A/N: Thank you everyone who added this to their alerts or favorites, and thank you (especially) to the ones who decided to cheer up my day by reviewing :)

Okay, now you can't say that I'm not trying to make up for the lost time, haha!

This was supposed to be longer but when I finished writing this part I thought it stood well on its own, so I'll leave the rest for the 7th chapter. Hope you like it. (Don't mind me, I've just been sobbing over my own words while writing the entire chapter.)

Chapter 6

'After all, the broken stones
That were thrown, for no good reason
Inside, she's loving him still
And though her heart bears the scars
No sign of healing, It's all right
She's loving him still, after all this time.'

The street was quiet. The majority of the light and the noises came from the now distant theater entrance. A few people had passed them by, an elder woman, a group of teenagers…but now, now they were alone. Alone in an impenetrable silence.

Kate shivered, she didn't mind the rain but it was starting to get cold. Not that she would have preferred going in the car with Martha and Alexis. Actually, when Castle had asked her if she was okay with him walking her home, she had been quite happy. Anxious and scared too, but happy. This was a moment she knew they needed. This was her chance to tell him everything, to fix it. The words whispered by Martha into her ear, just before they left the theater, echoed in her head: "It's never too late to fix our mistakes, dear. Even the most imprudent ones. "

Beckett glanced at Castle who was walking next to her, hands on his pockets, eyes on the horizon. He seemed fine, at a first sight. But the scars, the scars were there, all over the place. The sadness hidden in his eyes, the way his lips weren't curved in a permanent smile anymore, those deep dark circles under his eyes. But in one way or another, he had healed. He had buried the past. Was it fair for him that she was bringing it all to the surface again?

"This is the part where you explain what the hell you were thinking back then," he spilled it all in one breath. Fair or not, it seemed to be what he wanted.

"I know," she sighed. "I'm just wondering where to start from."

"That night, at your apartment, would be a good place to start."

"Oh no," a thinking smile appeared on her face as her eyes glazed. "It comes from way long before that."

"From when, then?"

"It's hard to tell."

"Kate."

"Wait, I'm getting there," she took a deep breath, staring at her own feet as she walked before speaking again. When she did, her voice was nothing more but a whisper. "It dates back to the time I realized I was in love with you."

"What?" he stopped abruptly, and so did she. "You were in love with me?"

"I…was, yeah," maybe that wasn't the right time to tell him that she was pretty much still in love with him.

"Damn it, Kate! Why didn't you just tell me that? Seriously, why would you even push me away? Did you…Did it cross your mind that I didn't feel the same way?"

She laughed quietly. An ironic, sad laughter.

"It did cross my mind, yes. But deep down I knew you did. Because…because you told me and I believed in you," that was it. She had said it. "But that's precisely the reason why I-"

"Wait. Are you saying you…you remember?" he interrupted.

"I am," the look in his eyes broke her heart all over again. Even in the dark she could see his pain, the way something that looked a lot like a tear showed up in the corner of his left eye. "Rick, I…"

"You what, Kate?" the momentary sadness in his voice had turned into pure anger, and he was now yelling. "You heard me stating my most sincere feelings and you decided it was a good idea to ignore it? To pretend it had never happened? Why, Kate? If you felt the same, it doesn't make any sense! You better start explaining things clearly, because so far the only thing you've gotten is me angrier and more confuse than I've ever been. And it's starting to get cold, so hurry the hell up!"

Kate shivered again, but this time she was pretty sure the cold wasn't the cause of it. His flushed cheeks and furious glare were doing it for her.

"Sorry," he muttered, clearing his throat and starting the walk again, waiting for her to catch him up.

"It's alright, I deserved it," she said as she started walking as well. "Castle, there are things you don't know about me. You have known me better than everyone else, but there are still things I don't tell anybody."

"I'm listening."

"I used to wake up in the middle of the night with nightmares. I'd see my mother lying dead in that alley over and over again. I'd see myself finding out who her killer is and being swollen for some dark hole before I could catch him. And the night before I told you I wanted you to leave…I'd had a dream in which you got killed because of my mother's case. Because of me. And hell, that got me thinking. I knew you were in love with me, Castle. I knew that if I went too far, you'd be coming with me," she glanced at him again through the corner of her eye. He was impassive, taking her every word in. "You could get hurt, Castle," her voice quivered, so she stopped speaking for a moment. "There were so many reasons why I thought the right thing was pushing you away…"

"Kate, that doesn't cut it."

"Wait, I'm not finished yet," in fact, she knew that even when she was finished, he wouldn't be able to forgive her. She saw that now, in his eyes. Sometimes, it really is too late. "I didn't tell you I had heard you at the funeral because I was healing. I was going to a therapist, you know? Trying to put myself together, mainly for us. Because you deserved someone who didn't wake up screaming in the middle of the night. Because I couldn't stand to give us a shot and mess it up. But that night, after a day chasing down a bunch of fake leads and useless suspects I…I lost all my faith. In me. I came back to the thought that the only way of healing was finding that bastard and take him down. But I didn't know how long that would take and I couldn't have you there, waiting. Waiting for something that perhaps would never happen. It would have been too selfish from me, you understand? Especially because I'd be putting you in danger. More than ever. Castle I couldn't afford to lose you," she felt a salty taste in her mouth and only then she noticed the few tears that were streaming down her face, mixing themselves with raindrops.

"Is that all?" he sounded so cold that Kate suddenly felt an excruciating pain in her heart, in her stomach, all over a body. She stopped for a moment, but this time he didn't stop with her. Instead, he kept walking, maintaining the same rhythm without even looking back.

"Castle!" she yelled. The last syllable being barely audible, since her voice got caught up in her throat, blending with a sob.

"What?" He turned around, yelling as well. They were now twenty feet apart in the empty sidewalk. Even at that distance she could see his angry eyes and red cheeks, she had hurt him. Bad.

"Wait!" she screamed and ran to catch him, pulling his arm when she finally reached him. "Wait for God's sake, Castle!"

Silence fell upon them as he stared into her teary eyes, apparently pondering on what he was going to say next. Kate didn't move her hand from his arm, pretty sure (now more than ever) that that was the last time she'd be feeling how warm he was even out there in that winter night.

But suddenly he was harshly placing an arm around her waist and pulling her closer. His right hand came to cup her face and he looked her right in the eyes before crashing his lips onto hers, with so much force that she opened her mouth immediately, caught up by surprise. Beckett tried to think, tried to understand if it was better to just go with it or stop it, but her thoughts weren't clear. Everything was hazy and she was hypnotized, incapable of stopping him. When she started to respond to the kiss, opening her lips over his, he slid his tongue inside her mouth, brutally exploring it. She could feel the anger mixed with passion, with desire. And then there were tears, tears everywhere, hers, his, mixed with raindrops. He slid his hand down her hair, titling her head back and moving the kiss to her neck with the same amount of persistence and fury. She moaned and let her hands play with his hair. He came back to her mouth, and this time it was her who put everything into the kiss. Her feelings. Her frustration, her anger, her love. His mouth kept moving over hers, their tongues fighting for something they both knew they couldn't have. Each other.

Suddenly, he pulled back, leaning his forehead against hers.

"This. This is what we could have been, if you had given us that chance," he whispered. She noticed then that they were both intensely panting."Kate, why didn't you just tell me?" And before she could say anything, he was letting her go.

She wanted to ask him what that had been for. She wanted to yell at him for even thinking he had the right to kiss her like that, like she was his. She wanted to slap him for daring to use a kiss to release all of his anger. She wanted to yell until his ears were burning for just giving her thirty seconds of hope, ruining it all after. Instead, she took a deep breath and wiped her tears away, smoothing then her completely messy hair.

"Because if I had told you, you wouldn't have let me go," Kate answered.

A/N2: I think, that after this super fast update, I deserve some reviews, lala. I'd really love to hear what you have to say on this one :)

Well, and while you wait for the next chapter, you could always go check my new fic :p (Its title was 'There's something I need to tell you', but I changed it to 'I'm sorry' and it's taking time for the site to update it so..you know...just go to my profile and chose the one with either of the titles above xD)