It has been a quiet but enlightening day. Kate's already thinking ahead to how she's going to tell Castle her news, and she can't decide how exactly he'll react. He wasn't there to hear it firsthand, since she's only on light desk duty these first few weeks back and doing computer research to assist ongoing investigations is boring to watch. He's been home using the time to work on his next novel.

She's walking from where the cab dropped her off at the corner to the entrance to Castle's building. There are a couple of press guys sitting in their cars parked along the curb. One of them gets out of his car as she approaches, and she waves him off. It's a bizarre waste of time, because they know that she can't make a statement. The NYPD press office would handle any statement she'd make if it ever came to it.

There have been a few stray stories about the 'Trial of the Century' in the news the last couple of days about the reaction to the sentencing, but it's definitely dying out now. She and Castle living their own 15 minutes of fame is over. They can finally, thankfully, go on with their lives. Except for Castle's celebrity as an author, but she's not daunted by that; it's more minor leagues than Castle would ever admit.

There's Bob, just like always, sitting in his beat up car reading the paper. She knocks on the passenger window and he rolls it down. "I'm going to miss you, Bob."

"Thanks, you too. Starting tomorrow, they've got me assigned to this stuck up society brat who is marrying some other rich guy. Apparently, her dad is under investigation for securities fraud. Meanwhile, she's spending daddy's money left and right. I'm going to have to follow her to florists and dress shops all day long."

"Sorry to hear that."

"He your boyfriend now?" Bob asks, jerking his head to indicate Castle's loft. "I only ask because maybe you'll be getting married soon, and I'll run into you at the bakery or something."

Kate chuckles. "We'll see, Bob." She starts to back away with a wave and go inside the building, but an idea surfaces. It's a long shot, but there's one piece of the whole Jason Glendale case and their time at the beach house that still nags at her. She backtracks.

"You were there in the Hamptons, correct?"

He nods, "Yeah."

"Did you take pictures?"

"I've got this baby," he pats a fancy camera that's directed out the front window, and has a cord running between it and the computer on the passenger seat. "It takes time lapse, so I just set it to snap a photo every 60 seconds, or 5 minutes, or 20, or whatever."

That's more than a little disturbing. "Were you there the night that someone threw a brick through the upstairs window?"

A few minutes later she's dashing inside the building with even more interesting news to tell Castle.

Rick hasn't been writing for more months than he cares to admit to anyone, but especially Patterson. Ever since he's been back in the city it's like the floodgates have opened. As a writer, he really hates how overused that particular metaphor is, but the problem is that it describes the feeling all too perfectly, and he hasn't spent time coming up with anything better. He's sure now that something was holding him back. With everything in his life such a mess for these many months, it's not too surprising that it was impossible to get anything down on paper that could make sense of it all. But now, suddenly, that floodgate opened and he's writing like mad.

He's tempted to credit the fact that Beckett is back in his life, and in his life in a way that is new and wonderful. He's tempted, except that what he has been writing isn't Nikki Heat. He still knows her tone and characterization, and if he pushes himself he can get lines of dialogue out. But the problem is that he's distracted. He can't seem to stop with these new characters that have birthed in his mind, fully formed and ready to play, firing off at a rate almost faster than he can type. What a feeling! It comes and comes as if someone else is feeding him the words in giant spoonfuls. And it's good, he knows it is, maybe better than anything he's ever written before.

So he's decided to forget about looming deadlines and what kind of explanation he's going to have to come up with for Gina, and he's just running with it. He's been writing like crazy for weeks and the only thing he stops and takes a break for is Beckett.

As if on cue, he hears distinctive noises from the other side of his front door, so he saves the file he's been working on and closes it.

Beckett's had a spare key for his place on her key ring for years. Rick can't remember, but he probably gave it to her after that bomb blew up her place and she stayed in his guest room for a short time. So even though she's had it for a long time, she's never used it in quite the same way as she does now, to come home to him. It might be why he's weirdly obsessed with the sound of it turning in the lock.

Rick greets her at the door, hoping for a reunion that involves her pushing him up against the kitchen island and having her way with him, like she did when she came home the day before. But today Kate enters in a flurry of activity.

"Computer!" she says, dragging him along back into his office. She makes a typing gesture with her fingers. "Check your e-mail right now, Bob sent you something."

"Bob? As in our friendly neighborhood stalker-Bob?"

"Yes, check your e-mail please."

He clicks a few things and then swings the laptop around toward her so that she can see. Two attachments open and Kate makes a happy, almost-squeal, funny sound. Rick's not amused that Bob can get such a reaction from her.

"Should I be worried that you've grown attached to Bob, and we're going to have to adopt him now?"

"Don't be ridiculous, Castle," she says. "Look at those photos. One is of a brick being thrown, and in the next frame you can see a partial license plate of the car as it drives off."

"This car belongs to the person who threw the brick through the window of my house?" Castle's starting to understand her reaction now.

"Yes."

"And Bob's been holding out on us? I'm hurt."

"If I'm not mistaken, that same car was parked at the Suffolk County PD station when we went to visit your long lost friend Miranda."

He ignores the jab about Miranda, and instead tries to process what this all means. "So the brick wasn't a warning about the trial?"

"It was a warning about looking into the Glendale case. I called the station the day before to ask about it. Maybe someone else overhead the call. Maybe they didn't like that I was looking into it?"

"We," Rick corrects. "We were looking into it."

"There was no 'we' yet."

"Oh, baby," he does his best Casanova the Seducer impression. "There was always a 'we' you just didn't know it yet."

She rolls her eyes. "No, Castle, what I meant was that I hadn't even told you at that point. Nobody knew except people at the—"

"We have to call Miranda," he finishes, finally getting it.

"That's what I've been trying to tell you since I got here."

They are on the couch watching a movie, and Beckett is doing that head-bob thing, where she's trying to stay awake but failing at it spectacularly. Rick is the opposite; he couldn't be more awake and anxious. They called Miranda hours ago with their news and e-mailed over the photos. She recognized the car as belonging to someone who worked at the station, and that's all she would say up front. She said she'd get back to them with any news. Castle assumed that meant soon, but hours have passed and the phone has remained silent all evening.

Kate yawns, and he chuckles. "Why don't you go to bed?"

"I'm sorry, I…"

"Go," he says, giving her a kiss on the forehead. "I'm just going to watch the news, and then I'll be in to join you."

Rick gets up with her, ready to assist, but once he sees that she's awake enough to be steady on her feet and not bump into furniture in his office on the way to the bedroom, he watches her go. He flips the channels until he finds local news, and it's only a few minutes later when the front door opens.

"Hello, anyone home?" Martha breezes in during the third top headline of the evening, a shooting in the Bronx.

"I'm here," Rick replies; he leaves the TV on and meets her in the kitchen. Martha opens the refrigerator, takes out a half-finished bottle of Pinot Grigio, and pours herself a big glass. "Something on your mind, Mother?"

She takes a sip, her eyes flitting past Rick's shoulder in the direction of empty TV area. "Kate's not here tonight?"

"She's here, already in bed asleep." He doesn't miss that his mother avoided any discussion of her day. Then again, maybe the generous glass of wine wasn't an indication of anything, it's not like his mother is known for needing an excuse to further pickle her liver.

"I had to endure a cast reunion tonight. Do you remember that zombie horror movie I was in years ago?"

"Oh yes." How could he forget? That's when she came to "stay for just a couple of weeks during filming in New York" and ultimately never left. The man scamming Martha of her millions coincided with that particular movie project.

"Well, the girl who was only 12 at the time is now all grown up and thinks she knows everything, but still very much the brat that she was years ago. Part way through dinner, she began a big argument with my former co-star, Clinton St. James, about the Meisner method. Which, of course, deteriorated into…"

Rick reaches over to take the bottle of wine and pour himself an equally generous glass. She's really on a roll when the news broadcast behind them comes back from commercial break and begins a story about the big trial. Tangentially related of course, because at this point there's not much left to cover, but it's enough to cause Martha to stop mid-sentence. She coughs, and then recovers a thread of her narrative.

"I'll go switch that off," he says, while his mother covers her fumble under the pretense of searching for a new bottle of wine to open.

When he returns, her back is to him and her head lowered. Rick puts a hand on her shoulder; she turns and hugs him. They've never been overly demonstrative, but they've also never denied comfort when either of them really needed it.

She says quietly, "I heard that you went to see him."

Rick mentally kicks himself; he should have been the one to tell her. Her odd behavior over the last couple of days is suddenly making much more sense. Rick's not sure how to respond. Apologize? Ask for her understanding? Tell her all about it or protect her from it?

He settles on simple and straightforward. "It was unexpected and quick, I'm not seeing him ever again. And I am fine, Mother."

Martha eases up. He takes the bottle of wine and corkscrew from the countertop in front of her and works to open the new bottle. It doesn't escape his notice that she started with cheap stuff and now decides to open a $200 bottle of grand reserve. A jab about that makes Martha roll her eyes and smile slightly. It eases the tension, just as he hoped, and they settle on the couch with refreshed glasses and an equally refreshed mood.

"Can you forgive me?" she asks in a way that makes him wonder if she's been waiting a very long time to get this question out.

Rick has always known that she loved him, and that she'd support him no matter what happened. Since he was a child, the one thing Martha Rodgers would guarantee was that his life was going to be an adventure. How does one even begin to say thanks for all of that? And how could he not forgive her for the one thing, the only thing, that briefly darkened his life? Besides, how could she even have known what that man truly was capable of? In the end, Rick's even more grateful that he was raised by Martha alone and had never known his father all along. It turns out that was the greatest blessing she gave him.

"There's nothing to forgive," he says, clinking glasses with her.

"And Kate?" This time her emotions surrounding the question are more masked, and not for the first time, Rick curses the fact that she's such a talented actress.

"Mother–"

"I didn't know who he really was, Richard. But that doesn't mean that I don't regret…" She takes a breath. "The sins of the father should never be borne by the son. Especially not when it comes to Kate, and how close you both came to almost losing..."

Rick cuts her short with what he believes is the honest truth. "We stumbled a little bit, but we're fine now. We're back on track. All of us."

It's another 45 minutes before Rick finally enters his bedroom. He sheds all his clothes except for boxers, leaving the rest in a haphazard pile on the floor. Then slides into bed beside Kate.

He's quiet about it, but Kate's breathing changes and her arm moves, a moment later she asks, "Everything OK? I heard Martha come in."

"Sorry, didn't mean to wake you."

"I wasn't really sleeping anyway." Her drowsy voice, words almost slurred, is something else he's come to love about her. Her filter isn't in place at times like this and sometimes he can glean insights that he's sure in the light of day she'd never let slip. Late night talks in the dark with her are one of his new favorite things.

"Come here," he gathers her into his arms and can feel her breath against his collarbone. "Something on your mind?"

"Nothing new." Her hand slides up his back and settles flat between his shoulder blades. "Going over for the thousandth time what I could have done in that interrogation room with Travis that would have made a difference."

"How about nothing?"

"Mmm."

That non-committal sound from her irritates him a little. He's tired of Kate beating herself up over this, but telling her to stop wouldn't matter. She's got to find her own way to move on, and all he can do is offer backup.

It's that thought that jars loose something important that they've both forgotten all about. She has news, and she didn't tell him. "Hey," he says casually, "didn't you have something you were going to tell me when you first came home?"

"About Bob's pictures?"

"No, not that."

"Oh!" She sits up in a flash, instantly wide-awake. "I forgot to tell you! I got promoted at work."

He sits up in bed as well. "Congratulations."

"Wait." Her body might be awake now, but her brain is taking a couple extra seconds to catch up. "How did you…?"

"Might have slipped out during my poker game last night. The mayor wanted to make sure I'd have champagne chilling for you at home. Which, for the record, I did, but I forgot all about it."

Kate shakes her head, but she puts her arms around his neck at the same time. "What am I going to do with you?"

"Have your dirty way with me anytime that you want?" he suggests, loving the grin that spreads across her face in response.

"Do I even need to tell you the details? Or do you already know that as well?"

"No, all I know is that you were promoted to head the newly resurrected cold case squad. For obvious reasons it went away after 9/11 because resources were needed elsewhere, but it's about time to get it running again, and I think it's perfect for you. The rest you'll have to fill me in on."

They settle back against the pillows, and he combs his fingers through her hair as she tells him about the new assignment. She's going to have some say in who will be chosen under her command; it's not surprising that Ryan and Esposito have already put in their names. The cases will be harder and take infinitely longer, if ever, to solve. But her hours will be a little more regular.

"I'm proud of you." He kisses her.

"I'm still going to need a sidekick from time to time."

"Well, obviously."

Kate rolls him under her and straddles his hips. There's a moment, each and every time they do this, when he is amazed all over again. His internal monologue goes something like: Really? Because I'm pretty sure I don't deserve this, or you, but I'm going to take it anyway. Woohoo!

Since the day Rick met Kate Beckett she's brought words to him. Things he wants to say about her, to her, to celebrate her. There are entire soliloquies in his head about how impressive her strength is, the loyalty and generosity of her heart, and yes, how hot she looks naked in the moonlight.

His hand runs up the back of her thigh, along the way bunching the material of her nightshirt. He settles his hand at her hip, urging her on as she grinds against him in slow, rocking strokes.

Sex with Kate is enthusiastic and fun, until it turns meaningful and beautiful and all those things that he wants to write romantic poems about, if only he were capable. This is about showing her, not telling for once, what she means to him. Demonstrating just how deep and lasting this goes for him, hoping that actions speak louder and she gets his meaning.

Rick's other hand cups her cheek, drawing her closer. Thin fabric is the only barrier preventing her breasts from brushing his chest and he longs for it to be gone, to lavish them with his mouth, but he can't reach her nipples at this angle.

"Kate," he pleads, wanting more leverage, but she's got him pinned and is probably enjoying that. In their exploits so far, he hasn't suggested yet that she cuff him, but there's probably something inevitable about that particular kink.

Beckett pulls back for a moment, sitting on her heels, hair wild, slight smirk on her lips and in her eyes. She lifts the nightshirt up over her head and tosses it into the corner. Her panties come off next, then she shimmies his boxers off and straddles his hips again, all while he watches her.

Stunning.

There's no better expression, and he knows, because he's tried them all. His hands caress up her sides and cup her breasts. Then they reroute to her back in order to pull her down on top of him again.

She positions herself over him and takes a second or two for the mere anticipation of it. She's always been a bit of a tease. He's never told her how much he loves that. Maybe someday.

They both moan as she lowers on to him, and when they kiss their tongues duel each other. She's over him, around, above, all consuming; drawing out both of their pleasure until he can't take the build up any longer, and he's moving his fingers between their bodies, trying to find the right spot, when it turns out that she has no need for the additional stimulation.

Kate says his name in a way that shreds apart any vestige of tethers on his control. The rush of release is made only sweeter by her contracting around him, her hand in his hair and her mouth meeting his in desperate relief and joy and love.

It's not fair, he thinks as he comes down from the high. He's a man who has too much already, blessings beyond what anyone could hope for in this life. He doesn't deserve this particular cherry on top of the sundae. He never expected to find love, let alone one that went beyond what he thought true love really was, in his second 40 years.

Rick is left with no words for the moment. None. They're curled together with her head on his shoulder and night air from the open window cooling their skin. He's caressing Kate's back and she's kissing along his neck lazily, the early stages of sleep apparent again. There are no words at all. He's left with only one thing. It's a non-word if you ask a purist, yet it's somehow the perfect description that even this writer can't deny.

Woohoo.