A/N: Thank you all for the reviews, favorites, and follows. I'm sorry it took me so long to update, but I hope you will enjoy this chapter. Next update should be this week.

Rick put the last glass back in the cupboard, closed the empty dishwasher, put the towel down on the counter, and let a deep sight out. He was exhausted. The past few days had been intense, to say the least, and it was catching up with him. And he hardly slept last night, too many nightmares. He tried to change his mind by playing video games, watching movies or reading but he could not stay still long enough to immerse himself in anything.

He knew why: he had to deal with what Kate had told him earlier.

He should be happy, ecstatic even, by her confession of love this morning. He had been waiting for it for so long! But all he could feel was caution. Could Sophia have destroyed something in him?

It was driving him crazy not to be able to understand her story. How could such a good agent turn out to be so... He could not find the words to describe what she had done. The fact that she had lied to everyone at the CIA for years did not appease his anger one bit. There was also her comment about his dad. What was he supposed to think? She was going to kill him so why lie to him? He was sure she had enjoyed telling him his dad was CIA and that she knew him, especially as she did not intend to give him a chance to meet him. Boy, she was evil! That was the word. And to think he had slept with her!

Worse: he had based Clara Strike on her!

Rick shuddered at the thought. But he knew that whatever he felt towards Sophia, she was not his biggest problem right now. She was dead, she was not what mattered. His relationship with Kate was what mattered the most to him.

He needed a drink. He went to his bar, poured himself a whisky and went to his office.

But changing rooms wasn't helping. In here, the place where he let his imagination loose and wrote his stories, there was a reality he had tried not to face for some time.

Rick picked up the remote control on his desk, switched on his ridiculously large screen and brought up his own murder board of the Beckett case. And then he stared at his partner's picture.

So she loved him. Kate Beckett loved him. She had told him to his face a few hours earlier. But it would never have happened had they not worked on this CIA case. And that hurt him. She only told him the truth because she did not want to be like Sophia. It wasn't because she wanted to be with him now. In a way, he was disappointed and hurt. This wasn't the way he wanted their story to start. It was as if he wasn't enough for her to be honest with him. She confessed to him to protect her ego.

But still, he loved her. She was the most beautiful, challenging, complicated, smart woman he had ever met, and he was head over heels in love with her.

"What's up Kiddo?"

Castle jumped and screamed at the words and turned to see his mother standing at the entrance of his office looking at him. Boy, he was so immersed in his thoughts that he had not heard her coming home.

"Mother! You're home early" he said, trying to recompose himself. What time was it by the way? He did not expect her back before the beginning of the afternoon. Was the morning already gone?

"I just popped home to grab a jacket a bit more appropriate for the afternoon outing" she replied, walking into her son's office. He looked so tired, the dark circles under his eyes were unusually marked today. Something was wrong. One look at the screen gave her an idea as to what might be going on. "I've been home for at least five minutes and you haven't noticed. Given how intensely you were staring at the screen, I assume something came up on Detective Beckett's case and you don't know how to tell her."

Martha had told her son from the very beginning he should tell Katherine about his deal with the mysterious M. Smith. But he wanted to have something to give her before he'd tell her. They disagreed, and never mentioned it again. Until today.

"No Mother, it is not about Beckett's case" he replied, and then switched off the screen.

"What is it then?" Martha pushed him because if her son was in such a dark mood, she wanted to do something to help him, even if it was just listening to him. No mother wants to see her child hurt and unhappy. "And don't tell me nothing because I can tell something is eating you up and since you're looking at Katherine's picture, she's obviously involved. So what's wrong?"

Rick could of course tell his mother to let go and she would back off, not without first telling him not to be stubborn and that talking can be a good thing. But he felt so much in the dark that he realised he needed to talk it out. And on occasion; not that he would admit it in public, his mother had given him good advice when she recognised the subject was important to him. It didn't mean he always followed her advice, of course.

"I'm not sure, Mother" he said, as he sat down on his chair behind his desk. He took a big inhale and said "Beckett came by this morning to tell me that she'd heard me at the cemetery when I told her that I loved her." Castle looked at his mum and saw her smile. "She remembered since she woke up at the hospital but for reasons I haven't yet gotten my head around, she could not tell me."

"Oh, I see. Has she said how she feels about you?" Because Martha could not imagine the young woman not telling him how she felt if she had confessed knowing how he felt. Surely she must have said something!

"She said she loved me… eventually" her son replied in a low voice.

Something was terribly wrong "I don't understand Richard. What do you mean by eventually? What did she say exactly?"

"Kate said she's not ready to be with me like that. Her wall is still up. The truth is, Mother, I don't think she came clean to me today so we could be together. I think, actually I'm pretty certain she did it more for herself than for «us»." Castle did the inverted coma sign as he looked at her.

"I still don't understand" Martha repeated. She sat down on one of the chair in front of the desk.

"It's got to do with our latest case."

"The one you cannot talk about because it involves spies, national security and chess games?"

"Yes. Something happened during this case, and Beckett…" No, he should not start like that. "Do you remember when I was working on my Derrick Storm series, I got the opportunity to meet a CIA operative, a woman, whom I based Clara Strike on?"

"Yes, I remember, but I never met her."

"No, you didn't", and thank God for that, Castle thought. He had no intention to tell her the details of the case or what Sophia had said about his father. There was no point since he had no proof. "Well, she was involved in this case we just closed. Turns out she was a traitor and had lied to everybody for years. Kate and I were pushed in the Hudson on her orders. And then, she nearly killed us both herself."

"My God, Richard! Why didn't you tell me last night? You didn't have to be on your own after something like that!" Martha said, shocked that her son would not rely on her in a situation like that.

"I'm fine, mother…"

"Don't give me that nonsense, Richard! Have you looked at yourself in a mirror this morning? You do not look fine."

"Well, I'm tired but I'm not hurt or anything. I just have a lot on my mind."

"Because of that agent and Detective Beckett?"

Castle nodded. "I love her, Mother. But she lied to me for months when she knew how I felt about her. I don't know if I can trust her completely. »

It pained her to see her son so hurt. "What did Katherine say this morning, exactly?" Martha asked, forcing herself to calm down.

"That she needed me to know she wasn't like Sophia and she would never hurt me like that but she had lied to me."

"Did she say why she lied?"

"Fear. Anger. She said she needed time to heal. She's not ready to start a new relationship. If we get together now, she'll screw it up. She has to focus on finding her mum's killer and can't be distracted. The further away she keeps me from her, the safer I am. She's emotionally too dependent on me and needs to be whole again on her own before she can allow herself to love me fully. »

Martha takes a moment to think about what her son just said. « Sounds to me like Katherine needs you more than she is ready to admit."

Castle looked at his mother as if she had just say the Earth was flat.

"Well, obviously, her emotions are all over the place. Being so close to death, again, with you by her side, must have triggered something in her that made her realise she could not ignore her feelings for you anymore. She needs to be with you. And she needs you to know it. And of course there's the jealousy factor. I can't imagine Katherine being really happy to find out she isn't your only muse!"

"I don't know, Mother" said Castle. "I can't help thinking that if she was able to lie to me all these months then how can I trust her with my heart?"

She loved her son, more than anything in the world, but it really annoyed her when he was being this hypocrite. "Is it possible that you feel that way because you are not yourself entirely honest with her?"

Castle looked at his mother with hurt in his look, but he knew she was right. "You're talking about M. Smith."

Martha nodded. "Katherine found the courage to come to you and tell you something she has kept to herself for months. It takes a lot of courage to do something like that knowing that, by coming clean to the very person you love, you risk losing him. And it sounds like she is still dealing with the aftermath of her shooting so I find what she did this morning rather impressive. It might not be the declaration of love you were hoping for, but it is one nonetheless. She made the first step, Richard. And I know she said she needs more time, but Kiddo, you don't make that kind of move and expect nothing to change afterwards!"

"You think she's waiting for me to make my move even if she said she needs time?"

"I think she needs to know how you feel after your talk this morning and I doubt she will have a lot of patience waiting for you to go back to her with your decision. And I would not be surprised if she finds excuses to spend more time with you, not just at work but on your free time as well. And I think that's what you want too, deep down."

Rick nodded.

"But you cannot start your relationship with Katherine without first telling her about your deal with M. Smith. That would be disloyal."

"I did it to protect her" Rick said defensively.

"I know that but it's her mother's case, Richard. Hiding this deal while you are in a romantic relationship with her is proof that you do not trust her completely. Your relationship would be doomed from the beginning."

Rick exhaled deeply. "I know that. I know you're right, Mother. But I'm scared. What if she does not accept my explanations and just sends me away again?"

"That is probably what Katherine feared as well when she showed up at the door this morning. But she found the courage to go through with her decision and she obviously found the right words to explain everything to you. So surely, if she could do it, so can you."

"What if I can't find the right words and she sends me away?"

Boy, he really was working the worst-case scenario… "If everything falls apart at the first hurdle, then you weren't meant to be together. You know Katherine's attitude when it comes to her mother's case. So you will probably have to fight to make her see the situation from your point of view. And you'll need to make her understand that once you're together, she can't just go on her own at the first sight of a clue on that case. She will be part of our family as well. She can't shut us down because some clue turned up. She needs to decide what she wants more: a future with you, or closure on her mum's case."

"I'm scared of finding out the answer to that."

"There's only one way to be sure Richard. Now is the moment to fight for your happiness, yours and hers. And you know she's worth the fight." Martha got up, walked to her son and took his face in her hands, making him look at her. "Have faith Kiddo. Remember: love conquers all." She kissed him on the cheek and smiled at him. He smiled back at her. She had faith in him, he was going to do everything he could to get his girl.

His mother was right, about everything. He needed to talk to Beckett and come clean with her before things evolved between them. Deep down, he just knew they could be great together. She was the one for him and he could make her happy. In order to get the future he wanted, he had to tell her about his deal with M. Smith.

He just needed a plan to make sure she wouldn't kick him out of her life for ever for keeping from her a secret about the most important case of her life.