A/N: An AU set post 5x24, 'Watershed'.

"Take me back to places I feel loved in...

Strange that I'm not seeing you as often

Wandering around in cities I feel lost in

What if all the costs are even?"

-Boston, Dermot Kennedy

She's running late. As always.

But today, it matters. She promised her dad she would join him for Thanksgiving dinner and she only has a couple of hours to make it happen.

She should have known better than to book a flight so close to the actual date of the holiday, let alone the day of Thanksgiving, but she and McCord have been working this case all week and they needed the extra day-

Kate pinches the bridge of her nose while she waits for the cabin's door to open, let the passengers off the plane that's arrived over an hour late. She's been living in DC for a over six months now and she's good at her job, one of the best agents the AG office has ever had, according to her partner. But lately, especially with the holidays approaching, it's been consuming her.

And now, after two hours of sitting on a plane with too much time to herself, too much time in her own mind, the hollowness inside of her chest gapes. The loneliness gnaws at her, makes her think of him, miss him.

They never got to spend a Thanksgiving together.

Kate purses her lips and twists her finger around the chain clinging to her neck, toying with the ring it carries.

They haven't spoken since that day on the swings, when he called her to meet and asked her if she was going to take the job. She told him she was, that it was what she wanted, what she needed to do. Something settled over his face, a resignation that still haunts her, and he nodded his head, rose from his swing, and wished her the best before sealing his goodbye with a kiss to her forehead.

She should have gone after him, but instead, she remained glued to her swing, trying to breathe past the sucker punch to her gut, her heart.

It's been six months and her chest still feels bruised.

Kate rises from her seat as soon as the flight attendant gives the all clear and wishes them all a Happy Thanksgiving. Snagging her duffel from the overhead bin, she slings it over her shoulder and strides for the exit. She tortures herself on the walk through the airport, wonders how he's spending his Thanksgiving this year.

He was stupid to agree to a six month book tour across Europe, one that didn't conclude until the day before Thanksgiving. He's been flying for two days straight, jet lagged and desperate to make it home in time for the promised dinner with Alexis and Mother, who are already displeased by his extended absence. He's sure they're not thrilled about having to do all of the holiday cooking either. That's usually his job.

Rick taps his foot impatiently at baggage claim, waiting for his suitcase to appear on the silver carousel.

He usually loves Thanksgiving, looks forward to this time of year and the flood of holiday excitement, but this year, there's a bitterness in his mouth, the taste of loneliness on his tongue.

He clenches his fingers around the velvet box in his coat, turning it over and over and over in his hand. He's already memorized every cut and curve of the small jewelry box's perimeter, has rubbed the black velvet raw, but he can't will himself to get rid of it. He can't will himself to stop carrying it around with him.

Six months ago, he met with Kate at their swings, planning to propose to her. But the words came out all wrong, his insecurities prevailing and inquiring about the job in DC instead. It wasn't supposed to matter, he was supposed to ask her regardless, tell her how he wanted her, wanted them, regardless.

But instead, he let her answer crush him. So he crushed her too.

He was wounded and he was hasty, not allowing her to explain any further, not allowing himself to hope for anything more. She wanted the job in DC, so he told himself that meant she didn't want him.

And because of that, he's spent too many nights in too many different hotel rooms, staring at the ceiling and wishing he would have just shut his mouth and stayed.

He misses her.

He presses his thumb hard to the top of the box.

He should be marrying her.

Kate rushes to the line of waiting cabs, watching it dwindle. She does not have time for this. She needs to get to her old apartment, take an hour to prepare for an entire evening with her dad and all of the questions he's bound to ask despite his support, his quiet nature. He loves her, but she knows he's been worried.

Not to mention she also has to pick up the cranberry sauce.

By the time she reaches the stand, only one yellow taxi remains and she closes her hand around the door handle.

"Wait!" Her blood runs cold. She knows that voice. "Do you mind if we-"

And it seems that by the time the body it belongs to actually reaches her, is close enough to catch a glimpse of her face, it regrets calling out to her.

Kate glances up from the cab's door to see Richard Castle coming to a startled stop at her side.

His heart is pounding too loud in his ears.

"Kate."

Her name slips from his lips like a forbidden curse, breathless and choked. She looks gorgeous. Exhausted and rushed, just like he feels, but gorgeous as always. Her hair is trimmed, curls limp but still falling down around her shoulders, tangled in her scarf, the dark circles under her eyes darker, cheeks hollow. She isn't eating well, but what did he expect? She's probably been giving everything to the new job.

"Hi."

Her throat ripples. "Hi."

The cabbie honks and they both jerk. She yanks the door open, but he catches the frame as she tosses her duffel inside.

"I - can we share a cab?" he gets out, remembering the real reason he just raced across the terminal to stop the woman taking the final cab left in sight. "Thanksgiving is - Alexis is waiting, has been waiting, and I have to get home."

She bites her lip, but glances to his suitcase and sighs, calls to the driver. "Pop the trunk."

He breathes out a 'thank you' and hustles around the side of the car to haul his luggage into the trunk. Kate is already settled in the back seat once he slides inside. Her body is tense, a statue sitting as far away from him as possible.

"Go ahead," she murmurs, nodding to the driver. Castle hesitates, but gives the man his address.

"Are you sure you don't need to get to your place first?" he asks as the car shifts into drive, pulls onto the road.

"No, I have some time before I'm meeting with my dad," she explains, picking at the knee of her jeans.

Castle nods, but he can't stop staring at her. She notices.

"How's DC?"

The sharp line of her jaw tightens. "It's good. How was the book tour?"

His brow arches. "How'd you know I was-"

"I got the emails from your website," she explains with a halfhearted shrug of her shoulder. He almost wants to tease her for still being a subscriber, but it still struck him with warmth that she no longer hid her support for him and he doesn't want to risk tainting that. "Also Ryan and Esposito."

"Ah." His lips quirk. "They must miss you."

Her hand fists atop her knee. "They're fine."

He nods, twines his fingers together in his lap to refrain from fidgeting. "So was Europe."

"Just fine?" she murmurs, a chuckle attempting to form in her throat, but falling flat before it can leave her lips. "Weren't you in the most beautiful cities in the world?"

Rick shrugs. He wants to tell her how impossible it was to enjoy anything there without her, how he kept seeing her in shop windows and lines at his signings, imagining her exploring the cities with him. "I was just there to do a job."

He can feel her staring, but he doesn't say anything more.

"Did Alexis go with you?"

"No, I almost convinced her to come with me to London. She's always wanted to go, but it's just… too soon, after Paris."

What little color she has left drains from her cheeks, some of the horror from that memory flashing in her eyes, and she nods.

"Of course."

"She told me you guys talked," Castle mentions. "She skipped a therapy appointment a couple of months ago, said she called you instead."

"Just once," she confirms, splaying a hand over her thigh. "She was having nightmares and we'd talked about my PTSD before… it's all we talked about."

"It would be okay if it wasn't," he assures her, but Kate barely acknowledges him.

"And I wasn't encouraging her to skip therapy either, she was just feeling overwhelmed-"

"Kate," he murmurs, resisting the urge to reach across, cover her hand. "I know you'd never tell her to skip therapy. And I'm glad she called you."

A soft breath flutters from her mouth and she relaxes back into her seat a little more.

For a few minutes, they're quiet, breezing through afternoon traffic until they navigate deeper into the city.

"Damn parade," she sighs, rubbing at her forehead with two fingers, the spot above her brow where headaches usually fester.

Castle cranes his neck around the passenger seat. He didn't even think to factor the unending road block of the Macy's Thanksgiving parade into his travel plans. "May have to walk the rest of the way."

"Foot traffic is going to be just as bad," she grumbles, following his gaze and tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. The sky is cloudy today, the air cold, but streaks of sunlight filter through the grey, dance across her cheekbones and lace through her hair.

His fingers tingle with the urge to do the same.

"You look good, by the way."

Her eyes startle across the backseat to stare at him. He feels pretty startled himself, didn't exactly mean to say that aloud, especially now.

"No, I don't," she mutters, snagging the strap of her duffel bag at her feet. "And neither do you. We both look like shit."

He scoffs, runs a hand through his hair. "My fans would say otherwise."

"Your fans don't know you like I do," she points out.

He hates her a little more for being right. No one knows him like she does, in all the ways she does. He doesn't think he ever wants anyone to know him as intimately as she does.

She reaches for the door handle.

"Kate, wait," he huffs, digging in his pocket for his wallet, a few dollar bills to appease the griping cabbie. He stumbles out of the cab after her, almost forgets to grab his suitcase from the trunk. "Kate!"

She only has a few extra steps ahead of him and thankfully stops at the call of her name.

He jogs up to her side, suitcase trailing after him. "What, Castle?"

"We're both heading the same way, let me walk with you."

She glances up at him with her brow so deeply furrowed, face so trouble. All because of him. "Why?"

His grip tightens around the handle of his suitcase.

"Because I - I didn't know how badly I needed to run into you today," he manages, his ears burning red despite the cold. He doesn't expect the devastation to claim her face, roll through her eyes, darkening the already dulled shades of browns and greens. No gold. Those gold sparks he still dreams about have been extinguished.

"Castle, you told me goodbye," she says with grit teeth, but her voice still shakes. "You told me good luck and left me alone on those swings. You ended things. Why the hell are you doing this?"

"Because it was a mistake," he growls, crowding her into an alley a few steps ahead, away from the bustling sidewalks.

"It's been six months-"

"And I haven't stopped regretting it."

Kate scrapes a hand through her hair and squeezes her eyes shut. "I came here for Thanksgiving with my dad, Rick. Not for you to just-"

"Have you moved on?" Her eyes flash open, a glare hard as amber already aimed on him. "Was it ever really over for you?"

"I'm not the one who wasn't willing to try," she grinds out.

"It wasn't that I didn't want to try," he groans, scrubbing a hand over his eyes. Fuck, this is all wrong, coming out all wrong. "I didn't think you'd want me to follow you to a new life in DC," he admits without removing his hand from his eyes. "I didn't think-"

"No, you didn't. Are you kidding me?" she snaps, shoving on his chest and demanding the drop of his hand and return of his gaze to her. "You follow me everywhere, you always have, and suddenly you decide it's a bad idea? Suddenly you're the one not talking and giving up on us and-"

"I never gave up," he growls, curling his hand around her bicep before she can draw her hand back. "I - Kate, I've wanted you for so long. I've never loved anyone the way I love you, in a - forever kind of way," he tries to explain, feeling like the kid he was before he became a writer, failing to accurately put his thoughts into words.

"So your solution was to break up with me?" she demands, her eyes beginning to shine. "You think I didn't feel the same about you? That it didn't scare me how much I loved you?"

"Of course, I just - wait… you - in the forever kind of way too?"

Kate rolls her eyes and shakes her head. "Castle, if you would have asked me for forever, I would have given it to you."

His heart drops and the jewelry box weighs heavy in his coat pocket as she brushes past him.

Her heart is aching, physically throbbing with pain inside her chest and crying out with every step she takes away from him. She just needs to get away from him.

But he isn't going to let her go that easy. He never makes things easy.

"Kate," he yelps, tripping over his suitcase in his haste to catch up to her. "Just wait-"

"Castle, go home," she calls over her shoulder, lengthening her strides across the street. The flashing sign of a crosswalk changes behind her, signaling for pedestrians to stop, but she can hear the stupid roll of his suitcase gaining speed.

"You can't just say that and walk away," he snaps, jogging up to her side and keeping pace, much to her dismay. "We never talked about forever, not even about marriage or-"

She rounds on him, because no, she won't be blamed for this. He nearly bumps into her with his suitcase, jerks back a little at the unforgiving stab of her finger to his chest.

"Anytime I tried to talk to you, I got brushed off. I hate talking, I'm not good at it," she growls, because he knows, knows how hard it is for her to express how she feels. But with him, it was different. "With you, I tried my best because you mattered. Because I wanted a future with you."

"Do you still?"

Her brow immediately creases. "What?"

They're getting bumped and jostled by hustling passerby, a grocery bag full of cans likely bought for a Thanksgiving feast slamming into Castle's suitcase. He huffs and yanks the luggage closer to him. On a busy New York City sidewalk is a horrible place to have this conversation.

He reads her mind and takes a step forward, extends his hand. "Just give me five minutes."

Kate glares down at his open palm, his patient fingers, and sighs. She grabs his hand - solely to refrain from being separated in the masses of people - and allows him to lead her the rest of the way down the sidewalk.

He feels the tug of her resistance once she realizes exactly where he's leading her to.

"Castle." She stops at the edge of the empty playground. No kids today, all the usual patrons of the slides and picnic tables, the bike paths and monkey bars, gone, probably preparing for a dinner with their family or in the thick of the parade he and Kate left a few blocks behind them.

He's maintained a loose grip on her hand the entire walk through the city, afraid that if he held her too tightly, she would withdraw even further, force him to let her go all over again. But he squeezes her fingers now, thoughtlessly brushes his thumb to the naked skin of her ring finger.

"Five minutes, Kate," he reminds her, starting forward and earning the reluctant draw of her body behind him.

He parks his suitcase next to the steel leg of the swing set in the dirt, flexing his cramped fingers and wishing he would have packed lighter. He finally releases Kate's hand as he takes a seat in his usual spot, plopping down into the worn leather with a sigh.

Kate circles around him to lower into the one beside him, burying her hands in her coat pockets.

"Why did you bring me here? Alexis and Martha-"

"Are eager for me to get home and I'm eager to get back to them," he murmurs, digging his heels into the cool ground, pushing himself backwards. "But this is important."

"I'm still not sure what this is," she mutters, copying him with the soles of her boots pressing into the grass and the slight back and forth sway of her body.

Rick sucks in a deep breath. "It's me asking you if you'd still want a future with me."

She's quiet for a long moment, staring out across the bare expanse of the park.

"I don't know. Does it really matter? I live in DC now, you're here, and-"

"And I can write from anywhere," he says, receiving the cut of her eyes to him.

"We haven't even seen each other for six months," she points out, pulling her hands from her coat to curl her fingers around the chains of the swing. "We aren't - even if I did, we can't just pick up where we left off."

"No, but we can start over," he tries, his heart picking up speed, because she isn't saying no. She isn't turning him down or walking away; she isn't saying that she doesn't want him. He wonders if she still loves him as much as he loves her, if they really could still have a shot at forever.

She purses her lips. "I don't want to start over."

"Then what do you want?" he asks, curious and hopeful, bridging his fingers in his lap to keep them still.

Kate tilts her head back, face to the grey sky. The breeze blows softly through her hair, freeing a few strands from her scarf and ruffling the layers around her face. Her lips quirk with the hint of a smile tinged with melancholy.

"I want us back," she whispers, her eyes fluttering closed while his heart soars. "But I don't know if it's possible."

Castle swallows, waiting for her eyes to peel open again, the jaded storm clouds of her irises having cleared just slightly.

"I think it is," he murmurs. Her head turns, cheek coming to rest against the cool chain. "You know I never stopped loving you, right?"

"Wasn't sure," she admits, her voice soft, that quiet rasp of a tone he knows from sharing secrets in bed. "I figured you had to have stopped, that it was why you broke up with me. But it didn't… feel like you did."

She drops her eyes to her lap.

"Do you realize how stupid that sounds?"

Her eyes flash back to him with offense, accusation, but he quickly raises a hand, remedies the sentence.

"I mean, hearing that I broke up with you," he chuckles, shaking his head at the nonsense. "After everything we've been through, after the years we spent not being together when all I wanted was for us to be together…" He sighs, frowns at the absurdity of it all. "My mother even told me that same day, before it happened, that I never hold back with anything, only you."

"Why?" she asks, the syllable so small coming from her mouth. "Why just me?"

He shrugs. "Because, along with Alexis, my mother, you are the most important thing, Kate. I think the reason I'm able to brush a lot of things off so easily is because I don't let myself hold on too tightly to much. But when I do… I had to scratch and claw for every inch with you, to feel like you were letting me in, but I didn't realize you had to do a bit of clawing yourself to get the same from me."

"More alike than we thought," she murmurs, her lips twitching.

Rick nods. "But you've been inside my walls for a long time, just like I was inside yours. Whether you wanted me there or not."

She hums, the first real smile he's seen from her in six months flirting with the corners of her mouth. "Mm, you don't have to remind me."

He smiles back at her, can't help it, but it dims a little with his words. "I think the more serious we got, the more I worried that maybe we were both too closed off, that we'd only end up hurting each other. Lying to me about DC felt like confirmation."

"I shouldn't have kept secrets," she murmurs, smile flipping to a frown. "It's a little late now, but I am sorry for that, Rick. It was never to hurt you."

He nods. "I know. Trust me, after having these last six months to think it over, I know I hurt myself more than you did. But I never stopped loving you, Kate," he picks up, watching her eyes flicker with the same ember of hope he feels crackling to life in his stomach. "I couldn't even if I wanted to. And I didn't, I don't."

He stands from the swing and she follows with her gaze, brow knitting.

"Where are you going?"

"Five minutes are up." He taps his watch, but she's rising too.

His rabbiting heart thumps unsteadily.

She's barely a foot away, her eyes roaming his face with a hint of desperation, flicking to his mouth. He doesn't want to say goodbye.

"When do you go back to DC?"

She swallows hard, as if he just yanked her back to reality. "Tomorrow morning. I just planned to have Thanksgiving dinner with my dad, didn't really want to stay much longer."

He nods his understanding, but Kate is taking a step closer.

"But Rachel and I did just close a big case, I technically have the rest of the week off."

"Yeah?" She bites down on her bottom lip and Castle sucks in a breath, lifts a steady hand to cup her cheek. It's useless as she sways into his touch, lashes kissing her cheeks while she covers the back of his hand, stealing every last drop of oxygen from his lungs as she nuzzles his palm. "Then stay."