Castle doesn't sleep, only drifts in and out between rounds of sex with Kate, finding her awake beside him every time he floats back to the edges of consciousness. She just looks so damn happy each time he opens his eyes. Their legs are still twined beneath the sheets and her hair is a riot of golden brown waves across his pillows, her smile like a crescent moon glowing in the dimness of his bedroom.
He's almost convinced he's dreaming.
But no, he's awake.
Around 3 a.m., he surfaces to feel her fingers tracing along his back, learning the lines of his scars like the language of braille, memorizing their patterns. He's aware that Kate Beckett is no stranger to war wounds, the raised circle of flesh between her breasts, the strip of healed tissue along her side, both testaments to injuries that have left their mark on her, flaws she once shied away from. Logically, he knew better than to believe Tyson's words of her likely revulsion when she laid eyes on the trauma scattered so heavily across his body. But since he's returned, he hasn't been able to quell the annoying nag of apprehension at the idea of her seeing every inch of him exposed again, feeling his damaged flesh so intimately beneath her hands.
But while he was bowed over her, making love to her, Kate didn't hesitate to sweep her palms over his scars, to dance her fingers over the varying degrees of healed tissue. If anything, she touched the sites of his battered flesh with more care, reverence, than ever before.
He's always embraced her scars, paid tribute to them with devoted sweeps of his fingers, his mouth, never caring about the physical signs of her survival, only for the fact that she survived. Tonight, she's shown him the same treatment and it means… everything to him.
And now she's warm and sated and looking at him like she's in love with him and he no longer has a doubt in his mind.
"None of them hurt?" Her voice is soft in the darkness, her fingertips dusting along the deepest of his healed wounds, trailing from his shoulder blade to the small of his back. Castle shakes his head, studies her face in the shimmer of city lights peeking through the slits of curtains while she studies him in return.
"Most of them already feel like they're not even there anymore. There are only a few that still have sensation. Weird and tingly mostly, but not painful," he mumbles, a shiver shimmying down his spine at the continuous stroke of her fingertips.
Only she could manage to make this feel so erotic.
Kate taps her fingers to the patches of skin between the strips of scar tissue, the scarce but smooth pieces of flesh.
"The doctor said I could probably have plastic surgery done. Can't make them all disappear, but cosmetically it would look better, less noticeable."
She hums her acknowledgement, skates her index finger down his spine to where the sheet pools just below the small of his back. "Do you want plastic surgery?"
"I don't know," he answers honestly, gasping when her nails scratch along the dimples of his spine. He rolls onto his side, stealing her questing fingers as her lips spill into an amused grin. "What would you do?"
Kate shifts in closer to him, sliding her knee between both of his. He draws her forearm up to press along the middle of his sternum, watching her eyes drop to their hands and feeling her fingers curl beneath his chin.
"I don't know either," she murmurs, resting her head on his pillow, sharing space and breath. He wishes the night would never end, that he could remain wrapped up in Kate Beckett and bedsheets and moonlight for the rest of his life. "I just want you to do what makes you the most comfortable, happy."
"You'll love me for my body either way?"
She rolls her eyes and eases her leg higher between his, bites her lip as the sensitive flesh of their abdomens brush. His muscles contract at the contact and he uses his free hand to twine his fingers through her hair.
"You already know the answer to that," she smirks, craning her neck to kiss him.
Kate urges him onto his back as she languidly rocks into him, starting a lazy rhythm that ignites that pleasant hum of desire in his blood to a wildfire.
No, he won't sleep tonight. Why would he want to?
Even though it's the smell of coffee that wakes her hours later, her heart still suffers from an instinctive stutter of panic when she opens her eyes to the empty space in the bed where Castle should be. But he's been here, she can sense him, can feel his warmth still lingering in the bedsheets and see his clothes still tangled with hers on the floor.
It's still so early, barely light outside, that she's almost surprised he's up. But neither of them really sleep anymore, and after last night, she doesn't want to spend much of her time sleeping anyway.
Kate gives herself a moment in his bed, presses her face to his pillow. She savors the scent of him, his aftershave and his soap, the oil of skin and layer of sleep. The underlying hint of her shampoo is blended into the fabric too and smothers her smile there. Her body warms at the fresh memory of her head sinking into his pillow while his body pressed her down into the mattress, sunk so deeply into her.
She sighs and slips from the bed, snags his dress shirt from the night before and eases two of the buttons into place. She pads towards his office, her eyes seeking through the open shelves as the kitchen becomes visible. Her heart finally calms at the sight of him, standing in front of the coffee machine with his back to her, nothing but a pair of pajama pants hanging low on his hips.
She watches him for a long moment, propping her shoulder against the entryway of his office, studying the tap of his fingers to the buttons of the complicated machine, appreciating the stretch and bunch of muscles along his back as he hunts for a mug in the cabinet. He finally notices her eyes on him once he victoriously retrieves her favorite coffee cup, an adorable grin claiming his lips as he goes still in the middle of his kitchen.
"Hey," he murmurs, his voice still rough with sleep. His eyes are bright with the soft grey dawn of morning light - and darken to a starlit sky as he registers the sight of her in only his shirt, how it trips down the length of her legs. "I was just making you a coffee."
"Mm," she acknowledges, pushing off from the bookshelf to join him in the kitchen. She smirks at the subtle blush coloring his throat when he notices her eyes falling to his bare chest.
He's so self-conscious about his body due to the scars marring so much of his skin even after she canvassed his flesh - smooth and not - last night with her hands, her mouth. She steps into the embrace of his arms once she reaches him, skims her palms along the uneven expanse of his back. The tension tangled in his spine unwinds as she touches a kiss to the hollow of his throat, dwells there for a moment while the peace of their quiet morning blankets them.
"That's sweet," she mumbles, tilting her head upwards to dust her lips along his chin next, just shy of kissing his mouth. "But we still have maybe an hour or two before Lily wakes up and I could really go for a round four."
She relishes the choked sound of his laughter at her confession, the travel of his hand up her spine and the curve of his palm at her nape.
"Still insatiable," he muses, tracing his thumb along the tip of her vertebrae, circling at the base of her skull.
"That a bad thing?" she inquires, scraping her teeth over the hard edge of his jaw. She sucks in a breath of soft surprise when his knee slides between her thighs in a familiar gesture of both comfort and seduction.
"No." His fingers feather along the taut muscle of her outer thigh, eliciting a ripple beneath his touch. Kate shifts, winds her arms around his neck. "Not at all."
She smiles as she bites down on his bottom lip, teases the tender flesh between her teeth, and hums at the light squeeze of his fingers at her nape. She can taste the faint scent of coffee on his tongue when he traces her upper lip, coaxes her to retract her teeth and let him inside.
They used to have mornings like this all the time - flirting over coffee in his kitchen, kissing so intensely that it often turned into more, him dragging her back to bed even though she would have to leave for the precinct within the hour. It returns naturally now, so much so that she can almost forget that they've missed six years worth of those mornings.
The ache of missing him, their life together, surges up fierce and unbidden in her chest, has her arching on her toes, angling her head to kiss him deeper, a little desperate.
"Kate," he groans, tightening his grip on her thigh. He gentles her with the caress of his opposite hand along the bone of her cheek, the seal of his forehead to hers.
"Sorry," she breathes, turning her head to skim her lips to his palm. She feels his settle at her temple, not pushing, not impatient, and she closes her eyes. "I just - it's surreal sometimes, having you back like this," she admits, covering the back of his hand with her own, fitting her fingers through the spaces of his.
Castle's thumb skates along the edge of her eyebrow, his lips grazing the line of her hair. "I know," he murmurs. "It's almost like starting over. Doesn't feel completely real, even for me. This morning, I woke up half expecting to be back in that room."
Her heart clenches, her ribs indulging in that horrible feeling of caving in and crushing the battered muscle. She presses their twined hands to her lips, whispers a kiss to each of his knuckles.
"But when I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was you. Then it wasn't so hard to differentiate reality from the dreams."
Shit, he's going to make her cry and he isn't even trying, hasn't even said anything tear jerking. It's just so good to have him back, to have his words in her ear, making it all okay.
"And I think the longer I'm here with you, with Lily… one day, we'll wake up and won't have to wonder anymore," he murmurs, curling an arm around her back, letting her find rest against his chest.
"I think you're right," she whispers, laying her cheek to his clavicle. Her arms band around his waist and her fingers hook in the fabric of his pants to hold on. "And I think you were right, when you said we'd find our way back. It… feels like we're almost there."
Castle holds her a little tighter, slots the bones of their ribs into place, crushing her lungs. But her body exalts at the contact, embraces it.
"I want to go see Doctor Burke," he announces after a minute, seemingly out of nowhere. But he squeezes one of her shoulders before she can pull back in question. "I want to be better, Kate. I want to be able to move forward without the last six years haunting me, without having nightmares every other night. I want to put this behind us."
Kate releases a breath against his skin before she raises her head. She meets the determination in his eyes, the resolution mingling with the outpour of love for her, and feels her lips quirk. In just a few weeks, he's come so far. She's proud of him.
"Okay. I can call him later, see if he can fit you in for an appointment this week," she murmurs, elevating onto her tiptoes to kiss his smiling mouth. "And when you're not working through it with him, you can work through it with me too, Rick. We do this together."
He just looks so damn grateful that it steals her breath for a moment.
"Thank you," he whispers, his eyes crinkling in the corners with the unwavering curve of his mouth.
She expects him to let her go after that, to return to the coffee, but Castle begins walking her backwards through the kitchen, back towards the bedroom. Kate dips her fingers beneath the waistband of his pajama pants.
"What about coffee?" She knows she doesn't really mean it.
"Later. I'll make you coffee and pancakes. I'll even bake the chocolate chips into Lily's. Right now, I want to make love to you," he mumbles, sealing another kiss to her lips. "Preferably in the shower this time."
She smirks against his mouth and squeezes his backside, hastens their stumbling steps back to the bedroom.