Title: Roaring Waves

Summary: They need to make sure this is real.

Rating: M because this is pure smut! Do not let the angst fool you! Smut smut smut!

Disclaimer: Santa kind of failed me on this one – I don't own anything to do with Castle. Sigh…

He wakes up in a cold sweat, his body shuddering. He stares blankly into the darkness of his room, unseeing. The images run through his mind; she is in all of them. It's not just the shooting at Montgomery's funeral – it's various other scenarios. The only thing that is the same in all of them is that she is there, bleeding out, while he can do nothing but scream.

Cool, lithe arms wrap around him, and someone plants a whisper-soft kiss to his temple.

"Rick."

It's her, thank God, it's her, and she's alive. She's more than alive; she's safe, with him. Kate. His Kate.

He's usually the strong one in their relationship. Kate Beckett is tough; she's had to be with her job, with all she's been through. But despite her immense strength, Rick's always the one to hold her up, be her rock, to keep her grounded. He's usually the one to hold her when she wakes up shivering. He's usually the one to comfort her, to chase the nightmares away. But not tonight.

He started having the nightmares after the shooting, and while he's tried his best, he can't fully make them go away. He's just glad that she understands.

He runs his hands over her body, touching every inch of her skin, feeling her breath hitch as he touches one of her more sensitive spots. He needs to feel her, to reaffirm that she's real, and not some tortuous phantom.

This happens sometimes during the day, but more in an I-can't-believe-how-lucky-I-am, how-did-a-guy-like-me-get-you sort of way. This isn't anything like that. It's more of an I-need-to-make-sure-you're-real sort of way.

She responds. She knows, understands better than anyone else, how this is for him. Three nights ago she was the one waking up in a cold sweat. And, just like she's doing with him now, he let her touch him, press herself against him, confirm that what they have is real and not another dream.

Eventually, he kisses her. Slowly, almost sorrowfully, before gently peppering them along her face. He wants to kiss every part of her, humbly paying homage to her beautiful body. She is the goddess and he is the worshipper. She is the temple and he is the keeper; her only keeper.

He can never have his fill of kissing her – he'd spend the rest of his life kissing her if he could. But after a while it's not enough.

She shifts, allowing him to pin her to the bed, to cover her body with his. Her arms wrap around him, holding him, massaging his back as she hooks her ankles around his waist. They are still slow, painfully slow, keeping the fire at a light simmer.

He enters her gently, and she arches a bit to allow him better access, a deeper angle. They rock together, a steady rhythm, and he can feel the heat within him building. By the way her nails dig into his back, she's close as well. They're pressed together, trying to defy physics and become one person, their bodies melding perfectly together.

When they come, they come together. He makes sure of it. She's usually loud in bed – something, she admits reluctantly, she never was with her previous bedmates – and he's never one to keep his mouth shut. But when it's like this, there is never any noise. His name falls from her lips, carried out on her breath, more of a though then a word. He whispers her name hoarsely, repeatedly chanting in her ear like it's a kind of prayer.

The orgasms are different, too. There is no high, no feeling of soaring or euphoria. Instead, it's like pounding waves that build up before a storm, until they crash through their bodies with the force of a hurricane, sweeping them away into a deep place. It's weirdly beautiful the way nature at her fiercest is beautiful; amazingly powerful and awesome and so incredible that your breath is just sucked out of you and you begin to believe in God.

He really does believe in God during those moments, because between the connection he has with her, the love they share, the joy in being with her, and the body-wracking feeling these lovemaking sessions give him, he can't just think it's all luck and chance and animal magnetism.

When they finally come down, they still press together, still touch each other, dancing fingers over faces and entwining legs. She's pressed against him, as close as she can get, and he's holding onto her like she's the only thing keeping him anchored to this world. And in some ways, right now, she is.

"I love you."

It's a prayer, an offering, a sacrifice, a hope, an admission, a confession, a promise, a joy, a pain, a pleasure, a conformation, a sacrament, and so many other things rolled into one powerful feeling. He could spend the rest of his life writing but he would never be able to finish describing that feeling, what it does to him, what it means to him, how it engulfs him. It enslaves and liberates him all at once.

"I love you too."

He hears his own emotions mirrored back at him when she says those words, and he knows she feels the same. No matter how they tease, no matter how against PDA at the Precinct she is, no matter how she laughs him off and chastises him, calling him a hopeless romantic… she feels the same way. And in some ways, she's more of a romantic then he is – but don't tell her or his nose will be sore for days.

In the morning, everything will be back to normal. A breakfast filled with laughter and flirtation, Alexis dispensing her wisdom and sly jokes, another murder to solve, the boys and Lanie to have fun with… but here, now, there is nothing. No past, no future, nothing other than the two of them.

The nightmares will come back, for her and for him. But they will chase them away, again and again, until nothing is left but love.

And so sleep slips over them with the gentleness of a lapping wave at low tide.

Well, let me know what you think! It's a lot more serious and all then my usual smut and I know I wasn't as descriptive as usual (sorry). Please leave a review; they're the carrots that feed my plot bunnies!