Disclaimer: Castle is not mine.
a/n: Basically this is a tribute. To several people. Also two quick notes: I will finish all of my fics and this was typed up on my cellphone as just a quickie. With feels and fluff. I wrote it a couple of weeks ago. I figured it could be my first post of 2015. Enjoy the cute.
She's feeling sneaky. It's almost the same thrill she gets when she's undercover and she nails the bastard or at least gets enough intel to put a killer behind bars. This is a little different though. More potent. A bursting pleasure in her veins that curls up her spine and practically pours out of her. She's excited. She's exhausted and excited and being stared at for just standing next to the baggage claim with a goofy grin on her face and a hand over the bump beneath her shirt. Okay, so she probably is a bit of a scene because she keeps smiling and shaking her head but he actually believed her. He actually believed she was too tired to meet him.
She's been here for an hour. She can feel her feet aching and her stomach rumbles. She'd come straight from work. And he's going to kill her when he finds out that she stayed till after ten on purpose. He's probably going to tie her to the bed and doesn't that just bring a whole plethora of racy thoughts. Her brain is scattered, hyper and speeding along. She's easily distracted, thinking back on their conversation hours ago. Him asking if she'd slept well enough and all the new questions he's been bombarding her with since they first found out that she's pregnant.
Even now, several weeks in with a visible bump from their baby and he stills hovers too much, asks too many pointless questions. She tries to go easy on him, only snaps occasionally. Because the whole process, the fact that they're married and she's pregnant with their child, it leaves her in a stupor too. She's stumbling around just as much as he is. Awe is the only word that comes close to describing it.
She looks down at her father's watch, she just wants Castle. She wants him to be here so she can see the surprise on his face. Because he's dumb and actually thinks she could spend one more night alone in their bed. She can't. Not even if she's exhausted and ready to drop. And maybe he believed it because they'd argued. Loud and heated. The very night he'd left and things had been a little careful since. Texts and calls weren't as playful.
She couldn't go home and fall asleep knowing his flight was coming in tonight. Especially when he was thinking she's still upset. But she isn't and when she looks up, she catches sight of him. She'd know him anywhere. That walk, the way he moves, it's embedded within her. Everything about him is entwined through her life and she knows him. She knows that walk. Even through a crowd, she can pick him out easily and she waits. She waits until he's closer.
He holds back and so does she. He hasn't seen her yet, isn't expecting to and he looks just as tired as she feels. He has that rumpled look that makes her think he fell asleep on the plane and he just looks good. His hair is sticking up just a little on one side and she's already itching to weave through the people shoving each other and smooth it down with her fingers. But she waits patiently. Just as he does. And finally he grabs his suitcase from the claim and turns and that's her cue.
He doesn't even notice her moving towards him. He looks determined to leave, bumping through people and offering rushed apologies. And that falters her steps just a little. He's in a hurry. He wants to be home...with her. Someone shoulder checks her, pulling her out of her stupor and she rushes to him. Impeding his path, stepping directly in his way and he finally looks up.
He stops suddenly, making some random man with headphones in ram into his back. If Castle catches the cursing, he doesn't react at all. But she makes the apology as the man scurries by, muttering the whole time. She has to close the few last steps between them because Castle is still standing in the same spot, disbelief in his eyes and a hint of a smile starting to tug at his lips. She's missed him so much. And that's crazy. He wasn't gone that long but she's missed the warmth in his gaze, the softness of his mouth. The heat of his hands and the way they caress. She missed his ridiculously adorable nightly ritual of reading to their baby and how he insists on doing all the voices for each character.
He's just staring and she feels the bubble that built in her chest burst with the smile forming on her face when she reaches for him. Stepping into him and not caring that they're probably in the way of others. They can go around. She's too busy touching his cheek, rubbing her thumb against the stubble.
"Hey." She whispers it low and gentle before she kisses him. Smudging her smile over his for a brief moment that almost becomes more because he's warm and home and smells so good.
"I thought...you said -"
"Too excited to sleep. I wanted to surprise you." Mission accomplished if she's going by the look of wonder on his face.
It quickly changes to one of concern when his hand slides down her ribs, circles over the swell of her abdomen.
"Kate."
"Baby's fine, Castle. He missed you too." She expects him to fuss but he doesn't. He accepts with a nod and then his mouth is back on hers and she doesn't even care that they're in an airport.
She kisses him back. Mouth parting when his teeth nip at her lips and lifting up into him when his fingers twine in her hair. They're making a scene, she knows it. She's aware they need to slow it down the moment she hears the low growl rumble from his chest.
Home. They need to be home.
She grips him tighter for just a moment, pressing her lips harder against his until the heat coils low and dances up her spine. It's not easy to pull away. Not when he's been gone for a couple weeks. Not when she wasn't so nice to him before he left. But none of that matters. It stopped mattering less than twenty-four hours after he'd gone.
And now he's home and she's not upset anymore. Neither is he. She wants to be home, so she steps away and reaches for his hand, linking their fingers as she bites her lip. She can still taste him there.
He looks at her for a moment before they start walking, a childlike frown pinching his brow and pursing his lips and she waits patiently for whatever it is.
It morphs. Becomes a sly grin and then he speaks. Loud enough for her to hear but soft enough that the moment is private.
"You're showing."
"I was when you left, Castle."
"It's more defined." And it's the way he says it that has her squeezing his hand and pulling him along beside her.
"We get home and you can explore that theory."
His steps grow in pace and she keeps up easily. Just as eager. He's right, her belly has poked out a little more and she actually can't wait to show him. To actually lift her shirt and let him see for himself. And tonight, she won't be reading alone to their baby. He will be there too, doing all the funny voices and tickling her side with his scruff.
She's missed him. And now he's back where he belongs.