A/N: Thank you for your company on this journey.

Chapter 4: Awkward Questions

Castle lingers in the kitchen as long as he reasonably can without starting to look weird or inhospitable, which is tricky given Kate has a clear view of him from her position on the couch. Inhospitable? She's not just some random guest, and didn't Kate just tell him to cut the polite crap not five minutes ago?

So he lingers a little longer, grabbing a lime from the fruit bowl and cutting it into wedges to drop into their water jug, because he needs another minute, just a few extra seconds breathing space to process everything that's just gone down.

He has imagined telling her that he loved her in the past. Of course he has. Many, many times and in lots of different ways. There was the simple Sharpie message he tried writing on the lid of a coffee cup one morning just to see if he could fit in all the words. His mother found the prototype and threw it in the trash by mistake, assuming it belonged to Alexis. Then there was the fortune cookie company he discovered online who can print any short message you want and insert it inside one of those stale little sugary cookies. But since they usually order Chinese at the precinct, and Ryan has a habit of stealing all the cookies, that idea had misadventure written all over it. Then there was the skywriter, the florist fluent in the language of flowers, the old steamed up bathroom mirror trick (not so useful in a precinct full of male cops) and a childish plan to spell out to her how he felt with a text-load of emojis.

Whispering it over her dying body in a cemetery full of people didn't even make his Top 50 Fantasy Scenarios. Who'd have thought.

He can admit these things to himself now, now that the cat is well and truly out of the bag, whether Kate Beckett remembers the big reveal or not. He can also admit that he fantasied about hearing her say it back to him one day too. And now that she has, any desire to perform the happy dance of his imaginings has completely deserted him. Because she damaged his trust by pulling that disappearing act three months ago and following it up with the silent treatment. She damaged his trust not only in her, but in himself; in his ability to tell what's real from what's just plain old wishful thinking, fantasies that exist only inside his head.

Eventually, when he can delay in the kitchen no longer, he gathers up the tray and heads back towards his partner, who's sitting a little more slumped on his sofa. She looks pretty tired, exhausted even, but Castle has stuff on his mind, and so he's too preoccupied with his own bruised heart to pick up on any of these signs.

One, okay maybe two major things are still bothering him. He decides to tackle the most brutal one head on.

"Can I ask you a question? Would we even be having this conversation tonight if I didn't have some information that might help you with your mother's case?"

He asks the question with his head still bowed over the tray as he carefully places it down on the coffee table between them. As a result he doesn't meet her eyes when he chooses to challenge everything she's just shared with him, employing words that have so much potential to wound.

There's dead silence for a beat and then Kate takes a weary breath. "You really haven't been listening tonight, have you?" she states, standing up quite suddenly.

"Wh—where are you going?" Castle stutters, when she abruptly turns to walk away.

"Don't worry, I'm not running out on you again," she says, flicking a hurt look over her shoulder. "Bathroom," she adds, making for the downstairs cloakroom.

Castle growls at himself in frustration as soon as he hears the bathroom door click shut. His wounded pride, his dented heart and fragile ego are all getting the better of him. What does it matter why she came to the book signing now or even why she's here tonight? Can he not just let it go, choose to believe that what she said is true: that she's in love with him? Isn't that what he's dreamed of hearing all along?

He goes and fetches the file from his office, laying it down on the table for her with a resigned sigh. If that's what she came for, if that's what tonight's performance is all about, he'll know soon enough. With that tantalizing manila folder sitting in plain sight, she's bound to show her hand before too long. She never could stay away from her mother's case when there was a whiff of a chance of solving it. It's like a drug to her – addictive and equally as dangerous to life and limb.

He's just about to sink down onto the sofa to wait her out when he hears a commotion coming from the bathroom. Something comes crashing to the tile floor and Castle sets off running.

He leans on the doorframe, panicked and breathless. "Beckett? You in there?"

He hears a groan followed by a long, frustrated sigh.

"I'm coming in, okay. Stand clear of the door."

"Castle, door's open," she informs him, sounding slightly exasperated, managing to raise her voice so that he hears her before he goes all Kung Fu Panda on her and kicks the damn thing down.

When he gets inside, he finds Kate leaning over the basin, her face ashen, lips a bloodless, insipid pink.

"What happened? Are you okay?"

He hovers behind and slightly to one side of her, hands curled into fists again to prevent himself from touching her. But she looks so fragile that he can't resist, so he reaches out and softly lays a hand in the middle of her back, high up between her shoulder blades.

She tries to shrug him off, bending down to pick up the chrome tissue box she knocked to the floor, slender fingers gripping tightly to the edge of the vanity as she does so.

"I'm fine. I'll…be fine," she insists, sinking down onto the closed toilet seat as if she doesn't have the wherewithal to remain standing. "Just give me a minute," she adds, tipping her head forward over her thighs, her spine bowing.

Castle kneels on the floor in front of her, tilting his head to the side so that he can see her face. He tentatively places a hand on her knee. She's so pale that he can see the blue vein in her forehead pulsating, oxygenated blood making it stand out clearly against the waxy pallor of her skin.

"Kate, when did you last eat something?" he asks, softly.

She shrugs, listless, carefully shaking her head to avoid adding to the dizziness she's already experiencing. "Breakfast, I think."

Castle's head lolls forward in front of her knees. He smacks a hand to his brow in frustration and then he sighs. "Oh, Kate," he mutters, before pulling himself upright again. "You need to take better care of yourself," he scolds, taking her elbow to help her to her feet.

"I'm not an invalid. I can stand by myself," she protests, immediately blowing her own argument when she sways on her feet and has to reach out to touch the wall for support.

"Sure you can," mutters Castle, taking her elbow once more to steady her. "Just…indulge me, would you? It's not everyday a beautiful woman tells me she loves me and then swoons in my arms."

"You wish," whispers Kate, giving him a half-hearted nudge and a ghost of a smile.

He feeds her leftovers. Like, he literally tries to spoon-feed her the pasta dish he made for himself tonight, until she growls and bats his hand away.

"I'm not an infant. Give me the damn fork."

He places the fork in her hand and moves round to the other side of the island to watch her eat.

She steadily begins to consume mouthfuls of food, only pausing now and again to sip her ice water or to chew. She looks as if she hasn't eaten in days – both from the level of hunger and the protrusion of bones on display. Her loss of body fat, such as it ever was, is pretty stark, and something Castle is only just noticing, now that her t-shirt and jeans are all that she's wearing and he's focused enough to observe her.

"Good?" he asks, as she pauses to wipe her mouth on a napkin.

"Mm," she hums, nodding, grateful. She seems calmer, a little color returning to her cheeks.

Castle puts his glass down and gets up from his stool feeling stiff and old. He can sense her following him with her eyes as he crosses the living room floor to collect the buff-colored folder he left out on the coffee table. When he returns, he quietly lays it down on the counter in front of her. No drama, no big ceremony.

Kate eyes the folder for a second and then she takes a deep breath, reaching for her water glass. She takes a sip, gaze still hovering over the manila file, and then she settles her glass back on the counter. She pushes her empty pasta bowl away and folds up her napkin. The weight of silence in the room is astoundingly heavy.

And then all at once, her lashes flutter and rise, her eyes locking with his. "What do you want to know?" she asks, staring deep into a well of navy blue.

Castle frowns and he skims her face for clues. "What do I—?"

"I mean it. Rick." She says his name as if she's trying it out for the first time.

Castle freezes at this unfamiliar sound coming out of her mouth. His name sounds both intimate and foreign coming from Kate Beckett's lips, a realization that makes him slightly sad.

"Talk to me. Please? I'll tell you anything. Anything that'll help you believe that I'm sincere."

"What happened in there?" he asks, nodding his head towards the guest bathroom.

"I felt faint. I stumbled," she shrugs, batting his question away.

"Has that happened before?"

"No!" she insists, glaring at him again.

And he wonders why she wanted to recuperate alone. He fusses, he hovers, he would have driven her mad and they wouldn't have made it back from her dad's cabin alive. Certainly not as a couple. Those are pretty damn good reasons. She knows herself well enough to recognize that she gets grouchy, defensive and impatient when she's hurt. She would only have ended up pushing him away.

"You're sure? he persists.

"I already told you. I hadn't eaten since breakfast. I promise I'll take better care of myself from now on."

The wounded look he gives her tells her everything she needs to know and more. He still wants to be the one who's allowed to help take care of her. Tonight it's almost too much. But for his sake, she reaches out her hand, stretches her fingers towards where his rests on the counter, and then she briefly grazes his knuckles.

Castle looks up when he feels the light stroke of her touch, eyes wary with confusion.

"Thank you for looking after me…just now," she adds, bobbing her head in the direction of the bathroom. "Dinner was lovely," she assures him, offering a faint flicker of a smile.

Castle nods, accepting her words of gratitude, and then he stands again. Kate watches him stretch, the move unwittingly erotic, though she knows that seducing her is furthest from Castle's mind at this point. There's still too much pain and mistrust and anger sitting between them for thoughts to stray in that direction right now.

"Can I make you a cup of coffee?" he asks, stifling the remains of a yawn.

"I should probably go…let you get some sleep."

She makes the offer, but they can both hear the hesitancy in her voice, see the lack of follow-through when she doesn't move a muscle where she's sitting. She's being polite, a good guest, doing the one thing she asked him to cut out an hour or so ago.

"You think I'm going to sleep? After tonight?" he asks pointedly, and Kate blushes. He's being so honest.

She shrugs, a 'what the hell' kind of gesture. "Better make me that coffee then."

She watches his mastery over the built-in coffee machine. He works it like a pro barista. No steam burns or spilled grounds for him. His ass looks amazing in the dark blue jeans he has on, his back broad and welcoming encased in the soft, worn flannel of his plaid shirt.

He turns around quite suddenly with two cups in his hand, while Kate is still mid-daydream, and he catches her staring. She blushes, but he doesn't say anything, just lifts his eyebrows to let her know he caught her; a tiny glimmer of hope in an otherwise tense situation.

They do the ritual back and forth with creamer and sugar, and then all that's left is silence and their hot drinks to contemplate.

"Why today?"

Castle's question sounds stark against the backdrop of quietude in the loft.

"You mean is it about the file?" she asks, her eyes straying momentarily to the unopened document.

He nods grimly, tight-lipped.

"When I went back to work yesterday..." She lets her eyebrows shoot up towards her hairline and he reads between the lines.

"Gates?"

Kate nods. "Yep. You've met her," she says, pursing her lips.

"That good?"

Kate nods again. "She asked me to call her Sir. Like we're in the military or something."

"Boot camp. You know that's a really good description of the Twelfth right now."

"The boys told me what you did, investigating. They did mention that you had a file. But I swear that's not what today was about, Castle. You've got to believe me."

"I want to, Kate, but—"

"I know you don't trust me."

"I trust you. I trust you. I just—"

Castle drains the rest of his coffee, wishing, not for the first time tonight, that his cup contained something stronger than caffeine. Then he carefully places it back on the saucer, his mind whirring with thoughts of what next.

"Did I break us?"

Kate's voice startles him, despite being so faint that she sounds like a child. But her question surprises him even more.

"Us?"

"Our partnership. Any chance we have of something more. Did I do that?"

Castle stares at her, silent and serious, impassive even; offering no real clue as to his thinking from the look on his face.

Kate drops her head down to stare into her coffee cup. She can't bear to look at him for fear of what she'll see next when she takes a deep breath and steels herself to force the issue all the way for once.

"Do you even love me anymore?"

TBC...