[Author's Note: Wow. It's been quite a while since this story got an update. Granted, each chapter of this is being designed to stand alone; the connection is simply one of theme. I have been working on this new segment for months, but I've taken it really slowly because I want to make sure everything ends up the way I want it to be. I've had this idea for a couple years, and this is the final culmination of the vision. Frankly, this little story is a very significant one for me. I hope you'll all enjoy it and let me know your thoughts either way. Happy reading.]

"Say it, Kate," he encouraged softly, stroking a palm up and down her back. She could feel goosebumps puckering her bare skin, and she was suddenly shy.

"No, Castle," she mumbled. "This is pointless." This was his idea, and she hated it. She hated it, but she loved him; so here she was, on a quiet Saturday morning, standing with him in front of her bedroom mirror wearing nothing but leggings and a purple sports bra. This was his idea because he'd somehow convinced himself that three words coming out of her mouth could actually change things. It was ridiculous, and she couldn't believe she was buying into it.

"Is it pointless, or is it just uncomfortable?"

Kate sighed. "If I play along, will you sit on the couch with me and read all afternoon?"

"Sure," Rick answered easily, and he slid his hand from her back to her side, tracing her incision scar with his thumb. She flinched subtly, and he kissed her temple in response.

A breath in. Three words, that was all he wanted. Three words to appease him. She met his eyes in the mirror, and then—on an exhale—dropped her gaze to her own torso and the scars reflected back at her. She opened her mouth to say it, really meant to, but the words caught in her throat. Rick watched as Kate studied her own appearance, lower lip quivering faintly.

She brought her eyes back up to his. "I… I can't do it," she whispered.

"Kate, I know it isn't all that easy, and I know you feel self-conscious, but you can do this." He rubbed warm, open palms up and down her sides in long, smooth strokes. "I promise. You've got to start somewhere, Kate, so start here… Alright?" In response to her wide-eyed silence, he continued, "Do you trust me, Kate? Is this okay?" He felt her body start to tremble, but she nodded nonetheless. For a long few minutes they stood in perfectly still silence. Kate worried her lower lip between her teeth.

Finally, Kate let out a shuddering breath and turned to face him. "You know what?" she asked, looking up at him, "I've got a different three words for you: 'I hate myself.'" With that, she spun on her heel and darted out of the room. Deflated, Rick sat down on the end of Kate's bed, wondering how the powerful, beautiful woman he had been looking at could see things in such a different way.

After allowing each of them a minute or two to recompose themselves, Rick pulled a throw blanket off the end of Kate's bed and quietly walked into the living room, where Kate lay curled up on her side, facing the back of the couch and looking unbearably fragile. He noticed the rise and fall of her ribcage in time to her heavy breathing and could tell that she was trying to force down the sobs that were surely on their way. Slowly he knelt next to the couch, draping the blanket over Kate's laboring body.

The delicateness shattered her. For nearly half an hour, Rick sat on the floor next to her, rubbing her back, kissing the nape of her neck and crown of her head, and cradling her shoulder and hip with his hand. Gradually, Kate's breathing relaxed, shaky sighs replacing anguished sobs, and Rick scooped her up in his arms, resettling them on the couch with Kate in his lap. He kissed her forehead, tucked and re-tucked the blanket, stroked her hair until she drifted off, still curled up against him.

She cried in her sleep.

After a twenty-minute nap, Kate stirred and peeked hesitantly up into Rick's eyes. "Hey," he greeted quietly, sweeping a hand through her hair. She hummed quietly, and Rick watched as her eyes filled with tears once again.

"I'm sorry," she mumbled. "So sorry."

"Kate, honey, look at me."

"No," she pleaded on a high-pitched whimper.

"Shh… Shh, sweetie, there's nothing to be sorry about. I promise." He stroked up and down her back with his left hand while gently brushing tears from her cheeks with his right. "Nothing to apologize for, beautiful."

"I'm not beautiful, Castle," she murmured into his chest while fisting a hand in his T-shirt. For a few minutes, Rick said nothing. He moved his right hand to tuck her hair behind her ear, then brought it back to stroke her cheekbone, her temple, and her forehead.

Finally he broke the silence. "Come with me—just for a second." He draped the blanket over the back of the couch and swept Kate up in his arms as he stood, before setting her on her feet next to him.

"Come where?" she asked skeptically.

"Back to the mirror." Rick slipped his hand into hers and tugged it lightly in the direction of her bedroom.

"No." Kate turned around and tried half-heartedly to pull him back onto the couch. Rick was struck by the fact that she could have him on the floor on his face in a half second if she really wanted to, so she could easily drag him back down onto the couch. But she didn't seem inclined to take advantage of her combat training just then.

"Please, Kate. Please, just give me two minutes. That's all. I swear," he pleaded.

"Why, Castle? What good do you think this is doing?"

"You'll see. I promise you will. Please trust me. Just give me two minutes, Kate." At length, she nodded, and Rick walked her back to the mirror with his fingers intertwined with hers.

After a minute or so of silent fidgeting on Kate's part, Rick pulled their hands apart and spread his across her shoulder blades, massaging tenderly as he spoke. "Can I tell you what I see when I look at you, Kate?"

After a brief hesitation she nodded. He gave her a soft smile in response. "Then let's start from the top, shall we?" When Kate finally looked up enough to meet his eyes, he continued. "I see this gorgeous head of hair," he told her, stroking a hand through it, "that looks beautiful in every one of the several dozen ways its been styled over the years." He brushed a thumb over her temple before returning his eyes to hers in the mirror. "I see these beautiful hazel eyes that have taken in some of the very worst that the world has to offer every day for a dozen years, yet that still manage to light up at all the little wonderful things." He kissed her temple.

"I see a smile," he went on, with a stroke of his fingertips along her jawbone, "that lights up a room—that could light up the universe—and that reminds me every day how blessed I am to live in a world with Kate Beckett in it." Rick brushed his lips against her cheekbone when he saw her blush.

He studied her for a second, noting the back-and-forth shift of her weight and the wide-eyed, blank expression that told him exactly how self-conscious she felt. "When I look at you, Kate," he continued, passing one fingertip very softly over the bullet scar at the center of her chest, "I see one mark that reminds me just how close I came to living in a world without you, and that I ought to cherish every single second I get to spend with you." Watching Kate's eyes well up, he moved his hand back to her side. He brushed the same fingertip over the incision scar running down her left side. "And I see one more that reminds me that you and I can overcome anything so long as we keep leaning on each other.

"I see an incredibly beautiful and impressively strong body—one that's withstood things most people can't even imagine. I see the perfect posture of someone who has mastered the art of looking 'okay'—not only to protect herself, but also in order to care for everyone around her." He felt a release of tension from Kate's shoulders when he leaned down to press a slow kiss to the nape of her neck. Almost instantly she began to tremble.

Not wanting her to back out now, Rick kept going. "I see hands that make me wish nothing more than that I could wash away just a little of the proverbial blood that they never should have needed to be stained with." Their eyes once again met in the mirror as he told her this, and in response Rick saw the corner of her mouth quirk upward and a tear slip from each of Kate's eyes.

"Kate, when I look at you, I see the most beautiful woman in the world. And I know you don't see that—not yet, at least—but I hope someday you will. For now, though, I'm begging you: please trust me when I tell you that you are far more beautiful than anyone else I have ever seen. And that is never going to change."