The night is clear and she's insistent on finding a patch of grass free from the cover of trees so they can take in the stars. Their visibility is stunning out here, especially when compared to what they look like back in the city. She carries a blanket out in her arms, Castle trailing behind her with some old radio he found in the basement. He keeps fiddling with the dials and antenna to try and get a signal while she spreads the blanket out on the grass. He manages to get a country station to come in and shrugs, leaving it on softly in the background as he lays down on his back next to her.

"I love the lights of the city," he says quietly. "But sometimes I think I enjoy the lights of the stars more."

"I never realize how many of them there truly are. Out here they look infinite."

They lay there in silence, side by side, taking in the mass expanse of sky and listening to the random radio station Castle was able to pick up.

I'm inside out shot through the center

Feel this scar of where you entered

Took my life and turned it upside down

I'm burned to ashes split down the middle

If anyone asks it hurt just a little

I died inside the day I let you go

But I will never let you know

She's never heard this song before and yet she's taken aback by how strongly the words affect her. They're triggering a memory, a feeling, she has long since tried to repress. One that strings along with it a whole slew of emotions she doesn't feel entirely stable enough to process right now. Knowing that she's felt the way this songwriter has before and that those feelings had been associated with Castle, eat at her a little bit And she's never liked admitting it to herself. That the day he left for the Hamptons with Gina, she let him go without a fight and it hurt like hell. It hurt in a way she never expected to feel because of him and that terrified her. And she believed she could never tell him any of this because it would never work between them and she will have ruined one of the few great things in her life. But yet here they are, and he still doesn't know...

"Are you listening to these lyrics?" she whispers softly, diving in head first.

"Yeah, they're pretty, aren't they?"

"Pretty?" She blinks in astonishment. "They're heartbreaking. It's like she fell in love and he left before she ever told him. I've been there. It sucks."

He turns his head to look at her instead of up at the sky. "Who was the guy?"

She keeps her gaze trained on the stars, debating if she really wants to go there after all. She could make someone up, play it off as some college heartbreak or something. But she resolves that she brought up the lyrics so he would know. He'd said that he wanted to know all of her, and the parts of her concerning him were probably a good place to start. "You."

That has him sitting upright and blocking her view so she'll look at him. She stares up into his eyes, butterflies starting to swarm in her stomach. She doesn't want to guilt trip him here, doesn't want him to feel responsible for pain that she only brought on herself. But they should talk about this; he should know.

"What are you talking about? When did I - Kate?"

She draws her lower lip between her teeth. "Last summer. I was going to go to the Hampton's with you. And love is probably too strong of a word for back then, but...I just let you leave with Gina without saying anything. I didn't realize how much I cared even until I saw you two together and realized it hurt. I thought back over the past year after that, realized I'd felt a similar twinge when Kyra showed up. And that was the moment I knew something existed between us, something that actually scared me a little when I felt it. And these lyrics...you did turn my life upside down. It just took me a while to realize that was actually a good thing. But I guess I just - I know what it's like to lose someone to somebody else before you ever get the chance."

He stares at her for a moment like he's trying to find the right words to respond. She's almost worried that she's spooked him.

"You were going to say yes," he breathes. "I could have had you a whole year sooner and instead I tried to make it work again with my ex-wife. How could I have not seen that?"

She reaches up to cup his jaw, stroking her fingers against the stubble that's started to form there.

"I wasn't exactly easy to read or open about anything. Don't blame yourself, Castle. This one's on me for not speaking up when I should have. I - last summer sucked just a little bit."

"Worse than getting shot?" She can hear the unspoken "too soon" in his voice, like he instantly regrets trying to make a joke out of the recent events.

But she smirks at him, easing his worry. "Ha, well I didn't have you with me so maybe a little."

He settles back down at her side, but keeps himself propped up on an elbow. His attention is still on her and not the infinite stars above them. "Why didn't you say anything? Why did you start dating Josh after I broke up with Gina?"

She props herself up on an elbow too so she's at his eye level.

"I don't know. I didn't think we would work I guess. I had a lot of time to think without you around that summer. Got it in my head that we weren't compatible. We don't make sense on paper."

"We don't live our lives on paper."

Kate gives him a small smile. "I came around, didn't I?"

He sighs, shifting his weight forward so his forehead bumps against hers.

"I know what it's like too," he tells her. "To watch someone who's left an imprint on your life and possibly even on your heart be with someone else."

She closes her eyes, nudging her nose against his. "I'm sorry."

"No, I'm the one who's sorry. I should have waited for you to respond. I just - I never thought you would actually say yes to me, to this. I never meant to hurt you, never meant to make you feel like the lyricist of this song. But you're stuck with me now. I'm never letting go."

"You better not. I'm not losing you to someone else ever again."

"You won't have to, Kate. I'm yours."

She blows out a breath as the last line of the song finishes. A more upbeat songs begins to play with the opening chords coming from a banjo.

"Maybe it's better this way," she tells him. "I find myself wondering sometimes about us getting together so soon and wondering if our relationship would have lasted. And sometimes I think we would have ended that summer hating each other. There was still a lot about each other that year that rubbed the other person the wrong way. And I just wonder if we would have been so willing to accept all the faults without knowing what we know now. I think you giving your last marriage another shot, and me trying to date and fall in love with someone else helped push us to where we are today."

He's quiet for a moment before blowing out a deep breath of his own. "A wise man once said that life is a journey, not a destination."

"Emerson?"

"I find it kind of hot that you know that."

She hums, remembering an old conversation of theirs. "Just like fallacious, huh?"

He laughs, probably remembering the same moment. "Yes, just like that."

Kate laughs too, looking back up at the stars. This time around, she's not letting go.

The physical therapy is becoming more and more strenuous, taking a bigger toll on her body and on her energy. And it would be fine, good even, except for that fact that she feels completely exhausted all the time because she can't sleep. The PT is getting worse and so are the nightmares.

Tonight they're so bad, she wakes up screaming, instantly startling Castle awake beside her. The screams subside into tears as the fear from her sleep still grips at her chest. She's starting to hyperventilate, and Castle is trying everything he knows how to do to calm her down. Rubbing her back, telling her it's okay, that she's safe, that they both are.

But he's wrong. She's not. Neither of them are. Not when the sniper is still out there with no known identity. Not when her mother's killer wants her to join her in the grave. Not when they don't have any answers or leverage.

"Kate, honey, I need you to breathe," Castle tries. "You're safe. Please just breathe."

She can't do this. She can't. She's going to get him killed, she's going to get both of them killed. She can't.

"Kate." His voice is sterner this time.

Right, okay, breathing. Not going to die from this. She forces air into her lungs, nearly coughing on it as she refocuses on her surroundings. She's at the cabin, not the cemetery. It's just the two of them, no one else. They're both alive, no one died.

"Normally I don't ask, but this time I'm too concerned not to," Castle tells her, still stroking his hand up and down her back.

She doesn't like talking about her nightmares, but she almost wonders if her not talking about them is what's making them worse.

"When you...when you tried to save me from the bullet, it hit you instead. And wherever it hit...the doctors couldn't save you."

She watches his eyes soften. "Kate -"

"I've had this dream before," she cuts him off. "Several times. I don't know why it affected me like this tonight. I don't -"

She shakes her head, scraping her hand through her hair.

"Maybe it was the conversation we had before bed?"

"No, no that wouldn't do it, it's just - they're getting worse, feeling more realistic. I woke up with you next to me and it still took me a minute to sort out the reality. That I wasn't just dreaming that you were alive, that the dream had been you dying."

The concern she'd worked so hard to erase from his features the past couple of days is back and deeper than ever. This is why she doesn't talk about the nightmares.

"Maybe you should talk to someone, like a psychiatrist or something," he offers, gently. "Someone who knows better ways to help you than just me telling you it's okay."

"I have to. It's part of protocol to return to work after getting shot."

"Well that's good, right? Maybe they can help you with the nightmares, get them to stop? They can help you to heal beyond the PT and the magic of this place."

"What are they going to say to me or get me to admit that will lessen the gravity of this situation? Someone out there wants me dead. I won't feel safe until I take them down."

"They don't have to solve all of your problems, but at the very least they could get you to sleep at night."

"You don't sleep either. You're already awake half of the time when I wake up from a nightmare."

"Then maybe I should see one too."

"Me dying," she says softly. "That's what keeps you up at night, isn't it?"

He's stays quiet for a moment, and that's enough of an answer for her really, but he finds words after all.

"These people. Whoever it is that hired Coonan and Lockwood and the sniper. I don't know how determined they are to keep you from digging. Was the sniper supposed to be a warning? An 'if you stop, we'll stop?' Or are they just going to keep gunning until you're dead? Do they know we're out here? Alone? With me as your only backup? I lay awake at night and think about if someone were to come through those doors right now trying to kill you, what could I possibly do to stop them? And most of the time, I come up with nothing."

"Castle -"

"I'm scared all of the time, just like I know you are. And I want to find us a way out of it all, just as badly as you do but I have no idea where to start."

She scoots closer to him in bed, draping herself over him. "Sounds like your headspace is just as messed up as mine is right now. I never meant to drag you into all of this with me."

"Dive in together, remember?" he asks, holding her tighter against him. "Maybe our next order of business should be diving into finding a psychiatrist for us out here. We could both use the extra sleep sooner rather than later."

She nods, readjusting her head against his chest. "We're gonna get through this, right? End up on the other side without the constant fear and bad dreams?"

"I hope so, Kate. I really do."