After his few seconds of observing her he put his hands in his pockets and walked over to be next to her and just stared up at the buildings like she was. She wanted to reach out and grab his hand but when she looked down his hands were in his pockets. Of course now wasn't the time to hold his hand, what was I thinking? She shook it off and sat down crossing her legs. She motioned for him to sit down next to her but he decided to walk around the rest of the rock looking around.

He stopped his pacing and turned to look at her. "Why'd you bring me here Beckett?"

"To talk."

"I know, you already said that, but why here, we could have gone somewhere a little warmer."

A flash of sadness showed through her eyes. "My mom brought me here when I needed to think or when there were things to talk about, important things."

"This place is pretty cool Beckett. It's secluded and high up from everyone but you can still see the buildings and hear the people." he walked over to her and sat down a couple feet away, leaning back on his hands and had his legs stretched out, "But it is a rock, shouldn't we go somewhere indoors?"

She looked at him, "It's private but still open, and this place always gives me the courage to talk. My mom brought me here so much when I needed to open up that now every time I'm here it's easy for me to do just that."

Castle just stayed silent after that statement. Here she was, vulnerable and opening up to him. Why would she do that? It's not like she needed to share this with him, she wants him gone anyway because she has no feelings for him.

"I have happier memories of here too. She brought me here when she got a big promotion and stuff like that. She also brought me here after I graduated high school and we sat up here for hours, just talking and eating ice cream." A warm smile grew on her face and a small one on his.

A few minutes later he was brought out of his thoughts when she suddenly spoke, "Castle, I remember."

"I know." She gave him a quizzical look and opened her mouth to ask him how but he just kept talking. "I was behind the glass when you admitted it Beckett."

She sighed and internally kicked herself; of course he would be behind the glass watching her. It hit her then, certainly he would have been watching her, he loved her and was always there for her, but not anymore.

"I'm really sorry. Castle you have to understand-"she was cut off by Castle.

He shifted and mimicked how she was sitting; legs crossed and leaned forward with his elbows resting on his thighs. "Look Beckett, it was wrong of me to say those things. I watched the life drain out of you; I watched your eyes go from a golden green to complete black. Do you know how scary that is? I felt your living body tense up and become stiff, I thought you were gone, and so I said what I did because it was the last time I would ever see alive, or I thought at least."

There was a pause after his words and then she realized what he went through.

"Castle, look, I realize how scary that was for you. It was a tragic moment but you need to know, "Again she was cut off by him.

"Beckett let me finish. I know those words had an impact on you. You didn't say anything about them because you didn't feel the same and so you acted like you didn't hear them and didn't want to hurt my feelings. But Beckett, I'm a grown man; I can take care of myself. You deserve to be happy, and you're right it was a tragic moment, and so I don't want this little moment between us to ruin anything more. I know you just want to move on and be happy but that's hard when someone like me keeps getting in the way and a little slip up like that is stopping you."

He paused for a moment.

"I said what I did in the heat of moment because I was scared but that's exactly it, it was the heat of the moment. You deserve to be happy and I just want to make this easy for you, and with those words hanging between us I don't think you could be happy, knowing someone else out there said- those things- and you don't feel the same. You shouldn't feel bad or guilty and not be in a relationship that makes you happy because of me and my words."

She sucked in quick breath. "What are you saying?" The tone of her voice changed from disbelief to one with a slight tremble. She looked at him and saw him sitting there looking away from her and at the buildings. She looked down to her lap using her hair as a shield, and then the tears started flowing without her permission. Her heart clenched in her chest and felt like she could throw it up at the moment.

He started to stand up and was brushing off his pants. "I'm just trying to make this as easy as possible for you. If you don't have the burden of those words to worry about and someone else's feelings to worry about then maybe you can finally find the right guy."

She knew if she let him leave he would move on and she would never forgive herself for lying to him. He took a couple steps away from her but was stopped when he heard her voice.

Oh, her voice, it sounded so broken. "Did you mean it?" It was so shaky and came out like a whisper.

He turned around and looked at her. She was standing now too. "It doesn't matter. Listen, I should go. And plus feelings change, you know that Beckett." Wow did those words hurt, but he knew she would be better off without those three little words hanging over her heard. This way she could finally be in that relationship she talked about that she wanted to be in, and now he could move on with his life and finally find someone who truly loved him back.

By now the sun was starting to set, neither realized they had been up there for over an hour, almost two. With everything he said he just wanted to get out of there and go home, maybe down a glass of scotch, or two or three. He turned around again to leave but again her voice stopped him.

This time her voice wasn't as shaky but it was still pretty bad. "What if I felt the same?"

He turned around but the look of anger in his eyes and his clenched jaw was not what she was expecting. "What?" his voice had raised now. "What do you mean, what if you feel the same? Beckett, I am so sick and tired of you stringing me along! I say those words and you lie to me and tell me you don't remember, and I believed you. And the whole time you keep saying the wall this, the wall that, and every time I got closer to you, you kept me at a distance!"

"And when I start pulling away you try to stop me and throw me these little lineslike I'm a fish to bring me back and reel me in. You would tell me personal information, little insights into your childhood, or something about you! And to do what? Have me close enough to help you up when you slip up, but far enough to keep another guy between us to let him catch you when you fall?"

She stands up and looks at him. "I'm so sorry Castle."

He takes a deep breath to try to compose himself, but it didn't work.

His voice isn't raised now. It's worse, it's dangerously low. "You don't get to do this Beckett. Not again. You always hurt me and then apologize and just think it's all going to be ok, well it won't! I'm about to leave and you try to stop me, why? You don't feel the same and you know it, you just want to have a writer follow you around like a pathetic loyal puppy. Someone who will forgive you every time you hurt them."

"Please, Castle!" She was yelling now.

"I'm not in the mood anymore to do this. Any of it." He thought for a second. She kept this secret from him and he's kept a really big secret from her, if they're getting everything out in the open now he might as well tell her. He knew after this talk they were going to be over anyway, so he should just tell her.

He takes a deep breath to smooth his voice. He knows this news will hurt her, but she deserves to know.

"Beckett, this all started over your mother's case and you deserve to know this. I knew we would be over after this talk anyway and if I'm being honest with you, I need to tell you. Before Montgomery died he sent a package, the package was full of information harmful to the people behind all of this, but it didn't arrive until after your shooting. The deal was if you stopped investigating, the file would never surface, but if you kept investigating they would kill you, this friend of Montgomery needed someone to make sure you wouldn't investigate anymore, so he asked me."

Her eyes were blazing but it was no surprise she would react like this. "You're a part of this? Castle how could you?" She tried to calm herself down; she cares too much about Castle. "Where can I find him?"

"I don't know. He's a voice on the phone in the middle of the night; he's a shadow in a parking garage."

"You met with him! Castle you could have been killed! How did you know he wasn't actually the one who was behind all this?"

"I didn't but I wanted to protect you."

"You could've came to me and talked to me about it! You sat on this lead for almost a year!"

"Beckett, this is the most important thing in your life, I knew if I talked to you about it you would run straight at them and would've gotten killed."

"Castle! You're wrong; you are the most important thing in my life! You have been for awhile now." Her bluntness and open statement threw him off a bit. But he was still angry and figured it wasn't the truth, it was from the heat of the moment. Just like his confession in the cemetery, or that's what he blamed it on, but he knew his wasn't the heat of the moment.

"You can stop pretending to make me feel better, I know you want to solve her case, it's the only thing you truly care about."

Did he not believe her? She admits her feelings to him and he's not even listening! She was getting angry, at him, herself, and this whole situation.

He turned around again but instead of being stopped by hearing her voice again, he felt her hand wrap around his wrist and turn him around to her.

"I have a question Castle. What about Serena Kaye? You say you love me and then a few months later you were fascinated with her and almost wrote a book about her? You were going to leave me! Or what about Sophia Turner, it was obvious you still had feelings for her!"

He was so confused, why would she bring this up after he just told her about the file? "What about them Beckett? Why would it even matter to you? You have no right to bring them up or get mad over them! We weren't together and you made it pretty clear you didn't want to be. If they bothered you so much you could've said something, but no you did what you always do. You sat back and hid away, and that's because you don't feel the same! I had every right to be with them if I wanted to be, that shouldn't matter to you and I don't even know why I have to explain myself to you."

She couldn't believe it; he still didn't think she felt the same, even after everything she's said.

Her eyes were blazing again. "You really think I didn't say anything because I didn't feel the same? Castle, I didn't say anything because I knew that I couldn't start a relationship with you before I was healed! I had to heal to be with you! That relationship I was talking about, the one I said I always wanted, I wanted it with you! I had to keep you around and throw you those little lines because I knew you were pulling away and if I didn't keep you near you would be gone completely, and then there would've been no reason for that wall to be down. If it was down but you weren't there, all the work I put in to heal would've been in vain. Castle, your words are what pushed me through all the times when I thought everything was becoming too much and I thought it wasn't worth it anymore. Your words saved me and pulled me through!"

By the end her eyes weren't blazing, they were shy yet determined. Her voice wasn't raised and angry anymore either, it was soft. His demeanor changed too, it became one of gentleness.

"I didn't know."

He pulled his wrist out of her grasp that it was still in and ran his hand up her and back down her arm. His voice was soft now, "I could have helped you healed."

She looked up at him. "No. If I wanted to heal I had to do it on my own. If I let you help me I would have ended up leaning on you and never have healed correctly. I would have still been broken and using you as a crutch, we wouldn't have lasted. But I did it on my own and now I can stand by myself. I had to heal on my own terms and I did it for you because I want to be with you, I need to be with you. I may still not be healed completely but the parts of me that still need to be are the parts that only you can heal."

His hand was still running up and down her arm but when it got back down her arm she grabbed his hand and laced her fingers with his. "I'm still mad that you kept this file from me," She whispered.

He looked down at her, "I'm still mad that you lied to me," he whispered back.

"I am sorry Castle. I was so scared, I knew if I gave into my feelings then you'd be it for me and if I lost you or hurt you again than I could never live with myself or forgive myself. I always screw these things up."

"It's okay, I'm still hurt though. There are still some things we need to talk about."

"I understand and I expected you to be. I know saying sorry doesn't fix it but it's a start and I will work every day for you to forgive me."

"And I'm sorry; I was just trying to protect you. I knew you wouldn't like it but I can't lose you Kate."

Kate, he called her Kate. She knew they weren't where they need to be but she was just glad to hear her name again.

SO I THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD PLACE TO STOP FOR THIS CHAPTER. THIS WAS VERY HARD TO WRITE SO I HOPE IT WAS OKAY. THERE'S STILL MORE FOR THEM TO TALK ABOUT. I WAS VERY NERVOUS ABOUT POSTING IT…SO I'M GONNA GO OVER THERE AND WAIT FOR SOME FEEDBACK. THOUGHTS?