Author's note: A very brief (sorry!) update. Beckett's jewellery box is of course the same one mentioned in Chapter 6.
I truly appreciate the kind words. They mean a lot to me.
I'll be travelling for a week or so, so expect further updates in the second week of December.
It took only a few seconds for Castle to understand what he was looking at. He reached forward automatically, picking up an item from the box.
The yellow elephant from the Christmas cracker.
Just beside it, a post-it note with a sketch he'd drawn of himself, wearing a cape.
A smile appeared on his face spontaneously as he spotted the Monopoly top hat.
Then the guitar-shaped USB flash drive of his writing songs, and another post-it with the definition of the word zeugma.
His mouth fell open when he saw the coffee-cup lid with the red heart on it. I'd forgotten all about that.
It took him almost ten seconds to remember where the pressed flower was from, but he immediately recognised the heart-shaped piece of candy.
He inhaled sharply when he spotted the cable-tie ring, and he reached towards it without quite touching it.
"I kept that on my nightstand for two weeks before I put it in there," she said, and he looked around at her in wonder for a moment before again focusing on the box.
More post-its and miscellaneous sketches. Newspaper clippings. His business card. A napkin he'd signed several times. An I.O.U. for a cherry bearclaw. A polaroid of him dressed as Captain Kirk for Hallowe'en. A shopping list. Cinema tickets. A paper aeroplane.
He carefully picked up something that was glinting beneath a laser-printed Dilbert cartoon, and immediately recognised the #1 Partner medallion he'd made for her from a candy wrapper. It shone in the bright afternoon light of her apartment.
He ran his thumb over it for a moment, lost in the memory, then set it back down.
"How long?" he asked quietly, not taking his eyes from the box.
"Almost the whole time," she replied honestly. "At first it was because of…"
"The books," he said, and she nodded.
"But before long, I stopped asking myself why. I just kept everything. I look through this every few weeks. Or if I… need to feel… if I need to hope."
He looked around at her again, turning his body half towards her on the couch.
"When was the last time you opened it?" he asked. Her gaze dropped to her clasped hands in her lap.
"Three nights ago," she admitted.
He felt off-balance, like a man who has just found out that the Earth isn't flat after all. Things he thought were fundamentally false suddenly seemed to offer the tantalising possibility of truth. He looked at the box once more.
I can't believe it, he thought. But my god, there it is.
He heard her voice echo in his mind: I keep everything you give me.
He ran back through his memory, cataloguing the moments when he'd given her each of these objects. There was a common thread. She'd give him a wry or exasperated look, make a quip, dismiss the gesture, and then when he next looked, the object would be gone. A dozen times. Five dozen. Maybe more. For years now.
Follow the evidence.
"All this time," he said, talking mostly to himself, and he was surprised when she responded.
"All this time," she said. There was a note of wonder in her voice too, as if she had only recently made the same realisation that he was making right now.
He turned to her and took her nearest hand in his, clasping it for a moment before meeting her gaze.
"Thank you," he said. His voice was raw, and her eyes widened at the emotion she could see in his eyes.
"I…" he begun, tailing off and pausing for a moment before trying again. "Today was the first day I woke up feeling like we were… possible. That there was really hope."
She nodded slowly, tears welling up in her eyes, as he continued.
"And what I wanted, more than anything, was to get past the doubts I've had about you. They scared the hell out of me, Kate. I've never been this vulnerable with anyone… because I've never loved anyone like this."
Tears slipped from the corners of her eyes and spilled down her cheeks, but still she kept silent, letting him speak. His own eyes were shining now too.
"After yesterday… god. I wanted to… come back, to you I mean. To let you back in. I don't think you'll ever know how much I needed to hear you tell me that you love me."
"Maybe I already know," she said, swiping at her cheeks with her free hand. "And I do love you."
"I know," he said.
The words dropped into the silence of the apartment like a heavy stone into a pond, leaving concentric ripples flowing out in all directions.
I know.
She looked at him, her long eyelashes dark and wet against the pale skin of her cheeks. He reached up with his other hand and brushed his thumb gently along her cheekbone, intercepting a tear as it fell.
"I believe you," he said. And then he smiled.
It was like the first sunrise after a long Winter. Every line of tension on his forehead was gone. The corners of his eyes crinkled, and his irises were a sparkling, vivid sapphire blue. His lips curled up, ever so slightly lopsidedly. His expression was warm, cheeky, boyish and loving, all at once.
Castle, she thought.
"I am so going to kiss you right now," he said, and she barely had time to decide whether she was going to laugh or sob with relief before his lips captured hers.