Throughout the majority of Castle's time in Florence, her mother had been flying across Europe for business, aware that Kate had been seeing someone, but knowing little else and Kate preferred it that way.
That is, until they met for lunch to catch up a week after Rick's departure.
"He must have been serious."
She glances up from her coffee, her brow knitting with confusion as her mother smirks from across the cafe table they're sharing, amusement dancing like fireflies in her eyes.
"Who?"
"This man you were seeing while I was away," her mom muses, sipping at her tea. "I know you mentioned someone from one of your language classes and that it wasn't serious, but now that he's gone, you look pretty devastated, honey."
"I do not," Kate protests, scoffing into the mug she lifts to her frowning lips. "And it wasn't serious. He fell in love with Florence, as most people do, and the romance of it made our fling feel more magical to him than it really was. He'll forget about me within a month."
Johanna rolls her eyes. "Katie, why are you so hellbent on believing things like that?"
"He's a playboy, used to having a new girlfriend every month, I'm sure," she shrugs, recalling articles she'd seen of him in the past, before ever meeting him. Things she'd conveniently forgotten throughout his three months in Italy, a personality he'd never proven to possess, at least not with her. "Besides, long distance, Mom? Really? We never had a chance."
It's true, it always was from the start and she'd been okay with that, accepted it.
He'd just made her wish it wasn't.
"Didn't you mention he was coming back?" Johanna inquires.
"Yeah, we kinda made a deal," Kate hedges, picking apart the edges of a stray sugar packet. "He... wanted to stay, but he has a daughter, a life in New York, so if he still feels the same in three months, he'll come back and we'll try to work something out."
"And you're so sure he won't?" her mom questions, sighing when Kate fails to answer.
Logically, it makes no sense for him to come back, to invest so deeply in a new and utterly foreign life when he had a practically perfect one back in New York, simply because he enjoyed the city.
And her.
"Kate, I know that since Dad died-"
"Mom," she cuts in, her jaw naturally tightening at the mention of her father, at whatever unwanted advice her mother was about to offer up.
But Johanna lifts a hand in supplication and levels her with a look that begs her daughter to listen.
"I know that it scares you, to love someone after we lost him. I also know that you and I handle our grief differently, but that is one thing I will always understand," her mom ensures her, extending her hand across the small table to embrace Kate's, to squeeze her slim fingers and give her that same encouraging smile she's always managed to possess even on the worst days. Kate had always envied that smile and its abilities to soften any and every harsh moment, had always wished to handle her grief as her mother did - with grace and composure instead of the visceral rawness that has always sliced through her. "But building a wall around your heart without leaving the space for a door isn't always the best idea, honey. Not when it sounds like you have something real, something that makes you happy and isn't exactly easy to come by."
"You don't even know him," Kate whispers, staring down at her cup with her bottom lip pinned between her teeth.
"Yet," Johanna hums, grinning when Kate shoots her a glare from beneath her lashes. "But anyone that can make you sound the way you did on the phone these past three months is someone I can already approve of."
Kate's cheeks begin to burn, the flush of pink spreading up her throat, but the vibration of her phone atop the table between them snags her attention, has her lips curling into a tentative smile.
"Uh huh," her mom chuckles, releasing her hand and rising from the table to refill her cup, nudging Kate's shoulder as she passes. "Stop trying to talk yourself out of liking him and answer the phone, Katie."
Castle practices his Italian throughout the entire plane ride, goes over all of the notes and critiques she'd given him on the phone last week, and mumbles varying sentences and phrases to himself for at least five of the ten hour flight.
It drives the man sitting beside him nuts, but by the time the plane touches down in Florence, he's quite proud of himself.
Not that it matters when he steps off the plane and meanders through the airport to reach baggage claim, finds Kate Beckett waiting for him near the silver carousel of luggage, her gaze catching his within seconds, her smile wider than he's ever witnessed.
No, he doesn't have any words for her.
"Hey Castle," she greets once he finally reaches her, the woman he's spent nearly every day on the phone with for the last three months, fitting in the occasional video chat every week or so. He's never been able to maintain a long distance relationship, never had the desire to, but she made it both effortless and damn near torturous at the same time.
He wanted her constantly and without reprieve, talking to her on the phone or through a screen always so bittersweet; he would never give it up, but the restrictions of not being with her in person are beyond frustrating.
"Buon compleanno, Kate," he murmurs, relieved when the birthday wish leaves his lips cleanly, grinning when she beams back at him, both shy and brilliant all at once. "I missed you."
The cup of her palms to his cheeks is a wonderful sensation that he's missed, the way she pulls him down the short distance necessary to kiss her and momentarily makes him forget everything else but the spark of her lips and tease of her tongue, all too welcome. It has him banding his arms around the arch of her body and moaning into the cove of her mouth in the middle of an airport.
"Missed you too," she breathes, grinning against his mouth and stroking her thumbs along the shells of his ears. "Come on, let's get your stuff and go celebrate."
His heart skips in the best way and he stalls her step towards the carousel of luggage to taste her mouth once more, to relish in the reclaimed privilege of kissing her.
"But you mentioned a birthday dinner with your mom-"
"That's in three hours," Kate hums, flicking her eyes to his mouth. "You and I have three months to catch up on."
The dinner for her birthday is nothing new nor extravagant, her mother knowing her well enough to refrain from turning the day into a bigger event than Kate wants, but when she walks into the restaurant in a pretty purple dress with Rick's fingers twined through hers and spots her mom catch sight of them from their regular table, she can't help the laughter that bubbles from her lips.
"What?" Castle asks, glancing to her with bemusement, but Kate shakes her head.
"You'll see."
"This is the Rick you've been seeing?" Johanna questions the second they reach the table, standing to embrace her daughter before stepping back to offer Rick the shake of her hand. "Richard Castle?"
"Mom's a fan," she chuckles, taking a seat while Castle smiles back at her mom with a pleased glimmer in his eyes, seemingly relieved to have impressed her without having to try.
"You're very talented, Mr. Castle."
He accepts her mother's compliment as if it's the first time it's ever been said to him and Kate thinks she likes him a little more for that.
"Thank you, Mrs. Beckett. And you can call me Rick."
"And you can call me Jo," her mom returns as she slips back into her side of the booth, her lips curling smugly in the corners, the infamous 'I told you so' already in her eyes before it can leave her mouth.
But Kate only rests her hand atop Castle's thigh beneath the table and leans gently into his side, biting her upturned bottom lip as he makes easy conversation with her mom, dedicates one of his hands to stroking his thumb along the exposed cap of her knee throughout their dinner, and presses a quick kiss to her temple after the small cheesecake with a candle is placed in front of her.
"Happy Birthday, Kate," he murmurs once she's blown out the flame, and even with her mom watching, she turns her head to take a proper kiss from his mouth, to smile against his lips.
"It definitely has been so far."
Castle excuses himself to use the bathroom during the intermission between their dinner and dessert and Johanna nudges her foot beneath the table.
"You told me so, I know," Kate sighs before her mom can say it, but Johanna only laughs and shakes her head, is smiling soft and lovely when Kate glances up to her.
"You're happy."
Kate tilts her head to the side in question. "You mean in general, or with Rick?"
"It seems like Rick increases the general part of it," her mom comments with a smirk, but instead of rolling her eyes or arguing her mother's point, Kate props her chin atop the bridge of her fingers and smiles back at her.
"Yeah," she murmurs, watching him emerge from the restrooms, his eyes lighting up for her so effortlessly, in a way no one else's ever have before. "He does."
"You could come back with me, you know," he murmurs from beside her later that week, on their final night together before his morning flight back to New York, his voice quiet in the darkness of her bedroom. "Just for a few days."
Kate sighs and rolls towards him in the bed, curls her arm to her chest while his stretches out to hook at her waist, faces only a few inches apart, and it hits her with surprising intensity how much she doesn't want him to leave.
"This isn't enough anymore, is it?" she whispers, lowering her gaze to his bare chest, hating the look of longing in his eyes, but Castle grazes his hand up the path of her spine until he can cup her jaw.
Her head tilts upwards at the draw of his palm, but she closes her eyes and listens to him sigh.
"It can be, I just... I want more. I want you, with me, all the time," he confesses, tracing his thumb along her cheekbone. "I have to go back in the morning, but this entire time, all I've been able to think is that I can write from anywhere."
Her eyes do flash open at that.
"Castle-"
"I want you to meet Alexis."
"I have, a few times now," she reminds him, referring to the multiple Skype sessions in which his daughter has popped in to say hello, to let Rick introduce her so the two women in his life each had faces to put to the names he so often gushed over, but he shakes his head.
"I want you to meet her in person. She wants to meet you too and I think once she does... Alexis enrolled for early admission at Stanford and within a year, my baby bird will determinedly be flying off to California," he explains with a frown. "I don't love the idea of her being so far away, but she's grown up so fast over the last couple of years and it - it reminded me that she doesn't need me as much as she used to. I'll never stop being there for her, of course, and I don't intend to sell my loft in New York either, but aside from my mother, there's nothing for me in the city without my daughter. So why stay?"
Her heart is hammering in her chest, so loud and shattering, she expects it to crack through her ribs and explode from her sternum at any second.
"I'm not asking you to marry me, Kate. Calm down." She huffs and buries her face in the pillow, relaxing when he chuckles and brushes his knuckles between her shoulder blades. "Well, not yet anyway."
"Shut up," she mutters, but lifts onto her elbows to stare down at him, pursing her lips as she tries to sort through her fears and uncertainties, as she shoves open that door to her heart her mother had spoken of, one that's been sealed shut for far too long. Since the day her father died. "And what if it doesn't work out between us? What if this-" Her fingers gesture between them. "Fades and we implode. Then what will you do?"
"Go back home," he murmurs, his voice calm, but his expression neutral. No pressure. He's trying so hard not to scare her off. "Look, Kate, I know that everything about our relationship has been unconventional and we don't necessarily make sense on paper. But we don't live our lives on paper and I've always found conventional pretty boring. "
Kate takes a breath, but nods her head, forces her mind to stop spiraling into worst case scenarios, forces her heart to step outside the boundaries of the wall it's always remained too comfortable behind.
"Good, because I don't want conventional. I want you," she murmurs, hooking her knee over his thigh and shifting her body to hover above his in the bed. "Book me a ticket to New York."
Kate is finishing up with her final beginner's class of the week, reviewing their lesson on subjunctives, and packing up her belongings for the day. She takes her time wiping down the dry erase board, tidying up her tiny desk, her fingers lingering on the trio of elephants her mother had given her back when she'd first started teaching. She adds an extra brush of her index finger to the little black elephant that didn't quite fit in, a gift Alexis had presented her with after she'd visited for the first time last summer and spent half of her trip attending Kate's lessons.
"I noticed the family on your desk," Castle's daughter had commented, placing the trinket next to the others with a shy smile. "And I found this in a shop while Dad was taking me around the city for 'touristy things'. I thought you might like it, hoped it could be a small way to thank you for everything."
"Nothing to thank me for," Kate had smiled, reaching out to wrap an arm around Alexis's shoulders. "It's been a pleasure to teach you Italian. You're a much better student than your dad."
Alexis had chuckled, but shaken her head. "Thanks, but I meant it as a thank you for something else."
Kate's brow had creased in confusion, but Castle had strolled into the room before she could ask his daughter to elaborate, a smile on his face that had failed to leave throughout the entire trip, and Alexis had shot her a knowing look, eyes gleaming bright blue just like her dad's when he had a secret.
"For that."
She sighs and withdraws her hand; she never thought she would even miss his daughter, almost as much as she misses him.
Her class filters out of the room moments later and Kate slings her bag over her shoulder, wincing at the weight and exiting the building, starting down the sidewalk with a sigh. She's not necessarily excited to return to her empty apartment for the night.
It's been a long week and she's exhausted, a little disappointed too; Rick was supposed to be moving in with her over the weekend, sharing her place until he was settled in Florence and had the time to visit the apartments he was interested in. But his flight had been cancelled at the last minute and she's unreasonably upset about it.
Well, maybe not so unreasonably.
It's been a year since that conversation in her bed that had changed everything, a year of back and forth travel between New York and Italy, a year of jet lag and goodbyes at airports that never got any easier.
She's sick of distance, sick of missing him.
"I'll carry that for you, teacher."
Kate's head snaps towards the voice, the hand stealing the strap of her bag from her shoulder and hefting it onto his, and her mouth falls open, the smile blooming unbidden and unstoppable across her face.
And then she surges forward.
"You're here," she breathes, wrapping her arms around his neck, stretching on the toes of her flats to take in every inch of his body, warm and solid and present, against hers.
Castle chuckles, burying his smile in her hair as he hugs her back, practically lifts her feet off the ground.
"I found another flight," he murmurs, grinning when she drops back to the soles of her shoes to look up at him. "I was going crazy, couldn't wait another day."
She breathes a sigh of relief against his cheek before she turns her head, seeks his mouth and savors the press of his lips, the ardency he kisses her with, the newfound sensation of 'home' she's been able to find in him. "Me neither."
"I also had an intense craving for gelato," he mumbles, smirking when she pinches his side and slipping his hands beneath her blazer to splay his palms at the small of her back.
"We can get gelato," she murmurs, combing her fingers through the fine hairs at the base of his skull. "Then I'm taking you home."
"Best plan I've heard in months," he concurs, grinning as she steals his hands from her back, lacing their fingers in a move that is so natural, that had once been so foreign and nerve wracking to her, and leads him down the street.
"And Kate?"
She glances back to him, his smile brilliant in the sunlight, and arches her brow in askance.
"Ti amo," he states, his Italian drastically improved after his dedicated practice, but it's never sounded anything less than flawless when he's saying those words to her.
Kate draws the back of his hand to her mouth and presses a kiss to one of his knuckles, embraces the soft but familiar bloom of affection through her chest. "I love you too, Castle."
