An Answer

"You told me to wait."

"Wait," she echoes, not getting it.

The swings are squeaky, but at least he's gotten up off his knees and brushed the dirt off and sat beside her again. She doesn't know what he did with the ring.

"I'm still waiting for you, Kate Beckett."

She knows. She hasn't answered him yet, but she has no words.

"You sat right here and you told me you couldn't have the relationship you wanted until the walls came down. Until your mother's case was put to rest. You told me."

She stares at the ground, a hot flush climbing her neck.

"So I waited. I've been waiting."

"But we - I came to your place. We. . .had sex."

"So?"

His startled word is so honestly confused that she jerks a quick look at him. Their eyes meet and clash and he's the first to shake his head and look away.

His voice is so hollow. "Doesn't mean you're ready for everything else - the whole thing, everything. Doesn't tell me you want anything more than just to not be alone. Every step forward feels gigantic with you, but really there aren't any steps forward at all; we've gotten nowhere. We've had fun but what? Now you're done?"

Her hands grip the chains of the swing, the metal pinching her skin.

"I waited for you, and you're punishing me for it."

"Punishing-"

"Because somehow waiting for you says I'm not serious. Holding it all back, and not letting myself get too far ahead and being patient because we're new at this - all those things that a mature guy in a mature relationship is supposed to be doing - that means I must be the annoying ass who can't commit whom you first met. Clearly I've had no character growth over the last five years. Clearly I'm the guy the tabloids talk about, and not the guy who's a father to an incredible kid and a partner to you and the man who stays even when it's a bomb under the floor or a bomb in the back of a van or a serial killer and I'm your only back-up."

Well, he's not holding back now, is he?

She finds her words stifled in her throat under the force of his.

He takes a ragged breath in and keeps going. "I don't get it. I don't understand how you can be so sure I'd never murder anyone, be so sure I hadn't been writing this murdered woman secret emails and harboring some illicit affair you never knew about, so sure that when I said I was holed up writing chapters that I wasn't really buying a murdered woman jewelry - so sure about it that you put your job at risk then, but now it's all suddenly up in the air? Now you don't know about me?"

Fair question, she thinks. "Because that was the job," she says. Not even really knowing why. "That was only the job."

"I don't understand."

"You've said that."

"And what about every time I've risked my life for yours? What about when you were standing on a bomb? Did you think I was playing at that? Fooling around because obviously I'm an idiot who doesn't know any better?"

"No," she rasps out. No. No. Not that. Don't talk like that.

"Because only an idiot - worse than an idiot, a complete fool - would stick around a bomb knowing it was going off in seconds, knowing he'd leave his daughter basically an orphan after she'd been kidnapped by international terrorists only a few months back, compounding whatever emotional damage has already been done to her, leaving her in the same terrible position that you yourself have been in since you were nineteen years old and like I can't see what that would do to-"

"All right," she scrapes out. "All right." She rubs her knuckle under her eye to get rid of the wetness, clears her throat.

But he won't stop. "Maybe that is what you think of me. I'm that guy. Which means you think even less of yourself, to be with me, settling-"

"Castle, stop."

"I can see that being the case. The depths of your insecurity knows no bounds. And while it was startlingly adorable at first, it's been the root of some of our biggest problems, and I guess I got so focused on keeping you that I didn't realize you weren't really giving me anything to keep."

She drags in a long, aching breath and pushes her fingers under her eyes, collecting it as it comes.

"And I knew it, subconsciously. Deep down, I realized there'd been no dive at all. Like an idiot, I keep jumping into this pool. And yeah, it's all cannon balls and belly flops with me - I can't seem to make that clean dive - but I just keep doing it. How stupid is that? And every time I struggle back out to the side, I reach for you, your hand, and I think, this time we'll go together. And I do it again. I do it again and half-drown doing it and then I surface, but you're not there. You're still standing on the side. You've never jumped with me at all."

More now, and the tears are slicking her fingers and trailing down her wrist, and she keeps her eyes set straight ahead - the brilliant and aching blue sky and how it brings phantom pain at her chest behind the scar.

Where her heart should be.

"And it's getting so hard treading water, Kate. I'm exhausted with it. God, I'm so tired of doing it alone."

"I know," she whispers.

"Still I keep doing it. I really am an idiot. You're right. Because here's my hand again," he says, and his palm opens up and there's the ring, sharply silver, a diamond as cutting as her whole life feels right now. "Another jump." His head lifts up to hers and he's caught her eyes just in that agony of a look. "Both of us, diving in. Otherwise I'm just a fool drowning."

She never wants him to drown.

Kate reaches out and closes her hand over his palm and seals the ring between them, wishing so very hard she hadn't asked him to explain why now, Castle, I have to know why now.

His gaze drops to their hands and his fingers flinch.

She knows this still isn't an answer, but at least she's taken his hand this time.

She just wanted to hear from him, Because I love you, Kate.

She takes another breath and says the thing that's been crawling all over her since he got up off his knees:

"What happens when it's just. . .the mundane, Castle? When our life isn't some awesome case or standing on a bomb or chasing after zombies but it's just the boring parts, it's just the paperwork? Do you show up then?"

He stares at her. And he doesn't have an answer.