Disclaimer: They're not mine. I'm only borrowing them for the summer. Andrew Marlowe is doing a spectacular job. Way better than I could ever do.

A/N: I was so struck by Castle's bruised, stunned, aroused, overwhelmed expression as Kate took his hand and led him towards his bedroom at the end of 'Always' that I felt the need to explore their morning after. Spoilers for Season 5, as if I know anything!

WINNER of the 12th's Fan Fiction Award for Best Novel (50K+ words)

And All The Mornings Ever After

Chapter 1 - Open Your Eyes

"So…" whispered Kate, a slight smile curving her lips and threatening to break wide open like the sun bursting free of a cloud, "you wanna talk about it?" she asked tentatively, looking up at him from beneath dark lashes.

The bedroom was still in semi-darkness and she had absolutely no idea what time it was. Kate hadn't even had a chance to get a good look around. After her desperate arrival at his loft the night before, when one more minute without him had seemed simply inconceivable, they'd ricocheted around his sumptuous, masculine space, guided by occasional flashes of lightening that burned as bright as phosphorous, while they tore at each other's clothes, lips and teeth burning a trail across love-starved skin as they fought to break free from their stilted past.

But none of that mattered this morning – their fractured history, the lost time - because right now her world had shrunk to this bed and this man, lying real and whole and warm beneath her. Now she had everything.

"Rick?" she prompted, laying her chin on her hands as she rested against his stomach, her naked body stretched out against the length of him, watching the steady rise and fall of his chest as he breathed.

Castle laid still. Kate Beckett was in his bed…and she was offering to talk, wanted to have an actual conversation about last night, about them? The world had just tilted on its axis, surely?

Kate had woken to a fluttering excitement in her chest and stomach, a tingling, aching, wonderful, thrilling need that pulsed through her body all the way from her toes to her fingertips. She'd never felt so happy, so alive, so desperate to face the day and just talk and talk and plan. She felt dizzy with the scale of it, like the future had just cracked wide open in front of her, a long, amazing road stretched out into the distance for her to travel with Castle by her side. And she had so much to tell him that she needed to start right now. She was bursting with it. The joy.

"Rick," she whispered again, nudging his ribs with her nose as she pressed her lips against his sternum. He stirred a little when she flexed her fingers wickedly against his side, teasing him awake with the light scrape of her nails over his soft, vulnerable skin.

His eyes were still closed, but he opened them at the sound of his name, and when he did, the fear she saw there stalled everything, and almost broke her heart in two. There were tears in his eyes, and when he squeezed them closed again the hot, salty liquid escaped, and ran down the side of his face to soak into the dark, richness of his rust-colored pillowcase.

Oh! Oh, no. No. No.

"Castle?" said Kate, pulling herself further up the bed and then curling round to cradle his head and shoulders against her chest, wrapping him up in the warmth of her body, the shelter of her arms. "Shhh," she whispered as she rocked him from side-to-side.

A sob finally escaped his lips, and he was mortified, had never been more ashamed or felt less of a man in his life. But when he hazarded a glance at Kate through tear-studded lashes, the broken open, ripped apart, grief-stricken look on her face said it all. She understood; she got this better than anyone - his fear that last night was some kind of cruel aberration, that today she was going to get up from his bed and walk out that door and act like none of this had happened, like none of it mattered. He was terrified that she was going to run from him, that she was going to shut back down again, cutting him out of her life, holding him at arm's length. If she did any of those things he wasn't sure he could cope. Not anymore. Not after he'd had a taste of this, of how good they could be.

"Castle, talk to me," she said finally, when the tears had stopped rolling down his face and hers. "What are you afraid of?"

He shook his head, too choked up to speak. He wanted their morning after to be so special, full of the best that they were together; the teasing, the flirting, and judging by last night's performance, the hottest sex he'd ever had, followed by the most profound, tender love-making his romantic, hopeful soul was ever likely to experience.

But now there was this – lying here in Kate's arms weeping like a baby because he was overwhelmed and desperate and never wanted to let her go again. 'Jeez, Rick, pull it together', he silently chided himself, swiping angrily at another tear.

"I'm sorry," he managed to choke out finally, clearing his throat which was painfully constricted from the effort of trying and failing to hold it all in, to keep it from her.

But this was Kate Beckett, and no one knew him better than her, so he shouldn't be hiding this. He had to share. He owed her that after the verbal chastisements he'd put her through, the criticism he'd leveled at her for failing to face the truth, for not wanting to talk, for holding back.

"Don't be sorry," she whispered tenderly, ghosting her lips across his forehead, down his temple until she pressed them firmly against his hair, inhaling the scent of him, completely unashamed that he could see what she was doing, how she needed to absorb him.

"All a little overwhelming, I know," she said with understanding, holding him closer, giving him back some of the support he'd given her these past four years.

"Anything you want to ask me?" she offered, when silence stretched out again, punctuated only by their quiet breathing.

Castle drew a shaky breath, and slid his hands up to clasp the slender arms she had wrapped around him, weaving them even closer together, anchoring them to one another as if he feared they'd drift apart without it.

God, she'd messed this up, messed him up.

When he didn't answer her, she dipped her head and pressed her lips to the bare skin at his shoulder, feeling him shiver under her touch and then relax against her.

He had fought for her yesterday at her apartment with so much honesty and heart and passion.

Now it was her turn.

"Thank you, Castle," she breathed, her eyes closed. "For all the things you've done for us…for me. All the things I did and didn't notice. All the ways you cared for me that I ignored or hid from because I was too scared to let you in. I owe you so much."

He let out a long shaky breath at her words, and then gulped in a little air, teetering on the edge of losing it again.

Kate stroked his hair, drawing her fingers through the soft, luxurious thickness of it, soothing him with her touch.

"You know, all of this…last night, it might have come as a shock to you, but not to me. I was ready, Rick, have been ready. There just never seemed to be the right moment…the right moment to tell you how I felt. But I've been sure for a long time," she said, her voice coming out good and strong. "And then hanging off that ledge, my greatest fear wasn't falling or dying. Not anymore. No, my greatest fear was never having any moments left to tell you, perfect or not…running out of time to say, to share with you…that I…that I feel the same. That I love you, Castle. That I love you so fiercely there were times I thought it might break me in two," she said, her voice catching on the last word, "watching you almost walk away."

Castle stirred in her arms, but she held him still, silenced him with a light touch to his lips. She needed to get this out to make him understand, to make it better.

"You've been woven round my heart for so long that you're a part of me now, and it made me careless, Castle. I'm so sorry. I took you for granted. Abused you like I abused myself. Well, not anymore. Starting today we are more than partners, if…" she paused, suddenly uncertain.

"If…?" he asked, terrified of what came next, just waiting for that other shoe to drop.

"If you'll have me?" she asked, light and tentative and just a little unsure.

"Oh god, Kate. Have you?" he asked, his voice cracking with relief. "You're really asking me that?"

"Yes, I guess I am. Because I just kinda barged my way in her last night and assumed…but you…"

He flipped them over in bed, looming over a startled Kate as her head settled back against his pillow cradled in the palm of his hand.

"Kate I meant every word I said in your apartment. Four years of longing and loving you and daring to hope you might feel the same way, someday…" he said, staring earnestly into her eyes.

"Someday is here, Castle," she said, sitting up a little to nudge his nose with her own, before brushing her lips across his as she lovingly held his head in her hands. "No more waiting. No more wondering. Just you and me…always," she added, smiling against his mouth.

"Can I still bring you coffee every morning just to see you smile?" he asked, his face lit up with joy now as he reverently traced the curve of her neck, her shoulder, the planes of her face with his fingertips, the touch of humor easing the moment, bringing him back to himself.

"Might have to be coffee in bed, but sure, I'll still smile for you, Castle," she teased, tugging him down on top of her and winding one long leg behind his thigh as she shimmed beneath him, reveling in the solid weigh of his body pressed up against hers.

"What do you think Gates will say?" he asked, when they came up for air.

"Hmmm," hummed Kate, toying with his ear, while she lazily kissed the side of his mouth. "Not our problem anymore."

Castle pulled back a little to look into her eyes, his brow knitting together in confusion. "What do you mean?"

"I resigned yesterday," she said simply, pulling him back down on top of her and silencing him with her insistent, mind-blowing mouth.

"Wait, Kate. What? You what?" he asked, pulling back and struggling up onto his elbows.

"I resigned. It's no big deal," she said lightly.

"The hell it is. You love that job," he said fiercely.

"I may have loved that job at one time. But look what it was doing to me, Castle. Look what it nearly did to us," she said, sitting up in bed so they could talk this through properly. So she could make him understand.

"That job brought us together, Kate. If it wasn't for that job there would be no you and me, no coffees, no smiles, no always," he croaked.

"So it served its purpose," said Kate calmly. "We found each other, and now that part is over. We move on. Together."

"But…" he said, a little exasperated at how calm she was being, as he ran a hand through his hair.

"But?" she prompted gently, ducking down to look into his eyes with such tenderness it threatened to overwhelm him all over again. "We'll figure this out, Rick. There are other things I can do…I'm sure," she said, sounding a little less certain. "You always said I'd make a great stripper," she joked, trying to keep things light, pushing him playfully in the chest.

"Kate, that job was a part of you. A part of who you are."

"And now it's time to see who I am without it. To see who I am without the crusade that brought me to police work in the first place. You said it yourself once, that I crawled inside my mom's murder and I hid there. Well, I'm not hiding anymore, and I want you with me when I find out who I really am. I want you there, Castle, so that we can make each other happy instead of miserable. I want to experience life with you, to build a life with you, not just exist amongst death and destruction, fighting our way through every day."

"Are you sure? You don't have to decide right away."

"As I've ever been about anything," she assured him, smiling gently. "You know, I was wrong when I told you yesterday that my mom's case was the most important thing in my life. So wrong. And it took for me to almost die before I realized how deluded I'd become, how blinkered, how selfish. Because you are the most important thing in my life, Richard Castle. You guided me back to life. You have shown me that there is a better way to live. That fun and laughter and the love of family is a good, good thing. You saved me, Castle. And I don't want to waste another minute."

Her eyes were clear, earnest even, her gaze unwavering, not one flicker of doubt or reluctance present.

"Tell me that you love me?" she asked, the question sounding tentative after her strong, determined speech.

"Oh Kate, of course I love you. I will always love you," he said fiercely.

"Then I have everything I need right here. We have each other, Castle, and that's all that matters," reassured Kate, sounding more certain than he'd ever heard her before.

"Now how about you show me just how much you love me, huh? 'Cause I'm starting to get withdrawal symptoms," she said with a wicked grin, tightening her arms around his back while her tongue did wicked things to his ear, and her hips rose to meet his with a grinding heat that had him pressing her down into the mattress with an overwhelming desperation.

And if all their mornings began like this one, he'd die a very happy man.

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