Kate crawls into bed that night with a smile on her face that has her cheeks on the verge of aching, hiding the spread of her lips against the collar of a shirt that smells like him again. It's been a few hours since he reluctantly left to join his daughter for dinner, staining her cheek with the heat of his breath and the see you soon he exhaled into her skin.
Again, she thought 'soon' would mean days, definitely more than twenty-four hours. But the knock on her door is too distinct for her not to know who has the audacity to show up outside her apartment this late.
She frowns even as her stomach flutters with butterflies she thought died over the summer and slips from the sheets, padding through her apartment to reach the door. A glance through the peephole confirms her suspicions, but a pleasant dose of surprise still filters through her veins before she tugs the door open.
Castle is standing on the other side, dressed in the rich blue button down from earlier, a light peacoat at his shoulders, the scarf hanging loosely from around his neck.
He smiles. "Hey."
"Hey," she greets, quirking her eyebrow when he fails to say anything more. Nerves tangle with the butterfly wings. "Did you forget something from earlier?"
Please tell her she hasn't managed to heft some other sentimental article of clothing.
He blinks, the corners of his mouth curling ever so slightly, sparking light in his gaze.
"Yeah, actually," he nods, stepping forward with purpose, hands rising to cup her face. She doesn't flinch at the cradle of his palms, the cove of his body bowing forward as he tilts his head, kisses her for the first time in over three months.
The relief slips from her lips in the blend of a sigh and a moan, a sound that has him sliding his fingers into her hair. The last time he kissed her, he knew it was over. He had to have known.
She was immersed in her mother's case, ready to fight to the death for justice that was never really in her reach. He told her that they couldn't win this one, that she needed to back off before they killed her too.
I just don't want anything to happen to you. I'm your partner, your friend-
Is that what we are? She questioned him, just daring him to say more, almost craving for him to confirm it, to say too much and scare her away. Just friends?
He glared at her, stony and scowling.
I'm the man in your bed every night. We don't have to have a label, Kate, but that should say enough.
But it wasn't enough and they both knew it. It's why he pushed her.
You know what? This isn't about your mother's case anymore. This is about you needing a place to hide. Because you've been chasing this thing so long, you're afraid to find out who you are without it.
Her blood boiled, fury that she didn't think he would ever be stupid enough to tap overflowing into her veins.
You don't know me, Castle. You think you do, but you don't.
He scoffed at her.
Bullshit. I know you crawled inside your mother's murder and didn't come out. I know you hide there, the same way you hid in nowhere relationships with men you don't love. You don't get to do that with me, you aren't allowed to hide from me. I won't let you.
She growled at him, already gathering her things, prepared to storm out of his loft for the last time. He caught her before she could tug her duffel bag from under his bed, dragged her forward with his thick hand around her bicep, yanking her into his chest.
You could be happy, Kate. You deserve to be happy. Something in her chest started to crack, started to spill through her insides, made her wish she could just sink into him, let him make it okay. But you're afraid.
So afraid.
You know what we are, Castle? We are over.
And that's how she left things, shoving out of his grip and shucking her bag over her shoulder, slamming the door behind her.
He didn't see her again for another twenty-four hours, not until he was carrying her kicking and screaming and sobbing out of the hangar while Montgomery met his death. He kissed her for the first time since their fight, the last time for a long time, on the morning of Montgomery's funeral.
"It's going to be okay," he promised her, standing in her bathroom doorway while she adjusted her uniform for the millionth time. Because of course he slept over the night before, staying on her couch until her nightmares called him to her bed, coaxed her body into what was becoming its preferred resting place curled against his.
She closed her eyes and he stepped up beside her, stroked a strand of hair that escaped from beneath her hat back behind her ear.
She wanted so desperately to believe him. But a bullet would shatter all hopes of that.
"Kate." She opened her eyes to him, so close and intimate and staring into her with all the reassurance she could have asked for. "I'll be with you the whole time."
He touched her chin, swept his fingers along her jaw, and she released a shaking breath when he whispered his lips over hers in a fleeting breath of a kiss.
It felt like a goodbye even though he couldn't have known what was coming.
But now, with his hands tangled in her hair and her toes arching to chase his mouth when they part for breath, it feels like a beginning. A better one.
"Stay," she whispers, hooking her fingers in the fabric of his scarf and holding on. "Please stay."
Castle's nose grazes her cheek while his hands unfurl from her hair. One scales her side, the other descending to brush his knuckles between her breasts, where a scar he's never seen but already knows throbs with every beat of her heart. "Not going anywhere."
Kate takes a step backwards. "Good," she murmurs, tugging on his scarf to draw him after her and feeling his grin bloom against her lips, feeling it spread through her system like reassurance that mends some of her broken pieces. "Because I don't plan to let you go again either."
The first time he notices her wearing it, he almost misses it.
It's late February, the air is brisk and bites at his cheek with every wisp of the breeze. They're walking down the street side by side to their favorite cafe for brunch, his mind on a giant mug of hot chocolate, but his attention is riveted to the scarf he just realized she's wearing around her neck.
"Looks good on you," he murmurs, earning an arch of her brow and nodding to her throat.
"Oh," she chuckles, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear and shifting closer to him while they wait at the edge of the crosswalk. They've been doing… this, spending time together outside of the precinct, outside of her bedroom, for a handful of weeks now and it's only further convinced him that he's so in love with Kate Beckett. Seeing her with rosy cheeks and a red nose, bundled up in a coat and his favorite scarf that he's only worn occasionally since they first started working together... it has his heart bursting for her. "I forgot to pack a scarf the other night. I hope you don't mind."
"No," he grins, reaching out to adjust the fabric just below her chin, brushing the cold edge of his thumb to her jaw. "My clothes always look better on you anyway."
Kate rolls her eyes at him and withdraws her hand from her pocket, loops her arm through his before she tucks it back in.
"To me, your clothes always look best on the floor."
His brow rises to his hairline as she smirks.
"Are you sure you're hungry for food or should we head back to the loft?" he questions, more than prepared to turn around and stride back home with her. But Kate tilts into his side, laughter lining her lips.
"Food first, Castle. And then..."
"And then?" he murmurs, nudging his nose to her temple.
She turns her head, never one for public affection he's learned, always assumed, but the crowd of fellow pedestrians freezing and in wait of the crosswalk signal to turn aren't paying any attention and he only has eyes for her.
"And then I'm taking you home," she whispers, her lips brushing his. "And decorating the floor with your clothes."
"But you keep my old scarf from that very first week
'Cause it reminds you of innocence and it smells like me
You can't get rid of it, 'cause you remember it all too well"
-All Too Well, Taylor Swift