A/N: A little romance, a little angst. A short three-shot based on the premise that Beckett never met with Rita at the end of 8x02. Usual fanfic disclaimers apply. Characters don't belong to me and all mistakes are mine.

Window to the Soul

"Sorrow compressed my heart, and I felt I would die, and then . . . Well, then I woke up."
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky

"Castle, stop!"

He was out of breath, chasing after her for so many blocks until they ended up here, in this dark, garbage laden alley. He doubled over, catching his breath. How was it possible for her to run like this after being shot less than 24 hours ago?

She stopped running now. Stopped dead in her tracks, spun around on her heels and glared at him. "You need to go home, Castle."

"Not without you," he gasped. "Home is where you are."

"I told you, I can't."

"Why?" None of this made any sense.

"This is not your fight," she hissed. "I will not let you go down this path with me. It's too dark. Too dangerous."

He saw the growing red blood stain on her shirt, where she'd been shot. He wanted, no, needed, to do something about it. The chase he gave her probably re-opened the stitches.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. On both counts. Hers and his.

"Kate, we're married. We don't go separate ways any more."

"Castle, don't make me do this..."

"I won't lose you!"

"You already have."

He stared at her in disbelief as she pulled out her gun and pointed it at him, her expression unreadable.

A chill ran through his veins. This wasn't happening, was it?

"You take one more step and I'll use it. I'll make you stop!"

This was madness. His wife, the love of his life, was aiming her firearm at him.

Of course she wouldn't use the gun. He trusted Kate Beckett with his life. God knows she'd saved it more than once. To prove it, he took a step in her direction.

"Kate..."

Then she fired.

The sound shattered his eardrums and jolted him wide awake. Made him grab his comforter and toss it off the bed, just before his arms hyper extended and pushed up his body, jerking him upright.

He was suddenly sitting up, gasping for air.

"Kate...?" He barely got the word out. His lungs were still searching for air, so much so that he couldn't feel the tips of his fingers. They were numb and tingly.

She was here. Sleeping next to him and blissfully unaware of his nightmare. There was no dark alley. No gun pointed at him. No new blood stain on her t-shirt.

It's okay. Just a dream.

Rick moved his shaky legs off the bed and lowered his head down to his knees. Breathing downward, into the gap between them until he the room stopped spinning and he could raise his head again.

Then he pushed himself off the bed and walked a few tentative steps to the window on the other side of the room. Yanked the half-closed sliding pane all the way open as far as it could go, to let in more air.

They always left the window open at night. New Yorkers through and through, both him and Kate were immune to the noise of the traffic below. It was a comforting white noise for them. The sound of home.

The breeze that came in and caressed his skin was warm. Not the stifling warmth of a mid-summer breeze, but still too warm for his liking. Too warm for late September.

"I won't lose you."

"You already have."

There was a time after his disappearance last year that he had nightmares nearly every night. During the day, his overactive imagination conjured up horrible possibilities of the things he might have done (they had to have been horrible if he willingly chose to forget them) and at night they turned into equally horrible dreams.

But tonight was worse. Because he could handle a lot of things. But losing his wife wasn't one of them.

"Stop it..." he whispered aloud. Still standing by the window, his breathing was almost back to normal, in rhythm with the traffic below. "It wasn't real."

He turned away from the window, toward the bed.

Kate wasn't gone. She was here, underneath the same roof with him.

It shouldn't have surprised him that he'd have a nightmare after the hell they went through the last two days. Between finding sheets soaked in his wife's blood, witnessing a shoot-out at the precinct alongside his daughter, and getting his ass kicked after a mad man unleashed a half dozen tarantulas on his face, it would have been unnatural for him (or anyone) to sleep peacefully through the night.

Castle walked back to her, picked up the comforter from the floor and slowly, quietly lowered himself onto the bed. Thanks to his brief absence, the sheet had cooled down on his side of the bed, the way he liked it. He wasn't ready to lie down, so he propped up three pillows and leaned back against the headboard, wincing when his muscles reminded him of what he'd put them through the last two days. He might not have a bullet wound in his side but he did have half dozen bruises, the size of apples, dotting various body parts in giant red spots.

He caught the familiar silhouette of Kate's face as watched her sleep, mesmerized for several long moments by the steady rise and fall of her chest, reminding him that she was here, alive and well, and breathing.

She was lying on her back, face turned sideways towards him, one of her arms subconsciously resting on her side where she'd been shot, her other arm sprawled across the bed, claiming his space as hers. She wore short pyjama shorts and her gorgeous bare legs were illuminated by wisps of moonlight coming in through the open window. It was the kind of image that could inspire him to write an entire story.

Castle thought about covering her with the comforter, but then decided against it.

He liked to nestle in the cocoon of all their expensive linen but Kate preferred the freedom of tossing it all aside. (Of course she did). Plus, it was warm in their bedroom tonight and she was such a light sleeper that the gesture would probably wake her up. Rick was mildly surprised that she didn't wake up when he got out of the bed.

Must be the drugs, he thought.

He'd dragged her to see a doctor after they got back from the precinct last night, in spite of her protests. The older Indian doc had quietly cleaned up her wound, reapplied the dressing and complimented Beckett on her impromptu stitches. They left with a prescription for antibiotics and painkillers, which they picked up on the way back home.

"You'll probably have a slight fever for the next two days, before the antibiotics kick in. It's normal. But if it spikes or lasts longer than two days, go to the ER. And what I mean is go straight to the ER. Is that clear?"

The old man must've sensed his advice would fall on deaf ears, because he repeated it to Rick.

"Make your wife go if that is the case, alright, Mr. Castle?"

Rick wanted to mention that Mr. Castle usually didn't have a lot luck convincing Mrs. Castle to do something she didn't want to, but that he'd make the extra effort this time.

"And Mrs. Castle... stay home from work tomorrow. Spend a day recovering."

Yeah, good luck with that, Rick thought. He was surprised she didn't correct him when he called her Mrs. Castle.

He made smorelettes when they got back to the loft, after they changed into their pyjamas, because it was easy and he was starving and because she needed to take the medication with food.

Kate only ate half of hers, before she fell asleep on the couch, plate on her lap no less, when the adrenaline of the last two days finally wore off. For an instant it reminded him that she was human after all. He'd taken the plate from her and set it on the coffee table.

"Kate...c'mon," he'd then grabbed one of her hands and gave it a little tug, wanting to rouse her enough so that she'd get up and go to bed. Or else she would spend the night sleeping on the couch. "Let's go to bed."

"Hmm...think 'm gonna stay here," she mumbled without so much as opening her eyes.

"No, you're not."

Castle slid one arm under her legs, the other behind her back and picked her up.

"Castle...stop...put me down..." It was a lame, half-hearted protest, her face burrowing into the space underneath his shoulder even as she said it. It made him smile. His warrior, soft, warm and defenceless in his arms.

"That was real fierce, Beckett," he whispered into her hair.

His back started to protest as he carefully carried her up the stairs to the bedroom, but he didn't care. Castle wasn't going to let her sleep on the couch, because he wanted her to be comfortable tonight, and because he selfishly needed her next to him after spending last night with no idea where the hell she was.

She was fast asleep by the time he set her down on the bed, her long limbs warm and heavy. It had to be the combined effect of the painkillers and the lack of real food. She never slept this hard.

Now it was the middle of the night and Castle couldn't stop staring at her.

"I won't lose you."

"You already have."

He clenched his teeth. He needed those damn words to stop running through his head.

It already happened too often in reality. There were less than a handful of women that he'd ever truly loved. And he'd lost them all. Except for Kate.

Castle frowned. These kind of bleak thoughts weren't who he was. He'd lost several people in his life but had never let that define him. Instead, he wore his outgoing charm like a shield.

Then again, it was the middle of the night and his wife just aimed a gun at him in his dreams. It was the kind of combination that put chinks in your armour. No matter how shiny it was.

"Rick...?" he heard Beckett mumble his name.

Had he voiced his thoughts out loud?

He ran the back of his hand along her forehead and down her cheek and she opened her eyes in response. Her skin felt warmer than usual against his. Not alarmingly warm, but she did have a fever, like the doctor suggested she might.

"Hey..." she blinked herself into wakefulness, questioning why he was sitting up. "You okay?"

No.

"Yeah," he told her. "Good. Go back to sleep."

She blinked again. Not believing him. "Sure?"

"Yes."

She reached for him and he took her hand into his own, pulled it up into his space and massaged the top of it with his thumb. The slight, delicate movement lulled her back to sleep in seconds.

He held on to her, knowing he wouldn't go back to sleep tonight.