Typing outside had become a regular Saturday thing for Castle over the years. This was their routine. He finished the chapter he was working on and looked up from his laptop that was perched on a picnic table in front of him. He watched as brown curls tumbled in circles down a hill off to the side of the playground. Castle couldn't help but laugh at his wife as she attempted to teach their daughter to roll down the hill.
Her 5'9" frame rolled easily down the hill, while the small child sat at the top laughing. When Kate got to the bottom she sat up and tried to convince the young girl to try too. The mini version of Kate jumped up and sprinted down the hill into her mother's arms, laughing the whole time. He could tell Kate was laughing, despite the effort being wasted. She popped up and tugged the little girl back up the hill to try again.
Castle knew it as a vain attempt. The small child was always just thrilled to laugh at her mother. They had come to an agreement. Castle stayed home with their daughter three days a week, and she was in day care the other two so he could play cop. Saturdays was Kate's day with Hannah, who was named after her grandmother, and he gladly sat back while they played together.
He turned back to the computer until he felt a thud beside him. He looked up to find his wife sitting next to him smiling, her forehead glistening with sweat. Castle's eyes found their daughter investigating a slide before turning his attention back to his wife.
"What's that smile for writer-boy?" she asked him.
"I was just thinking how close we were to throwing this all away three years ago," he told her, his eyes shining with adoration.
"In this very park," she responded, her eyes locked on his.
"When you turned me down," he returned, his eyes still reflecting happiness despite his smile disappearing.
"You asked in the middle of a fight," she countered, a hit of annoyance mixed in with laughter.
"You made me ask four times Katherine Beckett," he told her pretending to be serious.
"I have no witty come back to that. I did make you ask four times," she laughed, her head falling forward, her brown curls hiding her face.
"It was worth every agonizing minute," he told her, reaching out and shutting his laptop.
"She was worth every agonizing minute," Kate agreed with a nod of her head toward Hannah who was wobbling across a series of plastic stepping stones.
"Do you regret it?" he asked after a minute.
"No. My home is here, my home is the NYPD. I was searching for a pace to rest my heart, and what I didn't want to admit that I had already found it," she told him. Her eyes shining with honesty.
"I love you Kate," he told her, his eyes focusing only on hers, the way they had for so many years. When he looked at her this way, she could see the rest of the world fall away and for a few seconds she was the center of the universe, and who could walk away from that?