Disclaimer: See Chapter 1.

Author's Note: Thank you so much to everyone who's read, reviewed, and/or favorited this story. Now, finally, the last chapter of this story. I hope it's worth the wait.

Getting Closer to Always

Chapter 3

Castle knew he was beaming and possibly grinning like an idiot but he couldn't help it as he put Beckett's coffee down on her desk. "Good morning, Detective."

She raised her eyebrows even as she returned his smile. "Wow, Castle, did someone make you the King of the Universe or, wait, no, did you reach a new high score on one of your video games?"

He laughed. "Neither of those things. I'll have you know that you are looking at the father of a valedictorian, Beckett."

"Alexis is the valedictorian? That's great! Tell her congratulations for me."

He inclined his head slightly. "Thank you. I'll tell her."

"And look at you, just bursting with pride, aren't you, Castle?"

"Can I help it if my daughter is the most brilliant and wonderful high school student on the planet?"

She laughed. "On the planet, Castle, really? You might be a little biased about that."

"I admit that I might be a little biased but it doesn't make my conclusion any less true. Alexis is as close to perfect as it's possible to be."

Her smile softened a little even as she shook her head at him. "I think you're a little drunk with fatherly pride right now, Castle."

"Oh, I know I am," he acknowledged frankly. He'd been pretty much giddy since the moment Alexis had told him and his mother the news yesterday at dinner. It was entirely possible he'd been beaming non-stop since that moment. And he'd been hard put not to call Beckett immediately, his mind leaping to her, to wanting to share the news with her first. She was always the first person he wanted to call, the first person he wanted to share news with, both good and bad. And with just about everything, he constantly found himself wondering what she would think, how she would react. She lived inside his mind so hers was, so often, the internal voice he heard, had become the voice of his own better judgment.

"You realize her being named a valedictorian means she's really graduating high school, getting ready to leave home, and all that."

His grin collapsed and he grimaced at her. "Thank you, Detective Downer. Did you have to remind me about that?"

Rather to his surprise since his tone had been mostly teasing, she looked honestly apologetic. "I'm sorry, Castle. I didn't mean to ruin the moment."

He waved a dismissive hand, his smile returning, if a little more subdued than it had been before. "Never mind, Beckett. My powers of denial are more than a match for your reality."

Her smile returned as well, lit up her eyes. "So you admit to being in denial?"

"I'm going through the stages of grieving and right now, yes, I'm firmly ensconced in Denial-land."

"Well, it's not a bad place to be and you still have—what, a week until the actual ceremony?"

"Almost. It's five days from now," he corrected her. He could have told her the exact number of hours left too but he decided to leave it at that.

"Five days. Wow. I can't believe it's coming up that fast."

"Tell me about it."

"So, is she excited?"

"I think freaked out might be the better term."

"Freaked out? Why?"

"Oh, because as valedictorian, she gets to give the graduation speech at the ceremony," he answered, grinning proudly again. (Nope, the giddiness wasn't going away any time soon.)

"Wow, that's quite an honor for her."

"It is. But she seems more stressed at the thought of it than she was over any of her finals," he said with a faint frown. He hated seeing Alexis worried.

"Of course she is."

"Why?" he asked in honest confusion. He didn't know how Alexis could be so relatively calm over her finals or in giving presentations for class—Alexis, who had always cared about her grades—only to fall apart at the idea of giving a speech that wouldn't be graded at all.

"Because all she needed to do for her finals was study and Alexis has been studying her entire life. She knows how to study. She doesn't know how to write and give a speech at one of life's big threshold moments. That's not something she's been trained to do."

The explanation gave him pause and he studied her for a moment. "That makes sense," he admitted. He sometimes forgot one of the reasons he liked talking with Beckett so much, about Alexis and about other things too; Beckett had a way of giving him a fresh perspective on things. For all that their minds could work in sync so well when it came to solving cases—and he loved that—in other things, she often gave him a new way of looking at things. And when it came to Alexis, he had to admit that in some ways, Beckett probably had a better understanding of Alexis than he did simply because they were more similar in their characters. Beckett, like Alexis, took things seriously; Beckett, like Alexis, followed rules; Beckett, like Alexis, was a person who took responsibility for things. He knew Alexis and the way she thought and reacted to things; he trusted that he knew Alexis better than anyone else in the world. But sometimes, understanding how and why Alexis reacted to things the way she did didn't come naturally to him. And that was where talking to Beckett helped. She made him a better father for Alexis—and really, he would probably love her for that alone. Combined with everything else Beckett was, it was no wonder he was so head over heels in love with Kate.

Beckett smiled. "But she'll figure it out."

"I know she will. Alexis has pretty much always succeeded at whatever she set her mind to."

"What's her plan for preparing what she's going to say?"

"At the moment, it involves searching the Internet for every graduation speech ever given since the beginning of time. I'm not sure but she's probably reading the graduation speeches the ancient Romans gave and the speeches given to the students of Socrates and Aristotle when they graduated."

She smiled. "Well, if she starts her speech by addressing 'Friends, Romans, countrymen,' you can probably blame all her research for that."

He laughed. "Right. At any rate, that's her plan for the next 5 days."

"Wish her luck for me and tell her I'm sure she'll do just fine."

"I'll do that."

"And what about you, Castle? Do you have a plan for how you're going to deal with everything?"

He lifted his eyebrows at her. "Being in Denial sort of implies that I don't have a plan, doesn't it? Because I really don't. I'm pretending that this summer will go on forever and she'll keep on living at home, just with no school or classes to go to."

Her expression softened and then she leaned forward a little to rest her hand on his arm that was on her desk. "Well, if you need help getting through the other stages of grieving, let me know."

His brain blanked, his thoughts stuttering, as his eyes focused on her hand resting on his arm, every nerve in his body suddenly seeming to be centered around that spot, the warmth of her hand. Oh God. What was this? They touched—or they used to, fairly often, but they hadn't in weeks, not since the Boylan Plaza bombing case. Not since he'd found out the truth and their relationship had gone to hell, suddenly becoming this aching, painful thing, rather than the source of happiness it had been before. And now, she was touching him, fairly platonically, admittedly, but still. Beckett was touching him and even this platonic touch had the ability to scramble his brain completely. (It occurred to him, not for the first time, that actually making love to Kate might be the death of him, if he reacted this strongly to just the touch of her hand. It was ridiculous. He had, frankly, been with enough women that he ought to be immune to reacting this strongly to a platonic touch but no, not where Kate was concerned. She was… Kate and she was different.) "If I need help?" he found himself parroting rather lamely.

"You know, if you need a hand to hold or a shoulder to cry on," she said, her tone light, as she gave his arm a pat and then removed her hand.

And he could swear that in spite of his shirt and his jacket, the spot on his arm where her hand had rested felt suddenly colder from the loss of her touch.

"You—really?" he asked, rather stupidly.

"Of course, Castle. I know that graduations are emotional for parents, harder than they are for the graduates. You should have seen how misty-eyed my dad was for my high school graduation."

He smiled, distracted now as he usually was at any mention of her parents. Beckett treasured her memories of her parents, her mom especially, the way a miser hoarded gold, keeping them to herself, allowing only brief glimpses into the happiness of her past before her mother's murder had torn her apart. It was why he loved every time Beckett mentioned her parents, shared some memory of her parents; for her, talking about her parents was a sign of trust, one she gave to few people in her life. "Was he really?"

Her expression softened, becoming reminiscent. "Yeah, my dad was an emotional wreck for my high school graduation. My mom teased him for being such a softy about it but then, when the fall came and my parents took me to Stanford to move in, the tables were turned because then, my mom was the emotional one."

"Your mom cried?"

"Yeah," she said softly. "I almost never saw my mom cry when I was growing up; she wouldn't allow herself to cry in front of me, I think. But that day, when we were done moving me into my dorm room and it was time for my parents to leave, my mom broke down and she cried and hugged me for a long time like she was never going to let me go again. My dad had to remind her that they had a flight to catch and she was still crying when they drove away."

"Remind me to bring multiple boxes of tissues with me when I help Alexis move in to Columbia."

She managed a smile in response to this only half-joking request. "She's only moving a couple miles uptown."

He held up a hand in exaggerated dismay. "Not thinking about it yet, remember, Beckett? Still in denial, thank you."

She laughed—and damn, he did love making her laugh. "Sorry, Castle, I forgot. Alexis isn't going anywhere; she'll stay at home with you as your little girl forever."

He nodded, keeping his face straight even as his heart warmed at her indulging him in his denial. "Thank you."

Her expression softened. "It'll be okay, you know, Castle. Alexis loves you and she'll still need you. Just like I still need my dad."

His chest warmed at this evidence of her wanting him to feel better over his little girl growing up and getting ready to leave home, the added little evidence of trust from her admission of still needing her father. Beckett didn't admit to needing people, to vulnerability of any kind, easily; he understood that, understood why, after all she'd been through, all the people who had let her down. It had been those flashes of vulnerability that had caught him, held him, fascinated him from the beginning and after all these years, it was still part of the mystery that was Kate Beckett that he couldn't get enough of. "I know," he agreed with a little sigh. "But it still won't be the same." He lifted his shoulders a little. "Alexis is growing up. I just don't want to accept it."

"Things change, Castle. Nothing stays the same forever. Kids grow up. People learn from their mistakes." She paused and then added, more quietly, "Walls come down."

His eyes flew up to meet hers, startled, suddenly breathless. And almost dizzy with the sudden rush of hope.

She didn't look away, held his gaze as she finished, "Things change and change is good."

People learn from their mistakes. Walls come down. Change is good…

"You're right," he managed to say through his suddenly dry throat. "Change is good."

Her lips curved slightly and then—oh God—her gaze lowered to his lips for a second before returning to his eyes.

Desire slammed into him so hard and so fast he felt as if he'd been hit by a metaphorical freight train. He wanted to kiss her. At that moment, he felt as if he wanted to kiss her more than he wanted his next breath. The force of the wanting stunned him. God knew he was used to wanting to kiss her—he felt as if he'd spent the better part of the last four years wanting to kiss Kate Beckett. But not like this. This was more. Because now, looking at her, he knew—knew both from primal instinct and from the knowledge that came from more casual flings than he cared to count—that she wanted to kiss him too.

He couldn't think. He couldn't breathe. He didn't dare to blink for that matter, half-afraid that if he did blink, he'd find that it had all been his imagination, that Beckett wasn't looking at him like… well, like she was and… and…

"Hey, Beckett."

The sound of her name made them both start, his arm slipping off the side of her desk so his entire torso jerked forward ungracefully.

Damn it. Smooth move, Rick, he thought sarcastically. And damn Ryan for interrupting, he thought, rather irrationally.

She looked up. "Yeah, Ryan?"

"You coming to this thing?"

"Oh, right, yeah, just a sec."

Beckett looked at him, still a little flushed, regret and apology written all over her face. "Castle, I'm sorry. We've got this precinct-wide meeting about something or other right now. I—I've got to go."

"No, no, it's okay," he said quickly. "I understand." He understood about her work. Understood what she'd been telling him. Understood… everything…

She gave him a soft smile. "Okay. Um, we're going to be on call if a body drops from tomorrow so… I guess I'll see you later?"

"Right, later," he repeated a little dumbly, managing a small, rather tight, smile.

Damn damn damn damn damn. Stupid Ryan. Stupid precinct meeting. Stupid universe.

"I'll call you, Castle," Beckett said after another long moment where they both seemed frozen in place.

"Until then, Beckett," he managed to say and then forced himself to lift a hand in a vague wave towards Espo and, yes, Ryan too. "Later, guys."

"Later, Castle," they chorused in messy unison.

He watched as Beckett joined them, with a last glance back at him.

And then, when the bullpen was emptied except for a few uniforms manning the phones, he finally turned to walk towards the elevator. He allowed himself a brief sigh but then smiled to himself.

Walls come down. Change is good…

And she'd wanted to kiss him too. That was a definite change.

They'd been interrupted and, as frustrated as he was, he also felt… happy. More hopeful and optimistic than he'd ever felt before.

They weren't there yet. She had yet to tell him in so many words that she loved him. They had yet to kiss.

But oh, they were close now. He felt it. Knew it. They were close to the start of everything, to the start of their Always.

The wall—that damn, blasted wall—had come down. Or at the very least was close enough that only a few bricks remained.

Yes, they were close. Finally, after all these years, after all these months of waiting, after these last few weeks and days of hurting and doubting and learning to hope again, they were close. And nothing, he decided, would get in the way of their Always now.

~The End~

Until Orlando Costas gets murdered and everything goes to hell…

Author's Note 2: I thought it was necessary to end this with some sort of definite forward movement between Castle and Beckett to try to explain, at least a little, of where Castle would get the courage to throw everything on the line the way he does in that epically awesome (and heartbreaking) argument in "Always."

The angels keep their ancient places-

Turn but a stone and start a wing!

'Tis ye, 'tis your estrangèd faces,

That miss the many-splendored thing.

- Francis Thompson, "The Kingdom of God"