Disclaimer: The only part of Castle that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.
A/N Eight-month time jump, to mid-July 2011.
Six weeks into her recovery, she still often slips into some kind of mental twilight. Maybe it's the pain meds; maybe it's the pain itself–not just the post-surgical variety but the emotional, which is harder to deal with because it has no time limit. The physical pain is diminishing and should disappear completely before the end of the year; the other, who knows? Roy Montgomery is dead. Her role model, her boss, her friend–and in her early days on the force her father figure, when her own father was still lost to alcohol. Moments before her Captain died she told him that she forgave him, and she did. She had. But his betrayal is a deep wound, and it still bleeds when she's not expecting it. And there's one more thing: fear. Someone shot her at Roy Montgomery's funeral, and he's still out there.
She can't deal with anything when the gray half-light descends, can't speak or reason, read or write. She just exists, suspended in something that shuts down all her senses. Except one: touch. She craves it, and responds to it, and that is when Castle is invaluable. He always knows exactly what she needs, and she has no idea how, since she gives him no physical clues. He's swaddled her bare feet in a cashmere throw when she was incapable of asking for it; gently kneaded her shoulders when she didn't know they were bunched up; brushed her hair; carried her into the bathtub and let her float in a warm, soapy sea; massaged cream into her hands; curled up next to her on the sofa, barely making contact.
They'd come to the Hamptons house as soon as she'd been released from the hospital, and are staying until September first, when they'll go back to the city and to the precinct. This morning they're having breakfast in the warm sun on the brick terrace off the kitchen. "How do you know?" she asks him, squeezing his knee.
He looks up from the newspaper. "Hmm? Know what?"
"How do you know what to do for me when I go into one of my fadeouts?"
"How do I know?" He sounds shocked, and The Times slips to the ground. "Kate, I know you. That's how. Not just because we've been together for a year, but before. I watched you all the time, which I know drove you crazy, but I sorted out so many things about you. I was so in love with you. I am so in love with you that I still watch you, even when you don't notice."
"I always notice."
"Nope."
"I do. Tell me one time when I haven't."
"From the beginning, or recently?"
"It doesn't count if it was while I was sleeping or unconscious or in a fadeout. Or having sexheimer's."
She's turned this from something serious to serious with a comic side, and he's thrilled. It's the first time she's done it since before Montgomery's death. He won't comment on it, because even now it might make her uncomfortable, but he'll remember this moment. "Bikini panties," he says.
"What about them?"
"Which ones did you wear yesterday?"
Her answer is confident and immediate. "Green. The lime green ones."
"Nope. The ones with pink rosebuds. And I can prove it because I bet they're in the top of the laundry hamper."
That gets him a glare. Not a full-blown one, but nonetheless a glare. "I should also have said that underwear doesn't count, you perv. You always know what underwear I have on."
"Fair enough, though I'd counter that I'm not a perv, just a man who's completely smitten with you. Okay. Here's another thing. You're reading Pride and Prejudice now, right?"
"Geez, you noticed that? Not impressed."
"That's not my point. My point is, what did you use for a bookmark when you stopped reading yesterday afternoon so that you could take a nap?"
She freely admits to having a mile-wide competitive streak, and she really, really wants to win this argument. Not an argument. Challenge, that's it. She wants to win this challenge. On the other hand, she's so touched that he notices this much about her that she won't mind losing. She's pretty sure that she's on the verge of ceding this round.
"Lemme think." She scrunches up her nose and closes her eyes for a moment. "It was the envelope from the get-well card that Karpowski sent. To remind myself to email her a thank you."
"Not even close," he crows. "It was the fortune from a cookie from the Chinese food we had last Monday. I don't know what it says, because I'm not a snoop"–
"Not a snoop? Ha!"
"No, really, you know that I've reformed in that area, at least when it comes to you."
It's true. He has. "Okay. Anyway, go on."
"When I was putting the plates in the dishwasher I saw you pick up the fortune, smooth out the paper, and tuck it in your pocket. It was adorable. I wondered what it said. At some point you must have put it your nightstand, because yesterday I saw you pull open the drawer, get the fortune, and put it in your book."
"Oh, my God, you're right."
Without thinking, he claps his hands. "Shouldn't I get a prize? A reward? How about letting me see the fortune?"
"It's dumb," she says, not quite soon enough to hide her embarrassment.
"Can't be dumb if you saved it."
"You win. I'll go get it."
"No, you stay here and I'll go get it."
"Castle." That glare again, a little sterner this time.
He pushes himself up from his chaise, and when he reaches the door turns to say, "I won't peek. I promise." When he comes bounding back he hands her Pride and Prejudice. "You can read it to me. The fortune, that is, not the whole book."
She snatches it away, makes a pretense of checking the fortune, and says blandly, "You will meet a handsome stranger."
"See? How hard was that? You're right, though. It's dumb. Cookies used to have really great fortunes." If she were operating at full strength, if her reflexes weren't still slower than they normally are, he'd never have been able to grab the tiny slip of paper, but he does. "Let me see. Huh, I thought you might have been kidding: 'You will meet a handsome stranger.' But there appears to be something on the back." He waves it between his thumb and forefinger. "Is it lucky numbers? Should we be buying a lottery ticket?"
He flips it over, and his heart follows. She had written, "I already did," and surrounded it with a series of tiny xoxoxoxoxos.
He's holding himself together only through determination. "Not dumb at all," he says, returning the fortune to her before looking at his watch. "Hey, it's almost ten. Your PT guy will be here in a minute. I'll just, uh, make myself scarce. Go write." He's able—only because he runs—to get through the house, up the stairs, and into his office before he bursts into tears against the door. The fortune cookie. A stupid fortune cookie has brought him to his knees. Not the cookie, but the fortune. Not the fortune, but what she wrote on it. Not just what she wrote on it, but that she kept it. He's the handsome stranger. xoxox
This summer has been the worst and the best of his life. The worst is obvious: Montgomery's murder and the shooting at his funeral; the near-death of Kate; the horror of watching her in agony, and being able to do so little about it. Money helps, because he can cover anything that her NYPD health plan doesn't. Love helps, too. Her knowing and accepting that he loves her without qualification helps her and it helps him. That's what's ultimately made this summer the best, even with all the anguish and the darkness: their astonishing love for each other.
He'd expected her to fight him when he'd suggested spending the entire summer here, but she hadn't. He'd presented his argument, very softly, and she'd said yes. That had been it. He'd intended to wait until they were back in the city and fully immersed at the precinct before he made his next suggestion—request, plea, whatever. He wants her to move into the loft with him, for every possible reason, but he doesn't want to wait. He wants to ask her now. He doesn't want her to write on the fortune from a cookie and feel that she has to hide it from him.
For an hour—the length of Kate's physical therapy session—he sits on the floor with his back against the door. He asks himself questions, and answers them. He brings up "what ifs?" and parries with "why nots?" It's time to get up—he's stiff enough that he could use a PT session himself—and check on Kate, who's always sore and exhausted after her workout. Through his window he sees Saul, the therapist, getting into his car, and he goes straight to the kitchen to make Kate a smoothie. She'll drink half of it, at most, but it's enough. By the time he's fixed it she's out of the shower and lying down.
"How did it go?"
"The man is trying to kill me, but I finally feel as if I might be getting strong enough to fend him off." She points to the glass that he's carrying. "That for me?"
"Yup. Here you go. Sit up a little."
She takes a few sips, puts the drink down, and licks her lips. "Thank you. Have I told you that I love you?"
"Not today."
"I love you."
"I love you, too." Please move in, please move in, please move in.
" 'm going to sleep now."
"Okay. Later."
As soon as she drifts off he phones in two orders, one to the fishmonger in town, the other to the florist, and tells them both that he'll be there in half an hour. He quickly shaves and dresses, and sets the table in her favorite room in the house, a tiny study that's tucked away in a corner. Almost no one realizes it's there, which is one of the reasons she loves it. The trip into town and back takes less than twenty minutes and he has time to get everything set up in the study before she wakes.
He's in the kitchen when he hears the light slap of her feet on the bare floor.
"Hey, Castle."
"Hey. Did you sleep well? Are you hungry?"
"Yes and yes. You making lunch?"
"No."
She looks both taken aback and disappointed. "Oh. Uh, okay."
"Not making it because I went and got it at Independent Claws."
"Lobster rolls? Did you get lobster rolls?"
"I did."
"Shall we eat them by the pool?"
"Nope, I have another idea. Come with me." He takes her hand and leads her to the other end of the ground floor. He'd shut the door to the study so that she'd be surprised, and he watches her from the corner of his eye as he turns the knob.
"Oh." She smiles at him with such tenderness that he's mush. "Oh, Castle. Anemones."
He'd put the vase of anemones—most of them purple, but with a few red and blue for contrast, just like the bouquet he'd bought her last year—in the middle of the table. A silver bucket filled with ice and a bottle occupies one corner, and the lobster rolls are on plates at their places. "This time I didn't have to look to see if there was a light was on," he says. "I knew that you were home." He'd meant to say here, not home. Did she notice?
"What's the occasion? It's not the anniversary of our getting together. That was eleven months ago, not a year yet."
"I'm coming to that. Here, sit down so I can pour the champagne."
Her mouth droops. "Oh, I'm sorry, I can't have that. Not with the meds."
"Yeah, well, it's not actual champagne. Sparkling cider. Booze-free bubbles until we can have the real stuff." He takes the chair opposite and touches his champagne flute to hers. "Santé."
"Santé," she says.
"Eat your lobster. You need to keep your strength up."
"Will do, Doctor Castle." She takes a healthy bite, chews, swallows, and looks rhapsodic. "This is almost as good as an orgasm."
"You haven't had sex in six weeks, Kate. Your mind is fuzzy."
"Yeah, well, you'd better not have had sex in six weeks, either."
"Good point."
She's halfway through her lobster roll before she asks him. "So. The anemones. Are you excited about something in the future?"
"Yes. Or I hope I am."
"You hope you're excited?"
"It was your fortune, from the fortune cookie."
"You're excited about that?"
"No. It was the catalyst. It made me not want to wait for the future. I was going to ask you something in September, once we were back in the city, settled in again at work, but I changed my mind."
"Changed your mind about asking, or about asking me then?"
"Both."
"I don't think it's the fault of the alcohol-free cider, but I'm having a little trouble following you."
"You know I love John Donne's poetry."
"Yes, I do, and it's a well-kept secret. But now I'm having big trouble following you."
He reaches across the table and laces his fingers through hers. "This is what I wish I'd written. For you. But I can't improve on John Donne, so here goes."
Quietly, evenly, but very emotionally, he begins to recite Donne, never taking his eyes off hers.
I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I
Did, till we loved?
She's so stunned that she misses a few lines before she hears him again.
If ever any beauty I did see,
Which I desired, and got, 'twas but a dream of thee.
And now good-morrow to our waking souls,
Which watch not one another out of fear;
For love, all love of other sights controls,
And makes one little room an everywhere.
She's overwhelmed now, and misses a few more lines, until he reaches this:
My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,
And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;
Where can we find two better hemispheres,
Without sharp north, without declining west?
Whatever dies, was not mixed equally;
If our two loves be one, or, thou and I
Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die.
"I was going to ask you to move in with me, Kate, but I changed my mind. I don't want you to move in with me."
"You don't?"
He can't read her face, but her eyes are enormous, and tears are about to spill from them.
"I want more than that. I want you to marry me. Will you? Will you marry me, Kate?"
And now the tears do spill, but she's smiling. "Yes. Yes, I will marry you. Yes."
He kisses the palm of her hand, then releases it, and gets up. He comes around the table, kneels in front of her, takes a ring out of his pocket and slips it on her finger. And then he kisses her as hard as he can without knocking her out of her chair.
"It's beautiful," she says afterwards, running the tip of her finger over the diamond and the two emeralds on either side of it. "It's a perfect fit. How?"–
"I checked the size of your mother's ring. Figured it might be right."
"But when did you get it?"
"In October. After Jerry Tyson. I knew I couldn't live another day without you, but I was afraid to ask you then. So I put it in my desk, and I brought it out here just for safekeeping."
This time she kisses him, so hard that he almost topples over.
"Castle?"
"Mmhmm?"
She turns her head, first to the left, then to the right, and then back at him. "This little room is an everywhere, isn't it? It's our everywhere."
"It is."
A/N There will be a short Epilogue in a few days. In the meantime, happy weekend, everyone.