It was almost funny, the little ways he'd managed to insinuate himself into her life, into her personal space. Yet here it was staring at her so blatantly that it puzzled her that she hadn't noticed it before.

Sure there were little things that said she occasionally occupied her space with another person - an extra toothbrush in the bathroom, manly shampoo sitting beside her more feminine variety, a second coffee cup in the drainer. But somehow those things didn't seem so personal. Anyone could have left those things there. They were unspecific, generic in a way that managed to slip past her radar. But this, this was all Rick Castle. It was almost a calling card, a piece of himself, settled into its own little place in her apartment that said he intended to be a permanent fixture in her life.

His notepad and pen stared back at her from its newly acquired spot in her nightstand and it looked innocent enough. It seemed unobtrusive and nonthreatening.

But it wasn't. It was a symbol. A symbol of the normalcy of it all.

The first few weeks they were together, really together, every spare second was spent in each other's arms. They spent every moment away from work together. They were just so comfortable with each other. In every one of her previous relationships, well before the one month mark, she was looking for some alone time, some quiet time to herself. But with Rick, she was so comfortable it was like she was alone even when he was in the room with her. She could just be herself even when he was there. There was no burden of pretending or maintaining her normal walls and boundaries while he was there. She didn't feel the need to be anything other than exactly who she was in his presence and that was nice. It was freeing on a level she hadn't expected.

His carefully composed words were scrawled across the paper she was staring at and it reminded her of the night before. It was the first night since their new relationship began that they hadn't made love. That fact, in itself, had bothered her a little. It wasn't that she was a sex crazed maniac, although, at times, he made her feel that way. No, again, it was the symbolism of it. They spent the night pouring over the details of their latest case. She had cooked dinner. He had helped her with the dishes. They had cuddled on her sofa to watch the news. Then they had gone to bed.

She remembered watching him sitting with his back against the headboard while he scribbled on the pad of paper she was now staring at until she finally drifted off to sleep.

It was all so normal, so routine and mundane. It scared the hell out of her.

It shouldn't. She knew that. There was nothing to be afraid of. She loved him. She admitted that freely, without pause. He loved her, too. He made sure to tell her a hundred times a day.

There was absolutely no sane reason for her to be afraid of this thing between them. It didn't make sense.

She wanted to talk to him about it. She wanted to explain what she was feeling to him, but there were no words she knew to describe the ever present fear that loomed in the back of her mind.

Was she afraid that all this wouldn't last? Did she doubt his feelings for her were as real as he claimed them to be? That couldn't be it. She trusted him with her life. She had never felt so much for another person, never completely invested herself in anyone else.

Then suddenly she understood. She wasn't afraid because he was there. She was afraid that one day, somehow she would lose him and she knew deep down in her soul that she would never survive that.

How could you survive losing the part of you that makes you whole?

For so long she fought against this thing between them. For so long she threw up every wall, every barrier she could manage to keep him at arm's length. And that was why. She knew that now. Everybody leaves eventually and she was afraid of being apart of anything she wouldn't be able to walk away from. And now that she had him, she knew with absolute certainty that she would never, ever be able to walk away from him.

He was a part of her, such a large part that she couldn't believe she had spent most of her life without him. How had she managed to get by? How had she not felt handicapped without him beside her?

A hand eased over her shoulder and she jerked in response, surprised that she hadn't heard his approach.

"I thought you were just grabbing some batteries for the remote," he said. "Did you get lost?"

She shook her head, trying to clear it of the worries that plagued her. "I guess I zoned out," she offered lamely in way of an excuse.

She grabbed the batteries from beside the notepad and shut the drawer to the nightstand.

She turned and found him close enough that she was suddenly in his arms. In fact, they were the only things that kept her from stumbling over his sudden nearness. "Those looked like some pretty deep thoughts. Care to share with the class?"

She shook her head as her arms laced around his shoulders. "It was nothing, really."

He kissed her lightly and gave her a smile. "Alright, I'll let it go, but remember you promised."

He was right, she had promised. She had been laying in his arms, this new aspect of their relationship a mere few hours old, when their normal chatter had taken on a much more serious tone. They talked about their past, about things that both of them had done to sabotage their previous relationships. And they made promises to each other. One of those promises was that she wouldn't keep things to herself. She told him that if something was bothering her, she would tell him, up front and honestly so they could deal with it together. She had never made that kind of promise to anyone before and now she wasn't sure she hadn't made a mistake. She didn't know if it was a promise she could keep. Natural instinct for her was to deal with things on her own.

It was hours later, lying in his arms, chests still heaving breathlessly from their recent exertion that she finally got the nerve to try to explain.

This was how she did this. He knew that, too. In fact, she was pretty certain he only let her feeble explanation at the time go, because he knew she was waiting for this.

The darkness gave her an added sense of courage and it was here that she felt most comfortable opening up about her feelings.

He had rolled to his back beside her. Both of them were covered in a sheen of sweat that said this was going to be one of those shower at night and in the morning kind of days. That seemed to be the way of things with them. She had never been so clean in her life. At night, first she would take her ritual bath, then he would follow with a shower. Then most mornings, they shared a shower.

"Rick," she ventured, rolling towards him and molding her body to his side.

He bent his head to lay a kiss to the top of hers in way of a response.

"Earlier when I went looking for the batteries," she paused to lick her suddenly dry lips. "I found your notepad in the drawer."

"I can move it if it bothers you being there," he offered. "I keep one around wherever I spend any amount of time. I never know when inspiration will strike."

"I know." She nodded into the crook of his shoulder where her head had found a comfortable home. "I don't mind that it's there."

"Then what is it bothered you?" he asked, shifting a little further down in the bed and turning so that he was facing her.

She paused and tried to pull her thoughts into some semblance of order. "I don't know really. I just opened the drawer and there it was and it was so you. Like a piece of you had found a home in my apartment."

"I've left other things here, my toothbrush and razor, my coffee cup. I can take them all home if you like. It was just more convenient since we've been spending almost as much time here as we do my place. But if you aren't ready for my things to be here, consider them gone."

She smiled because she couldn't help it. He had to be the most understanding, patient man in the world and she had no idea what she had done to deserve him. "I don't want them gone. You're right, it's more convenient. It would be awful to have to get up an hour earlier just so you could go home to get ready for work. Beside," She snuggled a little deeper into his chest. "I really look forward to our morning shower. It's almost as good as coffee." He chuckled in response and kissed the tip of her nose affectionately. "And all the other things haven't bothered me. I'm not even really sure why the notepad did."

He cleared his throat as if he were afraid his next words might cause an argument or at least upset her and she braced herself for them. "I have noticed that you don't leave things at my place. You just carry your stuff around in that little bag. Why is that?"

She squirmed a little. "I didn't want you to feel like I was intruding into your life." It was the excuse she had used on herself the many times she'd considered leaving things at his place.

He chuckled again. "I'm sorry, Detective, I'm going to have to call a 'bullshit' on that one. You know very well that I wouldn't feel the least bit intruded upon by having your things scattered around my bathroom."

She had known the minute the words left her mouth that he wouldn't buy them. "Okay, so maybe I'm not sure exactly why I haven't left things at your place."

"Okay, that I'll buy. I completely believe that you do a great many things without understanding the meaning behind them. So, let's figure it out together."

She nodded, then immediately closed her eyes to once again try to bring her thoughts into some form of order. One thing stood out to her, a memory. Two of them actually. One was of the last time she spoke to Demming. The other was the last time she spoke to Josh. "They didn't have to come back to pack their things," she mumbled as realization suddenly dawned on her.

"Who?" he asked.

"Tom and Josh."

He grew suddenly still and quiet beside her and she immediately wished there was more light in the room so she could judge his expression, see his reaction.

"I'm sorry," she apologized. "I didn't mean to bring them up. If you don't want to talk about them, I understand."

"It isn't them I have a problem with. They aren't here any more. I am. That's all that matters to me. It's the fact that you still believe that at some point I'll have to come and pack up my stuff that bothers me," he explained.

Again, he was the most understanding man in the world. He knew and accepted the fact that they hadn't been born the night they began their relationship. He realized that they both had pasts and he didn't seem to have a problem with discussing those pasts. Most men would feel at least a little threatened by talking about their girlfriend's ex-lovers.

"I'm sorry. I can't help thinking like that," she answered.

"Why? I've already told you, I'm not going anywhere. Not ever. I'm in this for keeps."

The words, something of a mantra for her since the passing of her mother, sprang to her mind and she couldn't help the sting of tears in her eyes that the simple statement invoked. "Everybody leaves," she muttered quietly as she stared off into the distance, concentrating on a spot somewhere over his shoulder.

He pulled her face back to his and made her meet his eyes. Even in the extremely dim lighting she could see the fierce determination in their shining, blue depths. "Not me."

She wanted to believe that, but her history had always proven otherwise. Her mother, Royce, Tom, Josh, the list went on and on. Even her father had more or less checked out on her after her mother's death.

She swallowed and licked her lips. "There was this woman. She and her boyfriend had broken up. She went to his place to get some of her things. They got into an argument over a CD, Fleetwood Mac's Rumors CD, to be exact. He claimed it was his. She said it was hers, it got pretty heated. She slapped him and in response, he shoved her away. She fell into a glass coffee table and it killed her. That was my first homicide case."

"Kate," he chuckled. "I promise you, I will not kill you over a CD, especially that one. If it belongs to either of us, it has to be you. I don't even like Fleetwood Mac."

She punched his shoulder playfully and he pretended like it hurt, just like he was suppose to. "Its, just that, you see it in movies all the time – the heartbreaking scene where one half of the couple is packing

up their things and moving out." She shook her head. "I don't do heartbreaking scenes."

"That isn't going to happen with us. You have to believe me," he insisted.

"How can you be so sure?"

He sighed and gave her a sad sort of smile. "How can you not be?"

The question hung in the air between them for a while, like the words were hovering just over their heads. "I wish I could believe in us the way you do," she told him, finally.

"I wish you could, too. What do I have to do to convince you? Tell me what to say and I'll say it."

"There aren't any magic words. I can't make the voices in my head stop telling me that this is all too good to be true," she answered, ruefully.

"Ignore them," he announced. "They're stupid voices and they don't know what they're talking about."

She smiled. "I wish it were that easy for me."

"You know, I have those voices, too," he said suddenly, to her surprise. "I just keep waiting for the day that you'll decide this was all a huge mistake. It's like a giant anvil hanging over my head. I keep pretending like it's not there. Then I catch you lost in thought like I did earlier and I can't help but think, 'This is it'. The next words out of her mouth are going to be "we have to talk" and this will all be over."

She touched his cheek, softly rubbing her knuckles across his slightly abrasive skin where the first signs of stubble were beginning to appear. "I didn't know you felt that way. You always seem so sure about all this."

"I am sure. I'm completely sure about how I feel about you. But sometimes I wonder how long it will take you to talk yourself out of this."

"You think that's what I'm going to do?" She wasn't angry. She wasn't sure why she wasn't. If anyone else had said something like that to her, she would have been. Maybe it was because of the truth behind his words. She did talk herself out of just being happy. Doubts and fear always intruded sooner or later.

He shrugged. "I can't help but wonder."

"I told you before, I'm terrible at telling people how I really feel. I know I don't always show it or say it, but I never want you to feel like this is a temporary thing for me. It isn't like that. I love you. And I mean that like I've never meant it before."

He smiled again. "I know and I love you, too." He shifted like he was afraid he was about to say something that was going to make her mad again. And again, she braced herself for it and was determined to hear him out without judging or jumping to conclusions before he was finished. That was one of the things they had promised as well.

This was sacred. When they talked like this in the dark, in the middle of the night, they agreed that they could say anything they needed to say to each other. She had every intention of holding to that promise.

"I wish I knew how to make you trust us," he said after a long pause.

"I'm not sure there is anything you can do. Maybe I just need time," she answered.

"What was the longest relationship you've ever been in?"

"Nine months," she told him a bit ashamed of her answer. Apparently she wasn't a long term kind of girl.

"Really?" he asked with raised eyebrows.

"Yes, really."

"Did you trust him? Was there finally a point in those nine months that you decided it wasn't going to end?"

She thought about that, really considering her answer. Then finally she nodded. "Nope. I always knew it wouldn't last. I tried to pretend. But it was always there, hanging over our heads like an omen. Maybe that was why it ended. Another time that I sabotaged myself."

His face took on a pained expression in the near darkness and he suddenly leaned forward and place a gentle kiss to her forehead. "I'm so sorry, Kate."

"For what, you didn't do anything."

"I'm sorry it took me so long to get here, to find you. I'm sorry for all you had to go through while you were waiting on me," he tried to explain.

"Rick," she sighed, drawing nearer to him at the same time. She was touched by his words and something in her couldn't help but see his logic. She really did feel like she'd been waiting her whole life for him.

Why couldn't she just let herself go with that feeling? It wasn't something she'd ever felt before. Maybe for the first time one of his crazy theories was right. Maybe they had been searching for each other all their lives. Maybe this time things would be different because he was him and she was her and all the other times hadn't lasted because they weren't right but they were. She desperately wanted to believe that. She couldn't imagine not having him by her side anymore.

That was something new, too. She had never been so involved with anyone else that she couldn't picture a life without them. Rick Castle had changed her. He made her see a side of herself that she had forgotten even existed, a side that believed in things like magic and happily ever after.

"Maybe," she began, but had to pause to clear her throat, to try to dislodge the lump that had suddenly formed there. "Maybe tomorrow we should stay at your place."

"Okay," he agreed. "Whatever you want."

"Maybe while I'm there I could get around to unpacking that bag."

He grew quiet and still again, almost like he was waiting for her to change her mind. When she didn't add anything else, he sighed into her hair again. "I would really like that."

"You are so patient with me. Thank you for that," she told him, snuggling into him a little further.

"Always," he whispered in reply. "I'm willing to do whatever I have to do, be whatever you need me to be to keep you in my life."

She pulled away so she could see his face and used the tip of her finger to trace his cheekbone once again. "When does it get to be your turn to get what you need?" she wanted to know suddenly.

He pulled her in again, holding her tightly. "You are what I need. You're everything I need."

"God, I love you."

"I love you, too," he answered after kissing her soundly.

She spent the next morning thinking about the night ahead and what it mean to her, to them. She found herself distracted by the thoughts frequently throughout the day. It was a big step for her, but it was a step in the right direction, she told herself over and over again.

She managed to slip away from him while he went to have lunch with his daughter and mother. He invited her along and she'd lied to him, told him she had plans of her own. She didn't like that, but she assured herself it was for the greater good. She wanted to surprise him. She wanted to make a statement, a big one about how she felt about him, about them.

She wasn't disappointed when at the end of the day, after parking her car in his garage, she popped her truck and went about retrieving the bags she'd spent her lunch hour packing. It wasn't a lot of stuff. But there were things in the bags that she would never dream of just walking away from. She hoped he appreciated the gestured, understood the depth of its meaning.

He watched in stunned silence as she went about unloading the things from the trunk, then seemed to shake himself physically before coming over to help her.

When they reached his loft he was grinning like an idiot. "You didn't have to do all this," he told her once they were inside and he'd found a place to set down his burden before helping with hers.

"Yes, I did," she answered on the tail end of a deep breath.

Once her bags were sitting scattered around his foyer, he came to her and pulled her into his arms. "I noticed we aren't on rotation next week end."

"No, we aren't," she confirmed. "Why? Do we have plans?"

Something crossed his face she wasn't sure of. It really looked to her like wonder and she couldn't imagine what she'd said to inspire the look.

"What?" she finally asked, when he just continued to hold her and stare.

"You just surprised me, I guess."

"How? What did I say?"

"It wasn't what you said. It was how you said it," he explained. "It was like it was an expected thing. Not, do you have plans, but do we have plans."

"I'm sorry," she backpedaled, still not really sure of his expression. "I didn't mean to assume. Of course, if you have plans I understand."

He chuckled, and made a face that said she was being ridiculous. "Of course I don't have plans that don't include you. Don't be silly," he told her. "It's just nice to know that in your mind we are finally a 'we' instead of a 'you' and 'I'. If you know what I mean."

She smiled at him, completely understanding what he was saying. Somehow, despite herself, in her mind they really had become a couple. Not separate entities that made separate plans, but one couple that did things together. No longer just a 'her' and a 'him', now they were a 'them'.

"Let me ask something, just to see what you think?" he asked and she nodded in agreement. "What do you think of us spending a couple of weeks this summer at my place in the Hamptons. I know you have some vacation time coming."

"I think that would be nice," she told him without even thinking about it. "But what does that have to do with this weekend?"

His smile broadened even more. "You just agreed to do something six months from now with me."

She licked her lips as she thought about that. She really had. She hadn't even hesitated. And what was more, she really believed it would happen, she was looking forward to it even. She hadn't just agreed out-of-hand, thinking the whole time that it would never come to fruition like she normally did. She fully expected that in six months she would be laying on the deck of his beach house working on her tan with him right beside her.

"I guess I did. But I still don't see what any of that has to do with this coming weekend."

He paused this time, swallowing hard as his face took on a much more serious expression. "I know all this," he gestured around to the bags around them, "was a huge deal for you and it means the world to me. And if this is too much, too soon, just say it and we can pretend I never asked."

She punched his shoulder. "Would you just say it already? God, you act like you're about to ask me to marry you."

The smile creep back to his face for a moment and it clearly shouted, 'not yet' to her. Then the seriousness returned and she wondered if she might have imagined the smile and its hidden meaning. "I was thinking that maybe next weekend we might just go ahead and bring the rest of your things over here. If you want to, that is."

She blinked at him for a moment, stunned. It was something else she'd never done before. She had never lived with anyone.

"Like I said, we can just pretend I never asked if it's too soon. I understand." He obviously misread her surprise for hesitation and he was trying to make it right before too much damage was done.

"No," she said.

His face fell and she realized that again he had misunderstood her.

"No, I mean yes," she tried to clarify. "I'm sorry." She shook her head. "You caught me a little off guard. I wasn't expecting you to ask me to move in with you."

"So, was that a no or a yes? I'm a little confused."

"It was a no, it isn't too much or too soon," she answered, not even believing the words that were leaving her mouth, but she couldn't seem to stop them.

"Then it was a yes?"

"I think so," she agreed, still surprised herself.

"Okay, let me make sure I'm understanding. I'm asking you to move in with me and you're saying yes?" he asked.

"I think so." she said again.

A sudden squeal erupted from the direction of the kitchen immediately followed by Alexis barreling into the room and throwing her arms around both of them excitedly.

"I'm sorry. I swear I wasn't eavesdropping. I was just walking by and I heard," she gushed.

Kate glanced back towards the kitchen doorway and found Rick's mother, Martha leaning against the jamb smiling brightly.

"I guess we have reason to celebrate," the older woman said as she raised her glass at them in salute.

"I guess we do," Kate smiled in return. "If it's okay with both of you, of course."

Martha laughed. "Okay with us? My dear, we've been looking forward to this for a while now. All Alexis and I have to say on the matter is, Welcome to the family."