He can't sleep, but hasn't really tried either. He doesn't want to say he's meditating, but can't think of another way to put it.

It's peaking the middle of the night and the rest of the loft is asleep and quiet. All the lights are out, all devices are turned off, all doors are shut and locked aside from the one into his bedroom. His shoulderbag is still sitting at the foot of his dresser, only opened to dig out the one thing left behind for Jack to remember him by. His burgundy cloth covered copy of King Lear now sits on his nightstand next to the alarm clock. He was going to read it, but doesn't have the motivation. He knows the story.

He's been standing at the window on the opposite side near the arm chair, in the dark, for some time now. Clad in a thin pale blue shirt that clings to his shoulders, but is loose around the abdomen, and a pair of dark blue flannel pants dug out of his dresser, he listens to his thoughts in complete silence with his arms folded, holding onto his triceps and breathing as steadily as he can, mindful even of the deepness of each inhale. The bed is still made and the taste of his toothpaste has faded from his tongue.

His phone is still hiding in one of the drawers in his office, still shut off from when he turned it off and left. He disposed of the phone he bought in Europe before he left Ireland. His phone is the last thing he wants to attend to, if ever. The never-ending slew of unheard voicemails that are sure to be waiting for him aren't exactly a daunting task, just annoying and not really necessary.

Today seemed to be just what he needed. Time spent enjoying his daughter, being with his family, even being around Beckett was easier than he thought it was with everything being unspoken of between them. She went up to bed just after Alexis did, which was pretty early in the night for her considering Alexis has been rigid about going to bed by ten on her own since her pre-teens on school nights. But he's wide awake and hasn't bothered to check what time it is because it doesn't really matter.

No one in the loft, or in the world, knows about Jack. He never mentioned it to anyone. He had intended to bring it up when he went to give Alexis his copy of Meditations, but when he found it wasn't in his bag, he decided to just make a note to order another copy. He's lost a few articles of clothing and a few disposable toothbrushes in his haste to pack on his trip.

He's still fighting with himself on whether or not to tell anyone about Jack at all. Alexis never asked what kept him in Doolin longer than anywhere else. Kate didn't ask why Alexis made it as easy as it was to track him down there, why he stayed so long. His mother either isn't bothering asking him about why he left, or is holding off until she feels he's settled in back at home and is back in the swing of things to give him a motherly lecture. The only reason he feels he should tell anyone at all is out of obligation.

But he also knows that it would be pointless to tell them about Jack when they would have no hope of ever getting to know him, let alone see him with their own eyes.

He can't help but hate himself for ever meeting that man though. He hates himself for trusting him, for giving into his unsatisfied boyhood need for a father. Because he did trust Jack, maybe even emotionally. He put his trust in that man, father or not, and just when he did that, he left. And Rick hates himself for putting himself in that position in the first place. After everything he told Jack about him and Kate, every important case and suspect caught, everything about Tyson and the guilt harbored for letting him escape, everything about Montgomery and Beckett's mother... he went over all of it and how it affected him.

'Richard, put yourself in the shooter's position.' Jack's words ring in his ears, his skin flushing with clamminess as his shoved back into the conversation. 'You're contracted to kill a trained police detective, what's the best place to do it?'

If they weren't after her, what were they after? If they wanted to send a warning to someone, that they could get to anybody at any time, that no body was safe, who was that someone? Who was the warning for? And if she wasn't the real target, why did Montgomery have to die to protect her? Why were they after her if she wasn't the real target? Was it just by some grace of God that she actually survived that sniper or was their intention to let her live?

Jack would know. He's been in that world, lived in that world. Rick isn't equipped for it. All he does is write about it.

"Hi."

A soft, scratchy voice coming from the doorway breaks him out of his thoughts in a flash.

He whips around quickly, unfolding his arms as he does, and sees a distinct figure standing in his doorway, shadows making her features invisible. She's just standing there, her hair falling down her shoulders and framing her face, her shirt baggy and loose over her tall, slender frame, and her flannel pajama bottoms rolling over her feet and lumping up at the ends, with an object he can't make out hanging from her right hand.

"Hey," he replies back in a light, inviting tone as he turns to face her. "What's up?" He asks, trying to be casual, even though there's nothing casual about the situation.

Kate shuffles forward a step and doesn't reply.

"Is there something wrong?" He gently asks her, taking a few slow steps toward the end of the still made bed.

Kate stops at the foot of his bed and shakes her head. "No, just..." Kate bites down on her tongue, her heart palpitating with nerves under her empty lungs. Be honest, just tell him, she berates herself. "I just couldn't sleep is all." She says with a twinge of self-harm, not wanting it to be at all what left her mouth.

All Rick can reply with is a soft, casual chuckle under his breath as he slowly rounds the corner of the bed to stand in front of her.

Kate reaches up with her free left hand and brushes her hair back on the opposite side of her face, taking a look over the bed. "You too?"

Rick nods, "Yeah, my sleep schedule is a bit haywire right now with all the traveling, that's all." He lies. She replies with a soft, casual chuckle of her own and smiles in the darkness of his bedroom, squeezing Sherlock's arm nervously at her side. When she doesn't look back up to meet his eye line, she feels her heart squeeze inside of her throat at the uncomfortable silence, knowing she hasn't said what she meant to say. But Rick, with wandering eyes, catches sight of what's hanging by her right hand. "What's this?"

Rick reaches down and takes the stuffed animals torso in his hands and pulls the bear into view. When Rick realizes what it is she brought with her, his chest ignites with a swarm of violent butterflies and his mind is awash with amazement, almost bordering on disbelief.

He completely forgot he'd bought this thing. Kate lets him take Sherlock in his hand as he looks it over. "You still have this thing?" He asks with a smile splitting his face apart.

She lets her own smile overtake her as she reaches up and pets Sherlock's hat. "Of course I still have him, Castle."

He remembers now what he said. Flowers wilt and die and after a few weeks, all your left with is compost to deal with. Some 'get well' gift, he remembers thinking as he bought this bear. He never bought it with the intention of giving her something to go to bed with or anything. In truth, all he wanted was a laugh and he figured a teddybear dressed up as Sherlock Holmes would get him what he was after... and it did, after all.

Rick reaches over and pinches the bear's hand. 'How do I..." the bear starts speaking and he quickly remembers what he recorded, 'wait, like now? Check one, is it... hello?'

He can see her warm smile radiate off her features, even in the dark, as the bear speaks. Rick holds the bear gently in his hands. "Sherlock here got me through some rough times during my recovery." She says, earning her Rick's eyes again as he gingerly holds Sherlock in his hands.

"I uh..." he tries, "I never did figure out how to record the message over."

She chuckles a little more firmly than last time as she lifts her hand to him. "It's okay, Castle. It's uh... it's very you."

Rick nods again and looks back down to the bear, letting him dip a bit in between them.

Tell him, Kate. If you coward out now, tomorrow it will be even harder. With a seizing heart, she takes an unsatisfying breath and hardens her tingling spine as much as she can. "Castle, I wanted to spend the night." She blurts out in a firm voice.

Rick's eyes fly back up over the bear to look over at her. She's looking straight at him and even in the almost pitch blackness of his bedroom, he can see her hazel eyes dilate with the light coming in off the street, her brow arched softly in a soft desperation of his answer.

"Down here, I..." she continues to explain, "I couldn't get to sleep, so I thought I'd... you know." She trails off and silently mines her hand sliding forward in front of her. "And I was hoping..." she continues with her eyes now on the floor, "that you'd already be asleep so I could just... slip in without you noticing and..."

"And..." he continues for her, "hope you wake up before me?"

"I know it wasn't the best plan, Castle, but I-I-"

Rick chuckles softheartedly and gives her a soft nod. "You know that sounds like something I would do if I didn't think you'd shoot me."

"Well, I do still have my backup piece, but I don't think I'd shoot you for that, Castle."

They share another soft laugh with each other and let the topic hang in the air for a moment. In the silence, his eyes dart over her shoulder and catch something. With her infectious presence, her aura emanating from her, he sets the bear down on the foot of his bed gently and decides to take some of Jack's advice. When his hand leaves the bear, Rick quickly reaches over and takes her hand, softly grabbing her other to hold both of her hands in his in front of them, grasping her hands gently on top of his.

Kate's heart skips at the contact and doesn't beat normally after as she looks up to him for an answer as to what he's doing, what game he's playing. He's never been this direct and forward with her before. But now, he just took her hands softly in hers just as she did on the windy Cliffs of Moher. His eyes are still down to the floor, but his face is lifted into a light, casual open smile.

Before he looks up at her, his eyes catch sight of the book Jack left him, the one thing to remember him by. When he does, it only takes a second to look over to her. "Did you know I was in King Lear in high school?"

His question is asked just as he normally would ask her a question like this at the precinct; with a light, casual, class-clown tone and a waggle of his brow. "Huh?"

Rick smirks again, "I played the fool."

Kate's face lights up with a smile as she bites back a laugh. After a fit of swallowing her laughter, she looks back up at him with her hands still sitting in his, "Fitting, somehow, Castle."

Rick brushes his thumbs over the bones in the back of her hand and takes a brief pause. "You ever seen King Lear?"

Her hands tingle and her heart gallops violently in her chest, her scars aching at the feeling, but she answers. "I've read it." She wants to be straight with him, and she wishes he would give her the same courtesy.

Rick gives her a nod and looks down to their hands, taking in as much of the feeling of her skin as he can. "Can you tell me the story?"

Kate breathes a long sigh, "Rick, I really wish you'd just be straight with me for once."

"I am being straight with you." He says in a soft, gentle confidence, catching her off guard, looking her in the eye with a calm reverence. "I just want to hear the story."

Kate nods, deciding to play along, if it means being here with him. "The king is ready to retire his throne to his three daughters... and so he divides his kingdom into three parts, deciding to give the largest portion to the daughter who expresses their love for him the most."

Rick nods and continues to pet the back of her hands with his thumb in a gentle circle as she speaks.

"The first daughter goes up, and she says she loves him more than the whole world." She says, getting a flash of Demming in her mind. "The second daughter goes up and says," her breath catches again, "that she loves him even more than that." She continues, now getting a flash of Josh and she decides to admit to herself why he got her to tell this story. "Then the third daughter came up... his favorite... and she was direct with him, and honest..." she explains with a closing throat, looking back up at him and his soft eyes, "and told the king the truth."

Rick gives her hands a soft squeeze, "And what happened to her?"

Kate swallows thickly, her eyes starting to burn. All she can think of is him standing in the middle of her apartment that horrible afternoon, telling her she was doing nothing more than hiding... from the truth, from him. "The king disowned her for it, and banished her from the kingdom."

Rick gives her a solemn nod and knows she's starting to draw the parallels. "And once the other two got what they wanted out of the king, they threw him out on the street... and he learned that they didn't really love him after all and only cared for themselves." Rick continues ahead of her. "And despite being disowned by the king and thrown from the kingdom, when the third daughter learns of the king's fate-"

"She comes back to save him." She finishes for him. It's then that Kate's heart breaks, seeing Rick standing in the hangar, despite everything she said to him, despite being tossed from her life, despite her ending their partnership that afternoon and saying she never wanted to see him again... he was still there.

"Because she wasn't lying when she said she cared about him." Rick can see a track of a tear scarring her face in the low light of the bedroom, her hands starting to shake in his grasp. "And the king only learns the truth that she was honest with him because she was the only one that loved him as he laid dying in her arms. The king realized that she told him what he needed to hear that day because she loved him... and when the king realized he disowned the one person in his life that loved him the most... he died in her arms."

Kate blinks at her tears and shakes her head. "See? It doesn't apply to us, because I've already done that part and we haven't fixed anything yet."

At her wit, Rick's face splits into a smile and he starts to silently laugh, leaning forward as he chuckles with her. "Morbid, even for you, Detective."

Kate shakes her head in a small motion as she looks up to him with a gentle smile, giving his hands a squeeze. "I gave up my badge, remember? It's uh... it's just Kate."

When Rick ends his nod and looks back over to her, meeting her eyes, his heart burns. She's looking straight at him with those big, hazel eyes, her lashes stained with tears and her wants worn on her sleeve.

In the same moment, they each take a step forward and lean in, giving each other's lips to the other in a firm kiss. The instant their lips seal against each other, they each draw in a long breath, filling their lungs up with cool air as their systems lock, their hands squeezing each other tighter and tighter with every passing second their lips sit kissing the other. With their own swarm of butterflies in the stomach and a twinge in their spine, Kate presses up on her toes to kiss him deeper and Rick leans down to do the same.

After a very long moment, the kiss ends all too slowly, their lips brushing against each other as they stop the kiss, their foreheads now pressed against each other.

The decision is made by both of them in that moment and Kate takes the last step and presses her body against him and takes his lips back, her heart aching painfully with unsatisfied longing and unrequited love that she's never felt before in her life. Rick kisses her as passionately as he can, moving her head with his lips to deepen the kiss as he folds their hands together, their arms now pressed in between their bodies. Kate lets out a guttural moan that aches with longing as she lets his hands go and takes ahold of his face, kissing him again.

For such a long time, he's wanted this. He's wanted to feel her, to hold her, to kiss her. And for just as long, he's felt all the work he's done on himself and all the emotional torment he's had to suffer would be all for nothing, all wasted effort. But with his lips, he leans down and kisses her as passionately as he can again, venting out as much of it as he can with her velvety lips and the softness of her touch on his face.

His hands grasp her waist strongly and tug her body against him and she doesn't pause to take a breath, only sucks in the air needed passed his lips as she opens her mouth to kiss him even deeper. Experiencing him now, it's only now that she realizes just how much she's wanted this all this time. It's making her impatient.

When his thumbs pet the bottom of her ribcage and move to wrap around her, she lets his face go and grabs onto the bottom of his shirt and pushes it up his chest, only yanking her lips off of him when she needs to pull his shirt off his body. She doesn't take the time to admire his naked torso and instead falls into his arms, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him again, her hand burying itself in his hair.

And at the feeling, something in his heart is tugging at him, and he's giving her waist a gentle squeeze. "Mmm," he moans against her lips, "wait."

She lets him pull her off of his lips but doesn't move her arms out from around him. Rick looks over to her, he can see her pupils dilated, her eyes hazy and her lips already puffed and swollen at the force of their kissing.

"Are you sure about this? Because..." he hesitates, "I don't want you to think that this is going to be meaningless to me, I want it to-"

Kate stops him by gently cupping his face, looking him dead in the eye, and slowly leaning forward, capturing his lips in a soft but firm kiss, not lit by fervor, want, and lust, but tempered by reassurance and meaning as she takes his lips for herself. After a few long seconds, her hands press against his bare chest, both of them tingling at the contact, and she pushes him over and down to the bed. Rick reaches behind himself and pulls out the bedding as they crawl up the bed, their lips never parting. Once there, Rick lays down in the center of the bed and lays his head down, feeling Kate lay herself on top of him, pulling the sheets over them with her hand.

His breath is latched onto his lungs in nervousness as she continues to kiss him slowly. But his hands are slowly moving up her waist, going under her shirt, his palms drawn in by the heat of her soft skin.

His hands slide up her sides greedily in a way that earns him a moan let loose into his mouth as they kiss. But as his palms slide over her, it's not too long before he feels a long jagged line of skin on her left side. With a gasp of fright, his hands fly off of her and he stops kissing her in shock.

But the instant she feels his hands leave her, she latches onto his forearm and pull his hand back, putting her other hand on top of the hand over her scar, putting as much pressure on his hand as she can manage, her nails digging angrily into his forearm and her weight supported by her leaning against his forehead.

She can feel his hand wanting to rip itself off of her, but she won't let him. She will not have him afraid to touch her. She won't let it haunt him anymore. She can hear his ragged breath hesitate to slow down as she keeps his hand pressed into her surgical scar on her left side. After a long moment of her nails still digging into his forearm in frustration, his hand seems to relax against her and she can feel his thumb start to gently pet the line of the scar.

"I'm not broken anymore, Rick." She whispers against his lips. "And I didn't break because of anything you did. So please," she pleads against his lips, rubbing her nose together with his as she pushes his hand against her scar, "please, don't be afraid to touch me."

Rick sighs softly and leans up, capturing her lips again. Kate lets out a small, emotional moan as she gives her lips back to him and at the sound of it, his arms engulf her, his left hand burying itself in her hand and his right on the dip of her spine. His nerves still jumping, he presses up and rolls them over, guiding her head down to the pillow with his hand.

The second she's on her back underneath him, his hand supporting her head and the other on her shoulder with him hovering above her, her entire body floods with a sickening feeling that draws her from her passion and her mind is ripped from the moment, a stomach-churning feeling of deja vu flooding over every part of her. With a shuttering breath, she pulls away from him as her scars, her whole body, start to remember the memory of being engulfed in pain and agony.

Rick senses it and immediately pulls away. "What's wrong?" He asks in a scared voice above her.

But all she answers with is her hands latching onto his face again and pulling him down, wanting him to take the feeling away and not wanting to show him her eyes flooding with tears at the pain she's reliving.

She kisses him only once before she guides his lips down her jaw line and onto her neck, encouraging him to deepen every motion with one hand in his hair, fisting and pulling at it, and the other draped over his shoulders to keep his weight pressed down on top of her.

She hides her tears away from his eyes as he kisses her neck, keeping his lips pinned onto her neck with her hand.

Why is she having the memory of this pain now? Why does this burn feel so familiar... and why him? Why is the most important moment in her time with the man she loves being tainted with this amount of paralyzing pain? She tries her hardest to swallow the sob that's rising up her throat and to blink away the tears burning in her eyes as she looks up at the ceiling. Her heart is pounding violently in her chest, making her bullet scar sting even more as his hands latch onto her thighs and pull at them.

She can't have this pain now. Not now. Not when she's finally with the man she loves. Of all times, when for the first time in her life, she's not doing this in a petty attempt to make an emotional connection, but to fulfill one.

She pushed him down to bed and pulled the covers over the two of them to fulfill an emotional connection. She didn't start this to give herself a reason to stay in a relationship or to convince herself that there were feelings there when there really weren't. This wasn't meant as some weakness to lust, some animalistic need to have an itch scratched, or fooling herself into thinking she can have the physical action and push away the emotional need that it calls for. She started this because she loves him. She wanted to be with him because she's in love with him.

She can't lose this.

So, with her body still sickened with the burn of a violent pain in her veins and her eyes littered with hot tears, she lets out a breath and gives his body a tender squeeze with her arms. With his lips still caressing her neck, she latches onto his shoulder with her hand not in his hair and leans up, kissing any part of him she can reach.

A/N: Another chapter that got me started on this story. Hope you liked it. :)