December 25: Elysian
She wakes up alone in the bed, Castle coming through the door with a tray and a grin so wide she has to close her eyes a moment, wake up just a little more.
He sets the tray down on the bed next to her, climbs in so breakfast is between them. He leans over the food to kiss her, deeper and more invasive than she expected. She opens for him, gives back, her hand coming up to clutch at the back of his neck.
He pulls back, his face cracking open and spilling light onto the sheets, his excitement a hum that rattles her bones, knocks them together so she feels like she could skip breakfast entirely, have him instead.
"Merry Christmas, beautiful."
Kate beams, sits up properly and crosses her legs, yoga pants creasing at the knees. "Merry Christmas Castle. Martha and Alexis up yet?"
"I brought them both breakfast in bed already. They're eating. I said to meet us in the living room for gifts in a half hour." He smiles at her again, spears a strawberry and holds it out for her. She opens her mouth, lets him feed her. Enjoys it more than she thought she might.
She takes the whole bowl of fruit from him, sits back against the pillows to eat. He's shoving toast into his mouth, having to fight with it to get around his grin. She can't remember the last time she saw him smile this much.
Maybe that first morning when she'd come to him with coffee and promises. That she's in this, that she wants him. More than she thought even then, more every day since.
They finish breakfast and Castle takes the tray again, disappears off into the kitchen. Kate takes the quiet moment to find her phone on the nightstand, call her father.
It's early, but he'll be awake. He always has been an early riser. She gets it from him.
"Hello?"
"Hey Dad." Kate smiles in spite of herself. The last time Christmas Day felt so right, she was nineteen and it was her mother waking her up with coffee.
She can hear her father's grin in his voice, pictures him sitting at the breakfast table watching the sun come up. "Hey Katie-Bug. Merry Christmas."
"Merry Christmas, Dad. You having a good morning so far?" Kate kicks the covers from her legs, cradles her coffee mug against her chest so its heat can blaze through her sternum, loosen the knot of sleep from around her chest.
"Yeah. Got my coffee, a book. I'm okay."
Kate pauses a moment, the weight of everything they're not saying thick at the back of her throat. "I miss her, Dad."
"Me too, sweetheart." There's a moment of quiet, her father sipping his coffee, Kate crumpling against the headboard. "But she'd want us to be happy. Is Castle unbearably excited?"
"No. He's been so sweet. Everything's made bearable with him, Dad. I can stomach it all. Yesterday, the four of us watched it's a wonderful life and had cocoa. It's so… normal."
She glances up and Castle's there in the doorway watching her, the still-rising sun casting his face into sharp relief. She beckons to him, keeps her mug carefully against her chest as he climbs back into bed, his arm around her shoulders.
"I'm so happy for you Katie. He's so good for you." She knows Castle can hear her father, tinny and far away but still discernible, from the ripple of tension through him, the hitch of his breath.
She kisses his cheek, takes just a second to scrape her teeth at his stubble. "Yeah. He is."
"Are you going to the precinct today?" She hears the note of concern in her father's voice. She does.
He hates that she usually has to work on Christmas. Even though he understands that she doesn't mind, prefers it even to sitting at home missing her mother, he'd still rather she were with people she loves.
"I'm on call." This is news to Castle, too, and he sits up a little, grins at her.
"Oh, well, I hope no one dies today. At least not in your jurisdiction." Her father laughs and it echoes on the line, distorted but losing none of the mirth.
She smirks, shakes her head like her dad can see it. "Yeah, me too."
"Well, I'll let you go. Wish everyone a merry Christmas for me." She can hear the cracking ache in the back of her father's throat, how it grates to let her go.
Kate sighs, catches Castle's fingers in her own and squeezes. "Okay. I'll call you tonight."
"Alright. Katie?"
"Yeah?"
There's a sigh like crumbling marble, centuries of resolve shifting in the wake of the light that spills out of the Castles and cloaks them, her and her father both. "I was thinking of coming back to the city for New Year."
"Oh, yes." Kate's eyelids shutter closed, her breath heavy in her lungs. Her nails bite at the tender skin of Castle's palm as she sucks in air through her teeth, tries not to let hope flood in. "Yeah, Dad. Please do. We'll talk about it later?"
"Okay." She loves the refraction of her father's voice, how his words bend around the curve of his mouth. "Bye Katie. Merry Christmas."
"Merry Christmas Dad."
Her father hangs up and she drops her phone to the sheets, her hand free to twine with Castle's. "My dad says Merry Christmas. And that he might come back to the city for New Year's."
"Oh, that'd be nice. Tell him he's welcome to stay here in the guest room if he does." Castle leans in to kiss her and then pulls back on a frown, a whole mountain range between his brows. "That's assuming you'll be here for New Year?"
Kate kisses him, tender and soft and not at all what she really wants, but his family is probably already waiting. Later.
"Of course. Where else would I be?"
His three girls are gathered around the tree. He declared himself master of ceremonies, and now he gets to hand out everyone's gifts. No one's allowed to open anything until everything under the tree has been given to its rightful owner.
Once the space underneath the tree is bare, floorboards he hasn't seen in a month suddenly naked and laid open to him. Speaking of that-
He gets up onto the couch, Kate's body between his legs, and he slides his hands inside the neck of her shirt, smoothes his palms over the curves of her shoulders. Castle leans down, ignores the crack of his spine so he can get his mouth at her ear, nudge his nose against her. "Okay?"
"Yeah. Alexis first?"
His daughter looks up, hair failing over one shoulder and eyes so bright in the grey of the early morning. "Are you sure?"
Kate grins, tips her head back against Castle's knees for just a moment and then straightens, all her attention suddenly on his kid. "Yeah, go for it."
He hands her the box with trembling hands, his guts cacophonous and threatening to spill up out of him. He's taken a month to get her as close to ready as he can, and still he's terrified.
She rests it against her knees, looks at him a moment like she knows, and he tries for a smile. The corners of his mouth have turned to liquid and he can't do anything, can barely manage not to fall at her feet.
The box is wrapped beautifully, all ribbons and perfectly creased corners, and Kate tugs at the tail of the bow, watches the whole thing fall open.
He holds his breath when she takes the lid off, shifts the tissue paper aside so she can see what he's gotten her.
Two keys, threaded together onto a ribbon so they clink when she lifts them, a finger curled into the loop he tied.
"Two keys?"
"Yeah." He squeaks it; too busy watching her face for any hint of panic to keep control of his vocal chords.
She unties the knot, tips both keys into her palm and inspects them, one at a time. "This is a key to my apartment." She glances up at him, her brows knit. "Castle, what's-"
"I'm giving it back to you. I don't want to need it anymore." She reaches for his hand, clinging, and it's so much more than he ever dared hope for. "The other is a key to the loft."
She holds his gaze for a beat of silence that's ripe with everything that has ever happened between them, all the things he wants for their future, and then she sucks in a breath through her teeth, holds it in her chest and frowns at him again.
"Move in with me, Kate. Come home to me every day. Please."
She gapes at him a moment, her tongue stuck, and he wants to touch her, hold her, beg her for an answer but he doesn't dare move, all of him frozen.
"Don't you think it's too soon?"
"No. Do you?" He finds her fingers still knotted together with his and he squeezes, brushes his thumb against her wrist. "We've had seven months, and they've just confirmed what I knew all along. That however much we fight, however much we may hurt each other, it will always be worth it to get to wake up next to your smile."
"Okay."
She's grinning, thank God, but there are tears in her eyes too, the edge of her smile watery and thin. "Don't cry."
"I'm happy." She laughs, shaking her head at herself, the key still clutched in her fist. "Is this what the whole advent calendar was about?"
"Yeah. To remind you of everything we've already come through, all the ways we've already proven this is going to work." He feels himself beaming, can't quite manage to battle it back, and then he goes for her, catches her up in his arms.
Her mouth is hot and liquid, pouring into his as she clutches at his back. "Thank you. Oh Kate. Thank you. I love you."
"No Castle, thank you. This has been such an incredible Christmas." He's drowning in the valleys at the corners of her eyes, how her face is breaking open with light so he's warmed by it.
He can feel his mother's eyes on him, the quietly pleased tilt to his daughter's mouth and yet he doesn't care, just wants to kiss Kate. Again.
Forever.
And she's coming to live with him.
And so we reach the end. I think there'll be a chapter to cover New Year's, but I'm not promising anything. Thank you all so much for your support, your beautiful words of praise and your involvement in this story. It has made this such an amazing adventure and I am so very grateful.
Love to you all and Merry Christmas!
Elysian:
(adj.) beautiful or creative; divinely inspired; peaceful and perfect