She led him to a small bench to sit at while watching the groups of skaters zip by on the ice, and then told him everything she'd learned so far about Joe Pulgatti and Bob Armen. How her mother didn't want to bring up anything to the NYPD due to the corrupt cops involved, and how she was worried it would just become buried again or more leads would disappear without any solid evidence to back up her claims should she involve any other parties. That's why she was building the case on her own for the appeal. But someone obviously got wind of her activities and wanted to put it a stop to it.

When Castle asked what her mother planned to do now, she told him that Johanna agreed to stop investigating on her own, but that it didn't necessarily mean that her colleagues would follow suit. They were civil rights attorneys. This wasn't something that they'd be willing to let go of so easily, especially not when one of their own had been targeted.

"They're so deep in this, Castle. Even if my mom walks away, that's no guarantee that they won't still come after her. That she's any safer than anyone else. She knows enough already that they want her dead anyway."

Castle could tell she was trying so hard to remain strong despite her very obvious concerns. The muscles in her face contracted and her expression grew tight as she spoke. She wouldn't look at him at all, just kept her eyes straight ahead, not even focused on anything in particular. It made something clench deep in his gut seeing her that way. Still so worried, and feeling so utterly helpless in regards to her mother.

He couldn't take it anymore.

Against his better judgment, Castle slowly reached down and set his hand over hers as it lay against her thigh. His fingers curled around the back of her palm, and he gave her hand a little squeeze, just wanting to comfort her, show his support. He'd be here for her as he'd promised.

But then Kate's hand flipped beneath his own and she laced her fingers with his, their palms kissing as she held on to him.

"Thank you," she whispered softly, "For being here." And for a moment they stayed like that before she grew bold in the silence and rested her cheek upon his shoulder. Castle tensed but did not move. Not yet.

He gave her a few minutes, let her seek the comfort from him that she needed, and just long enough for his brain to kick in and knock some sense back into him. Then he stood, disentangling them.

It took great strides for him to carefully avoid reacting to the look of hurt on her face after he'd distanced himself from her.

"So, what do you say? You up for it?"

It was a stupid idea, really. Were he a smart man, he'd just let her go now. Send her on her way and back to her home, the hospital and her mother, or anywhere that was not here, not with him.

But he was a damn fool.

Kate glanced over at the pond briefly, and a look of determination came over her features.

She turned back to him. "Go get us some skates, Castle."

And so he did, all the while getting the feeling that this stupid idea of his was about to get them in a world of trouble.

To her dismay, he figured out pretty early on that she wasn't that great of a skater.

"Here, like this. Just push off with your feet, let them glide naturally until you get a rhythm down."

Castle was proving himself to be a very knowledgeable teacher, but Kate still stumbled more than she skated smoothly, making her grow frustrated and impatient very quickly after they'd begun. After twenty minutes and two falls, she was back standing along the edge of the pond, half mortified, half pissed off, and about ready to throw in the towel and call it a day. She wasn't as bad as she was letting on, at least initially, but it was true enough that finding a rhythm and balance was so much harder for her than it sounded. Now she vehemently refused to utilize more space, too stubborn to risk embarrassing herself again with a slip on the ice that she couldn't avoid by grasping onto a nearby railing, or person. At least she had her mother, father, or a friend nearby to hang onto whenever she'd gone skating before. But Castle had gone back to maintaining his distance from her.

It was something she found more troubling than any ice skating woes.

"Castle, I can't do this," she moaned at length, tripping up yet again and finding her balance wobbling each time she let go of the rail. "The skates are different and it's just too—"

"Yes, you can can," he cut off her complaint. "Just take it slowly. There's no rush. We have plenty of room around us. Even if you do fall, there's hardly anyone here to see it. Stop being a whiner, Beckett."

As the sky had grown increasingly darker, the amount of skaters surprisingly began to dwindle after all, until it was only them and a handful of other skaters milling about the pond in various directions. Kate's stubborn refusal to move much further than a few feet from the railing left them in a rather isolated spot, free from on-lookers and bypassers alike.

But even so, she was still intent on being a pain in the ass about it.

"I am taking it slow," she bit back, gripping the side rail viciously and scowling at him where he stood a few feet in front of her. It only served to make him grin. Good, he thought. Get fired up. Maybe then she'd stop half-assing her efforts and start seriously focusing on learning how to skate properly.

When she started to wobble again and felt like she was seconds from tipping over completely, Kate's frustration hit an all-time high for the early afternoon. She growled out his name, displeased.

"Castle..."

"Kate."

His tone was sharp this time, serious. It made her look up from her feet on the ice immediately. Only then had she noticed that the sky had opened up at last and icy, white snow flurries began their descent from above. It gave Castle a backdrop that made his sky blue eyes pop, and seemingly pierce straight through her with his gaze.

"Look at me and focus," he said sternly. It was a side of him she'd yet to see, and to be quite honest, hadn't expected of him.

Once he knew he had her full attention, Castle continued, "You know what to do, and you've gotten it a couple times already, so stop telling me you can't. You got into Stanford, for God's sake. We both know you can do anything you set your mind to. So stop making excuses, move your feet and skate over here to me."

It was sort of...attractive. How he took charge. Her cheeks heated just thinking about it, and in that moment, an idea hit her. She made a decision.

She stepped into character, played the role. Played him.

"It's starting to snow. I'm just going to fall on my ass again," she moaned, pitiful, defiant frown still in place for her final stand. Castle wasn't about to let it fly.

"I won't let you fall," he promised, voice much gentler this time. "I'll be right here to catch you. Now come on," he urged, just a few paces in front of her, arms outstretched encouragingly.

She dipped her head to hide the tiny smile on her face.

When she looked back up and met his eyes, they held there, and something sparked between them again. She gained a look of determination, of confidence, and once he nodded to her, she nodded right back.

Arms poised for balance, she was ready.

"You've got this," he encouraged, and then she took that first step and let her hand come away from the side of the rink.

Castle beamed as she strode straight toward him. Her tongue peeked out from the corner of her mouth as she concentrated on her movements, and she wobbled slightly at first, her posture still stiff and nervous, but just as he'd told her to do previously, she balanced out by using her arms and relaxing her body more, becoming more loose and fluid with her movements. Slowly, she made her way toward him, and soon enough she was sliding gracefully across the ice.

Kate's answering smile came coupled with a jubilant laugh. "Castle, look!" she shouted inanely, as if he weren't already all eyes on her.

"That's it, keep going! Try some longer strokes!" he cheered, skating backward, but still remaining close enough, her vigilant protector should something go awry.

Before she knew it, they'd made it clear across to the middle of the pond.

Castle called out to her, "All right. Now, you remember how to stop, right?"

"Stop?" she yelped, just as her stride had picked up some good speed. "Castle, you never said anything about stopping!"

"I didn't? I thought I did."

"No!"

"Crap," he muttered to himself. She was gaining on him fast with those long legs of hers, and they were quickly running out of pond to skate across before they'd be hitting the railing again. He knew that having her try to switch direction would be risky given her state of anxiety and current speed. It'd be safer for her to stay on her current path rather than chance spinning out.

"Castle!"

"Um, right. Stopping. Okay, T-Stop! Like this!" He demonstrated for her, skating quickly ahead and then dragging the blade of one skate behind the other in a "T" formation. When he turned back around to face her, the smile was wiped from his face, realizing that he'd foolishly parked himself in the path of what was essentially a human locomotive with a potentially faulty braking system.

Well, he did promise to catch her, didn't he?

Castle braced for impact.

As Kate continued her slide along the ice, she debated briefly just letting herself plow into him. That's what she usually did to stop, anyway. Brake against a wall, rail, person. In her visualization of doing a T-Stop as demonstrated, she imagined herself being more prone to tripping and somersaulting forward than actually stopping as efficiently as her partner had. Then again, the "snow plow" method she'd learned as a kid never did her clumsy ass any favors either, so maybe...

Carefully as she could manage, Kate lifted her dominant foot off the ground and swung it slowly behind her before pressing the blade to the ice and letting it drag behind her. She stumbled forward only slightly at the friction, but her movements finally began to slow.

By the time she reached Castle, his outstretched arms caught her with ease, and he absorbed the light impact with no difficulty at all.

"Easy, I've got you. I've got you," he assured her, as his hands gripped at her sides to hold her steady.

Heart pounding, breathing heavy from the exertion, Kate gripped onto his jacket and gave herself a moment to recover. They were so close that, because of their height differences, her forehead fit snug beneath his jaw, and when she breathed in, the strong scent of him filled her senses. It made her heart skip another beat more.

Finally. She caught him.

"You did great, Kate," he murmured, the warm vapor of his breath caressing down across her ear, and then down her neck. She shivered and chanced a look up at him, a timid smile on her face.

"Yeah?"

He grinned. "Well, up until the part where you fell on your ass, and then when you crashed into me like a freight train-—oof!"

Kate shoved him, hard, in retaliation for his words. The two surprisingly strong palms straight into his chest caught Castle off-guard, and Kate's forward momentum caused her to start wobbling and tripping herself up again. With a small shriek of surprise, she clung back onto him, her fingers gripping his forearms tightly as he grabbed for her, taking hold of her hands and wrists. He had to bend his knees slightly and support some of her weight in order to keep them both from toppling over.

"Whoa," he said, then had to stifle a laugh as she got her footing. "You good?" he asked, once she seemed stable again, and she nodded.

A lilt to his voice, Castle said, "Geez. See what happens when you get abusive?"

Kate glowered.

"Abusive," she huffed. "I'll show you abusive."

She yanked one hand out of his grasp and reached up for his ear, clutching onto the soft flesh of his ear lobe, but before she got the chance to tug, Castle was already sputtering.

"Easy, easy! I was only kidding," he placated. Off her disbelievingly glare, he quickly added, "Really, Beckett. Once you get going, you're as graceful as a swan."

Just as her lips started to upturn into the makings of a smirk, Castle opened his big mouth again and ruined it for her.

"You did have me going for a minute there," he admitted, grinning like the smug jackass that he was. Kate felt her cheeks flush, caught.

"I mean, I've had the whole 'I can't skate' thing pulled on me before, but it's a lot cuter when I realized you really can't hold your balance or stop worth a da-—OWWW!"

"Shut up," she growled, leaning in close, her nose and mouth just inches from his own as she threatened him. Castle seized up, eyes squinting from the pain as he cried out, and then she eased up on her grip, though she didn't let go. Not yet.

When he popped one eye open, still cringing a little, he actually started to grin back at her in amusement. As if it all were just a game they were playing here and that, though he was being punished for teasing her when he'd sworn not to, he still thought he was winning in the end. And maybe that was the nature of their game. Maybe they'd been playing with fire since the day they'd met, this back and forth, push and pull. Moving in close only to quickly dart away again.

It was in that moment, as he grinned at her from a breath away, his ear still hostage to the threat of her angry fingers, that she'd noticed how the snow flurries transformed, the light dusting of white taking on a new form and finally accumulating along the ground. And along with the weather came the transformation of another storm entirely. The one they'd found themselves swept up in and been so desperately trying to avoid for days.

As he smiled down at her, her body still firmly ensconced in the steady embrace of his arms, her features softened. Maybe it was the way the snow brought about a calming effect, or maybe it was the boyish smile he flashed her, eyes all crinkled, mouth curved up in that sideways grin like the cat who caught the canary. Maybe it was just that magnetism drawing them together, drawing her other hand up from his arm, her palm moving to his chest and sliding up, up, until the tips of her fingers touched skin at the base of his throat. She could feel it when his posture changed, his throat bobbing as he swallowed nervously when the death grip on his ear turned into a gentle massage.

"Kate," he warned, sensing it. His voice was barely above a whisper. But there was no escape for him now. Before he could react, before he could dart away or she could lose her nerve, change her mind…

She leaned in, closing the distance between them, and pressed her warm, seeking mouth to his.

I realize that we all know the Kate of today as being graceful and poised, capable of handling herself perfectly well while even running in high heels, but I'm basing some of her clumsiness on the ice on her comment in Knockdown. She says something to Castle about her being in action not being very pretty at this age in her life. I think it took many years of practice during adulthood to get to the point of chasing down bad guys in four-inch stilettos, and our baby Beckett just isn't quite there yet. She does have one thing on canon Beckett, however, and that's more initiative and going for what she wants with almost no reservations.