DISCLAIMER: If I owned them, I'd still write fan fic...

Kate Beckett was systematically ignoring the thumping on her door. Previous to this, she'd ignored twelve text messages, eight phone calls, three emails, and in the immediate past, a business card shoved under her door. Now Castle had resorted to alternately thumping her apartment door and threatening to sick Ryan and Esposito on her.

All I need now is a freaking partridge in a pear tree.

"Kate! Open the door. What is it with you and disobeying simple instructions? You take a few steps towards the door, place your hand on the knob..."

She curled further underneath the blankets on her couch, willing herself to shut him out.

You got a boy killed today. You really think Castle can make you smile and laugh, and forget you were the one thing, the only thing, between that kid and death, and you blew it.

She heard him curse, softly. Then he raised his voice, and had her bolting off the couch to fling open the door.

"Kate! Alexis is on the phone. She's worried you've drowned yourself in vodka shots. Open the damn door Kate- you're really freaking her out- not cool!"

She opened the door to see Castle glaring at her, the phone held to his ear. Frustration and fury warred in his eyes as he spoke in to the phone.

"She's okay, honey."

Kate almost caved at the relief in his tone, then frowned. I didn't ask him to be here. She stared pointedly at Castle, shutting the door half way. He stepped forward and grabbed the handle.

She looked at his hand, then at him. "It's not okay for you to use Alexis on me, Castle. And not fair to use Alexis like that."

Castle huffed and tightened his grip on the door when she pushed it, testing.

"Alexis, can I use you like that?" He listened. "She says yeah. Objection overruled, Detective."

He shoved the door, forcing her to step back. He marched past her and she hastily wiped her face as he finished his call with his daughter, watched as he placed his phone in his pocket, and surveyed the damage she'd done to her apartment, his gaze finally coming to rest on her.

She stared back. Here you go. This is me. Crazy Kate, fallen to pieces. Over a drug addict no less.

He just shook his head slightly and she refused to flinch from the sorrow she saw in his eyes.

"Alexis sends you her love and also, this tub of Ben & Jerry's- cookies and cream." He held it out.

She looked away. "You shouldn't have told her."

"She asked how you were. I told her the truth."

"You should have lied!" She snapped.

He just looked at her, and she glared back until she realised what was wrong with what she'd said. "I didn't mean- I just meant- she didn't have to know I'm a wreck!"

He nodded. "No, she didn't, and I didn't tell her you were a wreck. I just said you needed a friend. She'd like to be your friend, Detective. So would I."

She shook her head. "I don't need friends right now Castle, I need to sit on my couch under my blankets and-" she hesitated.

"Cry?" He suggested.

She shrugged, willing her voice not to break. "Mourn."

He nodded, understanding. "Well, that's too bad..."

"Thank you," she murmured, relieved he was just going, so she could crawl back under her covers and hate herself till morning.

"...because I'm not going anywhere."

What? She blinked. "Castle-"

"-Uh!" He cut her off. "If you tell me you're fine I will shoot you."

"With your tommy gun?" She mocked him, then deflated slightly as he just watched her with that expression that said she'd have better luck getting Ryan to dress in drag than getting Castle to leave just yet. "What do you want, Castle?"

He shrugged, slightly, smiled at her. "I just want to keep you company for a while, Detective."

She just looked at him, and he gestured to her couch. "How about we sit?"

He went and sat down, then looked back at her over the couch. "You know, the sooner you do as I suggest the greater the chances are that I'll decide to leave you alone."

Since she couldn't entirely fault his logic there, she went and slumped beside him on the couch.

He placed her ice cream tub on the floor, took her blanket from her and arranged it over both of them, neatly.

They sat in silence for a moment, while she tried furiously not to start weeping again and she could see him flipping though his mental files searching for something to say.

"He'll still be dead tomorrow."

She looked up, shocked and instantly furious. "Castle-"

"Let me finish," he snapped, and she reined herself in, still ready to verbally beat the crap out of him. "I meant, that this is a tragedy. You were trying to protect a young boy caught up in a drug gang. You were trying to get him help after his brother was murdered. You were trying to stop him being caught up in a life of crime. But you can't change the past, Kate. You know that."

She shook her head, hating that tears were threatening again. "I followed him, Castle. If I hadn't tracked him after he ran out of the station, the gang wouldn't have seen me with him and shot him for selling them out. This is my fault."

He shot her a look of disbelief. "For caring."

She shook her head, once. "For not thinking ahead. Of course they would have seen me- of course they'd make me for what I am. How could I have been so stupid? I should have just let him come back to me, should have done some digging to find out where to confront him someplace safe-"

She broke off as her voice hitched and Castle slid over on the couch to envelop her in a hug.

"I was rash, and impetuous, and for that someone died today. Someone who deserved a life." She spoke into his shoulder, struggling to steady her voice even as tears slid down her face onto his jacket.

He spoke, quietly, against her hair. "You did an incredibly brave thing today. You followed somebody you had no reason to trust into a place you had no business being, to try and convince someone who was returning to his gang neighbourhood that you would fight for him."

She closed her eyes tight, fighting to keep it together as his words wove through her, and she felt his arms tighten, holding her fast before she'd even decided to pull away.

"You, Detective Beckett, are neither stupid nor rash. But you fight for the good in people, and sometimes that puts you in situations outside of your control. You didn't put that boy in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was just in the wrong place, at the wrong time. And it's sad, and it's awful. But you have to live with it, and get it into your head you did everything you could."

She managed a derisive laugh into his shoulder. "Yeah, and look where he is now. Five star accommodation in the morgue."

He drew back, and she couldn't stand the pity she saw at the back of his gaze. "Don't look at me like you know me." She snapped, her gaze flickering between his face and the space between them, wiping furiously at the wetness on her face.

He just raised his hands, skimmed his thumbs under her eyes, then raised his brows at her, a rueful expression on his face. "How else would I look at you?"

She broke. She sobbed once, putting both hands over her mouth to cover the sound, drawing her legs up under her, trying to make her body smaller so it would be easier to control, trying to curl around the pain in her chest.

Castle moved, came to kneel beside her. "Kate." He waited, patiently, until she looked at him. He dipped his head a little, searching her eyes. "It's me, okay?" He kissed her, softly, slowly, and she felt sorrow crash and collide with something bigger, something stronger within her as she clutched at his arms, too stunned to do anything but feel.

She ended up on the floor, weeping uncontrollably in Castle's arms.

Sometime later, when she'd started to breathe without pain lancing through her, she let him persuade her that melted Ben and Jerry's tasted just as good as were sitting side by side on her couch taking turns to sip from the tub, and she remembered the card he'd flicked under the door, telling her to call the number.

"Whose card did you shove under my door?"

"Oh. The plate smasher."

She frowned. "The plate smasher?"

He looked at her, surprised. "You don't know Gus the plate smasher? You go to his establishment, pay for fifteen minute timeslots, and you go down to his basement and smash all the plates you want. It's alternative therapy. The guy's a legend amongst spurned wives and men who already broke their Guitar Hero."

She stared at him."For real?"

He nodded. "Yeah."

"Oh." She was silent for a few seconds. "Do you know everybody?"

He smiled. "Just the important people."

She smiled, then stifled a yawn.

I should let you get some rest." He stood up, and she followed him to the door, let him pull her into a hug.

"Castle." She spoke into his jacket, noting the tears she'd left on it had dried.

"Yeah?"

I did need a friend. Thank you. And thank Alexis too-wait." She pulled back a little.

"You said you just told her I needed a friend."

He smirked at her. "Correct."

"Than who was on the phone?"

"Oh, that was Joe, my pizza delivery boy."

She stared at him, waiting, and his smile widened. "I was talking to no one. I made it up. It's what I do, are you going to sue me for following my dream?"

"I'm probably going to sue you for false coercion." She grumbled, not entirely sure whether to be pleased Castle's daughter just thought she was sad as opposed to having a meltdown the size of Greenland, or pissed she'd been such an easy mark.

"Oh, my coercions are never false." He assured her.

"Huh."

He frowned at her. "What do you mean, huh?"

She raised a brow at him. "You kissed me to coerce me into having a nervous breakdown."

His mouth fell open. "I did no such thing."

She pulled away, shrugged, trying to look as if she didn't have a care in the world and not a churning hole in her gut. "You did what you had to do Castle; it's okay. Forget I said anything."

He cocked his head at her and she had the sudden uncomfortable thought that he knew exactly what she was thinking. "Let's get one thing straight, Miss Beckett. That? That kiss was comfort."

"Oh." She turned to open her door, strangely disappointed and weirdly relieved all at once.

As she pulled it open a hand reached past hers and shut it again.

She frowned, turning. "Castle-"

And then his mouth was on hers, and whatever she had been going to say suddenly wasn't of the greatest importance.

He eased her back against the door, his mouth working on hers, until her hands were under his jacket and his were lightly caressing the skin on her lower back, making her arch against him.

He took her under until she heard him make a noise deep in this throat, and he broke the kiss, taking advantage of her gasps for breath to start placing teasing kisses on her neck, making her toes curl for the second time in as many weeks.

The only coherent thought she had was that if he kept doing that thing that he was doing below her ear she was going to start whimpering and then she'd never hear the end of it.

He drew back, after a final, bruising kiss. "That? That was passion."

He brushed a thumb over her bottom lip, grinning as she closed her eyes briefly, then glared at him, clearing her throat when her voice came out somewhat huskier than she'd intended.

"Don't look so smug."

He gaped at her, mock-offended. "Me? Smug? Never." He stepped closer, keeping his eyes on hers, and against her will she felt a blush spreading across her cheeks. He leant down, she closed her eyes.

He placed a kiss just under her ear, then gently bit her earlobe, making her squeak, then flush even more in embarrassment.

She opened her eyes, meaning to glare at him when he chuckled, then promptly closed them when he did it again.

"I'll be smug, Detective Beckett," he murmured in her ear, "when I put that glassy-eyed, satiated look on your face a few more times."

That's it. She pushed him away, trying desperately to fix a stern expression on her face. "Really, Castle? 'Cause I don't like your chances tonight."

"That's okay; I don't want to kiss you anymore tonight." He returned smoothly, smirking when her jaw dropped. "Goodnight, Detective Beckett."

She flicked a wave at him. "Don't let the door hit you on the way out, Castle."

He bowed to her, briefly. "Glad to see you're back."

She considered him. "Yeah." And before she could think it through, she stepped forward, into his arms. Refused to get emotional when his arms came around her, hard.

She waited, one beat. Two.

When it hit ten seconds and she started to get uncomfortable, she disentangled herself.

"Thanks, Castle."

He was looking at her with that expression on his face she wasn't ready for him to wear, but she held his gaze, anyway.

"You're welcome, Kate. Good night."

She shut the door behind him, firmly denying the impulse both to watch him walk down the hall and to break out into a full blown grin.

She leant back about the door, blowing out a sigh. Nodded, fatalistically,

It's official. Frying pan, fire.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I do not think you can smash plates at random establishments as therapy...but I wish you could.

This was a Whopper. Not as in the burger, but you know what I mean. I hope I got this right- I wanted it to be something I'd like to see, but still stay true the characters- will you let me know how I did? THANKS as always, whether you're reading or reading and reviewing- feedback is gratefully received and greatly appreciated.