Author's Note: For Kavi Leighanna, for both the encouragement and consistently providing me stuff I look forward to. For ignacio2010 who will someday tell me where the handle came from, and for the unexpected and lovely friendship. For Father Vengeance, for reminding me to keep giving new authors a chance to be wowed by their work, just as so many gave me the first time I posted something on this site. :) And Corlando, for the always supportive notes! Longer note at the end...
Castle lay awake, watching her sleep (not in a creepy Twilight vampire way, just in his own semi-creepy Castle way). While the writer in him was pleased at the storyline, the man in him couldn't believe he'd said "it" first, the "L" word. In almost every other relationship he'd ever been in (with the exception of Kyra Blaine, and the proclamations he'd occasionally made drunk), he was distinctly NOT the one to say it first. But he was sure as hell this time that he'd been thinking it first. More than thinking it first, he'd been thinking of how he'd spring it on her first (preferably with her not spooking, and with all his limbs intact). The skywriting idea was discarded along with having his feelings for her proclaimed in Times Square. Instead, his admission had just tumbled out. It wasn't the story he'd planned, but the reality of her warm body spooned against his outstripped any story. He idly traced the tiny tattoo so few people knew she had, and inhaled the familiar scent of cherries. Nestling in closer to her and let himself drift off to sleep on the reality, not just the dream, of her in his arms, knowing that she knew that he knew that he loved her.
She rose early, long before he did (unless she was jerking him out of bed for an early ride-along…or waking him up in other ways). She knew her way around his loft in the dark, quietly gathering her running gear and changing in his bathroom. She paused in the doorway to gaze at his shadowy form, curled in and vulnerable, boyish with his hair every which way. She lingered for a moment, seriously tempted to wake him.
Outside his building, running in the brisk pre-dawn air air helped her think. The feeling of her body moving reminded her she was vividly alive and awake amidst the background noise of New York city, and the sense of knowing she was loved, beyond feeling loved, added a zing to her step. As she finished her run, she slowed, cooling down, aware that she hadn't said it back. She knew him - knew he was wondering, was turning it over in his mind. There were times she hadn't said it back because she was afraid of being hurt, or unsure if she meant it, or if it was too soon. With Richard Castle came the clarity that it was none of these things, that she'd loved him for years, even when tempted to strangle him into shutting up. Now...now it was a matter of timing, and meeting him in her own way.
When she returned to the loft, it was just getting light and early enough that he was still abed. She slipped in and into his shower, the smell of his soap on her skin turning her churning mind to other things. Her towel-dry was brisk and efficient, and she stepped into his room with just enough light coming through the window. He stared at her sleepily, not entirely ready to be awake if the sight of her dropping her towel to reveal her naked body was a dream.
She pounced. There really wasn't another word for the way she dove onto the bed, the way she ripped the sheet off him with relish (eliciting a yelp as cooler air hit warm body), or the speedy way she replaced said sheet with her own shower-warmed skin. He wasn't slow on the uptake in this arena, reaching for her to tumble her right on her back and show her just what he'd been thinking of before he'd opened his eyes. Rolling her beneath him, he thrust into her, smothering her cry with his mouth, and showed her with all the force and finesse he knew that he'd meant what he'd said.
The sun was a lot higher when they were momentarily done. Breathless after being thoroughly ravaged, she rolled onto her back and choked out a laugh. "I'm so glad your room does not share a wall with Alexis'," she murmured, the usual crispness of her words softened by a sexy raspiness from earlier hoarse cries that he found irresistibly sexy. He flopped bonelessly beside her.
"This is better than crazy sex, without the crazy," he said (unfortunately in his out-loud voice).
She reached over to tweak one of his nipples playfully. "Are you saying I'm better than a deep fried twinkie?"
"No! I mean yes! I mean, there's no comparison." His sex-addled writer-brain tried frantically to grasp for a more apt comparison, territory he knew was icy where women were concerned. "You're not a twinkie! You're like …" He looked at her, trying to scramble for inspiration, and lost his train of thought as he gazed over fair skin, defined curves, the line of her leg and the way it looked casually hooked over his hip, the tumble of dark hair that made her look alluring, the way her eyes were narrowed…studying him, the twinkle in them that let him know that she was just waiting for whatever he was going to babble next. The long-familiarity of watching her for years and the relative newness of having her in his bed clashed in his brain.
"French toast. Waffles. Or oatmeal…" He looked into her eyes. "Chocolate oatmeal?", he offered helplessly.
"Are you thinking of your breakfast?" she deadpanned, in an interrogation room tone.
"I'm thinking of the kind of oatmeal that fills your belly… the kind that you want to wake up to every day, and never get tired of. The right consistency of real, belly-filling gritty, while being sweet…but not too sweet? With…umm…surprises? Like texture?" He looked at her, momentarily distracted by her pursed lips as she regarded him. "With whipped cream on top…"
Her eyes narrowed further, which he interpreted as a prelude to an ear pinch. She was wondering if he knew exactly what he'd said in the bit about wanting to wake up to "oatmeal" every day. "You think everything is better with whipped cream."
He thought it might be safe enough to attempt a breast caress. "You like when I lick…"
She shut him up with the simple expediency of a kiss.
When they came up for air (long, long minutes later), she broke from him physically to get his attention. "Hey, I want you to go for a ride with me later."
He lifted his brows expressively, reaching for her again, and she rolled her eyes at him. "I meant an actual ride."
"Where to?" he asked curiously.
She declined to answer directly, eluding his grasp as she slid her long legs out of bed. "If you're very good this morning, I'll even let you drive."
True to her word, she did let him drive – though she still refused to let him diddle with the knobs on the radio. They traveled along the banks of the Hudson River, with her giving him terse directions and occasionally staring out the window. He chattered away with outrageous scenarios for Nikki Heat and Jameson Rook to get into, noticing that she was quiet on the drive, her eyes scanning the surrounds. While she didn't seem entirely calm, she also wasn't one of the thousand flavors of edgy that he'd carefully observed over the years to a degree that he should be jumpy.
They ended up in one of Manhattan's suburbs, with East Coast charming brick houses and narrow roads. A little neighborhood downtown was filled with picturesque storefronts, everything from a hardware store, a local grocer, an antique shop, and at the end of the street, a little diner straight out of the 1950s.
When they parked and went into the diner, Castle was surprised to find Jim Beckett there. (He banished the fantasies he'd been entertaining on the drive in from his brain. Fathers had a bizarre way of knowing they were there. His own growing paranoia about Alexis' dating life made him face the unthreatening man in front of them with a gulp.) Jim greeted Castle with a handshake, and his daughter with a long, tight hug before inviting them into the booth he'd occupied. He sat calmly across from them, wrapping his fingers around a mug of coffee to warm them.
"Hi Dad." Kate took a deep breath, fidgeting a little as she sat across from him.
Her father gazed at her expectantly in turn, his face relatively impassive despite his curiosity at her phoned request to meet her. "Hi Katie."
She felt the flutters of nervousness in her tummy rise. She looked over at Rick, who gazed back at her expectantly, and for once, not running his mouth. He was endearing in the moment, a little uncharacteristically shy, still clueless as to what they were doing. She didn't do big gestures the way he did – not the box tickets to the hottest Broadway musical or certain giant panda bears. In her own way, this was as big as she knew to do.
"Dad, you remember Rick…."
Castle tried his best I'm-A-Nice-Guy-smile, practiced on many fathers over the years, wondering where the hell this was going.
"You'd asked me if the article in the New York Times about us dating was true." The article still made her grit her teeth. She was attempting to come to terms with it, but anything that didn't give due respect to the victim or her team pissed her off. "It is, and I said I'd talk about it more later. Sorry you had to find out that way. It was a lot easier to keep boyfriends from you when I wasn't being tailed by the press." She gave her father a small teasing smile at that, and then took a deep breath. "Dad, as crazy as I sometimes think I am for this, I'm in love with Rick. I'd like more opportunities for the two of you to get to know one another."
The look on Castle's face was worth it for the wide eyed shock and the gaping mouth. The look on her father's face was worth it for the tenderness there, the hope in the softness of his eyes that she'd found someone that might love her as much as he did.
Author's Note: The first chapter in "Moments", an earlier fic, is what I have in my mind as what Kate is referencing when she says to her Dad, "You remember Rick…"
I feel like this chapter is the official end to "Simmer", but there IS a 2-part Epilogue, mostly written, on its way to articulate one happy ending.
On a general note, I seem to be less motivated to write during the season when I get my regular Castle fix via TV – though admittedly, I felt somewhat starved of really good Castle-Beckett moments during this one with some rare exceptions (like his face, when she walked by him and said "I'd get you out of jail"). I started writing over the summer hiatus, and now that this winter hiatus is pissing me off, apparently my mind goes back to Castle fanfic. I'm actually not going to abjectly apologize for the long wait (though I hope to do better and don't want to disappoint folks), because life happens and it's been a nutty few months.
I AM going to be enormously grateful for the reviews that have trickled in even when I wasn't writing, for the occasional pokes and prods from people whose voices I admire, for some new fanfic that's kept me inspired by the genre, and for you who are reading this right now. Thank you, thank you, thank you for sticking with me. You may inspire me to write more.
