A/N1: WELCOME to the 10th Chapter titled 'Blow Up'
The break room door flew open and Ryan and Esposito walked in.
"I'm tellin' ya bro, this is looking more and more l-" Esposito said before cutting himself off mid sentence.
Like a sound of a plunger being yanked from a toilet, Rick and Kate pulled apart and immediately, turning a magnificent shade of scarlet.
"Interrupting something are we?" Ryan said with a smirk and a raised eyebrow.
"Bro, I have so won the bet." Esposito said with a grin.
"GO AWAY ESPOSITO!" Rick and Kate bellowed avoiding their colleagues teasing gaze.
"Alright alright, keep your pants on." Esposito said with a laugh, turning to leave the room. "Lanie is so hearing about this..."
And with that he left.
"About time guys," Ryan said with a smile. "I suppose you're going to quit the dancing around each other thing now?"
"KEVIN!" Kate shouted at him.
"Alright alright I hear ya," Ryan said with a snort of laughter. "Congratulations guys."
And he left pulling the door shut behind him.
"Oh my-fu-that was so embarrassing!" Kate shrilled her face a magnificent shade of scarlet.
"It was, but they were bound to find out sooner or later." Rick said with a grin gently pulling her back into his space and applying kisses along the bump of her left clavicle.
"All of New York is going to find out now, probably right this minute Javier is texting Lanie!" Kate exclaimed squirming as he suckled on the nape of her neck.
"Relax," Rick said kissing her softly. "You're cute when embarrassed, you know."
"Castle!," Kate exclaimed. "God I just want to hide in here forever!"
Rick just grinned.
"We can't stay in here all day," he said. "It's nearly dinner time, and what if a body drops? As romantic as I think staying in here would be, we've gotta face the music sooner or later."
Kate buried her face into Rick's chest.
"No we don't," she mumbled her voice muffled by his jacket. "I want to stay here for the rest of my life and not socialise with anyone."
"Now now, that doesn't sound like the BAMF Detective I've come to know and love." Rick said with a grin as he threaded his fingers through her long tresses and kissed the end of her nose.
There was a long silence as Kate rested in Rick's arms, just allowing him to stroke her hair.
"I have a confession to make," Kate said standing up straight. "Of sorts."
"Oooh sounds kinky," Rick said with a grin. "We've only been together five minutes and you're already making confes-OW!"
"Cast-R-Rick listen to me," Kate said, giving him a dead arm. "I'm being serious here."
Rick laced his fingers through Kate's and pulled her close to his body.
"What's up?" he asked curiously, an ever so slight feeling of apprehension filling the pit of his stomach.
"Uhm, remember when you came to visit me in the hospital after the shooting and you asked if I remembered anything?"
"Yeah and you said no." Rick said, concerned.
"Yeah, well...um I sort of lied to you," Kate said hesitatingly. "I remember, I remember everything."
Instantly Rick felt his stomach fall through the floor as the overwhelming feeling of betrayal swept over him.
"A- Are you serious?" he exclaimed loudly. "Are y-."
"No I'm not," Kate said in a small voice. "I remember the crack of the bullet, the pain of it hitting me and falling over and you telling me you loved me, over and over again."
Rick's eyes began stinging with unshed tears and he pushed Kate away much more forcefully than he intended.
"Are you frigging kidding me Kate?," his said a little louder as he got up and began striding around the room. "For six no nine fucking months, you've lied to me? How could you?" he asked, in hurt and disbelief.
"I-I-'m s-orry!" Kate cried her forehead creasing up.
"Kate we've been partners for three damn years and I trust you with anything, ANYTHING. And I thought you trusted me enough to tell me anything and you do this? Why lead me on and let me believe I had no chance and suddenly get all palley with me now?"
"It's not sudden!" Kate exclaimed loudly. "Nowhere near sudden! These past few months I've been talking to-"
"Who Lanie?" Rick spat, angrily. "You can talk to your best friend but not to me? How the hell do you think that makes me feel?"
"I haven't been talking to Lanie!" She shouted back, defensive.
"WHO THEN?" he demanded.
"My therapist," she informed him.
Rick felt like he has been kicked in the guts.
"Your THERAPIST?," he bellowed. "Oh fucking terrific Kate, just DANDY! One person who doesn't even know us! It'd hurt less if you'd been talking to Lanie!" he told her.
"I-I-I-" she wasn't sure what to do say.
"You know for months. Years really Kate, I've been getting these signals from you a touch on the arm or a hug here and there. More than friends do and even last month when we fell asleep on the sofa and then you go off dating other guys, tell me is being a tease your usual M.O? Because from this side of the fence it sure as hell seems like it!"
Kate's green eyes filled up with tears and they spilled down her cheeks.
"I-I-I d-didn't mean to be like that R-Rick, I just didn't know how or when to tell you how I felt. Burke has helped me work out a lot of things-"
"Oh yeah has he helped you wise up and be honest with yourself?" Rick spat, bitterly.
"YES! That's why I said I had a confession to make!" Kate exclaimed. "You have no idea how hard this is for me, Rick."
"And you have no idea how hard it is for me to hear you kept something like this from me for so long!" Rick yelled. "Jesus-Freaking-Christ Kate! Hearing this KILLS ME! We can't be together if you keep anything from me!"
A second later there was running footsteps and the break room door banged open and Ryan and Esposito barged in.
"We heard yelling." Ryan said, worried.
"What the hell's going on bro?" Esposito asked, glaring at the writer with his arms folded.
Rick yanked his jacket off the nearby seat, violently.
"That's what I'd fucking well like to know!" he growled making for the door. "I'm outta here."
"Rick I-I-," she began calling after him.
'I'm not interested in hearing ANYTHING, you have to say!' Rick bellowed.
And with that he strode out of the break room where he yanked his laptop bag off the back of his seat.
"Mr Castle, what the hell's going on?" Captain Gates asked emerging from her office.
"Nothing that's any of your business." Rick snarled.
"Mr Castle, there's no need to have that attitude. I don't care what the mayor says, if I get that crap in my precinct you're outta here."
"Well right now that sounds fan-freakin'-tastic to me!" Rick answered sarcastically, yanking the strap of his laptop bag free from where it had been caught between the armrest and the edge of Kate's desk. "Too de-freakin'- loo!"
And before Gates or anyone else in the bullpen could respond, Rick half walked half ran to the other end of the floor where the stairs were and yanked open the door. He then took off downstairs his whole body filled with fury, hurt, betrayal and ultimately sadness. His and Kate's relationship had barely started and it was over.
Just as Rick reached the ground floor and the reception area of the 12th precinct his iPhone began trilling with the 'Yo Castle!' ringtone he had created for Esposito the previous week. He yanked the device out of his pocket and hit the 'decline' button. He needed somewhere to clear his head, somewhere to think, and somewhere he could deal with his internal feelings without being pestered.
Central Park
Up on the fourth floor of the homicide department's break room, Kate was sitting in the far corner in one of the bucket sofa chairs, her legs tucked underneath her and tears streaming down her face. Ryan sitting by her, silently providing the companionship of a close friend.
"Would anyone like to tell me what the hell just went on?" Captain Gates asked in exasperation, entering the room with Esposito who was returning from his desk.
"With all due respect Sir, it's none of your damn business." Esposito said firmly, pouring Kate a glass of water from the filtered water dispenser on the counter and giving it to his friend. "Ryan and I are helping Beckett, it's not going to affect the rest of the department I made sure of that. And we've done all the outstanding paperwork and seeing as nobody has dropped all day, there's nothing for any three of us to do."
Gates creased her upper lip ever so slightly.
"Okay then," she said her expression softening ever so slightly. "Beckett it's four thirty, go home, take the whole weekend off Karpowski's team can do the weekend shift. You can swap with them and work next weekend. I don't want to see you here til Monday morning understand?"
"Y-yessir," Kate croaked wiping her mascara strewn face with the cuff of her jacket. "Thank you."
And with that Gates left pulling the door shut behind her.
"I've called Lanie, she's coming to take you home." Esposito told Beckett.
"Y-you don't want to know what happened?" Kate croaked in surprise.
"Of course we're curious but both of us think you'd rather talk to Lanie about anything to do with Castle," Ryan said, diplomatically. "You can tell us later if you like but Javi and I both think this is more of a chicks thing, though if Castle has hurt you, we'll hunt him down and castrate him for you. I'm sure Lanie has some spare blunt scalpels she'd lend us."
Kate couldn't help but laugh.
"He's not at fault here guys, trust me." she said taking a long swig of water. "We'll sort things out...I hope."
Half an hour later, Lanie arrived at the 12th precinct and strode into the bullpen.
"Where's m'girl?" she asked Esposito.
"Break room." he told her.
Lanie turned and made her way to the break room, shutting the door and locking it behind her. Kate was still tucked up in her sofa chair, dried tracks of mascara discolouring her cheeks.
"Oh girl what's happened?" Lanie asked opening her arms and embracing her friend.
Kate dove into her best friend's arms and broke down, her petite body wracked by hysterical yet muffled sobs. Lanie sat next to her friend and hugged her fiercely, saying nothing while she purged all her emotional baggage.
For a solid ten minutes Kate cried herself out violently, hiccupping her tears smearing her carefully applied makeup all over her face. Eventually though she sat up and blew her nose loudly on a handkerchief Lanie gave her.
"T-thanks," she croaked. "God I feel stupid."
"Are you going to tell me what happened or am I going to have to hunt down Writer Boy and slap some sense into his ass?'" Lanie asked.
Kate coughed.
"N-no don't go slapping him Lanie, everything that's happened is totally my fault." She confessed. "For once, he's not being an ass."
"How about we head back to your place and you can tell me everything?"
Kate wiped her eyes again.
"Yeah sounds good," she said. "Let's go."
Only a short distance away, Rick sat on a park bench by a duck pond in Central Park feeling absolutely miserable. Just when he thought a relationship with Kate had morphed into reality, it had evaporated when she revealed to him all along she had remembered his confession at Montgomery's funeral.
He had never felt so betrayed in his life, and this included Meredith and Gina both of whom cheated on him. An overwhelming feeling of disbelief coursed through his muscular frame and he dropped his face into his hands and let the tears flow for what could have been.
Half an hour later, Lanie and Kate arrived back at Kate's apartment.
"Go and have a shower, you look like hell," Lanie told her, dropping her bag on the sofa. "I'll make some Margaritas. We need some girl talk and some booze."
"Damn Margaritas, Lanie I just want straight tequila," Kate said dumping her bag next to Lanie's. "You know where the alcohol is and there's some lemons in the fruit bowl and salt in the pantry."
"Day-um girl, you're going hard."
"I need to Lanes." Kate said softly.
"Go on then honey, I'll be here when you come back."
Half an hour later, Kate got out of the shower and dressed in her favourite pair of yoga pants and two sizes too big NYPD t-shirt. She dried her hair and put it up in a messy bun before slipping her feet into a pair of chicken feet slippers and making her way into the living room where Lanie had lit a couple of oil burners and poured two shots of Tequila.
"Okay honey, sit down and tell me what the hell went on." Lanie said as Kate dropped down beside her friend and tucked her legs under her.
"What did Javier tell you?" Kate asked, taking the shot glass Lanie held out to her.
"Well he said he and Kevin walked in on you and Writer Boy kissing with tongue then fifteen minutes later you two started arguing, then when he and Kevin ran into the break room you were crying and Writer Boy stormed out," Lanie divulged. "First off, I want to know why you two were kissing and with tongue, when did you and Castle hook up?"
Kate blushed, a magnificent shade of scarlet.
"Today at the birthday party he threw for me at the bullpen," Kate said. 'Once the cake eating and drinking was over and everyone went back to work, he gave me this..."
Kate held out her wrist where the Trinity bracelet Rick had given her before their blow up, hung.
"Girl, that's gorgeous!"
"Yeah it is and he got it from Cartier's too."
Lanie's eyes bugged.
"Cartiers?" she yelped. "Oh that boy does have it bad for you."
"Yeah, well he gave it to me and we sort of ended up kissing," Kate mumbled her cheeks still a respectable shade of pink. "And he felt up my butt too, it was..."
But Kate couldn't find a worthy description and just sighed dreamily.
"Uh oh it was that good you can't describe it?" Lanie said with a giggle. "He must be good if the famous Detective Kate Beckett can't find the wo-"
"Lanie!" Kate yelped. "If you must know then, yes Rick Castle is the best kisser in the universe. The best one I've ever locked lips with anyway. God he made me think things even you'd smack me for."
Lanie couldn't help it and collapsed in a fit of un-Lanie like giggles.
"Oh I'm sorry girl, it's just that I've be-well me and everyone in the 12th have been waiting for you and Writer Boy to hook up ever since he started shadowing you. And when you do all you can do is sigh," she said with a grin. "So then what happened?"
"Well after one particularly heated kiss, I decided I had to be honest with him."
"About?" Lanie inquired.
"Well you know how I've been saying since Roy's funeral I couldn't remember anything surrounding the shooting?'
"Uh huh."
"Well I sort of can."
"Sort of?" Lanie asked, arching her eyebrow.
"Well not sort of I can remember," Kate said, biting down on her lip. "I remember everything leading up to when I bled out."
"Oh Looooord," Lanie said with a sigh. "Go on."
"I remember the crack of the bullet and the pain and Rick tackling me to the ground," Kate said. "he then said something, I'll never ever forget til my dying day."
"And what was that?" Lanie asked.
"His exact words were 'Stay with me Kate.Don't leave me, please. Stay with me, okay? Kate, I love you, I love you Kate.' After that I passed out and don't remember anything til twenty four hours later, when I woke up post surgery and you, Castle and Dad were sitting by my bed in recovery."
Lanie's eyes widened, further.
"Oh Lord - he said that to you?" she asked in amazement. "What a way to pick your moment to declare your undying love for someone. It's kinda sweet in a morbid way."
"Yeah I know" Kate said with an ever so slight smile.
"So I take it you told Castle this?" she asked.
"Yeah, I said I had a confession to make and I told him how I remembered everything up til when I bled out," Kate told her. "That's when he got mad. He accused me of making him believe he had no chance all these months. See after the last few sessions with Burke I've come to the realisation life is too short to leave anything to chance. I can't let my Mom's murder define who I am anymore. I have to define myself with something that won't kill me emotionally. And opening up to Rick and telling him how I truly felt would be a step forward to better things. All this time I've felt the same and not been able to bring myself to tell Rick this and he was incredulous I had kept it from him for so long and he said how could you? He's right, how could I?"
And once again Kate's green eyes filled with tears and they overflowed down her reddened cheeks and onto her shirt.
"You weren't ready honey," Lanie said. "You've been through as lot the last few months."
'"I know Lanes but Rick's right, I should've told!" Kate exclaimed. "At the very least I should've hinted!"
"So what happened next?"
"Well I tried apologising but he didn't want to hear it," Kate went on. "He said we'd been partners for nearly four years and he thought he could trust me with anything and could trust me with telling him everything, especially since Roy's funeral and keeping this from him wasn't showing him that sort of trust. He then accused me of all of a sudden getting palley with him. I didn't mean for it to seem that way but I suppose al this teasing I've done with him the last couple of weeks then kissing him after him giving me the bracelet seemed like it."
"Go on."
"I said I'd been talking over my feelings with him and he flipped when I told him I've been talking them over with Burke. He said it would've hurt less had I talked to you about them."
"Well I can kinda see how he feels," Lanie said as diplomatically as she could. "What happened next?"
"Well the next thing he said was that he's been getting all these signals from me since he started at the Precinct, a touch on the arm or the odd hug and it's confused him when I've gone off and dated other guys. It hurt him to see me with Sorenson, Demming and Josh and he accused me of being a tease. He asked me if it was my usual MO because from his side of the fence it appeared to be. I said that I didn't mean to come across like that, I just didn't know how or when to tell him how I felt. I think the shooting was the catalyst of me wising up and realising I had to say something. Burke reckons so. I told Rick he's been helping me sort out my thought patterns and that's when he really flipped."
"Flipped? That you talked to Burke?"
"Yeah," Kate said with a sigh. "Then words were exchanged and basically he told me hearing what I told him killed him. He said we couldn't be together if I insisted on keeping things from him."
"Well he does have a point there," Lanie said diplomatically. "A relationship is about honesty. Once Javier and I figured that out for ourselves things have been so much better."
"I know that Lanie but you should've seen the look on his face. I've never seen him look so devastated. The expression on his face physically hurt me."
"So what happened after that?"
"Well we'd been yelling so loud Javi and Kevin came barging into the break room and asked what was going on. That's when Rick stormed out and left the bullpen. Javi tried ringing him but he hung up on him."
"Have you tried ringing or texting him?"
'I've rung a couple of times but he's hung up on me," Kate said. "I've really, really hurt him Lanes. I know if I was in his position, I wouldn't want to talk either."
And with that Kate downed her shot of Tequila, screwing her face up as the alcohol burned its way down her gullet.
"Oh honey, I don't know whether to smack you upsides the head or hug you!" Lanie groaned in exasperation. "I'm thrilled beyond words you and Castle finally got together and kissed in the bullpen of all places but I also want to smack you for lying to him. What the hell were you thinking girl? Lying to someone is no way to start a relationship."
"I know and Lanie I feel really, really, really stupid." Kate said. "This is going straight to the top of the Stupid Things Kate Beckett Has Done list, I'm telling ya."
'Tell me one thing honey, are you in love with Castle?" Lanie asked softly. "I mean really in love with him?"
"Yeah, yeah I am." Kate said earnestly. "He's my one and done, I'm sure of it. He's the only one that can convince me to leave my Mom's case well enough alone. I don't want to do that but I know if I never solve it, it won't be that bad because I'll have him by my side. I want to be defined by love, not my Mom's case. I'm beyond that now I know it. My future is with Rick not the cold case files. Mom would want that I know she would."
Lanie leaned forward and hugged her friend.
"Then you need to tell him babe, I'm your best friend and will be your shoulder to cry on whenever you need me, but he needs to hear this from you. You need to make up you know you do you'll be miserable until you do."
More tears flowed from Kate's eyes.
"I know Lanie, but I don't know how to!" she cried. "God I hurt him so badly."
"Take it slowly then," Lanie said sagely, "Give him time to calm down. You need to calm down too. Watch some cheesy chick flicks and get drunk with me this weekend then when you feel better try ringing him or at the very least text him. After what you did he mightn't want to talk straight away but at least he'll know you're sorry and want to work things out."
Kate sighed.
"You should've become a shrink Lanes." She told her, with a small smile.
"Nah I prefer my patients to be dead," Lanie said with a grin. "They're far less argumentative and when you've had enough you can put them in a fridge."
Kate couldn't help but laugh.
"Thanks Lanie I feel so much better after talking." She said.
"No problem girl, now how about some more Tequila?" She comforted.
"Serve 'em up."