239. Chapter 239

After After Hours, Again

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: Owning Castle would be like hitting a game winning home run in the World Series. I've done neither. Rating: T Time: See above.

Castle walked out of his bathroom to find the lights out and Kate already in bed, with her back towards his side of the bed. Okay, when some psycho wants to kill you, you probably want to curl up into a ball and ask the world to go away. I could go for that myself.

But, as he started to get in bed, he saw that Kate was shivering. He slid over to her side and put an arm around her. "Hey. We're okay. The forces of light, that's us, triumphed over the forces of evil once more."

"I'm just coming down from the adrenaline rush." She said in a quavering voice.

He put both arms around her and began stroking her hair and then her cheek. That's when he noticed his hand was getting wet. "You're crying."

"It's nothing."

Castle got up on one elbow and leaned over to kiss her tears away. "You crying is not nothing to me. I'm dedicating my life to making sure you're always happy, remember?"

She nodded, but said nothing.

"Anything I can do?" He said softly.

"I just fuck everything up." He said so softly he wasn't sure he'd heard right.

"No you don't. Believe me, I'd notice."

She shook her head. "Once upon a time there was this girl with walls all around her. Those walls made her safe. She was all alone inside the walls, and she was miserably unhappy, but she was safe. She even managed to let a few people, a very few people, a little way inside those walls. There was a police captain, and an FBI agent, and a couple of cops and a doctor. But she didn't let them very far past those walls. And she was so lonely and so unhappy, but she didn't mind because she was safe."

"Kate…"Castle began.

"Shh!" She said. "Even when the FBI agent left, she didn't mind because being safe was so much more important to her. But then something happened."

"A ruggedly handsome prince came along?" Castle asked.

"She didn't feel that way at first. But, yes."

"And things got better?" he asked, hopefully.

"They got worse. In spite of the prince's rather odd behavior, she was having fun for the first time in years and years. She even thought that maybe the walls weren't such a good idea."

"I agree. Walls are a terrible idea."

Kate snuggled back against him, feeling the warmth of his body against her own. "But the girl knew that the ruggedly handsome prince would one day go back to his own kind and leave the girl heartbroken."

"No. No prince that I know would do that."

"The girl was hurt, damaged actually, obsessed by a murder, had world class insecurities and couldn't do what her heart told her was right. She persisted in hiding in relationships with men she didn't love. And ignoring the prince she did love. I wonder about that prince. If he had any sense, he would have dumped that stupid girl and moved on."

"Luckily, the prince wasn't in love with a stupid girl. He was in love with a truly remarkable girl who had fascinated him from the first day he met her and was determined to get past those walls. Even if it took him the rest of his life."

Kate sobbed. "And that was another problem. The prince kept risking his life."

Castle stroked her cheek and wiped a tear away. "That's what princes do. They're knights errant, knights in shining armor. Or sometimes in blue Kevlar."

"And the girl discovered just how badly she could be hurt. Once the prince distracted an evil man with a champagne bottle, he was taken hostage by a killer, he broke into the girl's burning apartment…I can't even count the times he was almost killed or hurt. And each time the girl realized how terrified she was that she'd lose him, but she was too frightened, too stupid, too insecure to tell the prince. She should have."

"I don't think the girl was entirely at fault. My knowledge of princes tells me that the prince screwed up, well, royally, on more than one occasion."

Kate smiled, although Castle couldn't see it. "The prince did see other princesses and the girl was very jealous and hurt. But she thought that the prince would be happier with a princess, his own kind, than with her. And she could hardly blame the prince, since the she had been pushing the prince away for years. Hell, pushing? Really shoving with all her might some times."

"I don't think the girl realized she was a princess herself. She just needed a glass slipper."

"Or a fairy godmother."

"Or a godfather to make the prince an offer he couldn't refuse."

Kate giggled. "But finally, the prince and the girl kissed and they were finally together. And the girl realized that if she'd tried to fuck up her relationship with the prince, if she'd really done the best she could to make him go away, she would have treated him exactly as she had for all those years. Luckily the prince is a wonderful person, even if the girl is a total mess."

"A mess? No, she's the woman I love. The woman I love more than any other woman before her."

Kate put her hands over his and held them tightly. "I thought I lost you tonight, Castle. I can't let that happen. I can't go back to being what I was. I can't. I can't be a miserable excuse for a human being trapped behind endless walls."

"You'll never lose me, Kate. Never."

"Really? If Leo had been a little more ruthless, a little smarter, a little faster, he would have killed us both. At least I wouldn't have had to try to live without you since I'd have been dead soon after, but that's no consolation."

"Do you have any solution to this?" Castle asked, starting to worry where this was going.

She shook her head. "No. For a lot of reasons, especially Bracken, I can't stop being a cop. I can't stand the thought of not having you as my partner, and I can't think of any other solution."

"I suggest we keep on being the amazing duo we always have been."

"We don't seem to have any other options."

"Not a one. And I plan to be with you always." He kissed her neck again. "One other thing. The prince was smart enough to know who to blame for the girls' walls. It was an evil wizard who had killed the girl's mother. The prince has always known that the girl wasn't responsible for those walls."

"Always." Kate was silent for a while. "Sometimes when I'm alone, or I can't sleep at night, I think about us. I think about all the times we could have been together. I wish I'd accepted your dinner invitation after the Tisdale case. Or told you at once that I'd go to the Hamptons with you. There are a million times that I could have just taken your hand, put my head on your shoulder and told you how badly I wanted you."

"And I could have done the same thing. I should have done the same thing."

Kate rolled over and took his hand, and put her head on his shoulder. "I just want you, Castle."

"You have me, Kate."

Author's note: Since she was nineteen, Kate has been holding in her feelings. The only time we've really see Kate come close to losing it and having a big emotional meltdown was after she resigned and in the first episode of season seven when she saw Castle dropping the money at the dumpster. I really think that one day in the series Kate should finally have her big emotional meltdown. Maybe like what you just read.