The difference between them is that Beckett stays surprised. Castle relinquishes the expression as if he'd been expecting her. "Mother," he says, and the word is both welcome and mild rebuke. Trust progeny to fit that contrasting combination into a single utterance. "Another fine block," he expels under his breath. It takes a moment to recall their previous conversation in the car about getting caught getting lucky.

Heh.

No. Not funny. Her body clings with doomed hopefulness to the expectation of satisfaction stirred to life by their interrupted kiss. When Rick eases apart to approach the actress, Kate lingers behind in order to glare at her privately, mostly joking. Martha purses her lips and lifts her eyebrows in mute apology. She doesn't smile though, ruefully or otherwise, and that lack says it all: she's here by some serious design.

Castle clearly senses the grave air about their guest, because he snatches her into a hug. Martha grunts softly in surprise, dangling awkwardly off balance in her red flats. Humor and affection make cameo appearances upon the older woman's face before she drums her son's shoulders with her small fists. "For heaven's sake Richard," she rebukes unconvincingly. "This coat is mink, and you're all damp. What have you been doing?"

"Kate fell," the man accuses with a furtive backward glance. For me, he seems to add mentally, because there's a clever little smirk on his face. "Near me," her partner adds innocently, cinching her suspicions by the deviation. He thinks he's pretty funny. He's right, but that's a secret.

"It's winter," Martha replies crisply in Kate's defense. "Honestly. Your timing with these shenanigans."

There you go, the detective notes soberly, she knows why he brought me here.

The diva's lightly toned reproving continues, "Next time you feel like unburdening yourself: wait for summer." Words are just noise. The true story lay in her hands, which squeeze Castle's shoulders to keep him close when he steps back a pace. They worry their way down his biceps and grasp again as if testing his solidity. Slightly widened eyes wander his upper half as though seeking injuries. "You could've at least held off until you'd come by and unloaded your belongings."

"She asked," Rick answers succinctly as Kate nears the pair. "And you did tell me once not to coddle her."

"I did," his mother concedes thoughtfully. "Since when do you listen?"

His smile, though minimal, is fondly indulgent of the poking and prodding. Cracks are evident in his armor today, but he's not crumbling under the weight of all this. The resolve with which he continues to carry himself is…well… It's a lot of things, but at the moment Kate is simply proud. In the face of great adversity, a quintessential hallmark of strength lies not in the ability to deny emotions, nor hide from them, but to endure without being ruled by them or calling undue attention to oneself. Anyone can suffer. Not everyone is willing to do so cleanly or privately. It makes her love the author more even as she aches all the more to help ease his burden.

Sex won't accomplish that, but their special brand of intimacy would be a sublime place to start. It's what makes her the more…hmm…carnally aggressive of the two. The way they are together when the words all cease and touch begins—vocal communication has nothing on it.

"I didn't give 'im much wiggle room," the detective offers at length. She slides an arm around Castle's waist beneath his coat. His warm length and breadth are reassuring in proportion and solidity. "But I didn't know what I was asking for," she adds. "And I didn't know to expect company. I wish you'd called. You could've ridden out here with us."

"No, no, darling," Martha replies with a wan smile. Weariness is evident within her as she pulls the full length mink coat closer about her body. "This is your weekend, and I'll be leaving you to it soon enough. I had errands to tend to this morning, and more waiting for my return this evening."

"You didn't drive yourself," Castle issues, frowning, but his tone makes it a question.

"On these roads? No. I used a car service."

"Good. We hit several bad patches."

Now that her attention was called to the matter Kate's eyes skim the recent sets of tire tracks in the snow. One of them is broad enough to be a truck, or a large SUV. They terminate at the garage door. "Hold on. There're two sets of tracks here. I mean three including Rick's car."

Martha opened her mouth to explain, but stalled.

"We have company?"

"See what I mean?" Rick grumbled to his mother, but good-naturedly. "She doesn't miss a trick." His hand at Kate's back pressed a soothing circle between her shoulder-blades. "Why don't you two go inside? I'll grab our things."

More surprises? She's more leery of the not knowing than the truths that have unfolded. "Wait. What's going on?"

Castle studied her for a silent beat and then looked somewhat imploringly to his mother.

"I made him promise to wait for me, Katherine. If he was so determined to tell you what happened—"

"Whoa," Kate blurted. The other woman's arm had snuck through her left one coaxingly, but it lifted to a wary, lighter touch in response to her sudden rigidity. "If? You don't think he should've?"

"Kate," Rick began gently, but that was all he managed before being interrupted by his mother.

"Richard. Let us do this. You do that." The actress clasped the detective's wrist lightly, nodding towards the front door. The latter reluctantly acquiesced to being led. A shiver of relief invades her as they leave behind the cold to be swallowed up in the foyer's warmth. "I don't know which choice is right," Martha shares. There isn't even a trace of apology for the implied duplicity. "You've been good for each other, but it's been hell getting here, Katherine. That's not to blame you," she inserted when Kate's mouth opened to protest. "It is what it is, dear. I've seen him flounder in ways I hardly thought him capable of as you two…stumbled around one another like drunkards. He's been hurt enough." Martha patted her arm before relinquishing her entirely. "I know you have too. So, yes, I would've had him keep this secret rather than risk either of you anymore pain. Maybe that's wrong. But there's no maybe about the destructive force of Llewellyn Matthews. That man is poison. Every time—every single time—someone has gotten close to what happened to my son he's ended up hurt as a result."

"He said he'd never told anyone else," Kate murmurs as they begin shedding their layers by the coat stand.

Martha wears a red dress beneath the coat, knee-length and elegantly simple in design, but with a contrastingly loud pattern in black which suits the woman's bold style. "I don't know that he ever has," she confirms. "Not willingly that is. I never knew because I didn't ask. God I wish I had now, but… I only know what I've seen in him a handful of times. It's the same look about him I see today. The last time was with a young woman he was seeing in college. I know he didn't tell her, but somehow she found out. Something he said must have piqued her curiosity. That...that night and its aftermath were and remain intentionally quiet pieces of history, but it's still a matter of public record. The story is there if you know where to look. And to be fair to the girl," Martha almost smiled, but it was a pained one, "she was undeniably determined to get answers. She cared about him very much."

Kyra Blaine. It had to be. Castle never said why they hadn't worked, only that she'd left for England and he'd stayed behind.

Beckett rubs the sleeves of her shirt, chilled by the similarities at work. By contrast to Kyra, she'd asked Rick for time to process. Not space. Never again with space. But ten years ago she probably would have. "Neither of us are kids anymore, Martha. We've both seen and done enough to know that life doesn't wait for us to feel secure before taking a risk." She paused, took a steadying breath. "I've spent the better portion of mine wading through cases like what happened to him. And not to compare tragedies, but I've got a past all my own."

"I know you do," Martha agreed with quiet sympathy. "I don't expect you to approve of my dithering about him opening up to you. He's my son; that's all there is to it. If it's a choice between satisfying your curiosity and keeping a secret that spares him more pain—

Beckett stiffens. Her outrage is silent, but damn…it feels as though its seething tendrils crawl down deep into the house beneath her feet and into the very bones of the world. She's rooted in place by it.

"N-no," Martha stammers quickly. "I don't mean idle curiosity, darling. I just meant—

"Stop," Kate snaps, not coldly, but commandingly. It vexes her, this seeming inability in other people to grasp what she and her fiancé have created together. No one seems to get how deeply it runs or how irrevocably they're bound. How can they not see? And how does she explain? Two halves of the same whole; that's such a tired and tame description. "If you cut yourself deeply," she proposes, "but didn't know how it happened—you'd ask why."

The other nods in reply. Her expression is supportive of some understanding.

Yet the detective instinctively knows that the message is lost on her. The fundamental concept of being in love translates, of course, but the fathomless leagues of its veracity aren't something that can be imagined or explained. You've either felt that profound connection with another person or you haven't. It's the thought that Martha hasn't which eases the sting of her presumption. You've had motherhood. That's a different kind of love, but just as special. Kate sighed mutely and touched the woman's shoulder in mute encouragement for her to continue. "I don't approve, but I can appreciate you wanting to look out for him like that. Of course I can."

"I wish I could claim my motives were pure. I feel like they were at the time. But part of me also wishes it had stayed a secret for my benefit." A fleeting glimpse of embarrassment crept into Martha's features via hints of crimson. Yet she lifted her chin in a display of resolve to convey the truth. "It's been nice having another woman around. I didn't want you to think less of me."

"Oh, Martha," Beckett issued softly. "I don't. Christ. I can't imagine what it was like for you. Or him."

A strange frown eclipsed the other emotions in the older woman's features. "What has he told you?"

The door was left slightly ajar in anticipation of Rick's entrance. Through it the closing of the car doors and trunk are audible. Kate's attention shifts to the windowless portal and then back to her companion. "He told me a little about Laura. And the…beach. That night with Llewellyn."

By some mutual unspoken signal they drift back from the doorway seconds before the man himself enters. His cheeks are rosy from exertion. They brought two suitcases each and he's stubbornly elected to bring them all in at once. "I've got it," he declares when his partner begins to approach.

There's some appeal in the man's physical capability as he hedges his way towards the stairs, but it's an awkward amble due to the cumbersome nature of the burdens. So it's kinda funny too. She pinches his butt before he escapes, prompting a yelp of surprise.

Martha is smiling when the detective turns back to her and their conversation. It's a somewhat melancholy one though, and that bothers the younger.

"He's going to be fine," Kate declares coolly and quietly, crossing her arms. "He's strong. Far more so than the piece of shit who tried to kill him." Her tone is seamlessly assertive. She's not just saying the words. "And believe it or not, Martha, so am I. He's here now. With us. That's what matters to me. I would never spoil that to indulge some childish need to judge you for something that happened ages ago."

Martha's gaze shifted to her. It lingered. An unsettling gleam of knowledge resided there. So did silence. It stretched out long enough to send a shivering crack of uncertainty across the otherwise seamless surface of Beckett's resolve. "You say that because you don't understand what that night cost him. When you do, I promise…" she leaned in and grasped the detective's hands with disquieting strength, "…you'll reconsider those words."

Beckett enters the master bedroom in something of a daze. Martha's words still ring in her ears, and the certainty with which they'd been delivered has made a home for itself in her breast. It sits heavy and cold, a crouched and lethal creature of dread. The sight of her fiancé standing before their opened luggage tending to their belongings does not dispel it. It merely quiets the beast's rumblings to a low murmur.

"You don't always fix things," Kate says as she approaches. "But you sure make them feel less broken."

"Hmm?"

"I like that—love it," she clarifies. "I don't want some cure-all. I just need someone to endure with."

"I set aside a change of clothes for you," he says with a sideways tilt of his head.

Beckett frowns briefly at his lack of reaction to her revelation. It's important to her, and the words don't often emerge so readily. But she scrunches her lips firmly around a bottled up grin to note what he's indicated her to wear: solely a pair of white panties with a big yellow smiley face across the ass. "Yeah," she comments, "that's exactly what I'm talking about. I love that."

"You don't need curing," he declares with wonderfully firm conviction.

Kate snakes an arm around him, soothes a circle against his chest. "Neither do you."

Silence joins them for a time, a welcome addition this time.

A few minutes later Castle strokes her forearm and says, "Somehow I managed to convince myself this would be a fine romantic gesture." He nods in unspoken encouragement to feel her press more snugly against his back. "Like your drawer. I wanted to make a space for you in me—in all these lightless places I've kept closed off." He pauses in the act of slipping one of her blouses onto a hanger, brings it close enough to breathe in the scents and lightly brush the fabric across his lips. "It felt right as a plot within my mind." The item is laid neatly atop a pile of similar articles. "Now I'm wondering if I should've gone with that hot pink Glock 26 I saw online."

A quiver of amusement wiggles through her upper half. Kate's hand slides down his front. She slips under his shirt and combs her nails lightly through the fine-spun hairs of his treasure trail. "Keep the subcompact," she drips into his ear, and glides smoothly beneath the waist of his slacks. "Gimme something full-sized." From the side she can see one blue eye half close and roll back into a pleased crescent of white. The satiny heat of him in her grasp; the slow acquisition of length and girth coaxed to life by her influence—it's almost painfully erotic. A dull awareness of emptiness is unfurling in her belly along with his expansion, one demanding to be filled by the other. Amazing, how quickly and completely the need takes over.

"We have guests," he bemoans.

"I don't give a shit," she husks, and it's the truth. This is their struggle. They don't owe anyone an explanation or apology for how they choose to deal with it. The fingers of her free hand comb into his hair, clenching gently but firmly at the base of his head. Kate draws him back, though he playfully resists as he always does. "You've been wonderful today, more than deserving of a respite. Let it keep one more hour." Her mouth seals to his exposed throat. Her nose presses into the stony ledge of his jaw.

"Wait," he says breathily. The word tumbles for meaning in her brain. Keeps tumbling. In the meantime her lips open to allow a gliding stroke of her tongue. His pulse throbs rhythmically beneath it like a caged thing excited by her visit. "Kate, stop," he says more firmly. She's left blinking and befuddled as he pulls gently away and strides to the foot of the bed. Ragged breathing spills out audibly. His chest is home to swells and contractions that belie a matching desire to escape with her.

"What…why?" She's not overly stung by the rejection, more mystified.

There's a flash of regret for another lost moment in his features, but also things less apparent. Tautness in his brow and the clenching of his jaw are faint descriptions of an underlying sorrow. The source is indeterminable. Maybe it's for himself—maybe even on her behalf. "I can't…stop and go with this now. Not now."

"You need it done."

Relief washes over him to know she understands. "Precisely. Please." There's an understated tremor of desperation on the second word, and that detail seems to morph her desire back into a grander form of love. "The guest downstairs right now—that'll be one of the people I mentioned earlier when I said this wasn't just my story to tell. In a very real way they're all victims too."

They are, but you're not. That's what he seems to think, what he'd like everyone to believe.

"I understand."

"No," he replies softly. "You don't. And I can't take the time to explain it better right now. You'll just have to see for yourself." He moistens his lips, considering before continuing, "It won't be easy."

"Castle, I'm not here to make this harder for you."

"That's just it," he replies sharply, drawing her eyebrows into a surprised arch. "You're here for me." His features eased and his tone softened. "And I'm grateful. I love you for that, Kate. And maybe you don't actually need to hear this, but… I need my partner right now more than I need my fiancée."

Beckett was silent. She frowned into his concerned visage, mystified by the request.

"Do you understand what I'm asking?"

"No," she replies. "But you look like we're about to storm a murder suspect's residence. I thought—" She stopped, bristling with sudden suspicion. "Who's waiting for us down there?"

"John Autry."

"That's—who? You said that name before—the sheriff when you were a kid."

"The deputy sheriff, Frank," Castle confirmed. "His son John has the office now. He's here to talk, but also to take you and mother to a few places here in town." He pauses to moisten his lips again. "To meet the others."

The stone of his reply hits the surface of her grim pool of expectations and the ripples manifest in a tremor that exists more in her mind than her body. "You're warning me, trying to prepare me." The confirmation in his visage only adds to her sudden anxiety. "You said everyone knows what Llewellyn is. That's what you told me, Castle."

"Everyone knows." The timbre of his voice feels deeper than usual again, and every other sound less distinct by comparison. "Not everyone accepts. His mother, Lydia…"

"Then I don't want to talk to her! You can't seriously expect me to."

"I do," he confirms with a low, simmering anger. "I expect you to get both sides of the story—the same way you always have. That's what you do, detective."

Kate flinches somewhat to hear him address her in that fashion. "That's my job," she rebukes with a similar glower. "You are not."

"I'm hard work though." She teeters on the verge of smiling, but manages to refuse the urge. Castle does, briefly, but it lacks joy. He turns back to his task of unpacking while continuing, "Godfrey—Lydia's husband—accepts the truth. He knows what his son really is. He doesn't say it, for her sake, but he knows. Look, I understand this seems crazy to you—

"It is!"

"—but they don't have anyone to talk about this with," he soldiers on firmly. "Don't you see?" Something about him forestalls another immediate denial. "They just live with it—this gaping black hole in their lives. The only other people who can talk about it choose not to. I'm sorry to say: that's long included me. No one wants to remember—not even the good memories. I couldn't…do this…" His brow furrows with the struggle to find the proper words. "I can't talk about it with you like this without trying to include them. It gives me no peace to confront the past, but somehow it still feels like that's a possible outcome. There's this illusion of progress to hear the words being spoken aloud after all this time. It isn't real. I know better. Talking about what happened changes nothing!" He claims a calming breath while gazing at their belongings upon the bed, unaware or unwilling to witness her aggrieved expression on his behalf. "But if there's even the slimmest chance that it could offer peace, I want them to have it too."

"Castle," Beckett says, more sighs the name. "It's not up to you to fix them anymore than it is with me. We don't get to choose if or when other people are ready to heal."

"I know," her partner growls as he wrestles one of his shirts onto a hanger. "Logically, I know that."

"But you want to try anyway," Kate inserts knowingly. "I'm not condemning your intentions, Rick. It's very sweet—uhn," she grunts with frustration. "More than just sweet. You know what I mean." He half turns to look at her. She flounders briefly. Like him, not knowing how to voice her misgivings. The words spill out quite unexpectedly as he's gazing into her. "I just don't want you to be disappointed. You don't need that on top of everything else. You know me—how I feel about victims. But my priority right now is you. I'm sorry for the rest of them, but I have to deal with us first."

Castle turns slowly to fully face her again. The detective clenches her abdominal muscles and jaw, actually bracing herself as the man eases closer. Still, the feel of his fingers alighting upon her middle creates an explosion of want. It burns though her veins as the tips of his digits graze to one side in a lingering grasp of her waist.

He somehow perceives her internal response this time, and seems surprised. "Goodness, Kate," he issues in hushed tones. "Stop that."

A single note of laughter rushes out of her, a clip of lilting sound in the otherwise quiet room. She's amused, aroused, and neither are invited or even welcome guests. "Shut up," she grumbles, embarrassed. "I know it's terrible, damn it. But it's just—

"So good," he inserts knowingly. Christ. Looking at her like that does nothing to dissuade the insistence of her body's irrational response. "And I want it," he assures, his voice deep and rich. "To disappear into you." Oh. God. Shush! "I know that together we could make all of this go away for a while."

Kate grunts unintelligibly before a strained growl of her voice emerges, "Don't fuck with me, Castle."

Blue eyes open wider as he leans upright. He grins.

"Oh," she mourns aloud, plops a hand over her face. "I hate my brain. And it hates me."

Rick chuckles and swallows her in his arms. It is as real for the scent of him, achingly familiar and reliable, as it is for the appeasing textures pressed to her body. She burrows her face into the curve of his neck and shoulder, inhales deeply. They linger for a minute, stealing a little more time together from its miser of a master.

"Come on," she urges at length, more reluctant than the words sound. "I can see you're not going to be dissuaded. So let's get this over with. Let's get changed."

The armor is back as he withdraws from her. But it feels different at that moment, more like she's behind the protective shell with him rather than viewing it all externally. A sad humor and a glint of irony hook one corner of his mouth into a small curve. "Were it so easy."