For my darling KT. I hope the room has stopped spinning, but that you never stop being your extraordinary self.
love is the voice under all silences,
the hope which has no opposite in fear;
the strength so strong mere force is feebleness:
the truth more first than sun more last than star
ee cummings
under all silences
She's been quiet lately, and it makes him nervous.
Not in the day to day, not when they talk about cases or the boys or books. But in the important things, she's been quiet. He can't help thinking back to last summer, the blistering heat that scorched their newly-learned bodies, the sweat-damp kiss of their palms as she led them through the park.
She'd turn to him and say my mom loved these flowers or I'm so glad to be here with you and there was such absolute belief and fierce devotion in her that he treasured every word.
He's been letting it go, letting her have the quiet spaces to think. Even if those spaces are the shell of his body around hers, even if she's quiet when he presses his mouth to her temple.
Only, today he doesn't want to let it go anymore. Not today, not now, when every time she looks at him he sees her hair wet and pooling at their feet, her eyes wide and desperate as she tells him I just want you.
A year. He can't quite believe they've made it this far after everything this year has brought. The triple killer and his daughter's kidnapping and Bracken. Things that should have broken them, but instead taught them to lean on each other.
He learned to love her through anything, and that she could love him too. And it's such a relief, to see her trying, to have her work at this as hard as he is. Maybe harder, sometimes.
"Hey." Kate glances up from the couch, her wineglass cradled in both hands. She's got her legs folded underneath herself, paperwork from the case in her lap.
Castle sinks down to sit next to her, smoothing his thumb over the rise of her kneecap. She's got sleep shorts on again, and a part of him is glad he never saw these before they got together.
It would have shattered his fragile restraint right there.
"Hi. Working?"
He takes a sip of his own drink and waits on her. She's drawn in to the files, and he gets it. He really does. Sometimes it takes the soft and insistent weight of her in his lap to break his concentration. She does that for him, so he can wait on her.
"Mm. Just checking over the files. I don't know how much of this stuff is classified. Half of this probably shouldn't even be in the paperwork."
She shrugs, manages a smile for him even though he sees she's tired. He wanted to take her out tonight, do everything right, but she made him promise they could just go home.
And that was enough. That word. Home. Enough to convince him that expensive restaurants and gossamer dresses are nice, but that's not what the core of them is. That's not what makes them strong.
Today is supposed to be about celebrating the smaller things, having made it safely through the sweetness of the honeymoon phase and found their niche in each other's everyday.
"Kate? Are you happy?"
That startles her and she stares at him for a moment, her mouth parted on an ephemeral sigh. And then she's sliding the paperwork back into the file and setting her glass down on the coffee table, coming back to bracket his hips with her knees, her hands laced behind his neck.
"You know I am."
"You've seemed quiet lately. Like you're thinking. Do you want to talk about it?"
He leans in to kiss her, tasting the tartness of her wine and underneath the lighter notes of beautiful, sacrosanct Kate. She gives it back, rising up to press her chest to his.
Her heart clatters against his ribcage and he slides his palms up either side of her spine to curve over her shoulders and keep her close.
"I am thinking, I guess. Stack asked me where I see myself in five years, and I didn't know. I know what I want, but I don't know if it's. . .realistic."
She drops her forehead to his shoulder and he lets her have it for just a moment, then gets two fingers at her chin to have her meet his gaze.
"What do you want? In five years, if you could have anything, where would you be?"
He cradles her cheek in his palm and when she leans in to his touch, his heart cries out in exultation. However difficult things might seem now, however much of a battle to get her to just tell him, she's still here.
"With you."
Castle grins at that and darts in to kiss her again, paints his smile across Kate's mouth. "I had hoped so."
He kisses each of her eyelids in turn and they flutter closed, her fingers sliding around from his neck to dip into his clavicles.
"What do you see?"
She smiles, her whole face alight with whatever tremulous future she's picturing, and then she leans in to kiss him again and again, like punctuation for the words she hasn't given him yet.
"I see myself coming in the door after a long day at the precinct. And a little boy with these gorgeous blue eyes running towards me to tell me what he and daddy did today. And you, curled up on the couch reading with our baby girl."
And the way she says it, he sees it too. All of it, their son so much like himself but with all of his mother's thirst for the truth. Their serious little girl, whose whole face lights up whenever she sees her mother.
He wants it. So badly.
"That sounds perfect."
Kate's eyes open and she grins again, a laugh she presses against his neck like she wants to keep it safe there. "Yeah?"
"Yeah. I would love nothing more than a family with you."
She blushes and leans in to kiss him again, cradling the back of his head. "Good. I'm glad we're on the same page. But Rick? Stack gave me a card. He told me I'd be great at his job, that I should go for an interview."
"Wow. That's amazing."
He's so proud of her. And that's ridiculous, because he really has no right to be, but it's true. She's brilliant and passionate and everyone around her wants to know her. And she chose him, she let him in.
"But, Rick. The job's in DC."
Oh. Huh. Okay.
"You should at least go for the interview, Kate."
She bites at her lip, curling a hand into his breast pocket. "But what does that mean for us. What if I got the job? What if I went to DC?"
"Have you forgotten I'm a writer?" Kate gapes at him and he grins, arching his neck to kiss her mouth, her cheekbone, follow the tender shell of her ear. "I will follow you anywhere, Kate Beckett."
"But you have a life here. We both do. I wouldn't ask you to give that up for me."
"You're not asking. Look, my daughter's at college now. My mother's busy with her acting school. There's nothing that says I have to stay in the city."
"But Castle-"
He kisses her again to shut her up, needing her to hear him out. "Kate. I'm ready for a new chapter. And if that happens in DC, then that's fine with me."
"But you wouldn't be able to shadow me anymore."
"Okay, so you come home to me instead. Look, I don't want you to turn this job down because of me and end up resenting me the rest of our lives. You have to make the right decision for you. But don't think that choosing to take the job means losing me. I'm not going anywhere."
Kate nods and runs a hand through her hair, her knees sharp against the rise of his hipbones. "Okay. Yeah. I think I'll call him. It's worth at least going for an interview, right?"
"Yeah. Hey Kate?" He waits for her to meet his eyes again and then he smiles, full and rich with all the beautiful moments they've shared. "I love you. No matter what."
"I love you too, Rick. Happy anniversary."
"Yeah. Happy anniversary. I can't wait for five years from now."
That slow and gorgeous seduction floods across her face and she grins, shifting so her hips press more insistently at his.
"In the meantime, you want to practice?"
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