Cold.

The plunge into the lake is so cold, a kind of freezing he hasn't known before. Even their time in the freezer doesn't quite compare; that was gradual, but this? This is instant, painful, piercing cold through every part of his body.

He tries to kick upwards, but the weight of his skates drags him down, making his movements feel even slower and more uncoordinated beneath the water. But then a sharp tug is yanking him upwards, like a hook to the back of his coat reeling him to the surface.

He already knows it's her.

He breaches the water a moment later, gasping for air and scrambling to find the edge of the ice.

"Rick," she breathes, practically sobs. He blinks past the water in his eyes, finds her lying flat on her stomach, coat gone and arms drenched.

Every breath feels like a thousand tiny needles to his throat, but he croaks her name.

"I've got you," she promises, both of her hands fisted in the shoulders of his coat, pulling hard. His muscles feel numb, useless, but he forces them to go through the motions anyway, kicking his legs and digging his nails into the solid surface of the ice in front of him. "Good, Castle. Good."

He chokes on a cough, but keeps pushing himself forward, using the leverage she offers him. Kate is finally able to wrap her arms around his waist, drawing up to her knees and taking him with her. Even in the daze of the cold, he's astounded by her, the strength he witnesses in her, feels around him.

All he can do is hold onto her then, tumbling on top of her when she drags him out, only the lower half of his legs left in the water. She shivers hard beneath the weight of him and he wants to get up, needs to get off of her before he freezes them both to death, but he just can't move anymore.

Kate slides out from beneath him, leaving him to lie on the ice, no longer feeling the brutal chill.

She lifts his legs from the water, untying the skates from his feet with violently shaking fingers, cursing herself the entire time. Kate tosses them aside once they're off, kicking her own blades from her feet as well, and shuffling back to where he lay unconscious.

Easing him to his back, she hooks her arms beneath his and begins the strenuous process of dragging his body across the ice and through her backyard. Every muscle in her body burns, her fingers and toes going totally numb, but there wasn't any time to call for help, to put on proper shoes or grab a blanket to drag him on instead. He was freezing to death - again - and unconscious and she needed to get him inside fast.

Finally, after what felt like a lifetime of slipping across ice and stumbling through snow, she's able to tug him through the sliding backdoor of the cabin. She's gasping for air by then, every part of her body in agony, but no joint, muscle, or surface of skin worse off than her stupid scars.

She digs her knuckles into her side as she runs for the thermostat, cranking it as high as she can. Rushing back to Castle, she doesn't think, but strips him of his clothes, down to nothing but his underwear. Then she hauls him into the living room, depositing him onto the couch with a suppressed groan of exhaustion.

Kate wraps him in every throw blanket they own, dragging the space heater from her bedroom into the living room and angling it right next to the sofa. She tears her own clothes from her body then, tossing them into the pile with Castle's. She grabs a sweatshirt and pants from her bedroom, a dry pair of socks, and finally comes to a rest at the head of the couch.

She drops to her knees, the chill of the wooden floor penetrating the rug, the fabric of her pants, to tease at her bones.

"I'm so sorry, Castle," she whispers, the hot tears spilling down her cheeks unbidden. She strokes numb fingers through his damp hair over and over again. "I'm so sorry."

The skin around his lips is blue and she rubs her thumb along the corners of his mouth, barely able to feel the puffs of air escaping. She swallows the whimper in her throat and buries her face in his neck, pressing her forehead to his throat, her cheek to his jaw. He's alive, she reminds herself, listening to the weak but steady throb of his pulse.

They remain like that for a few minutes, her eyes closed and her world growing hazy except for him. She decides she wouldn't mind if she has to stay like this for the rest of the night, the ache in her knees worth it for him.

"Beck - Beckett." She startles and jerks up from her spot, hands immediately cupping his face in her palms. His eyes blink open as his teeth begin to chatter. "Kate."

She chokes on a sob, her throat full of them, and rubs her thumbs back and forth along the bones of his cheeks.

"Hey, hey, Castle," she whispers, fussing with the blankets around him, making sure he's tucked in and warm.

"Cud - cuddle," he gets out, eyes a glacial blue but trained on her. "P-promised m-me."

The laugh that leaves her lips is strangled, wet with tears, but she nods, climbing onto the couch beside him and huddling beneath the blankets. He shifts, a harsh shiver rattling through his entire body, but he manages to rotate onto his side, back pressed into the sofa's cushion. Kate does the same, her legs slotting into place between his, her arms snaking around him, their faces so close their noses nearly touch.

"Do you - remember the f-freezer?" he gets out. He winces as his arms unfurl from their curled position in front of him to wrap around her instead.

"How could I forget?" she murmurs, nestling in closer, letting his chest press flush against hers. Solely for the sake of sharing body heat. His fingers fist in her sweatshirt.

"This - is kind of l-like that, but n-nicer," he grins through clattering teeth. Kate sighs and touches her forehead to his, wishing she could force any warmth from her own body into his. "I loved you so - so much then."

Oh. Oh, Castle.

She dusts her lips to his brow, nudges her nose along the bone of his cheek. "I loved you then too," she confesses on a whisper, feeling the rattle of his teeth stop, feeling the hard clench of his jaw forcing them to still. "Just like I love you now."

"Kate," he exhales, hands roaming up her spine, frigid fingers coasting at her neck.

"I can't remember every moment near the end, in the freezer," she mumbles, brushing her thumb back and forth along a knob of vertebrae in the middle of his spine. "But before I passed out, I remember wanting to tell you. We were dying and I was tired, tired of playing it safe with you."

Castle touches his lips to her forehead, pressing a kiss between her brows.

"S-say it a-again."

Her lips quirk against his cheek and she shifts to have a better view of his eyes, to feel the nudge of his nose against the frozen tip of hers. He's watching her, still but reverent, wanting and awestruck. Her hands caress his naked back, the defined plains and valleys of muscle and skin, the shuddering ridges of bones.

"I love you," she whispers, her lips brushing his as she says it. His lashes flutter, one of his hands sinks into the mess of curls of her hair, and she takes it as a sign of acceptance. Kate tilts her head and kisses him, soft and slow, sealing her cold lips to his.

Castle's chest expands against hers, as if rallying for energy, for air, as he kisses her back. His tongue strokes along the seam of her mouth and she lets him in, moans softly at the paradox of eagerness and tenderness as he kisses her.

The chill inhabiting her bones begins to melt, liquifying beneath the fire of his body against hers. She feels his skin begin to heat under her touch, warming as his heart beats hard.

She groans when he moves, pinning her beneath him and pressing her into the cushions. The blankets twist around them like a cocoon and she twines her arms around his neck, buries her fingers in his hair, keeping him close.

"I love you," he breathes, dropping his forehead to rest against hers. "Too."

She huffs a laugh, kissing the corner of his mouth and burying her smile in his cheek. "Warming up, huh, Castle?"

"You're doing an amazing job, Beckett. But I'm still a bit chilly."

He grins into the next kiss he layers to her mouth, caressing her lips with his in a torturously slow manner. She catches his bottom lip with her teeth and savors the moan it draws from his throat.

They make out on her couch for a while until eventually he has to bury his face in her neck, beg her to stop. He's not ready to have sex on her dad's sofa after nearly freezing to death in a lake. She doesn't question him, merely shifting back to their sides and snuggling against him, so soft, warm, and pliable.

He drifts in and out of sleep as the light outside begins to dim, steadily shifting to darkness.

"You need to eat," Kate finally announces, untangling their limbs despite his protests.

He doesn't want her to move, doesn't want to break this dream-like state, but he lets her go. Sitting up, he wraps the blanket around his naked shoulders, feeling exposed in more ways than one.

"Hey, I'm cooking for you," he reminds her, standing from the couch. His vision tilts slightly, but he blinks past it, shuffling after her.

The floor feels extra cold on his bare feet and he does his best to suppress a shiver, curling his toes against the hardwood. She isn't in the kitchen, though, when he makes his way over.

"Kate?"

"Coming," she calls, emerging from down an opposite hallway. There are two, one off the living room, another closer to the kitchen. Judging by the pair of sweatpants, socks, and the thick flannel in her arms, he assumes she just came from her dad's bedroom. "Here, I don't know if they'll fit, but I know my dad wouldn't mind."

She hands him the clothes, holding the blanket while he shrugs the flannel on and steps into the pants. He pretends not to notice the flirt of her eyes along his bare chest, his legs.

"Not bad," he assures her, the flannel hugging him a little tighter than he's used to, but still comfortable.

Kate fixes his collar, strokes her thumb along the side of his throat in a touch that is both intimate and maddening. More so now that he knows what it's like to touch her, to have her touch him. Now that he knows there is so much more to it than the electricity of physical contact.

"How are you feeling?" she murmurs, splaying her palm at the underside of his jaw, cradling the bone there. "You seem warmer, but your fingers and toes-"

"No worse than the freezer," he promises her, stealing her own fingers from his neck and examining them. "You're who I'm worried about."

"Castle-"

"You're the one who had to drag me out of the lake, all the way into the house-"

"Yeah, I'm also the one who put you on a frozen lake that wasn't stable to begin with," she mutters, shaking his hand from hers and stalking off to drop the throw blanket on the sofa.

"Don't do that," he huffs, tugging on the socks and following after her. "You told me to stay away from the left side. I wasn't paying attention."

"Because of me," she snaps, scraping a hand through her hair, the dilapidated curls. She's glancing to the hallway opposite from her dad's bedroom, the one he assumes leads to hers. But he's not letting her get behind closed doors, not unless he's on the same side as she is. "You almost died, because of me."

"Beckett, it was an accident," he stresses, shifting to stand in front of her, blocking her from any escape. "An accident that could have happened to anyone. It doesn't make it your fault. We were having fun."

She glares up at him with such an ache in her eyes, the redness of grief tinging the delicate skin around them.

"If I lost you to ice skating of all things..."

He sighs and reaches for the hunched bones of her shoulders, feeling the sway of her body into his all too easily. Kate buries her face in his chest, her forehead fitting all too perfectly beneath the tuck of his chin. Despite everything, the curl of her body against his is surreal. The last few weeks with her hadn't prepared him for what it would be like if they ever made it to this point, in which he learned what it would feel like to be loved by Kate Beckett.

"Cook dinner with me," he murmurs, pressing a kiss to her temple. "I was thinking lasagna."

She knots her fingers into the neck of her dad's flannel and arches on her toes, layering a kiss to his mouth.

He kisses her back, only reluctantly letting her slip back to the balls of her feet when his sore lungs ache for air.

"Okay." She nods, a timid spread of her lips accompanying the lift of her eyes to his. "Lead the way, Castle."

He calls his mother when they finish eating, a glass of red wine cradled to her chest while he strolls the perimeter of the living room with his.

"Yes, Mother. We're having a nice dinner. No, I'm not sure what time. I know, I know, I will. Thank you. Love you too. Okay, yes, goodnight."

Castle lowers the phone from his ear with a look of exasperation.

"I take it her acting class went well," she grins around the rim of her glass.

"If the length of that call was any indication, yeah," he mutters, dropping the phone on the couch and drifting back to the small dining room table.

"Time for you to head home then?" she hedges, placing her glass on the table.

"Uh, no. I told her I'd be out a little longer," he murmurs, setting his empty glass down next to hers. "She said she was going to bed regardless."

"Hmm, so you're mine for a while longer then," Kate hums, pushing up from her seat.

He watches her a bit dazedly as she laces her arms around his waist, tucking her fingers into the waistband of his pants.

"Is that what I am, yours?" he asks, curling his fingers around her triceps, caressing the muscles there with his thumbs.

She flicks her eyes to his mouth, traps her bottom lip beneath the pin of her teeth. "Is that what you want?"

Castle lifts a hand to her cheek, fingers spilling into her hair. Her heart skips, stumbling like it has the last few times he's leaned in to kiss her. It's just like she remembered from what must be two years ago now, the way his tongue snakes past her lips with ease, exploring the cove of her mouth like he needs to learn every inch of her. She sips from his upper lip, teasing him with her tongue in a way she's figured out makes his hips cant forward.

Her hands slip back to his chest, flicking open a few buttons. Castle nips at the corner of her mouth, trails a path to her throat, coaxing a whimper up to her lips as he sucks on the thin skin covering her pulse point.

Kate's fingers tangle in his hair, holding tight when he finds that spot behind her ear and her knees dip. She gasps as his hands clutch at her hips, hoist her into his arms.

"I just want you," he breathes, ragged and needful into her mouth.

She's nodding as she kisses him, cradling his face in her hands, angling her head to kiss him over and over again. Her legs tighten around his waist, her hips rolling, and he chokes on a curse.

Walking backwards, she senses Castle begin to slow in the living room, in front of the couch. She shakes her head, running her hands through his hair.

"Bed, Castle." She scrapes her teeth to his chin, grinning at the fist of his hands in her sweater. "I want you in my bed."

He groans, burying the sound in her throat, and quickly resumes his stride to her bedroom.

Castle jerks awake to her body splayed warm and heavy over his the next morning, her limbs loose and her hair covering one of his shoulders. She hums and shifts against him, burying her face in his neck and tightening the drape of her leg over his thigh.

"You okay?" she mumbles, a shiver running through her frame as she stretches.

Castle cups his hand at her nape, runs his thumb along the tip of her spine. Kate sighs out, a sated sound that warms the hollow juncture where his collarbones meet.

"This is real," he exhales, feeling one of her elbows dig into the mattress at his side as she shifts to hover above him.

The sun filters in sharp slices through the slits of her blinds, staining light across the bronze of her hair, the pale lines of her skin. The morning light illuminates the kaleidoscope of colors in her eyes as she grins down at him.

"You definitely weren't dreaming," she chuckles, stroking fingers along his chest.

"You were right," he murmurs, the arm that circled her waist while they slept coming alive, his hand trailing up her sides. Her ribs expand beneath the splay of his palm, the scar he touched with his fingers, his lips, brushing against the tips of his fingers. "I had no idea."

She ducks her head, a smile beginning to steal across her lips. So gorgeous in the winter light, he has to reach up, tip her chin upwards so he can see her.

"So, it was… you liked it?"

"Kate," he chuckles in disbelief, craning his neck to find her mouth with his own. She hums into his kiss, the arm propping her up collapsing to allow her closer. "Every second of it."

He swears he catches a tinge of pink color her cheeks before she ducks her head, lets the waves of her hair hide her face.

He rolls them, trapping her body beneath his, but she merely welcomes it, folding her limbs around him. She stares up at him, a pillow with tiny yellow flowers sprinkled across the ivory of its fabric framing the splay of her hair, and touches his cheek with a kind of reverence he never would have guessed her capable of.

It's in that moment, he feels more certain than ever that Kate loves him just as much he loves her.

"How are you feeling?" she asks softly, coasting her thumb along his brow.

He turns his head, smears a kiss to her wrist. "Better than ever."

"I meant in regard to your likely case of hypothermia," she huffs, but the smile has yet to leave her lips. "I forgot to bring the space heater in with us last night."

Castle skims his fingertips along her arm, watches her flesh ripple with goosebumps and her eyes shimmer with heat. "Right now, I don't even remember what it's like to feel cold."

She makes coffee while Castle texts Martha, receiving an immediate Don't you worry about me, kiddo! Stay at the lovebird nest until my next appointment if you'd like. ;), and checks in with Alexis. His clothes from the day before are with hers in the dryer and he's still in her dad's flannel, emitting a kind of intimacy she's never felt until now. He adds one of her father's coats to the ensemble as they prepare to sit out on the porch swing.

"How's Alexis?" Kate asks, pouring coffee into both of their mugs.

"She's taking a trip with Ashley to Park Slopes," he tells her proudly, but she can see the shimmer of longing in his gaze, how he misses his daughter and the traditions she knows they once held dear.

"Do you think she would come back to New York?" Kate inquires, adding a splash of milk to his mug before handing it to him.

He purses his lips while he contemplates an answer and follows her out the front door. She sweeps away some of the snow that blew onto the wooden swing and layers a blanket over the cold surface before they sit. Castle immediately bands an arm around her shoulders and she does her best not to smile like an idiot, settling for a kiss to his cheek that causes him to instead.

"Alexis never does what I'm expecting her to do," he finally answers, taking a long sip of his coffee. "So I don't know, but part of me thinks so. She talks constantly about missing it. I think if it weren't for Ashley, she would have gone to Columbia."

"What about you, then?" she asks, pulling her knees to her chest, ignoring the soft tug of her incision scar. It's been quieter later, ripping less violently into her attention. "Would you have left if she had chosen Columbia?"

Castle is quiet for a long moment, thoughtful as he sips on his coffee.

"I think I would have stayed," he begins, staring ahead at the blanket of white coating the front yard, his car, the branches of the trees. "But Alexis was so adamant about living apart, gaining some independence, that I think maybe I would have spent more time traveling. Getting out of the city."

Kate tilts her head to rest on his shoulder, feeling some of the stiffness from the conversation dissipating.

"What about now?" she says just above a whisper. Her stomach is twisting with nerves at the simple question, the loaded conversation, thoughts of the future. "Do I need to start booking trips to L.A?"

He releases a breathless chuckle, stroking his thumb at her shoulder.

"When I found out my mother had a heart attack, I cursed myself for being across the country. When Alexis would fly home during the summer to see her friends in the city and spend time at the loft, I hated myself for not going with her. And now, now that you and I are - and my mother… I just want to go home."

Kate cradles her coffee to her chest and nods, finally letting her own truth rise to the surface. "Me too."

"Do you still rent the apartment in Tribeca?"

"I've been subletting it on a six month basis," she confirms. "Current tenant leaves in January."

"My lease on the place in Bakersfield has to be renewed in January," he hedges, the sound of a plan forming already evident in his voice.

"Castle, I don't want you to leave your daughter-"

"That's not what I would be doing," he interrupts, setting his near empty mug down to shift towards her. The chains rattle gently as he grips the back of the swing and meets her gaze with hope blooming in his. "But I am currently living two hours away from her, in an empty home that doesn't feel like mine. I want my life back and I would talk with her, obviously, but I think Alexis would want that for me too."

She tastes a hint of copper as her teeth tear into her bottom lip.

"I miss New York, I miss writing with a view of the city, I miss walking everywhere, I miss the Twelfth, I miss getting you a cup of coffee every morning from your favorite place - I miss our normal," he sighs, looking so wistful, his eyes brighter than ever against the world of white around them. "And now, it would be even better. We could rewrite all the bad times, replace them with the good."

"You make everything sound so much… easier," she frowns, staring down into the darkness of her coffee, catching a glimpse of her own reflection, her greatest source of destruction.

"Not easy," he murmurs, withdrawing the arm from around her shoulders to cover the point of her knee. "Nothing about us has ever been easy. The things most worth doing usually aren't."

Kate cuts her eyes to him, lips parted with surprise. "My mom used to say something like that."

He quirks his lips, a sad smile that makes her heart ache. "Your mom has always sounded really smart."

"She would have loved you," Kate whispers, blinking away the sudden burn in her eyes.

He squeezes her knee and Kate bends to place her coffee next to his on the porch so she can lean into him, press her forehead to the solid bone of his shoulder.

"After your mom is done with PT, after the six weeks is up, and everything here and on Bakersfield is in order…" She sucks in a breath, and can tell he's holding his. "Let's go home, Castle."