Rick managed to last a full two and a half hours before he was knocking softly on the door. Kate had made herself shower and spent the multitude of minutes with her unruly thoughts in the time he had kept his distance. She still didn't feel ready to see him, hadn't completely let go of the anger she held towards him for accusing her, but she mumbled for him to come in.

She had returned to his bed after the shower, curled up in the goose down comforter and the Egyptian cotton sheets and wished for her mother. Her mother would have known what to do in a situation like this, would have known what to say, would have comforted her through the heartache as she had so many times before.

"I'm an asshole," was how Rick began his apology and she nodded along.

"You are," she confirmed, reluctantly sitting up in the bed.

"I know who leaked my identity," Rick said quietly, his gaze remaining guiltily lowered from hers, but she only waited for the reveal, didn't ask. "My mother called, confessed that she had accidentally spilled the truth to one of her friends last night when they all went out after a show. She'd been drinking, hadn't even realized what she'd done until she saw my face plastered across the evening news."

Kate sighed. His own mother. Granted, it appeared to be an accident, but she could clearly see this made the entire situation worse for him.

"Paula and Gina are happy," he muttered, more to himself than her. "They both agreed I needed a push, that it had been too long since I had published anything because I was too concerned with my work in the medical field. They think this is a good thing."

She scowled, disapproval of his business partners and a strong surge of protectiveness rivaling her pride. "They're selfish."

"And you're not," he said, shaking his head and squaring his jaw. "Of everyone who knew, you're the last person who would have done this to me, and I – I'm an asshole."

He turned to leave and Kate bit her lip, but called to him, pulled the comforter down on his side and beckoned for him slide in next to her.

"Just sit with me, Rick," she murmured when he remained standing near the doorway with uncertainty.

Castle waited a beat, but then he was walking around the bed and settling on the mattress, too far away from her.

"And the hospital? They just… fired you?"

He nodded, dropping his head back against the leather cushioning of the headboard. "It's too big of a risk to have someone famous working there."

"I'm sorry, I know being a doctor meant a lot to you."

"I'm not upset that I lost the job," he confessed, hesitantly meeting her eyes with something unresolved looming in his. "Or the fact that I can't be a doctor anymore. I just - I feel like I'm letting her down," he admitted, his voice wavering with the words. "I did this for her."

Her heart clenched and her resistance towards him lessened. Kate pulled her knees to her chest and rested her chin on her patella, gave in and reached for his hand.

"Castle, you could never let her down," she said softly but with conviction, tugging on him when he took her outstretched fingers and feeling that heavy stone of resentment steadily dissolving as he tentatively scooted closer to her in the king sized bed. "Alexis would be so proud to have you as her dad, no matter what your profession is."

The gratitude brightened his face, overshadowed the mist in his eyes, but he still shook his head and looked to her intently, brought her hand up against his chest.

"But that's no excuse for how I treated you," he pressed resolutely. "I'm sorry, Kate. I'm so sorry for taking all of this out on you. It was stupid and childish and-"

"It was," she agreed lightly. "But I can forgive you," she assured him, squeezing his hand and feeling her chest loosen a bit when he squeezed back and brushed his thumb along her knuckles. "But you have to know, I would never do something like that to you, Rick. You are - I care about you, and I knew how important it was to keep your secret before I even knew who you really were."

"I know, love," he murmured solemnly, but she was too distracted by that stupid term of endearment that made her heart trip. "I knew it couldn't have been you, but my mother was – I honestly forget she even knows who I really am sometimes. So I didn't even think – I didn't think," he concluded. "But I trust you, Kate," he added earnestly. "More than anyone else. You have to know-"

Kate shook her hand free from his and crawled over to him, straddled his waist because she needed the contact, the reassuring wall of his warm body vibrating with the words he spoke into hers.

"And I'm aware I have to prove that to you now, but I will," he vowed, closing his hands around her hips as she settled in his lap and snaked her arms around his neck.

She dropped her forehead to his. "I don't doubt that. But next time, Castle, please just talk to me. You could have called me the moment all of this happened instead of letting it stew."

"I know," he sighed, frowning like a little boy receiving punishment. "I was just - this entire day has been such a mess. I can't believe my own mother sold me out."

She didn't mean to chuckle, but her laughter made his own lips tug upwards and he squeezed her hips.

"Why haven't I met your mother yet?" she inquired curiously.

Castle shrugged. "She's been on a tour these last few months, for her latest show."

Her brow creased slightly at the barely discernable trace of bitterness in his words.

"How long has she been doing these long types of tours?"

"Oh, years. Since I was a kid. She used to drag me along with her," he smiled softly, a reminiscent look in his eyes, but he quickly blinked it away. "It was never boring."

Abandonment wasn't the right term to describe the look on his face, but it was close. It was slowly occurring to her that of his small circle of trustworthy people, two were merely business associates, and one was his flighty mother, whom he hardly saw. He was a good man, an amazing man, and so few people in his life seemed to genuinely care about him.

Kate sighed and kissed the skin beneath his eye, momentarily startling him, but his palms trailed up her gently curved spine, hooked around her shoulders.

"Was it bad?" she asked quietly, curling her fingers around his ear and combing the others through his hair. "At the hospital today?"

"Not… yeah," he admitted, lowering his eyes again. "After my meeting with the board, it was like the walk of shame. A few of the nurses gushed over how much they loved my work, but otherwise I had a hospital full of death glares like I was some traitor."

"I still don't understand the big deal. Why can't you just do both?"

"I said the same thing," he sighed. "Basically, they feel it interferes too much with hospital rules and regulations, patient safety, and lots of other weak excuses," he muttered bitterly. "But honestly, I think they had been waiting for a reason to let me go, so this presented the perfect opportunity."

Kate tilted her head in confusion. "Why would they be looking for a reason to fire you?"

Rick's eyes darted away from hers and she felt her stomach twist with dread.

"They were pretty unhappy with how I treated you as a patient, the special care I showed you, moving you into my home... It was ultimately considered an ethics violation," he explained quietly.

Shit, so this really was her fault.

"You were fired because of me," she murmured, but Rick was already shaking his head.

"I was aware of what I was doing, Kate. If this is anyone's fault, it's my own."

"Still-"

"No, I wouldn't change any of it," he told her adamantly. "I'd never change this."

She smiled softly, traced her thumb over the returning grin he gave. "They lost a brilliant doctor."

Kate cradled his skull when his forehead fell to rest against her collarbone.

"Maybe it's a good thing. I hadn't been happy there, not… not until you."

Her heart stumbled again and her breath did too, and she was sure he could feel both as they occurred, but he kept his head down and she feathered her lips across his temple.

"You make me happy too," she whispered and Castle lifted his head

She kissed him before he could say it, before she could even risk letting what she saw in his eyes come out of his mouth, and he cupped her jaw in his palm, kissed her long and slow before venturing away from her lips and onto the task of spreading a wordless apology along her skin.

It had never been this easy for her to recover from a fight with anyone else and never had she granted forgiveness so soon either, and maybe that should scare her, that she was so willing to accept his apologies as sincere and allow him to kiss away the hurt he had caused, but the fear of what it could all mean remained at bay as his stomach growled against hers and she laughed into his mouth.

He was right, it would take time for her trust in him to return to its full potential, but for now, they were okay and that was enough for her.

"Good run?" Castle asked from the kitchen as she came bounding inside, sweat trickling down the exposed expanse of her chest and arms. She had woken up early, before the sun, and told him she was heading downstairs to use his gym. That had been two hours ago.

He had a feeling she had spent the time taking out the tail end of her frustrations from their evening before on the treadmill – and probably the punching bag – instead of him.

"Yeah, thanks," she replied between breaths as he handed her a bottle of water.

"Will it make up for being trapped inside today?"

She rolled her eyes as she sipped greedily from the bottle, downing nearly half of the liquid before she spoke again.

"Stop feeling guilty, Rick. Not your fault those vultures decided to camp out on your sidewalk."

"But it's part of your recovery to-"

"Castle, I can handle a couple of days inside. After that, we can just start sneaking out."

"Sneaking around New York City with Kate Beckett, I like it," he mused and she huffed a laugh.

"You should have been around when I was a teenager."

"I feel for your parents."

"Mm, you should have seen their faces when they found out about the motorcycle," she smirked as she took another swig from the water bottle.

Castle arched an eyebrow, curiosity completely piqued.

"You had a motorcycle?"

"I have a motorcycle, Rick," she corrected, purposely accentuating the 'k' in his name and oh, what he would have given to have known Kate Beckett as a teenager. "Want to go for a ride sometime?"

"You already know the answer to that."

Her eyes glinted with mischief while she walked around him to get to the laundry room, stripping off her soaked tank top as she went.

"So did you get the bike around the same time you got the tattoo?" he asked, following her into the small room and openly ogling her as she shimmied out of her leggings too, eyes automatically flicking to the inked design deep below her left hipbone.

"Maybe."

Her sports bra was the next item to go and suddenly he was staring at a very naked Kate Beckett tossing the last of her clothing into his washing machine. She had become accustomed to his washer and dryer after days of wrestling with the machines' advanced settings and maybe it was the fact that she was so at home here, at home with him, or simply the domesticity of it all, but he found himself holding back words he knew he was not yet allowed to say. Again.

He had built up expectations of Kate those years ago on the train, convincing himself that she truly was an unattainable woman who could never be quite as wonderful in real life as he had imagined her to be. The problem, though, was that she not only lived up to every expectation he'd had of her, she exceeded them. She was better than he had imagined, better than what he had written of her as Nikki Heat.

And he was in love with her.

"Castle," she chuckled when he found himself stuck staring dazedly at her. "You act like you haven't seen it all before."

He shrugged, looping his arms around her bare, sweat stained body and pulling her against him, closeting away the very dangerous thoughts swarming his brain by focusing on the pleasant feel of her skin under his hands.

"You're still beautiful."

She sighed and lifted on her toes, stole a chaste kiss from his giving lips and captured his hands.

"Come shower with me," she murmured, leading him across the loft, helping him shed his pajamas along the way.

They had had an interesting day while stuck inside, mostly spent lounging on his couch, catching Kate up on all the recent TV series that Rick felt she needed to have as a part of her life, but she had still retired to his bed early in the evening, and he had followed. But it had only been a few hours when Rick woke unwillingly to his phone dancing noisily across his nightstand in the darkness. He swore under his breath and snatched it up before the vibrating device could wake Kate.

"Hello?" he murmured through the gravel of sleep lodged in his throat as he carefully disentangled from Beckett and slid out of bed.

"Mr. Castle."

Rick sighed, still not used to hearing anyone but Kate call him that.

"Yeah?"

"I'm a friend of Roy Montgomery's, we need to talk."

Castle paused, froze at the panic that instinctively twisted in his gut.

"I'm listening."

"Something bad is going to happen in a few hours time, Mr. Castle, and Detective Beckett's life will be in danger."

Oh god. Castle clutched the doorjamb to the bedroom to keep himself steady, glanced over his shoulder at the woman sleeping peacefully in his bed.

"Why?" he croaked.

"The why is not important, now listen carefully. Roy Montgomery is dead."

"What?" he hissed, stepping into his office and silently shutting the door behind him. "He can't-"

"He is." The solemn voice on the other end of the line said. "They will come for me next, and then they will come for her."

"They, who is they?" Rick questioned, but the unknown voice went on as if he hadn't spoken.

"You will receive some files tomorrow morning, these files hold information that could bring down some powerful people. These files are the only chance of keeping Detective Beckett alive."

Castle pressed his fingers into one of his eye sockets, pressed down until stars burst behind his eyelid.

"What do I have to do?"

"They won't know you have them, take them to authorities, but discretion is key. Once they know, you're both done."

"And who is it that is sending me these files?" Castle managed to question steadily. "Who are you?"

"Again, not important, Mr. Castle. But Smith, if anyone asks you. Smith sent them."

Rick shook his head. He didn't believe for a second that 'Smith' was anything but an alias, but he didn't have the time to interrogate the man on his true identity; all he cared about now was ensuring Kate's safety.

"There has to be something I can do, somewhere I can take her. I have a place outside the city, I can-"

But the line went dead.