Author's Note: Post-Ep for The Limey (4x20). After Castle leaves the precinct with Jacinda the flight attendant, Beckett decides to go claim what's hers instead of calling Colin.

Raw knuckles, aching bones, bruised flesh.

She's been knocking ferociously for five solid minutes and if she carries on, her skin will split. She knows he's home, but if he hasn't answered of his own volition by now, he's not going to.

I don't think so, Castle. You do not get to hide from me.

Beckett raises her boot and kicks the door in.

Clenching her fists, she fights the impulse to draw her gun and give that idiotic flight attendant a real scare. Reason (and years of training) suppresses the urge; the last thing she wants is to give the bouncy little bimbo an excuse to press charges. She won't get in trouble for the door; Castle wouldn't dream of filing against her. Although, given his asinine behavior over the last twenty-four hours, maybe she should have picked the lock instead.

The busted door sways on its hinges, revealing an empty foyer where she'd expected to find a trail of discarded clothing, the puddle of a red pencil skirt, the flounce of a floral scarf, that awful, hideous, horrendous black snakeskin jacket.

Instead, the loft is still and deathly quiet. It doesn't make sense; on the phone she'd wrung it out of Martha that he was most definitely at home, "entertaining." Across the dark living room, something moves against the dull backdrop of night. She hears the rush of an exhale and knows immediately that it's Castle. There isn't a single trace of humor in his voice when he speaks.

"Did you seriously just kick my door in? I'd call the cops, but…you are the cops." His form morphs out from the darkness as her eyes adjust. He's slumped on the couch, his back to her, staring at the ceiling with one hand pressed to his forehead. Oh God. Is the stewardess on her knees in front of him?

The thought fuels the fire burning in the pit of her stomach, a righteous indignation that's been swelling ever since he pulled up to the crime scene in his Ferrari. They had an agreement. How could he?

"Where is she?"

"Who?"

"Don't play games with me, Castle. Where is she?"

"You're going to have to be more specific, Beckett."

"That your way of telling me you've been whoring around with more than one woman this weekend?"

That gets a rise out of him. He snaps up to his feet and turns to face her. The lines on his face seem deeper, the blue of his eyes lit with rage. Something cold and slimy inches down Beckett's spine, but there's no turning back now.

"Excuse me?" he hisses.

"You heard me." She's frozen to her spot just inside the door, chips of wood and metal at her feet from where the deadbolt splintered through the doorframe. She wants to move, she does, but every time she has a confrontation with this man, she freezes, stands there awkwardly, stupidly, struck dumb by a sudden inability to fight. And Kate Beckett always fights. This numbing fear doesn't take hold at work, when lives are at stake, but here, with him, when something greater than her physical life is at stake, she just cannot move.

She's not moving, but Castle is. He rounds the couch and advances on her, stalking like a predator.

"Let's review. You kicked my door down - which is breaking and entering by the way - called me a whore, and now you want me to tell you where my latest 'conquest' is so you can what, scare her away? Get rid of her so you can keep me all to yourself? I knew you thought I was pathetic, but shit."

Whoa. That's a lot more honesty than she usually gets.

It's terrifying. And exhilarating. And surprisingly painful. Conquest? That one was too close to home, Castle. Reminds her of the sparkling adoration he'd had in his eyes the one and only time he'd asked her out. Speaking of too close, he's on her now, only inches away, radiating fury. The sharp bite of his last word still stings. That's not him at all. And what's that smell?

"Have you been drinking?"

"I've had two sips of scotch, thanks very much. Think I can't stand up for myself without the spine of a stiff drink?"

"Why are you being such a jackass?"

"I've always been a jackass, remember? Look, you came here to chase Jacinda off, and she's not here, so why don't you just go."

"Well, sorry to hear that Jacinda-" the name tastes like ash on her tongue - "didn't last more than three nights. I'm sure you've already got some other gold digger's number scrawled on a scrap of paper in your pocket, so I'll just leave you to it."

He roars.

He actually roars. The sound reverberates through the loft. It cuts off just as sharply as it began, leaving a ringing silence in its wake. His head is turned to the side, body trembling with the force of his frustration. She's never seen him like this, never thought any part of him was capable of this.

Finally, he turns back to her. "She didn't last a single night," he spits out, almost laughing with the cruelty of it.

"You need to leave before I lose it, Beckett. I'd say shut the door behind you, but I'm pretty sure I'd need to call a carpenter to make that a possibility."

His anger has caught her so off guard that she's about to just obediently comply when his earlier words register.

"What do you mean she didn't last a single night?"

"Oh, for God's sake, forget it." Castle scrubs a hand over his face. She's baiting the bear, but she has to know.

"No. What did you mean?"

"You really want to do this now?"

"Might as well." Her voice sounds a hell of a lot steadier than it has any right to.

His hands come up to grasp her biceps, eyes boring flaming holes into hers.

"Don't you get it? You've ruined me. You have unequivocally, irreparably ruined me."

Her voice, when she finds it, is small. "What? What does that mean?"

Silence.

He lets his hands drop. Is she really going to have to interrogate this out of him?

"How have I ruined you?"

He won't look at her. She fists his shirt in one hand and grabs his chin with the other, turning his face until his eyes blaze into hers.

"You don't get to be a complete jackass and then not answer my question."

He knocks her hand away, grimacing as if that small physical connection has singed him.

"Fine. Do you think I could ever be with anyone else? I'd never be able to stop comparing them to you."

She opens her mouth to speak, to ask what the hell he's talking about, but his hand shoots up and he presses his thumb over her lips. Familiar electricity crackles in the air at his touch, but it's quickly muted by their twin currents of anger.

"You asked, so let me finish. Now all I can see in every other woman - and I mean every other woman in this world besides you - is their vapidness, their cavalier attitude to joy. They take happiness from the world like they deserve it. I hate their wide, easy smiles, because they didn't earn them like you've earned yours.

I loathe the way they blink their eyelashes at me and hang on my every word. When you smile it's because something is truly worth being joyful about. When you hang on my every word - and you do, sometimes, don't pretend you don't - it doesn't just give me a little self-esteem boost like it did with them, it makes me feel whole.

You think I used to be a playboy? I was a single dad drowning in loneliness, and my publicist thought a few casual relationships would help sell books. Stop my moping. So I dated women who were - according to page six - beautiful and fun to be around. I was supposed to feel proud of having them on my arm, but I never did. Sure, they laughed at my jokes, stroked my ego- "

"Amongst other things," she mumbles through the press of his thumb.

Oh God, did she just say that? She couldn't help it, it just came out. God, she's usually better at this, at keeping her lid on. But something about tonight, the charged air, the broiling emotion barely contained by their skin, makes them brutal. Makes them honest.

"You are unbelievable," he huffs, dropping his hand from her mouth, plowing it through his hair with unnecessary force. "Anyway, the 'ego stroking' only helped a little bit back then. And what Jacinda proved to me this weekend is that it doesn't help at all now. It's not enough anymore."

Oh God. Oh God, oh God, does that mean he slept with her?

He slept with her.

She wants to retch. Her body starts to shake with the too-quick conversion of adrenaline into abysmal disappointment. This is exactly why she tried not to fall for him. He's not the only one who's been obliterated here, and Beckett holds on to that thought, the unfairness of it, because she's angry about that, and anger feels better than the alternative. When she comes back to herself, he's still yammering on.

"Kate, I crave the look in your eye when you think I'm onto a good theory. I thrive on the respect you have for me, because in my entire life it's the thing I've worked the hardest to build and it's the thing I am the proudest of."

It registers somewhere that what he's saying is sweet, is an offering, but she hasn't been paying attention since "Jacinda proved to me this weekend." Anger is easier. Anger is cleaner. And just as soon as he shuts up, she's going to volley some right back at him.

"So that, Katherine Beckett, is how you've ruined me."

Finally, finally, he stops, and Beckett takes the opportunity to plant her hands on his chest - oh crap, his pecs are so solid - and shoves him backwards.

"You think I've ruined you? You've destroyed me. How is anyone supposed to live up to you? How many other men would bring me coffee every day, even when I'm awful to them? How many other men would beat someone into oblivion just for looking at me wrong?"

"Um, I think Lockwood was more than looking at you wrong, he had a sniper rifle pointed at you."

"Fine. Okay." She scrabbles for a better example. "How many men spend nights alone in their apartment wracking their brains over a murder of a woman they never met? You fell down the rabbit hole too, Castle, when you pulled that file. No one else cares enough about my excess baggage to make it their own."

She doesn't realize that she's been walking him backwards until his ass hits the sofa and he almost topples over. She's not about to stop, though.

"And what about forking over a hundred G's on the off chance we might find my mother's killer?"

"I'm sorry, did you just say a hundred G's? What are you, a rapper?"

"Shut up, Castle, I'm trying to make a point." He's trying to hide a grin, and she's horrified to find her lips curving up into an answering smile. A smile! No. A smile is not allowed to accompany the soul-baring, crushing admission she's making.

"It is kind of funny, though, don't you think?" Castle perches on the back edge of his couch and opens his legs, and suddenly his hands are on her waist, pulling her closer. His knees knock against hers and flames lick through her.

No. He is NOT allowed to touch her right now.

"And this!" She claps her hands over his, holding them tight enough to cause pain - anything to chase away the light, delicious electricity that runs between them whenever they touch. "How am I ever going to be able to have sex with anyone and know in the deepest parts of me that they'll never measure up to my fantasies of you?"

She's wild now, crazed, plowing on with the momentum of it.

"Do you know how many late night runs, late night paperwork sessions, late night drives I've taken, all because I couldn't be alone in my own bed without thinking about how unbelievably good you would feel inside me? Maybe we should have sex; the reality of it can't possibly live up to my expectations. And then some of the poor guys out there might stand a chance with me."

Oh no.

Oh no no no no no.

Did she just..? The stunned and impossibly aroused look on his face confirms it.

He takes a sloppy, hesitant breath.

"So." His words are measured. "Let me get this straight. You've ruined me. I've ruined you."

Beckett nods once, unable to form words around the sudden rise of paralytic panic in her throat.

"And by ruined, you mean you can't imagine anyone else being able to satisfy you like I could." The way he says 'satisfy' makes her want to crush her lips to his, to wrap her legs around his waist. "By ruined, I mean nothing could make me happier than being with you."

It sounds so stupidly simple.

Silence hangs in the air around them. They're at the crest of a roller-coaster, hovering on the edge of another gut-wrenching drop, wind whipping, shaky wooden beams clacking and swaying.

Suddenly, the balance tips, and Castle brings them crashing back down into the spiraling fury of before.

"I'm sorry, but what the hell exactly is our problem, Kate? I'm totally lost here."

"I don't know! It's not like I haven't tried to figure it out!"

"Well, give me your best guess."

And because he asked, and because she doesn't have time to think, she answers, for once, with the truth.

"You've got me on a pedestal, Castle. It's like you refuse to see how messed up I am. And it's terrifying, sometimes, knowing how much you worship me. I'm competing with this insane version of myself that lives in your head, this sexy, perfect, badass you've confused with elements of your fictional goddess. But I'm not Nikki. I'm not like that in real life. I'm not like that when I'm away from you."

She pauses at that, like she's only just realizing that he's made her stronger and sexier and more beautiful than she could have been on her own. That he's made her better.

"I go home and I eat ramen noodles and wear the same sweatshirt for a week straight before I wash it and avoid cleaning the toilet for as long as possible. Worse than that, I have nightmares, and I get scared about cases, and I - I cry, and I have feelings and I'm not tough. I'm not who you think I am."

"You're exactly who I think you are, Kate. Let me prove it. What could possibly happen that's worse than this torture we're putting ourselves through?"

"If I let you in, you'll run at the first chance you get and I'll break, Castle, I'll just break, and I'm so broken already that it'll be the end of me."

"Don't you get it? If you don't let me love you, you'll break anyway! We'll break. When will you get it through your thick, gorgeous, stubborn, ridiculous head that nothing you could ever do will make me run? Just give it a chance before raining doom and gloom all over this."

He changes tactics, beseeching. "Please. This could be brilliant. Staggeringly brilliant. I know it. It's not called a leap of faith for nothing. But Kate, we used to be on solid ground, we didn't have to move because there was no threat; we thought we had all the time in the world and I had a lot more hope. But I've got hardly any left, and things are crumbling down around us. We're to the point now that not leaping is going to mean breaking anyway. We've got to leap."

"Is this an ultimatum? You're saying if we don't try this, you're out?" She blinks hard, knowing that the shining evidence of her pain is gathering on her eyelashes. She fights the trembling downturn of her mouth that will give her away.

"I could never be out. But I can be so damaged that it hurts to be around you, and I'll be awkward, and terse, and work won't be fun, and it will just get ugly and ruined, and you know it. Give me a chance, Kate. I know you don't feel exactly the same, I know you don't love me, but if you want me like you say you do, I think you eventually could."

His face falls, a portrait of fleeting heartbreak painted in downcast eyes. Beckett's heart twists in her chest.

"Oh, Castle," she whispers. "You can be so dense sometimes. For everything you see, how can you miss it, every day?"

This next confession is so crucial it has her quaking. She's never needed her bravery more.

"Castle, I don't think I'll ever love anyone as fiercely as I love you."

Ok, now she's really crying, turning her face away so he doesn't see the worst of it. Why isn't he doing anything? Her body screams for him to touch her, to hold her, but he's obviously not getting the message. She blinks through her tears and finds him looking completely zoned out. Dazed. Paralyzed.

"Castle?"

"Did you just - ?" he starts, coughs. "But I thought…" The sentence breaks off just like the first.

It's not a sight to be missed, Richard Castle floundering for words.

"I don't - um - "

She starts to shake, but it's with the weird, cathartic laughter of someone on the edge of a nervous breakdown.

"Beckett, are you laughing at me?"

She presses her palm over her mouth, doubling over when her diaphragm starts to ache with her heaving, silent amusement.

"I think I've got a straightjacket around here somewhere," he mumbles.

It sets her off again, and she grabs his elbow to steady herself. The touch must do something to him because suddenly his other arm is banding around her, reeling her in, too fast, too fast, and then their bodies collide and every rush of laughter in her halts.

The shaking remains, full body tremors now, and she knows he can feel it, his arm wrapping tighter around her as if to absorb this embarrassing display of weakness.

"You love me?"

She nods, mustering up a soggy smile for him.

"Come here, then."

He draws her head into the crook of his neck, and she's probably getting snot on him but she can't really bring herself to care. He's holding her. Castle is holding her, and nothing has ever felt as safe or as right.

His skin is so warm, and with her nose pressed into him she's lost in the onslaught of his scent. Her lips are moving, suddenly, without her permission, opening and closing against his flesh, nibbling and nuzzling his neck. He drops his own head then, wraps her up even tighter, until they're thoroughly buried in each other.

"Kate?"

"Mmm?"

Castle finds her chin, holds it softly like she's made of spun glass, tipping her face towards his.

"Does this mean we can leap?"

"Yeah, Castle, we can leap."

His lips are light when they touch hers, his flesh soft and dry, but the kiss is innocent, can't shine through the gun smoke of their fight. Castle stops, looking uncertain, suddenly lost without the overtly sexual magnetic pull that's always just been there between them.

Now is not the time to give up. Kate leans back in and gives him the next kiss, a promise, a pledge that when the dust settles, she'll be there, and they can light up together with a different incandescence.

"You're shaking too," she observes.

"Yeah, well, not every day you get in a knock-down drag-out with the woman you love. The woman who loves you," he amends, voice softer, laced with awe.

"I do. Love you," she clarifies. No point in hedging, all her cards are on the table now.

They sigh, collective tension melting into the floor with the press of their bodies.

"That was really intense, Kate. I'd be okay if we never did that again."

"I'd be okay with that too," she whispers.

"You owe me a door."

"Yeah, sorry about that."

"I'm sorry I ruined you. Actually, you know what? I'm not, if it means I'm the one who gets to be with you. But I do hope I've ruined that damned wall."

"Mmm," she agrees, breathing in clean air for the first time in more than a decade. She feels open, free. "I think you've demolished it, Castle."

Author's Note: I was amazed and humbled by the amount of reviews, favorites, and follows I got for my first story, Handwritten. Thank you all for reading and a special thanks to the reviewers for their kind words.

Thanks again to the amazing and talented Dmarx for looking this over :)

I know this one might have been hard to read; it was pretty far out of my comfort zone to write. Glad you stuck with it to the end, most of my stories will be breezier than this. What did you think? Did it make you feel as on edge as it made me feel to write?

-Bri x