Summary: "To open your heart to someone means exposing the scars of the past." – Unknown.

Author's Note: Very minor spoilers for the end of the season. If you're not up to date on spoilers, you probably won't even know what part of this is inspired by them because it's just one little tidbit of information that my mind ran away with. This was the result. Thanks so much to Andy for helping come up with the title and to dtrekker for the lovely cover art :)

Disclaimer: If I was associated with Castle in any way, I wouldn't be writing about the spoilers...because I'd already know what's actually going to happen.

Into The Light

"Castle, what are we doing?"

"If you don't know by now..." he teased with a raised eyebrow, gesturing between their naked bodies.

"That's not what I meant," Kate replied, voice serious, and he lifted his eyes to hers to find them hard and intense, so different from just a few minutes earlier when they were wild and feral and darkened with arousal as she hovered over him.

Okay, so not the time for jokes.

"What do you mean?" he asked. Not a joke, just confusion.

"Us." She motioned between them. "We've been doing this for almost a year now but I just feel like..." She trailed off, searching for the words to convey her thoughts, her recent concerns. "At first it was enough, you know? Just being with you."

"And now it's not?" His arm slipped from its place around her waist as he pushed himself back and up onto one elbow, distancing himself from her and her painful words. "Now I'm not enough anymore?"

"No! That's not..." Kate exhaled on a heavy sigh. This had not come out like she meant it to. Not at all.

"Are you breaking up with me?"

"God, Castle, no," she spluttered instantly, panicking, because what should have been a simple question was so quickly spiraling so far out of control.

"Well I'm sorry if that's how it sounds," he replied icily. "But, I mean, suddenly I'm not enough and..."

"It's not...I just..." she stammered, pausing to regain her bearings. "We...what's next for us?" It wasn't eloquent, but at least the words were out there.

Castle opened his mouth to reply, forced it shut again when no words came out. Because Kate Beckett - the woman who had kept one foot out the door in relationships for years - was asking him for more. And he had absolutely no idea how to respond.

"Okay," she spoke after a moment, resigned, her heart breaking even as the words left her mouth. She should have known better than to think that someone who had been divorced twice would want to commit again. She should have realized it a long time ago. Back when she might have been able to stop herself from falling in love with him. "Okay."

"No, Kate..." He reached for her but when she flinched away from his touch, his arm fell limply to the bed.

"What, Castle?" she challenged, clutching the sheet to her bare chest as she backed away from him beneath the covers, already curling in on herself, protecting herself. "What am I supposed to think? I just asked you where we're going and you didn't have an answer for me."

"No, I just...it took me by surprise," he admitted, voice rough and torn, eyes wide and panicked as he hastened to explain before she distanced herself any further. "I...I know where I want us to go...I just...what if you aren't ready to hear it?"

"What if you don't tell me?" she asked, a near echo of her words from just two months earlier.

"I just..."

"I asked, didn't I?" Kate pressed. "I asked you, Castle."

"I know, but..."

She raised an eyebrow disapprovingly, and he fell silent, contemplating his words.

"Just say it," she demanded, exasperated, at the exact moment that he opened his mouth to speak.

"I love you," he blurted, going for broke. She said she was ready to hear it. And at this point, he might as well lay it all on the table.

She froze as the words registered in her mind, heart skipping a beat at hearing those three little words leave his mouth once again.

"I love you, Kate. I've waited so long to be able to tell you that again," he admitted, unable to stop now that he started. He had to get it all out. "If you don't...you know...but like you said, you asked and I just...I've been so afraid to say it again because I didn't want to make you think I was getting too serious too fast." He bumbled his way through the explanation, his word choice a far cry from that which made him into a best-selling novelist, but it was all he had in this moment, naked, in bed, put on the spot by the woman he desperately wanted to spend the rest of his life with. "But, God, I can't remember the last time I was so happy. I can't remember the last time I felt like this. And it's all because of you, and I just want to be with you, Kate."

It was her turn now to freeze, completely speechless, and she was sure the look on her face was a clear representation of the maelstrom of emotions and thoughts swirling through her mind, fear and anxiety intermingling with hope and love.

"Castle..."

"I want us to be together," he continued, plowing on. "I'm in this Kate. I'm in this for good."

She averted her gaze then, blinking back the tears threatening to fall at his words, his sincerity, and the love brimming from his eyes. Because the way he was looking at her...how could she ever have doubted him?

"Okay," she managed. It was so completely insufficient, but it was all she could muster right now.

Kate saw the confusion flash through his eyes, the disappointment, and she cursed herself once again for her complete lack of eloquence, her inability to find the words when it really counted.

"Okay?"

She opened her mouth, closed it again as she scrambled for the words. "That's...what I needed to hear, Castle."

"And?" he prompted after a tense moment of silence. "Was that the answer you wanted?"

Kate nodded, fighting back the onslaught of emotions. Because it was everything she needed and so much more. It was the promise and the love and the commitment that she'd been questioning as of late due to his unwillingness to open up, the way his feelings towards her almost seemed to have stagnated. Like they were spinning their wheels, both reluctant to take the next step.

She never thought she'd be the one to push things forward.

"Yeah," she murmured, realizing she still hadn't offered an answer. "It was."

Castle visibly relaxed then, easing himself back down onto the pillows, rearranging the covers around his naked body. He opened up his arms, leaving space for her if she wanted but also providing her the option to keep a bit of distance between them. He did, after all, just lay a lot of information on her.

Much to his surprise, Kate settled in next to him, close enough that he could wrap her into his embrace, but far enough away that she could dip her head down into the cradle of his body, avoiding direct eye contact.

After a long moment of silence, Castle finally spoke, voicing the first of many questions weighing on his mind.

"Why now?"

She lifted her head, finally met his eyes. "What do you mean?"

"What caused this...sudden need to know?"

Kate shrugged, an attempt to pass it off as no big deal despite the fact that they both knew it was anything but. It was the largest step forward that they had taken since the night she showed up soaking wet at his front door. And it was a very big deal.

"I guess I've just been thinking about it a lot lately," Kate admitted. "Ever since the case where Ryan went undercover."

Castle cocked his head, not following.

"It was this whole giant part of his life I didn't know about, you know? And then there was the Jordan thing that you didn't want to tell me about and it just made me wonder."

"Wonder what?"

She shrugged. "What else I didn't know. And why you were so reluctant to tell me. I just...I guess I felt like you didn't want to open up to me."

He shook his head. "It wasn't that I didn't want to...I just..."

"I know," Kate interrupted. "You were afraid it would change the way I'd see you. You told me that. But Castle...how can we be in a relationship if we can't tell each other things like that?"

He sighed, ran a hand over his face in defeat. He should have known better than to expect that they would not eventually face this challenge. That she would not eventually catch on and realize that she wasn't the only one with a tendency to hide her heart. Because the truth was that he was just as guilty, if not more so.

"I'm no good at this, Kate," Castle admitted ashamedly. "I'm no good at relationships."

"Castle," she began, ready to protest, because how could he think something like that? He'd been nothing but the sweetest, most supportive, most loving boyfriend she'd ever had. Sure, they bickered and fought and they both had their faults. But this...

He held up his hand, stopping her before she could defend him. "I'm not," he reiterated. "And I know that I'm not. I'm not good at opening up."

"But you've been married..." she interjected.

"But I've also never really needed to," he finished, answering her simultaneous question.

Kate cocked her head, curious.

"Meredith...she was wild and fun and interested in money and fame and a luxuriant lifestyle. She didn't really care about all the other stuff, and she never asked so I never told her. And once she got pregnant, I just wanted what was best for Alexis, so I proposed. Obviously it was a mistake. But I didn't realize that all that other stuff mattered in a relationship. I mean, it didn't in the end," he breathed out on a self-deprecating chuckle. "We would have gotten divorced anyway. But still."

Kate nodded slowly, Meredith's parting words flashing into her train of conscious thought.

"And Gina?" she prompted, nudging him forward.

Castle exhaled heavily, as though this conversation was costing him immensely. It probably was. "We made sense on paper," he explained. "And it was convenient from a business standpoint and we got along well enough and she was a mother figure of sorts for Alexis."

"That doesn't make a marriage, Castle," Kate pointed out, needing to understand, to ensure that they were not headed down the same path, poised to make the same mistakes and inevitably fall apart. She liked to think they were strong enough to do this right, but hearing about the train wrecks of his past marriages...now she wasn't so sure.

On the other hand, at least he was telling her, opening up about his past, and that was a solid start.

"We loved each other," he continued, referring back to Gina. "Or, well, we loved what we knew of each other. But you're right...that doesn't make a marriage. Not when the relationship was so superficial to begin with."

"So you never told her about the significance of Jordan? Or any of the other stories you've told me?" she asked, slowly putting the pieces together in her head, weaving it into a backstory that made sense.

Castle shook his head. "I've done a lot of things I'm not proud of and I...don't necessarily like to talk about them. With Meredith and Gina...obviously they knew about some of it. But the rest...they didn't ask so I didn't tell because it didn't really matter."

"But it does matter, Castle," Kate admitted, needing him to understand. "Because all of those things are a part of you."

He met her gaze, his eyes filled with pain and fear. "What if I don't like those parts of me?"

She shrugged. "You think I like everything from my past? You think I like how many years of my life I spent buried inside my mother's case? You think I like how unhappy I was, how much I missed out on?"

"No, but..."

"But you still know about it, Castle. And it's not fair of you to expect to dig into my life without allowing me the same glimpses into yours," Kate pressed, desperate for him to realize that it went both ways. That he wasn't the only one who was afraid to open up to the potential pain and heartache that came with love. It still terrified her on a daily basis just how deeply Castle was enmeshed into her life, just how broken she would be if they were somehow torn apart.

But she chose to take the leap all those months ago when she showed up at his doorstep. Now she needed him to make the same commitment.

"But what if it makes you realize..." His voice broke through her thoughts before she could find the words to voice her concerns.

"Castle, you just told me how you feel," Kate interrupted, opting to go about this from a different angle. "You just told me. And that's in spite of everything you know about my past. What makes you think it would be any different?"

"Because it's you," he blurted as though it was obvious. "And you're a good person and a cop, and I was...a lot of things that reflect poorly on my character."

"So was I."

"But what if you change your mind?"

The pain in his voice, in his eyes, was almost unbearable, and her heart twisted at seeing him in such agony over this.

"Do you trust me?"

His gaze snapped back to hers. "What?"

Kate reached for his hand, thumb gently stroking over his tender skin. "Do you trust me, Castle?"

His reply was effortless and for that she was grateful. "You know I do."

She smiled, locking her gaze with his in hopes that he could see that he was not alone in this. "Then trust me when I say that I want to know, Castle. I want to know you. And I know it's scary to open up about your past, but no matter what, it won't change how I feel about you."

There were tears in his eyes, a hitch in his voice as he spoke again, still so defeated, so afraid. "But what if it does?"

She leaned in, pressed her lips to his, affirming her next words. "It won't. I promise."

END