Quick prompt fill also posted to tumblr. Thanks to Joanna (fan1bsb97) for reading it over for me!

Disclaimer: I do not own Castle or the characters but all mistakes are mine.

All This Time

Tumblr Prompt: What if ' To Live and Die in LA' happened between 47 Seconds and the Limey

He sighed, scrubbing his hands down his face.

This was a bad idea.

When Ryan had told him that Beckett was flying to LA in search of Royce's killer, he had acted first and thought later. Regret hadn't wormed its way into his mind until after he had already been seated on the plane. Even though he was hurting and even though she didn't want him in the way he wanted her; it had always been his instinct to help her.

Still it probably had been his dumbest idea to date, because now after all day of polite small talk as they investigated throughout Los Angeles, they were sitting together on the couch back at the hotel.

Alone.

And the awkward tension of the day had finally made itself so palpable that the air was thick with it.

"Beckett, I think I'm going to go to bed. Long day ahead of us tomorrow," he said, trying to hold in the frown he felt his lips itching to form.

"Wait," Kate sighed. "Why did you even come here, Castle?" The pain of the day etched in the worry lines her eyes formed. He knew she felt guilty about Royce's death and the fact that they had never had the chance to make amends after his arrest made it worse. By finding his killer, it would be her way of making peace with her former friend.

Looking over at her as he considered her question, his heart ached, seeing the pain on her face. The type of pain he couldn't do anything about, as much as he dreamed of the day he could pull her into his arms and tell her it would all be alright.

He knew better now. She would never want him that way.

"I figured you could use your partner, one last time—" he muttered. He needed to go to bed, being with her like this wasn't helping anyone or anything. This was a mistake.

"Castle?"

"Goodnight," he whispered, sulking off to his room with shoulders slumped. He started to find the words to tell her that he wouldn't be shadowing her anymore, but saying it out loud added permanence to it. As much as the knowledge of her lies had fractured his already battered heart, he knew that he could never say goodbye without losing a piece of himself.

Kate watched as the door to Castle's room clicked shut and she was left to sit by herself on the couch.

Her eyebrows were knit together in confusion. What the hell just happened?

When he had showed up on the flight to LA, she had been blindsided but hopeful. For weeks now, he had avoided her and had seemed to resort back to the playboy novelist he had been when they had first met. She had tried to talk to him, had tried to understand why he had been blowing her off lately, but he wouldn't even give her a legitimate response.

'I'm fine. Never better.'

One thing was for sure, things were definitely not fine.

She had been close to confessing everything to him. Finally to the point where she could find the nerve to tell him how she felt - she was sick of waiting. Their lives could be over in a blink of an eye. What if they were never on the same page to be together?

He had professed his love to her and she couldn't find the words to say it in return until after the bombing case. Yet, as the words had danced on the tip of her tongue, waiting to set free, he blew her off. A switch had flipped and it hadn't seemed to matter anymore. He had obviously changed his mind, he didn't feel the same. She had missed her chance.

Their timing was always wrong.

In all honesty, she shouldn't even be thinking about this right now. She came out to LA to find justice for Royce; to catch his killer, not to dissect what had gone wrong in her non-existent relationship with her writer.

No, not her writer, never hers.

Kate scrubbed her hands down her face. A pity party wouldn't help anyone.

She needed to focus on the case, yet every time she started to think through the clues they had gathered today his saddened expression flashed in her mind. If it pained him so much to be here with her, why had he even bothered to fly out here in the first place?

Sighing to herself, she couldn't let him off the hook that easily. There was no way she could ever go to sleep without getting some answers, he owed her that much. Jumping up from her seat, she made a beeline toward his tacky glitter hotel door and knocked three times until Castle cracked it open.

"Beckett, what do you want?"

Hissing from his verbal slap, she pushed the opening wider as he stumbled back in shock. "What I want is to know what the hell is going on with you?"

"Nothing is going on," he mumbled looking down at his feet.

"Bullshit. You follow me here after basically ignoring me for weeks and you tell me this is your last case! You won't talk to me, you won't explain. You just sulk back into your room with your tail between your legs - so what is it, Castle? Why can't you stand to be around me?" she asked, her voice full of venom.

"That's a cute speech, Beckett." He chuckled in response, the dark sound nearly a sarcastic growl. Castle narrowed his eyes at her as he stared down into her answering glare. "I was putting my personal feelings aside to help you with this case because I know how important Royce was to you…" His words were full of bite, but they only fueled her irritation further. He wanted to argue? Fine, she could fight with the best of them.

Where did her partner and best friend go? This man that stood before her was barely a shell of the man she thought she knew.

"Your personal feelings? You're such a martyr, Castle, but if you hate me so much. I don't want you here," she spat; steam spilling from her ears.

"Finally," he scoffed, "some honesty from you! Was that so hard to say? Did it hurt to look me in the eye and tell me the truth?" Castle stalked closer to her, towering over her barefoot frame.

"What are you even talking about?" She glared up at him, pushing his chest back away from her.

"You haven't wanted me around. I fooled myself to thinking that things were any different. I was an idiot."

Every syllable from his mouth fueled her anger to a near boiling point and she couldn't take it.

"Castle, it's not always a conspiracy theory. You don't want to be here? Then don't be! It's that simple," she shouted as his eyes glassed over. The fight washed from his expression. It wasn't that simple.

"I want you to want me here, Beckett," he confessed, his voice barely a whisper. "I heard you and I know you know what I said... I know that you know how I feel and you don't feel the same." He paused and took a deep breath to bring the heels of his hands against his eye sockets. "My heart just needs to catch up with my head. So that's why this has to be the last case…"

All her bitterness and anger was replaced by regret. She was completely wrong about the entire situation, she was an idiot. Her misunderstandings and assumptions had hurt him further, after the months of lies.

She needed to fix this.

It was now or never.

It would be either the best thing or worst thing she could do in that moment, but she had to take the chance.

Kate pushed him back against the door, crushing her body up onto his and capturing his mouth in a hard press of her lips. Castle stood frozen, his body barely responding with a slight slide his hands along her hips as she broke for air.

"For someone who claims to be so good at reading people, you definitely jumped to the wrong conclusion here…" she murmured, her mouth brushing onto his as spoke.

"Kate…" he whispered his voice thick, hesitant, until he met her eyes and confidence flooded back into the piercing blue.

Cupping her face within his hands, Castle leaned down to meet her lips with enthusiasm as a soft moan escaped between them. She carded her fingers through his hair, sinking further into the wall of his chest. His mouth was hot against her skin and she couldn't get enough of the feeling. The frantic kiss lasted for seconds or minutes, she couldn't be sure. All she knew was it was them and it was right.

"Cas-Castle. I'm—"

He shook his head, pressing his fingertips against her lips, holding in her apology.

"Let's catch the killer and…" She circled her hand around his wrist, pulling it back so she could speak. A shy smile spread across her cheeks.

"And then when we're back in the city, I think we need to finally talk," she added.

"Without jumping to anymore conclusions…" he continued, answering with a small nod and a quirk of his lips.

"Deal…and Castle?" She feather her mouth against his once more for a quick kiss. "Thank you for being here."

Castle pulled her back along his body as he laced his arms around her waist. The simple act eased away the tension from her body that had formed over the last couple of weeks. She sighed in relief, feeling safe in his arms.

Her heart fluttered, feeling his words along her temple.

"There's no place I'd rather be."

THE END

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