her life on a personal level was about as likely as an alien invasion, although she knew Castle believed both would happen. She recalled long sessions complaining to Lanie about him in the morgue. Then, their relationship grew, and even though she was terrible with emotions, she didn't want to lose before she loved. And for a moment, just a split second as he kissed her hand and her stomach leaped, she had the slightest inkling that he wasn't going anywhere anytime soon. And she smiled.