AN: Episode reaction to 4x21, "Headhunters." I wrote this immediately after (unusually fast for me), so please excuse any mistakes that may have snuck in.

Never-Gonna-Happen Land

"Is this where we are too?" He asks without preamble, pushing inside her door, past her. Invading her space. "Never-gonna-happen land?"

"What?" She exclaims. It's safe to say she didn't expect that. Him. Not after today, after the past weeks. But she closes the door behind him, and turns to face whatever comes next in this rollercoaster that they've become.

He takes three long, urgent strides into her apartment, then turns around to face her. Two long strides back, and he is crowding against her front.

She gasps in oxygen, starved for air with his chest so close to her, takes a stumbling step back and her shoulder blades connect with the door behind her.

His palms slap onto the surface of the door, one on each side of her head, and his face is close, so close that she feels his rapid breath stumbling off his lips.

"You risked your job today," he asks, his voice a low dark rumble, "for me."

She tries to breathe, can only nod at his question, at his invasion of her space, so close and heated. Desperation thrumming through his every movement, every breath, and it makes her shake inside, her blood rushing in her ears.

"Why? Why, Kate, why?"

"Because," she presses forth the words. Runs her hands up his chest; he is close, so close and she can't stop her betraying hands from touching him. Her palms come to rest on his pectorals; she feels his heartbeat slamming against his ribs and into her skin.

"It's what partners do." Her words barely more than a whisper, robbed of her voice and all coherent thought.

"Is that all?" He almost growls the words, and she subconsciously clenches her fingers, digging into his skin. His eyes flash, darken.

She shakes her head. No, no, no.

"Then what Kate?" Suddenly his strength seems to leave him; he tilts forward, rests his forehead against hers, his breath against her nose and lips.

Her mind is mired in confusion; she's been tilted off her axis for weeks now, can't figure out what is going on, what has happened between Castle and her, and now this.

What do you want to do? Dr. Burke's words run on a loop through her head, almost mocking her and the truth is, so many things, she wants to do so many things. There's so much she's been holding back, so much she's been trying to figure out.

So much that has held her hostage in its endless hopeless loop.

Maybe she just… needs to let it happen.

She runs her hands up further, wraps them around his neck, her fingers ruffling the short hair at his nape.

"I can't keep waiting," he murmurs, and his words squeeze her heart like an icy fist. No Castle no, please don't give up on me-

"…if this is never-gonna-happen land."

Her brain screeches to a halt; her fingernails claw into the skin of his neck. His eyes spring open, connect with hers and there is darkness in his gaze, want and passion and a gloomy level of desperation.

"Why do you think-?"

"I know you heard me," he admits; low voice, sunken spirit. She looks at him questioningly, urges with her eyes. Tell me Castle.

"Heard me say I love you."

There's silence. An infinite moment where she can't think, can't breathe. Neither does he, and she clings to him, suspended in time and years of misunderstandings and missed opportunities.

Kate gulps for air, holds on to his neck, keeping his face close. "I'm sorry Castle. So sorry," she whispers, lets free the words and the host of regrets that lies within them. She never wanted to hurt him.

She caresses the tendons of his neck. "I was-", she nudges the tip of her nose against his, pushes out the word on a breath of air, "healing."

Castle lifts a hand off the door, presses his index finger against her lips. "Later," he murmurs. I need to say something, and so she tethers herself to him, and waits.

"I realized, tonight, that I want this badly enough that I'll get over being hurt." He pierces her with his eyes, mysteriously blue like the evening sky, so full of emotions that she can't grasp them all.

"But I need to know that this isn't never-gonna-happen land," he urges, his voice low and hopeful and wanting, needing more from her, something to hold on to.

It's more than she's been able to give. Until now.

She shakes her head, cants her body forward. One arm tightly wrapped around his neck, she pulls herself against him, wraps a leg around his hip. It almost knocks him off balance, her movement a surprise and he slings an arm around her waist, lacing them together, holding on.

"Castle," she whispers against his lips, enthralled by his dark aroused scent, his glistening lips, his strong body finally in her arms.

"This is gonna-happen-right-now land," she murmurs, and before the surprised gasp makes it across his lips, she swallows it with her mouth.

She covers his lips with hers, and its fast and desperate, and plastered to him, she seeks entrance into his mouth, delves inside with abandon, a slew of suppressed feelings and built-up want bursting into the warm cavity of his mouth.

He growls, dark and wanton, pushes her back against the door while he answers her quest, her plea, her admission. She needs his warmth, his strength, his compassion, his humor, his stories, his loyalty. Him, she just needs- him.

She pushes away, creates a half-inch of space between their lips, her breathing heavy, mingling with his.

"I love you, Castle," she admits, and then she smiles, bright, cheeks spread wide because it's like a cloud has lifted and the sun is finally breaking through. "I love you."

There's a moment of suspended silence, and then he pulls her up, off her feet, his arms around her waist, holding her tightly to him, and she clings to him, her legs hooked over his hips, her arms slung around his shoulders.

"I love you too," he murmurs against the hollow of her neck, and her heart leaps excitedly; love, desire pooling low inside of her abdomen at his words at his beautiful words.

She nips his earlobe with her teeth, whispers against the shell of his ear. "Take me to bed Castle."

He carries her to the bedroom.

And she lets him.

The End.