Author's Note: I may or may not be playing a little with timelines as far as when certain books were published. So don't get mad if something's different. xx

She had a box. Keepsakes and mementoes, she told him. Things of importance and beauty. Memories captured in physical form.

She had a box. Filled with bits of her she wanted to keep close. Things she couldn't bear to lose or forget.

He saw it first that day he invaded her space when she was kicked off her mom's case. The day he officially became her partner. She brought it out and showed him pictures of the last time she went ice skating with her mom.

She had a box. And in it were memories she'd shared with him long ago. Things he knew about her. Memories he'd made with her.

At least he hoped. Because he wasn't allowed to look inside the box. Which was annoying because it sat on display in her special room. Which he was also not allowed in without her. Why he thought that was a good idea he'll never know. At least it got her to move in five years ago. But still. She had a box.

A box he just looked in. He couldn't help it. He's the man who presses the don't touch me buttons. Especially if they're Kate Beckett-Castle buttons. And he just pressed the biggest one to date. After ten years of knowing this woman, his wife, how could he not know this?

It must be a remnant from when her first apartment blew up because he could only find this one fragment of this one page from an old book. A partial message with a partial signature. His.

He knew she was a fan. She confirmed those suspicions years ago when she caught him reading Storm Fall to their son one night. But Hell Hath No Fury? That didn't deserve an autograph any more than it should have been written.

And he knew exactly when it had been written too, and what she would have been going through at that time.

The implications of that astounded him.

Kate Beckett had a box, and he was at the bottom of it. The foundation of the memories she didn't want to lose.

If nothing else, Richard Castle knew one thing. It took always to a whole new level.