4 months later
"How does it look?"
"It looks fine."
"Fine. I can't have fine. I need something more - something - "
"Dad, you can't change the past."
Rick Castle fumbled with the tie that he had tried to knot for ten minutes now. Every time he thought he had gotten it right he had found something wrong with it.
"Well how did I wear it last time?"
"I don't know. I'm not even sure if it's the same one," Alexis said, standing up from his bed.
"Alexis - "
"Dad, it is. It's fine. You wore that tie, I promise."
"I just - this has to go well."
"What are you worried about? You have her, she's not leaving."
"Yes, but I don't remember getting her."
Kate straightened the dress that Castle insisted she wear. It had hung in the back of her closet for two years now, untouched. The black fabric fell over her legs just as she remembered. The low v-neck and the necklace that she had thought she'd sold. Her shoes were different - the original ones had broken in a chase, leaving her with a bruise on her knee for the following week.
Her phone - resting on her dresser across the room - buzzed for her attention.
He's nervous.
Kate read Alexis' text - something else that was different this time around. He was nervous last time, but she didn't have a teenage girl warning her. Kate decided not to answer it, but to let the events of this night unfold. He would be here in half an hour. Alexis had given him the address, but Kate asked if they could take a cab to where they needed to go.
She didn't want him driving.
"Okay, you have your keys?"
"I'm not driving."
"Yea, but if - "
" - my car appears at the restaurant across town?"
"What if you can't get back in the loft?"
"Where are you going?" he questioned.
"Nowhere."
"Your grandmother?"
"Okay, I get it. Fine. Don't bring your keys. But, you will need your wallet."
"I know."
"Did you pick up flowers like I said?"
"Yes."
"The white ones."
"Yes."
"Are you sure - I don't see - "
"Alexis."
"Fine," she said, settling back onto his bed.
"Now who's the nervous one."
Castle arrived at her apartment just like he said - at 8. They exchanged smiles, glances. He said she looked beautiful, she thanked him, said he looked handsome. Just like they had done two years ago.
"You ready?"
"Yea, let me grab my purse."
Kate went back into the kitchen where her clutch sat on the island. Her phone buzzed when she reached the table.
Did he make it?
Kate quickly responded to Alexis while walking back to the door.
"Is it her?"
"Yeah."
"I think she's more nervous than I am."
"Why are you nervous?" Kate said, smiling - hiding her own nerves. "We've been through this before, remember?"
"Ha, funny."
They made it to the restaurant within the hour. Castle had reserved the same table - with some help from stories and his daughter. Their waiter - although different - brought out the same bottle of wine.
"Should we make this really weird and order the same thing?"
"What did I order."
"Oh, now where is the fun in that?"
"I feel like I came to class and didn't read the assignment," he mumbled, turning the page in the bound menu.
Kate smiled, looking back at hers. She knew exactly what she ordered last time - and hated it. One more thing to make that night begin horribly. She felt compelled to suffer through the same thing - grab on to the good memories that led after. But, she decided not too. Tonight was a new night. A new memory for both.
Their food came - Kate ordering something different - as did Castle. Their small talk carried through the night. Kate, although trying to be comfortable, felt awkward - out-of-place. She thought they could pick it back up.
"Tell me - what was it that made it so special?" Castle said, interrupting her thoughts, "that night. Our first real date."
"Spontaneity," Kate said, bringing a bite of food to her mouth. "You didn't tell me the restaurant and afterward, you controlled everything. How much I wanted you, how much you were going to give. You paid. Then you drove me home. Through the night I became so into you. Honestly, I didn't think it was going anywhere. It was your charm - I was thinking just a fling. I would have taken you up to my place if the opportunity presented itself. But, you kissed me on the cheek and said 'until next time.' I watched you walk to your car and drive away. You left me stunned."
"That's going to be pretty hard to beat."
Kate smiled, but finally understood him. He didn't know this. This was his plan to surprise her - last time. She knew all of his tricks - and he didn't know which ones they were.
"You're doing fine so far."
"Not too déjà vu."
"No, I like it."
"I have something new planned tonight. We didn't do this, that I know of."
"Oh do you. And how do you know that we haven't done it."
"I asked Alexis and she said I never mentioned it."
"She could be lying."
"Katherine Beckett, I would think you would have faith in my attempts to regain your attraction."
Kate silently gave him this one. His win in their pointless, small, amusing banter. But, what she wanted to tell him was that he never lost it. She was still madly, dizzily in love with the man who sat in front of her.
When they finished - and the check was paid - they got into a taxi.
"Where are we going?"
"You'll see."
When they reached Castle's loft, Kate looked confused to his grinning face. Castle walked around the taxi - after paying - and opened her door, hand stretched out.
"We're going to your place?" Kate said, flirtatious and suspicious.
"No, were going above my place."
Kate knew that he owned a space of roof above the building, but he was right. They never went up. It had gotten cooler on the warmer spring day. Her short-sleeved dress was going to quickly make her cold.
She took his hand which led her to the front door. Goosebumps trailed her arms and her hair responded to the breeze that greeted them.
They got into the elevator and - as suspected - took it to the roof. Inside, Castle took off his jacket and put it around her arms - her head resting on his shoulder as they made their way up.
The door opened and bright, Christmas lights trailed the perimeter. Silence surrounded the area and the stairs they stood on lead to a small end table with a while table-cloth.
"Rick this -"
"Did I beat last time?"
She turned to him, eyes looking up to his. She brushed away the hair in front of his face brought on by the wind.
"Yeah, you did."
The night traveled on - champagne was opened and consumed. Their talking turned into dancing with no music. Castle's hands around her waist, hers around his neck.
"For a writer, this is a bit clichéd."
"But you like it."
"That I do."
"What would old me do now?"
"I don't know. Old you never slow danced on a rooftop."
His hand moved her hair behind her ear and his eyes looking down to hers - a height difference caused by shoes being removed an hour ago.
Kate bit her lip, her hand rubbing his ear.
Then he kissed her. Their second first kiss.
Different from her memory, but filled with the same passion and intensity as their other first real kiss.
She missed this. Her stomach tightened, filling itself with everything that she had wanted for over a year now. His warmth traveling down to her fingers. Her left hand around his ear.
He pulled away, smiling. Looking into her eyes.
"What."
"Nothing."
"What?"
"How many times have I done that?"
"It doesn't matter. It was - is - never enough."
A bench in the distance made itself known as the moon traveled across the sky, illuminating different parts of the rooftop.
Grabbing his hand, Kate led him to the left side of the roof.
He sat down, brought her close to him. Let her head rest on his shoulder, her feet stretched out down the end.
"When was the last time we kissed - before the - you know - do you remember?"
"Yeah, I remember," she said, traveling back - past the darkness in her life. She adjusted her feet, pulled closer to his arms.
"We were coming home from a movie - some indie film you were dying to see. It was three days before. We were walking home - we went to the theater around the corner - and you stopped. I didn't notice so you pulled my hand back. I turned and you had this contagious smile on your face - the one that lights up your eyes. I didn't know what you were doing so I walked back to you. You put your hands around my face and did almost exactly what you did just now. When we were done, I asked you why."
"What did I say?"
"You said - because you didn't tell me how beautiful I looked when we left."
Silence sat between them, a sense of confusion.
"You said that because I had been sick all week. I didn't want to leave the house and I went in your t-shirt and a pair of leggings. My hair was a mess and I didn't put on any make-up. I didn't eat all week. I was miserable. But, that was the first time I felt happy during that tired, draining day. You were busy with meetings and didn't have time to take care of me."
He sat quiet, absorbing this part of his life that he can't remember.
A tear strayed from her eye, her hand coming up to wipe it away. Castle sat up, moving her body.
"What's wrong?"
She smiled, looking up at him, her head leaning on his chest.
"Three days later I almost lost you. Four days later I realized that might have been the last time I got to do that."
"Well, let's make sure that that's not the last time either."
Thoughts?