Chapter 5

A surge of anger rushed through Kate, the sight of Castle standing at her door one she would've happily welcomed just days before, but one that now caused her jaw to clench and her heart to pound like it might burst from her chest. She'd given him every opportunity, every chance to talk, to try and discuss whatever the hell was going on with him, with them, but he'd completely shut her out each time. Yet here he was, now, at her door, looking at her like that, like he'd looked at her for four years- in the very way she'd come to crave. And all she wanted to do was slap him across the face for it.

"What're you doing here, Rick?" Her voice carried with it no endearment, her use of his first name rather than his last purely a means of punctuating her exasperation. She stood firm in the doorway, her arm extended across its entrance, her able hand pressed firmly against the frame, her goal beyond any other to prevent her knees from giving way beneath her, her body in no state of preparedness for the unexpected encounter.

"Kate, your face, your-" He took a step toward her, but immediately thought better of it and stopped his motion, her expression not at all agreeable. His eyes drank her in, her savage beauty despite the visible battle scars, and he could feel his pulse bounding furiously- both relief and fear its catalyst. "Last night when I talked to Espo-" He paused and released a firm breath of air, as though his body had demanded it in order to go on. "I just had to know you were okay. I had to see you and-"

"Last night?" She looked up at the ceiling and then down at the floor, at nothing at all, anywhere but in his eyes, hurt suddenly battling with anger for a position inside her. "Well, thanks for rushing right over. Your concern is noted." She reached back across her body for the door. "And now you've seen me, and I'm fine, so I'm pretty sure we're done here, Castle."

She had the door halfway closed when it hit the palm of his outstretched hand, the force enough that the wood vibrated against her own. He pushed back against it, against her determination to shut him out. "Kate, don't. Please."

"Don't what, Castle? Don't push you away? Don't act like I don't care? Don't shut you out like it means nothing? What, you're the only one who gets to do what he wants?" She turned her back and walked away in need of space, left him standing alone in the doorway.

"You think this is what I want?" The roar of his words echoed off of every wall, as he stepped inside and let the door slam shut behind him. "I don't want any of this, Kate." Heatedly, he followed after her as she disappeared into the kitchen.

"Yes, you've made that quite clear, for weeks, and, you know what, I can't do this anymore. I can't spend every minute of every day wondering what the hell it is I did wrong. I can't keep chasing you around for answers, which works out perfectly for you, I guess, since you clearly don't want to give me any. So, consider yourself off the hook, Castle. If you're done, I can be done too." She felt sick the moment she said it, the thought that they were done thoroughly crushing.

He dropped his hands to the kitchen table and clutched its edges, lowered his head for a moment in a futile grab at composure. How the hell had they gotten here? How the hell had everything that'd taken so long to build crumbled to dust so quickly? "I was just so scared, Kate, so goddamned scared. All I could think about last night when I heard about the accident was the day you were shot, when I thought I'd lost you forever." He straightened his body, moved in close to where she stood, her arms folded across her breast- clear body language, which he ignored. "I was there last night, at the hospital. Of course I was there, Kate, my god. But the nurse wouldn't let me see you- some ridiculous bullshit about visiting hours or not being family, I don't even remember." He ran his fingertips across the skin of her exposed forearm. "I was there, Kate."

There was a discernible quiver in his downhearted tone, but she pulled away still, shifted around the table so there was comfortable space between them again. She couldn't be that close, and she had to fight to stamp out the shiver his touch had sent through her body. "That was one night, Castle. Where have you been for all the rest of these days and weeks? I can't just forget all of that because I got in an accident and you had some need to make yourself feel better by checking in on me."

"Do you honestly believe that's why I came? So I could walk away for good with a clear conscience? Is that really what you think of me now?"

She shrugged her shoulders with detachment. "I don't know what to think anymore, Castle. At this point, I'd probably believe just about anything's possible."

It tore him up inside, the place they were in, the level of palpable disconnect. But he knew if he started down this road, he wouldn't be able to stop, wouldn't be able to hold anything back- not anymore. It was all too close to the surface, too raw. Seeing her as she was, bruised and broken, was more than he could stand, and everything in him wanted desperately to help make her whole again, as he'd always tried to do. But he'd already made his choice- one born of necessity, he'd convinced himself. He'd walked away because he'd thought it the easier path. And yet here he was, just hours after he'd quit all of it, standing in front of her, wondering how he'd even made it that long without her.

Neither of them spoke, as though each waited for the other to whisper the magic words that would fix everything. Kate pushed up onto her tiptoes and perched herself on the kitchen table, her long legs dangling over the edge, her back to Castle who still stood on the other side. She picked at the bandage around her wrist, an ineffective distraction from the wordless void, while he studied a cluster of her damp hair that danced precariously along the edge of the cliff that was her shoulder.

"Why did you come here, Rick?" She didn't look up, didn't turn around. "I don't understand any of this." The weariness, both physical and emotional, radiated from her.

Without warning, his mother's words about regret swiftly invaded his brain and thrust him onward without any opportunity for deliberation. "Because since the moment we met, Kate, I've never been able to stay away from you. Because no matter how hard you've pushed, no matter what obstacles or truths I've had to face, no matter how much it's hurt, I can't be without you."

Kate curled her legs up onto the table and spun slowly to face him. "What truths? What're you talking about?" However curious she was, her tone still carried a bite, and though she'd heard the entirety of his answer, the weight of it hadn't yet begun to register.

He swallowed hard, his mouth instantly dry with doubt. Had he already said too much? Beads of sweat joined together in a rambling line above his lip, her fierce focus on him the root of his body's sudden lack of balance. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have-"

"Don't. Don't do that." Her eyes remained locked on his, the insistence in their stare unwavering. "What truths, Castle? I want to know what you meant."

A single chuckle escaped his throat, though its origin wasn't rooted in humor. "What you want. Right." The words fell bitterly from his mouth.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"You wanted to hear about truths, Kate. Well, there's one for you. I know now that what I want and what you want are two very different things."

"That's funny. I don't recall having a conversation recently about what I want. Actually, I don't recall having many conversations recently, at all, Castle. How is it you think you know so well? Where did this revelation come from?"

She pulled unintentionally at her wounded lip with her teeth- the damn nervous habit- and cringed at the sensation, her eyes slamming shut at the burn.

"Oh, Kate, do you-" He couldn't help himself. He couldn't stop himself for one minute, wanting to be what she needed.

"I'm fine." She dismissed him, sliding from the table and moving for the freezer. She reached inside for some ice, dropped the cubes into one of the plastic bags from the fruit her dad had bought, and pressed it against her mouth. She leaned back against the counter, waiting for him still to offer a response to the question she was certain he didn't even know how to answer. She shook her head. "We always do this. We always dance around everything. It's fucking exhausting."

"It is."

"So, what is it that you want, Castle?"

It was all practically bursting from within him, and while he knew it wouldn't make any difference, her mind obviously made up already about their future, he had to release it, had to let it go before it ate him alive. "What do I want, Kate?" He paused to swallow down the lump in his throat. "The only thing in my life I've ever wanted more than you is for you to want me too."

God, he felt nauseated and faint. Hearing himself say it aloud, to her, knowing how she felt, was like feeling his heart being ripped out of his chest. "And I know you don't."

"How do you-"

"I heard you that day, Kate, in the interrogation room after the explosion in Boylan Plaza- with that complete stranger. I heard you tell a damn bombing suspect, a criminal, how you remembered every second of the day you were shot by that sniper. Every second. Like you'd said it a thousand times before."

"You-" The force of his admission hit her like a freight train barreling down a track, the wind knocked thoroughly out of her, the tears already beginning to form and tumble.

"And I had to hear it from behind a wall of concrete and glass, as a consequence of your anger and your frustration. You used it as a tool, Kate, as a weapon against a damn suspect, and I had to walk away from that room and act as though nothing had changed, as though my entire world hadn't just caved in. You knew exactly how I felt. You knew I was in love with you, and for a whole fucking year, you didn't say a thing."

Her legs went weak, her body trembling from the jolt of confusion and fear.

"And, you know, I was stupid enough to believe that I could pretend. Like you. I told myself the work was more important. I fooled myself into thinking that I could still be around you all the time and not feel anything. Fucking ridiculous. None of this has ever been more important than you and it never will be, and I'm sick of lying to myself about it. I've done it for too long. So, I want you to know that I get it now, Kate. I really do. But I'm certain now I won't survive you if I continue to go on every day like nothing's changed." His throat began to close around his words as he felt the inevitable end draw near. "And if you knew what it was like to feel this way, you wouldn't expect me to."

She hadn't said a word in what felt like hours. He hadn't let her, and maybe she deserved that. But there was so much inside her that she'd saved only for him, so many things he didn't know or understand. She felt like such a coward, tears cascading down her face as she stood there silent.

"I need to go," he said, backing away slowly, savoring every last second, despising every step. "I'm really glad you're okay."

How could he not see? How could he not understand? How could he not feel it?

"Castle, please don't go, not like this." She followed his path as he moved toward the door. "Please, you don't understand." She reached out for his arm, shuddered in pain as her injured wrist butted up against his body. She crouched down and dropped to the floor, nearly all of the energy she had left expended in her effort to simply remain awake in the aftermath of the last few days.

His hand was already at rest on the doorknob, but he stopped and turned back, kneeled down next to her on the floor. "Understand what, Kate? What else is there to say?"

Every day she'd heard his words play over and over in her mind. Kate, I love you. I love you, Kate. Every second she'd spent recovering in that hospital bed, every time she'd closed her eyes, or felt the sunshine on her face, or the grass under her feet, they were there with her, as though he were whispering them again from above. Every minute away from him in those months existed with his voice echoing in her ears. But there was hurt and grief and anger. He'd held her back. He'd made the choice for her. He'd stood in her way. And then it wasn't just her mother that was taken from her, but her mentor, her friend, and she couldn't see around it.

That wasn't how she wanted them to begin, trapped in the memory of one of her worst days, in the shadow of such pain. So she'd run, but she'd brought his words with her and kept them close, her invisible talisman for the battle ahead. It wasn't just her mother she had to fight for anymore, to summon the strength for; there was love- his love- what she'd wanted most but hadn't yet known how to accept.

Kate swiped the back of her hand across her upper lip and cleared away the amalgam of liquid that'd settled there, tears and the perspiration of nerves. Too worried she wouldn't be able to speak at all if she looked him in the eye, she settled on a spot in the grain of the wood beneath her, its random swirling pattern comforting in its accessibility. "Maybe I did this all wrong. I just wanted…I wanted to be better for you than that."

He reached out, attempted to draw her chin upward with his finger, but she fought against his touch. "Kate, look at me." He lowered himself fully to the floor and pushed himself toward her, closing the gap between their bodies. "Look at me."

She yielded to his persistence and lifted her eyes to him. "I wanted to be better," she managed faintly, through the quake in her voice.

"God, Kate, listen to me. And I need for you to hear me. There is no version of you that I don't thank the universe for every single day, and if you're trying, somehow, to be better than the extraordinary woman I've been blessed with for four years, to be more, then that failure is mine, not yours." He tucked a fallen strand of hair behind her ear. "If I've ever made you feel like you weren't enough, like you were too broken, like you needed to change anything about who you are, I'm so deeply sorry."

She grabbed for his wrist as he dropped his hand away, his words of apology for her own self-doubt the very last thing she needed from him. "Castle, no. That's not- you don't need to apologize." Her fingers squeezed his in an expression of emphatic reassurance. "Since I lost my mom, no other person in my life has made me feel as safe or as special as you have. You didn't do this. I've learned a lot from these months in therapy, about myself and my fears and how they've affected my decisions and my path. I built the wall around myself, Castle. You're the only one who's ever seen over it, and that still scares me sometimes. Until you, I didn't know what it felt like to need someone."

He watched her speak with such genuine surprise, her seemingly offhanded disclosure one he didn't expect. "You've been in therapy? Since when?"

"Pretty much since the shooting. The NYPD told me I had to talk to someone if I wanted to come back to work and not have to sit on my ass behind a desk. So I did, and when that was over, I decided to stay."

Kate didn't tell him everything about her life, didn't have to, of course, but he couldn't help but feel a modicum of disappointment that she hadn't shared something that important. "Well, I'm happy you found someone who helps you," he said, his words peppered with both melancholy and envy. He knew he wasn't qualified to give her what she needed, especially in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, but it still made his heart sick to have to accept that he couldn't be the one. He wanted to give her everything, see her through everything, make her believe everything would be okay. "Are you still seeing him? Or her?"

"I am."

"Have you talked about this- us? Or, well, me? My god, they must hate me for making everything worse. Or love me, I guess, if they charge by the hour."

That was him. He did that for her, always, brought her light. And that tiny glimmer of her Castle amidst all of this darkness felt like the brightest sunshine. "Honestly?"

"I'd like to think honesty is what this entire conversation is about."

She nodded in agreement. "Then, you and, yes, us are an important part of nearly every conversation I have with him. And, just so you know, it doesn't work like that, Castle. He makes no judgments about you or about anything else he hears. He just wants to help me help myself."

"You do understand how much I hate that it isn't me, right? That I can't be the one to do that for you."

"Why do you think I stayed with him, Castle? I stayed because of you."

It hit her all at once what that must've sounded like. "Wait, I didn't mean it like that. I meant that I stayed for you- for us. Those first couple of months after the shooting, I was really lost. And I didn't have you. Yes, I realize that was my own doing, but I thought it was going to make everything easier. I realized very quickly how wrong I was. And then I just felt ashamed about how I'd left things, and I needed help to figure out how to make it right, how to allow myself to feel happy with you and, at the same time, feel like that wasn't a betrayal of my mom."

"I just want you to be happy, Kate. Wait, hang on, let me clarify that statement with the qualification that I'd like it to be with me…yes, so, I just want you to be happy, Kate- with me."

"Your selflessness has always been one of your most attractive qualities, Castle."

"Honesty, remember?"

"Honesty," she agreed.

He took her injured and wrapped wrist in his palm and held it gingerly, ran his thumb over it with care. "Does it hurt?" He thought back to the previous night, how he'd been unable to see her after the accident, how sick he'd felt.

"It does, but that helps, thank you." It wasn't the first time his touch had brought her comfort.

Her eyes found his and she slowly shifted position. She used her free hand to push herself forward and, realizing her intention, he curled his arm around her in aid, pulled her forward up into his lap. It was graceless, the picture of her body and his coupled awkwardly in the middle of the floor, but it felt true in its disarray. Her fingers clutched at his shirt and he held her close, one hand secured against the back of her knee. "I don't want to lose you, Castle," she whispered against the warm skin of his neck.

He rocked their bodies softly, unknowingly, and they remained there, in gentle motion, until the sound of her phone echoed from the bedroom and drew their attention.

"Do you need to get up and get that?"

Kate drew her head back and looked up at him. "I don't want to move," she murmured indulgently, too tired to get up on her own and too enamored of her current position to contemplate any other. He smiled back at her with absolute understanding, pressed a kiss against her forehead. "Rick-"

He offered a hum of acknowledgment.

"If it's not too much trouble, would you kiss me? Please?" It was barely audible, but it hit him with the intensity of a thousand amplifiers.

His eyes traveled a wishful path to her mouth. "Kate, your lip, I don't want to-"

Her eyebrows crept upward as she purposely interrupted his thought. "You…don't want to?" Teasing him was always one of her great pleasures. "Okay then, forget it."

His hand cupped her cheek, his gaze ferocious. "I'm quite certain it would scare you silly to know just how wrong you are in your assessment of me and my level of desire to kiss you. In point of fact, there are few things I'd rather do, but those things require that you have two functioning hands." He was toying with her, too, giving right back what she'd given him. She knew it well, their game, but he'd spoken so sincerely, in such seductive tone, her body couldn't help but react.

"So, then?"

"So, then…" He lifted her cautiously from his lap, his legs numb from time and arrangement, and he rose from the floor with a sigh of age. She looked on in wonder, his plan unclear, if such plan even existed, until his hand reached for hers and pulled her up beside him. "Come with me."

He had a plan, and she didn't hesitate for a moment to follow wherever he was going to lead. She submitted to his gentle tug gladly. It was just hours ago that she'd truly believed she might never see him again, and now here he was, his hand in hers, guiding her down the hallway toward her bedroom. He'd never set foot in it before, but the mere notion of it aroused her, had done so numerous times in daydreams she could never share.

"Please ignore the mess," she warned, as they approached the threshold, her mind buzzing with anticipation- of what, she wasn't entirely certain, but it didn't seem to matter.

They stepped inside and he swept the room once with his eyes, took in everything that was her space. She allowed him the moment, the room new to her now, too, Castle standing beside her there for the first time. He moved in close, used his fingers to glide her robe from her shoulders and drape it across the end of the bed. "You know, even if there was a mess in here, which there isn't, the only thing I'd see is you." She felt the back of her neck flush pink. "Get in, Kate."

He slipped off his shoes and unbuttoned his plaid overshirt as she climbed into the bed from its foot. She settled on one side and he joined her from the other, pulled her curved body into the soft arc of his own with an arm that held her snugly in place against him. He nuzzled against the back of her neck, his warm breath tickling her skin, her hair fanned out along the pillow above.

And all was quiet- the city, the room around her, her thoughts- quieter than they'd been in weeks.

"Rick," she whispered, her heartbeat racing. "I heard you." She'd wanted to say it for so long.

She felt light, the words freed from their cage inside, once and for all, the moment right to give them over to him. "And I love you, too."