Disclaimer: I own nothing, sadly, otherwise what would I be doing here?
Please read and review, I'm looking for as much constructive criticism as possible! In fact, you could say I crave it – desperately!
"Your words bring daylight with them when you speak." – George Eliot
Words had been his life for as long as he could remember. He'd read somewhere once that the ancient Egyptians believed that words were gods, that they wore them on bracelets and talismans as protection. Castle did not hold them quite so highly, but the reverence he felt for them, although certainly not worship, was something akin to it. There was a respect for them and what they had given him that made him all the more careful in choosing them with each subsequent story. Words had power. They could conceal the truth and reveal it; shatter one world and breathe life into another. He knew he was given to using an overabundance of them in his speaking, but he also knew that he was far more aware of the power they possessed than was the average person.
Incandescent. One of his favorite words for Kate. She was radiant; she shone. There was a lightness about her that he could feel, one that made him able to sense her when she was near, even when he couldn't see her. She bore such a weight, had lived through so much darkness. Much of that darkness she carried around with her, but still, for him she shone. It was as if the hurt and the pain she had felt and still felt couldn't touch something that was deep inside of her – the part of her that Castle sometimes knew Kate wasn't even aware of, but that he had seen from the beginning. There was no one reason why he loved her, but that part of her heart that glowed brightly with such strength, such an untouchable, incandescent light that spilled out around her and had now found a foothold in his own heart was one of them.
Passionate. What better word was there to describe her? The intensity with which she felt things, the force of the reasons for all of her actions in life was one that he easily lost himself in. Her heart refused to be anything but big, in spite of all the sorrow its bigness resulted in. She refused to sacrifice that sorrow for the toughened hardness that made life so much easier to bear; she refused to jeopardize the joy and love through which the sorrows inevitably came. She loved with her heart and with her head, passion coupled with reason in a society and a world in which the two are so often completely irreconcilable. Her people were her people, and she stood by them with a fierce loyalty that stirred the same response in those around her. Castle loved that about her. He loved that he knew without a doubt that she would fight with everything she had to protect those she cared about. He loved that he could be sure of her, sure of her goodness and her fire.
Heavenly. Inexpressible. Beyond words. When you combined incandescence with passion you found yourself facing a person who could not be described. Not only did Kate's very soul seem to glow, but it did so with an intensity that was almost unbearably beautiful. When he held her in his arms it seemed as if his heart would burst with the very lightness and fullness of it, she was far more to him than he had ever dreamed possible. He wondered that no one else seemed to see her the way he did, and he pitied them for it. There was no one in the world who could be as happy as he was when he was with her, and there was no world in which real happiness could be found without her.
"Castle," Kate's clear voice called to him from around the corner, "Martha says dinner's ready and getting cold by the minute." She walked into his study, interrupting his musings as he sat as his desk. He looked up at her with a smile. She smiled back.
"Come here" he said, backing his chair out from under his desk.
"Dinner really is getting cold" she answered, "and Alexis made it, not your mother, if that's what you're worried about."
"Come here" he repeated, his smile wider. She raised an eyebrow at him. He raised one back.
"Fine," she said with a laugh, "but don't blame me if you get in trouble with the two of them." She walked over and settled herself into his lap, arms around his neck. Castle held her close to him, breathing in the sweet smell of her perfume.
"You," he said, brushing her curls out of her face, "are wonderful. You are incredible. You," he paused, making sure she knew he was serious, "you are beautiful, in every sense of the word."
Kate smiled softly, and gently leaned herself into him so his forehead was touching hers. "You," she whispered, "are wonderful. You are incredible. You," she paused, making sure he knew she was serious, "you are the one I love more than anything in this world." She kissed him then, softly and sweetly. Castle's heart smiled, and he knew in that moment that her words were the most powerful things in the world.
I repeat – please review! I love reviews the way Castle loves words!