"Just close your eyes
You'll be alright
Come morning light
You and I'll be safe and sound"
-Safe & Sound, Taylor Swift/The Civil Wars
Three months later:
"You okay?"
Kate glances up from the array of boxes surrounding her on the bedroom floor to see Castle in the doorway, still looking exhausted from the long flight over, from the fight they'd had to put up just to get from the town car into the building of the loft, but still so handsome and admittedly happier since they had walked through his front door.
"Yeah, it's just…"
"Weird?" he supplies, stepping inside and maneuvering around the boxes to take a seat next to her on the floor, propping his back against the mattress of the tidy, unused bed behind them.
"A little," she shrugs, tracing her index finger over a box labeled SHOES in Alexis' neat handwriting. His daughter and Kate's father had packed up most of her apartment and moved it into his loft instead of a storage locker like she would have expected. "I just never expected to be back. It feels like the last time we were here-"
"Was another lifetime."
"Stop finishing my sentences, Castle," she murmurs with a grin that he returns with a cheeky smile.
"Fine, I'll stop only because I know it makes you want me at an unbearable level." He receives one hell of an eye roll for that one. "But I know what you mean. I'm - I'm actually afraid to unpack our bags," he laughs, but his underlying nerves constrict the sound, making it tight and unnatural.
They had just flown in from Russia a few hours ago and to finally come back to a place that had always been home, but to still carry the fear that had become an essential part of keeping them both alive, has made the return bittersweet. Though, having Alexis greeting them at the airport with the most brilliant smile Kate's ever seen while tears of joy streaked down her cheeks had softened the state of unease that had descended from the plane with them. Watching his daughter race towards them and throw herself into Castle's arms, holding to him for a good five minutes before doing the same to her, had made it feel real. They were finally home and she had stained the shoulder of his daughter's leather jacket with tears of her own.
After they had managed to push past the press and into the safety of his building, into the safety of his loft, she was met with the arms of his mother and then her dad, both of their parents embracing their children with relief and gratitude. Catching up and reminiscing had consumed the majority of their evening, gushing from Martha and soft, teary eyes from her father at the sight of Kate's stomach had followed and it had been nice, comforting, but Kate had retired to their old bedroom early, inadvertently spiking a hint of worry in Castle's eyes.
Jim was spending the night in the guest room, Alexis opting to stay as well, up in her old bedroom where Castle had just come from after going to check on her for the third time that night, and now it was just the two of them again. It's a relief, to be alone with him, which elicits a small stab of guilt in her chest, but the ambush of greetings from their loved ones after a near year of only her partner at her side was quite the change and she's still trying to adjust.
"We don't have to unpack," she murmurs, flicking her gaze between him and the two duffels sitting zipped and untouched near the closet.
Castle takes a deep breath, but shakes his head.
"We don't have to run anymore, we don't have to be ready to take off in the middle of the night," he states, more to himself than to her, but she nods nonetheless. "We're staying here and we should unpack."
"It's over," she confirms, reminds, tangling their fingers and humming the mantra she sometimes whispers to him in the night when he wakes breathless and sweaty from a nightmare. "It's over and we're safe."
She's unable to help the small smile that spills across her lips when their wedding bands clink. He wants to marry her again, here in New York, in his backyard in the Hamptons, surrounded by their family and friends. He loved Sara Rodgers, he had told her on the plane just like he had plenty of times before, but he was ready to finally marry Kate Beckett.
"But Kate, we don't have to stay here, in New York, if it isn't what you want," he murmurs, squeezing her fingers. "We could always move somewhere else, keep traveling the world if that would make you happy."
"Castle," she huffs, but he squeezes harder.
"I'm serious. I know you want to go back to our place in France sometime."
She sighs. "I do, but - but not now. I do want to be here, Rick, it's just… it still feels surreal. But it feels good too, good to be home."
Relief floods his eyes at that. "Yeah?"
"You know this will always be home. It's where we both grew up, where we met and fell in love," she adds with a ridiculous blush staining her cheeks that makes him puff with happiness. He loves it when she gets sentimental, when she gives him her words. The last year has reminded her just how much words mean to him, how much he needs to hear them, and she's become better at expressing them. "It's where I want to raise our family."
"Speaking of... how is the little guy?" Castle murmurs at the mention of their baby and Kate shoots him a glare that has a sly grin tugging at his lips.
"It's a girl, Castle. I told you I can feel it," she insists, smoothing her palm over the barely noticeable bump of her stomach.
Rick scoffs, but covers her hand, his teasing smirk going soft.
"We'll see who's right in just a few more months."
"So you don't want to know?" she challenges, her brow quirking. She had actually believed he would want to learn their baby's gender as soon as the option became available, but leave it to Rick Castle to continue surprising her.
He shrugs beside her.
"I don't know yet. I want it to be a surprise, but I also want to know so we can be prepared," he admits, brushing his thumb back and forth over the loose, flowing fabric covering lower abdomen.
"Dying to get started on decorating the nursery?" she hums and he scoffs at her again, but his eyes light up at the idea. They haven't been able to do much planning for their 'peanut', as Castle had taken to calling it since her second ultrasound. They had told Alexis during a Skype call a month after Kate was released from the hospital, took the time to do the same with her father and Martha as well, but otherwise, they hadn't indulged in the luxury of planning ahead. They hadn't even known if they would be coming home to New York again or if this child would be born in another European country.
"We could make it gender neutral," she suggests quietly, seriously this time. "Maybe go look at paint colors after… after we're settled."
Castle untangles their hands to lace an arm around her shoulders, lifting his hand to card his fingers through her darkening hair and rub the back of her skull.
"I'd like that," he murmurs, hope sparkling in the deep blue of his irises and Kate shifts in closer, bumping her nose, her smile, against the clean shaven skin of his jaw. He was getting better, healthier, slowly looking less haunted with each passing day of the last three months and finally allowing himself to heal.
After Bracken's death, she had feared her husband, the man she loved, may be gone forever, replaced by a hollow shell of a person, eaten alive by guilt and torment. That fear still rose to the surface at times, but not nearly as often. Acceptance was never an easy pill to swallow, but no matter how many panic attacks and night terrors he suffered, she was always there to remind him that he did what he had to, for both of them.
Burke helped remind him too. They both saw her therapist now, mostly through phone calls and video chats due to the distance, but their first appointment in his office was in a week.
But there's still a lot to do aside from unpacking, prepping a nursery, and a doctor's appointment. They both have to testify in court soon, the main reason for their return.
Once she had completed a week and a half of healing in the hospital, she had been cleared for release, but they had chosen to remain in Russia for another three months for Kate's recovery, staying close to medical resources, her physical therapist, and her OB. But she was healed now, mostly, and their testimonies in Bracken's case have been deemed as vital in order to clear both Kate and Rick's names of any and all murder charges for good.
Coming back, coming home, had been… terrifying. The idea of returning to the place where their lives had initially been turned upside down leaving her panicking in the bathroom of their apartment the morning of their departure, but she had forced the unnecessary apprehension down, forced herself to stop being a coward. The threat had been removed, there was nothing to fear.
And besides, this was what she had been waiting for – to expose the truth, to claim justice for her mother, and it provided her with a welcome sense of exhilaration to picture playing that cassette tape in court, having the truth spill from Bracken's own mouth.
Kate straightens at the thought, sitting up and rising to her knees. Castle doesn't speak, merely watching as she scans the labeled boxes until she comes across one labeled KATE'S DESK.
She cuts the tape that seals the box closed with her thumbnail, flipping the lid open and – and there they are, right on top and waiting for her.
Her fingers curl around the middle elephant as she sits back on her heels and sure enough, when she shakes the train of porcelain figurines, something rattles inside. Kate takes a breath and carefully wiggles the removable top of the middle elephant until it pops free. The little black cassette tape sits visible and tempting inside.
Kate glances back at him, watching her, waiting with a bated breath.
"Tomorrow," she whispers, placing her mother's elephants back inside the box. "We'll listen to it together?"
"Together," he confirms, standing from the floor, grimacing at the audible pop of his knees, and reaching for her hand. Kate accepts his outstretched fingers and allows him to haul her up, doing her best not to wince at the still present pull of the newest scar stretched across her side. So many scars.
Of course he notices, but doesn't comment, doesn't give her one of his concerned looks. He simply splays his free hand over the entirety of the healed wound, spreading heat through her skin and unfurling through her bloodstream. Kate hums, her attention being tugged towards him with ease, and lifts on her bare toes to kiss his lips, tasting the sensation of contentment on his mouth, of home on his tongue. Doesn't matter where they are, he's always home.
"Tonight," he mumbles, brushing his knuckles over her stomach, caressing the tiny bump. "Let's unpack."
