Family Heirlooms
Rick and Kate lay in his bed, breathing heavily. They had gone four rounds between the sheets his own private welcome home celebration with Kate. Not just to welcome him home from Paris, but welcoming him back to the light from the dark place he had been in since Alexis had been taken.
They had spent the majority of the day together with Alexis and Martha. Though it was made perfectly clear that what Rick related to Kate and Martha could not be shared outside of this room, not even to Ryan, Esposito, or Lanie, Rick just could not keep it to himself one minute longer.
The man she had been hunting for, the one in sketch, was his father. Who had been acting to protect the only family he had.
He knew if he kept it from Kate it would become just one more secret that came between them, and he wanted to share his joy, especially since opening the package his father had sent to prove he had survived. He had been dying to tell her the story behind the copy of Casino Royale now gracing his personal bookshelf, given pride of place because of who had given it to him. He had been waiting for just the right moment to share it.
After they had made love seemed like the right time.
He related the story of how a man he now knew to be his father had given him a copy of that book when he was ten years old and how it had inspired him to start writing. The story of how a father's love for his son had shown through, even though his job had forced him into the shadows.
She had cried when he finished the story, inexplicably just started crying right in front of him. He knew she had been a fan of his books, but he had never been certain how deep that love of his writing went until he showed her the original book his father had given him from his safe in the archival box he kept it in.
It was worn, and the pages were dog eared from constant reading, but it was the book that set him on the path that had led him here and he kept it in his safe like the treasure it was, made even more precious to him now because it had been a gift from his father. She brushed the very lightest of touches across the front cover, ran her fingers down it's spine with a sense of reverence he had rarely seen her display.
He didn't know it, but to her she saw this relic, this talisman as the book that had truly changed her life, even though she had not yet read it herself. A deficiency she vowed to change when she got back to her apartment. This had been the book that had truly given her back her life, because it had given her Castle. For that reason alone, it would now have a permanent place in her heart.
Always.