Summary: It was the best date night Kate had ever had...except this wasn't even supposed to be a date.

Author's Note: I haven't had a chance to respond to any reviews from the last chapter, so a group thank you will have to suffice this time. You guys are so awesome and your support and encouragement continues to amaze me! So thank you.

Disclaimer: Nope, still not mine. And neither is the post I based this off of.

Chapter 3

If Castle had been standing, he was pretty sure he would have fallen over from all of the emotions swirling inside of him. As mad as he had been last summer, and as betrayed as he felt now, he still loved her. Loves her.

And now, to hear that she loves him, too. He was not sure he had ever gone from furious to ecstatic so quickly. There were a whole bunch of other emotions vying for the spotlight, too, but the only thing he could think of in that moment were her final words. Because, God, he had waited for so long to hear those words come out of her mouth.

Kate sat in nervous silence, her heart pounding as she waited for his response. She had never been one to put herself out there in a relationship...or whatever this was...and now she knew why. It was terrifying, and she had never felt so exposed in her life. She had said 'I love you' before, but never had it carried this much weight. And never had she said it not in direct response to her significant other first saying the words to her. Now, all she could do was sit there and hope that he still felt the same.

She dropped her hand to his shoulder, caressing the skin of his neck with her fingers. It was more of a nervous motion than an attempt to comfort him, but it seemed to have a slightly positive effect, as his features softened slightly.

Castle opened his mouth, to say what, he was not sure. Speechless. She had rendered him speechless, and not just because of her confession. He simply did not know how to respond, could not decide which emotion to go with. It was not every day that the woman you were madly in love with made you angry and then admitted her feelings within a span of five minutes.

He had always imagined that the moment Kate said those words to him would be followed with smiles and hugs and, frankly, physical contact...a lot of it. Never in a million years did he imagine things would happen like this.

He wanted to be mad. He really did, because regardless of her feelings, her actions hurt him. And in light of her feelings, he found her actions to be even more puzzling.

"I..." he began, "ummm, I...really?" Not his most eloquent effort ever.

She squeezed his thigh, risked a smile. At least he did not seem overwhelmingly angry anymore. "Really."

"I don't understand, Kate."

Well, that was not what she had been expecting to hear. "Don't understand what?"

"If that's how you really feel and you still pushed me away all summer..."

"I told you, Castle, I wasn't ready to face my feelings...or yours."

"I understand that, but if you could push me away then...what happens next time something comes up? Are you going to do the same thing again?"

Kate looked away in shame. God, not only had she made a mess of this, but she had broken his trust in her as well, and all the apologies in the world would not make that better.

"I..." she sighed, lifted her eyes to meet his. "I'm not going to promise that I won't ask for space at times," she said honestly, knowing that false promises were not going to help. "But I'm ready for this now. I did what I did before because I wasn't ready. And I know all of this doesn't make things right, but I'm promising you now that I'm never going to do what I did to you this summer ever again. I may not be all the way healed, and I'm probably still going to struggle to open up, but I want this to work, Rick. And I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure of that."

"You...you're really serious about this," he said softly, almost awestruck.

Kate nodded. "And for what it's worth, I'm really sorry, Rick."

He reached out, wrapped his arms around her, pulling her towards him. Kate tentatively hugged him back, her head coming to rest in the crook of his neck. She could almost feel the tension draining out of both of their bodies. The lasting impacts of her secret...and her confession...were far from over, but this was a start. And frankly, it had gone much better than she had expected.

"You're really letting go of everything?"

"I'm working on it."

"How?"

She shook her head. "Not right now, okay?"

He seemed to sense the uneasiness in her voice, opted not to push any further. She would have to tell him eventually, because they had clearly proven that secrets were not going to get them anywhere positive. But for now, one issue was enough.

"What about your case?" he asked instead, remembering her earlier words.

"I'm letting it go, too." He lifted his head in surprise. "I have to," she continued, by way of explanation. "For now, at least. Or it's going to keep taking over my life."

His eyes flicked to the office again, to his own potentially-devastating secret, and briefly debated telling her now, too.

He owed it to her to come clean. Except that there was not much to tell, honestly. Aside from what Montgomery's old friend had told him, and the case involving the mayor a couple months back, he had not gotten anywhere. He could tell her that he had been working on it, but since he had not really found anything, what was the point?

And in light of her decision to step back from the case, he was not sure that this was a good time to have this conversation. If she had been working to let go of the case, then him bringing it up now was only going to bring forward everything she was trying to put behind her.

Besides, he was going to put it on hold now, out of respect for her; if she was going to let it go, then he was going to as well.

It was bound to come up at some point, anyways. He knew Kate, and he knew that she would not be able to let it go forever. And when she was ready to tackle it again, he would tell her. Tell her what little he had discovered. And work with her to solve this once and for all.

But until that time, he would simply leave it alone.

He would not be lying to her, per se. He was just not talking about it, because telling her would go against everything she was trying to accomplish. And right now, what she was trying to overcome was more important than anything else.

Bringing it up would probably do more harm than good. For now, it was better left untouched.

He just hoped his decision would not come back to bite him in the ass.

"Are we okay?" she asked into his neck a few minutes later, drawing him from his conflicted thoughts and back into the current issue.

"I'm not sure," he answered honestly.

Kate lifted her head, dropped her arms, and immediately found herself missing the contact, missing his warmth. "Why not?"

"I just..." he shrugged, "this isn't the kind of thing that heals right away, Kate."

"I know," she said sadly, "And believe me, I hate myself right now for what I did to you. To us. So please, let me help make things right again. What we have is the most important thing in my life, and I don't want to lose that."

"I don't want to either," he answered softly, and Kate saw in his eyes the first hints of forgiveness.

She dropped her hand to his shoulder, tugged him back to her. He went without resistance, folded himself into her embrace. It was awkward, with both of them still sitting on the floor, half wrapped up in the blankets. But the physical contact was comforting, because when Kate had started this conversation, she was not sure she would ever be hugging him again.

"I love you, Rick," she said against the skin of his neck, the phrase rolling off of her tongue more easily the second time. "You believe that, right."

He lifted his head, met her eyes, and in them, he could see only truth and love. "Yes."

"Do you still...?" She felt insecure for even asking. Maybe she was, but she had to know.

"Yes, God, yes, Kate," he answered, squeezing her more tightly. "I just...I need some time, okay?"

She internally cringed at hearing her own words from the hospital reflected back at herself, but she completely understood. She had lied to him, hurt him, and if she had been in his situation, she probably would have done the same thing. Actually, she probably would have just walked away without saying a word, not even bothering to ask for time and space.

She slid out of his embrace, attempted to school her features so as to hide the worst of the pain, though she was pretty sure she was failing miserably. "Okay."

Kate stood, grabbed a handful of pillows and set them back on the couch where they belonged. After a moment, Castle stood and began to help her, returning the rest of the pillows to his bedroom while she folded up the blankets and set them on the sofa. By the time he re-emerged, she was slipping into her shoes and retrieving her coat from the closet.

"I should go."

He was not going to argue with that statement.

"Will I see you at the precinct tomorrow?"

He shrugged. "We'll see."

Not the answer she wanted, but she understood. "Okay."

He caught her hands as she finished buttoning her coat. "Thank you," he said softly, catching her completely off guard.

"For what?"

"For telling me the truth. I know it can't have been easy for you, either."

She shook her head. "It wasn't. But I couldn't keep lying to you."

Kate dropped his hands, opened the door. The tears had been threatening to fall for the better part of the last half hour, but she was not going to break down in front of him, not when he was the one who really deserved to be upset.

"If there's anything I can do..."

"I'll call you."

And in a scene very reminiscent of the one in the hospital, she walked through the door, leaving her heart behind, just as Castle had all those months ago.

As the door clicked shut behind her, she understood exactly how he had felt last summer.

Like the whole world was behind that door, and the only things that lie beyond it were heartbreak and emptiness.

Kate felt awful as she made her way back to her apartment. Once she arrived, she walked inside, dropped her shoes, keys, and coat on the floor in front of the door and collapsed on her couch, finally allowing the tears to flow.

It felt like she had just said goodbye to her partner. She was unsure of whether he would be in the next morning, unsure of how much time he needed, unsure if things would ever truly be okay between them. She was under no delusions about the damage she had caused. She would have to fight to earn his trust again. And she was completely willing to do that, but it was not going to happen if he avoided her.

She wanted to punch herself for what she had done, for the way she had treated him, selfishly putting herself ahead of him every day for months on end. She had taken advantage of the fact that he was always there, willing to wait for her, the whole time remaining unfailingly loyal.

And this time, she had pushed him too far.

She respected his need for space and time, just like he had respected hers all those months ago. But she was going to fight for this, because she had worked too hard over the last few months to allow them to crash and burn before they even had their chance.

The next time she opened her eyes, Kate had no idea how much time had passed. There was still sunlight peeking between the slats of the blinds, but the length of the shadows meant it was later in the day.

Kate forced herself to sit up, only to be met by a pounding headache and red, swollen eyes that did not want to face the light of day. Thank goodness it was Sunday and she did not have anywhere to be. Grocery shopping needed to be done, but that was just going to have to wait. Right now, all she wanted was to take some ibuprofen and go back to sleep.

She stumbled to her room, through to the bathroom where she intentionally avoided the mirror. After using the toilet, she splashed some cold water on her face and took something for her headache, but she still felt awful. At least she had the presence of mind to change out of her jeans, though, before crawling into bed.

This time, however, Kate was not quite so lucky. Her brain refused to shut down, snippets of their argument flowing through her mind, and sleep eluded her. She had no idea how long she laid there before finally giving up and forcing herself to behave like a functioning human being.

Her head still hurt, her chest ached, and tears were never far away, but she pushed through it. She showered, microwaved some leftover Chinese from a couple of nights ago, and then began absentmindedly cleaning her apartment.

Not until well past midnight did she attempt to sleep again, and even then, she did not manage more than a couple of hours before her alarm was going off, alerting her to the start of a new week.

And it was clearly not off to a good start.

She should not have been surprised when Castle did not show up at the precinct; after all, he had asked for time, and he did say he was not sure he would make it. But this was Castle, and he usually dropped everything to be there...especially when there was a case. It was that, more than anything else, that showed her just how much she had hurt him.

She had texted him hours ago with an address, but never received any response. The case was not outrageously difficult, and the evidence was actually stacking up fairly nicely, but Kate was completely miserable.

So she stayed late and arrived early, putting everything into solving this case, leaving herself no time to think about what had happened and no energy left to dwell on it. She was withdrawn, abrupt with her coworkers, and visibly drained.

And when the next two days passed in the same manner, Ryan and Esposito decided that it was time to take action.

"Beckett."

"Hmmm?" she said without looking up from her paperwork. They had booked the suspect a few hours ago, finally, and she was now immersed in wrapping up the case.

"It's almost midnight."

"Yeah, I know. You guys can head on home."

"Kate." That got her attention. Esposito never called her by her first name.

"What?"

Ryan sat down in Castle's chair, gently removed the pen from her hand. "What happened?"

She shook her head, biting the inside of her cheek to hold back her tears. "Nothing."

"Do we need to kick his ass for you?"

She smiled in spite of it all, but shook her head. "It wasn't his fault."

Esposito rested a hand on her shoulder, squeezed softly. "You're exhausted. Go get some rest. Paperwork can wait."

She met their eyes graciously. It did not often show, but they were protective of her, like the older brothers that she never had. And right now, she needed that.

"Thanks, guys."

"Night, Beckett."

She watched as they grabbed their jackets and headed out before doing the same herself. She was beyond exhausted, emotionally and physically, and she really needed some sleep if she was going to make it through the rest of the week. And she needed to be fully functioning in the morning.

Because she had a plan.

First thing tomorrow, she was going to stop by the loft and get her partner back.

No matter what it took.

Author's Note: Yes, I know, this chapter didn't really resolve things all the way and I'm kind of leaving you hanging. And I realize Rick is being pretty hard on Kate. But personally, I think her secret is the worst of the two, so Rick has every right to be upset. I hope that you guys will trust my decisions to have Kate and Rick deal (or not deal) with things in the manner I have chosen...I promise you, I do have my reasons.

Thoughts?