Cartographical, you are the columella to the nose of my life. So to speak.

Chapter 27: 3x18, One Life To Lose

Katherine Beckett, I never…

A cast photo. Castle got her a signed cast photo from Temptation Lane.

Kate spends about a millisecond pretending she's not delighted, but she can't help it. The smile on her face won't go away, and it feels wide enough to outlast the entire sky.

(He knows how to make her smile.)

And then he's watching her with such a patient look, the one that says he'll wait for the details, that he'll take anything she'll give him…

…and suddenly she doesn't want to hold it back. She wants -

She wants to share.

"Okay. I was nine, and I had to get my tonsils taken out. And I was miserable. And so my mom took time off of work, and – stayed with me, and cuddled up in front of the TV on the couch, and we would watch episodes of Temptation Lane." She's so caught up in the memory, she almost doesn't see the soft look on his face. "So every time I see it now, it just – it makes me feel like home and – safe." She looks back at him, and for some absurd reason, her whole body feels utterly warm, filled with light. "So there you go. Judge away."

And even just telling him about it, it's like she's back, she's a little girl curled up on the couch again. She can smell her mother's perfume, feel the hard patch of that spot on the throw pillow where she accidentally spilled nail polish on the damask when she was seven. It's vivid and warm and beautiful and too much, too much to deal with, and she looks up into his eyes and she can't look away, because she can't stop –

"My DVR would make yours look like Masterpiece Theater – " she can't help but grin at that, because she's seen the number of episodes of Spongebob and RuPaul's Drag Race he has banked up – "but I am glad to know this about you."

He's smiling at her, that wonderful smile of his that brightens everything, and those blue eyes are so –

Her phone rings. It's Josh.

Castle's face gets the look, the look she pretends she doesn't understand. The one that says I'm trying to look happy. It's crushing – she can't explain it, but it hurts her more deeply than seeing real anger from him.

He presses his palm to the desk as he stands to go. "I'll leave you to it."

That's it?

She's about to pick up the phone. And she's suddenly seized with this crushing need, this desperate want, and she can't stop herself from just blurting out something, anything, to get a smile from him again. "Hey Castle? Thank you for the photo."

"I'll see you."

He almost smiles.

(It's worse than a glare.)

He walks away and she watches him go, her chest twisting with a sudden ache for – for something, she doesn't know –

(Kate. You know exactly what it is, don't you?)

She looks down for her ringing phone, but beside it, where he pressed his hand, she finds something else.

He left a chocolate kiss on her desk.

Her cheeks flush. It's dark chocolate. He knows it's her favorite. Just like he knows how she takes her coffee. He knows her three favorite Chinese orders. He knows how to make her laugh. And he knows the darkest, ugliest parts of her past, the jagged edges and pockmarks on her heart that have left her wounded and wary of all the good that could surround her.

And he still comes back to her every day.

The kiss is rich and warm and melts on her tongue and floods her mouth with overwhelming, dark sweetness.

She picks up her phone just in time to catch it before it goes to voicemail, but even as she answers, she can taste Castle's kiss on her lips.

Later on, Josh is kissing her, and his hands are slipping under her shirt when she just can't. She can't. It's wrong. His mouth is stealing her air and she's suffocating and her heart is pounding and she can't breathe. She needs to get away.

"Josh – " She pulls back, pushes his hands away. "I can't."

"What's wrong, babe?"

"I can't do this." She looks away, rubs her face with shaking hands. "I just can't do this anymore, Josh."

He seems to get it. He takes a step back, and Kate swallows. He's not happy. He knows. She can see his jaw tighten. The silence stretches, heavy and clear and too obvious. Too obvious for anything else.

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

She can't say no. She wants to say no. But she can't.

Josh doesn't even seem surprised.

(It was the wrong kiss.)

After he leaves, she almost calls Castle. She has the phone in her hand. But what would she say? I broke up with him? He acted like he was expecting it?

(I did it for you.)

There's nothing that works. Everything that crosses her mind is too much, about five steps ahead of anything she's willing to concede.

She makes herself go to bed without talking to him. She'll see him tomorrow when she's more stable. She'll figure it out then.

She wakes up early the next morning, her heart hammering. She presses the heels of her hands to her eyes, hard, trying to catch up to reality. Her cheeks are warm. Her eyes are wet.

It wasn't a bad dream.

It was good. Too good.

Rain-streaked windows. Cuddling on the couch. Eating chocolate kisses with a little girl with soft brown pigtails and fuzzy purple footie pajamas, a little girl who snuggles in her arms and plants a chocolatey kiss on her cheek and whispers Mommy, can I –

She doesn't remember what the little girl asked. The dream is already getting hazy around the edges, dissolving into waking and the muted sounds of the street below and the pale light of her bedroom.

But she remembers clearly that the little girl had impossibly blue eyes.