A/N - My laptop crashed and it took me a while to rig up a way to get back online, so I took a little break from Waiting Game and wrote this instead (but I have not abandoned Waiting Game and should have an update in a few days). It is a very late post-Cops and Robbers, and part of it had been languishing on my computer since the night it aired. It's unbetaed and not terribly original, and now that I've made it sound so appealing I know you are just dying to read it.:)

A Terrible Hope

When Kate picks up her phone and sees that it is Castle, a crazy hope bubbles up in her, like it always does now whenever he calls out of nowhere. Hope for what she isn't even sure. Just hope. That it will be just like this when they get together. That he will call her at work just because, and they will toss words back and forth for the fun of it, and later she will meet him at his place or hers, it doesn't matter, and they will be alone, and words won't be necessary. That it really can be this simple.

But it turns in an instant. The shots as the bank robbers take everyone hostage, the sound of a gun being cocked at his head, remind her that hope is fragile and can be destroyed in an instant and from that point all she can concentrate on is making sure that instant isn't now. She will get him out, because the other option is unfathomable.

The first time she is supposed to negotiate it's like having to pretend to be someone else; as if she is going on as an understudy who didn't learn the lines. Kate has to pretend to be someone who isn't about to throw up with anxiety, who isn't having to force down the terrible inadequacy she feels trying to do this job that is completely counterintuitive to her. She has no training in hostage negotiation but tough shit because she isn't allowed to fail. Hope has nothing to do with it.

Kate has the idea to go in as the paramedic, and it's the best she's felt since her connection to him was shattered on the bank floor. In the back of her head, in the small corner where logic has retreated, she knows that it might be too risky, that her voice could be recognized. But luck is on her side. She's the only one on site who is qualified to go in. The only one who needs to go in, needs to see him. See for herself that he is still there, that the very underpinnings of her life haven't been destroyed. Proof that hope isn't gone.

Kate sees Castle across the lobby and it is physically painful not to run to him. Her body feels taut, suspended, like she's straining against an invisible tether that keeps her from him. She just wants to hold him, her face buried in his chest, hearing his heart beat, to pretend that it's over.

It's not over, and she can't even look at him too long or her face will give everything away, and why, why again is she not with him? Because holding him, loving him for real, is something she could have had whenever she chose and for the life of her she can't remember why she didn't take it when she had the chance.

When the bomb goes off she almost remembers why. Because the worst can happen, like a detonation at the very foundation of your existence, and then all that's left of your life or the self that you knew is dust in your hands.

Because she hears the explosion and a hole opens up inside. It sucks everything inward, and Kate can feel herself sinking even as she is up and outside, moving forward into the building, trying to hope even when she knows it will only make it that much worse if there is nothing to find.

Then he answers her. When Kate sees him, safe, just fine, alive sitting in the vault, her vision tunnels and he's all she can see. She still can't quite reach out to him - her hand on his collar when she wants to crawl into his lap, but she can feel all the love she usually locks down breaking out across her smile, shining in her eyes. It is laid bare for him to see, she is sure, because it is reflected back to her from his face like a mirror.

And then Martha says something and her vision clears, but it's okay because it's like the fear and desperation of the last hours are gone, replaced in an instant, the instant she smiled into his eyes. Replaced by reckless joy and relief and the hope that maybe, just maybe, all of her doubts and insecurities were decimated in the explosion. The hope that it really can be as simple as the fact that she loves him.

Kate honestly believes she is okay. They get the call that the guy was arrested and they are done. Finished, with closure and a win. She lets Castle take her to his loft, take her home. She has dinner with Martha, who makes her laugh, and hugs her so tightly, and Alexis, with whom she hopefully has turned a corner. For the first time she lets herself not just imagine, but really feel like she belongs with them.

With Castle, who is so himself, so easy and fun, joking about how many times he has saved her life. Kate guesses he is only counting the times he has physically removed her from harm's way. Otherwise he has miscounted. He doesn't yet know about what he did for her after her mother's death, and since then… well that's the biggest save of all. Kate can no longer even envision herself or her life if she hadn't crashed his party that night.

For all that Kate protests she wouldn't even mind him having those times to add to his score; for him to come out ahead of her, to beat her. She is the one really winning, after all. Soon she will tell him herself, and after today, maybe she is a little closer to that moment than she thought.

So she hangs out with the Castles, with Rick. Sits next to him at dinner, and later on the couch. Lets her knee rest against his thigh when she crosses her legs, her fingers sit lightly on his wrist while she tells a story. Teases and flirts, drinks a little too much wine, and takes the car service home.

Kate thinks she feels fantastic, actually. Relieved and excited, almost believing, hoping, it could be that things aren't as hard as she always makes them, that just loving him really will be enough. Maybe she won't mess it up.

Kate is fine. She comes home, takes a bath, falls right to sleep. And everything is great, right until she wakes up screaming.

Her own screams wake her up, and it takes her a second to realize she is the one making that horrible, ragged noise. Kate chokes back the next scream, her throat sore, her heart pounding so hard she can feel it in her fingertips, sweat sticking her hair to her neck and her cheeks.

Her eyes are wide in the darkness, but she can still see the dream, the awful images. Can still feel the dust from the explosion in her eyes, the grit in her throat. Hear the answering silence as she calls Castle's name over and over. Can still see, an image she is afraid she will never lose, the bodies of the hostages in the vault, all of them dead, their bodies thrown and twisted, bloody and torn.

Except Castle. He is on the floor, slumped against the wall. In her dream she comes to his side and slowly reaches out one hand , her heart filled with the terrible hope that he alone has been spared. But as she grasps his lapel his head lolls forward and she sees his eyes, staring past her into nothingness. Wide and empty and dead.

Kate can barely hold back another scream. Before she even realizes it she is reaching for her phone. She doesn't turn on the light as she hits speed dial from memory and tries not to think about what she is doing.

"Kate? Are you okay?" His voice in her ear is low and rough with sleep and worry. In the darkness of her room it is loud and intimate all at once, and she desperately wants him here with her.

"Kate?" She must have been silent too long, because his voice has gone from sleepy to borderline frantic. "You need to say something, Kate."

"Castle, I…," She can't get the words out. There are too many, all fighting to go in different directions at once.

She wants to tell him about the dream, but she doesn't want to burden him. Frighten him with the messed up inner workings of her subconscious.

She wants to finally admit that she loves him, but she doesn't know if she will ever be ready to need him, to lose him. She was almost obliterated today.

But most of all, Kate desperately wants him to come to her; to crawl into her bed and wrap himself around her to prove that he is still whole. To hold her tightly to keep her from flying apart. But the words are trapped. Stuck behind her fear and tattered hope.

But somehow he has heard her anyway because,

"I'm on my way right now." She can hear him moving, the sounds of covers being thrown back. His voice is briefly muffled as if he's pulling his shirt over his head, and then he's back, "Kate? Don't do anything, okay? I'm on my way."

"Okay." She forces out, and she sounds nothing like herself. Small, the tears pressing against her voice. She should tell him not to come. There's nothing wrong with her, except everything that is. Kate tries to cry quietly, so he won't hear.

But maybe he did, because he is still calling her name through the phone. Either time is moving fast or he is, because he is already outside. Kate can hear street noise behind him, the sound of the car door slamming. She concentrates on breathing.

"Kate? I need you to talk to me, okay?" Castle sounds nearly frantic, nothing like the calm composure he displayed in the bank today. "I'm almost there, just talk to me until I get to you."

"No," she manages, the tears clogging her throat. Kate feels terrible cutting him off, but she's not going to last much longer. "I'm not going anywhere. I'll…" she gasps a little as a sob overtakes her. "I'll see you in a minute." She drops the phone beside her and rolls over, burying her face in her pillow, no longer able to hold in the messy, frenetic sobs.

Her phone rings almost constantly, but there is no way she can pick up, no way she can let Castle hear her like this. She is scaring herself with the depth of her grief.

Grief and fear for what could have happened, for what she could have lost. For the hope that was shining so brightly earlier tonight, that now lies shattered all around her as she cries until her head is full and aching, her throat raw, her stomach muscles sore.

Part of her knows it is crazy, that she isn't thinking clearly. It is obvious the nightmare is warping her thoughts, but it occurs to her that today was a warning, a reminder. Kate knows how it feels to lose someone irreplaceable, and it's like God or the universe or fate or whatever wants to remind her that she can't handle that again; that she didn't handle it all that well the first time.

She should have never believed, never hoped that she could have more with Castle than she has right now. Once upon a time, so long ago she can barely recall, she had a rule against falling for Castle, and she should have heeded it.

Kate now knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that she can't lose him. And in this moment, alone in the dark, the remnants of her nightmare swirling in her head, twisting faith and love and hope into things to be feared, she is afraid that means she cannot ever truly have him at all.

Kate is curled up under two blankets on the sofa, unable to get warm, all the lights ablaze. She has temporarily cried herself out, and is waiting for him when he pounds on her door. She is up and across the room in a second, throwing open the door to find him disheveled, his fist raised, and his eyes a little wild.

"I'm sorry," she bursts out before he can say anything, "I shouldn't have called, there's nothing wrong…" but she has to stop. Castle clearly came straight from bed, in wrinkled jeans and a t-shirt from off his floor, a navy hoodie half zipped up, his hair a mess and flopping in his face. He is pale with concern and breathing hard from what must have been his run up the stairs. He has never looked more wonderful, more alive. She can't talk past her tears of relief.

Kate turns away, her hand over her mouth, as Castle steps in and shuts the door, flips the lock.

"Kate?" His confusion is laced with relief, because lord only knows what he was afraid of finding here. His hand is on her shoulder, heavy and warm, turning her to face him. As soon as he sees her face his own crumples a little. "Oh, Kate. "

He pulls her into his arms, enveloping her in heat and the illusion of safety. "You shouldn't have left. I should have insisted you stay in the guest room."

"It wouldn't have mattered," she mutters dully. The nightmare is still taunting her and she can't let herself relax against him like she wants to, can't let herself hope that things will be okay.

Castle pulls back. "Why not?" His eyes are running over her face like he is trying to read her, to figure her out, and it makes her uncomfortable because he is so much better at it than he knows. Kate forces her arms to let go of him, steps back into the cold air.

"I had a nightmare." She tucks her hair behind her ear and drops her eyes. She sees one of his hands twitch out, like he is stopping himself from reaching for her again.

"A nightmare?" his voice lilts upward with the question, but he makes no move towards her.

"Yeah, um," She swallows, "It was pretty bad. I called you… right after…I'm sorry…"

"Kate, no, don't apologize." He is terse, tense, "How bad?"

It's in her head again, the tomb-like room, bodies flung at random, mangled and bloody. Except for Castle, who is untouched and perfect and dead. Her stomach clenches. She sucks in a breath and must have made some sort of noise because out of the corner of her eye she sees Castle take one step closer.

"The explosion...everyone was dead," Kate looks up, blinking against the stinging rush of tears behind her eyes. "You were dead."

Castle is standing very still, as if he doesn't want to startle her, but there is understanding breaking in his eyes, understanding and tenderness and what she can't help but recognize as love. "I'm not dead, Kate."

"I know that." She swallows again, tries to keep her voice from breaking. "But you could have been."

Castle abruptly steps forward and she holds out her hand to keep him back as something in her snaps and everything rushes out at once.

"I thought you were dead. Not in the dream, I actually thought you were dead today. I heard the explosion and…" Kate presses her fingers against her eyes in a futile effort to hold back the tears. "I thought if…I know if…" she is openly crying now, gasping the words, "if you…if you…the pieces of me will be too small to ever put back together again."

Castle surges forward, like he has broken his restraints, and ignores her raised hands as reaches out to embrace her, one hand at her hip, the other holding her head against his shoulder. He is solid and warm and familiar and alive. Everything still seems flat and bleak, but a small wisp of relief sneaks in past the fog of the dream.

"I don't think I can do this." She is weeping against his neck, her hands clenched against his chest, her body belying her words.

"You can, Kate, you can." He is stroking her hair, tugging her impossibly closer, walking through the locked gate of her heart like he doesn't even need a key. He never has.

He is already in her heart.

Something is slowly unfurling within her…

But still, the dream.

Kate holds him tighter, wrapping her arms around his back, her hands fisting in his shirt, hopelessness from the dream still lingering. "You don't know what it was like…" But she suddenly remembers, and her voice just quits.

"I do, actually." Castle's breath is hot against her cheek, his voice in her ear, and it should be angry, for her thoughtlessness. Instead it is with filled with love and a desperate hope.

"I do know. But you didn't die, and I didn't die." He moves back to stare in her eyes, his opened and filled with something that almost looks like joy. "I lived today." He gently runs the backs of his fingers against her cheek, catching her tears. "Decide to live with me, Kate."

Decide.

Kate is struck by the most obvious realization ever.

She is already afraid.

Not being with him hasn't saved her from the hurt. Not even the fact that Castle is wrapped in her arms-alive-has saved her from the hurt. It is too late. She already loves him.

She loves him.

She loves him, and he could have died today, and she is wasting time.

Maybe there is no should. Maybe it's okay to break the rules sometimes, even your own. Sometimes the only meaning or reason in the best of times and the worst is what you decide it is, and it's an awful responsibility, but also the most wonderful thing in the world.

Decide

Something is opening within her, fold by fold. Something bright. It's shining through the fog, reaching past the tendrils of fear.

Kate rises up on her tiptoes. Puts her mouth to his ear.

She can decide to be happy.

She can make that choice, even knowing that it could all be taken away at any moment. The answer is simple. It's the doing that will be hard, and she will have to remind herself every day. To step forward in faith and hope; to love him like they have all the time in the world, while not cowering from the knowledge that it could always be their last day. The worst might happen. But it might not.

Her heart is pounding and her fingers at his neck are trembling. Her check against his is still wet as she takes a breath filled with hope.

"Castle." Her voice isn't steady but with a sudden flash of insight she knows that it's okay. It's all right to be afraid, as long as you do it anyway. "Help me." She takes another breath. "Help me to live with you."

Castle makes a noise deep in his throat and then she is being held impossibly tighter. His mouth is on hers, his lips and his tongue, and he is kissing her with a desperate joy. Kate is kissing him back, her hands in his hair, his hand running up her back, against her skin, and she is wondering what in the world she had been waiting for.

She can choose to do this, because life without him is no choice at all.

As her lips meet his again and again, as he grasps her hips and pulls her up, her legs around his waist as he makes his way to her bed, his words of love fast and hard in her ear, Kate knows that she can do it, she decides that she can do it. She loves him, and he loves her. It isn't simple and it will never be easy, but she can do it.

She can live with this terrible hope of happiness.

A/N - Thanks for reading! Please review, reviews are awesome.:)