AUTHORS NOTE: Spoilers for 5x 17...Scared to Death. This is a quick little one shot ficlet that popped into my head after watching that sweet episode. I do not own Castle or any of the characters therein...they belong to ABC and Andrew Marlowe and co. Please R and R if you liked it! I always love to hear the reader's thoughts.
She's been number one on his bucket list for years. Even after they made love, the awe of this though hovers over her, bright and dancing, like the aurora borealis in the late summer time. And yet for some reason she can't bring herself to say the words her heart always beats out when she is around him. They twist and stutter in her throat, choke and die before she can almost eek them out. It is like some part of her likes holding that little bit back, in order to feel as sense of control over the situation. It is like somewhere deep inside she knows that once she says that phrase to him she is giving herself over completely and forever. Because for Kate, it does mean forever. She has never said it to anyone...anyone outside of family. But she feels him being so patient with her, waiting and wonderful, letting her bide her time because somehow he already knows that it will come eventually. And it will. She almost said it twice over the past week.
She lets her mind rewind for a moment.
Castle, that's so sweet. You want me to outlive you?
She had caught him a bit by surprise with the underlying implications of her question and she saw the joy of the underlying meaning climb up to crinkle his eyes. He had stepped in swiftly to save her from revealing too much in front of a captive audience however and directed the conversation to a gentle end with his trademark humor. Ever her hero, he knew he had almost coaxed it out of her too soon and in a setting entirely inappropriate.
Then there had been earlier that night, with the discovery of the top slot on his bucket list.
How long ago did you write this?
3 years.
It had knocked her breathless, and she had felt her heart swell inside of her ribcage, press up against the pit of her scar. She opened her mouth and yet again those three words stuck in her gullet, made immovable by fear. There were still so many unanswered questions. So many things about him she still longed and needed to know. But the feeling was still there so she reached for him instead.
She lets her bleary gaze slip over to his and she is surprised to catch the glint of his blue eyes, she thought he was asleep. A grin unfurls across her face like a stretching cat.
"You were watching me sleep?"
He smiles back. "I was guarding you from bogeymen."
She widens her eyes in mock fear and scuttles closer to him.
"I do believe in spooks, I do believe in spooks, I DO, I DO, I DO." She proclaims, breaking into a laugh.
He tries to force a frown, but the corners of his mouth still tug upwards.
"Kill joy." He shoots back, smoothing a wayward curl away from her eyes.
"Mhmmm." She purrs back, furling a hand into his chest.
There's a lull of quiet and Kate can hear the stalwart drum of Castle's heart in his chest and she briefly thinks there is no sound she likes better.
"3 years?" her voice holds and awe that Castle is surprised to hear. "When did you know?"
"It's always been you."
She feels like she is drowning in it. It has exploded in her and flooded her chest cavity. She can feel it welling in her eyes, screaming in her brain, pushing up against her throat. But he doesn't notice her struggle, or if he does, he doesn't make it apparent. Instead, he speaks again.
"At first meeting it was just because you were beautiful, vivacious and SUCH a spitfire. Oh. So. Difficult. You were a challenge." A conquest. She hears it in his pause.
"But then...then I got to know you. I got to peel back the layers of the onion that makes up Kate Beckett and see what a strong, kind, wonderful, maddening, frustrating, complex, intelligent..." he stops and smacks her in the ribs, unaware that she is paralyzed against him, tears pricking her eyes. "Should I keep going?"
She hears the boyish grin in his voice and it lifts the weight off her chest. The fact that she hasn't said it yet is her crisis and hers alone. He knows her, he knows her so well.
She reaches up and drags a hand across his cheek.
"I am so lucky." She sighs.
"That's were you're wrong for once. Score one point for Castle! CHA CHING! I'm the one who is lucky that you're still sticking around."
She squeezes his hand in return to tell him that he is ridiculous.
No she hasn't said it yet, but he knows. As a writer he is an observer of people and ironically he has learned that sometimes the words don't matter so much. Sometimes love is all in the actions and in that case she tells him every day. It can be in the angles of extremities, the curve of a smile, the catching of a glance across a crowded room. She traces it into the folds of his palm when she is thinking, sparks it into his fingertips when she gives him his coffee cup. She says it with the strength of her hugs, the depths of her kisses, the velveteen tones of her midnight whisper. She shows it in the way she looks at him when she thinks he isn't looking back.
Just last week, his mother snapped a picture of them on the couch together in the living room. He was hamming it up for the camera in his typical Castle style. When he later looked at the picture he could only see Kate. She was turned to him, her face so aglow and her eyes so full with it that it pulled at his heart.
What is it that they say? A woman falls in love with what she hears. A man falls in love with what he sees.
Well Castle has seen enough to know that if he picked the petals off a daisy it would land on she loves me every time.
He knows enough to give her what she needs. Time. And he'll give her all of his, if it means they are together for it.
"You're stuck with me. Deal with it."
"Oh I will!" he flips her over and sweeps her up into a quick but intense kiss. "But first...how we doing on those bogeymen? You got my six Beckett?"
"Stop being such a badge bunny." She rolls her eyes. "But of course I got your six." She tightens her grip around him in a playful way, but then slaps him with a serious look. "Always."
And for now, that one word is enough.