A/N: This poured out of me after I saw the promo for the season 8 finale. I hope it eases some hearts.
Katherine Alexander, Kay to her friends, wanders along the Santa Monica Pier at sunset, wondering if she should just go home and forget about her hopes. Every day for a week, she comes here late in the day, sits and reads and eats and drinks. Once she even rode the ferris wheel.
The first day, she was nervous, anxious, glancing around her as if expecting an ambush. By now, she's passed through irritated and sulky and landed in dull despair.
Still, last Monday was a year to the day since her life took an extreme turn, and while there have been hints and vague references, she can't be sure that she's interpreted them correctly. She can't help the hope that's always lived inside her, since the day they met.
Hope that's getting harder to keep afloat with every day she spends here.
She sighs, breathes in the sea air. There are worse things than having to relocate, change one's identity, and find work in a completely new field, especially in sunny California. She should be grateful for her life, for not having to watch her back every moment or fear for those she loves.
She's safe now. She hates being safe.
Kay slips off her sandals and steps off the sidewalk, detouring to stick her toes in the sandy surf, and as she stands in the fading sunlight something catches her eye. Some movement among the massive piles, a shadow among the shadows. Her head whips around to focus, to find the source of the movement.
Anyone else would turn and walk, or run, in the other direction, but there's something still of the cop in her, so she calls out, "Who's there?"
She can barely make out a tall, broad-shouldered form, not hiding exactly, leaning with its back against a pile, facing her. She takes a step forward and her eyes adjust to the dimmer light, and she catches sight of a silhouette with shaggy hair, faint glints of light reflecting off a watch on the wrist and the rims of a pair of glasses. Apart from the wind stirring hair and clothing, it remains still.
Until she takes another step, and another, until she's ten feet from the shadow and it speaks.
"Kate."
It must be colder than she thought, under the pier in the twilight; she's shaking, and her heart is pounding, pulse rushing in her ears.
"Kate," he says, and steps right up to her, within arm's reach. "Are you - can I - "
She lifts her hands, not sure what she's about to do with them, and he stands there waiting, until she lays her palms on his chest. Slides them upward until they encounter the hot pulse in his neck, then an unexpected field of half-silky, half-prickly hair on his jaw.
"Castle," she breathes. She can make out a smile growing on his face, feel it under her fingertips, and when he tips his head the right way she can see the beard and mustache, the near-shoulder-length hair, the dark gold of the glasses that she's sure he doesn't really need.
"Rick," she says through a suddenly tight throat.
His hands come to rest on her hips and he bends to lay his open mouth on hers, finding her as open and hungry as the day they parted, and they kiss until her head swims. They stand tangled in each other's arms, salty tears drying in the salt air on both their faces.
"How?" she manages to ask.
"Does it matter?" he replies. His grin shows no sign of faltering. "Richard Castle has become a recluse, lives in his Hamptons house alone, writing, seeing no visitors except his family and friends. He corresponds with his publisher and agent, and has a thrilling new series ready to debut in the fall, which will be promoted without the usual obligatory book tour."
"What about Alexis, and Martha?"
"Getting on with their lives, and insisting that I get on with mine," he says softly. "Which is right here, with you. Always."
She laughs out loud, for the first time in months, maybe a year, and flings her arms around him. He squeezes her tight and lifts her off her feet, and when he puts her down she takes his hand and leads him out from under the pier.
"You look like a beach bum," she tells him. "Who are you now, by the way?"
"James Richards," he says. "Retired banking executive, come to live in the sunshine. You like the beard?"
"I like the hair," she replies, reaching up to run her fingers through it. "The better to grab you with."
His dark-eyed look is familiar - he knows exactly why and under what circumstances this grabbing will take place - and her hopes rise and float away, only to be replaced with something far lighter and yet more durable.
Joy.
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