A/N: Sorry for the long delay, your patience is appreciated. This was going to be the final chapter before the epilogue, but the chapter had other ideas and everything just didn't want to be crammed into one mega-chapter, so there will be another one, epilogue and then we've reached the end.

Chapter Twenty Six: It's not about the falls, it's how you stand.

They emerge into brilliant mid-afternoon New York sunshine hand in hand.

Kate turns her head to look back up at the historic facade of St. Michael's, hazel eyes drifting over the grey stone with reverence. This place, these people, she owes them such a debt, not only for what they've done for her husband, but now for herself also.

The shared bond she already feels – she can only compare it to what it's like to be a cop. It's a similar sense of belonging and camaraderie, an innate understanding of each other. These parents share something with her that no-one should have to know, but standing together like this, leaning on each other like this, knowing no explanations are necessary for a bad day, just as none are needed with her partners or her precinct at the end of a bad case – in that it's so much the same.

She smiles inwardly. Can't help but see how Castle would have unconsciously been so attracted to that, cut off as he's been from the brotherhood of cops who'd so long seen him as one of their own.

Castle tugs on her hand and she pulls her thoughts and her eyes, away from St. Michael's to focuses them on him instead.

Her breath catches when her gaze collides with his, a tight little gasp trapped at the back of her throat.

Her husband's eyes are startling, cornflower blue in the bright sunlight, sparkling. They radiate a freedom that could almost unnerve her – considering the day, but she's captivated by it instead. He's so very gorgeous, beyond handsome, smile flirting with the corners of his mouth as he says, "I'm starving. Aren't you starving, Kate?"

She tilts her head at him somewhat dumbly, but before she can locate her missing voice, her stomach chooses that moment to rumble loudly. Castle does smile then, bright and luminous, despite the gravitational pull of the sadness she knows he's experiencing, and it overwhelms her how even after all these years, it's still possible to fall ever deeper in love with him.

"I'm taking that as a definite 'yes'," he says chuckling, and she nods, reels him into her body by his hand, encouraging him to simply hold her for moment on the sunny sidewalk. She rests her head right over his heart, sighing softly as her writer takes the hint, wrapping his strong arms completely about her lean frame. He rests his chin on the top of her head, and adds his sigh of contentment to hers.

"You okay," he rumbles after a moment.

Kate nods, her cheek brushing against the soft cotton of the shirt he's wearing. "I'm fine. Really, I'm fine," she assures him. "I just need this for a moment, and then I'm good to go."

He says nothing to that admission, simply tightens the tension in his muscles, squeezing her more firmly within his hold. She revels in it, delights in having the effortlessness restored to the way that he touches her, the way he seeks her physically once again, instead of shunning even the barest brush against her skin.

At length he asks, "That wasn't too much today?"

Kate shakes her head, "No. Really, Rick. It was a little scary at first, I'll admit that, and it was very emotional for sure. But I feel energized actually."

"Good," he replies, his breath tickling the side of her neck as he leans down to speak into her ear. "You were amazing, Kate, how honest and gentle you were with Pete. I can't tell you how impressed I am, or how grateful I feel that you pushed yourself to do this with me." He blows out a soft breath and something in the small sound speaks to her of relief. "Coming here in the past – it made me feel less alone," he confesses, "less lost, I guess. But coming here today, Baby, with you, it feels like coming full circle. Like I'm standing on the top of a mountain and looking back at the struggle it took to climb it. And there's this knowledge, this irrefutable sense that the struggle was worth it because I'm stronger in the aftermath, a better man. I'm sadder forever in some ways of course, but no longer broken. I feel like I'm . . . more. Kate, does that make any sense at all?"

"Yes," she tells him. "Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes."

Silence falls over them for a moment, companionable and contemplative and then Kate's stomach grumbles really loudly and it sets Castle laughing again.

"Remy's," she says decisively, tipping her face up so that he has to lean his upper body back slightly in order to look down into her face.

"Cheeseburger?" he asks.

His wife nods, "Yeah, cheeseburgers at our favorite place, I think we've earned that today. Don't you?"

Castle simply grins.

The popular diner is sparsely populated when they enter it a half hour later. The tingling bell on the door so familiar, the decor just as it ever was. Kate looks around and lets out a breath she didn't know she was holding, as she crosses another item off the mental 'taboo' list she's been keeping this past year. All of them things she loved - really loved – so of course these were the very same things she would therefore not permit herself to have.

Coffee – √

Physical contact - √

Castle - √

Remy's - √

There are more items of course. Some big, some much smaller less significant everyday things that made up her life before Jackson died. Basically anything she could deny herself that gave her real pleasure had been included on it, but she's better now. She's won the biggest battle of course, namely Castle, and all that remains are little skirmishes in the war.

Castle steers them towards the booth in the back by the window that they used to consider 'theirs', and Kate slides in opposite her husband, settling back against the well-loved red leather with a contented sigh.

Every new step forward that she makes brings her back to herself and as she watches Castle perusing the menu she knows he already knows by heart, it strikes her that there are still steps forward yet to be made - with him. So she reaches out her hand and pushes the menu flat to the counter attracting his attention,

"Cheeseburgers, Castle."

He nods, ordering the same for both of them when their waitress quickly appears, then he stretches his hand across the table to snag her fingers between his.

"Something's on your mind," he says knowingly.

Kate drops his gaze, and stares at the table, she wants to step forward again with him, but hell she feels like she's pushed and pushed . . .

"Kate?" he prompts.

"I want to move back home," she blurts out suddenly.

Castle tugs on her hand, and she raises her eyes to look at him.

"Why do you look so nervous about it?" he asks.

Chewing on her lip she replies really quietly, "You don't think that I'm asking you for too much, too soon? I mean you've taken me back, Rick, and I'm so happy that you've agreed to give our marriage another shot but -"

"Kate," he says firmly, halting what can already tell was about to be a veritable babble of words.

"Come back home. Move back into the loft today if you want to. Be my wife again. I thought I'd made it clear that all of this is exactly what I want already. Hell, I'll call my lawyer right this minute and have the divorce petition rescinded," he says earnestly, his eyes burning with the sort of intense sincerity only he is capable of. "I love you. You love me. We're still married and I want it to stay that way. I thought you understood that I want everything back the way it used to be, that I even want us to try again for a family."

Beckett stares back at him, heart in her eyes.

"Are you positive you don't need more time? You don't want to take this reunion slower, so you can be sure of me before you allow me to live again at the loft?"

Castle shakes his head.

"But I am sure. Positive. Certain. We've already lost an entire year of our life together. I don't intend to squander another precious minute of it."

Kate swallows roughly, he's always had her dreams in the palm of his hands, right from the beginning. And he's always been the kind of person who doesn't hold back from anything. This is just her husband being himself again and God – she has no words for how very much she loves this about him.

"People will talk, Rick."

She doesn't want to point it out, and she knows she shouldn't care. And in the end she suspects he's about to dismiss this as worry about nothing anyway. But she still feels it's only fair to point it out to him. She's avoided the press in the last year, and still she knows what they've said about her. About the way that she so coldly and quickly left him, and how he subsequently hasn't written. She watches him silently as Castle breathes heavily for a moment, eyes clouded and his face full of shadows, berating herself for bringing this all up when only moments earlier things were easy between them.

At length he says, "I'm guessing your concern comes from the fact the press will undoubtedly insinuate I'm some pathetic sucker who just lets you walk all over him."

Kate nods, yeah that's it exactly. And she's done enough damage this past year; surely the least that she can ensure going forwards is that their reconciliation doesn't further besmirch his reputation.

"Let them," he says, tone even. There's a solid conviction behind it, he's determined, he's certain.

"But, Rick-"she protests weakly.

Castle holds up a hand, and she can't help noticing that his eyes have cleared again. His face is once more open and relaxed, and it hits her that this really is a completely simple choice now for him.

"I'm dead serious," he says reassuringly. "Let them, Kate. Once I finish up the next Nikki Heat novel they'll have a much better story to occupy themselves with. I could care less about what they'll write about me personally, or what anyone else besides us thinks. And in your heart so do you. I'm the one who was abandoned and if I've moved past it – if I've come to terms with everything that's happened between us, and I have - then that's the only important thing."

Kate's eyes widen at his declaration, but for a different reason than he would have expected however. And the press and what they might have to say are already forgotten.

"You're going to finish the book?" she stammers, latching onto what suddenly became the most critical part of his statement – the part she didn't know. Voice quivering she adds, "Really?"

Castle's fingers tighten where they're curved around hers, and he pulls her hand across the table towards him, them up towards his lips. He kisses the pads of her fingertips, eyes a light with something she recognizes instantly. Something she'd forgotten to miss. "My fingers are itching," he states simply. "There are so many words in my head right now. So many I'm actually getting a headache just trying to contain them, Kate. If it wasn't for the fact that I have to go and see my mother, have to make sure that her recovery is progressing – I'd be running home right after this and locking myself in the office away from everything."

His smile turns apologetic. "Even you, my love," he adds gently, "Nikki is practically screaming obscenities at me right now for delaying."

Oh, Castle.

Beckett's eyes fill with ecstatic tears. Her heart hammers and she's lifted, lifted by this perfect knowledge. Hearing him saying this – it's massive. The perfect gift to lift her sadness is to know that what's always lifted her spirits will be born again – Castle's words. To know that his creativity, perhaps his most innate essence is alive again and restored to him, the urge to write, to weave a story; it's the most fundamental part of him – it's 'who' he is, 'what' he is – far more than it's ever been what he does.

Kate pulls her hand back startling him, his face contorts into a frown for a moment but she's out of the booth and on him in his side of it so lightening fast that he's soon laughing as hysterically as she is. He cradles her against his chest, wipes the happy drops of moisture from her flushed cheeks and palms the side of her face, fingers slipping into her hair.

"You're not upset that I can't wait to lock myself away from you for a bit – right when we've finally reconnected?"

Kate shakes her head vehemently. "You want to write, you need to write and that's all that matters," she gushes happily. Only this, she thinks. Only this news could somehow make her joyous on this day. Dropping his gaze she whispers, "All year . . . all year, Castle, I've felt as if I'd killed that too."

The writer shakes his head to clear it, he understands of course how she'd felt so totally responsible, so burdened with guilt over their baby's death, but he didn't know this. He would never have thought she'd blame herself, that she'd lug shame around about this.

"Oh, Kate," he sighs. "I'm sorry, I am so sorry you've carried that around. But I simply had nothing to say without you. Nothing gave me inspiration."

He tilts her face up, hand under her chin.

"But you do," he tells her softly. "You always do."

He's still kissing her to prove it when the food arrives interrupting them.