Summary: She's letting it go. Slowly but surely she's moving on, because she refuses to allow the darkness of her past to cloud her future. Their future. Spoilers for Always. Follows Wake To The Light.

Author's Note: Because who doesn't love a little more Martha, and some much needed girl talk?

Disclaimer: I'm running out of creative ways to say I don't own Castle. Not that anyone actually thinks that I do...

Chapter 6

"Worked things out, huh?"

Castle turns, watches his mother cross the porch to stand beside him, slippered feet swishing across the wooden planks. She dons just a nightgown and robe, obviously just having woken as well.

Kate rose early this morning, laced up her shoes and went for a run on the beach, and as much as he wanted to stay in bed with her, he could tell that she was restless and aching to get away for a while. So Castle watched her go through the window, made his way onto the main porch and spent a good five minutes staring after her, eyes fixated on the point at which he had last seen her long, lithe form making its way across the endless stretches of sand.

It is a beautiful morning, the sun glinting off of the water, sparkling as the waves lap the shoreline. It warms his face and arms, too, as he stands by the railing looking out over the beautiful blue expanse of the Atlantic, enjoying the fresh morning air and waiting for Kate. She will probably roll her eyes and call him ridiculous when she gets back and sees him there, but he cannot help himself. He just...will never get enough of having her with him, by his side, in his arms.

He smiles shyly at his mother as she steps up next to him, refocuses on the words she just spoke. "Yeah."

Martha nods, smiles herself. "I assume this happened before yesterday's...kitchen incident?"

Castle grimaces slightly because he may no longer be a teenager, but he is still embarrassed at having been caught by his mother.

"It did, yes." A soft smile splits his face and he cannot help himself, because Kate is here with him and she loves him. He is still reeling from hearing those words from her yesterday, still hears them almost constantly echoing through his mind.

Oh, how he wants to hear them again. And again, and again.

"And she's..." Martha hesitates, does not want to upset her son but feels the need to ask, to make sure. "She's serious about this?"

He nods, eyes light and sparkling, and maybe it is a reflection of the sun on the water, but maybe it is also just pure happiness. "She is."

The older woman nods thoughtfully, squeezes his arm. "Good."

Castle nods again, squints against the morning sun as a small figure appears in the distance. Kate, on her way back to him.

He loves that she always comes back to him now.

Martha allows her arm to drop to her side, steps back as she follows his gaze, sees Kate off in the distance. He is focused completely on her now, and there is no use trying to continue this conversation at present.

"I'm happy for you. Both of you," she says instead.

Castle leans down, presses a kiss to her cheek, briefly flicking his eyes away from Kate as he speaks. "Thank you, mother."

Martha crosses back to the sliding glass door, throws one last look over her shoulder as she steps inside, slides it closed behind her. Castle is leaning out over the railing, eyes fixed solely on Kate. She can tell from the way his muscles are relaxed, his entire being completely at ease, just how in love he is. And as Kate approaches the porch, smiles and waves at him despite her heavy breathing and the sweat running down her skin, Martha understands exactly how mutual the feelings are.

"You...you took a shower without asking for my assistance?" Castle asks, attempting to look highly affronted, but the smile that he cannot quite contain gives him away.

"You were talking to Alexis," Kate points out, running a brush through her wet hair, parting it down the center today.

Castle leans against the bathroom counter next to her, meets her eyes in the mirror with a smile. "I know."

Kate wraps a towel around her head, squeezes the excess water out of her hair. She lets the towel fall then, allowing the strands to tumble down around her shoulders. Castle follows its descent, reaches out to run his fingers gently through the ends as the smell of cherries and vanilla floats up to him.

She melts into him almost immediately, leans into his touch, and he responds by stepping up behind her, wrapping one arm around her waist, the other still buried in her hair.

Their eyes meet in the mirror, hold for a moment before Castle's drop to openly peruse the rest of her body. She has a towel wrapped around her from the chest down to the tops of her thighs, but the delicious lines of her collarbones and her long, toned legs are completely exposed and his eyes linger there unabashedly.

His hand drops slowly from her hair to her shoulder, fingers gently tracing the fading marks around her throat. Most of her bruises are gone now, vanishing along with the other wounds and scars of that day, of every day that led up to that final fight for her mother's case. A few remain, though. Peeling scabs on her back from the way the concrete cut up her skin. Yellowed fingerprints on her neck. The bruise on her hip and her lower back are still slightly visible, and the internal bruises from Maddox's knee to her gut are still tender.

But the physical markers appear less ghastly now, and along with the sun-kissed glow of her skin and the radiance reflected in her eyes, Kate looks so much better than just six days earlier.

She lifts a hand, covers his on her neck, meets his gaze understandingly. They will both be haunted by that day for weeks, maybe months, to come. But the terror will fade with time, just like everything else. Maybe here, beneath the harsh lights of the bathroom, is not the best place to have this conversation, though. So instead she tilts her chin, turns to press her lips to his softly, reassuringly.

She is okay. They both are.

The future may still be unknown, but right here, right now, Kate could not be happier.

Here.

With him.

They are torn from their reverie by the ringing of Kate's phone in the bedroom and she reluctantly slips from his embrace, crosses the room to retrieve the device. The caller ID flashes 'Lanie,' and instantly, she is dreading this conversation, because Lanie is never one to sugar-coat things and there is a lot that Kate has not told her in the last week. That and she missed a call from her the other day while she and Castle were…otherwise occupied…and never got around to calling her back.

But she misses her best friend and really, she has been pretty horrible about staying in contact with everyone from work. So much has happened recently, and she should probably call Ryan and Espo at some point, too, because God only knows where things stand between them right now.

She takes a deep breath to brace herself, sinks down onto the bed and presses 'talk.'

"Hey, Lanie."

"Katherine Beckett, what the hell?"

"Uh..."

"I called you three days ago."

"I know, I'm so..."

"You resigned?"

"Uh, yeah," Kate stammered, taken aback by the sudden change of topic. Apparently there was going to be even less sugar-coating than normal this morning.

"A week ago?"

Has it really been that long? "Yes."

"And I'm just now finding out about this from Javi?"

"Javi, huh?" Kate teases, but Lanie is having none of it.

"Nuh uh, you don't get to ask questions right now. What the hell happened?"

She sighs. "What did he tell you?"

"That he's suspended and that he and Ryan are through. And that you turned in your badge and gun and cleaned off your desk. Hell, he wouldn't even talk to me until last night. And all Ryan would say at the crime scene the other day was that you two weren't on the case."

Kate runs a hand through her damp hair, curls in on herself more tightly, staving off the cool air or shame, she is not sure which. She feels horrible, for leaving Lanie in the dark and for causing a giant rift between her team members. And probably between the two of them and herself, too. She has no idea if Espo blames her for his suspension, or if Ryan will even speak to her after what she essentially forced him to do. Kate does not blame him for his decision, because he saved her life, gave her the opportunity to see the light and make things right with Castle.

But she has not told him that and as far as Ryan probably knows, she stands in the same position as Esposito.

She will call him tonight. Both of them.

"I'm sorry, Lanie."

"Look, it's been a rough week from the sounds of it. Just...tell me what happened."

Kate leans back against the headboard, sighs. Again. "Javi and I got suspended. We weren't...I told everyone to keep Gates in the dark about that case. But we found a lead and Espo went with me. Ryan stayed behind though, told us we needed to have backup, but I mean...this case...who can we trust, you know? So we went alone, found the sniper..."

"Your sniper?" Lanie cuts in, incredulous.

"Yeah. But he got the drop on us. Knocked Espo out, knocked me to the ground. I chased him up onto the roof and...let's just say it wasn't pretty. We fought. Badly."

"Did you get him?"

"No." Kate hears Lanie release a troubled breath, feels a stab of something shoot through her chest but as quickly as it appears, it has vanished. Regret, maybe? Or failure. "He...almost got me, though. Ryan showed up just in time, but Gates was with him."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"So she suspended you guys." It is not a question.

"Yeah."

"And you just...quit?"

Kate nods though Lanie cannot see it. "Basically. I just...I didn't want to live like that anymore. I...there were more important things, you know? I wish it hadn't taken almost dying again for me to realize it, but..."

"More important things?"

Kate rolls her eyes, laughs. "That's what you took from that?"

Lanie laughs too and instantly their usual easy rapport is restored. "Well now that you say it like that, I'm intrigued."

"I...yes, more important." Kate looks up as a shadow falls over the room, smiles and reaches for the coffee Castle is offering her. When did he leave the room? She did not even notice.

He has his own mug in his other hand, a soft expression on his face, in his eyes. She mouths a thank you, raises the cup to her mouth, revels in the warm liquid sliding down her throat, the sweet, rich taste.

He made it just the way she likes it.

"Such as?" Lanie demands, forcing Kate to focus on something other than delicious coffee and the blue eyes that are gazing at her so lovingly. She would not normally want to have this conversation in front of him, but she cannot send him away, not when he is looking at her like she is the most precious and beautiful person in the world.

God, she loves him.

"Umm..." she wavers, searching for the words that will completely throw Lanie off of her game, but comes up mostly empty. "Like certain people."

She hears a small gasp on the other end of the line, waits for Lanie's next words. "Meaning?"

"Umm...Castle?"

He looks at her with wide eyes and she winks at him, takes another sip of coffee to suppress the overwhelming urge to pull him to her and meld their lips together.

"Girl, you're gonna have to give me more or I'll come hunt you down and get you so drunk that you spill out every little detail."

Kate laughs loudly at that, not only because she knows that Lanie would, but because she also knows that Lanie would have no idea where to find her. She sets her coffee aside, smiles smugly to herself.

"Good luck with that."

She can picture the stubborn, determined look on Lanie's face. "Okay, fine. I demand a girl's night. Tonight."

"Sorry, but I can't," Kate replies right away.

"Too busy with your writer boy to take a break and have a drink with your girl?"

She snorts. "No. I'm just...not in the city right now."

"Where are you, then?"

Castle sits down beside her, sets his coffee on the nightstand next to hers, and rests a hand not-so-innocently on her thigh, fingers toying with the edge of the towel.

"I, ummm, needed to get away for a while." Her voice cracks on 'away' and she barely bites back a gasp as Castle's hand slides beneath the towel, higher and higher up her thigh until she is unconsciously arching into him, having to try way too hard to focus on her conversation with her friend.

"You're with him right now, aren't you?"

"No?" Kate lies, though it comes out more like a question.

"You so are, aren't you? Out of the city…you're on vacation with Richard Castle!" Lanie exclaims, putting two and two together as Kate knew she would. "Damn, girl, this better mean what I think it means."

"It probably..." Castle's fingers skate across her skin, tantalizing, teasing her, and she cannot completely suppress her moan. "...is," she pants, her free hand closing around Castle's wrist and holding him in place, halting his wandering digits for the moment, because if she does not finish this phone call right now, Lanie is going to be privy to something that Kate really does not want her to overhear.

"Well, you sound...busy," Lanie offers, smirking though no one can see it, but Kate can picture the knowing glint in her eyes. "So I'll let you go, but I better be hearing from you the moment you get back to Manhattan."

"You will," Kate manages, cradling the phone with her shoulder, freeing her other hand to swat at Castle as he leans in to suck at her neck and collarbone.

"Have fun," Lanie teases knowingly, hangs up before Kate manages to eke out a response.

She tosses the phone aside, sits up onto her knees and rounds on her partner. "Richard Castle, I hate you right now."

But then she is straddling him and her towel is thrown off the foot of the bed and his shirt is gone and her lips are on his and if this is what happens when he riles her up, he is going to absolutely drive her crazy for the rest of their lives.

Because this...this could never happen too much.

Thoughts?