A/N: This story springboards off the final scene of "Undead Again" (4x22), which is why I've put the script for that scene in italics at the beginning. It's basically about these two broken people, broken in different ways, and their efforts to find their way to one another. One shot.

"Blessed are the hearts that can bend; they shall never be broken."

- Albert Camus

Inside The Locker Room

"How does somebody put something like that behind them? He's gonna need therapy," asked Castle.

"It helps. First he won't even be able to deal with it, it's gonna take everything that he's got to just put one foot in front of the other and get through the day."

"I didn't know you were seeing a therapist."

"Yeah, well, I didn't want to make any excuses. I just wanted to put in the time and do the work. But I think I'm almost where I want to be now."

"And...where is that?"

"In a place where I can finally accept everything that happened that day. Everything." Her words are loaded with meaning.

"I think...I understand."

"And, um, that wall that I was telling you about...I think it's coming down."

Hope surges in Castle's chest.

"Well, I'd like to be there when it does."

"Yeah, I'd like you to be there, too."

"Only, without the zombie makeup."

"I don't know, I kind of think that the zombie makeup suits you, Castle."

"Yeah, I make it work."

"Tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow."

Castle made it halfway to the elevator before he stopped, paused for a second to think, and then turned around, his mind made up to come back. Here goes nothing, he thought. Or maybe it was something. He needed it to be something.

At the sound of his footfalls, Kate glanced up from tiding her desk, surprised to see him standing there. Her eyes were still bright with the small breakthrough she believed she'd just achieved and Castle's receptive response to it, to her small burst of bravery.

"Hey, did you forget something?" she asked a little breathlessly.

Castle shook his head, and then he scuffed the floor with his shoe, deliberating until the very last second before he finally spoke. "You know…can I just…can I just say something here? And please don't be offended. I…I'm not trying to be critical."

"Go on," Kate said warily, crossing her arms over her chest.

"It's about what you said. Putting in the time, not making excuses."

"Yes." She felt a growing sense of unease at the route this conversation seemed to be taking.

"And, as I said, don't take this the wrong way."

"Castle," she groaned, a warning in her voice for him to just spit it out, whatever it was.

"Okay, look, I think maybe you're hoping for perfect, Beckett. All this work you've been putting in…it's great. Really great. But I can tell you for a fact…perfect doesn't exist."

Kate's posture stiffened and her whole body tensed up. She swallowed. "What if you're wrong?" she asked quietly.

Castle held up both hands. "Always possible, I will concede. But…" He shook his head. "I've lived a little longer than you, been married a couple times. There've been...others, as you know. While ago now. Point is, perfect is a myth, Beckett."

"So…what are you saying? Do nothing? Don't improve? Just expect people…you…the world," she quickly added, "to take me as I am?"

"Don't waste precious months or years of your life. I guess that's what I'm saying. Not searching for something that doesn't exist."

Kate bit her lip. "I'm just trying to be better." She sounded a little defensive, even to herself.

Castle ran a frustrated hand through his hair, sending a shower of make-up flecks spiraling like chalk dust in the low bullpen light as he spun in a circle until he was back facing her again. He tried to keep his tone light, to keep any exasperation out of his voice. This whole situation was incongruous – him offering life advice to Kate Beckett, relationship advice especially given his crummy track record, while standing there in this zombie getup. Talking so openly at all was weird in itself. It was as if a floodgate had been opened by Kate's admission that she was in therapy, and now he couldn't get his mouth to stop talking.

"Don't you know how good you already are? Kate? Don't you?"

Her answer was delivered at a whisper. "Castle, no." She shook her head and looked down at the floor, spotting her mother's ring hanging inside the front of her shirt, still mesmerized by it, by the fact of owning it, by the why of that painful inheritance. "I'm still pretty messed up…been broken a long time. I can't even say what I want to say most of the time. I…it just gets stuck in my throat and—" She banged the heel of her hand on the desk in irritation, a dull thud that startled neither of them.

"Kate, you've lived a life. A terrible thing happened to you and it changed your trajectory. But you made good out of the bad. And I have to say, I don't see broken when I look at you. I see brave."

Kate looked off towards the stairwell, weighing things Castle could never fully guess. She chewed on the inside of her cheek for a second and then raised her head, decided. "You have a family."

He regarded her for a long moment, trying to figure out what she might mean by that remark, before deciding he'd intuited the gist like always. "Your wounds are not contagious, Kate."

"Everything I touch…"

"You fix things, Beckett," he interjected determinedly, riding roughshod over her protest. "You mend people who are at the beginning of being broken, just like you were. You use your own horrible experience, and I see you…I see you help these strangers begin to heal, to understand, to make some sense out of the nightmare they've tumbled into and…begin to deal with it. Somehow."

She looked embarrassed by his praise for her. "You make me sound so…noble or…or strong, and I'm not."

"Hey, I might not be qualified for much in this life, but I'd argue four years shadowing you qualifies me to say, categorically, that you are strong. You're probably the strongest person I've ever met. Doesn't mean you don't have flaws, Kate. We all have flaws. But they're not who you are. And they shouldn't make you unworthy."

Kate shook her head and frowned, not following. "Unworthy? Unworthy of what?"

Castle shrugged. "Everything good in life. Happiness, joy, having people around who care about you. Love," he added softly.

Kate looked stunned, too stunned to speak, because apparently this had turned into a night for plain speaking on both their parts. Castle was the actor who'd broken the forth wall, and there was no stopping him as he gave up secrets left, right and center.

"We are shaped by our experiences, that's undeniable. I guess the trick is not to let the bad ones swamp the good. And maybe to learn to let people in when they want to help you."

The panic on her face was both terrifying and heartbreaking to see. He feared he'd gone too far.

"Is that why you're here? To help me? Am I your project, is that it?" she snapped, lashing out.

Castle stayed calm, forcing himself to remain immune to her jabs. He didn't want to loose the progress they'd made tonight by reacting to the fear he could see in her eyes, to take that easy step back or placate like he usually would. "Kate, I could make you my life's work, and I don't think I'd ever get tired of studying you or claim to know all of you. But you're no project. And I think you know that now."

"So…what is all this? You reading psych books for fun now? Gone all amateur shrink on me cause I told you I've been seeing someone."

He looked weary all of a sudden, in no mood to engage in a bruising battle, followed by another pointless retreat. "No. You know that's not what this is."

"Then what is it, Castle? Because all I know is I opened up to you, and now you think you can come back in here and tell me where I'm going wrong with my life. Isn't it enough that I'm paying someone to do that already?"

"If you replay what I just said, any or all of it, I think you'll find and I think you know, that's not what I was doing or where I was coming from. I'd never presume to tell you—"

"You just did!" she snapped, regretful the second the accusation flew out of her mouth because she knew he had a point and she recognized that his intentions, as always, were pure, selfless even.

"Kate, I didn't come back to upset you. I want you to be happy. All I'm saying is don't wait too long. You're pretty great as you are. More than. Life is waiting for you. Get out there, have some fun. Forget about your homework for one night."

Kate paused for a second, trying to be in the moment with her feelings, thinking and not just reacting. She took a breath, softened her voice, gave him the barest of smiles she had to dig deep into the well Dr. Burke had helped her excavate to find. "That the kind of advice you give your daughter? Ditch your homework, go out and have fun?"

Castle mirrored her wan smile with some effort. "Yeah, I tried that. But she ignores me." His next words were loaded. "And…you're not my daughter, Kate."

She blushed and stammered just slightly when she scraped together the words for a reply. Her heart was hammering. "Okay, well…well, I'd suggest we went out for a drink, if I've been ordered to play hooky. But I'm going nowhere with you until you take off that zombie make-up."

Castle grinned, relief flooding his face and further cracking the mask he wore once he was sure they were back on sound footing again. "Hey, I thought you said I made it work?" he pointed out, saying anything he could think of to make her smile again.

"I did and you do. But if we go to a bar with you dressed like that you might scare off the other customers," Kate teased, finally giving him the grin he craved.

"So…we have a deal? I wash this off and you'll go out for a drink with me?"

Kate nodded, her head dipping shyly for a second, before rising with a bolder nod of affirmation.

Castle checked his watch. "Meet me in an hour?"

"I could do that or…"

"Or?" The curiosity in his voice was stark naked.

"I have a spare dopp kit in my locker…cleanser, make-up remover." Kate shrugged. "Might work on that industrial strength glue you have on there. We could give it a try."

The locker room was mercifully empty, guys either home for the night or out on tour already. Kate held the door open for Castle, after assuring the coast was clear, and then she made her way to her own locker.

Her narrow, camouflage green, beat-up looking slice of privacy was close to the end of one row of similarly looking beat-up metal lockers. The only adornment on the outside was an NYPD shield - a sticker with edges that had begun to curl - and a fluorescent orange department notice that said, "Proper Tactics Save Lives – Cover, Isolate, Contain".

Castle stood close by, taking everything in, watching as his partner unlocked the padlock on the outside and swung the door open. He leant one shoulder against the bank of lockers in an attempt to look more casual about being in here with her, less affected, than he actually felt.

He stroked his chin thoughtfully, musing. "Third from the end. Hmm. That must signify—"

"Nothing significant in location, I can assure you," Kate cut in without even looking round. "Lockers are assigned when you first arrive at the precinct. You get whatever's available. Never changes, no matter how high you go."

"You think I might get my own locker one day if—"

"Hey, you know, I actually think one just came free," she said brightly, tapping her own chin with her index finger to mime being thoughtful.

"Yeah?" Castle responded enthusiastically.

"Ask Gates. I'm sure you could get assigned…on the 12th of NEVER!" she stressed, giggling like a little kid at the wounded look on her partner's face.

"That's just mean. Getting my hopes up."

"Lockers are for salaried cops, Castle. To store boots, uniform, Kevlar vests, change of civilian clothes, gun, maybe a few dog-eared skin mags to pass around… They're not somewhere to leave your hair gel, a pack of gummy bears and that expensive cologne you wear."

He barely missed a beat, choosing for once to ignore her tempting opening into the murky world of pornography. "You like my cologne?"

Kate turned to give him the Beckett glare.

"Okay, let me rephrase. You noticed my cologne."

"Hard not to," she replied witheringly.

"I don't think I like being in here with you." He sounded petulant.

Kate laughed. "Why not?"

"This…this space," he said, waving his hand around them, "it's changed you. You've gone all badass…and not in a hot way. Too much masculine ch'i in here," he complained, scowling at the dingy, stale smelling room.

"Better not linger then. Wouldn't want your metrosexual traits to get diluted."

Castle whistled. "Oh so brave and full of insults when there's no one else watching, Detective Beckett. Not so brave when we're out there in a bullpen full of cops."

Kate paused. "Shouldn't that work the other way round?"

"You'd think so. Normally."

"You mean if I was normal."

"I mean that would be the normal order of things."

"So…why does it work this way for us? Come on. You must have a theory."

"Now she wants to hear my theories, when we're alone. Now that makes more sense because—"

"Castle. Do you have a theory or not?"

"This is how we flirt." He shrugged. "Not complicated. This space is private, so you bait me because that's how we flirt with one another. Unobserved."

Kate felt her face flood with color. The silence was oppressive for a second or two when neither of them ventured any follow-up on Castle's theory, either to refute or support it.

Castle finally saved them from the awkward silence.

"Is that a copy of Naked Heat?"

He ignored a card for the NYPD's Early Intervention Unit which Kate had jammed beneath a small mirror stuck to the inside of her locker door. The unit's motto - "Sometimes you just need someone to listen…" - was printed above a hand-scrawled cell phone number and the name of a peer counselor identified only as "Pat". Castle took all of this in, reaching instead for the worn copy of his second Nikki Heat novel.

Kate snatched it out of his hand and stashed it back up on the top shelf.

"Did I sign it?"

"Hmm?" she asked, knowing exactly what he meant.

"Is that the signed copy I gave you or…"

"You think I have more than one copy of your novels, Castle?" she scoffed. And damn it. She was protesting too much.

"Hey, I've been in your apartment, Beckett. You've got more than one doubler squirreled away on the top shelf of your bookcase. Tall, see," he grinned, referring to his own considerable height.

He was baiting her and they both knew it. Being alone together in the locker room, after their more personal conversation outside, made the air crackle with a tension that tugged and tugged at each of them, goading them closer to the edge, taunting them into pushing those boundaries even further.

"So nosey," Kate muttered, reaching up for a wash bag that was perched up on the locker's only shelf.

"Sit," she instructed, pressing down on Castle's shoulder to get him to sit down on the bench that ran the length of the center of the room, equidistant between two rows of lockers.

"So bossy," Castle muttered to himself, more than loudly enough for Kate to hear.

The comment was meant to keep the flow of flirtatious banter moving between them, banter designed to be fun without becoming so intensely personal that it would lead to Kate clamming up.

When she stepped over the bench, her hands braced on both of Castle's shoulders so she could straddle the low piece of furniture, he felt his mouth go dry and his brow begin to perspire.

"Turn. Face me," she instructed quietly, focusing on the contents of her make-up kit while Castle did as he was told, shuffling his butt around on the bench until his knees collided with the inside of her open, right thigh.

"Sorry, did I…" he mumbled, automatically reaching out to touch her leg before quickly withdrawing his hand as if she was made of molten lava.

Kate ignored this whole nervous transaction. She pulled out a bottle of cleanser, a pack of cotton pads and a pair of tweezers.

"What…what are you doing with those?" Castle stammered.

Kate held the tweezers aloft and looked at them. "These?"

"Ya-huh."

"Not scared of a little pair of tweezers, Rick?" she teased, tongue clicking on the hard k with menace.

His spine straightened at the challenge presented by her strategic deployment of his first name. "Course not. Just uh…what are you planning on doing with them?" he enquired more casually.

"I'm going to peel off the worst of this latex mask, and then I'll clean the rest off with cleanser. Hang on. Be right back," she said, using him to balance once more when she climbed off the bench and disappeared around the corner.

"Eh…Kate?" he called out a few seconds later. The silence in the homicide locker room was getting to him so late at night.

"Right here," she replied, returning with a thick wad of folded paper towels.

She laid them out on the bench between her open thighs to catch the worst of the make-up as she peeled it off. Castle just stared in amazement at the woman sitting opposite him, the woman he'd abandoned just a few weeks ago to go partner up with someone else.

When she leaned in and finally touched his face, their eyes locked and held for several breathless seconds.

"I'll…" She licked her lips and swallowed nervously. "I'll be gentle. Promise," she said, blushing even as she smiled, the tweezers brandished centimeters from his left eye.

She cupped her right hand under his chin to steady his head while she worked away with the tweezers in her left hand, peeling strips of latex off his skin and dropping it onto the paper below. Once she'd finished one half of his face she switched sides, working as if ambidextrous. Castle made a mental note to add this to Nikki's repertoire of skills, though once again his real life muse proved more than a match for her fictional counterpart.

"Can't see Slaughter offering to do this," he quipped, his brain frozen to stupidity by the affect she was having on him.

He could feel himself perspiring and was embarrassed by how gross he felt under the unflattering locker room lights. He was surprised by how exposed he felt being taken care of by Kate, even after all this time. He routinely took care of her, though not in such intimate a manner, while her protection of him came more from the badge and the authority that gave her in the field. He was soft skills, the caretaker, and she was hard, the protector.

Kate seemed unaware of his mental unpicking of their roles. "Ah, finally the truth will out. That's why you really came back. My beauty therapy skills."

"Got me," Castle grinned, though the comment was weak and half-hearted at best.

"I'm surprised you took me back. I was such a jerk," he said after a short pause.

Kate looked up from the cotton pad she was layering with lotion, straight into her partner's eyes. "I never wanted you to leave in the first place. I…I hate it when we fight. For a long time I couldn't understand what I'd done."

She returned to the task in hand, eyes averted from his for fear of what further truths their locked gaze might provoke.

"What about now?"

"Think I might have an idea. One or two, anyway."

Castle's eyebrows shot up. "One or two?" He nodded, digesting what this meant.

"Anyway, does it matter? You came back. Things are good…between us. Right?"

She didn't wait for him to answer, simply slid her fingers along his jaw to stabilize him while she began coating his newly bared skin with cleanser.

Castle found it incredibly difficult not to cry out, to moan, gasp or make some other sexual sound at the sensation of Kate Beckett cleansing his skin. The lotion felt refreshing and moisturizing after the tight, dryness of the theatrical zombie make-up. Her fingers were gentle, caring and cool as they tilted his head this way and that, cupping his jaw, sliding to the back of his neck, casually tugging on his ear to get him to turn as if they did this kind of personal grooming every day.

"You okay?" she asked at one point, pausing until he opened his eyes to nod at her. "Thought you'd left the room for a second," Kate said quietly, as she discarded one filthy, streaked cotton pad for a clean one.

"Yeah, I went straight to heaven," came Castle's unfiltered reply.

Kate laughed. "In that case maybe you can return the favor one day. Taking my make-up never looks this blissful."

"Maybe it's more about the person doing the stripping?" Castle suggested, his head awash with inappropriate images, his mouth run amok.

Kate smirked at his choice of words. "If that were the case wouldn't I—"

In a flash of impulsive haste he leaned forward five inches, just five little inches, less than half a foot, and then he kissed her without any warning or request for permission. The air seemed to stop and the silence in the empty locker room appeared to roar in Castle's ears. He was kissing her.

His hands were warm and heavy where they'd landed on her parted thighs, a scorching heat that leached through the denim of her jeans, wanting. Kate found herself kissing him back for a second, leaning in to deepen the kiss desperately, before she came to her senses and reared back, parting their lips noisily.

She covered her mouth with her hands, shocked. "What was that?"

"You genuinely need me to explain or…"

"I…I mean why? Why now? After you…" She swallowed loudly, lips parting, breathless.

"After I what?"

"Left me. After you left me for him…Slaughter."

"Well, first of all, I would never do to that guy what I just did with you."

Kate narrowed her eyes, wordlessly forcing him on.

"Second of all, I thought we agreed I was back and that was water under the bridge."

"No one said water under the bridge. I never said water under the bridge," she corrected him, getting a little heated.

"Fine. So you're still mad at me. But thirdly, pertaining to what just happened, I thought we were having a moment."

"A moment?" Kate repeated warily.

"Yes. The way you were touching me. The…the whole tender…caring thing," he said, letting his words peter out the longer he watched the heartbreak form on her face. "Did I…did I read it wrong? I'm sorry. Beckett, I'll just shut up now. I made a mistake."

"I lied to you," she blurted, pure guilt and horror in her eyes. "But you know that, don't you? That's why you left." Her shoulders slumped in defeat and relief.

Castle nodded grimly. "Yes."

Not the only one full of surprises tonight, Kate socked him in the shoulder, hard. "You could have got yourself killed!"

"Oww," grumbled Castle, rubbing his shoulder.

"Did you hear me?" Her face was red with fury, though her eyes shone with tears that her anger blazed through, a heat that threatened to evaporate their salty glaze.

"Yes. I heard you."

"The guys warned you. If you wouldn't listen to me, why not them?"

"I wasn't thinking straight, okay? I admit I was out of control. Everything I thought we were working towards seemed like a mirage all of a sudden. I felt stupid, duped. I couldn't get any lower."

"But Alexis!" she exclaimed.

"I know. I know. I was stupid, reckless. I'm sorry."

"Don't ever do that again." Her fury was quickly spent.

"I won't."

Her face softened after that and she managed to raise a smile.

"What you said before about not waiting for perfect?"

"Yeah?"

"Your face is mostly clean now. Wanna get out of here?"

Castle grinned and his whole face shone with relief. "I would love that."

Kate gathered all their detritus in the scrunched up paper towels and stood, offering Castle a hand to help him up.

Once she returned from dumping the towels in the trash she found Castle peering into the mirror on the back of her locker door. He was picking the few remaining flecks of make-up out of his hairline.

"So, partner, how do I look?" he asked, giving her a hopeful smile and a romantic out, should she still want one, by keeping things platonic between them.

"Like the guy this girl is interested in getting to know better."

Castle swallowed. "I see."

Kate smiled shyly. "Do you? Really?" She drew closer, and then reached around him to lift something down off the top shelf of her locker. Her elbow brushed his chest as she did so and he had to fist his hands in his pockets to prevent himself from reaching for her right there, turning her and pushing her up against the locker door.

Kate withdrew a folded piece of fabric, which turned out to be a striped wool scarf. "Four years," she said, hugging the man's scarf to her chest. "Four years I've kept this in here so I would always have some part of you…if they kicked you out or…something worse…"

Castle tore his eyes away from her face. "I wondered where that went," he said, stroking his fingers over the scarf but making no attempt to take it from her.

"You left it in my car part way through the second case we ever worked together."

Castle grinned. "The day you called me Mister Mom. I remember."

"And the day I asked you how many times you'd been married."

"Same day you told me you were more of a one-and-done type."

Kate bit her lip and looked at the floor. "We have good memories…for the important things."

"I also remember asking you if there were any serious candidates," Castle said, reaching out to run his fingers over the bundle of wool his partner was still hugging.

"Yeah, you did," she grinned, fidgeting with the fringe on the blue and black, striped scarf.

"You never gave me an answer, as I recall. Never have."

Kate refolded the scarf, turned back to her locker and returned it to the shelf after briefly brushing the bundle against her cheek. "I'm holding onto this, in case you hadn't guessed."

"Still no answer?" Castle gently pushed, though in truth he was quite happy to turn around and walk out with the gains they had made while they'd lingered in the locker room alone.

Kate turned back to face him, taking time to consider her reply for a thoughtful moment. "Well, can I maybe just say that…that I think the position might be close to being filled and leave it at that for now?"

"So…you're not still running classifieds to fill the post?"

Kate smiled. "That would be a no."

"Did you dream up any specific job requirements for this one-and-done by any chance?"

"Castle, get your coat and stop fishing." But Kate's grin gave her away.

"So that's a definitive yes then."

"I'm pleading the fifth," she told him.

"Was ruggedly handsome on that list?"

"Seriously?" Kate gave him a hard stare that was undercut by the mirth dancing in her eyes, a mix of patience and amusement she had cultivated over the years only for him. This woman did not suffer fools gladly. But then Richard Castle was never any sort of fool, not really.

"How about…uh…genius intellect?"

Kate grinned. "The list might have been a little more basic than that."

"What? With your high standards? So what exactly are we talking here? Eats with his mouth closed? Changes underwear daily? What? Just how low bar did you make it, Beckett? Knuckles shouldn't drag on the ground?"

Kate chuckled, tucking her arm through Castle's as they finally made their way out to the elevator.

"I'd settle for makes me laugh. And, among other things, you have always made me laugh."

"And that has been my good fortune and pleasure," he told her, bowing just a little.

"Hope I can return the favor, now you have me playing hooky instead of trying to be so perfect."

"Kate, you inspired me to a whole series of novels. If I can make you laugh…that's still in no way a fair trade."

"Okay, then how about you buy me dinner and we call it even?"

"Dinner? So not just drinks?" Castle looked delighted. "I think I can stretch to that. You might have to change first though."

She looked down at her jeans and leather jacket. "You don't like what I'm wearing?"

"Hey, I always like what you're wearing. You don't know that by now?"

"I did wonder about the staring," she replied with a gleam in her eye.

"Okay. We are going someplace fancy. I'm taking you out. Linen table cloths, snooty sommelier..."

"Real cutlery?" Kate laughed.

"Real cutlery. The whole deal," grinned Castle. "If you'll be my date?"

"Your date, huh?" She looked as giddy as a schoolgirl.

"Too soon?"

"I think I've kept us both waiting long enough, don't you?"

"I'm sorry about Slaughter, about losing faith in you."

"It's not your fault. I gave you little enough reason to believe we'd ever get...here."

"And...are we here now?"

Kate offered up a one shouldered shrug and turned to face him. She tugged on the front of his jacket. "If you think I'm ready, I guess I'm ready."

Castle brought his hands to rest on her waist. "But are you sure?"

Kate took a step closer, and then she slid her arms around his back and leaned her head against his chest. She released a long, shuddering breath. "I trust my partner. He thinks we're ready. Time for me to jump, I think."

Castle wrapped his arms around her, hugging her tightly against him. "I'll catch you, Kate. I will always be here to catch you," he promised, lips pressed against her hair.

"Likewise," Kate agreed, giving him one last quick squeeze before the elevator sounded and the doors slide open. She stepped back to allow two uniforms pass between them, keeping her eyes locked on Castle's the entire time. "Now, how about that dinner," she said, once the men were gone, walking into the elevator car alongside her partner. "I'm starving," she whispered loudly, fumbling for his hand the second the doors slid closed.

The End

Thank you for reading.