So I wrote this just under a year ago (October 14, if you're wondering) and never got around to posting it until now. I definitely don't think it's the best way I've written a proposal scene yet, but I think it needed to be done.

AU, after Squab and the Quail (if, as originally intended, it had aired after Still). The Human Factor and Watershed never happened, neither did any of Season 6.

Disclaimer - If I owned them, Kate would never have gone to DC at all.

~~~~~One hour earlier~~~~~

-Kate Beckett-

Beckett was in the bath, relaxing after what had been an extraordinarily stressful case. Her mystery writer boyfriend, Richard Castle, had just given her the most amazing massage she had ever had, and then insisted that she go have a nice hot bath, telling her that he had a quick errand to run and a couple of calls to make, but he'd be back by the time she was out of the bath. She was still annoyed by the fact that he had entirely avoided her question about where their relationship was going, but she was definitely less so after the massage that he had given her. Besides, he'd tell her in his own time.

-Richard Castle-

Rick pulled his iPhone out of his pocket as he stood on the pavement outside his apartment, and quickly dialed a number. It rang twice before the man on the other side of the phone picked up. "Hello?"

"Hi, Jim. It's Rick. There's something I need to ask you, and I'd prefer to do it in person. Would you mind if I came by your place in about fifteen minutes?"

"Sure. Is... Is Kate alright?"

Rick managed a smile. "She's absolutely fine. She's enjoying a nice hot bath at the moment, taking a well-deserved rest. I told her I had a couple of things I needed to do, but that I'd be back by the time she was out of the bath".

"I see. I guess I'll see you in fifteen minutes then".

"Indeed".

Rick hung up, before flagging down a cab and jumping into it, quickly giving the driver Jim's address before settling back to wait. This was going to be a big night...

~~Fifteen minutes later~~

The cab pulled up outside of Kate's father's apartment, and Rick hopped out, handing the driver a $20 note and telling him to keep the change. In a few quick steps, he was at the door of the building, and it was being opened by a man who looked to be maybe 15 years older than Rick himself. "Rick. Please, come on in".

"Thank you, Jim".

Closing the door behind them, the older man led the way into a sparsely-decorated living room, the walls of which were hung with photographs of Kate's family. The man sat down on the couch against the closest wall, gesturing for the writer to do the same. "So. What's this about, Rick?"

Rick sighed softly. "I've had the enormous pleasure to spend the last five years working alongside your daughter, and they have been the best five years of my life. But I'd like the opportunity for more. I can... I can actually see myself having a family with Kate. Two children, one of each gender. One with blue eyes and brown hair, and the other with hazel eyes and black hair. Jim... I'd like your blessing to ask Kate to marry me".

Jim appeared taken aback briefly, though he nodded after a couple of moments. "And you have my blessing, Rick. I think I've always thought of you as a son, to be honest, so it won't be too much of a change for me to start calling you my son-in-law. Besides, I can tell that you're good for Kate. Make her happy, alright?"

Rick smiled broadly. "I intend to, sir. With all my heart"

"Good".

~~A few minutes later~~

Rick whistled cheerfully as he walked out of Jim's apartment building and down the front stairs to the pavement, and quickly flagged down an approaching taxi. Giving the driver his own address, he glanced briefly at the time before pulling his iPhone from his pocket and calling his daughter. "Alexis"

"What's up, dad?"

Rick smiled to himself. "I just wanted to let you know that I'm going to propose to Kate. Tonight. I just got her dad's permission".

"Seriously?"

"Seriously"

"Does she make you happy, dad?" his daughter queried.

He loved how concerned for his happiness Alexis was. It was one of her best traits, in his opinion. "More than I think she could ever know" he responded honestly.

"Then I'm happy for you both, I really am".

~~~~~Present~~~~~

Kate Beckett sighed softly in satisfaction, leaning against her boyfriend's shoulder. "Castle… That was a fantastic massage, and the bath was just what I needed. Thank you so much for that idea"

"You're most welcome, Kate".

The detective stretched lazily. "Still… You never gave me a straight answer. Where do you see our relationship heading?"

Her boyfriend turned to face her, though angled himself that she could still rest her head comfortably on his shoulder if she wanted to. "I'm falling deeper and deeper in love with you every single day, Kate. I've never wanted to be in a relationship with anyone as much as I have with you, and I've never been happier with anyone in my life" he said softly.

She knew then that he was being entirely truthful. "I see. Um… If you don't mind me asking, why did both of your previous marriages fail?"

He sighed. "I told you, of course, that I married Meredith when I found out that she was pregnant with Alexis, right?"

"Yeah, you did"

"After Alexis was born, Meredith decided that her job was more important to her than her own daughter, and left almost all of the actual parenting to me, only seeing Alexis, her own daughter, as much as was absolutely necessary. I think I always knew that she was cheating on me, but I put up with it for Alexis's sake. Of course, once I found her with her director, in our bed, actually having evidence to support what I had always suspected, I couldn't turn a blind eye to her cheating any more. Especially since Alexis was in the very next room at the time. I filed for divorce a day later, and it was all over fairly quickly. She didn't even try to fight for custody of her own daughter…"

"Meredith told me that your marriage failed because you knew a lot about her, but she didn't know anything about you. She actually compared your marriage to a soufflé. I never really believed anything she had to say, but I can't pretend that it didn't worry me even the slightest bit" Kate said softly.

Rick snorted. "Maybe she didn't know anything about me. But that's because she never actually cared enough to ask. I'm not saying that that didn't have anything to do with the fact that our marriage failed, but the fact that she was cheating on me was the most important part".

"I understand. You know I love you more than anything else in the world, right, Castle?"

The writer smiled gently at her, before giving her a soft kiss. "Of course I do, Kate. And I feel the same about you. I always will. Anyway… That's why my marriage to Meredith failed. My marriage to Gina failed because it was doomed from the start. We seemed like the perfect couple, you know? The writer and his publisher. I wrote the books, she made me the money. I was sure that she'd be the mother figure that I wanted Alexis to have. Of course, it didn't take long for me to realize that it wasn't going to work out. Although to be fair, both marriages also failed because we rushed into it. We didn't take the time to properly get to know each other before getting into a relationship. We were never best friends before we officially got together. We never had what you and I have".

Kate felt herself blush as he spoke the last couple of sentences, and she knew without a doubt that what he was saying was the honest truth. "And that's why you've been taking things so slowly? You don't want to make the same mistake again?"

"Exactly. Kate… I want this; want us, with every fibre of my being, more than I've ever wanted anything before. You are the most extraordinary person I have ever met, and I don't ever want you to forget that, alright?"

How is it that he always knows just the right thing to say to make me feel good about myself? She wondered, before nodding slightly. "Alright, Castle. I won't forget, I promise".

"Good".

As he spoke, he got to his feet. "I'll be right back; I have to grab my laptop from my office. There's something I want to show you. Would you care for a glass of wine?"

"I'd love one. White, if you wouldn't mind".

"Of course. White it is".

~Moments later~

Rick quickly returned to the couch, handing her a glass of white wine and placing his own on the coffee table next to his laptop before rejoining his girlfriend. She noticed as he sat down that there was a strangely-shaped... well, a strangely-shaped something... in his right pocket, and her first instinct was to ask him about it, but she quickly stopped herself. No, she thought. He'd bring it up by himself if he wanted to. It was better to wait for him to bring it up rather than risk ruining what he had planned by asking him about it before he had a chance to do whatever it was. By the time she came to this conclusion, Castle had picked up his laptop, pulling it quickly onto his lap and opening a document that they both knew he had been using to write the dedications for the Nikki Heat series. "Kate. This is what I wanted to show you".

She looked over, and saw that he was indicating the last line on the document's page. "To Kate. May the dance never end and the music never stop" she whispered.

Her boyfriend nodded. "It seemed the most appropriate thing to put there".

She merely smiled gratefully at him. She had no real desire to go into how many of her concerns about their relationship had been alleviated by those two sentences, but it was a lot of them. Maybe even all of them. "It's perfect".

She didn't wait to give him a chance to respond, instead pressing her lips against his in a passionate kiss. She was surprised when, instead of reciprocating like she had expected him to, he pulled away slightly, reaching forward to place his laptop on the coffee table again. "There's something else, Kate…"

His right hand brushed against the box in his trouser pocket, and he knew without a doubt that now was the right time to do what he had wanted to do for a long time. "I was originally planning to do this on our one-year anniversary, but then that bomb case last week got me thinking. Thinking about those things that get planned but then circumstances force us to do them differently. I've known that I want to spend the rest of my life with you for a long time now, but I don't think it had really sunk in until recently" he said softly.

He carefully reached into his pocket and drew out a small box of black velvet, which he rested on his knee. "I actually bought this just after our last faceoff with 3XK. I was just waiting for the right time to give it to you".

Is he about to do what I think he's going to do? Kate wondered. Once again, her boyfriend's voice broke her from her thoughts. "Kate".

She blinked. "Rick…"

"These past five years with you have been some of the best years of my life, and I never, ever, want them to end. You have changed my life, you have inspired me to a point where there are no words to describe how indebted to you I really am, and I fall deeper and deeper in love with you every hour that goes by. I never thought I'd want to get married again after Gina and I divorced, but you... Wow, Kate. You made me change my mind, made me realize that you are the piece that my life's been missing all of these years, and there is no-one else I would rather spend the rest of my life with. You are selfless, brave, strong, loyal, smart, and gorgeous. You, Kate, are extraordinary. You once told me that you were a 'one and done kind of girl', and, if you'd let me, I'd like to be that for you." Here he paused momentarily to flick the velvet lid of the box back, revealing an elegant white gold ring with a diamond in the shape of a heart set into the top, with four smaller diamonds set down either side. "Katherine Houghton Beckett… will you marry me?"

She had no idea what she had been expecting, but it certainly wasn't this. She stared with wide eyes down at the ring in her boyfriend's hand, in a stunned silence, trying to put together a response. She knew that he loved her, but this... She had never imagined how truly in love with her he really was. Oh, wow. Holy crap. He actually… He just proposed. I expected that he had a good idea of where he wanted our relationship to go, but this... I can't believe he just proposed to me. Yes. Yes! Just say it, Kate! Instead of replying right away, she exhaled slowly. "Rick, I've been a fan of your books for years, ever since my mother died. They, you, are one of the very few reasons that I managed to make it through the dark period of my life, and I couldn't have picked a better person to fall in love with if I had tried to. I love you more than you will ever know, Rick, and there is no-one that I would rather spend the rest of my life with than the man whose characters gave me hope that, one day, I could get past the pain her death caused me and find true happiness. I just... I just never imagined that the person I would find happiness with would also be my favourite author. There is no-one I would rather spend the rest of my life with. My answer is yes. God, Richard Edgar Castle, yes. I will marry you".

Just as he was slipping the ring onto her finger, and reaching for his glass of wine to offer a toast to his extraordinary fiancée, there was the sound of a key turning in the lock and Alexis stepped in, waving quickly to the two of them. "Hey dad. Hi Kate".

Kate smiled at the teenage girl. "Hi, Alexis. College keeping you busy?"

"Mostly. Finished most of my coursework for the week already though, so I thought I'd drop by and see you guys. And how are you?"

"Pretty good, actually" both adults responded in unison, before glancing at each other and cracking up laughing.

It was then that the engagement ring on Kate's left hand, which rested on the back of the couch the couple were sitting on, gleamed brilliantly as it caught the light. Naturally, it also happened to catch the red-headed teenager's attention. "You said yes?"

Kate looked surprised. Not as surprised as she had been when Castle had proposed to her only moments before, but still surprised. "You knew he was going to propose to me?"

"He called and told me while he was in the taxi on the way back here from your father's place. But seriously, you said yes?"

Beckett nodded. "I said yes"

Alexis grinned, before running over to pull both adults into a hug. "Congratulations. I couldn't be happier for you two".

Kate smiled at the red-headed girl. "Good. Because in that case, I'd actually like to officially ask you to be one of my bridesmaids".

Alexis gasped. "Seriously?"

"Seriously".

"I'd be delighted to!"

There we go. Thoughts?