Chapter Twenty: Without you, within me, I can't find no rest.

He didn't mean to kiss her.

That's the thought in his head even as his mouth moves heatedly on hers. His lips prying hers apart, forcing her to yield to him as he demands entrance and then claiming her surrender almost roughly. She's stiff in his arms for only a moment. Shock at the suddenness of his desire, but even as he tastes it on her tongue, Kate engages with him. Her slender arms twine tightly around his neck, and she tries to climb him like a tree in an attempt to get closer to him.

Oh, he really didn't mean to kiss her.

He didn't. But it all seemed too much suddenly. How peaceful the day had been after all the emotional unloading they'd done in the early morning of it. How beautiful and relaxed and tentatively happy he's witnessed her be all day. How she's opened up to him, over and over and he's always, always been a complete fool for her when she shares.

Her story, the one that's forever captured him, tamed him - ensnared his very soul.

The day wore on and the storm outside grew, and with the darkness descending he just kept picturing the coming morning and after the peace of the day it set everything churning inside. He's scared. He's scared of her, of losing her, of never being complete without her. He never wanted a life devoid of her, even when it was the only life he'd thought he could live.

His walls are down now, demolished whether he wants them to be or not. And his heart is clamouring for his attention – all nervous hope and confounded optimism even as it quivers in fear. Combined with his body, with the force of this desire. . . .

He needs her. She hasn't been his in so long and he's missed her, he's missed her in every single moment she hasn't been with him. The ache is so huge, so all encompassing and he can't locate a part of him that wants to fight it.

Oh, God. She feels so good, so familiar, so damn right in his arms and it's this bittersweet thought of how some things never, ever, change that actually frees her mouth from under his. Castle pulls back suddenly, breathless and gasping and he stares down at her, at her dark eyes as they widen with anxiety, at the soft and tempting bow of her kiss-ravaged lips.

Her arms tighten on him, but Kate says nothing, just looks up at him silently with this perfect blend of both fear and wonder etched onto her features.

"I-"he goes to say something, but stops because he doesn't have any words for this. His hands flex where they hold her to him. One at her bicep and the other against her shoulder and he hopes that the sheer strength of his grip will somehow convey what he can't find the words to say.

That he's as confused as she is.

"Rick," she breathes softly, almost desperately, in a tone his body remembers only too well. A tone that that tells him she's laced through with need.

"I-"And still nothing but that single word wants to escape from his lips.

"Rick, please," she whispers, almost whimpers. And he feels just as he knows she does, completely captivated by the flames licking outward from within. Her pupils are completely dilated in her gorgeous face, and in the dim room she's the most luminous thing there is.

Hasn't she always been that to him?

"I didn't mean to kiss you." Finally the thought that's been in his head is what stumbles clumsily out his mouth, and it hurts him, it actually hurts in his heart as he watches the wild light in her eyes dim.

His wife begins to pull back, to extricate herself from his arms and he's thinking through a fog of want so against his own wishes he reluctantly lets her go.

Kate turns immediately away from him. Her head drops on her shoulders and the curtain of her long hair works to completely hide her away.

"Kate-"he starts.

"Good night, Rick," she answers abruptly, poorly disguised hurt still quavers in her voice. It's obvious she thinks he was about to apologize. To tell her that him kissing her was a huge mistake and that isn't what this is. He catches her by the wrist and firmly pulls her back towards him, she lands against his chest and he wraps her up tightly in his arms. Lowering his head into her hair he sighs, for a long moment he just holds her against him and only when the tension eases in her shoulders does he speak again.

"Just because I didn't mean to do it, doesn't automatically make it a mistake, Kate." The confession is a both a gentle and quiet one.

She shudders against him, once and then again and he's struck by this sinking realization that she's crying. He tightens the hold he has on her in response, whispers into her hair again.

"You take me by surprise. You always have, I guess you always will. I mean I never meant to let you stay near me. So convinced was I, so completely certain that you were a risk my heart could never again afford to take."

Another silent shudder wracks her, then she gasps his name.

"Castle I-"

He shushes her gently, relaxes his hold so that he can tip her face up towards his. His expression is calm and his eyes are serene, and her breath catches, it gets stuck in her chest as she's silent witness to the love that floods so effortlessly across the planes of his face.

"I know that you're sorry for this year. I know it now, I feel it flowing out of you. I finally understand. You don't have to work so hard to convince me anymore. We lost each other in the face of something so terrible, Kate, something so dark and tragic that neither of us will ever be the same again. We will carry the marks that Jackson made on our lives forever - both his life and his death. We were changed by both events. I don't want his legacy to be only the pain."

With his hand under her chin it's difficult for her to nod and she can barely breathe, but somehow the corners of her mouth tilt up a little bit anyway.

"I don't want to lose you, Castle."

The words are full of a years worth of tears and truth. Her eyes on his are steady and he can feel how hard her heart is beating where her chest is mashed against his.

"I don't think you have," he responds simply.

"What does that-"

He silences her by kissing her again. No urgency this time, just the steady pressure of his lips. When he pulls back, he says,

"I think you've found me, Kate. When you came looking for me, when you came back home again it honestly hurt just to look at you. Living without you was only possible by making you a memory. And I wasn't me." Castle sighs, tips his head down so his forehead rest against hers, lets himself find the words to say what he's feeling by drawing strength from the gentle puffs of her breathing against his face. Her reality.

"That man living my life was a ghost, Kate. A replica. He went through the motions and he honestly tried his best, but in the end I don't think he was fooling any one except himself. He couldn't write because there were no words in his head. His heart couldn't beat in the vacuum that was his chest. And his soul, Kate, his soul had gone wandering and without her . . . "

The writer stops, choking on the words suddenly as the weight of loss and the sheer force of his love collide. His eyes slip shut and he has to remind his body to breathe.

He's aware of Kate's fingers as they rest against his chest, tracing aimless patterns in a way she knows soothes him, and the gentleness, the patience in those tiny fingers of hers works magic to bring him back in control of himself.

"Without his soul, what was he?" she asks softly, the words spoken with her lips resting against his. Her heart feels like its trying to escape her chest. She waits him out then. Wanting him, needing him, praying his answer will be what she longs to hear.

Her husband's eyes open, the clarity in them stunning to see.

"Incomplete," he answers. "Without you, Kate, I'm not me. I just don't know how to be because you are the only one who knows who I really am. You are the only one who loves me as much for the darkness within me as the light. I've been drowning without you and that's my ultimate truth. When I filed for divorce, it was because it felt like the only choice I'd been given and God, Kate . . ."Castle swallows roughly before he continues. "Please believe that it just about killed me to do it, to put it in written words that everything between you and I was over."

Kate remembers how her eyes had burned scanning the papers, the shame and sense of defeat and how everything in her up and rebelled.

"Irretrievable breakdown," she murmurs. The words feel like they might be etched on her forever.

"I was wrong," he whispers back. And then he's kissing her again.

And this time there is nothing but decision, purpose behind the hungry way his mouth devours hers. He breaks from her lips only to send his mouth exploring along the column of her neck. The heat licking through him now is welcome, certain, he doesn't question it, he just rejoices that it is. Kate is real and his and alive in his arms, and Castle sees a life ahead of him again that finally looks like his.

Reaching the juncture of her neck and her shoulder, he bites down into the tendon there, the scent of her skin beginning to drive him insane. Kate moans, low and needy, the sound is glorious, familiar, so he bites down on her again.

"Cas-"she tries to say his name, tries to plead for more, plead with him not to stop. The tears in her eyes are joyful, her heart is singing like a bird inside the cage of her ribs. She loves him; she loves him so damn much it held her in the world when she had no other reasons to remain. She's fought so hard for this, to get back here, to be able to be a joyful woman who can take her pleasure in his arms again. But she realizes on a breathy moan of pure bliss that she didn't completely believe she could get there and she's elated to discover this part of her still exists.

And without guilt.

Kate tugs his mouth back to hers by gripping the back of his skull, and fisting her fingers into his thick hair. His mouth opens beneath her onslaught immediately, his tongue invading, seeking, and dancing along hers.

No words she could find could ever convey how perfect just kissing him is.

Some synchronicity born again between them kicks in and they break the kiss in unison this time.

"Love me?" She asks him. Her heart is in her eyes, her sorrow plain on her face.

"I never stopped," he answers. "It's impossible, Kate. While I live, so does it."

Kate palms his face, her thumb drifting over his lips. "Show me. Show me, Rick."

Castle nods.

"Lets celebrate it, Kate." he murmurs. "Lets celebrate how beautiful he was, with how he came to be."

Kate tugs him to stairs and they climb them together.

Outside the storm is now raging, but inside the house harmony is stirring to life again.