Her phone chimes repeatedly when she exits the subway, the renewed signal pulling in five new texts from Castle, all spaced a few minutes apart.

So then you're not mad that I sent you to the hotel? That I wrote an entire letter about my ex-girlfriend and ex-wives?

I'm not panicking. I'm sure your lack of response is because you're on the subway or have silenced your phone or stopped to get coffee or something and not because you're on the way here to kill me or decided to make a run for it.

I love you too, by the way. Though I hope that the four letters you have so far have expressed that.

You know where you're supposed to go next, right?

One more thing: Are you in heels? Do you need someone to bring you a change of shoes? I might be making you run around the city on a scavenger hunt but I do care about the well being of your feet.

Kate pulls the keyboard up to answer him but changes her mind after typing in a few words. She wants to hear his voice right now, wants to let it push her along the busy sidewalk, accompany her to the next destination on his list.

The line rings twice before he answers, a little breathless. "Kate?"

"My feet are fine, Castle. Though they do appreciate your concern."

He laughs, relief pouring into her ear. "Good. I know you're used to wearing those god-awful contraptions all day but you don't usually do quite this much walking."

"God-awful contraptions? I don't recall you holding that opinion a few weeks ago when I was wearing those red peep toes."

"Well, to be fair," his voice drops and she feels arousal skitter down her back and gather at the base of her spine, "my enthusiasm in that particular instance was more about the other things you weren't wearing, not what you had on your feet."

"Mmm-hmm."

"I really do love your shoes. They're sexy as hell and you know it. I just don't understand how you can possibly be comfortable skipping around in them for ten hours a day."

"When have I ever skipped anywhere?"

"I've seen you skip for chocolate. And good wine." He pauses and she smiles, knows what's coming. "And sex."

The old woman walking in front of her looks back at the sound of her laugh, bright and boisterous. God-awful heels aside, she feels likes she's walking on air right now, her body light and floating, drifting along on the current of his love.

"So where are you now?"

"About half a block from my old apartment."

"You remembered."

"Of course I did. Who's going to forget the time a deranged serial killer blew up their apartment with a homemade bomb?"

"Not the man who watched it happen, that's for sure." His voice is low, barely audible over the sounds of traffic and pedestrians. "I love you, Kate."

"I know. You wouldn't send just anybody on a wild goose chase all over the city."

"Only you," he chuckles and she's happy to hear the lightness return.

"Okay, I'm here. Where's this one?"

"It's no fun if I tell you."

"Castle -"

"It's tucked into the buzzer panel, spoilsport."

Kate finds the envelope and pries it out of the thin crack he's managed to wedge it into, phone tucked between her shoulder and ear so she can use both hands, being careful not to rip the paper.

"You got it?"

"Yeah, I got it. I'll call you later?"

"Can't wait."

She pockets her phone and moves off the steps, out of the flow of pedestrians. Resting her back against the brick façade she unsticks the flap of the envelope and tugs out the paper, anxious to see what this one contains.

I love writing. It's in my blood. It's something I have to do in order to feel like a whole person. I don't know what I would have done with my life had I never discovered the joy that writing brings. Without it, I'm just not me.

The only time I've ever wished for that unknown, alternate life was when I stood on the corner across from where you are now and watched your apartment light up the night sky. I don't know that I can properly express the amount of sheer terror and guilt I felt as I ran up the stairs to your apartment, desperately praying to any deity that I thought would listen to just let you be alive. I was more than half in love with you and it was my words that thrust you onto the radar of a lunatic. You were in danger because of me. I don't know that I'll ever be able to fully forgive myself for that.

According to Jordan Shaw, breaking down the door to that apartment was one the dumbest things I've ever done. I had no idea what was on the other side of that slab of singed wood. I didn't care, though. All I knew was that you were in there and I had to find you. Had to put an end to my own horrible Schrödinger experiment, find out whether you were alive or dead because living in the unknown was ripping me apart. Finding your lifeless body would have finished the job.

The relief I felt when you crawled out of that bathtub, battered and bruised (and naked) but alive, is indescribable. I could breathe again, sooty air notwithstanding. I wanted to wrap you up in my coat and take you home with me, never let you out of my sight again. Only two other people in this world can inspire that in me and I am so very grateful to have the love of all three of you.

(By the way, every home we ever share together will have a cast iron bathtub. No exceptions.)

We've had so many close calls, Kate. Snipers, dirty bombs, tigers, dips in the Hudson, locked freezers, serial killers. When will we have met our quota for life or death situations? We have to be getting close. But until we do, we'll face it all together. Because as cheesy and cliché as it is, I truly do believe that I can face anything as long as you're by my side.

(Just try to stop pissing off the psychos, okay?)

Now if my timeline is at all accurate, it's nearing lunch and you must be famished from all your running around. You know where to go for food. Tell Ana I want my lucky pen back (yes it is lucky. Stop trying to prove otherwise, Beckett).

The smile on her face is wide as she finishes the letter and folds it up, sliding it back into the envelope. She steps away from the building into the blinding afternoon light, glancing up at what was once her window. The building has been restored, updated, and the memories that
hit her are from a lifetime ago. The way his jacket had felt on her bare skin, smelling like soot and loss with the faint hint of him. The night she spent up in his guest room, staring at the wall as the city lights played across the gorgeous, expensive furniture. She had awakened after only hours of sleep, crept down the stairs and started breakfast like she belonged there.

Even then he had wanted so fiercely to protect her, to give her all the things she wasn't ready to admit she wanted from him yet: warmth and strength and safety. A home.