Disclaimer: There's a pigeon peering in my window right now. Bet Marlowe doesn't have to content with stuff like that!

What If…?

Chapter 13: Filling In The Blanks

"Come on. Let's take this to bed," murmurs Kate, breathing heavily, pulling her sweater back up onto her shoulder and easing herself out from under the firm press of Castle's thighs, dropping her fingers from his hip.

"Words I dreamed I would one day hear tumble from your lips," jokes Castle, picking up their wine glasses and following her to the bedroom.

"You sure that bump on the head hasn't damaged anything?" teases Kate in return, her grin as broad as her partner's while he shadows her to her room.

Kate shakes out the comforter, smoothing it down and then plumping pillows, since she failed to remake the bed after Castle got up earlier.

"We seem to be spending a lot of time in here these days," notes Castle, with a suggestive lift of his eyebrow.

"That sounds a lot like a complaint from the man who's spent the last four years trying to get me into bed."

"Me?" he squeaks, feigning shock.

"Yes, you," smirks Kate, lighting a couple of candles and then topping up their wine glasses.

When she turns around, Castle is already under the covers, and he's holding her pillows hostage.

"Get in here now, Detective," he growls, turning the comforter back for her.

"Ordering me around. Ricky? Not a smart move," she reminds him, shaking her head, wagging a finger and holding her ground. "Have I taught you nothing?"

"But you know you're going to do it anyway, Kate. Might as well give in now."

"Shut up," she laughs, stripping off her yoga pants and sweater.

"See," crows Castle, when she climbs into bed beside him. "Told ya'."

"Give," she commands, holding out her hands for her pillows, moving halfway down the bed, still facing him.

"Na-huh. No way. Get over here, Kate. Come on," he orders, sneaking out a hand to try to grab for her.

Kate dodges back out of the way, laughing.

"Not until you tell me about this fight with Josh."

"Why are you so fixated on that?"

He's still worried that she has unresolved feelings for the guy, despite what she told him earlier about the timing of their break-up and her reasons for doing so. Her confession on the swings that day, that she 'really liked him', still pierces his heart like a needle every time he thinks about it, since they weren't together back then, and he had only a thin, veiled promise of someday to hold onto after three months of complete, devastating silence.

"I…I'm not. You were the one who brought it up. But there are parts of my life are still a complete blank from that day, Castle. Despite what you might think I lied about. My dad wouldn't tell me anything. Said he didn't want to upset me."

"You ever think maybe he was right? Some things are best not remembered. You said so yourself."

"Yeah, well, that was bullshit, and we both know it. I was lying to you to…I don't know, to protect myself. To give myself some breathing space and a little time to work out what to do about everything. What to do about us. You're the only one I can trust to give me answers about that day. To fill in the gaps."

"What do you need to know?" he asks calmly, all trace of joking gone in the face of the faith she's just placed in him.

He gives her her pillows back, and watches as she creates a protective cocoon for herself with the comforter at her back and a pile of pillows to hug in front of her. She clearly wants space from him while they talk this through, and though that hurts - not being able to touch her - he thinks maybe it is for the best to keep his thoughts clear.

"We're just talking, remember?" she reassures him, eyeing his worried face. "None of this stuff can hurt us anymore, Castle. We're past that now."

"I know," he says unconvincingly, traces of hurt still evident in his voice despite his efforts to hide them.

Kate takes a sip of wine, and then crawls over to deposit her glass on the nightstand, while Castle tries hard not to stare at her inappropriately, crawling over the bed like a seductive cat in just her underwear and a thin cami that hides little from his imagination. Heck, he doesn't even have to use his imagination anymore. Still he's going to be good.

But then Kate starts talking and his mouth goes dry for a whole other reason.

"So, I remember the sun beating down and it was so hot, standing there in my dress blues. I'm giving the eulogy and you're by my side, to my right. I can feel you there; sense you standing close to me. And it helped me, Castle, to make that speech. It helped to know that you were still there for me even after all the harsh words we'd just exchanged, how things came to an end in my apartment, how hard I fought you in that hangar. I remember turning to look at you. I wanted you to know how grateful I was to have you as my partner. Standing with me. But somehow I found it easier to say these things to a crowd of people gathered in a cemetery, than to tell you to your face. I'm still ashamed of that," she confesses, glancing up from her inspection of the embroidered design on her pillowcase to meet his eyes.

He nods somberly to acknowledge her apology, but before he can say anything, she's talking again.

"I remember continuing with the speech, and then I think I heard the crack of the shot going off. But sometimes I wonder if I just imagined that part," she says frowning, still trying to remember after all this time.

Castle feels himself starting to sweat, his heart fluttering uncomfortably just recalling the detail of that day.

"Did you hear the shot?" she queries, so matter-of-fact, as if she just asked him if he likes sugar in his tea, her face so open and unemotional about the whole thing that it tortures something inside of him that she ever had to go through any of this. The she ever had to work to get over it.

"Kate, are you sure you want to do this? Relive it all over again?"

"Could you live with these blanks in your memory, Castle? Because I'm pretty sure you couldn't."

"When you put it like that, I guess not," he sighs, defeated by her argument. "What do you need from me?"

"Fill me in. So…I hear or I don't hear the shot. But I feel the impact, the burning pain in my chest, and then I'm falling and you're falling with me. Is that what you remember?"

"I…uh…you were delivering the eulogy, and then you looked over at me, and…I remember hoping you were forgiving me. That…we were going to be okay. You were letting me back in for like the hundredth time. And I felt so relieved. But when I fixed my eyes to the front again, I saw something flash. A flare of sunlight glinting off of glass or something about twenty rows in front, close to the pathway and the tree line."

Castle's face is so serious, his eyes out of focus, as he leaves the bedroom and plunges back into the movie reel nightmare he has so often revisited in both his waking and sleeping moments. Trying to put a new slant on the outcome in his dreams. Attempting to figure out a way he could have saved her in his waking hours. He always fails on both counts.

"Go on," she encourages quietly.

"I reacted as fast as I could when I figured it out. Tried to tackle you to the ground before…before the shot could reach you, but…"

"Hey, only Superman is faster than a speeding bullet, Castle," she jokes, trying to make him feel better. "What you did for me that day…"

"Kate, I failed you that day. That bullet hit you. Hell it nearly killed you."

"Everything happens for a reason, Rick," she insists firmly.

"And what earthly purpose could that nightmare have served, beyond putting you in the ground along with Roy? Hmm?" he asks angrily. "Tell me that."

"It showed us what we meant to each other for one thing," she says simply. "You could have gotten yourself killed trying to save me. What about Alexis? Martha? Weren't you thinking about them?"

"All I could think was that I had to save you. That was the only thought in my head," he says, twisting the sheet in his hands.

"And you did. Because I heard you. I heard you begging me not to leave you, to stay with you. I could feel your hands on me, holding me up. Your body shielding me when you leant over me."

"You remember all of that?"

Kate nods.

"And the fear in your eyes. The panic that told me this was as bad as I feared. When I heard you tell me that you loved me it was as if I had permission from somewhere to let go."

"But I wanted you to fight," he exclaims. "I wanted you to fight to stay alive, Kate. Not let go."

"I couldn't hang on any longer. I'm sorry. I remember feeling so tired and so peaceful, hearing you say that you loved me. Like the last piece of a puzzle had just been slotted into place. And then nothing, until I woke up after the surgery."

Castle sits in stunned silence for a few seconds, absorbing Kate's point of view on that day; the way it mirrors, collides with and completes his. Like seeing something in the round; a full 360 degree horror show.

"What happened next?" she asks, reaching forward to touch the back of his hand to get his attention.

"I need a drink," he growls, clearing his throat.

"Wine's right by your elbow," Kate tells him, determined not to give in to his grief until she's heard everything.

"I got in the back of the ambulance with Lanie. They wouldn't let me at first. But Espo argued I was as good as family, forced the EMT's to let me ride along. My mother and Alexis went with your dad, I think. Lanie worked with the paramedic trying to keep you alive the whole way to the hospital, while I sat there like a useless idiot, holding your hand and praying to God for you to survive."

His voice sounds flattened, almost devoid of emotion, despite the terrifying scene he's painting for her.

"Go on."

"Kate?"

"Castle, please?"

He sighs and runs a hand through his hair, making it stand on end for a second, spikes shooting off in five different directions, and Kate has to suppress the urge to reach up and smooth it down for him.

"When we got to the hospital, Lanie rode on the gurney with you. You crashed in the ambulance. Pressure kept dropping or something. They were worried you were bleeding out. Anyway, she kept up chest compressions while they wheeled you straight to the O.R. Eventually, the attending insisted she give up and let them take over. She only gave in after a fight."

"Sounds like Lanie," smiles Kate. "Where were you?"

"Right there with her…with you, running after that gurney down this endless hallway, wondering why the hell the O.R. wasn't built closer to the damn ambulance bays."

"You were dying, Kate," he says, so gravely it's as if he almost believes she still might. "And there was nothing I could do but watch you move further and further away from me, just…just prayin' that you had heard me, and that somehow that would be enough," he grits out.

"And the fight? When did that happen?"

"Later. You probably heard Josh was on call that day, and he…he started working on you when you first arrived. I think they made him hand your case off or he recused himself when it became clear your…association with him," he says, feeling the word 'relationship' burning his tongue with a bitter acidity, unable to push it past his lips.

"He came out in his scrubs to where we were all waiting. Your dad, my mom, Alexis, Lanie and the boys. I saw your blood splattered all over his shoes…I…he was so angry. And I don't blame him, Kate. I really don't. He wasn't saying anything I didn't already think myself."

"What did he say?"

Castle looks reluctant to tell her.

"Tell me what he said, Castle."

"He said that I had pushed you to look into your mom's murder, that you got shot because of me and Montgomery was dead because of me. I couldn't argue with any of that. But Alexis threw herself in between us trying to defend me, and there was a whole lot of yelling. You're dad shamed us all. He told us not to act like three year olds while you were in there fighting for your life."

"Castle, I'm so sorry you had to deal with that. It wasn't your fault. I had been looking into my mom's murder for years before I even met you. You know that."

"But if I hadn't snooped around, pushed my nose in where it wasn't wanted…you never would have been shot, Kate. I poked the hornet's nest and you paid the price."

"That's not true. I would have taken the case up again eventually, with or without your help. And maybe we wouldn't be sitting here now if you hadn't cared enough to want to get to know my story."

"I wish I'd just tried chocolates and flowers like any normal, red blooded male."

Kate laughs at this, and then she laughs again.

"I'm not really a chocolates and flowers kind of girl, Castle. But I think you figured that out all on your own."

"I love you so much, Kate," he confesses, his worried eyes meeting her smiling ones. "I don't know what I would have done if I'd lost you that day. Though the way you disappeared afterwards felt almost as bad at the time."

They fall into thoughtful silence for a second, and then Kate manages to regroup, still curious to learn about the weeks they were apart.

"I know I'm sorry isn't ever going to be enough. The boys said you went to the precinct everyday to work on my case," she says softly, the curiosity evident in her voice.

"Yeah. Until Gates arrived and threw me out. I needed that sense of purpose. It was the only way for me to feel as if I was helping you. After she banned me from the precinct, that's when things hit a new low."

"How so?"

"I…I used to find myself just staring over at your desk for whole minutes, remembering all the good times. Even when you yelled at me it was better than this...silence. This nothingness. It sounds pathetic and sappy now, but I would touch your elephants when no one was looking, borrow your pens just because I knew that you had held them, use your coffee cup just to... I even sat in your chair one day," he confesses. "But it felt wrong, and then Espo caught me and smacked me on the back of the head."

"Ouch."

"Yeah. But I deserved it. When I couldn't go in there anymore… Well, I tried to keep up the investigation from home for a while with what few leads I had. But without the precinct to go to my routine lost…well, let's just say it lost its focus."

"Spell out loss of focus for me, Castle. My mindreading powers are taking the day off."

"I stopped getting up before noon. Maybe went a few days without showering. Might have let the odd bottle of Scotch and a collection of dirty tumblers gather in my office. Rookie mistakes," he admits wryly. "I got better at hiding it later."

"Oh, Rick," laments Kate, shaking her head.

"Alexis kicked my ass eventually," he jokes, hiding in humor as usual. "Told me I stank, that I was wasting my life on a pipe dream. I guess that's a part of why she's so angry now. She had to witness all of that: my weakness, my fondness for wallowing and self-pity."

"You never struck me as any of those things."

"That's because there was always you," he says simply. "No way I would have exposed you to that. Besides, I was too busy trying to win your heart and take down criminals to be moping, Kate. But it's a writer's lot to be filled with self-doubt, self-loathing on occasion too. At least this time I had more than the loss of a fictional character or a bout of writer's block to explain my depression."

"Depression?" queries Kate, her voice deeper, strangled in her tightening throat.

"Mmm. That's what Doctor Phil called it," Castle explains without irony.

But Kate misreads his remark, expecting the Castle of old; covering his tracks with humor, keeping everything surface.

"Dr. Phil. Are you serious?" she laughs, lifting her wine glass to her lips again. "So, what? Alexis made you take a shower and then you lost yourself in daytime TV?"

"Yeah. Only I could end up with a therapist named Dr. Phil, right? But he came highly recommended from my doctor," says Castle, shrugging.

"Wait. You were being serious? You actually saw a therapist?"

"Yes," he says, surprised. "That's what I just said. Dr. Phillip Eadie. Dr. Phil for short. He wasn't bald or anything, but…"

Kate is speechless, and she takes another sip of wine while she processes this surprising piece of information, wondering just what else she doesn't know.

"Castle, I had no idea," she almost whines, guilt churning in her gut.

"Why would you? It's not like we were close then."

"Even so. You've never said anything. All these months have passed and…"

"And what? I'm supposed to share this with you over coffee in the break room? Oh, yeah, Kate, I was so broken hearted when you left that I needed counseling. Oh, hi, Ryan. Hi Espo. Yeah, come on in and hear all about my therapy sessions to get over Beckett," he spits out sarcastically.

He lets out a long, frustrated sigh at himself, at Kate, at every barrier, miscommunication, and lie that ever kept them apart, and finally at how petty and pathetic he sounds right now, throwing this back at her now of all times.

He raises his head in time to see Kate getting out of bed, grabbing her sweater from a chair and leaving the room.

A/N: Ooops! Sorry guys, there's more to be mined in their history than I thought. But you know I won't leave them mad at each other for long. Thanks to BURN3 for the therapy idea. Liv