He jogs the half-mile that separates his cabin from Kate's, already dialing Alexis's cellphone number while he's still climbing the front porch steps, catching his breath for the first time all morning as he retrieves his keys from the back pocket of his jeans.
"Hey Dad, oversleep again?" Alexis greets him, gentle amusement laced through her tone and he huffs in admonishment, but telling his daughter he slept late rather than hardly slept at all is always a better option.
"You know me too well, Pumpkin," he plays along, easing the door shut behind him without making a sound. "Are you at lunch?" Castle asks, glancing to the digital clock on the microwave, noting that it's nearing one in the afternoon New York time.
"Just finishing up," his daughter confirms, but there's a subtle hint of unease leaking into her cheerful voice. "I just wanted to let you know that I checked the weather for Big Sur earlier and it says there's a storm rolling in around noon your time."
Picturing his daughter checking the weather for him brings a soft smile to his face, her natural care and concern never failing to warm his heart, but he doesn't want Alexis worrying about him. Especially not over a thunderstorm he remembers hearing about on the local news when he'd turned the television on for background noise yesterday afternoon, before Kate showed up.
His daughter tends to take on the role of parent far too often in their relationship and while he admires the maturity she's carried with her since her childhood, he often feels the need to reclaim his rightful role, remind her that she doesn't always have to play the adult.
"I heard about it, but it's nothing to worry about, sweetie," he assures her, wandering into the kitchen and snagging an apple from the bowl of fruit on the granite island stationed in the middle of the room. He wants to save his appetite for Kate's 'Polish-American surprise', but after a morning of intense exercise and no food to replenish his lost energy, he's starving. "I'll be sure to stay inside, though."
Alexis sighs in relief. "Good. No going down to the beach and getting swept up in roaring waves or hit by a lightning struck tree in the forest."
"And you call me the overdramatic one in this family?" he mutters, grinning into the first bite of his apple, listening to Alexis's quiet snicker on the other line. He imagines she's on her way to one of her final summer classes already, lagging in the halls for his benefit. "Oh hey, before I let you go, did you take that chemistry exam yet?"
"Nope, I'm about to walk in right now," she informs him, the usual flicker of nerves fluttering through her voice.
"You'll do great, Pumpkin. No doubt about it"
"I hope so," she murmurs, the soft, appreciative smile he knows so well translating through the line. "Stay safe, okay?"
"Will do. I'll call you later tonight. Good luck on the test."
"Thanks Dad, love you."
"Love you too, Alexis."
He waits until Alexis has hung up first, always does, and places his phone down on the counter, strolls towards his bedroom for a fresh pair of clothes. Although, the idea of keeping the shirt on is kind of tempting…
Rick takes a whiff of the collar, pressing his nose to the fabric that smells of cherries and sex, sweat and grass. Tempting, but no, the devastated button down stripped of all its actual buttons is in desperate need of a wash and he's sure Kate would appreciate a new shirt to wear around and tease him with anyway.
Castle tosses his clothing towards the open suitcase in the small closet area of his bedroom and plucks an unworn shirt from the final few left suspended from wooden hangers, retrieves a folded pair of jeans from the shelf below. He's down to his final unused articles of clothing, having packed only enough for seven days, and as he steps into his pants, buttons his shirt, his spirits slowly drop.
He leaves tomorrow. This is his last day with Kate.
The thunder grumbles in time with his stomach and Castle exits the darkening bedroom, making a detour into his office before he can start back to Kate's. He has no plans of returning to his own cabin tonight and he doesn't think she'll want him to, so he grabs his messenger bag from the bottom desk drawer, slips his notebook in the front pocket and unplugs his laptop.
A lazy day inside with her while a storm washes over the world outside sounds heavenly, the picture of her lying next to him on the couch as he writes like she had on the beach filling his mind all too easily. Her Romanian dictionary in her lap, the soft murmurs of another language slipping past her lips-
Castle pauses, the whispered words of another language flashing bright in his mind, and he quickly drops his bag to the floor, jerkily flips his laptop open.
Her words from the night before flood back in, revived and playing on a loop through his mind, her voice still raspy and warm against his neck. There's not a chance in hell he could decipher the foreign language into an English translation on his own, but Google Translate might help.
Rick repeats the words into the computer's microphone to the best of his ability, his tongue stumbling awkwardly over each syllable, but apparently, it's enough for the language conversion app.
His breath catches hard in his lungs and - and there has to be a mistake. She wouldn't... she wouldn't admit something like that aloud, not so soon, not even in another language.
Would she?
Rick repeats the words again, but receives the same result:
I think I have fallen in love with you.
Castle sprints back to her cabin, his messenger bag clutched to his chest beneath his sopping shirt, his best attempt to protect it from the increasing raindrops falling from the sky. He had become caught up in her confession, losing track of time as he repeated the broken words into his computer's microphone multiple times to ensure he wasn't horribly mistaken, but each result was the same.
Kate Beckett had breathed loved into his skin before he'd drifted to sleep last night.
He grunts in relief once her cabin finally comes into view through the thickening sheets of pelting rain, hastens his pace to reach shelter from the storm. Kate must hear his stumbling on her porch steps, swinging her front door open in surprise by the time he staggers onto the landing.
"Castle, what are you doing in the storm?" she demands, slipping outside to meet him under the awning, eyes darting between him and the worsening weather. "I know you were eager to try my breakfast special, but we could have just-"
"You're in love with me?"
The words fall graceless and jagged from his mouth, blurted over the rumble of the swelling storm and amidst the world of movement around them, Kate goes very still. Lightning flashes with the panic in her eyes, illuminating the dilated pupils and parted lips, and if he thought he had seen her terrified before... those instances were nothing in comparison to the look on her face now.
A deafening crackle of thunder snaps her out of it and she reaches for him by reflex, draws him inside as the rain starts to fly sideways with the strong wind, sending a shudder down her spine when it sweeps over them both. But her eyes are downcast, refusing to meet his gaze, and his anxiety skyrockets.
What the hell was he thinking? He's supposed to be a best selling author; couldn't he have at least presented the question without appearing so desperate, so needy and pitiful?
"I'm sorry," he throws out, no more elegant than his last statement. "I – I didn't mean to just… but I heard you last night."
Kate presses her back against the closed door, her eyes falling closed and her breath leaving her lungs on a heavy exhale through her nose, but her brow knits at the statement.
"And you understood me?"
"No," he admits, swallowing down the raindrops clinging to his lips, clutching hard at the messenger bag still plastered to his chest. "The words - they just stuck with me, so I looked them up out of curiosity."
"Castle," she murmurs and oh, oh no… her voice is soft with anguish, with the beginnings of rejection. She's going to deny him, of the truth or her love. Maybe both.
"I fell for you too," he gets out before she can, withdrawing his laptop bag from beneath his shirt and depositing it to the floor, away from the puddle he's created in the entryway. Kate is watching him like the wild animal he met on the beach six days ago, fight or flight arguing for dominance in her eyes, but he steps in close, towers over her body that stands strong and tall against the door. "I'm in love with you, Kate."
"Castle," she chokes out, bottom lip quivering, but she pins it with her teeth, blinks away the unexpected shimmer in her eyes. "Rick-"
"No," he quiets her, lifting his chilled hands to her jaw, feeling the shiver spiral down her spine, and her hands rise to cover his slick forearms. He prepares for her to shove him away, but her fingers hold tight to his skin. "I'm not afraid to say it anymore, I love you."
Kate detaches a hand from his arm, raises her fingers to trickle over his lips, expanding them to dust along the corner of his mouth and spread out over his cheek. He doesn't try to stop her, to rush her, allows the touch of her fingers to his dripping skin, allows her the time to sort through the chaos he probably caused to explode through her mind.
"This doesn't have to be it," he adds, just in case, the need to convince her that whatever doubts she may have are conquerable. "I know it's only been a week, and I know that how quick we happened, how intense we were - are - scares you. It scares me too," he confesses, and it's the truth. He's had whirlwind romances before, but never nothing like this, never something that he wanted to last. Never something he thought could last forever. "But I don't want this to end when I leave for New York tomorrow."
Kate worries her bottom lip, ready to gnaw the mistreated flesh to bits by now, and he places his fingers beneath her chin, grazes his thumb over the mauled lip until she lets it free.
"Do you?"
The breath rattles past her lips, a cool wisp of air that has goosebumps rising on his neck, while her fingers roam to curl at his ear, her thumb caressing the lobe, and she shakes her head.
Hope spreads from his chest, through his bloodstream, lacing through his veins and brimming beneath his skin.
"No," she whispers, quiet terror in the admission, but she swallows it down with determination. Kate flicks her eyes to his mouth and leans in, but doesn't crash against him like he expects. Her lips are a gentle caress on his, a breath of a kiss that has his heart rate accelerating and the hope in his system running wild. "No, I want you. I love you."
