This started out as a tumblr ficlet, but then it grew to over 1000 words.
Based off a prompt from the tumblr castlefanficprompts: Castle and Beckett watching a meteor shower in the Hamptons. Hope I did it some justice!
She's a total little kid on Christmas morning tonight.
He's only ever seen her like this a few times. One would be when she was fangirling over that baseball player, really the first time he'd seen her so giddy. Another would be on the morning of their actual wedding, with no kidnapping and fake-car crashes and grief and fire. A third would be when he'd let her be a first reader for a Nikki Heat novel. She'd tried to maintain composure, but the giddiness was unmistakable. Helped that he'd heard stories of Fangirl!Beckett from her father that made him laugh and her cringe.
But that night when he'd hinted about those stories she'd sat him down and told him the true impact of his books, the fangirl post-January 1999. And he almost cried.
Tonight is not a night for almost-crying. Tonight is a night to stand in awe of the wonder that is giddy, excited Beckett, to be reminded again of just how much he loves this woman. She's been pulling him along by the hand, holding a picnic blanket in her other hand, a digital camera dangling from her wrist. He's holding onto a picnic blanket full of the best 2 AM Meteor Shower treats they'd whipped up, including some of that red wine. Because if anything was true about his wife, it was that she loved her red wine. A lot.
"Come on Castle we're going to miss it," she huffs, "Hurry up, old man!"
"I'm not an old man," he says, "And what does that say about you if I'm old?"
He gets an eye roll for that one as she hauls him out the door, the slight chill of the night enveloping them as they enter out into the grassy hill. She rushes on ahead with a cute little jumping run, setting out the picnic blanket hurriedly and sitting down. She smiles at him as he catches up, breathing deeply. He settles down next to her, placing the basket out on the pale blue pinstriped sheet.
"Slowpoke," she says, curling up her knees to her chest as he opens the basket, pulling out some of the paper plates and the carefully packed glasses.
He shrugs, "I was carrying the delicate stuff, remember?"
"True," she says, turning to look up at the sky as he continues to unpack their 2 am picnic. She pauses, "When do you think it'll start?"
"Who knows?" he muses, "These things don't exactly run on an exact schedule."
She nods before turning back to look at the starry sky above them. He'd noticed that she always did that out here. Being in the city, one didn't really see the night sky. Light pollution, the insidious scourge, held reign over urban areas. Whenever they were out here or at her dad's place she was always so fixated on the night sky, as if she was absorbing the starlight to fuel her own inner light. Recharging those dragon eyes and her unicorn hair (he swears it works like Rapunzel's in Tangled- her hair downright glows) and her beautiful, scarred, but still beautiful heart.
"You don't get to see them back at home," she says quietly, "The stars."
"No," he says.
"Not like I think the light we have at home is bad. We can't exactly blackout the city- God would that be a nightmare for all of us at the 12th or what! Criminals like the dark too much," she says, "But I guess it's still nice to see it sometimes. It's revitalizing somehow, to be reminded of all of that natural beauty out there."
He just nods. Until he'd gotten the Hamptons house he hadn't seen much of the night sky growing up. Kate had had her father's cabin. With his mother working all the time or touring, he hadn't often been in areas far enough removed from big population centers to see the sky in all its glory. At best he'd seen a few stars at boarding school- better than New York- but not the glory he could see above him now. And Kate was right. It was reviving.
She shifts over to his side of the blanket so that she could look at the sky over the ocean, cuddling into his side as he subconsciously wraps an arm around her shoulders.
"I remember the first time I saw a meteor shower," she says, "I was seven. Dad had brought us all up to the cabin on one of my mom's rare off weekends for a few days away. Mom loved going to the cabin when she could, getting away from her work. We'd all gone out to the porch facing the lake, and I had been settled between my parents on the bench swing."
"Mom explained what each shooting star was, that they were really bits of comets and what not falling to Earth and that they burned when they came into the atmosphere. She said that they were lucky, that they could grant wishes. Being the little skeptic I was I didn't believe that."
"Come on, a little kid not believing in shooting stars?" he says, "Did you ever believe in anything?"
"You know me Castle," she says with a laugh.
"That I do."
They sit and tell quiet, short stories over wine and the various treats- from star-shaped sugar cookies to smores, star-cut finger sandwiches to good old chocolate chip cookies. She starts all of a sudden, lifting a hand to excitedly point at the sky.
"Look! Look it's starting!"
The first streak of light crosses the sky, brilliant against the dark. Her hand is gripped tightly in hers, the wonder on her face bringing a smile to his. He would never get tired of her seeing the things she loves. He would never get tired of her, really. Never.
"We should make a wish," he says, smiling.
"You know I don't believe in that."
"Come on Kate, this once?"
She looks at him for a second before sighing, "Fine."
"Okay, make a wish."
She closes her eyes a second, seeming to agree on a wish before tracing the path of a particular falling star. He makes his wish- all he wants is to be able to do this again, to be able to stay with this amazing woman for the rest of the time they have together.
"What did you wish?" he asks, seeing her smile that smile she had when he let her edit his draft for the first time- suppressed giddiness.
"Aren't I not allowed to tell you? It's a secret between me and the meteor, no?" she says.
"I thought you didn't believe in such things," he says.
"I don't," she says, "But it's still a secret. But I'll tell you this- it was good. It was a really good one."
Years later he finds out it was the same as his. And regardless of his wife's skepticism, it seems that the double-wish worked. Because every year after they get out to his Hamptons house to watch the meteor shower when it's a clear night. At first just the two of them, but as the years go on with one, then two, then three little ones who believe that meteors grant wishes.
And as far as he was concerned, they most certainly did.