A/N: I certainly kept you waiting awhile for this, didn't I? Sorry about that. But it's back! I feel like I'm going to be working on this fairly consistently this week, so... for whatever that's worth. Enjoy!

Castle awoke the next morning with only fuzzy memories of the night before. He remembered stumbling upon a marathon of old Temptation Lane episodes and watching a lot of them. He remembered eating the pizza that Kate ordered. He remembered her giving him NyQuil awhile later, and persuading him, with some difficulty, to take it. And after that everything blurred. He'd suddenly become very comfortable on the couch, with no desire to move again, ever. But after drifting in and out of sleep several times, she'd taken him by the arm and led him to his bed, ignoring his garbled protests.

It wasn't until the morning that he realized which bed. Kate was still asleep in the one next to his. Apparently they'd gone back to that sleeping arrangement. When he got up, she didn't stir. For once, she was sleeping very soundly.

The army in his head must have tired, because they were no longer pounding on his skull. He felt good. Maybe a little lethargic yet, but better. Definitely better.

He opened and closed the bedroom door silently and went to the kitchen to make coffee. When it was done, he took a mug out to the deck, falling back into the routine that he and Kate had developed.

He was only about halfway through his coffee when Kate joined him with her own cup. "Morning," she greeted him with a smile, squinting a little in the bright sun. "How're you feeling?"

"Better." He nodded. "A lot better. Thanks."

"You sound better," she observed.

"How about you?" he asked, changing the subject.

She shrugged. "I'm fine."

"Are you really?"

She nodded slowly. "You know, I really am."

"Okay." He nodded. "Good." He didn't really believe her, but it was only Sunday, and it seemed like it would be good to take a day where they could both just sort of relax and re-acclimate to everything. To the place. To the circumstances. To the routine. To each other.

"Feels good to be out here again," she said. "You know, when the sun's actually up and it's not pouring."

"Yeah, it does."

"So what should we do today?"

He shrugged. "Oh, I don't know. What do you want to do?"

She smirked. "Think Steve would let us borrow the jet ski again?"

He groaned. "You're hilarious, really."

"I know. So we'll stay land-based. But we should do something."

"Well, I'm not quite up for doing anything too crazy right now, but we haven't spent a whole lot of time on the beach. Want to do that? We'll build a sandcastle or something."

She grinned. "A sandcastle?"

"Yes, as the name should imply, I'm quite the sandcastle pro. And then maybe we'll have a campfire later. We haven't done that yet. How does that sound?"

"Are you remotely aware that we're adults?"

"Who cares? No one's around. Anyway, you've never seen a Castle sandcastle. None of this piling up a bunch of sand and calling it a castle. Alexis and I went through a phase a few years back and got all these crazy sand molds. It's actually pretty cool."

She laughed. "Whatever. I'm game."

"Great. Then it's what we'll do." He raised his mug indicatively. "After we finish our coffee, of course."

"It needs a moat," Castle decided as Kate filled a plastic mold with sand.

She looked at him defiantly. "It doesn't need a moat, it's not even done yet."

"I don't know." He studied the castle. "It looks pretty good to me."

"Castle, come on. Look at it." She pointed at the left side. "That wall is starting to fall down, and the tower needs to be higher."

"I don't know about that. And anyway, what's the point of making it perfect if there's no moat to protect it?"

"What's the point of protecting it if it isn't perfect?" she countered.

He shrugged. "No one's perfect."

She rolled her eyes. "It isn't a person, it's a sandcastle."

"But we're people, and we're never going to get it a hundred percent perfect. It's going to have flaws."

"But what's the point of building it if we're not going to try to make it perfect?"

"It doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful."

She sighed and set down the mold she'd been planning to use for a new, stronger wall to replace the one that was just beginning to crumble. "Whatever. You can dig a moat if you want. I'm gonna go for a swim."

He frowned. "Seriously? The water's freezing."

"I'll get used to it. And anyway, I'm not going to stay in long. Just feeling the need for some exercise."

"Okay, enjoy."

She smiled, ran a few steps up to the water and then a few more into it, and then without so much as a pause dove and started swimming. Castle watched her for a few seconds, wondering how she could do absolutely everything with so much grace. But then he started working on the moat. Because no matter what the castle's flaws were, even if it wasn't quite finished and even if it would never be quite perfect, it still needed protection.

He alternated between digging his sand moat and watching Kate swim, so he noticed when she started back toward the shore and met her with a towel. A wave washed in and over his bare foot, and he was reminded again of just how cold it was.

"Thanks," she said, taking the towel appreciatively as he draped it across her shoulders. "You're right, it is pretty cold in there." But her cheeks had picked up some color from the exercise, and he had to admit that she looked better than he'd seen her lately.

"You looked good out there," he said, smiling.

She shrugged. "Felt good. How's your moat progressing?"

"Almost done. I just have to finish that little section in the back."

"Looks good."

"Thanks. See, the waves shouldn't come up this far, but now if one does, it'll take out the moat before it wrecks the castle."

"That's a lot of pressure to put on a little moat," she said with a soft smile.

He smiled back. "Yeah, but I don't think it minds. That's what it's there for."

"Hey, uh, you're burning your marshmallow there," Kate pointed out, smirking in Castle's direction.

"Oh, perfect." He pulled his metal marshmallow stick out of the fire, removed the blackened marshmallow from it and and popped it into his mouth dramatically. He immediately realized his mistake and grimaced. "Ow," he managed to get out, his mouth still full of marshmallow. "Hot!"

Kate laughed. "No kidding! You just took it out of the fire, genius."

He swallowed. "Just give me water, now."

She took a cold water bottle from the small cooler they had sitting nearby and gave it to him. He took a few quick gulps and then let a mouthful cool his burnt tongue.

"You okay?" she asked after a moment, still smirking.

He swallowed. "I'm good."

She took her own marshmallow, which was an even golden brown, out of the fire, but let it cool. "So I guess you're one of those people who like their marshmallows burnt," she surmised.

"Yeah. But usually a little cooler."

"Never got that. I like them brown, but not burnt." Carefully, she removed the first golden layer of her marshmallow with two fingers and popped that into her mouth, leaving the sticky marshmallow core on the stick. She proceeded to aim it back over the coals and continue roasting. "I used to do this when I was a kid," she explained, smiling. "One layer at a time."

He made a face. "Takes too long."

"Cooking them is half the fun, though."

"I don't know about half." Castle took a raw marshmallow out of the bag and ate it before putting another on his stick. "Next round's going on s'mores," he declared.

"I'm still working on this one," she protested.

"Want me to make you one? I can do two at once." Before getting her answer, he stabbed a second marshmallow with the other prong of his marshmallow spear.

"I don't want it burnt," she warned.

"I won't burn it. I'm capable of getting them golden brown, I swear."

"Okay, fine then." She peeled the second layer from her marshmallow and continued roasting what little was left.

He wished the rest of the week could go as smoothly as today had. Everything about it had been so calm and natural. But tomorrow was Monday, the day that marked exactly one week until the hearing, and the day he'd promised himself that he'd start trying to get her to think about it. Today was the last day of complete escape. Tomorrow, reality would begin to descend on their little island. It would have to. But he planned to cling to the remains of today for as long as he could.

He made a couple of s'mores, both with perfectly golden brown marshmallows, and handed one to Kate. Then they sat down in the two folding canvas chairs that they'd set up in front of the campfire ring and ate them.

"It seems like there are so many stars here," Kate noted, looking up at the sky. "I mean, we're not exactly in the middle of nowhere, but we're not in Manhattan with all the city lights either."

"It's nice, isn't it?"

"Mm," she said, agreeing. "I love the stars."

He smiled. "I never knew that about you."

"Yeah, well… now you do." A beat passed, both of them looking upward. "You see the big dipper?"

"Oh yeah." Castle pointed toward the grouping of stars. "Right there."

"Yep. What about the little dipper?"

"I've never been able to find that one."

"Look." She pointed at the sky, although from where he was sitting he didn't have quite the same vantage point that she did. "You take the two stars to the right of the big dipper's cup, and they point to it."

He tried to follow look where she was telling him, and he could invent quite a few crazy pictures in the stars that he found, but he still didn't see anything that looked like the little dipper. "Still not seeing it."

"Just look." She shifted her chair closer to his, so that they were looking in the same direction and just inches away from one another. She pointed again, and this time, with her arm right in front of him, he could tell what she was pointing at. "Follow these two stars… right to there. See that one? Right there? It's not that bright, but it's not dim either? That's the North Star, and then the little dipper hangs off of it, that way." She traced its trail with her finger. "See it?"

For a split second he wondered if she'd move her chair back to where it had been if he admitted that he now saw exactly what she was talking about, and considered telling her he didn't, but thought better of it. "Oh yeah, I see it now."

She put her arm down, but didn't move her chair. "How do you think our sandcastle's doing?" she mused.

"The water's been pretty calm today. I bet it's fine. But we could check on it before we go to bed."

"Mm," she murmured. "Let's do that."

He could hear the tiredness in her voice, and he felt it himself. He knew that he should probably suggest they go to bed now, but between the cool night air, the heat from the fire, the feeling of the sand on his bare feet, and now her proximity, he had no desire to move. So he didn't. He let his hand rest on the top of her chair and let his eyes slide closed.

The next thing he knew, he was slumped down in his chair using its back as a headrest. The fire had burnt down to just a few smoldering coals, and Kate's head was resting on his chest, her breathing heavy and rhythmic. He didn't really want to wake her, but he had a feeling they'd both regret sleeping in folding chairs all night come tomorrow morning.

"Hey," he said softly, just above a whisper. "Kate? Wake up. Let's go inside."

She grunted, but didn't move.

"Come on." It was difficult urging her to move when he didn't much feel like it himself, but he managed to pull himself into more of a normal seated position in his chair, which forced her head to move and succeeded in fully waking her up.

"Oh," she said when she realized where she'd been laying. She immediately sat up and stared at the fire pit, not meeting his eyes. "I… I must've fallen asleep."

He chuckled. "You and me both. Come on. Let's go inside."

"I thought we were gonna check on the sandcastle first?"

"Oh. Right." He was surprised she remembered that. He hadn't. But he picked up the flashlight he'd left beside his chair and led the way to the spot where they'd built the sandcastle earlier in the day.

It didn't take him long to find it with the beam from his flashlight. "Here," he said. "Right here. See? Just the way we left it."

"Looks good to me," she assessed. "The moat's still there, too."

"Yep. Just like we left it." He nodded toward the house. "Let's go to bed." He didn't realize how that sounded until it was out of his mouth, and as soon as it was he desperately wanted to take it back.

But if Kate noticed, she let it pass. "No, wait." She started toward the water. "Come here a sec."

"What, are you gonna go swimming again? It's dark, there are sharks and stuff."

She laughed. "No more than there are in the day time. But I'm not going swimming in the middle of the night. Just come here."

Somewhat reluctantly, he followed her down to the place where the water met the sand. She took just one more step, so that the cold waves licked her feet. At her encouragement he followed suit, although he couldn't quite stifle a gasp when the water first touched his warm skin.

He aimed his flashlight around, looking for sharks, stingrays, jellyfish, crabs… anything he didn't especially want to be in the water with. He didn't find anything.

"Turn off the light," she said.

"What? No way! I want to see the thing before it bites me."

He couldn't see her face in the near darkness, but he could almost hear her eyes roll. "Nothing's gonna bite you," she laughed. "Turn it off. Just for a sec."

For some reason, he did. None of the lights were on in the nearby houses, but his eyes soon adjusted to the light from the moon and stars and their reflections. Even more than in the daylight now, the horizon blurred. The ocean and the sky didn't seem two distinct entities, especially with the tiny pinpricks of light from the stars reflected on the water. Everything melded together in a shimmering dark blue.

In the darkness, he felt his hand brush hers. But he didn't pull away. And neither did she.

A/N: So. The metaphors are kind of starting to run rampant through this story, if you haven't noticed. While I was writing this chapter I'm pretty sure they stole Castle's shovel, dug a giant hole, stuck me in it, and proceeded to dump sand on me until I couldn't move and just took the entire thing over. To be perfectly honest, I didn't even realize what I was doing with the wall in the sandcastle crumbling thing until I saw it typed. And then I sort of spazzed out a little, because not only is that ANOTHER metaphor that somehow wriggled its way in, but it's an actual canon Castle metaphor, not just one I made up like the ocean/sky thing or now apparently the castle/moat thing that decided it wanted to be there. So... yeah. They have control now.

Also... I edited this to the best of my ability, but the sandcastle scene got a bit confusing (and justifiably so, I think...), so any capitalization errors are a product of the fact that the object and the person were both in the same scene at the same time, and that's just a bizarre and confusing situation. :P Not sure why I did that. It must have been the metaphors' idea. Sneaky little devils.

I hope to climb out of this sand pit before too long and get another chapter written. But if the next chapter winds up being called "Revenge of the Metaphors" or "When Metaphors Attack," or if Castle and Beckett randomly become a sea anemone and a clownfish, or something like that... you'll know I'm still stuck here. Send help.

The bright side to being stuck in a sand pit dug by my own out of control metaphors is that I'm pretty sure I can still get reviews from down here. So send a few along, and I'll be quite pleased. :)

*Disclaimer: I'm not in an ACTUAL hole. That was *gasp* another metaphor.

**Oh no. Now they're taking over my author's notes too? When will it end?