AN: I'm sorry for the delay everyone. I've been having a hard time finding time to write. I'm chaperoning a bunch of All-county trips in the next two weeks where you basically sit around and do nothing for 8 hours, so hopefully I can write some chapters then.

Have I told you lately how much I love you guys? Your reviews make my days worth having sometimes. Keep up inspiring me and I'll keep producing chapters.

Beckett grows a set and divulges a bit to a very shocked Castle in this chapter. I hope you enjoy it and I hope I kept it true to the characters.

Don't own 'em.

Beckett woke first in the morning. She was lying on her side absorbing and relishing in the warmth of Castle's sleeping body. She took a test-breath to see just how bad her ribs were going to hurt today. She found that the pain was there, but bearable.

She rolled onto her back slowly and stared at the off-white ceiling. What she was doing to him was unfair. She was being incredibly selfish. She had pushed him away harshly and, in the wake of a nightmare, begged him to stay with her. Being the decent man he was, he did as she asked and held her, reassuring her. It wasn't fair, she needed to give him an answer but she couldn't find one. She was fighting a never-ending battle with her heart versus her head.

The bed suddenly felt too small and too confining. She needed out. She needed some space. She needed to think about what she really wanted. On one hand, she was tired of always doing what her heart told her to do. On the other, her head never got her hurt like her heart did.

She scrambled from the covers and stood next to the bed, trying to get her bearings and not fall over. She wanted to run from the apartment; she wanted to forget their last few conversations but she couldn't. She did the only thing she could think of. She put some distance between them, settled in, and thought about their predicament. She needed to make him she that she wasn't just being cruel and stubborn.

Castle woke slowly. He was afraid to move; he was afraid to breathe. The previous day came back to him in an incredible rush. So much had happened; so much had changed and yet, he wished it had turned out differently. He felt the lack of warmth on his side and immediately got concerned.

He looked quickly around the room and his eyes landed on her form on the chair he had dragged next to the bed the previous day. He sat up against the headboard and blinked tiredly at her. He couldn't believe he didn't feel her get up; she couldn't have been too agile about it with her still healing wounds.

When his eyes met hers she looked at him guiltily.

"I'm sorry." She apologized.

"For what?" he asked as his brow knitted together.

"For last night;" She paused, "for making you stay."

"You didn't make me do anything, Beckett." He replied. "I was just as comfortable as you were." He smirked at her.

"Castle, listen…" He held up a hand to stop her.

"Look, I know what you're going to say," He cut her off, "and I know nothing's changed. Just know that whatever happens, I'll be here for you, no questions asked."

He couldn't remember the last time a woman turned him down. Though, he had never encountered a woman quite as extraordinary as Katherine Beckett. He wondered briefly if she was right; if he would wind up leaving her in the end, but as he thought about it, he couldn't find any scenario other than death that would be able to keep him away.

She seemed to consider his statement for a second before looking down and speaking.

"My dream last night was about you." She admitted.

"I didn't ask."

"You were 'not asking' very loudly." She smiled; he smiled back.

"You don't have to tell me, you know." He stated.

"I know." She nodded. "You deserve to know. Hell, you told me yours."

"Is this a 'you show me yours; I'll show you mine' thing?" He asked with a smile.

"Nice try, Castle, but no." She smiled sadly. "I owe it to you."

"You don't owe me anything, Beckett." He said. "That's not why I said what I did."

"Castle… things for me have been… tough, to say the least," She admitted, "but I'm not going to play the world's saddest song on the world's smallest violin for myself, do you understand?"

Castle's brow furrowed in confusion as he swung his feet out of bed and planted them on the floor to turn and face her. He wanted to study her; to memorize her face, just in case she decided this was it. Whatever she was going to say was going to be big; he could see it on her face.

"Kate…" He started but she held up a hand to hold him off.

"I don't get close to people for a reason, Castle." She stated. "It's not only to protect them, but to protect myself. I've been doing it for years and it's worked for me. People at the precinct respect and fear me; just the way I wanted it. My career blossomed and I would date guys who never got close either. My life was working for me. I was delightfully detached and I saw no reason to change. However, I'd always have this nagging voice in the back of my brain that would tell me I was incomplete; incomplete without solving my mother's case; incomplete without finding someone who could just be with me for me, and not who I forced myself to be."

He has never heard her talk like this. She is speaking as if unfiltered, though he knows she thought about what she would say. She has a tinge of anger in her voice as she speaks to him. He wonders briefly as she pauses why she is telling him all of this, but she continues before he can ask.

"So then this writer starts following me, and he wears me down and he annoys the absolute crap out of me. At the same time though, he changes me and I don't realize it until it's too god damned late." She spits at him, her face turning a shade of angry red, "and by the time I realize that I've stopped guarding myself, created an unconventional family with my colleagues and friends, and started letting myself be the person I've always secretly hoped I'd be, I'm bleeding to death on the floor of a diner."

He gasps at her bluntness and his eyebrows rush toward his hairline. He wants to go to her and grab her. He wants to hug her so tightly that they'll never be separated, but he doesn't. He's in shock. His mouth hangs open slightly and he finally realizes why she said what she did when they were in that diner.

She didn't give up on living. She didn't want to die there. She was just making sure her new family took care of her conventional one if she didn't make it. It meant that she trusted him with the part of herself she rarely shared.

"Kate…" He spoke softly.

"Castle, I know you think I'm some sort of superhero sometimes." She huffs, "but really, I'm just as terrified as anyone who lives their life. I thought I was going to die and I was scared. I just wasn't nearly as scared of dying as I was of how it would affect all of the people I've come to lo—care about. I looked into your face and saw all of my regrets and I panicked." She explains. "That's the truth. The lies started when I woke up."

"Lies?" He croaks out, his throat feels dry and pinched.

"A lot of them." She nods. "All of the 'I'm fines' and all of the times I told you I didn't need you… I lied."

She pauses to look at him and study him like he does to her. She looks right into his eyes and starts to talk again.

"Here's the truth: Last night I had a dream… a nightmare." She states. "In that dream, you died because I let you walk away. You were killed because I was scared of what would happen if I let you in completely."

She feels herself get choked up. She feels her eyes burning as she looks at his concerned, kind face. She knows he wants to ask her a million questions and that he is fighting to remain quiet and patient. She appreciates the gesture with a smile and reaches forward to place her hand on his.

"My Mother was there." She explains. "She's the one who told me that you were gone; that I'd let you both down. In that moment, I've never felt more empty. When I woke up and you were there… it was relief that I've never felt in my life. I've realized that every important moment that I've had in the past three years has you in it. The truth is, I don't know if I know how to go back to being the person I used to be and I'm not sure I ever want to have to."

They both sit in silence for a few seconds. She doesn't speak because her throat is thick with unshed tears and he doesn't know what to say. He asks the only question that is floating around his head.

"What does this all mean?"

She laughs sardonically. "Honestly, I have yet to figure that part out. I do know that I don't want you to leave me. I just have to figure out in what capacity. I'm scared, Rick. I know you said you'd never leave but you can't know that." She pauses again to look at him. "I was going to go with you last summer, to the Hamptons. I broke up with Demming an hour before your going away party."

"That's what you were trying to tell me when Gina walked up, wasn't it?" He asked sadly.

"Yeah." She admits. At the look on his face, she backtracks a bit. "I'm not telling you this to make you feel guilty. I'm telling you this to make you understand why I'm so reluctant. When you left I tried to course-correct. I tried to go back to being who I was before you came along. I went crazy. I made my mother's murder board in my apartment. I started to lose myself in her case and the anger I harbored. I wound up with another monster therapy bill in August when I realized I was unhealthy."

"You should have called me. I would have come back."

"What would I have said, Castle?" She asks. "I need you to stop doing your job and come back to the precinct to make me laugh so I stop working days straight and losing myself in the faces of victims and families?"

He looks at her with regret. He didn't know any of this and he puts the puzzle pieces together in his head. That's why the boys were so cold to him; why Captain Montgomery was reluctant to see his face. He shakes his head and breathes a sigh.

"You have to understand, Castle, I'm not putting this all on you." She says. "That whole situation was as much my fault as it was yours, but before I say we can move forward I need to consider the ramifications. If one or both of us screws this up, I need to make sure I won't go off the deep end again."

"I'll catch you, I promise." He says, looking into her eyes.

She smiles at him and stands up, releasing his hand. "and I promise that I'm thinking about it." She limps to the bathroom and shuts the door.

He lies back on the pillows and stares at the ceiling. He hears the shower switch on and he decides he needs to get out of that room. She has left him with a lot to think about.

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