So sorry for the delay in updating after getting out two chapters in a row before. I was feeling like I had neglected my other story, so I wanted to get another chapter up for that one first.

Disclaimer: Who wants to guess at the odds that I've suddenly acquired rights to Castle in the last week? Sorry, but no.

Kate's brain momentarily flashed into panic at not having planned out what to say to Castle, but the panic, as well as all other forms of higher brain functioning are cut off by appearance of the man himself. Most of the time Kate was able to control her reactions to her partners handsome appearance, but the fact that she'd come here with the possibility of diving in with him on the table had left her control in tatters. Her reverie didn't last long however; as she took in his face more closely, she immediately noticed his haggard appearance. His eyes were bloodshot, and Kate could see the remnants of recent tear tracks up and down his face.

"Beckett? What are you doing here? Come on in." Castle stretched out his arm before he'd even finished speaking and pulled her gently into his apartment. Kate found herself casting about wildly for any kind of reply.

"I was just wondering if we could talk for a minute?" Not exactly helpful, but at least it bought me an extra second or two.

Castle guided her over to the couch, the pressure on her arm practically nonexistent, simply a gesture. "Um-Can I get you something to drink? Wine, water, coffee,….?

Beckett decided to cut off his diatribe before he moved to beverages which would require an airplane trip to serve. "No thanks, Castle I'm fine." Kate mentally cursed the shakiness of her voice as Castle lowered himself onto the couch beside her.

"What's wrong? Why aren't you with Josh? Did he have to work again? Oh, that's it, isn't it? He had to work and left you alone after the day you've had…."

Kate could feel the fury rising in Castle's voice outside of the sound, as if his anger was a wind being carried on the back of his words and blowing on her. She mentally gave a small cheer that Castle had gone to Josh. This gave her a small starting point, as well as a first bit of comfort she could give him at the start of their conversation. "No Castle, he didn't leave me for work. Well, he did, but I ended up having to send him away much earlier than he would've gone." The words were out of Kate's mouth before she could take them back and she instantly smacked herself mentally for phrasing it that way.

"Why would you have to send him away early after today?" Castle's eyes bore into her, using that patented drilling gaze of curiosity that he got whenever something about her personal life came up. For the umpteenth time since she'd spoken to Lanie Kate was wondering about another sign of how much Castle cared about her that she'd missed even as it was repeatedly shoved in her face. She'd been afraid of being a conquest, but people don't have that kind of compulsion to learn things about a conquest. She'd told herself it was for research, but how much information had she fed that look of his that never saw its way onto the pages of one of his novels?

"Beckett?" Kate jumped, having fallen out of the conversation for a split second with that reverie, but it seemed that second had cost her under Castle's expert scrutiny. "Have you been crying?"

Kate was startled by his question. Crying? Oh yeah, she had cried when she'd been listening to Lanie. She'd been so focused on her story that she hadn't even noticed until she was in the car. Now Castle had noticed the aftereffects she hadn't been able to cover up sufficiently during her mad dash to get to his side, and his question trigger her instinctive defensive response before she could stop herself. "I could ask you the same question, Castle."

Beckett watched as Castle's expression morphed rapidly. He started out concerned before her question. Once her words registered in his brain he changed to caught and embarrassed. Embarrassment shifted for a split second to slightly defiant, before his eyes took on the gleam Kate associated with their breaking a case and then narrowed. "You spoke to Lanie, didn't you? That's why you had to send Josh away, because she showed up."

Now it was Beckett's turn to look caught. She rearranged her expression as quickly as possible but she already knew it was a lost cause. Castle's head fell into his hands. Kate's heart burned at the sight. She ached to reach out and touch him, but she figures that this may not be the best idea just yet, having noted all the tiny ways in which Castle visibly shrank away from her. Castle rubbed his hands up and down the face they covered in an attempt at some sort of comfort, before he pushed himself up off the couch and strode over to the window that looked out onto the skyline and the street below. Again Kate was desperate to follow him but she could feel his desire to have some distance almost palpably. Kate started as a new, terrible thought occurred to her. Is this how he's felt so many times when she has pushed him away? This desperation to help the person you love, the helplessness to do so, the powerlessness? Her heart broke for him all over again.

When Castle finally spoke, it was in a shaky, hoarse whisper that left Beckett straining in order to hear, especially since Castle didn't turn back around from the window. ''Why are you here Beckett?"

Kate's mouth opened and closed fish-style several times as she groped for the right way to answer. "I- I was worried about you." Oops, this was apparently not quite the right thing to say as Castle gave a completely humorless chuckle followed by a full blown yell.

"Well you don't need to be, I'm not some needy little boy sitting in the nurses office crying because he misses his mother and wants to be anywhere in the world, anywhere, but in his school!" Castle took a deep breath, clearly struggling to steady himself. While he was working on it Beckett had a split second to think back over what he had just said. His example was very specific, and not any kind of pop culture reference that Kate knew of. She wasn't too fond of where this this train of thought seemed to lead. But just as her detective instincts started tingling, Castle finally spoke up again, now back to his barely-a-whisper voice, and still refusing to look at her.

"I'm sorry Kate, I didn't mean to go off at you. I'm just a bit worn out. I appreciate your concern for me, I really do. But you don't have to worry about me, I'll be fine. I could just use some quiet time right now."

Seeing Castle start to close up on himself Beckett hurried to jam her foot in the opening. "Castle, I wanted to talk to you about what you said to Lanie-"

"You don't have to worry about it Beckett. I promise I won't make any problems between you and Josh. And you don't have to worry about me. Despite all evidence to the contrary I'm a big boy, and I'm used to it by now. Why don't you go see if you can still catch Josh for a little while before his shift? You deserve to have somebody to be with you after the day you've had.

Struggling to clamp down on the emotions that would not help at the moment, Kate replied in a small voice. "So do you."

Castle sighed. "Yeah, well… Mother and Alexis will be back tomorrow. I'll be fine until then."

"I could stay with-"

"I appreciate that, but you shouldn't feel some misplaced sense of obligation just because you found out something I said to somebody else. You have enough burdens in your life, Kate. I don't want to become another one. You can go back to Josh, it's fine. Just go, please.

Kate could hear Castle's voice breaking on his last short sentence, and it was difficult not to give in to the raw pleading in his voice even when he was asking her to leave him to his pain. Fortunately though, he'd also just presented her with a small opportunity to possibly break through to him, and despite how uncomfortable she knew it would be, she knew that she couldn't leave without saying the things she'd come to say. So Kate took a deep breath and, with just five short words, opened a small door in the walls around her heart for the first time in eleven years.

"I broke up with Josh."

Castle spun around so fast Kate thought for a split second his head was going to go flying. "You what?"

"I left him. After I spoke to Lanie, I went to the hospital and broke up with him."

Castle moved quickly to the nearest chair and sunk into it as it seemed his legs seemed to have lost the ability to hold him up. Beckett had to suppress a laugh as he almost tripped over the arm of the chair because his wide-eyed gaze was fixated on her. "Kate- you- you didn't have to do that."

Kate gave Castle a rueful smile, "oh yes, I did. And trust me, given his reaction, I don't regret it in the slightest."

Castle's eyes narrowed at this. "What do you mean by that?"

"Let's just say, his reaction was more shock that I could do something like that to him than it was because he didn't want me to do it."

Castle shook his head slowly, turning to look at the ground. "Idiot", he mumbled.

Kate frowned slightly. "I can think of plenty of words to lob at him for this, but somehow 'idiot' isn't really one of them. 'Self-involved', 'arrogant', 'egotistical', I could get on board with, but idiot?"

"Of course. How could he actually think he wasn't the one losing out by losing you?"

Kate gave a sharp intake of breath at Castle's words. "That's sweet Castle, but it's not really true. I'm not that special a prize…" Her words were cut off as Castle bounded out of his chair and settled himself on the couch right next to and facing her. "Don't say that Kate, you don't know how wrong you are."

Castle's gaze on her face was burning, his moist eyes drinking in the sight of her so intensely that Kate had to blush and look down. At least until Castle's hand found its way to her chin and lifted her head back up. "Kate- you're so unbelievably beautiful. You could easily make a killing as a model, but that would be too shallow for you. Your beauty is too deep. You have such will, such intelligence, such heart. I've seen you day after day for three years and I'm still floored at how a person like you could exist. You're not perfect by any means, but nobody is, nobody can be. But I look at you, and I see someone closer than anyone I've ever met. You're an angel Kate."

For one of the few times in recent years Kate didn't blame herself for crying. She'd have to be colder than that freezer they'd been trapped in to keep a dry eye with a man saying these things to her with such matter-of-fact sincerity, looking at her with such awe and reverence.

Castle finished speaking and gazed at her a moment longer before looking down. "Look, Kate considering what Lanie told you that must have sounded like some kind of sweet-talking but mmf. Castle's voice was interrupted by the pair of lips that had latched on to his. Castle stayed there in stunned disbelief for a moment before responding eagerly.

After pulling away several continually dusk-colored years later, Kate spoke softly into Castle's ear. "Trust me Rick, that didn't sound like any cheap sweet-talking, and even if it had, you had me sweet-talked before I walked in the door." Castle threw his arms around her with a grin that could've created a whole new slew of complications for global warming before whispering softly in her ear.

"I love you so much, Kate, so very, very much."

Kate grinned through her tears. "I love you too, Castle. And for the record, I think you're actually pretty easy to love."

Castle beamed the smile of a man who'd been opening his heart for so long and had finally found someone filling it in.

Just the epilogue left. Please tell me what you thought!