Chapter 5

Later that night, the house was again dark and quiet, its guests tucked away in their separate bedrooms with full and contented stomachs following an evening out. At random, they'd picked a place in town and split a pizza, had a couple of beers and then coffees afterward, and while they'd agreed that the pie was no match for what Authentic Terrific Nick's served up back in the city, and the bar made them homesick for the chummy ambiance of The Old Haunt, the few hours of simple fun really hit the spot.

Little more than an hour had passed since they'd said their goodnights when Kate peeked her head out of her room. Just down the hall from Rick's, she could see there was still light coming from his, and that was when she made her approach. It wasn't a quick one. In fact, it took her so long to get to his door that by the time she finally knocked on it, the nerve she'd managed to summon to do so was all but gone.

It just so happened that at the very instant she had a foot lifted to tiptoe her way back from where she came, the door opened.

"Hey, did you not hear me? I yelled twice for you to come in." She hadn't heard anything except the swirling buzz of anticipation and the thump of her heartbeat. "Is everything okay?"

"Sorry, yeah, I'm fine. Everything's fine."

Rick could tell by the way she wouldn't look at him that everything wasn't entirely that, that there was something. He pulled the door wide.

"I get it, you missed me already. Go ahead, you can admit it. Unburden yourself, Katherine." She crooked her head, pursed her lips at him. He expected nothing less and welcomed the validation. "Want to come in and sit? I can't fall asleep either."

Kate went inside, and as her cop blood had made habit did a scan of the room. She noted the TV tuned to an old episode of Magnum, P.I., draped neatly over the foot of the bed were the clothes he'd been wearing all day, shed in favor of a pair of flannel pajama pants and a loose tee, his watch resting on book on the nightstand. All of it bathed in his scent and a pale-bluish glow from both ends of a pair of futuristic wall sconces mounted on either side of the bed's headboard.

"I didn't realize you were a fan, Castle," she mocked, passing in front of the TV, and dropping into a wingback chair arranged in the corner beyond the bed's end. "Is it the car or the moustache?"

"Yes," Rick replied, countering her smirk with unapologetic pride. Climbing back onto his side of the bed he kicked his legs out on top of the covers, folded his fingers, and propped his hands behind his head. "Also, the short shorts, obviously," he added before an abrupt change of subject. "I should've said so earlier, but today was nice. I know we didn't do much of anything, but I liked spending the day with you away from stuff, life. Thank you for bringing me out here. It may not seem like it but my brain has appreciated the mental breather."

Kate gathered her feet up underneath her. "I liked it, too, but you brought me out here. You're the one with the car and the friend with the fancy house. I didn't even have a plan when I asked you. I just knew that I wanted…"

He nudged when her thought trailed off, mostly out of selfish curiosity because he still didn't know why it was that they'd left town for that fancy house—or for wherever else may've been for that matter—and, on top of it, in such spontaneous fashion, which wasn't something he knew her to be.

"Wanted what?"

"Castle, were you scared? When we were in that room and Turner had her gun pointed in our faces, were you scared?" Immediately, she read discomfort in his body language and regretted bringing it up, tried to backtrack. "I'm sorry. This isn't the right time. We don't have to talk about it. I shouldn't have said anything."

His arms were now crossed at his chest, his legs at the ankles, but more subconsciously protective than icy.

"It's fine, Kate. What happened happened to us both. We should talk about it. Honestly, I don't think I had time to get to scared. The shock of it and the disappointment and the anger had me pretty wrapped up. Adrenaline took care of the rest. Lucky me, since I lived to see another day and she didn't, I now have all the fun that comes along with guilt to enjoy."

Her heart ached for his, for what it was going through, for what it was struggling to see the other side of, and it was that ache that got her up out of the chair. She had to be closer so he could feel how well she understood, and that because she did, he wasn't alone in it.

Rick watched her as she came around the bed, made space for her when she sat and settled beside him.

"Is this okay?" She rested the back of her hand on his thigh, and he fulfilled her unspoken wish by sliding his fingers between hers. "I was scared," she confessed. "You went down, and you didn't move. You wouldn't answer me. I thought you were gone, Castle. I thought she'd taken you from me right in front of my eyes, and I hadn't felt that alone since…"

He knew exactly where she'd gone. A gentle squeeze of her hand brought her back to him.

"She didn't take me from you." He turned to look at her, but her gaze held on their interlaced fingers. "I'm right here. I always will be."

"Did you love her?" Kate thought of the conversation she'd had with Sophia when the two were alone. About him. About them and their past. It'd been a difficult one, for many reasons. Even the remembrance came with a sting. "Were you in love with her back then?"

Rick tipped his head back against the headboard, considered giving something other than the whole truth of it, but the way she was holding him made that an impossibility. Her touch was too honest to return anything but.

"No. I couldn't have been."

Her eyes lifted to his. "Couldn't, why not?"

He took a deep breath in and exhaled it audibly.

"Okay, but before I say this a reminder that I write wildly successful mystery novels, not poetry."

Kate bit back a laugh. Richard Castle never let slip by an opportunity to pat himself on the back, even when he was trying to play himself down.

"Why not, Detective, is because until I met you, I didn't know what it truly was to be in love. Nothing and no one before you has ever made me feel the way I've felt since the night your reality crossed paths with my fantasy."

Never again would she run or hide or fight. Never again would she let a thousand questions stand in the way of one certainty, and so she continued the journey she'd been making toward him for so long and leaned in, kissed his lips sweetly. When she pulled back and opened her eyes, his were still closed.

"So, what you're saying is that I am a poet, and I just don't know it. That was a very pleasant thing that just happened," he purred almost drunkenly. "Sure hope I don't have to wait a year again for another one of those."

"Keep being a smart-ass and there's a good chance."

His smile made her heart flutter with joy and regret. Months and years filled with wisecracks and kisses and smiles never known, lost, and to what?

"What's going on in there right now? Tell me what you're thinking about."

"You were right, Castle," she admitted, which alone was a hard pill to swallow, and he then, of course, proved why.

"Yes, I'm sure that's true, but humor me. What about?" His thumb drifted softly over hers as he allowed her her contemplation. "Hey, don't hide from me now." He brought their clasped hands to his lips, pressed a kiss against hers. "What is it?"

"You told me that I was afraid to let myself be happy, and I got so angry with you because it was the truth, and I didn't know how to be okay with your seeing it."

Rick remembered that night—that argument—like it'd just passed. He still wore a bruise from it, and likely always would because had he succeeded in doing what he'd gone to her to do, maybe by some benign twist of fate, however improbable, one of the worst days in both of their lives may never have been.

"That's the part I want to see. I want to see the Kate you are, not the Kate you think you have to be."

"You're the only one who ever has." She paused, not in doubt but to sit for a moment in the exquisite relief of there being none of it. "Loving you isn't what I've been afraid of, Castle. I do love you. I have for a long time. I just, I know what it's like to lose the most important person in your life, the person you need more than anyone. Since my mom, you've been that person, and the thought of loving you that much and losing you, too, terrified me."

"It doesn't anymore?"

"No, it definitely does." They shared a chuckle over her delivery, firm and silly at once. "Seeing you lying on that floor, Castle, and realizing you might never hear me say how much loving you and being loved by you has changed me was one of the saddest feelings of my life. I don't want to lose any more time."

Intentional or unintentional, the secret she revealed wasn't an insignificant one, and she saw that written on his face, but his hand remained joined with hers, and for that she was thankful.

"You did remember. For how long?"

Her "I'm sorry" was answer enough for Rick to gather.

"I know I hurt you and there's a lot we need to talk about, things I want to say and explain."

Rick eased his hand free.

"Maybe right now we should just try to get some sleep."

They sat there together, neither speaking a word, neither making a move. Kate didn't know what to do, but she knew she didn't want to go.

"Could I stay here with you tonight?" she asked after a long moment of silence. "I'll understand if you don't—"

"I do." He wouldn't even let her finish. He didn't need to. "Stay."