A/N: I had all weekend to write, and when did the urge strike me? Not until bedtime on Sunday night. Of course. That is the way of things.

Thanks for the feedback. As always, reviews are very much appreciated.


Chapter 12: Dirty Little Secrets

Pushing off their return to the Hamptons by another day, they spend the evening alone, Alexis taking the tame to stay the night with a friend while Castle's mother left for a date with a comment of "Don't wait up!" thrown in her wake. In light of Kate's need to check on things at her apartment anyway, they decided to stay the night at her place – a sort of vacation from their vacation.

Her space was the same as he remembered, although something about seeing it through eyes which had now seen Kate in the throws of passion seemed to color his perception. Whereas before her furniture and belongings held little interest beyond the typical, they were now details to be taken in, tiny hints into her psyche. She fascinated him, always had, and now he wanted to know more.

How did she pick the pieces of art she chose to hang? Did she ever actually use that wood burning stove? Why did her table only have one chair? Come to think of it, why did she have glass doors on the inside of her apartment? Was it to set apart the vestibule or did it have something to do with when the building was converted? And obviously the building was converted to apartments – the space was too strange and open to have begun as apartments. And now that he was thinking about it…

"So how do you afford this place on a cop's salary?" he blurted out.

And he instantly regretted ever having learned to speak.

"I'm sorry," Castle said even before Kate could turn around and give him an angry glare. "I can't believe I just said that. What I meant was…"

But when she turned around, she did not look angry. She actually seemed amused by the sight of him with his foot lodged so firmly in his mouth that he was having trouble breathing, let alone speaking well enough to correct himself.

"What did you mean, Castle?" she asked, her eyes twinkling in that uniquely Beckett way.

And he knew that look. That was the look women used when they were giving a man just enough rope to hang himself.

"I meant… I really love your apartment," he said.

"I like it too."

She was agreeing, and yet, she was also leaving the conversation open so he could re-phrase the question if he wanted to ask it in another way. But having already blundered into that forum so tactlessly, Castle decided to take a safer route.

"The space is very… spacey."

Ah, excellent. All that brilliant writer creativity at work there.

Taking pity on him, Kate began speaking as she pulled down two wine glasses and removed a bottle of wine from her fridge. "When my mom died, she left me some money. Not anything crazy, but enough to supplement my income to live comfortably. That's how I can pay for this apartment on a 'cop's salary,'" she told him succinctly.

Castle nodded, having suspected as much. Kate's mother was a lawyer and while he knew that not all lawyers had huge salaries, it made sense that she would have had a comfortable lifestyle. And besides the apartment, he had seen Kate's wardrobe and shoes over the past several years, and they certainly were not from the closet of a woman relying solely on a paycheck from the city.

"What else do you want to know?" she asked as she popped the cork on the wine and poured them each a glass. The way she spoke did not betray anger or irritation but rather genuine inquiry, an offer to answer more questions about herself. After their morning in the cemetery, Castle could not help but want to know everything he could about her – not just the pieces of her past with her mother, but the parts of Kate Beckett he had only seen in tantalizing glimpses.

"Will you tell me your number?" he asked.

She eyed him cautiously over her glass of wine, assessing and considering.

Finally, she responded, "I'll tell you if you can convince me why you should know."

"I want to know everything about you," he said. Kate laughed at his answer, a genuine heart-felt laugh. "What?"

"Castle, no one wants to know everything about the person they're dating. There are always things you keep to yourself, dirty little secrets and nasty surprises."

His eyes went wide and he leaned forward in sudden, intense interest. "Oh, now I have to know all the dirty little secrets," he declared.

Pursing her lips in a smile he knew she was fighting, Kate turned on one heel and went to sit on her couch. He followed her, taking the space beside her – close enough to touch but far enough away to still be able to see her face clearly.

"What about you?" she countered. "I'm sure you have all kinds of things about your past you'd prefer not to share."

She was right, of course. He certainly had not lived his life like a saint, either before he met her or after. But he loved hearing her stories, especially the interesting ones that he felt certain she had not shared with other boyfriends.

"I have an idea," Castle put forth. "Why don't we play truth or dare."

"Because we're not twelve year old girls," she said.

"Are you scared?"

"No, I'm not scared."

"Then play. If you don't want to answer a question, you have to take the dare. And vice versa."

Kate chewed on her bottom lip for a moment, one of those endearing habits of which he felt certain he would never tire. A moment later, she agreed, "Okay. But I get to ask first."

"By all means."

She thought for a moment before throwing out, "Why were you arrested for stealing a police horse and riding it naked through central park?"

"Why was I arrested? Because I was caught."

"That's not what I meant."

He pointed out, "No, but it is what you asked. My turn."

"Castle, that's not fair."

"I didn't say this game was called truth or fair. I said truth or dare."

She narrowed her eyes at him but did not argue further. Instead she took a sip of wine and he wondered how she would plot her revenge.

"What's your question?"

He thought about asking for her number again but dismissed it. She would just take the dare and he doubted he could come up with anything really alluring this early in the game.

"How old were you your first time?" he asked instead.

Kate rolled her eyes. "You and the sex questions. Fine, I was fifteen."

Fifteen? Really? That was… kind of young. Of course, she had said she'd been rebellious as a teenager, and there was that boy who had dumped her… But still, that was older than Alexis. And the thought of Alexis having sex left him stunned. But Kate wasn't Alexis. She was Kate. Of course, back then she'd been little teenage Kate, and... The father in him was still having trouble with that.

"Who… how… where…?"

"No, you only asked how old I was. If you want to know more, you can use another question on your turn," she informed him. "Now I want to know…"

He waited for her question, curious as to what she would come up with. He was fully prepared to answer most of the things he had already asked her – all about his first time and his 'number.' He would have no trouble telling her why he had failed at both is prior marriages. Most of what he wanted to know about her, he was ready to give in return. But she did not ask about any of that.

"When did you first realize you were in love with me?"

Both the seriousness in her voice and the enchanting look in her eyes left him breathless. And what an amazing question. Should he lie, tell her something that would seem less daunting? Or should he conform to the spirit of the game and tell her the actual truth?

"Um… out of curiosity, what's the dare?"

She rolled her eyes and answered, "Steal a police horse and ride it naked through Central Park. Come on, Castle. That was a softball question."

"For you, maybe." He thought for a moment before giving his response. "Well, I was always attracted to you, from the moment you first arrested me. And I suspected I had real feelings for you when you Coonan took me hostage and you had to shoot him to save my life. But I didn't realize I was in love with you – I mean, Disney movie, happily-ever-after, in love with you – until that moment when your apartment blew up. Your former apartment, of course."

She stared at him, and Castle thought he detected a hint of moisture in her eyes. "What?" he asked.

"Nothing. I just… I'm really glad we finally figured things out," Kate told him, reaching out to gently squeeze his hand.

"So… my turn?" he asked, hoping to distract her from whatever sad thoughts she might be entertaining about the time before they had gotten together.

"Yes. What's your question?"

He considered it for a moment, but every sexual question and personal detail he wanted to pry out of her mind seemed trite and too invasive. After all, this was an opportunity to get to know Kate without her having to feel awkward or shy about any of her answers. What did he really want to know about her?

"When we were in that freezer…" He shivered at the mere mention of it, and he saw Kate's eyes flick towards a blanket draped over the back of the couch. But she resisted the urge to grab it and instead turned her full attention to him. "Just before you lost consciousness, you started to say something. What were you going to say?"

She was quiet for a while, a little too quiet. Her silence frightened him in a way few things had. Perhaps he never should have begun this game to begin with. Perhaps it was too much, too soon. They had been together for less than two months, and these types of serious conversations could wait until later in their relationship.

Forcing his tone to sound casual, he said, "And if you'd rather take the dare… I dare you to get me another glass of wine."

To punctuate his point, he forced himself to finish the last swallow at the bottom of his glass before handing it over to her. Without saying a word, she took it from him and crossed into the kitchen to refill it before returning to the couch.

But as she handed him his newly filled glass, she spoke. "I was going to say that I love you," Kate confessed. Seeing his startled expression, she amended, "Not like that. I meant, I loved you, like… not necessarily platonic, but more than just friends, you know? You were always there for me, Castle. My best friend, really. And I wanted you to know that. I just… I couldn't get the words out before the cold caught up with me."

So she had loved him, even before she had actually loved him. This information just caused him to want to know more, to ask more questions. But it was her turn.

"Have you ever thought about having more kids?"

She kept her voice light, but he could see her nervousness in her eyes. It was a relationship question, the kind that he knew could sometimes be a deal breaker. But he knew he had to answer, if not at that moment, then at some point.

"Every time I look at Alexis," Castle responded. "But she's so perfect, you know? I think it would have to be with the right person." She nodded her understanding and he took his turn.

They tossed questions back and forth, and rarely was the 'dare' clause invoked. They went from serious to silly and back again, each growing more comfortable with the game as they asked questions long held back as well as inquiries based on new information. Castle did make a few blunders, including one that she actually answered.

"What is your greatest fear?" he asked, not realizing that for a woman who had faced death numerous times and had even been shot, that the usual answers would not suffice. He half expected her to come back with 'clowns' or perhaps 'public speaking,' but what she said hit him square in the chest.

"That I'll lose you."

Kate's answer proved both concise and vague. She feared losing him? As in, she worried he would leave her? Or she worried he would die?

"You won't," he tried to reassure her.

But she just shook her head. "You can't make that kind of promise, Castle."

Spoken like a woman who had lost her mother to a hired assassin, who had lost her captain in a deserted hanger bay, who had been shot in the chest at a cemetery. Together, they had braved more dangerous situations and almost deaths than any character he had ever written. And she feared losing him.

"My turn," she said, effectively ending that line of thought.

"What's your question?"

"This is a hypothetical."

"Okay."

She went on, "Hypothetically speaking, if I had said something to you before that summer you went to the Hamptons with Gina… if I had asked you out on a date or taken you up on your offer to go up for the weekend…"

"Would I have said yes?" he asked when her voice trailed off.

"Or would you have gone with Gina instead?" she completed.

Talk about softball questions. "I would have said yes," he answered. "No question." A moment later, his eyes narrowed. "Why do you ask?"

"Is that your question?"

"Sure. That's my question."

She bit her lip before inquiring, "What's the dare?"

Oh now he really wanted to know.

"And don't say steal a horse and ride it through Central Park naked," she cut him off before he could speak.

"Okay, then prank call Gates at home and ask her if her refrigerator is running."

It was a cheap ploy, choosing a dare he knew she would not take. But he wanted to know the reason behind her question. She glared at him a few seconds before deciding against prank calling her former boss.

"I was going to say yes," Kate said quietly. "When you asked me to go with you for the weekend, at the end of the case when we were out in the bullpen… I wanted to talk to you because I was going to say yes. But then…"

"Then Gina showed up."

"Yeah."

"But you were with Demming."

Kate shrugged. "I broke up with him."

"Why?"

Her cheeks flushed in embarrassment as she just shook her head, and he wondered how could have misread that moment so thoroughly. Sure, he had been upset about her officially dating Demming, had agreed to spend the summer with Gina in the Hamptons to take his mind off of Kate, but how had he missed her almost ask him out? What a fool he had been.

"So, what you're saying is… we could have been together-" and having mad passionate sex, "-this whole time?"

Shrugging again, Kate answered, "Well, you never know. It may not have worked back then. It may have been too soon."

She had a point. They could have gotten together only to break up again later, like after she was shot. Or during one of their fights over her mother's case.

Or they could have progressed in their relationship, had all these conversations two years earlier. Two years. After two years together, he could have bought a ring and proposed. If they had talked then, if she had spoken up or if he hadn't been an idiot and invited Gina to the Hamptons… Two years, and they might have been married by now.

Mrs. Kate Castle. Katherine Castle. Katherine Beckett-Castle.

Detective Kate Castle.

Okay, so maybe he was a 12-year-old girl.

"We're together now," he agreed finally. "That's what's important."

By mutual agreement, the game had ended, although they did not move from the couch. Instead, Castle found himself slowly reclining further and further as Kate snuggled up with him, her body partially draped over his as fatigue and the wine pulled them into the comfort of sleep.

"I love you, Kate," he told her softly, one hand gently stroking her hair.

"Mmm, me too, Castle," she said sleepily.

A few minutes passed, and he felt her breathing level off into the steady, even breaths of one in slumber.

Castle whispered into the darkness, "I still want to know everything about you, Kate Beckett. Dirty little secrets and all."