"I would rather learn from one bird how to sing than to teach 10,000 stars how not to dance." - EE Cummings
Happy Birthday Angie! Aka dtrekker – a short little one shot
"Kate, I'm such an idiot."
"Don't say that. Look, don't beat yourself up. I was just as much to blame. Everyone was seeing what we had long before even we did."
"What do you mean?" he looked up to her eyes after he was staring at the floor.
"Lanie has been asking me questions since our first year together, Esposito has been on to us since the second year and they all saw you walk away with Gina that night knowing that I was taking that leap to see where it would go."
"Oh please," he stepped closer to her in the kitchen of his loft. "Can we stop talking about this? I feel like a jerk for this last month of jackass and now this."
"Castle, it doesn't matter. Yes, it all happened, but look at us. We're together."
"But we've wasted so much time because I was an idiot. And all of this..."
She cut him off with a quick touch of her index finger over his lips. "No, don't do this. The past is just that - the past. If there is anything I've learned in therapy is that we can't change what has already happened. If we could, I would choose to bring my mother back, tell you how I felt and well a lot of other things. It doesn't work like that. We make choices and decisions that we think are right at the time, but things don't always go as planned. I want to move forward in life with you and that's the choice I've made for now."
She cupped the side of his face trying to get him to look her in the eyes. His pools of blue blinked from the floor and into her eyes, he chuckled a little.
"What is so funny? I just poured my heart out and you are laughing at me."
"No definitely not. I was laughing because I am the luckiest guy in the world."
"And why is that?" she smiled at him biting her lip. Almost knowing what he might say, but the writer in him and the sweetness in him could combine to surprise her.
"There are times where I am almost positive that I don't deserve you, especially how I reacted last month when I thought my feelings weren't reciprocated. And I was laughing because we've beaten the odds, you and I. And I was thinking about how you loathed me when I first started at the 12th."
She laughed, chuckled actually deep from inside bending forward into him. "I'm not sure I loathed you though. You just came in wrecked my world as I knew it. You were annoying, childish, and cocky, but those things ended up attracting me to you." She smiled at him and they froze into a stare. The love and admiration signals traveling between them.
"Well thankfully for us things changed and we changed. Plus I tried to shake you many of times and you kept coming back for more. I think I knew then that any man that I can put through all of these obstacles and he still comes back is a keeper."
"And that Detective Beckett is why I will forever continue to drive you crazy with my wild and crazy theories. Let's just call it my annoyance payback."
She nodded and leaned into a hug with him in his kitchen of the loft. They finished preparing dinner, planned to watch a movie on the projector and play each day from here on out as if it were their last.