A/N: An interim chapter to keep things moving. Hope you enjoy. As Cindy said… "And into the woods they go…"

**SPOILERS FOR SEASON 2 OF ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK**

Chapter 25: Flashbacks and Forgiveness

Previously…

"I might have a better idea."

"I'm all ears."

"My dad's cabin. You missed out on my recuperation, right? So maybe…maybe we could go up there," she suggests, biting her lip nervously, unsure how he might react, whether it's still too soon. "Lay a few ghosts to rest?"

Castle's answer comes immediately and without reservation. "I would really like that."

"You would?" whooshes out with great relief.

He nods sincerely. "I really would. Back-to-nature-Beckett in tiny shorts and a strappy cami? Where do I sign up?"

Kate can't help but laugh. "Great. Let me call my dad after I clear time with the Captain. You can help me pack while we wait."

This is exactly what they need: more time alone together and a pilgrimage to the site of that lost summer, so that there are no more gaps to fill, no demons for Castle to brood over. They need to flood the past with light - every tiny crack and crevice - to remove the hold that darkness and the unknown has held over them both for far too long.

He catches around the waist, fingers splayed wide on either side beneath her short, red leather jacket, searching out warm, bare skin even as he hauls her back against his body. His hips frame hers, dwarfing her, and she lets out a yelp of surprise.

"Can I tell you how much I love you now?" Castle growls in her ear, laughing with her when she starts to shake in amusement at his crazy, and totally inappropriate, behavior.

"I don't know why I agreed to this," grumbles Kate, gasping as Castle manages to make contact with her neck, grazing the sensitive skin with his stubbled chin.

"Because you couldn't bear to be apart from me," he supplies, sliding his hands further around her stomach, beneath the hem of her white t-shirt, until they meet in the middle.

And how the hell did he get under her clothing so fast?

"Really?" she gasps again, negating any of the force or sarcasm behind the word, when she moans at the spine-tingling sensation of his mouth latching onto her pulse and sucking obscenely.

"Oh, yes. Just admit it, Detective. Or I'll have to interrogate you."

She brings her elbows back to break out of the hold he has on her, squirming free of his embrace just as the elevator doors open. They stumble out one after the other, smoothing down clothing and attempting to lose the goofy grins that keep splitting their faces wide enough to make their cheeks ache.

"Shhh. Stop!" she hisses, bumping him with her shoulder when he comes alongside, rolling her eyes while battling back another smile. "I only agreed you could come in with me because Gates needs me to sign off a report before the DA picks it up and this way we can get out of the city quicker. That's the deal for my freedom. The deal for you being here with me is that you behave. Understand? Act normal…if that's even possible for you."

"Kate—"

"Beckett," corrects Kate, shooting him a reproving glance.

She's nervous and so it's putting her on edge. He, on the other hand, is loving it.

"Just…don't make this any more complicated than it needs to be. Okay? We get in and out. Talk to as few people as possible," she counsels.

"You mean the boys."

"After that little incident at the coffee shop, they've got to be paying out on the pool by now," she groans, shoving a hand through her hair at the memory of her own rash behavior.

"So...we say we met down in the hall. A total fluke," offers Castle, deciding to pitch in and ease her pain, if it'll keep her in a good mood for the drive up to her dad's cabin.

"Never gonna fly. Not around here. You don't even have coffee," she points out, gesturing to his empty hands.

"Then I'm all out of suggestions."

"You only came up with one."

"I know. How weird is that."

"Come on, Castle," hisses Kate. "You're my ideas guy."

He shoots her a look of surprise. "You hate my ideas."

"I don't hate them. Not…all of them," she corrects, biting her lip. "And I could really do with a good one right about now."

Castle thinks for a second. "How about if I just go back downstairs and wait for you there?"

"Rick, no—" exclaims Kate, reaching for his wrist when he pivots on his heel to head back towards the elevator.

"See…can't bear to be apart from me," he brags, giving her a smug grin.

"Just...shut up…and behave," she snaps, rolling her eyes at him in mock exasperation.

Castle ignores Kate's rules as usual, so some things do remain the same. As for the rest, they're making it up as they go.

"A whole forty-eight hours of freedom," he sing-songs gleefully, as they resume walking towards the bullpen. "Oh! Hey, it'll be like Orange is the New Black*. You're on furlough, Detective," he grins, giving her a playful nudge that throws her off her stride.

Kate stops walking to give him a long, hard look. "Larry slept with Piper's best friend Polly. When she was on furlough, he was so guilt-ridden that he couldn't even get it up. This is not Orange is the New Black, Castle. It's nothing remotely like that show," she insists, sounding just a little too freaked for his liking.

He assumes it's being in the precinct with this secret hanging over their heads, in a roomful of gossipy detectives, en route to see a Captain with a nose like a bloodhound.

"I'm Rick," he whispers, closer to her than she'd like for where they are right now. "Not Larry. Noooooo, nothing like Larry."

Kate is just about to respond that he'd better be nothing like Larry, when a voice from behind asks, "Hey, who's Larry?"

They spin in unison.

"Freaking awesome," exclaims Ryan, gesturing to Esposito, who has suddenly materialized from out of thin air to join them. "Dude, did you see how they did that? We have to practice more. They're still way better than us."

"You guys should take dance lessons. You'd totally kill it with that ballroom stuff," suggests Esposito, giving them both a long once-over, as if trying to intuit some small change he can't quite put his finger on.

"Thank you for that useless hobby advice, Carrie Ann," replies Kate, witheringly.

"So who's this Larry guy you're arguing over?" asks Esposito, returning to the unwanted topic like a dog with a bone.

"Not Beckett's new boyfriend by any chance?" grins Ryan, eyes as bright as a cheerleader with a new set of pom poms.

Castle's brilliant sense of timing and his genetically endowed flair for the theatrical have rarely been more useful than they are at this precise moment. He widens his eyes to comic proportions, claps his hands to his face in mock horror and exclaims, "Beckett's got a boyfriend?" Then he spins to look at Kate and asks, "Who's the lucky guy, Detective?"

Kate briefly locks eyes with Castle before she tears them away to respond. "No one any of you would know," she assures the assembled group, giving Castle a derisory shake of the head before she stalks off towards Gates' office.

"Hmm," muses Castle, watching his girlfriend – is Kate Beckett his girlfriend now – walk away with a slightly exaggerated swing of her hips.

Devil woman.

"Interesting," he purrs, Blofeld-style, stroking his chin in lieu of a longhaired white cat.

"What's with her?" asks Esposito, jerking his head after Kate, while all three men watch her walk away. "And why are you even here, man? You do know she's going in there to sign some paperwork and then she's taking off on vacation for a couple days?"

"I do now. We bumped into one another in the lobby."

"So…you didn't know Beckett was going on vacation with some mystery guy?" clarifies Ryan.

"Did you?" asks Castle, turning the tables on the boys, since he wants to have to lie to them as little as possible.

"I thought you were a millionaire playboy, bro," interjects Esposito, regarding Castle with disappointment.

"You got that half right," admits Castle, with some reluctance.

"And we both know which half," grins Ryan, fist-bumping his partner.

"All that money and all those women, and yet you're here on the off-chance of a murder?"

"Eh…when you put it like that doesn't sound so—"

"Lame is what it sounds, my man," says Espo, slapping Castle on the back. "Even Beckett's seeing some action, so shouldn't you be out there chasing—"

"Even Beckett's what?" comes the clipped, knowing tones of Detective Kate Beckett, riding to Castle's rescue.

"Uh…nothin'," replies Esposito, eyes immediately sliding to Ryan for backup if required.

"That's what I thought," says Kate, shutting down the conversation.

When Kate turns to look for Castle, she finds him standing by her desk holding one of her little parade of elephants. He's turning it over in his hands, deep in fascination. She can't remember him ever having expressed any interest in her desk ornaments before. Well, not beyond the first week when she told him she'd break all of his fingers if he so much as looked sideways at any of the items on her desk, personal or otherwise.

"Hey," she murmurs, coming alongside to give him a discreet nudge with her shoulder. "You okay?"

He quickly puts the elephant down, looking a little guilty. "Uh…yeah, yeah, I'm…fine," he replies, clearly not fine at all, if the downturn of his mouth and the sadness in those blue eyes are anything to go by.

"No lies, we said," whispers Kate, keeping one eye on the boys, who're now back at their desks, trying to look busy.

"Just…" he shrugs, tugging his mouth into a smile, however wistful.

Kate waits him out, her brows arched in question. "Just?" she repeats, leaving the sentence hanging for him to fill in the rest of the detail. "Come on. Try me," she encourages, tapping the toe of his shoe with her own when he remains silent.

"Memories. Flashback, I guess," he explains, while still not really explaining.

"Flashback to what?"

"So many times in the past, when you walked out that door on someone else's arm."

"Oh."

"Yeah," nods Castle, allowing himself a rueful smile.

"That, and this is the first time we've been back here since…well, since—"

"You found out that I lied to you."

"Yep."

"Okay, well, a couple of points. Firstly, you aren't the only one with memories like that. I had to stand by and watch you walk away with your ex-wife on your arm and then stay away for an entire summer, remember. And I've had to sit at my desk on numerous occasions while you headed out of here on a date with yet another attractive stranger. And that's before we get to Page 6. So, I know how that feels, believe me."

Castle just stares, struck dumb by her candor.

"And second of all," Kate continues, without pausing for breath, "things might have been bad when you came back in here to force me to talk the other night. But this time…this time we are leaving here together, Castle. Okay?"

"You sure about that?" he asks, letting his gaze slide over to where the guys are pretending not to pay them any attention.

Kate takes Castle's arm and turns him round so that the writer is now standing with his back to the two other detectives, shielding her from view. "You want me to make an announcement to this entire precinct about…about our change in…in status, I will do it in a heartbeat, if it will make you happy. But that would most likely mean the end of our partnership."

"I know," he replies, looking down at his shoes.

"Castle, I am not in anyway ashamed of us. I need you to know that. We've been through a lot to get to this point. The thought of being with you…it excites the hell out of me, if you really wanna know the truth," she admits, with an untamable smile, not above blushing, even in her own precinct house.

"It does?" he asks, in a hopeful voice, dragging his gaze up off the floor to look at her.

"What part of I'm in love with you don't you get?" asks Kate, reaching out to squeeze his forearm.

"Mr. Castle. Detective Beckett. Still here?" comes Gates' booming voice from across the room.

Kate whirls round to face their Captain, dropping her hand from Castle's arm and taking an automatic step back. "We…uh…we were just leaving, sir. That is…yeah, we're leaving now," replies Kate, deciding not to attempt to clarify any further whether they're leaving together or apart.

"The clock is ticking on that leave, Detective," Gates adds, tapping the face of her watch.

"Yes, sir," acknowledges Kate, reaching for her bag.

Castle nods to the Captain and then gives the boys a little parting wave, still on his best behavior.

"See you in a couple of days," says Kate, before turning to guide Castle out of the bullpen ahead of her.

Her hand, resting on the back of his jacket the entire way to the elevator, is missed by no one, least of all Castle, whose throat is so tight he's unable to speak when they get inside the car to ride down to the lobby and she asks him to start again where they left off.

"How about you tell me how much you love me now?" she suggests, slipping her hand into his and dropping her head to rest against his shoulder as soon as the metal doors close.

TBC...

*Note: My apologies if you don't watch 'Orange is The New Black' and therefore had no idea what I was talking about. Basically, Piper is in a woman's prison. She's engaged to Larry, who sleeps with her best friend, Polly, while she's inside. Piper is granted a 48 hour furlough to attend her grandmother's funeral & at the wake she and Larry attempt to have sex in the bathroom at her parents' house. However, his guilt over his affair with Polly prevents him from sealing the deal. Getting furlough from prison is so rare that it jogs Castle's mind to that whole fictional scenario in this chapter because Gates has just granted Kate 48 hours leave at such short notice.

I'm thinking maybe that all sounds too meta now I write is down (fiction referencing fiction) but hey ho! Hope I haven't confused you too much. At the very least you can keep laughing at my author's notes. ;)

Have a great weekend. Liv