Disclaimer: The wording is mine but the characters aren't.

So, torrential rain and flooding (more than normal for the monsoon season here) meant I couldn't get to Yakushima. Very bummed, but I thought I'd post the last chapter early.

Enjoy.

Thanks to all who have followed and supported the story.

Also in the last chapter Castle couldn't cuff Donovan because, while he may be able to pass her the cuffs, he doesn't have the jurisdiction to use them. Wouldn't want the wierdo to get away on a technicality.

Are you following?

…..

At least Donovan showed no signs of moving any time soon.

"Well that made it easier," she huffed, standing again, surveying the cuffs resting securely against Donovan's back.

Castle however frowned, then hissed lowly as the movement pulled at the gashes on his face. They couldn't carry the unconscious man anywhere; he wasn't allowed to and she wasn't going to by herself. Today had not been a good day. "Yeah, but now what do we do with him?" he asked.

Huh.

They glanced at each other before he shrugged and she scuffed out a small amused puff of air.

…

Last:

.

"An update?"

"Yeah," she eased herself down next to him, sliding in until their sides were welded together. "Ryan was just calling to let us know they got the statement and were heading home."
"Louise woke up," Castle surmised.

"Looks like she was never put to sleep; apparently she passed out."

"I don't blame her; she was locked in that trunk so long," he weaseled his arm behind her back and tried to lift her into his lap. After letting him tug on her fruitlessly for a few seconds, she scooted herself. There wasn't anywhere else she wanted to be.

"So what was the prognosis?"
"Dehydration, shock, and a little banged up. They're keeping her overnight with supplementary oxygen and fluids. Ryan said she was having panic attacks in the smaller rooms so they set her up in a shared space when they got her statement. Her mother is coming in from White Plains; a uniform is picking her up because she has no transport this late."

"I hope that helps, poor woman," he trailed off and they were left to their separate contemplation. He didn't pause from fingering circles over her knee cap when he spoke next, "You know I couldn't open the freezer for over a month?" Castle confided.

She craned her neck to look at him. His tone was light but the lines of his face portrayed his gravity and once again she regretted that she hadn't done more to help him in the days after they stopped the city exploding.

"Alexis said she was happy she didn't have to buy ice cream as much since she was the only one eating it," he smiled, eyes nostalgic. "Except she wasn't eating much either…might have freaked her out over a human popsicle joke. Between that and being locked in a car trunk with you…"he gave her a playful squeeze. "I think I can understand how Louise might still be a little on edge."

"That's funny; I seem to recall you being fairly calm when we were shut in a car trunk."

"I can't imagine why."
"Maybe because you were convinced a certain curvy CIA operative was going to rescue us at any moment?" she offered lightly, slightly hesitant to bring up said agent.

"You'd think so, wouldn't you?" he kissed the side of her head where it was docked up against him. "But no."

"No?"

"No. She was the last person I wanted to show up because I was this close to losing control with you squirming around like that." She jerked away from him before his fingers had a chance to explore. She knew there was no way he would be able to resist tickling her if she was sitting in his lap and he was allowed to use the word 'squirm' in a sentence.

"Well, I'm sorry," she told him facetiously, a smirk on her face from managing to escape his attack. "I was under the impression you liked it when I squirm on you."

"I do. I'm a fan of writhing too, in case you're compiling a list." His eyebrows were carefully still, but she attributed that to the stitches in his forehead.

"Noted."

"Care to squirm, Detective?" he offered archly.

"I think I'll pass," she declined but settled back against him all the same. "How's the face?"

"Ruggedly handsome."

She hummed, not vocally disagreeing with him. Her hand reached up and began slowly trailing over his face without turning to look over at him. It had to be hard on her arm, reaching up and behind like that but he allowed her to continue all the same just as he had ignored the way she had hovered all night.

He was afraid to push her away even though he had a sinking fear she was going to resent him for it later. He didn't want to let her go.

"We lost another chance today," she whispered.

It didn't make sense. Once again the workings of her mind were beyond his comprehension and the undiluted pain in her voice made him fearful to intrude without an invitation. She slowly angled herself from resting her back against his chest until her shoulder was tucked into the crease of his arm and she could nuzzle her face under his chin. It was Beckett's fragile position, curling up into him. Above hiding her face from him by facing or walking away, she was hiding in him, like he could ward off the world.

He had only seen it once or twice but knew she would not settle until she was completely curled into him, legs draped over his in a way which evoked Alexis falling asleep against him as a toddler. Castle took her knees and directed her to turn into him more fully, giving them a quick squeeze before replacing his cheek on her head.

They waited that way; for her mind to settle and for his anger she was hurting again to subside.

"Every day people die and every day we work to find out what happens to just a fraction of them," she murmured, the words half-obscured against his neck. "We see how easy it is to lose someone; a fall, an accident, someone just trying to do the right thing. The stupidest reasons and the most random mistakes."

She paused to study their interlaced fingers, watching his thick fingers tease at the rough white wrist support wrapped around her thumb.

"Sometimes I wonder how you're still alive," she whispered.

He hated this, that he still hadn't managed to convince her this was real and he wasn't going anywhere. He hated that she was so fragile. Some people might be happy that she was upset about his admittedly minor injuries; that it validated her feelings for him, but the only thing he felt any relief over was that she wasn't keeping it all to herself anymore.

He hoped it wouldn't take the rest of their lives to convince her to stop living on borrowed time.

"We're still alive, Kate. You and me."

"You got closer today." To leaving me. It was left unsaid, but it didn't mean it wasn't communicated.

"I'm not a cat," he ran his thumbs in circles over her abdomen. "It's not like I have nine lives before the end."

"Maybe not," she granted. "But how many chances can one person honestly have? How many more times am I going to have to watch and think that it's the last chance?"

Snipers, stalkers, murderers, bombs, bank robberies…most people didn't have such ridiculous good luck. Or bad luck.

"I don't know any more than you do. Than any of us do." He wanted to tell her he wouldn't leave, that he would outlast her, but he wouldn't lie to her that way and she wouldn't believe him anyway.

"I can't do it," she admitted. "Couldn't do it."

His silence wasn't one of incomprehension; he knew exactly what she meant. Doing it alone. Recovering from something like that. His silence was because he didn't know what to say.

"I'm not as strong as you," her grip on him was painfully tight and he choked back the rage. Fourteeen years ago they hadn't just stolen her mother, her innocence. They had broken her. How dare they plant the seed of doubt? Kate Beckett should never be allowed to doubt herself that way.

He could tell her he had never met anyone stronger, but he could talk to a brick wall as well. She would never believe she was strong enough. Just because he came back and they kept living after that one summer he had watched her die didn't mean he was stronger. She had to take him off that pedestal.

"I'm not strong, Kate," he pulled her away from her shelter against his neck and forced her to look at him. "I'm not. That's why we're partners. Because I don't trust anyone else."

Irrational. Of course a trained cop could protect her better than he could. Didn't she see how backwards she could make him? Irrational. Emotional. Pathetic. She saw the weaknesses, but he had never been happier. Happy enough to know something this terrifying was real.

"I wouldn't cope, just waiting for you to come home," he told her thickly.

She drew in a shaky breath, "I want to come home to you so badly," she confessed.

"So we're agreed," he hoped his sense of finality made it through to her. "But you know the awesome thing about shadows," his grin was more than a little wobbly. "Is that they never leave."

"They do," she argued almost automatically. "In the dark."

"No, then they're all around you."

"In the light," she countered, a small smile teasing at her lips.

"But they'll always be waiting," he said seriously.

"Of course," some of her stubborn spunk coming back into her eyes. "I told you once already today, you are never to disappear on me again."

"Sounds to me like you have faith I've still got some chances left after all."

"You know what Castle?" she deliberately wriggled against him, dislodging his hands until they fell to clutch at her thighs. "I do."

"You do?" he smiled gently at her.

"Read my lips," she suggested with a quirked brow. " I. Do."

…

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