My gosh, i am so sorry this took forever! I went camping and i had imagined myself lazing around writing for hours all relaxed once the kids were in bed each night. Instead, the reality of it was me crashing, exhausted, after too-full days of swimming and body-boarding.

We should be back to a chapter every couple of days or so now until i manage to finish this baby (knock on wood).

Erosion
Chapter 37 – Let's Talk it Out.

It was early when Rick woke; no hint of dawn yet visible through the bedroom windows and the loft still quiet. The air was chilly, and he pulled the blanket up to his chin before noticing the lack of warmth at his back.

His stomach dropped and he rolled over, fully expecting to see the expanse of mattress beside him empty. Instead, Kate lay facing him; eyes open. The light from the city reflected off pale skin and cast highlights through the dark ribbons of her hair.

"You stayed," he said, his voice light with surprise and wonder.

Her forehead crinkled, and her eyes flicked down briefly before she met his stare. "I've never really given you much of a reason to expect that I would, have I, Castle?"

"It's not that," he disagreed, even though they both knew the truth of her statement. "I'm just glad you're here."

He laid his arm over the blanket and adjusted it around himself, propped up his pillow, hoped that he'd have a reason for making himself comfortable.

She was an arm's length away; the shadowed outline of the blanket showed her knees bent, curled around herself, but her eyes held no anger. Even with him studying her, trying to glean her thoughts from little more than the line of her jaw and the angle of her brow, she looked back; open and accepting.

It made her continued silence easier to bear. Gave him reason to hope.

Rick rested his arm in the valley between their bodies – an invitation.

"Having you here makes it easier. I'm tired of having to get through the hurt alone," he admitted, his voice low, the words coming slowly and somehow suited to the shadows. "Actually, I'm just tired of hurting. Last time... I don't know how we made it back. I spent that summer just barely managing to drag myself out of bed each day, and you..."

"And me... I don't know, Castle," she sighed. "The days just seemed to blend together – weeks of darkness – like you, I just barely managed to drag myself out of bed each day; until surviving felt like a victory. Some days I could have sworn I still felt the bullet inside my chest."

Her hand moved under the blanket, burrowing underneath the weight of his forearm. It wasn't what he wanted, it wasn't her skin on his, but it was something and it gave him the courage to wait her out.

"We haven't escaped from that," her words were laden with regret. "I think I wanted to pretend it didn't exist. I didn't want to have to confront the choices I made. I wanted to create our own little corner of the world away from it all – where those mistakes wouldn't intrude upon us – I guess it doesn't work that way."

"We might not be able to escape from it, but we don't have to let it define us either, Kate. We can move on from it. We're more than that."

He'd never felt so exposed as she studied him, her eyes flicking back and forth across his face. He had no idea what she saw, or even what she was looking for; he'd already said all he could think to say. He'd never felt his words fail him so convincingly.

"We are; we're more than that," she finally agreed. "Except... I don't know what to do now."

"What do you want to do?" he prompted her, needing her to be the one to step willingly back into the fray.

"I want us to be more, again."

"We were never any less."

She moved towards him then; her toes wedging themselves into the crevice below his knees, her arm over the blanket to lie against his. Rick adjusted his position immediately, sliding closer, tangling their legs together.

"I keep coming back to your murderboard; to my mom's case, the sniper, the conspiracy. I can't untangle myself from it. I keep trying to step away and every time I get pulled back in. It's like this presence in my life that I can't escape."

Rick rolled his arm to curl his hand around her forearm, his thumb ghosting across the soft skin below her elbow, "I never meant to drag you into it with me this time. I wanted to keep you safe from it all."

"By putting yourself there in my place?" She questioned, trying to understand. There was no heat in her voice, and the tightness around her eyes communicated her fear more clearly than the angry barbs of the night before.

"It wasn't my intention but, at the time, you and I were... we weren't in a good place, Kate. I'd bought them to your door and you nearly died, and without you here..." he sighed, not knowing how to explain the compulsion he felt to fix everything he'd done wrong. "Finding out who tried to kill you, and why, was the only thing I could think to do to make up for what I had done. And then you came back, and the case was all that we had –"

"Not all we had, Castle," she denied.

"Maybe not, but it was all that brought you back to me."

A weight settled in her belly at the resignation in his tone, his easy acceptance of her fickleness. "Do you really believe that?"

"How long would you have stayed away? How long would you have put off talking to me if it hadn't been for that?"

His words cut through her; a reminder of the pain she'd caused him, of how selfish she'd been to pull back so completely. The truth of her cowardice had her biting down on the inside of her lip.

His thumb had stopped its caress of her arm, and she tightened her own hold on him, sliding across to intertwine their fingers tightly.

"I'm sorry it took me so long to find a way back to you, and you're right, I should have found another way. You had every right to know that you meant more to me than that."

Kate was painfully aware of the fact that, even now, she was yet to put voice to the depths of her love for him. She'd wanted it to be free of darkness; wanted her declaration to be one of devotion and delight instead of pain and desperation. Yet, she couldn't see them healing whilst ever she held her heart from him.

"Can you find another way now? Will you stay away from the case?" Lost in her own thoughts, his question caught her off guard.

Could she? She wanted desperately to be able to say yes, but... "I feel like I need to know."

His eyes slid shut. "Okay," he spoke on a sigh.

"Not like that. Rick, I understand what it took for you to do this for me," she tugged at his hand, and he opened his eyes to regard her despondently. "I do, and I'm not taking that away, but what would you have me do?"

"I thought I was clear last night."

Kate couldn't keep the frustration from her voice, "You want me to agree to something I know nothing about."

"I want you to trust me," he said it so simply; as if that was all it should take.

She stared at him for a long moment, his words tumbling, nonsensical, through her mind. Was that how he found the strength to stand beside her? Was his trust so absolute?

And how could she claim to trust him and still flinch at any situation that called for a show of her belief in him?

If it meant a choice between the demons of her past and her dreams for the future there shouldn't even be a choice to make.

She was still trying to sort through her confusion when he spoke again, "Then go look at the board. I've told you everything –"

"Castle –"

"If you need to see it laid out before you can move on, if you need it reduced to dot points and timelines; it's on the board."

"Just... Castle, wait..." She rolled towards him, letting go of his hand to sit up. "No," she shook her head, still thinking. "Maybe I will – later – maybe later we can look together, but I do trust you, and I can let it go."

He didn't reply immediately, and she watched his whole demeanour slowly change as he realised what she meant; felt an echo of his unbridled hope in the nervous swirl of her stomach.

"Just for now, just until –" he began.

"No; for as long as we need to. I can do this, Castle."

Rick reached for her, one hand to clasp low at her shirt, the other encircling her waist and finding skin. He pulled her down on to him, rolled onto his back and brought her to lie over his chest. Kate exhaled, more than relief but not quite a laugh, and let her own hands find purchase at shoulder and ribs; the solid expanse of his chest under her lending her strength.

"You won't be doing it alone, Kate." The determination in his voice left no room for doubt.

"I know."

They lay wrapped together; his fingers carding through her hair, her hand buried under his shirt and pressed flat against his chest; thoughts drifting, both content to find comfort in the touch of the other.

The shadows had lessened, the room slowly growing brighter as dawn approached, before Kate spoke again.

"Is it too early for breakfast?"

"No," he assured her, untangling his hand from her hair with a final caress, "You shower and I'll get something started. It's probably better we head out early anyway."

Kate slid her arm from between them to lean her weight into the mattress, lifting off him enough to see his face, "What do you mean?"

"I don't think I'm ready to speak to Mother yet today." He hadn't meant to disturb the calm they'd found, but even to his own ears his annoyance was clear.

Kate hesitated, conflicted. "I know it made things complicated, I know the timing wasn't right, but I can see why she thought she had to say something. She goes away for the week and when she comes back I'm on the doorstep, practically moving in, when she knew there was still this ticking timebomb set to go off; to hurt the people she loves."

"She should have trusted me – she should have trusted us – we should have been able to deal with this together; instead she found your greatest weakness and exploited it. I'm finding it hard to forgive her that at the moment," he said, his anguish over his mother's actions lending another dip to the rollercoaster they'd built for themselves.

"She loves you. We both know people do crazy things for those they love."

###

They were both subdued as they sipped their coffees, the tumult of emotions having left them drained and cautious with each other, despite their reaffirmations.

Kate picked at a piece of toast and Rick watched her.

"You sure you don't want something else? I can slice up some fruit if the eggs are too heavy?"

"I'm fine, Castle, I'm just not hungry. We'll get something later," she offered him a smile, appreciating his concern, "I want to head in and go through Ryan and Esposito's report from their interview with the program supervisor, and we should hear back early from the lab. It would be nice to get this one wrapped up."

"Are we going in together?"

"Did you want to hang around and have breakfast with Alexis?"

"She has that interview early this morning; she won't be around the loft for long. Besides, we'd get more done if we worked it together."

"We always do."

"Let me go finish getting ready," he stepped in close on his way past, stopped to smooth his hand over her hair and drop a gentle kiss to the top of her head. She leaned into his chest and closed her eyes at the sensation his tender affection stirred in her.

It was the first kiss he'd offered her since she'd arrived at the loft, heart bursting with joy, and the memory made her ache. She turned to look over her shoulder, watched him walk into his office and through the doorway to his bedroom, and she felt a sudden determination to be the one to bring them back to that moment.

They deserved the joy and the laughter.

She got up from the stool and gathered their plates, filled the sink to let them soak while she wiped the bench, and started more coffee. She found their travel mugs in the overhead cabinet and placed them beside the machine.

With her hands buried in the warm sudsy water she let her mind drift over the last few weeks, the last few months; the laughter, and the time they'd shared, the way he made her feel alive and the warmth in his eyes.

The cases they'd solved together, the challenges they'd faced; each of them would have meant so much less if she'd done it without him.

Without question she knew that every one of his smiles and every outpouring of love had been reflected in her own face. Even without more recent memories – his far too talented mouth, the rightness she'd felt at them finally being together, the ecstasy of their lovemaking – she was completely unwilling to accept that their inability to talk openly might have irreparably damaged their relationship.

She heard him moving about the living room, and then the quiet pad of his feet across the tiles toward her. She sat the well-washed plate on the rack to dry, gathered up her courage, and glanced over her shoulder to see him watching her from the edge of the kitchen, one eyebrow tilted and the barest hint of a smile tugging at his lips.

It made her grin, knowing that even amongst everything else she could still surprise him. Her grin seemed to waken his, as if he were waiting for her permission to smile again.

He moved up behind her, his hand low on her back. "You don't have to do the dishes."

She shrugged, and reached for a towel to dry her hands. "I wanted to."

Kate turned to face him, leaned back against the bench and laid her hands on his chest before he had a chance to back away. She skirted up over the firm length of his torso, thumbs following the curve of muscle, until her fingers found purchase at the base of his neck.

"I'm not good at this, Castle. I don't know how to not push people away, even when I want nothing else but for them to be close – for you to be close," she corrected, not willing to settle for vague allusions this time. "I just mean you."

Rick's hands settled at her waist, and the adoration in his eyes, the elation in his smile; it felt like benediction and forgiveness.

She stepped into him, linking her arms around his neck. "Sometimes, when you smile at me, nothing else feels important," she nuzzled at the underside of his jaw with her nose. "And maybe nothing else is."

He tilted his head to glide across the smooth skin of her cheek, drawing closer until their noses brushed together, the corners of their mouths meeting in the faintest hint of a kiss. They held steady, eyes closed, lips barely moving, breathing each other in; every caress of cheek on cheek sending a tingling warmth skittering along every nerve.

It was Kate that finally turned into him. Their mouths had barely had a chance to become reacquainted before she was opening to him, lifting up on her tiptoes to deepen the kiss. He had one hand instantly at the back of her head, cradling her, tilting her back to claim her in a fevered kiss.

They moved quickly from loving exploration to unrestrained passion, and Kate felt her need for him pool desperately, achingly fast. She pulled him to her, let her hips rock against him. His eager growl had her laughing against his mouth even as she hooked her leg around his calf.

Neither heard movement behind them until far too late.

They jolted apart, tugging at their clothes, the instant she spoke. "Grams said to give you both some space. For some reason this isn't what I assumed she meant when she said things might get heated."

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A/N- Bonus points for anyone that read the title of this chapter and laughed.