"Nice place," Castle murmurs after she's unlocked the door and led him inside her apartment.
He's convinced that he's become accustomed to the nonexistent sound of her eye roll, pictures the rich hazel irises and the thick curtain of lashes fluttering with the action as she takes his skates from his shoulder, setting them somewhere near the entryway with hers. It's his first time in her home and he can feel her dominating the space, the essence of her radiating from the walls and welcoming him in.
"It's different from yours," she hints, unzipping her boots, toeing them off near the front door and he decides to abandon his cane in favor of her guiding hand. "More earthy, bohemian. Or at least that's how my friend Lanie describes it."
"Smells like you," he shrugs, and wow, that sounds creepy, even to him, but Kate knows how heavily he relies on his other senses. He's come to associate her with the cherry flavor of her shampoo, the vanilla spice of her perfume, and the space of her apartment is flooded with the combination, along with subtle hint of pine.
"Do you have a Christmas tree up?" he wonders while she leads him across a hardwood floor that creaks, directing him onto a stool that sits in front of an island.
She hesitates, inhaling a little too sharply for such a simple question. "No, I don't decorate."
"Must be a candle," he decides, cocking his head in curiosity at the relieved breath of laughter that leaves her lips.
"I almost forgot," she explains, placing something in front of him, and he outlines the shape of the water bottle with his hands before unscrewing the cap. "I didn't realize you were going by scent."
"Almost forgot I was blind, Beckett? I don't know whether to be flattered or concerned," he muses, taking a sip of the water while she huffs. "Just don't forget when we're in the middle of traffic or something, okay?"
He doesn't startle anymore when she presses her smile to his cheek to share her amusement, her happiness, with him. Touch has become such a vital piece of their relationship, and for someone who's proven to be somewhat closed off due to her past, he's always pleasantly surprised with her openness towards the form of communication she indulges in far more often than he does.
Castle slides an arm around her waist, turning towards her on the stool so that she's standing between his knees.
"Can I ask why you don't decorate?" he murmurs, treading lightly. There's a story behind her apprehension when he asked about the tree, something deeper than the death of her parents, and he craves to know all of her stories, to know every piece of her, but he doesn't want to push too hard either.
There's still a delicacy to them, to how they work and how they communicate. Yes, she loves him, and he definitely loves her back, but that's the easy part.
Kate doesn't pull away like he had anticipated, but her smile against his cheek does fade into a frown.
"My mom," she mumbles, lifting her head, but staying in the circle of his arm. "She was always the one who loved the holidays, the decorating, and I haven't really liked Christmas ever since." His heart is already sinking, just as it had the first time she told him about her mother, but before he can respond, Kate curls one of her hands over his bicep, giving it a gentle squeeze before continuing. "I wasn't completely honest with you, Castle," she sighs and he braces himself. "My mom, she didn't just die, she was murdered, stabbed to death in an alley."
Her voice is like steel, threaded with vulnerability, with pain, and it's like a sucker punch straight to the gut. And it doesn't sound like she's finished.
"They attributed it to gang violence. A random, wayward event that they packaged up nicely," she mutters, voice bitter, black like coffee and cold like ice. "The killer was never caught. The entire reason I became a cop, and the killer still hasn't been caught."
Castle touches her arm, curving his palm over the sharp bones of her wrist covered by the watch. He hadn't noticed at first, but he can tell it's a man's watch now, large and bulkier than the dainty pieces his mother and daughter have worn, and she lifts her index finger to brush the side of his hand.
"My dad's," she explains. "It was a birthday present from my mother. He never took it off, wore it until the day he died. And this…" She steals his hand from her wrist, lifting it between them until his knuckles graze one of her collarbones and she's placing a necklace in his hand. "Was my mom's."
Castle trails his fingertips over the chain, the back of his hand skimming the skin of her chest, and traces his thumb over the ring hanging from the metal, smooth and warm, embedded with modest jewels in the middle.
"For the lives that I lost," she murmurs and he follows the line of the chain up to the nape of her neck, curling his hand there to will her closer.
Kate steps into him, allows him to cradle her body against his chest while he reminds himself to breathe normally for her sake, but he can't help the ache for her that beats through his sternum, crashing hard against the cage of his ribs for the albatrosses that hang around her neck and circle her wrist, chaining her to the grief of loss.
"You'll find them," he breathes, holding her tighter when she shakes her head. "You'll find the people who did this, Kate. You'll find justice for her, for both of them."
"How?" she chokes out, digging her nails into his lower back. "I'm not - I've let her down, Castle. I spent so many years trying to close her case and I've gotten nowhere. It just - destroyed me."
Oh, his heart is actually cracking under the broken quality of her voice. He always knew that there was something she was holding back, something deep and dark that added the tint of sorrow he sometimes heard in her voice or tasted on her lips, but he couldn't have imagined something as horrible, as unfair, as this.
"I believe in fate, the universe, karma," he admits. "I believe that most people eventually get what they deserve and those people who murdered your mother, they won't get away with it, Kate. They can't."
She breaks free of his arms at that, stepping back from his embrace, incredulous anger radiating from her trembling body.
"Then how do you explain what happened to you, Castle?" she demands, still torn apart with the agony of her confession. "How is that fair? How is it fair that your sight was taken, huh?"
Rick swallows, but doesn't waver. He's asked himself the same questions, wallowed in the why's for an entire year, he still doesn't have the perfect answers, but now more than ever, he's come to find the good his situation has brought him.
"If I was still the man I was before the explosion, my relationship with my daughter would still be strained," he starts, remembering how Alexis once used to avoid him, sometimes even glaring at him from the top of the stairs when he would come home drunk and foolish from yet another party. "I would have kept forcing myself to write characters I'd lost passion for a long time ago. I wouldn't have met you, because I know the man I was before wouldn't have been someone you wanted. And no, it wasn't fair and I would still give anything to see, but maybe… maybe it was what I needed in some twisted way." She's silent, but he notes that the anger he felt only moments ago has faded and that gives him hope, as well as the courage to carry on. "But solving your mother's murder and my loss of sight are two very different things. You will catch the sons of bitches who did this because you're strong, you don't back down, you're… you're extraordinary, Kate. And you deserve closure."
"What about what you deserve?" she rasps, but he only shrugs, a smile claiming his lips.
"I have a beautiful daughter, a loving, albeit crazy, mother-" She chokes on a laugh and Castle leans forward, catching the belt loop of her jeans with his fingers, using the loop of fabric to reel her in. "I have a nice home, a nice life, and I have you. I have more than I could ever ask for, Kate."
He feels her shift closer, the tip of her nose just barely kissing his. "I believe you were always a good man, Rick. Even before the accident."
"If you knew me then, you would have wanted to arrest me," he mutters, smoothing his hands along her waist as she rumbles with gentle laughter.
"Probably," she muses, scratching her nails along the light stubble peppering his jaw. "But I would have found out eventually what was underneath the jackass persona."
Rick raises a hand to his chest between them, leaning back from her. "Excuse me, jackass?"
"There was always a reason I never watched your interviews or read the articles about you in Page Six," she informs him and he gasps, the hand at his chest clutching the fabric of his sweater.
"You wound me."
"You know I'm right," she hums, touching her lips to his cheek and the concern that had formed around his heart steadily evaporates under the stretch of her smile against his skin.
He shrugs. "Perhaps."
Kate lowers her head to his shoulder, resting there, and he trails a hand down her spine, smoothing the tension from her back as she sighs.
"It's getting late," she mumbles into the juncture between his neck and his shoulder. "We should-"
"Come home with me."
She straightens in his arms, but he only tightens his hold.
"Not like that – well, if you wanted it to be like that-"
"Castle," she murmurs and he nods, feeling his ears go pink, knowing she's taken notice when her cool fingers brush over the heated cartilage.
Right, a point, he had one.
"I just meant, come have dinner with me and my family, watch a movie, and then just… stay." He shrugs, trying his best to make it casual. "I have a guest room and we could go over that case file you were telling me about," he adds, growing a little too hopeful, but he likes the idea of her in his home, loves the way she interacts with his daughter and allows his mother to dote on her. Even loves how much the dog adores her. She just… fits so well in his home, his life. "I just don't want to say goodbye, Kate. That's all."
She's quiet for a moment, contemplative, but then she finds his hands at her waist and tugs him up from the barstool.
"Okay," she murmurs. "Let - let me pack a bag and then I'll take you home, and I'll stay."
He squeezes her hip, trying to conceal his excitement behind pursed lips. "Okay."
Benny greets them with a bark and Alexis with sound of surprise when they walk through the front door of the loft, her overnight bag in Castle's hand. His mother, of course, sings with joy at the sight of Kate, embracing the woman at his side in a hug that spins her around and draws a startled laugh from her lips.
"Just like Benny," he sighs, taking her coat and dropping her bag next to the couch for the meantime. "More excited to see my woman than me."
"Not your woman, Castle," she scoffs, playfully pinching his cheek when he pouts. "And I see where you get your dramatics."
"I thought I was endearing," he protests, using his cane to scan the floor for any strays shoes or dog toys, propping it near the coat closet when he deems it safe.
"It fluctuates," she muses, tucking her fingers into the crook of his elbow while they gravitate towards the living room and the sounds of a Christmas classic on the television.
"Ooh, say that again."
Kate chuckles, a dark, delicious little noise. "Big words turn you on?"
"I'm a writer, this surprises you?"
"Mm, I'll keep that in mind."
Heat spills through his blood, no longer an unusual feeling where Kate Beckett is involved, and she must know, must sense the sudden charge in the air between them, because she squeezes his arm as if to remind him that his mother and daughter are chatting in the living room just a few feet away.
They order Chinese for dinner, converging on the couch to eat and settle in with a movie Alexis has saved on the DVR. His mother, daughter, and Kate fall into discussion about Alexis' latest internship starting in January. She told him about the job last night, nerves and excitement rattling through her voice. He's so proud of his daughter, of her drive and intelligence, but sometimes he worries that his blindness is the only thing pushing her to enter a field of medicine, to search for a cure for those like him who can no longer see.
He's sometimes afraid that he caused his little girl to push her own dreams aside and grow up far too quickly.
But as she talks with Kate about the details of her future training, he can hear the passion alive and thrumming through her words, and maybe he is the reason she's pursuing optometry, but he thinks even so, Alexis was always meant to help people, to change the world.
His mother retires to her room halfway through the movie he's failed to identify, focusing instead on his tablet, trying to master a new game of Angry Birds. He's almost got it, judging his efforts by the game's sound effects, but when Kate begins to go slack against his side, her cheek resting a little too heavily on his shoulder, he finishes up the level and decides that even though it's only nine, they're both ready for bed.
Which he's so grateful for because after a day of ice skating, and falling on his ass, his body is killing him and he yearns for his memory foam mattress.
"Wow," she murmurs when he leads her up to the guest room, showing off a bit by leaving his cane downstairs. He's grown to learn the routes of his home without much issue and was able to get around the space without assistance after his first year without sight.
"Will it be okay?" he asks, shifting in the doorway, listening to her light duffel hit the bed. "If you'd be more comfortable in my room, I could sleep up here, or-"
"Castle, shush," she chuckles, her arms suddenly around his waist, her lower body brushing his, eliciting frissons of electricity. "I'll be fine here."
"If you're not, you know where to find me," he murmurs, lowering his lips to her forehead.
He wishes her a goodnight, keeping the kiss they share brief even when her tongue traces the seam of his lips. The crackle of a connection has always existed between them, steadily growing stronger the more time he spends with her, but tonight doesn't yet feel like the right time to set fire to the spark.
Alexis meets him on the stairs, gripping him in a quick hug on her way to her room, Benny trotting happily behind her - he swears that dog is more hers than his own – and reminds him she won't be around tomorrow morning. She has a breakfast date with that new boy she met at the bad poetry slam, Max, and he reminds her that sooner or later he's meeting this bad poet. Castle receives a scoff and what he's sure is a Beckett worthy eye roll before he hears Alexis' door close.
He maneuvers the rest of the way through the loft on his own, taking a detour in his office to check his laptop for any important emails – learning he has more from Gina than he would like when his laptop reads them off – before finally entering his bedroom. He strips down to his t-shirt and boxers, tossing his jeans and button down into the hamper near the bathroom he enters to brush his teeth.
He's only just turned out the lamp on his nightstand – habit – and slipped beneath the sheets of his bed when he hears the soft padding of footsteps in his office, and then the turning of the doorknob.
"Something wrong with the guest room?"
"I was hoping you'd be asleep," Kate throws back on a huff, the door clicking shut and her footsteps heading towards his bed now. The mattress dips on his right side and he lifts the covers for her.
Kate slides in next to him, presses against his side, her lithe limbs and soft curves causing his blood to grow a little too warm, and rests her head to his chest, her cheek over his heart.
"You weren't there," she shrugs, trying to play her answer off as nonchalant, and no way is he letting that go, but her words are slurred with sleep and her body goes limp over him moments later.
Rick sighs and curves a hand over her shoulder, allowing the steady rhythm of her breathing to play like a lullaby in the quiet room, singing him to sleep.
The next morning he wakes to her words against his skin.
"Gotta go into work."
Castle reaches for her hand before she can leave and she appeases him, leaning over him in the bed, dressed in a fresh pair of jeans and what feels like a cashmere sweater that smells like a mixture of her perfume and laundry detergent.
"Time's it?" he yawns, curling his fingers at her denim covered thigh, listening in secret satisfaction as she sucks in a breath.
"Six-thirty. Shift starts at seven," Kate mumbles, trailing her nails at his back, the gentle scratching lulling him back towards a sweet slumber at this ungodly hour.
"Damn. Wanted to make you breakfast after your first night in Chez Castle," he sighs in disappointment and she laughs, the sound still hoarse with sleep.
"Make me breakfast next time."
"Next time?" he quips, quirking his brow, and she dips forward to press her lips to the corner of his eye.
Mm, he wishes she would stay, cuddle with him all morning. Maybe venture into something more than cuddling after awhile…
"I'll call you later today, okay?" she whispers, her lips at his temple now, one of her hands at his back, keeping her balanced above him, and he nods.
"Kick ass, but be safe," he tells her, a small smile on his mouth, and she pauses above him, causing him to wonder if he said something wrong, but then her mouth is on his, hard and wonderful.
"I'll do my best."
And then she's gone again.