A/N –This is a very short one-shot that I just couldn't get out of my mind. I'm sure that something like this has been done about a hundred times, and I know that everyone has done a post "always" story, but it just wouldn't leave me alone. I hope you enjoy and please review. This is my first story for this fandom (though I have read many) and only my third story total.
Disclaimer – yea…I wish I owned it
Summary: Castle reflects on the events of what has happened between Beckett and himself as they lie in bed when he remembers something that she had told him so long ago was true.
He had no idea...
His room was draped in darkness, the only light being a few dimly lit street laps that had found a way to peek through his bedroom curtains from floors below his New York apartment. The storm had died down, but the rain continued to fall in a nearly rhythmic melody as he laid in awe, awake in his bed.
Kate Beckett lay sleeping soundly beside him, the hint of light casting a golden glow across her nearly naked form. His cream colored sheet was sprawled lazily across the swell of her hips, exposing the expanse of her close to flawless skin. It was peppered with a few freckles, and though he tried to ignore them, a small cluster of bruising was forming on one side. Her hair, which began to curl wildly as it dried, cascaded past her shoulders and seemed to curtain across her brow, hiding half her sleeping face from his observer's view. He reached up to gingerly tuck a strand of that unruly hair behind her feminine ear, something he had wanted to do for years, the act reviled that small beauty mark that rested on her check and without thought he leaned down to place a soft kiss against it, another act he had ached to perform for so long. As he pulled back to right himself his fingers trailed across her shoulder blades and down her spine in a feather light touch, following the slight dip at the base before he came in contact with the Egyptian cotton and proceeded the journey back up to the bottom of her swan like neck and then down again. He continued his leisurely pattern, postponing sleep in fear that he would wake to find it had all been a dream.
Tonight he had made love to detective Kate Beckett.
Less than twenty four hours ago he had given up the idea that there would ever be anything between this woman and himself, he had finally thrown in the towel and walked away...away from the wanting and the waiting, from the dreaming of a life together...away from the hurt of thinking she would never love him back.
But she did love him back.
The words he had longed to hear were whispered on the cusp of ecstasy, shortly drowned out by the moan of his name...his last name, and then confirmed in the afterglow of their love making, and sealed with a kiss that spoke so much louder than her words ever could. He reflected on how it had started out so passionately, driven by some unseen need to be everywhere at once. He recalled how the simple touch of her hand to his check had triggered a response in his body he had never experienced before, propelling him forward and forcing her against the door. Immediately his mouth sought hers forcing her lips open, demanding entrance instead of asking, which she gladly gave. The heat between them continued to rise as four years of restraint fell away, leaving only the undeniable want. Hands and lips were all encompassing, landing without rhyme or reason. Trailing his lips down her neck towards her chest he saw it. The scar. The pink puckering of skin that he was seeing for the first time seemed to be left behind as a reminder of how close he came to losing her, of never knowing what they could be together, with the weight of these thoughts he was forced to take pause. She placed his hand against the blemish and moved in for another kiss, but this one was different...it slowed their movements and would set the pace for what would become one of the most incredible moments he had ever shared with another person.
He was overcome with emotion as he watched her sleep, thinking of all they had been through together since she came bearing into his book release party with a badge. Freezers and bombs, movies and magic shops, ex's and new lovers, snipers and tigers, at least a hundred coffee's and of course what brought them together in the first place...a copycat killer. He remembered how the slight infatuation with her started as he asked her to dinner at the conclusion of that first case to "debrief" each other, how she called him on becoming one of his conquests, how he suggested he could be one of hers...and how she turned him down flat.
"It's to bad" he had offered in condolences, "it could have been great." But then she surprised him, biting her lower lip as she invaded his personal space standing on her tiptoes to reach his ear..."you have no idea" she replied just above a whisper. He can still remember the feel of her hot breath against his skin lingering as he watched her walk away with a slight strut...he turned to go home, thinking it was a game, knowing he was going to win, never expecting to fall in love.
Just as sleep began to claim him he placed a loving kiss to the crown of Kate's head then closed his eyes, satisfied in knowing she would still be there when he opened them, that this couldn't be a dream...because Kate was right all those years ago, when it came to finally being with her, all the dreams and fantasies just didn't stand a chance to the real thing...because he had no idea.
The end (and the beginning)