Three

As Castle stood in the shower on the fifth floor of the Twelfth precinct, he had never felt more relieved for the faulty-at-times plumbing of century-old buildings such as that one. Yes, the water could barely be considered lukewarm, but he was also just a tile wall away from a presumably soapy-and-naked Kate Beckett.

Thanks to a complete backup of the pipes in the men's locker room, Castle was forced to shower in the women's—along with Kate. Normally, such an event would have been prohibited, but with the level of bacteria in the Hudson, it was an actual health issue for him not to shower as quickly as possible—even with the antibiotic injections they'd received from the EMTs at the pier. Besides, sharing the locker room was far from as salacious as it sounded; each shower was individual and came with its own changing area, so it wasn't as though they were showering together, but it was as close as they'd gotten so far, so he wasn't going to complain about it!

After rinsing all the suds from his hair, Castle dried himself with the scratchy, dingy white department-issue towel before pulling on the zip-front hoodie and sweatpants provided to him. Both were navy blue and tagged with the NYPD logo, but they were the only clothes available that would fit him. He didn't mind, though; he only needed to wear them long enough to finish his statement and take a hover-cab back home.

Stepping out of the shower wearing the well-worn workout shoes donated to him by the only colleague of Kate's who also wore a size fourteen, Castle tossed his used towel in the appropriate bin and gazed back towards the showers. He had intended to wait for his partner on the benches by the lockers, but his progress was interrupted upon the discovery of just how thread-bear the shower curtains were. Due to the thinness of the fabric and the lighting in the room, Castle could plainly see the silhouette of his partner as she emerged from the shower and re-dressed in her spare clothes.

He knew it was wrong; he knew he shouldn't have been looking, but now that he'd seen her he couldn't look away. She was gorgeous, with subtle curves in all the right places and, god help him, in that moment he never wanted her more. He managed to restrain himself from ripping back the curtain and ravishing her then and there, but just barely—and he wasn't sure for how much longer he'd be able to resist.

In that moment, the best Castle could say about his feelings for the female detective was that they were complicated. Their relationship had begun with significant lust from his point of view and much animosity from hers. In fact, it had taken her nearly six months to warm up to him enough to call him a friend, which she openly admitted was because of his Elite status. Not long after that she began a relationship with one of the cops from vice division, which he admitted singed his blossoming feelings of love for her, so he'd distracted himself with two different relationships, both with Elites and neither of which ended up being very memorable.

A year earlier things between them began to change for the first time since Kate's initial thawing-out. When searching for suspects on a brutal double homicide case, they'd been trapped into a fire-fight. Not for the first time Kate handed him her spare weapon and they battled side-by-side. However, when she took two bullets, one to her dominant arm and the other to her vest on the same side, she was forced to depend on Castle to get them out safely, and he happily did so.

In hindsight, that event was the turning point in their relationship. They had been in harrowing spots before, but that one was by far the most uncertain (up until their car was sinking into the Hudson, of course). They grew closer, often grabbing drinks or meals after her shift. Shortly thereafter he found out that she broke up with her current boyfriend—a postal worker she met through one of their cases—because he, by her own admission, wasn't the type of person she would trust to save her from a firefight. Though she'd said her statement with a small amount of jest, Castle believed it to be mostly truth, and for the first time he truly believed that they had a future—a chance.

Being a very professional person, Kate had never openly showed animosity or dislike towards Elites simply because they were Elite, however he always had the impression that she believed, like so many did, in the unspoken separation between Elites and Normals. Because of this, he never truly let himself believe they could become a couple, even if he had fallen completely in love with her. Her comment, however, changed his view and so did her actions over the next several months.

They would regularly eat meals together, grab drinks, and talk—really talk. They had deep conversations unlike any he'd ever had before about life, Elites versus Normals, and the world in which they lived. Though their discussions would lead to arguments on occasion, their viewpoints, however different, seemed to mesh well together and he honestly believed it helped them understand each other better.

These conversations also helped him fall irrevocably in love with her.

At the onset of that New Year Castle resolved that he would find a way to ask Kate out on a real, official date. He'd chickened out on every opportunity he had in the prior four months. Sure, they'd gone out, but it was always under the guise of friendship, never official. They were going closer, though, and were in almost constant contact, even if he wasn't shadowing her, so perhaps it seemed appropriate that fate had presented him with an opportunity. Yes, he would have preferred if that opportunity would have allowed him to stay dryer, but, as they said, fate worked in mysterious ways.

When Kate pulled back the curtain of her shower stall, the metal rungs squealing against the hanging bar, she smiled at him as she walked over to deposit her used towel and now empty coffee cup into the appropriate bins. Coffee had helped rejuvenate the writer as well, but in that moment he was operating on pure adrenaline. His heart thundering beneath his rib cage as he stood from the bench and watched as she returned her shower caddy to the locker labeled with her name.

"Feeling cleaner?"

"Definitely." He responded. "You?"

She nodded while continuing to rummage in her locker. "Much, though I think the water must still be in my sinuses or something, because I feel like I can still smell it."

"That'll go away," he said, thankful for the small talk for it helped him prepare for what he was about to say.

"Hopefully. I, ah." She paused as she shut her locker halfway, slipped her hands into her back jean pockets and took two steps towards him. "I realized I never officially said thank you for pulling me out of that car."

He bobbed his head graciously. "You would have done the same."

"Yeah. Probably." She shrugged casually then flashed him a smile that had his heart fluttering once again.

"You know," he said, closing the gap between them even more, "I actually prefer to accept hugs as thank yous."

She rolled her eyes, but pulled her hands from her back pockets anyway and reached out for him. He slid his hands over her back until he could pull her body against his and rest his head against the curve of her shoulder. Not just because of how close they'd come to suffering a different fate, but also because of their freshly showered state their hug felt much more intimate. They were fully dressed but he could still feel the edge of her spine beneath his hands, and breathe in the cherry scent of her shampoo as strongly as ever with her damp hair just a few inches from his nose.

Unable to resist the urge, Castle pressed his lips against the top of her shoulder just to know what it would feel like, to see how she react. He could hear her shuttered breath and feel her hands a bit more firmly against his shoulders which only encouraged him to continue. Turning his head slightly to the left, his lips rested just at the edge of the collar of her shirt, so they bridged the gap between flesh and fabric. That time, he felt her body jolt next to his.

"What are you doing?"

As she didn't move away, he continued to turn his head so that his lips ghosted just above the skin on her neck. He moved slowly northward until they rested just below her pulse point. When he tried to kiss her there, she jumped again and that time pushed herself away with a warning, "Castle."

"No, don't." He protested, trying to hold her close, but she hopped over one of the benches so that it separated them.

"We can't do that."

"Why not?"

She twisted enough to snatch a small makeup bag out of her open locker before shooting him a firm look. "You know why not," she said before stalking off towards the nearby counter where there was a large mirror above two sinks.

Though he wished to ignore it most days, he did understand to what she referred: the fact that society seriously frowned upon intimate relationships between Elites and Normals. They weren't against the law, and in rural areas, where the number of Normals was larger than the number of Elites several times over, they were almost commonplace, but in metropolitan areas like Manhattan? Such couples would face serious opposition.

Romantic relationships had always been especially complex and difficult for Castle. Everyone his age was a Normal save the other twenty-eight first gens, only one of whom he kept in contact with into adulthood. If he wanted a relationship with another Elite, it would have needed to be with someone more than likely several years his junior, which he had done almost exclusively es over the years, but those relationships hadn't worked out long term—none of them had. Even his attempts at relationships with Normals had failed to that point, but standing there, staring at the female detective fumbling around with eyeliners and mascara wands as though she'd forgotten how to hold anything properly in her fingers, he could not help but think there was a reason for all of that.

Castle approached her from behind and stood just close enough to catch her reflection in the mirror. "It's not illegal, Detective."

She scoffed. "Might as well be."

Sadly, she had a point. The antagonism mixed couples faced in Manhattan seemed to grow worse every years as more and more Elites came into adulthood, but what did that matter? Those people didn't know them; they weren't all in a relationship—only the two of them would be.

"How could this be illegal? Not when it feels so…" His voice drifted off for not even the whole of the English language could properly describe the way he felt when she smiled at him or when her hand brushed over his. Seeing that he had her full attention, he stepped closer and continued. "You feel it, too; I know you do."

She dropped the mascara back onto the counter and gripped the edge of the sink tightly with her hand. "I don't know what you're talking about."

He stepped up so that he was close enough to touch her. "You do. Every time I catch you looking at me. Every time you do the same. When I hold a door open for you and you brush your fingers against my arm. When we shake hands and you hold on just a second longer than you should. You want this as much as I do." His heart was pounding in his chest now, his palms beginning to feel clammy, but he wouldn't stop now—he couldn't.

"I…no."

He could feel her walls starting to rise up again—the ones he'd worked years to crack though, so he quickly decided to shift directions and try a different angle. Maybe talking about how they truly felt about each other was too much for her; perhaps he needed to focus more on the moment.

Castle stepped up to the edge of the sink so that he could stand beside her and look at her directly instead of through a reflection. "Kate," he began while placing a soft hand on her arm, "we almost died today. Don't you want to celebrate being alive?"

She dipped her gaze towards the counter. "I…I-I can't."

He heard the hitch in her voice and knew she was near tears. The last thing he wanted was to make her cry, but if that's what it took to get her to open up, to be honest with him… "Kate, please." He moved his hand from her arm so that he could tilt up her chin with his index finger beneath her jaw. She let him lift her head, but her eyes remained closed.

"Castle…"

"Just let go," he whispered just before lowering his lips to hers. She breathed in sharply but didn't push him away. Instead, she let out a soft whimper and moved one of her hands from where it white-knuckled the sink edge so it could rest gently on his side. A moment later she parted her lips, melted into him and—god, this was what it felt like to truly live. The women's locker room at the Twelfth precinct with its cracked, moldy tile and musty smell had to be the most non-romantic location in the city, but it didn't matter as long as his lips were on hers.

Castle pulled back only long enough to fist his fingers through her wet hair and pulled her mouth more firmly against his so he could sweep his tongue past her lips. She groaned and tilted her head back to accept him, but only for a moment, before she pressed both hands against his belly and forced him away saying, "No, stop."

"But Kate."

"No." She shook her head, turning from him so she could grab a paper towel to use to mop up the tears that had fallen from the corner of her eyes. "We can't."

His heart broke a little, but not because of her words; because of how broken they sounded coming out of her lips. "Kate…"

She sniffed and crumpled up the paper towel in her hands before looking back at him with set shoulders and a firm jaw. "You should finish up your statement with Ryan and then go home. I have to dry my hair and…and then I have paperwork to fill out since my car is at the bottom of the Hudson."

Unwilling to give up, he asked, "How long do you think that'll take?" as he formulated his next idea in his mind.

She shrugged and picked up her mascara tube again, turning back to her reflection in the mirror. "I don't know."

"Maybe you should come over for a drink after."

She let out a derisive laugh. "You're not very good at taking no for an answer, are you?"

He grinned at her. "Never have been. Listen, no pressure. I'll just, ah, leave the loft door unlocked and when you're done with your paperwork… let's just say I really want you to come," he let a beat go by before continuing. "…over. Come over."

His suggestive wording earned him a glare and a very on-edge sounding, "Castle…"

With an innocent shrug, he backed away from her, slipping his hands into the pockets of his hoodie. "Hope to see you later, Kate." And with that, he walked out of the room without ever looking back.

A/N: Thank you for all the positive & supportive reviews!