A/N: As with a lot of stories, the inspiration for this one came from a photograph I came across, one that reminded me of Beckett. That photo is the cover art for this story and can also be seen on Twitter. This story is sixteen chapters long, set around the time of 3x13 "Knockdown," and all sixteen chapters have been written. I'll probably post them a day or two apart to give people time to read before moving the story on. Hope you'll join me for the ride. Liv

Fear of Rejection

Chapter 1

When he burst in through the door, she was standing side-on, framed by the large picture window. Dry leaves, like curled hands, tumbled in behind him, scuttling across the wooden floor with a papery sound not unlike whispered gossip at a cocktail party. But the scene before him was worlds away from that.

With his breath held, Castle took in the swaddled bundle in her arms. His heart began to hammer when he spotted the swell of her postpartum belly beneath the drape of the blanket and the loose-fitting plaid shirt that hung from her shoulders. Her hair was shorter, her curls cropped to a long bob that broke on the collar of the red and black lumberjack shirt. A navy bouncer seat decorated with white elephants sat to one side of the unadorned window, a window that gave unobstructed views out over the green expanse of trees and the cool, clear lake beyond.

The leather soles of his shoes made a scraping sound where the varnish had worn off the boards near the door when he crossed the threshold to step inside, and she turned at the noise, alarm tightening the tired lines of her face.

"C…Castle?" she croaked, her voice so dry and rough from lack of use that she had to clear her throat just to utter his name. This rhetorical question managed to sound both surprised and guilty at the same time, because that he was here, in front of her, was empirically beyond doubt. Yet still she spoke his name with the tenor of an uncertain question.

He watched as she moved the bundle just a hair's breadth closer, cradling the baby just a fraction tighter against the fullness of her chest. Though he couldn't swear that he wasn't being paranoid, this tiny detail skewered him right in the gut. He wasn't the enemy here. He wasn't a threat.

Was he?

He closed the door quietly behind him, and the light in the large room dimmed just a little. Kate stayed where she was, although she began to move from side-to-side, swaying with the tiny bundle in her arms as she started to hum.

"How did you find me?" she eventually asked, breaking off the improvised lullaby to pose the question. Her body maintained its perpetual motion, keeping tempo like the pendulum-swing of a metronome.

Castle had remained just inside the door, a study of silence, taking the few moments before she yelled or ordered him to leave to inspect her surroundings. He used every second he believed he had left to absorb all the information he could about her temporary home before she threw him out, as he was certain she would. So her question caught him off guard.

He removed the dark baseball cap he was wearing and ruffled his flattened hair with his free hand. Then he dangled the ball cap from his fingers and glanced down at the floor. "Your dad," he admitted, nodding to himself, his lips a tight, determined line. "But don't be mad at him," he hastened to add, tearing his gaze away from the hard bill of his cap to glance up at her. "I made him tell me, Beckett. I made him," he repeated quietly, fleetingly meeting her eyes.

"You—" Kate's sharp intake of breath startled the baby, and he began to squeak as if building up to cry. "Shh, shh," she changed tack to whisper, soothing the infant with more rocking and a gentle bouncing motion so intuitive that it made Castle want to weep.

He watched her expertly calm her child, until the little scrap snuffled and sighed his way back to sleep. "Beckett, I had to see you. I need to talk to you. We can't just ignore what happened and—"

"Can't we?" Kate demanded, turning slightly towards him for the first time. She watched the baby, her gaze so soft and tender, ensuring the child was still sleeping, before she redirected her attention to her erstwhile partner. "I thought you were doing a pretty good job of ignoring everything. So what's changed?"

"You have a child…a…a baby," he stammered, sounding like an awestruck moron by stating the obvious.

"I have to admit, you've still got it, Sherlock." Her reply, loaded with sarcasm, stung. "It's good to see some things don't change."

Castle closed his eyes and rubbed his neck. "I'm sorry," he said, and the look on his face was so honestly heartbreaking that she caught herself right before she eviscerated him, mentally backing down. "I really am sorry, Kate."

And Oh God, her name on that man's lips. Still, the effect he had on her.

"We both made mistakes," she admitted, still somewhat grudging but digging deep to be as magnanimous as she could, given her deep sense of abandonment.

"Still, seems I've been the bigger jackass this time." He cleared his throat.

Kate emitted a wry chuckle that seemed to surprise even her. "I won't fight you on that," she agreed, offering him a twitch of her lips as reward.

Out of nowhere, the baby began to fuss, and Kate danced on the spot once more. However, this time he wouldn't be placated by her gentle rocking motion or by the sound of his mother's ad libbed melody.

Castle observed the scene, fingers itching to intervene, as his tough homicide detective partner gingerly lifted her newborn up onto her shoulder and turned to face him. "I have to feed him," she said, as if practiced in the art of new motherhood already: in the art of managing well-meaning visitors - the curious, the caring, the gift-bearing and the downright interfering – when time came for the unglamorous side of parenting to kick in.

Castle bit his lip at the implication that it might be time for him to go already. But he had too much to lose by giving in to her tough-girl stare. He had too much to lose by doing her bidding this time; by turning around and getting into his car and driving back to his comfortable, dull, lonely, city life. He was in too deep to give in to this subtle, yet firm, request she was making, as she rubbed her baby's back and stared him out.

"I'll…I'll just go sit over there. And wait," he said, lifting the hand that held his cap to indicate the armchair in the corner. "I'll be quiet. You won't even know I'm here."

Kate watched him warily. The biggest cause of all their problems for all the years they'd known one another was this – a failure to communicate. Specifically, it was a failure to say exactly what they meant or to ask for what they wanted. For the first time, Castle used Kate's failure to articulate her desire - that he leave, now - to his own advantage. He brazened it out. He took four steps and he sat down heavily in the faded plaid armchair, and then he laid his ball cap on his knee. The implication was clear: he was going nowhere until they talked and she would just have to deal with it.

"Fine," she huffed after several seconds of uncomfortable silence, her displeasure shot through the rigid line of her jaw and spine like rebar.

He expected her to leave the room, so he was surprised when she picked a burp cloth off a neat stack sitting in a pretty wicker basket on the kitchen counter, and then settled with her fussing baby on the two-seater sofa opposite. When she unbuttoned the front of her white Henley and unclipped her nursing bra to offer the hungry baby her breast, he felt his face grow hot and he didn't know where to look, something he would readily admit if asked.

The sounds of the baby suckling seemed to fill the entire ground floor of the cabin. That a three week old could guzzle so greedily, so noisily from his mother's breast filled Castle with wonder. Alexis had been bottle fed from day one to protect Meredith's "assets" and her career. Perhaps as a result, she had never been particularly enthusiastic when it came to feeds. So the lip-smacking sounds and the lusty, hungry grunts this tiny human emitted would have been comical were it not for the tension stretched tight as piano wire between his mom and the writer.

After a time, Castle felt himself relaxing and getting used to sitting opposite his partner while she performed this most beautiful, female and selfless of functions. He noticed her bare feet, toes painted emerald green, and her right leg, as it bounced along to the rhythm of the baby's breath sounds. Gradually he got braver. He raised his eyes from floor level to study the surface of the coffee table that sat between them. A pale blue pacifier lay, teat up, next to a cloth baby book and, bizarrely, a copy of the NYPD's Forensic Biology Training Manual. A mug of tea, with the bag still inside, that had undoubtedly gone cold, sat alongside the book, and this was where Castle saw his in – breastfeeding mothers got thirsty, they were tired, they struggled to do two things at once when the baby was latched on and falling asleep on the job, as Beckett junior now appeared to be.

"Can I make you a fresh cup of chamomile?" Castle asked, startling both of them with the sound of his deep voice in the stillness of the old cabin.

Kate took her time, gently prizing the baby's wet little mouth off one breast and then deftly switching sides to tease his pink cheek with the tip of her pinkie finger. The baby woke up and rooted around, missing her nipple a couple of times, before he hit his intended target and latched back on.

Castle, unaware he had lost all sense of propriety and was now opening staring, visibly jumped when Kate said, "Nothing you haven't seen before."

She sounded more amused than scolding, for which he was grateful. Nonetheless, he felt his face flame and he quickly lowered his eyes to the floor once more; the safest view in the entire room. But she appeared so peaceful and so beautiful, nursing her son in the warmth of a shaft of dusty, mid-morning light. He wanted to say something, to tell her how amazing she looked because he doubted anyone else saw her like he did. More than that, he hoped no one else ever did.

She wasn't wrong when she said "Nothing you haven't seen before." Nine months earlier, after their ruse of a kiss in an alley to save the lives of Ryan and Esposito, they had finally given in to the sexual attraction that had swirled around them like a thick fog since the day they met. They closed the case, and then, without any preamble or discussion, they had ended up at Kate's apartment. They barely made it to the bedroom before she stripped off her clothes, climbed his naked body and he pushed his way inside her, trapping her arms high above her head as they scrabbled for bare flesh and panted for breath. Their desperate need for one another meant the entire act was over in a breathless, shuddering matter of minutes. As much as Castle had long-envisioned something slower, more tender, prolonged and loving, the excitement of possessing Kate Beckett, and being possessed by her, tipped him over the edge in record time, no matter how hard he had tried to slow things down.

So, yes, he had seen her breasts before. In fact, he had sucked those very nipples hard enough to make her writhe beneath him on her own sheets while keening his name...right before he succumbed to the biggest attack of the guilts when morning came, and he slunk out of her apartment, half-dressed, at 5am.

He was on cloud nine for about the length of time it took for him to wash himself off her in bathroom afterwards, before he spent a restless few hours in her bed worrying about her doctor boyfriend and what this night would mean for every one of them going forward. He wasn't a cheater, and he wouldn't be party to a deception. If they were to have a future, Josh Davidson needed to be told at the earliest opportunity. Until that was done, he vowed to stay out of Kate's way, to give her space. If she wanted him, she'd come to him once she was free. Because as wonderful as that night had been, they had begun things on the wrong foot. After holding back for years, they had given in to a moment of weakness that he intended to help them correct.

So for the next few days he stayed away from the Twelfth. But as with so many gestures in their relationship, this too was misconstrued by Kate, who had awoken with a smile on her face only to roll over and find the bed next to her cold and empty. This emptiness felt, and easily read, like rejection. Coupled with the absence of her partner from the precinct and a distinct lack of coffee the following day and in the days after, she took two and two and she chopped it up to make five.

When Castle finally showed up at the end of that week, the sight that met him sent him into a tailspin that would only end a few days ago. Rounding the corner, he came across Kate and Josh Davidson talking quietly against a wall. He stopped to watch where he couldn't be seen, and the look on Josh's face when he leaned down to kiss her cheek and then tucked her hair behind her ear seemed to say it all. He turned around, dumped both coffee cups in the trash, and headed down three flights of stairs without ever looking back.

Until a couple of days ago, he had shut down the Kate Beckett part of his life completely. He had pulled up the draw bridge, ignored the few calls that came in, deleted the voicemails she left, forbade his mother and daughter from answering the door and then he burned the single letter she sent in his stainless steel sink with the cleansing flame of a jasmine scented candle of his mother's, all without even opening the envelope.

He was a jealous, weak, heart-broken ass. He had had a taste of nirvana, and instead of standing up and fighting for what he wanted, for the woman he was in love with, for the one person who meant more to him in this world than any other relationship ever had, he ran and he hid and he licked his wounds in private. But in taking care of himself, he had abandoned Kate. He had abandoned Kate and, it turned out, walked away from so much more.

Note: I'm not usually a baby-fic person but that photo...ugh! As I said, this one's all written, so the next chapter will be up in a day or two. My thanks go to WRTRD once more for her chapter-by-chapter support for this one.