Kate lived the first minutes of their improvised wedding like she was floating on a cloud. She knew the priest would be saying interesting things about marriage, but his words were not reaching her ears.

All her attention was focused on Castle, smiling in front of her. They had interlaced their hands and she was feeling his warm. Beckett was feeling her cheeks on fire and her heart beating fast. She was not nervous, it was the emotion of being on the altar with her beloved partner for over six years.

At last!

Wait a moment. The priest had said something and now was glancing her waiting for something. She had been lost in her feelings. Castle was sweetly looking at her too.

"Eeh... excuse me, I think I'm lost...What?" She said in a lower voice. Kate was worried thinking that the priest could realize she really was not... 'true' catholic.

"Your wedding vows, Katherine. " The priest said.

"Oh!" Kate had forgotten all the thing about open her heart to the audience and she reacted with surprise.

"I could say mine first, can we change the order?" Rick said understanding she was absent-minded.

The priest nodded. Castle smiled, firmed up and hold her hands more strongly. Kate looked at his eyes with all her attention. He cleared his voice and talked:

"I'm going to marry you, Kate, knowing that I'm getting married with the right one for me. You understand me, you respect me and you doesn't take me very seriosly which is good, because I can get quiet annoying" he said to the audience, who laughed while Martha nodded smiling.

"You know I'm here for you. I always will be. I would go until the end of the world with you. But promise me that we'll avoid deserted factories, basements with tigers, radioactive areas and the Russian Mafia. Well, it was fun, anyway." Kate smiled with his typical jokes to make her to relax.

The writer waited until the guests stopped laughing. Then he continued:

"I already know how marriage works, Kate, at he beginning there are rainbows everywhere. But, one day, you will wonder why an extraordinary woman like you are with a clown like me..." His words, pronounced seriously, wipe the smile off Kate's face. "...I pray that when that day comes, you stop what you're doing, and tell me how you feel. And I promise you that we will not stop talking until we fix it, because I love you and it is never going to change."

Kate's legs trembled and she held his hands stronger, she was open-mouthed. His speech had been touching. Castle rose a hand asking permission to the priest for skipping the protocol. Then he stepped forward and hugged Kate, who hugged him back tightly. Rick wiped a small tear from her cheek, and kept talking still holding her:

"And finally I want to promise you that I will always be romantic with you and that I will never bore you. So don't complain if in our 10th anniversary I show up astride a horse, dressed as Indiana Jones, ready to kidnap you." Rick smiled and raised repeatedly his eyebrows. Kate showed her white teeth in a wide smile.

The detective stepped back and both return to their initial position, holding hands again. Now it was her turn. The priest indicated that she could start. Kate was nervous about speaking her vows, but she realized that her nerves were dispelled when she concentrated on Castle's stweet blue eyes. Then she talked:

"I, Katherine Beckett, am getting married you, Richard Edgar Castle, feeling supported, loved, valued, ..." Kate sighed "... and knowing that you know me better than anyone, because you had the patience and perseverance to rebuild all the pieces of my mind, completing the woman you can see now in front of you, and who loves you, like she never thought she would love a man."

The writer, smiling, made a move to skip the protocol again, but she placed her hand on his chest stopping him gently. She had not finished.

"And I'm also getting married you, Richard Alexander Rodgers, because..." Rick turned serious when he heard his birth name "... you are a good, loving, family man who has taught me that sharing our vulnerabilities both become stronger. And that is why I promise you to share the rest of my life with you to become invincible."

Now Kate let Castle to stepped forward and they hugged each other stweetly in front of the melted audience.

"And you have no idea about what I have in mind for our 10th anniversary." She whispered to him.

The rest of the ceremony went very fast for Kate. At some point Alexis approached with the wedding rings and they put each other with trembling hands saying a few ceremonial words that sounded insignificant compared with their vows.

Beckett stared the shiny golden ring in Castle's finger, who was caressing her knuckles with his thumb, and every time she looked up his deep eyes were staring back at her with love. And Kate looked down again for seeing their rings. She still did not believe it.

Finally the priest asked them to kiss.

And they obeyed willingly.

At last!

At last they were married!

And the guests laughed and had to cough when the kiss lasted more than usual for such cases. Both Kate and Castle ignored them for a few more seconds. Their bodies were demanding an intimate moment that had been denied the past few days.