Disclosure

A/N: Post-ep for "Dial M for Mayor." What a chess game. Holy crud. Had to write to purge the profusion of ideas swirling. Not my characters, just my mind games.

Her phone vibrated on her nightstand. The green glow of her alarm clock read "3:03." There was only one person it could be.

"What's up, Castle?"

"I, uh, I wanted to hear your voice?"

It sounded utterly like a question, so she answered it in kind.

"Why, Rick? What's going on?"

"I… I needed to hear your voice."

"OK. Dare I ask why?"

"Kate, it might help if you came to your door."

"Oh. What? Ok…" She rose in her flannel pants and long-sleeved t-shirt and kept the phone at her ear, listening to his breathing, slow and steady.

She turned her deadbolt, unlatched the chain, and unlocked the door handle.

As she cracked the door, he pulled the phone from his ear, hit the button to end their call, and tucked the cell in his coat pocket.

"Hey."

"Hey, Castle, what are you doing here?"

"So, I guess I didn't just need to hear your voice."

She opened the door and he entered, crossing in front of her and stopping just inside the door. He seemed unsure of himself. He didn't move to unbutton his coat, as though he thought maybe he was about to be booted back out into the night.

"Here, take that off. You have snow all over you."

He unbuttoned his wool overcoat and handed it to her with his scarf. He'd taken his gloves off outside, to use his iphone to call her. She took the coat and brushed off the few remaining white flakes before hanging it on the coat rack behind her door.

"Come in."

"Kate, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to barge in at 3am."

A song lyric ran through her head, dating her horribly. She'd had too many 3am moments alone to begrudge this one with him.

"It's fine. I wasn't really asleep. Still a little buzzed thinking about the case today."

"I need to tell you something."

"OK."

"Can we, I don't know, sit down maybe?"

"Sorry, yes, sure. Do you want something to drink? A glass of wine? Water? Tea?"

"No, I'm fine."

She moved into her living room, sat on one end of her couch. He settled on the end opposite her.

"I met with someone. It wasn't the first time, actually. I had met him earlier in this case."

"Who? I mean, why? Outside of our case?"

"Yes, Kate. Outside of our case. Let me start from the beginning." She was confused. She figured he came to hash out some point about his connection with the mayor.

"After May, after you were shot, I got a call. A man told me he was a friend of Montgomery's. That Roy had sent him some papers. Evidence. Things he had used to protect his family. That family included you."

What the hell? Where was this coming from? She was tired. Exhausted. She wasn't sure she was fully understanding.

"How is this connected with our case?"

"I have no idea, Kate. All I know is, around the time you came back, when you started back at the twelfth, I got a call. This man said he had evidence that Montgomery had sent to him just before he died. Evidence that he was going to use to keep you safe, as long as I kept you out of your mother's murder investigation. He told me that if I could keep you away, he could keep them from killing you. I didn't know what to do. Over the summer, the boys and I hadn't found anything. We'd followed leads to dead ends. We'd run ourselves ragged and then been told by Gates to leave it alone. And frankly, you were better, and that's all I really cared about."

"Castle, are you saying you had information about my mom's case, my case, and you kept it from me?"

"You can be furious at me. You can tell me you hate me and never want to speak to me again. But yes, I heard from this man, and I went to you and told you to back off. I used every bit of influence I had with you to get you to back away. All because I wanted you alive. I couldn't imagine a world I wanted to live in without you in it. And that thought had special meaning, because for about 3 hours last summer, I was faced with the reality.

"Your heart had stopped. Lanie saw it happen and jumped on your stretcher and started pumping it for you. She wouldn't stop until they forced her to at the hospital. As far as we knew, when we stood in that hallway with your blood on our hands, you were gone, and you weren't coming back. Those were the darkest 3 hours of my life. Ask her some time. I bet she'd say the same."

She'd been listening, but she'd leaned back into the corner of her couch; her gaze had drifted up to the corner of her ceiling, where a shadow and a cobweb entangled and battled for the light from the window nearby. She was shocked. She felt betrayed. She hated him, hated this. She felt like she had no control. She felt like no one in her life had ever cared so much for her without getting anything in return. And at the root of all this swirling thought and emotion, one thing remained. She loved him. So much. God, what could she do? She changed the subject.

"What does last summer have to do with this case?" She still wouldn't engage his eyes.

"I was contacted a couple of days ago. I was told to get you out of this. That if you went too far, it would be the end of you. I called him back to ask him what he meant. He couldn't give me answers. After we figured everything out, he met with me again. Tonight. Just now." He had his elbow propped on the back of her couch, and he leaned his forehead into his hand.

"He said I was more useful to them in the precinct than I would be if I were kicked out for my association with a dirty mayor. The mayor doesn't know about it."

He looked up from under his hand and tried to meet her eyes.

"I know I'm not objective, but this I do know, your mother's murder, your sniper, they don't have anything to do with the mayor. He's as much a pawn in this as I am. But I can't be a pawn in this chess match for your life any longer without telling you what I know. Kate, I made you stop investigating, but I kept going. I haven't found out much, but I didn't quit. The boys don't know. No one knows but my mother and Alexis. I couldn't just let it go, even though I had to make you stop."

Her heart constricted. She couldn't breathe. The thing she had fought so hard to put behind her for all these months was alive and well in him. She hadn't rid herself of it, because at the end of the day, she was a part of him. Lately, a bigger part than she wanted to admit.

"Why are you telling me this, Castle?" she finally looked him in the eye. He looked so afraid. She didn't want to think about what she had done or said or been in the past that would give him reason to be so afraid of her response.

"I can't lie to you anymore. It's not something I can justify." He reached for her hands, took them in his, held them tightly. "Not when I love you so much that I can't see any way forward without you."

Her eyes had been stinging, tears welling since he'd mentioned the day she almost died. She'd blinked them back successfully until now. One escaped and made its way down her cheek to catch at the corner of her mouth. When she spoke, she didn't recognize her voice. It was deep, dark, almost a whisper.

"Castle, can you give me a reason why I shouldn't scream at you, kick you out, tell you to quit sticking your nose into my business, where it doesn't belong?" He hadn't let go of her hands, despite her meager effort to disengage from his grip.

"Because it does belong. Because your business has been my business for a long time now. And you know it, Katherine Beckett. You're just too scared to admit it. I was, too. But I'm not now. And you shouldn't be, either. If we are going to do this, we will do this together. And if we don't, then we'll thumb our noses at these people and their power, and we'll be happy. And I don't care which way you choose, as long as you're alive and I'm with you."

She took in a shaky breath.

"Rick." It sounded more like a plea or maybe a sob than a question.

But that syllable was apparently all he needed. He let go of her hands and shifted forward to take her into his arms. He pulled her against his chest and nuzzled her lips against her ear.

"I love you, Kate. And whether you heard me last summer or not, I don't care. I just want you to hear me now." She inhaled and took in his scent, then exhaled and whispered against his neck.

"I heard you. I hear you. Rick, I love you, too. I just –"

He didn't give her the chance to complete her thought. He pulled back just far enough to see her eyes and apparently satisfied with what he found, he kissed her. She might never have cried into a kiss before, she wasn't sure. But he didn't seem to mind her tears. And then he was pulling her head to his chest, gripping her with strong arms, bands of steel, imprinting his grip on her soft flesh. And she nuzzled his neck and thought that no wall would stand a chance against this onslaught. Absolutely none whatsoever.

A/N: So I did not intend to write this. Had great deep thoughts about a multi-chapter fic with intricate plot-driven intentions, multiple plotlines in fact, and only occasional fluff and/or smut. And then I saw tonight's episode. Sigh. Perhaps sometime later this week. –K. C.