A/N: Last week, someone posted the clip from 47 Seconds on Twitter where Castle finally tries to open up to Kate about their relationship. The post was to celebrate seven years, SEVEN YEARS! since it first aired. I started wondering whether any fics existed where Kate sent Ryan packing so that Castle could tell her what was on his mind right at that moment. Dmarx has written an excellent one. Number ten of her With A Twist series, which picks the conversation up right after the case is over. This is my take if the case hadn't got in the way at all. (very unlikely, I know.) Hope you enjoy.

"When I close my eyes, all the stars align and you are by my side."

- One Direction

When Stars Align

The instant Castle hands her the cup of coffee that morning, she can feel that there's something different in the air. This case is draining them, all of them. She barely slept last night. But the look on her partner's face together with the tentative way he approaches her tells Kate that whatever's up it has nothing to do with the bombing.

This feels personal.

"You got a sec?" He sits down beside her desk and Kate feels something inside of her begin to shift and flutter.

"Yeah. What's up?" She takes a sip of coffee to calm the bubbles of nervous anticipation zipping through her system.

"Um…I've been thinking," he begins in his storyteller's voice, the one that she loves. "...about the victims and…all the opportunities they'll never have…" he continues hesitantly.

He's headed where she thought he was: down the same rabbit hole she tumbled during the night. In the darkness of her bedroom, her brain deluged her with what-if scenarios, as if she of all people needed reminding just how short and fickle life can be. This torment kept her tossing and turning until it was light. She swallows now, wondering if this is the day the stars will align and if Castle will be the one who finally manages to nudge them into the same orbit.

"…and I don't want that to happen," he says, to which Kate mentally adds "to us."

He's doing it. She feels herself open her arms in welcome to the idea, metaphorically speaking. She smiles, leans in, her nerves dissolving into excitement. She's cheering him on, willing him through every difficult word.

But then he's just saying, "I've been…" when, out of nowhere, Ryan appears.

"Beckett?" Ryan says tersely. She startles at the sudden interruption because she's so deeply invested in whatever Castle was about to say. Her heart sinks; they were so damned close. They both look at Ryan. "We got something," he says, but instead of being intrigued or pleased at some progress on the case, she's crushed.

"Um…" she says, hesitating as she glances at Castle, almost hoping he will be the one to intervene on her behalf because he was doing so well. So well.

Her partner is clearly as crushed as she is, but he's such a good man. He knows that her job comes first, always. So he says what's expected of him and begins to rise from his chair. "It's okay. It can wait till after the case." His face says that it can't. His face betrays him.

But what if that's too late, Kate's subconscious screams at her? What if we let this moment pass and we never get another chance. These are the fears and questions racing around her brain as she absorbs her partner's stoic but deflated expression. He looks exactly like she feels.

This has to stop.

Kate flexes her fingers in and out of fists beneath her desk to psyche herself up before she takes a deep breath and says, "Actually, Ryan…can you and Espo handle it? Castle and I were right in the middle of something."

Castle's mouth falls open and he stares at Kate as if he can't believe what he's hearing because he really can't. When she gestures for him to sit back down, he does as he's told.

If Castle looks surprised then Ryan is closer to stupified. He hovers by Kate's desk looking as if he's fighting the urge to place a hand on her forehead to see if she has a fever or check her pupils for a concussion. When he doesn't leave, Kate motions Ryan on his way with a flick of her wrist before she turns her chair back around to give Castle her full attention.

"So…what were we saying?" She smiles softly and her eyes offer gentle encouragement.

The choice of pronoun is interesting. Castle being the grammar geek that he is is unable to let it slip past as a mere errant figure of speech. "We?" he says.

Kate waves her hand. "You. Me." She shrugs as if they are the same thing at this point. Castle hopes that they are, or at least that they are on the same page.

He coughs nervously and shifts his bottom on the uncomfortably hard chair. She's given him the stage and he can feel the spotlight blistering down on the back of his neck. He starts to sweat. He has one crack to get this right. He cannot fail.

Kate, reading his anxiety, leans closer. This does nothing to help. He can smell her perfume, or at least her shampoo, her lotion or something. It saddens him to realize that he has no idea if she even wears perfume, to work or ever.

"Do you wear perfume?" comes out of his mouth before he can think better of the question given the circumstances.

Kate's face lights up in an appropriate expression of surprise, which quickly turns to one of amusement. They are nowhere near the beauty hall at Barneys, after all.

She smiles to herself and her eyes are sparkling when she nods then dips her head a little shyly before looking straight into his eyes. If she did that all the time, she'd finish him off for sure.

"I do wear perfume, yes. But not at work." She picks up a lock of hair and runs it beneath her nose like a fake mustache. Castle wants to ask if he can do that, too. "Shampoo. I think that's what you're smelling. It's…" She shrugs. "Something citrusy. I like citrus in the spring and summer. And weirdly, coconut in the winter and fall." She frowns to herself and says, "I've never really thought about that before. It is weird." She laughs. "Isn't it?"

Castle is staring at her mouth. He's waist-deep in his infatuation and unable to think straight. When Kate says, "What about you? I know you wear cologne. But I've never been sure which kind." Her cheeks look warm when she quietly adds, "I like it. Whatever it is."

Over the last couple of minutes, their exchange has evolved into the most intimate discussion he thinks they've ever had. He clears his throat as if this physical act will work on a mental level, too. "It's…ah." He laughs quietly to himself, shaking his head and rubbing the back of his neck. "I'm glad you like it." He runs a hand through his hair and looks down at the scuffed floor between his shoes. "I'm glad you noticed. It…it matters to me that you noticed, Kate. That you notice the small things."

Now he sounds like he's having some kind of mental breakdown. He needs to get this back on track. They have a case and she's given them a timeout to talk. But she's not sitting there waiting while he bumbles on about cologne.

He startles when she touches his arm, almost levitating off the ratty old chair. "Hey," she says gently, smiling at him in a way that makes him feel more seen than he's felt in his entire life, by any woman, including his own mother. "You look a little…" She tips her head towards the elevator. "Wanna get out of here? Maybe get some air?"

When she stands, she wiggles her fingers as if she wants him to take her hand. Castle automatically turns to look for the boys. Ryan is watching them with narrowed eyes while trying to look as if he isn't. Sometimes, Castle wonders how the guy ever made detective.

"Maybe we should do this another time," he says. But his words lack any conviction and his greatest fear is that she'll agree with him.

Kate takes a deep breath and crosses her arms. "Are you saying that because you think you should?" She nods towards Penfold and Danger Mouse, who are now standing side-by-side spying on their exchange from behind matching file folders. "They can handle whatever this is while we take a walk." She doesn't wait for an answer this time. She turns and leads the way with an encouraging "Come on, Castle. Five minutes won't hurt."

They stand six inches apart inside the elevator. At one point, Kate turns to glance at Castle and, just a millisecond behind, he does the same. She smiles at him when their eyes meet, and he feels his heart dance beneath his breastbone. Shyly, he smiles back.

It's as if they both know to hold off on their conversation until they are outside, free of the precinct and further interruptions because the second they exit the elevator, they find themselves amidst a morass of cops swarming a man and a woman who have flown at one another like a couple of alley cats.

Thrown by the volume of shouting, swearing, screaming, and the whiplash blur of activity, Castle freezes for a second. He doesn't really register when Kate says, "Rick?" Eventually, he feels her take his hand. She tows him in a wide arc away from the fistfight. They go behind the sergeant's desk and duck out the other side beneath the flip-top section of the old, wooden counter.

When the doors are in sight, she lets go of his hand, barrelling out into the fresh air ahead of him.

She turns to check in. "You okay?" She looks back at the old precinct doors, which are still oscillating back and forth. "Crazy in there today. Not a full moon, is it?" she asks with a chuckle.

Castle has no idea. He's not even sure if she wants him to answer. His astrological knowledge had deserted him in any case. He's frantically trying to marshal his original thoughts, to get back to the point about time being short and not wanting to miss out. He's worried he's lost the momentum he had upstairs, the fluency of thought and feeling he had when he was winging it, fueled by caffeine alone.

"Coffee?" she says as if reading his mind. "There's a cart one block over. We can go sit in the pocket park on Beach Street."

"Are you sure you have time for this?" Castle asks. He follows this remark with a good mental pummeling. Why is he backing away from every opportunity she's giving him all of a sudden? Is he scared?

He hears his mother's voice saying, "Richard, how much longer are you gonna drag your heels before you tell Beckett how you feel?"

Kate stops in the middle of the sidewalk, apologizing when a woman with a stroller has to make a sudden detour around them. "Castle, I…I liked where I think your train of thought was taking us earlier. We never make time to talk…not about anything of substance. We haven't talked properly since the day you followed me to the swings. That was months ago. You're not the only one who wonders, you know."

This lights a fire under him, and he doesn't care that that's probably what she intended. "Oh, I followed you to the swings," he says now scrambling to follow her down the street because she's taken off again. He rolls his eyes at the irony.

Kate orders their coffee and quietly fights him over who will pay. She wins, magicking up a ten-dollar bill from her pants pocket, a trick Castle finds inexplicably sexy. In the past, he's been used to women who stand back, reapplying their lipstick or powering their noses when the time came to pay, just assuming he would step in and pick up the check for lunch, for dinner, for the two-thousand-dollar purse they'd got their claws into. Kate's attitude towards his wealth – considering she in the muse whose inspiration has resulted in him amassing considerably more of it – feels refreshing, grown-up, honest.

She hands him his coffee with a smile and says, "Start checking them off. This is number one of…I think you said a hundred? I'm pretty sure it must be more like a thousand." She smiles adorably to herself and adds, "I always repay my debts, Castle, so don't go anywhere."

He isn't planning on it. Certainly not when she's looking at him like that again from beneath her lashes, moistening her lips, groaning into the plastic lid of her coffee cup when she takes her first sip and her eyes flutter closed.

"You know, watching you drink coffee feels a lot like watching porn," he says before his arousal-fogged brain can think better of going public with this thought.

Kate pivots on her heels to look at him. Mortified, he can feel every muscle and tendon in his body tighten as he stands there, stiff and uncomfortable, like a little boy who just wet his pants in front of the prettiest kindergarten teacher.

Kate bursts out laughing. "Do you watch a lot of porn?" she says, biting her cheek as she waits for his reply.

He wants to confess. She's so good at her job that she has him wanting to confess even this: that lately, yes he has. I look at you and I'm drowning in frustration from dawn to dusk. Instead, he mumbles, "Just a…stupid figure of speech."

"Since when was 'watching porn' a figure of speech?" she says, still deeply amused.

"Could we drop it?" Castle begs. He looks suitably embarrassed. "Please? That was not my finest simile. Believe me, I can do a whole lot better when it comes to you. I didn't mean to be so disrespectful. Other than being the sexiest woman I've ever known, you have zero in common with⏤"

He needs to stop digging this hole. Kate is still standing there smirking at him.

"No, please. Carry on. This is enlightening," she says, hiding her smile in the rim of her cup as she takes another elegant sip of coffee. She looks more like a Hollywood siren who stepped out of the silver screen than some silicone-breasted, human blow-up doll from Porn Valley.

Castle groans and covers his face with his hand.

Whether it's his distress or the goddamn full moon. Or maybe, it's just time. He feels Kate's fingers wrap around his wrist, gently prising his hand away from his face. A second after that, he feels the light stirring of her breath against his lips, the tickle of her hair against his cheek and the tinkle of her laughter. He experiences all of this in the two heart-stopping seconds before she kisses him.

Castle's heart rate spikes, thundering like wild horses on a long stretch of sandy beach. He can feel Kate's hand against his cheek, caressing him and keeping him close. Her fingertips flirt with his earlobe, his hair, his jawline as she knocks the breath from his lungs. Her touch is so loving that he feels tears prick his eyes. He's stunned and completely overwhelmed, but his body somehow quiets this emotional din long enough for him to kiss her back. He kisses her back with a fury, pouring every ounce of love and longing he has for this extraordinary woman into the embrace.

Eventually, they break apart with a shared gasp of surprise. They're standing on a Tribeca sidewalk, each holding a cup of coffee, kissing like the world is about to end.

Then her phone chimes.

Kate groans and raises her eyes to heaven. Castle discreetly wipes his mouth and trashes his coffee cup while he waits for her to check the screen. He feels her fingers slide around his wrist. Her thumb slips under his cuff and she begins stroking the skin below his watch strap. He's not even sure she knows she's doing it until he looks at her and catches the expression on her face. She knows, and she's doing it for herself as much as for him.

She lets go of his hand to slide her phone back into her pocket before she tosses her coffee cup into the same garbage can.

Castle clears his throat and runs a hand through his hair. "Everything okay?"

Kate shrugs. "Ryan. Again. I swear I feel more like their babysitter some days," she says with an embarrassed laugh.

"We should probably go back in, I guess," Castle says, though that's actually the last thing he wants to do. Some part of him knows that if they go back inside without talking about what just happened they will most likely end up forfeiting the last half hour's progress. He doesn't think his heart could handle going back to how things were. Not when the day started out with his mother suggesting he tells Kate how he feels about her and prepares to move on if she's not ready. There is no moving on from this.

When he takes a leaden step back in the direction of the Twelfth, Kate reaches out and catches the sleeve of his sports coat. She tugs gently, almost playfully, bringing them back to one another. "Rick?"

Startled by this uncommon use of his first name, he turns to look at her. He finds her expression so open and adoring that he feels tears rising to tighten his throat, again. She's so beautiful and radiant, but the longer he stares he begins to see this glow dim. Unexpectedly, her face turns desolate, as if she is resigned to repeat their usual failure to ask one another for the things they really want. She looks like she's pleading for his help.

Castle is all out of drive. This case is horrible. They have to solve it. "Kate, we should do this another⏤"

"No," she insists forcefully, raising her voice from somewhere deep and brave. He got them here, maybe she can finish it for them. A passer-by glances at them and shakes his head, assuming they're having a fight. "We need to stop running from this, Castle. And if I'm not mistaken, you were about to say something similar back there," she says, gesturing in the direction of the precinct. "We do this job, we could be gone tomorrow. You're right. And I don't want to die⏤"

Castle tries to interrupt her because he can't bear to hear Kate say these words aloud, let alone contemplate that horrifying thought given what he's witnessed already. But she silences him with a finger to his lips.

"Please let me say this. I don't want to die never having known what's it's like to…to let you love me." Her voice cracks and her chin trembles. She cuts her gaze away from his face when her cheeks flood with color and her lashes bead with tears.

Castle's eyes widen and his heart starts to race. She's never let herself be so vulnerable in front of him. Never.

She sniffs and swipes at her cheek. "Not to know what it would be like to love you back, Rick," she says, her voice tight and hoarse as a whisper. She closes her eyes and Castle holds his breath, hoping there might be a little more, just something that will cement things between them before this terrible case swallows them up, again.

"I know I don't always let on with I'm thinking, and I know that I'm terrible at sharing my feelings with you. I shouldn't be. I trust you more than anyone in the world." His face must be a picture, because she seizes his hand, gives it a yank and says, "I really mean that, Castle."

Castle nods to show that he's understood, though inside he's still processing, his mind jumping all over the place at once.

"I was too vague with you when we talked on the swings all those months ago. You were so mad at me. I was scared of failing. Truthfully, still healing. But, in here," she says, tapping her temple, "I was clear about what I wanted, even if I couldn't ask for it."

He clears his throat and squeezes her fingers. "What…what is it that you want, Kate?"

God, he hopes with everything he has that she will say⏤

"You."

She reaches up on tiptoe and presses a kiss to the side of his mouth. It's tender and soft and, impossibly, more meaningful, even without the heat and passion of before. When she drops back down on her heels, she rests her forehead against his chest. "I just want you," she says, pulling his hand against her sternum and cradling it between them. "A partnership." She lifts her head to look at him, adding, "A friendship. A relationship. A life. I want us to have a life together, Castle. If that's something you want⏤" she adds tentatively.

He wraps both arms around her before she can finish, sweeping her off her feet and into a whirling embrace. When he sets her down, they're both dizzy and laughing through tears. He steadies her with his hands on her hips so that he can look into her eyes. "You really want that. With me?"

Kate nods eagerly. "There is no one else. No one, Castle. I'm still scared of messing it up. But I can't live my life worrying about losing something I don't even have."

"Oh, you have me. Hook, line and sinker, detective," Castle says. His vehemence makes her laugh all over again.

He pulls her into a hug, holding her close, tucking her head beneath his chin. He kisses her hair and holds her even tighter. "You have no idea what this means to me, Kate," he says, his voice breaking.

But Kate shakes her head, and her hair shimmers against his shoulder. "Actually, I do. Because this means as much to me as it does to you. Don't be fooled by the tough-girl routine. I'm in love with you up to my neck, Castle. In over my head. And if it took this horrific case for us to figure that out, so be it. But I don't want to spend another minute wondering or waiting patiently for some day. Because there's a good chance someday was never going to come."

Kate's phone rings again and this time she answers it.

When she hangs up, she says, "Looks like the boys have a solid lead. We should probably…" She jerks her head back up the street, her soft smile showing her reluctance.

"Of course, we should," Castle nods in agreement, and they turn for home.

They get just a few yards before he feels her fingers flirting with his. "How about when this is done we go away somewhere for a couple of days, figure this whole thing out?" he suggests, praying that she'll say yes.

For the second time today, she doesn't let him down.

"Sounds really good." She squeezes his hand. "But who knows how long this case is going to run."

He tries to hide it, but Castle feels himself deflate a little until she adds, "So…I was thinking. If you don't have any plans, how about my place tonight? We can grab dinner on the way home, watch a little TV…" She smirks at him and it is so super sexy that his heart starts pounding. "Then later…" she says as her eyebrow arches in that wicked, suggestive way she has.

"Uh-huh?" Castle nods, finding his spirits lift along with his smile.

"I can tire you out in my bed and we can talk about where we might escape to once this case is over."

To say that he is speechless would be the mother of all understatements. When he finds his voice, he says, "I would love that very much."

Kate swings their hands a little and they head back up the block. "Okay. Good." She grins like she's pleased with herself. "Now let's go solve this thing. And when it's all over, we'll go away like you said. Just us."

As the precinct comes in sight, Castle presses a quick kiss to the back of her hand. Her face is luminous, her eyes shining.

"That's all I want from here on out, Castle," Kate says as his fingers slip from between hers and they untether. "Just us."

The End

Thank you for reading. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Liv