Title: Third Anniversary
Author: dftwinkie (individual authors listed in the chapters)
Rating: T
Spoilers: All aired episodes
Disclaimer: They are not ours, we just love them.
Author's Note:We're a little this year but we will be posting a story a day to celebrate.

Time: because it's all about those little moments

Castle

It was a moment of calm in what had been a busy day. At first it had astonished him that the precinct still be occupied at these times of the morning, when really late segues into really early, but then criminals didn't just work nine to five, so cops didn't either.

Still, this was quieter than usual, with only one of the other desks currently occupied at the other end of the floor, and it gave him time to consider the events of the day.

Kate had been amazing – talking Gutierrez down from the edge of the rooftop, telling him she understood ... which she probably did, considering his crime was killing the man who had driven his bright shiny sports car whilst drunk, and mounted the sidewalk. Marcia Gutierrez was only one of the casualties, but her husband owned a gun.

As far as police work was concerned, it was pretty much an open and shut case, and the only time was taken with trying to find Gutierrez, something they'd finally managed at closer to midnight than any of them liked, topped with a chase up the tall office building where he worked as a janitor.

Why did they always run up, Rick wondered. It wasn't like they could get to the top then do a Spiderman, swinging down the city canyons on webs of steel. Although in this case Gutierrez was planning to do a Greg Luganis to the concrete some twenty floors below. He'd have been a stain and a body bag if it hadn't been for Kate.

Instead Ryan and Esposito had taken Gutierrez to Central Booking, and Kate was starting on the unenviable task of dealing with the paperwork.

Rick sighed.

"Not interesting enough for you?" Kate asked, not lifting her head.

Still, he could detect the hint of a smile. "You're enough to drive a sane man crazy."

"Who said you were sane?" she countered.

"I'm as sane as the next man. Person," he corrected.

She made a sound like a swallowed laugh and looked up. "Anyway, why am I sending you into the arms of a strait jacket?"

He fluttered his hand like a captured bird. "All ... this!"

"You might like it if you tried it."

"One of my favourite phrases," he admitted, then added, "But I have enough to do with paper in my day job."

Her eyebrow arched. "So what's this? Moonlighting?"

"Cybill Shepherd and Bruce Willis," he remembered. "At least I've got more hair."

"For now."

His lips drew together in a fake display of hurt. "That's cruel."

"And you can't even blame genetics."

He sighed again, as deep as he could manage. "I know. Seeing as I don't have any idea who my father is."

She pointed at his head with her pen. "He could be as bald as a billiard ball."

"No. Don't say that," he implored, protectively running his hand over his hair, before changing tack and asking, "Have you ever played billiards?"

Kate shrugged. "Once or twice. But pool's more my game."

In a tight, sexy red dress, Rick's imagination supplied. "Mmn," he hummed.

"And you're trying to distract me."

Coming back from the pool table, his partner leaning provocatively over it, with a slight feeling of disappointment he rallied and asked, "Is it working?"

"Yes. Go home." She bent back to her work.

"There's nobody there to annoy."

She exhaled loudly and sat back in her chair, gazing at him. "Oh, that's right. Martha and Alexis are off on another college-viewing excursion, aren't they?"

"Until tomorrow night. So right now I'm footloose and fancy free."

"And I'm trying to work."

"Yes. Sorry." He tried the puppy dog eyes, but all she did was roll hers and start writing again.

Not that he could keep still for long. He began to fidget, picking up one of the small elephants from her desk and balancing it on its hind legs in the small bowl of jelly beans.

Without looking she reached out and took both bowl and elephant from him, placing them on the far side of the desk. Scritch went her pen.

He sighed again.

Hers echoed his as she sat back. "If you're staying, why don't you help me with the paperwork?" she asked, from the look on her face knowing what the answer was going to be.

"No."

"Thought not."

"But neither are you."

"What?"

"Come on. I don't know about you, but I need a drink."

"How long have you had this alcohol problem?"

"It's no problem." He grinned then leaned forward, his hand on the desk top not far from hers. "This will all still be here in the morning, and I know for a fact that Captain Gates is taking the day off."

"You know that, do you?"

"Mmn."

"How, exactly? No. I don't think I want to know."

"Afraid it was pillow talk?"

"Castle." She gave him that look, the one that suggested he needed to stop talking. It didn't work.

"Jealous?"

"No."

"Pity." He smiled. "Anyway, the point is you can finish all this tomorrow. Well, later today, anyway. Come on, Kate. Let me buy you a drink."

She glanced at the solid watch on her wrist. "At this time of night?"

"There's a little place, nor far from here. I know the owner." His eyebrows did a syncopated dance.

"Are you considering drinking after hours?"

"Uh ... maybe."

"I'd have to arrest you."

"Wouldn't be the first time."

"Why do I feel like it won't be the last?"

"I don't know. Have you always been psychic?"

"I wish. It would make my job a lot easier."

Rick put his fingertips on his temples, closing his eyes. "I see ... the paperwork being done tomorrow."

He heard her sigh, and opened his eyes again.

"Are you planning on helping?" she asked.

"It's ... possible."

"Be still my beating heart."

No, not that, he begged, but only smiled. "If you don't come with me you'll never know."

She was gazing at him, and as always he wondered if she was mind-reading every single misdemeanour in his long and varied career, over and above what was in his official jacket. Then she relaxed and nodded. "You know, you could be right. This will keep. And I could do with a glass of wine. But at my place."

"Really?" His hopes and his voice rose.

"Then I don't have to drive and I can put you into a cab." She stood up. "But I just need to ..." She waved her hand vaguely in the direction of the rest room. "First."

"I'll wait."

She headed for the bathroom, and his eyes followed her until she passed a calendar on the wall, and he shook his head. He hadn't mentioned it, but this was something else he was celebrating, if otherwise unmarked.

Three years. Somehow one thousand and ninety five days didn't seem as long, or maybe longer, depending on how tired he felt. But however he looked at it, it was three years since she'd tapped him on the shoulder at the book launch for Storm Fall and changed his life forever.

Hell, some marriages didn't last as long.

Him and Gina, for instance, a mistake right from the moment he'd taken her trembling hand that frigid February day in a hot air balloon and tried to get the ring on her finger. Tried, being the operative word. She was shaking from the cold so much, and his own hands were going numb, it took four or five goes. That should have warned him it was a bad idea.

No. He'd do it right this time. Ryan had been spot on the money, proposing in the precinct and down on one knee. Big and intimate. And the look on Jenny's face … Now they were married, and all signs pointed to them staying happily that way for a long time to come.

He fingered the box in his pocket, feeling the edges dig into his palm. He wasn't going to give it to her tonight, any more than he had the last one hundred nights since he bought it. Or tomorrow for that matter. It might not even be soon, but he did intend to, at some point in the next million years or so.

It wasn't big, or ostentatious, because she wouldn't wear it if it was, and besides, this wasn't about the flamboyant or the grandiose, but something altogether deeper. And something he so far hadn't got the courage up to share.

Still, she'd be in the bathroom for a minute or two longer. Drawing the red leather box from his pocket he ran his thumbnail along the gold edge, then eased it open. A simple, delicate platinum band, and a small diamond, perfect in colour and clarity, its size denying the exorbitant price he'd paid for it. The jeweller had engraved the inside for him, the words he'd said on the worst day of his life, when he thought he'd lost her forever. "I love you, Kate."

He'd say it again, one day. Along with an "I do," if he had any say in matters. As his fingertip caressed the tooling around the stone, he let his imagination run away with him, the story playing out on the screen at the back of his mind's eye.

He imagined the wedding, and the honeymoon, and had got, somewhat improbably, to Kate on the porch of an old flatboard house out in the sticks somewhere, two children at her feet and a baby on her hip, waiting for him to come home with his rifle on his shoulder, a brace of wildfowl in his hand and a hunting dog running on ahead ... when in the quiet of the bull pen he heard the recognizable sound of four inch heels, and slipped the box back into his pocket. Not now. Not with … things still hanging over them. But one day, when the sun was out and the birds were singing in Central Park.

"Are you okay?" She came round into his line of sight.

"Me? I'm fine."

"Only you looked miles away. What were you thinking about?"

"My next proposal."

"Fine. Don't tell me." She picked up her coat and shrugged into it as she headed for the elevator.

He quickly got to his feet and followed her, his overcoat over his arm. "Can I drive?"

"No."

"Just asking."

As they waited he covertly studied the curve of her neck, the line of her chin, how her hair was carelessly coiled at the nape of her neck, a tendril just escaping to rest on one shoulder. He had the urge to lift it up and clip it back, laying little kisses on the skin thus revealed ...

"Are you turning over a new leaf?"

Her voice startled him. "Huh?"

"Offering to do paperwork."

"I haven't actually offered."

"I knew it."

"No, that's not what I mean."

"So, are you? A new leaf?"

"Maybe. A fresh start. After all, it's been three years."

"I know."

His eyebrows raised. "You do?"

"I can count, Rick." Her lips curved. "Although we are late."

"We are?"

"It was yesterday."

"No. Today. I remember it well."

She dropped her head and smiled, giving in. "It's still the anniversary."

The elevator doors opened and he let her go first, as always. "Here's to the next three."

"Only three?"

"Five? Ten?" A lifetime? he added silently.

"Baby steps, Castle. Baby steps. Let's go a year without me arresting you first."

He laughed. "Deal."

The elevator began its descent, and as he stood next to her he couldn't hide the grin. They might not be Vera and Joe, but he hoped for a happy ending, all the same.

Author: Jane0904