Chapter 2

For the third straight night Kate arrived home to her apartment and shed her Detective-Beckett wear, left it piled at the end of her bed in trade for a tank top and a pair of leggings, a chunky cardigan of violet wool buttoned loosely at the front.

In slippered feet she shuffled into the bathroom, tugged the elastic band from around her wrist and gathered up her hair, twisted and secured it away from her neck and her face. Her skin welcomed the gifted breath—every part of her did after too many hours spent tangled in the fight. That day's battle had been a particularly grueling one, and the eyes staring back at her from the mirror wore the marks of its every blow.

She studied her reflection, a minute then two. Three mornings and now three evenings standing at that mirror since Sophia Turner had wreaked her havoc, all without a word from Rick, and she could see it written there. The hurt of his absence had taken up residence, and because of it she felt changed not only on the inside, but also on the outside.

Without him she wasn't the same, and how brilliantly cruel the universe's karmic twist: that the woman who wanted never to need anyone now wanted so badly to be needed. And apparently, she wasn't.

Out in the kitchen, she set a music playlist saved on her phone to shuffle-noise, but welcome noise-pulled a container of yogurt and half a bowl of grapes from the refrigerator and a stool up to the island table where she sat with a week's worth of unopened mail.

Not two envelopes in there was a knock at the door. She had no plans for company, was expecting no one, dreaded the idea, in fact, yet she got up to answer it anyway.

Hope sometimes came knocking unexpectedly, too, and for Kate, at least on that night, it brought with it reward.

"Hi," Rick said, the first of the two to speak after a handful of seconds hung suspended between them like hours.

Although she managed to maintain a cool exterior her heartbeat raced, keeping pace with Mingus and his brass as his "Haitian Fight Song" played on in the background.

"I didn't call," he went on. "I know it's late. I should have."

It wasn't late, and not that he knew it, but Kate wouldn't have cared in the least what the hour was.

"Castle," she said as though she'd just woken from the warmth of a pleasant dream, "I wasn't…Sorry, hi, come in. Sorry." She moved aside, let him pass, shut the door behind him and slid the chain out of habit. A sniper's bullet survived yielded many lasting effects. "How are you? How's your arm?" She followed when he continued into the kitchen, went first to her phone to quiet the music.

Rick bent his wounded arm and mimicked a bird's wing, gave it a flap.

"Almost as good as new. Might even try out for the Yankees," he joked, but then abruptly rounded a corner to solemn like he'd been scolded for the levity given the circumstances.

Kate's eyes wandered over his body as he stood in front of her after too long away, his hip propped against the edge of the table, his hands fisted in the front pockets of his jeans. His beautiful, whole, alive body was as perfect a thing as she'd ever seen-as perfect and as heavy with sadness.

She truly understood now. She understood the helplessness he'd experienced, the desperation to comfort but not knowing how.

"You aren't sleeping," she remarked. There wasn't need to ask. She saw it plainly.

"I have," he said but qualified off her look. "Not a lot. My mother keeps trying to pour some special tea of hers down my throat that's supposed to help me relax. All it seems to do is send me to the bathroom seventeen times an hour. If only someone made an I-Shot-and-Killed-My-Ex-Lover-Who-Turned-Out-To-Be-a-Russian-Sleeper-Agent evening blend," he shrugged. "I guess if there's a silver lining it's that until they invent one, I can make tossing and turning the spearhead of my exercise regimen. It's doing wonders for my abs."

Kate wanted to laugh because it was what he wanted for her, but she just couldn't. To know that he was struggling and in pain crushed her.

"How are things at the precinct? I assume criminals are having their way with the city without me and my genius to help foil their nefarious schemes."

She pulled her hands out of her sweater pockets, but finding she couldn't figure out what to do with them slid them back in. "Everyone's been asking about you," she told him, then added, playing along, "well, not the criminals, obviously. They love that you haven't been around. Espo, however, does not. I actually think he might be on the verge of putting in for a transfer. Without you as a buffer, Ryan's already driving him nuts. I'm honestly not sure which one of them misses you more."

"Neither more than Gates, though," Rick came back and got a smile for it.

"Oh, no chance, no. Gates just cries in her office, all day long, nonstop. We've barely seen her." Her smile became his, however modest, and their eyes met, danced a few beats. "I've missed you, too," she confessed, and noting the shake in her voice dropped her chin. "All I've wanted for the past three days is to see you and to talk to you, but now I don't…I wish I knew what to say, Castle. I wish I knew the right thing to say."

"Kate"—he waited until she found her way back to him from wherever doubt had swept her off to—"that was the right thing." Turning his body, he braced both of his hands on the tabletop. "I've been out walking the past few nights, just walking, nowhere, anywhere to try to clear my head and work through this. I didn't plan to come here. Not that I haven't wanted to see you, too. Of course, I have, I do. You're what…" He considered, held the rest inside. "Anyway, I barged in on your night. I'm going to go so you can get back to it."

Without reply Kate crossed to him, and when he straightened up, she wrapped her arms around his waist. In an instant, she felt his muscles and his bones surrender to her embrace, trusting she would hold them together-hold him together. It was as pure a connection as she'd ever felt with anyone in all her life.

"What's this for?" he asked because this wasn't a thing they did. Years of partnership and friendship, and seldom did they allow themselves the common pleasure of even the most innocent of contact. Each knew why that was. "Please don't take that as a complaint. You smell really, really nice and there's absolutely nowhere I have to be for, like, ever, so you should definitely feel free to not stop."

She angled her head and tilted up at him, her eyes drawing to his after a brief but intoxicating detour at his parted lips.

"You needed it." She returned her head to its resting place. "And you wouldn't have asked."

The secret she kept was how much she needed it, too.

Though little more than a whisper, the vibration of her voice against his chest proved mighty in its effect. For the flood of calm her nearness prompted, for nearly collapsing him with its swell, she might just as well have shouted through a bullhorn.

"Takes one to know one." Rick brushed a kiss against her hair, one as gentle as her words. "You be sure to tell Esposito to hold off on submitting those transfer papers. I'll be back soon enough."

Kate released her arms from around him, and he her, but only because she did. He might've stood there forever, otherwise. Silence filled the air on their parting, not because there wasn't anything to be said, but because there were so many things.

"I'll call," he promised with a curl of his lips, and she believed he would. "Good night."

She knew how selfish it was to not let him go, to not grant him the time he needed to process the events of that week. After all, who better to understand? She'd taken months of it herself. And yet, he hadn't even reached her door before she called after him.

"Yeah?" he replied over his shoulder when she stepped into view.

"Can we go somewhere, Castle?"

She wasn't sure which of them she'd surprised more.

He pivoted, pushed his hands into his pockets again, backtracked some. "Sure, we could grab a coffee or something, if you want." By her eyes he read how short of the target he'd fallen, and while the urgency and importance he sensed puzzled him, he wasn't equipped to deny her. "Where?" In the question was his answer, no matter hers.

"I don't know where, just…away, from the city, from everything."

"What about work?"

"Work doesn't matter. I'll deal with work." She softened. "Work isn't this."

Rick approached, stopped close. "We'll go, okay? I'll figure something out, and I'll be back. I won't be long," he assured and went, and though he was gone again so soon, Kate felt him closer than she ever had.