Kate stretches out along the length of the couch after her muscles begin to cramp from remaining in his arms, her head dropping to rest atop his thigh while her legs extend along the third cushioned seat of the sofa, feet propped on the arm of the furniture. He takes the shift as silent indication that he should finally get some writing done and tears his attention away from the riot of her hair spilling over his knee and adjusts his fingers on the keyboard instead.
He hears her practicing her Romanian, the familiar pronunciations twining with the clacking of typed words that continue to spin the story of Nikki and Rook, inspiration provided from the night before and the morning after flooding from his fingertips, describing the character's long awaited coupling with detail that he'll probably have to edit out later.
He still can't believe he's managed to write at least half of his new novel since meeting her, half of an entire book done within six days all because of her. The story's still rough, in definite need of editing and the atmosphere of the city to add the feel of authenticity his books are famous for, but the outline is there, the ideas and the characters along with their unfurling story in place.
"Nikki better not be doing the same thing to Rook that I did to you," she hums and he nearly startles, glancing over to see Kate lifting on her elbow to swap her Romanian dictionary for a thick novel that he's pretty sure is Russian literature that he noticed resting on the edge of the coffee table.
"Stop sneaking peeks at my work," he huffs, angling his laptop away from her and repressing a smile when she laughs, settles back down and returns the warmth of her head to his thigh.
"Thought I was your muse, doesn't that entail some perks and privileges?" she grumbles, bending her knees to prop the book on her thighs.
"Oh, many," he smirks, gaining a pinch to his side. "But spoilers are not one of them."
"Mm, should have slept with Patterson instead."
Castle gasps, jerking his focus from the word filled screen to glare down at her grinning face. "Katherine Beckett, take that back."
Kate hums, as if in contemplation, but her lip is already pulled between her teeth, her eyes glimmering with challenge. "Make me."
He closes his laptop, feels her body physically shudder with anticipation, but just as he's about to thoroughly make her pay for her words, the front door begins to rattle and Kate shoots upwards, her hand flying to her waist for a gun that isn't there. But as soon as the door creaks open, she exalts with relief.
Only to tense up again the moment the older man pauses in the doorway, eyeing the two of them with an arched brow.
"Dad?"
Dad? Oh, oh, now he sees it. It's the man from the photograph he studied in her bedroom this morning. Jim Beckett.
This is not exactly how he pictured meeting her father for the first time.
"Sorry Katie, I didn't mean to just drop in," the man – her father – states, his mouth quirking along the edges, and Kate finally stands from the couch, strides over to wrap her arms around her dad's shoulders.
"What are you even doing here?" she chuckles, hugging her father tight before lowering her arms, but Jim Beckett has his eyes trained over Kate's shoulder, on Rick.
"If I could have called, I would have, but I hadn't heard from you since last week and I had some vacation days saved up, so I wanted to make sure your recovery was still progressing well," her dad explains. "But apparently, you have someone here looking after you?"
He notices the color flush her cheeks as Kate shakes her head, but the curve of her lips is upturned when she shifts her gaze to Castle, extending her arm towards him in invitation, and Castle rises from the sofa, approaches her and her father with caution.
"Dad," Kate begins, stepping in close to his side and snaking her hand around to the small of Rick's back, brushing her knuckles there in reassurance. "This is Richard Castle. We met earlier in the week while he was vacationing in the nearby cabin."
Jim's eyebrows hitch in surprise. "Really? That place hardly ever has any renters, always too deep in the woods for most, but nice to meet you, Mr. Castle. I'm Jim Beckett."
"Nice to meet you too, sir," Castle replies, accepting the man's proffered hand and returning the firm grip of his handshake. "I actually came out here searching for seclusion, to help with my writing."
"Ah, I was wondering when you'd finally be releasing some new material," Jim murmurs in approval and Castle grins in surprise.
"You read my books?"
"When I can," her father confirms, cutting his eyes towards Kate in amusement. "My wife loved your books, and so does Katie if I'm not mistaken."
"Dad," she mutters, but Rick's already beaming at her, pride and excitement filling up his chest, because he just knew she was a fan.
"Well, the new book is coming along well thanks to Kate," Castle informs her dad with a smile he knows says too much but can't quite wipe from his face.
"Oh really?"
"Rick was just suffering some writer's block," Kate explains, curling her fingers in the material of his shirt, her dad's shirt – and oh, he just realized how bad this must look to her father. Shit. "So I showed him around for the week, helped him rediscover the inspiration he lost after killing Derrick Storm."
Jim nods, but the amused skepticism still lingers in his eyes, in the twitching line of his mouth. "You two get caught in the storm today? I'm assuming it was a bad one if the turbulence on my flight over was any indication."
"Just the beginnings of it," Kate answers, smoothing the fabric at Castle's back before drifting from his side to head for the kitchen. "We made Nana's Polish-American surprise earlier, want some of the leftovers?"
The teasing in her father's eyes falls way to a tenderness that spreads along the lines of his face, seeping into the frown lines of his mouth and the crow's feet etched into the corners of his eyes. Jim Beckett is a worn looking man, greyed from years of grief and struggle, but the cabin seems to be a place of peace here for the Becketts, despite the weight of memories the home holds.
"Sure, Katie. If you don't mind."
Kate waves him off and snags a clean plate from the drying rack near the sink, deposits a healthy serving of their brunch from the fridge and uses the microwave to warm the food.
"Richard-"
"Rick," he automatically corrects her father's formal address, the nerves humming in his stomach as Jim assesses him with a critical eye while his daughter is busy in the kitchen, too far away to save him.
"Rick," Jim corrects, nodding towards the breakfast nook where he's shared meals with Kate countless times this past week, and Rick follows the man's lead with bubbling hesitance. "You and Katie just met this past week?"
"Yes, sir. I ran into her on my first day here and she was kind enough to take me through the entire area over the last few days since I was somewhat clueless when it came to exploring Big Sur," Castle attempts to explain in a casual manor while Jim Beckett eases into one of the wooden chairs. Her father is calm, collected, but calculated, ready to strike the moment Rick says the wrong thing.
"And our cabin happened to be one of the great sights you had to see?" Jim inquires, curious but with quiet judgment circling his eyes, a look Castle recognizes well. He's a father too and he knows what the older man is doing, knows he is being subtle but smart in his interrogation. Probably where Kate had learned her skills in the matters of attaining necessary information.
"I - well, sometimes-"
"Katie's never brought anyone here before, and I never imagined she would take what I consider a pretty big step of sharing a personal space so soon," Jim informs him, glancing over his shoulder to see Kate rinsing off a knife and fork in the sink. "And since the shooting… she wasn't doing well the last time I spoke to her."
Rick's eyes reflexively search for her, relishing in the picture of her presence illuminating the kitchen that has been dimmed by the storm clouds still hanging in the sky, blocking out the sun. They hadn't talked much about it, but she had mentioned nightmares in passing while on a walk through the woods once, her fingers rubbing at her bullet scar the one time she had shared her fear of the man who shot her finally coming to finish the job someday.
It's the reason why Big Sur has become her safe haven, he's learned. No one can find her here.
"But judging by the look on your face, you already knew that." Rick cuts his eyes back to Jim, an apology already forming on his lips that her father disregards with a shake of his head. "I've never seen her look at anyone the way she was looking at you either." Castle stills, his fingers gripping the edge of the empty chair opposite her father for balance. "So you must be special, must care about her."
"I'm in love with her," Castle blurts, to her father, and right as Kate's returning from the kitchen with Jim's meal, her face a painting of shock and threatening horror.
The cabin is bathed in silence for a split second, filled with wide eyes and a quiet panic that has the blood rushing in Rick's ears until Kate speaks.
"Castle," she hisses, but any traces of suspicion have leaked from Jim's eyes, a mixture of acceptance, permission, and respite arising in the older man's gaze instead.
"Don't worry, Katie," her father chuckles, standing from his seat to rescue the plate of food from her hands before it goes crashing to the floor. "It was pretty obvious from the moment I walked in."
Ah. Well, Castle already knew how bad he was at masking his feelings when it came to her, so it should really be no surprise her father had it figured out so quickly. Kate, on the other hand, looks almost offended.
"You're not exactly subtle about it either, honey," Jim grins, nudging her with his elbow and earning a grumble of irritation from Kate in return, but not denial, not embarrassment. She's not ashamed that her father can see how she feels about Rick and his heart swells hard against his ribcage because of it.
"You just caught us off guard," Kate hums as she places the fork and knife still in her grasp on the table beside Jim's plate. "You never would have figured it out otherwise."
"Katie, not only am I your father, but a lawyer as well. I would have gotten it out of you within an hour, just like when you were a kid," her dad replies before taking a bite of the breakfast dish, his smile smug as he chews.
Kate sighs at her father and shifts to stand beside Castle, close enough to touch, so he takes advantage of her proximity, of her father's newfound approval, and skirts his fingers along her forearm, earns the tilt of her body into his side and the curl of her fingers around his in response.
"C'mon Castle, help me wash the last few dishes," she murmurs, tugging him away from the table and her dad, into the relative privacy of the kitchen, but when she reaches to turn on the faucet, he notices that the sink is empty.
"What-"
She hushes him with her thumb to his lips before rising on the tips of her toes to replace the pad of finger with her lips. He holds her steady with his hands to her hips as her tongue slicks inside, a lazy sweep through his mouth that has him yearning to pick her up, place her back on the counter like he had this morning and finish what they started then.
"Not ready to kiss you in front of my dad," she hums in explanation, nipping at his bottom lip before slipping away, back down to the soles of her bare feet.
"No need to give him more reason to hate me," Castle agrees on a chuckle, lifting his hands to her jaw, smoothing his thumbs over the upturned corners of her mouth.
"Castle, my dad has hated a lot of guys I've dated in the past. I know what his disapproval looks like," she murmurs, glancing over his shoulder for a second before returning her gaze to him, sweeping her eyes over his face with a soft smile. "And he doesn't disapprove of you at all."
"You think so?" And shit, he can hear it in his own voice – how earnest and desperate he is to have her father's approval after barely an hour of knowing the man, but he's never really had to worry about impressing a woman's parents before.
He remembers Kyra's mother had hated him from the start, but back then, he'd taken it in stride, thought it added a 'forbidden romance' element to their relationship when it really had only made things more difficult. Meredith's parents had never played a large role in his first ex-wife's life to begin with, so he had never even been introduced to those who had raised her, but both Gina's mother and father had liked him well enough during that single dinner they had all shared in a fancy, five star restaurant after Castle had proposed.
Kate's father, though, is a man he had developed respect for before ever meeting him. Jim Beckett had been through hell, had fallen into the depths of addiction and risked destroying his relationship with his daughter after losing his wife, but he had gotten back up, pulled his life together and repaired what damage he could with Kate. Her father is a good man, an admirable one, the kind Rick might wish his own father to be, and one of the most important people in Kate's life. He's not quite sure if he's worthy of her dad's approval, still isn't certain he's worthy of the woman in front of him, but he wants it, her and everything a life at her side entails.
"Hey," she murmurs, dislodging his hands from her face to reach up, lay the comforting weight of her palm to the nape of his neck. Her gaze picks him apart, reading the hidden insecurity in his eyes, dissecting every shortcoming in the lines of his skin, and frowning at him as if she just can't understand her findings. "He would be crazy not to, but even if my dad didn't approve of you, I wouldn't care."
"Kate-"
"Castle, I love you," she reminds him, the words barely hours old, but so fierce coming from her mouth. "No one else is going to change or influence that, but I can assure you, there's no need to worry about my dad disliking you."
Kate steps away to turn the water off, but her eyes never leave him, their intensity pinning him to his spot in the middle of the kitchen.
"In fact," she adds, returning to snag his hands in hers, drawing him back slowly towards the living room. "I'm sure that once he gets to know you, he'll love you almost as much as I do," she says with a smile, echoing his reassurances about Alexis from earlier, and he knows her father is watching, but he can't resist leaning forward, smearing a kiss to her crown.