Disclaimer: The only part of Castle that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.
Castle wishes that he could do this at the precinct, let everyone know exactly how he feels about Beckett, but she'd kill him. And the real problem with that, other than his death, which he hopes is many decades away? His mother would have to finish raising Alexis, which is not a reassuring thought. If he died of natural causes—say, being run over by a taxi because he was looking up dreamily at Beckett's window as he is doing at the moment, though from the relative safety of the sidewalk—Alexis would be in Beckett's care. But if Beckett killed him, she'd go to jail and wouldn't be able to fulfill her duties as his daughter's legal guardian.
Which is why he's doing this at her apartment rather than her workplace. He has a key to the building, so getting access is easy, even at three o'clock in the morning. He chose this time because it's easy to find a parking spot (and it was, only 25 feet away) and the chance of her catching him in the act, remote. He picked up the extravagant arrangement of flowers of six hours ago, and the florist wrapped it with particular care.
Castle is walking very gingerly to her door, since it's hard to see around the paper cocoon that surrounds the bouquet: it's as big as a linebacker and as difficult to maneuver. When he finally arrives, he places the bundle safely on the mat, steadies it one last time, and tiptoes to the stairs.
At 7:30 Beckett is leaving for work and comes eye-to-eye—had the enormous, amorphous thing actually had an eye—with the package. Her scream could wake the dead. It certainly wakes the dog across the hall, who begins to bark wildly. Her pulse rate is returning to normal but her hand is still over her heart when she realizes that the base of the unidentifiable object is an oversized vase. "God almighty," she says, propping the door open and dragging in what she's guessing is something from Castle.
She closes the door, carries the vase and its well-swaddled contents into the living room, gets a pair of scissors, and slowly snips away until she can pull off the paper. Ohhh. Ohhh. The hand that had been over her heart is now at her mouth. The flowers are beautiful, and an astonishment at this time of year. "Tiger lilies," she says, running a fingertip over one of the delicately curving orange petals. She can't sort out how many stems there are, but clearly dozens. She's so captivated that she hasn't noticed time passing, but two things happen as she starts folding up the paper to throw it away. The first is that her watch catches her eye: it's quarter to eight; the second is that a small velvet bag with a drawstring of ribbon rolls directly in front of her. Dammit, she's so late, she can't stop for this. She picks up the bag, shoves it into her jacket pocket and heads out.
On the two-block walk to the subway and all the way to the precinct, she keeps one hand in her pocket, fingers wrapped around the little bag. When she reaches her desk—glaring just a little at the boys who are shooting her looks of mock horror and pointing at the wall clock—she takes off her coat and goes to the ladies room. Shutting herself in a stall, she opens the bag and finds a plush tiger that nestles perfectly in her palm. Pinned to it is a scrap of paper with handwriting that she immediately recognizes: "As Tigger said, 'I've found someone just like me. I thought I was the only one of them'." She puts it all back in her pocket, and works on eliminating the smile that has taken over her face before anyone can see it.
She'll text him from her desk.
Ever since he got out of bed to see Alexis off to school, Castle has been wondering about Beckett's reaction to the flowers. He hasn't heard from her. Did one of her neighbors steal them? Some of them seem a little dubious. Shifty-eyed, even. Oh, God, maybe she got them but she hates them? Were Tigger and the quote a step too far? That had been a last-minute addition; he had planned on just the flowers—yeah, yeah, yeah, he had told himself no flowers, but that resolve crumbled the instant he told her that he wanted her to have something good to remember about the tiger case and she said, "I already do." Oh, hey, he hadn't signed anything! Maybe she doesn't know the things are from him!
Even on only two hours' sleep he knows that's insane.
His phone pings, alerting him to an incoming text. He picks it up between his thumb and index finger, as if it were either on fire or transmitting poison directly into his skin. Does she hate him? He winces as he checks the screen.
"Wow! Never seen so many TIGER lilies in my life."
That's good, right? She didn't say she liked them, but she didn't say they were awful. And she said "wow!" He's going to reply. "Seemed like the right choice, Beckett."
Ping. "Glad they weren't roses and sunflowers."
"You remember that? From our first case?"
"Duh. Yes."
"Of course you do."
"You're not the only one who pays attention, Castle."
He's trying to formulate a response that's clever but not spilling over into smart-ass territory when she texts again.
"They're gorgeous. Thank you. I'd ask where you found them in December, but I don't really want to know."
She likes them! "You're welcome."
That's it. Nothing else from her. Nothing about Tigger. Maybe she really had missed it, thrown it away with the hundreds of square feet of paper that were covering the lilies? He's not going to ask. Not going to be too pushy. Yet.
Ping. "I xo Tigger."
Aww! He says that out loud, standing in the kitchen in his pajama bottoms and a tee shirt that she had borrowed once and which he now wears on special occasions. Such as her saying "I already do." And now she's said that she xo's Tigger. A day doesn't get much better than this.
But then it does. Ten minutes later she calls him. "Hey, Castle, we've got a body."
"Yeah? You got a spoiler alert? Before I meet you there."
"Yup. The guy fell out a window onto a cart of fruit."
"Safe to say it's spoiled, then."
"It is now. Especially the bananas."
"Beckett!" He has to take a moment, since he's choking. "Anything else?"
"Isn't that enough?"
"Yeah. Can you text me the address, please?"
"Sure. Oh, and one more thing?"
By now he's almost tap-dancing, barefoot. "What?"
"He was naked."
She hangs up before he can say a word.
The case takes up every minute of the first day. No time for flirting of any kind, never mind wooing. He does have one inspired idea, though: on the way home he stops by one of the edible arrangement places that make cut-up fruit look like a basket of flowers. He looks over the options, and after some exasperating discussion with the salesman chooses the priciest arrangement.
"So you're telling me that this one has two kinds of melon, grapes, pineapple, strawberries and…kale? Kale isn't fruit, and if you ask me it isn't edible," Castle says.
"The kale is, like, garni."
"Garni?"
"That's the fancy word for garnish."
"So if I were to buy the cheapest arrangement here it would be garnish, not garni?"
"Probably, yeah."
"Anyway, garnish? Why do you need garnish?"
"It's like, you know, to look like leaves."
"You don't eat it, then?"
"Not unless you want to, I guess."
"Just to get this straight, you have kale in your arrangements, but no bananas?"
"No sir, no bananas."
He pays the guy an outrageous amount of money to ensure that the basket will be at the precinct before Beckett gets there the next morning.
She is, in fact, the first one in, as she usually is. The desk sergeant greets her as soon as she comes through the door. "Detective? Got something here for ya."
"Yeah? Thanks, Stoddard."
"Sent one of these to my mother-in-law when she had her varicose vein surgery last month," he says as he hands her the basket. "Set me back eighty bucks."
She sees the envelope; no need to open it here. Definitely no need.
"So who's it from, Beckett?"
"Uh—"
"Secret admirer?"
"Something like that." She needs to distract him and to get upstairs as quickly as possible. "Please, take some? Help yourself. Very good for you. Healthy."
"Thanks. I'll have one of those slices of chocolate-dipped honeydew."
"Not so healthy, Sarge."
"Whatever," he says, taking a very healthy bite. "Mmmm, good."
She's almost at the elevator when Stoddard calls out. "Hang on to that secret admirer. He's a keeper if he sends you stuff like this."
"Right." She smiles as the doors close. Since she's alone, she opens the envelope and reads the one-line message. "Fresh out of bananas." She cackles, and manages to hide the card in her bag just before the elevator stops at her floor.
When Castle gets there, two hours later, the first thing he sees is the fruit on her desk, or what's left of it. As always, he has coffee for both of them, and he gives one cup to her. "Looks like someone's been picking fruit, Beckett."
"Someone has."
"A little picked over, too, I'd say."
"Yup, very popular with the entire squad." She mouths, "Thank you."
"May I have some?"
"Please, help yourself."
"I will, thanks. Have these grapes." He pops two into his mouth and chews. "Excellent. Winy aftertaste." He looks over to Ryan and Espo. "Hey, guys, did you try this fruit of Beckett's? Really good."
"It's from her secret admirer," Espo says sourly.
"You have a secret admirer, Beckett?" Oh, that's what she'd said? He loves being her secret admirer. "Who? Come on, you can tell us."
"Cold day in Hell ring a bell with you, Castle?"
"Oooh, aren't we touchy!" Touchy-feely, that's what he's hoping for. One day soon. He sips his coffee, and just then Ryan arrives with some new information about the vic, a slimeball pickup artist, and they're all back in it again.
It takes a few all-consuming days to wrap up the case of the guy who was not only a skeevy Lothario but a corporate spy, and then boom, it's time for Ryan and Jenny's wedding. Alexis bails on him at the last minute, but the good news is that Beckett is going without a date and says they can be each other's plus-ones. And what's more fertile ground for sowing some seeds of romance than a wedding? He is a happy man.
Espo, Castle and Beckett head out together and say goodbye when they reach the sidewalk, all with some variation on the see-you-at-the-wedding-tomorrow theme.
Beckett has just unlocked her door when she gets a text from Castle. "Check your email." That's all it says. She decides to do that on her computer rather than her phone, and sits at her desk to log on. There it is. Huh. A gift of an iTune. She opens it and the song begins. "Yes, we have no bananas! We have no bananas today!"
She laughs out loud, and just like that, it hits her. She is a happy woman.
TBC
