Notes: This chapter takes place during/after 2x12 "A Rose for Everafter."

Grin and Nina are still fictionalized famous folks; Victor is a figment of my imagination. No disrespect intended. And yep, there's a purpose for them all.

Part Eleven: Haven't Accepted It Yet

When the first bout of stoic solitude gave way to the kind of mourning that could tolerate company, the widowed Nina Grin opened her door to Victor Medtner.

He was worried about her. He was worried that she wouldn't let him in, that she would lock herself away in the little house by the Black Sea and refuse all help. But she opened her door.

Victor was a friend—both to Nina and to Alexander, before his death—and he was unwilling to let Nina go; refused to turn her away just because she had withdrawn in grief.

He convinced her to step outside with him for fresh air and sunlight and the chance to venture beyond the empty house; away from the card table in the study where Grin did most of his writing; away from the bed by the window where Nina had propped up his ill body with pillows just so that he could keep an eye on the sea.

They veered from the shore, Grin's sacred ground. Victor led her away.

They talked mostly about their common loss; coping. But once Victor pointed out the antics of some wild birds, Nina seemed to brighten. They spoke less of Grin and more of the life they saw; admired the little black masks of the Lesser Greys perched on a fence and the bright blue blossoms of the urn-shaped muscari flowers.

Even as a reader, Kate's detective instincts sometimes kicked in, and this time she suspected that Mr. Medtner had a little crush on the widow. The way he spoke to her, the way he looked at her, the way he appreciated her presence and her perspective of the world—all clear signs to anyone who wasn't too close to see it.

It was only a matter of time before he realized it for himself, Kate decided. The only reason that Victor wasn't admitting it was probably that Grin's death was still so recent; that Victor couldn't possibly feel this way about someone whose heart still belonged to someone else.

In the meantime, he met her nearly every day just to walk at her side.

Within only a few short hours, Greg and Kyra were about to strap on the ball and chain for life. And Castle would be there to celebrate it with them.

He was already in his suit, had been for a little while now, as though getting showered and shaved and dressed to go in advance would make him better prepared. But much as Castle would have preferred not to admit it, there was mental and emotional preparation involved here, too. And there was only so much of that he could do from here.

There was no way to rehearse this ahead of time—no way to practice real acceptance while aimlessly shuffling around in his loft, just like planting himself in a chair wasn't enough to figure out how a bound Nikki Heat would get free. Once again, the power of imagination only took him so far.

The only way to work through his mixed bag of emotions was to lug it along with him to his ex-girlfriend's wedding, where he would sit on it stoically. Only once he saw Kyra off properly, with genuine joy for her, could he then dare to open up his baggage in private and sort through the mess.

When he'd last seen Kyra and accepted her grateful goodbye, he hadn't found as much closure as he might have expected he would. The wedding would finally make it real.

He hated that he was thinking about this day as though he were going to an open-casket funeral.

Get a grip, Rick. No one died.

But if he was honest with himself, he was grieving. It was a sort of sickly happy grief, under the circumstances, but grief nonetheless.

Eventually, he stood at his bookshelf and retrieved the manuscript that still made him feel like he held time with Kyra in his hands.

He had changed the book's title soon after he and Kyra tested the waters and had a noncommittal conversation or two about their respective views on marriage. The phrase "Jurassic institution" stuck with him. That day he found out that he believed in something she didn't, and that was hard.

Especially because he loved her.

He didn't exactly have many role models for the thing—marriage. Something in him just believed in it, believed he might want it. Might want it with Kyra.

So A Rose for Tonight wouldn't suffice. He needed her to believe in Everafter, let alone happily ever after.

And it really looked like they were headed that way. Kyra applied to Oxford for postgraduate studies, and this time was promptly accepted. While plenty of their classmates started to panic about the ominous phase of life after graduation, Kyra spent her last semester of college knowing and loving where she was headed next.

It would have been hard for Rick not to believe in happily ever after while watching Kyra's dream unfold. And his dream was to go with her.

He'd talk on end about all the great writers who ever lived and breathed and drank in Oxford, about the Bodleian Library and the little Bridge of Sighs, about the rowers navigating the River Thames and the cattle to be found in Christ Church Meadow—how he planned to stake out a booth in a moody pub or sit on a bench beneath a tree along that broad dirt path and write a great manifesto (or at least another novel or two) and wait for Kyra to join him there after kicking ass in her tutorials.

It was a good story, one that they both said that they wanted. So it didn't matter so much to him that Kyra wasn't keen on marriage yet; he figured they might get there eventually, and wherever they went in the meantime, they would go together.

Until the summer when she booked her flight to Heathrow, when she told him that she intended to go it alone, that this was something she needed to do, that she needed space.

It seemed to him to come out of nowhere.

He had already eased up on voicing his imaginings about their new British life, and the book he'd dedicated to her had been out for months, but Rick still couldn't help but wonder if somewhere along the way he'd said too much, asked too much.

Ever after was a long time. Maybe if he'd only said tomorrow, it wouldn't have scared her off. Tomorrow is hopeful, not eternal. Tomorrow is renewed each today, and that was the sort of ongoing loyalty that they'd shared until they didn't. Kyra might have appreciated A Rose for Tomorrow.

Castle closed the book, restored it to the shelf. He'd believed in marriage when Kyra hadn't. Now he was twice divorced and she was just starting fresh.

He himself admitted that he still liked the institution of marriage, but he'd never quite been able to appreciate the day-to-day. He knew it took two to tango and he'd made his share of mistakes, but he also wondered if maybe his marital dances fell apart because he never found someone who saw that kind of partnership the same way he did, someone willing to work out the inevitable conflicts with him no matter how bullheaded either of them got, someone who thought their day-to-day was worth a fight, someone he could trust to be there for him and who would trust him to be there for her.

As difficult as marriage was, he hoped they would make it. As difficult as hoping that was for him, he hoped they would make it. He hoped Greg and Kyra would last.

And it was time to go.

For such a small ceremony, it was a lot to take in. Fewer floral arrangements; a minister; guests in only one row of chairs parted in the center and facing the front of the room where Greg already stood, so very ready and what looked like the good kind of nervous.

Even in Kyra's absence, Castle could see her touch there in every modest, tasteful detail. The other event had reeked of Sheila. It was clear to him that Kyra had taken the month since their first attempt at a wedding to do even more than recover from the loss of her old friend and get through the holidays; Kyra had planned her wedding, as non-Jurassic as she ever would have wanted it.

This is the one he would have wanted her to have.

From one of the seats on the makeshift aisle, Sheila addressed him with no sense of surprise at his last-minuteness: "Richard. You made it."

"Yes. Yes, thank you," he said, navigating past her with an awkward shuffling twist, as though looking her in the eye might turn him to stone.

"You gonna sit?" came a friendly voice. His gaze fell to Beckett aglow in pale lavender and alone in a small cluster of empty chairs. She patted the seat on her right; closer to Kyra's loved ones, as though she'd saved him a more honored spot.

He wandered over to her as though still considering his options. "Next to you?"

She grinned. "Unless you want to sit on the groom's side."

No, thank you. Without further ado, he took his seat beside Beckett—trying to look casual about claiming the one on her left, a safer distance from Sheila Blaine. He fixed his jacket as he sat and glanced around again at the gathering, quite possibly the smallest wedding he'd ever attended.

Beckett leaned to her left and bumped into his shoulder, and for a moment he thought they'd collided while both absentmindedly checking out the room, but it turned out that she'd come in close to speak covertly. Still looking forward at the groom at the altar, she whispered to Castle, "If you'd gotten here any later, you would've married him."

He rolled his eyes and lightly nudged her back into her place. "Traffic," he murmured.

She nodded, not pressing him, and he breathed a tired sigh.

"Listen, about last weekend—" he began, wondering how on earth she was being so affable with him after the way they'd parted at her door, but a swell of music cut him off, and Beckett patted his thigh in a don't mention it sort of way.

And before he knew it, Kyra was there, striding purposefully toward Greg and the minister who would wed them for ever after.

Near the threshold of the dining room, Castle reached forward for Beckett's arm and slowed her down until she stood ahead of him. A few of the guests held back to chat or use the restrooms, while a few others were finding their seats, and he needed to devise a plan.

The sudden touch and the warmth of him at her back weren't enough to make her skin flush, but his breath just above her ear was. Before she could give him what-for, he hissed, "Can we make a pact?"

"What?"

"A pact. It's open seating. That's like open season. Please."

She didn't even need to turn to know the panicked look in his eye. "Is that why you're using me as a shield?"

He'd been clinging to her biceps and crowding her back, so fine, yes, that was an accurate barb. But he didn't release her yet. "Please," he hissed again. "Take a seat anywhere not near Sheila and let me follow you."

Never mind a shield. She felt like a hostage, and the firm restraint of Castle's hands was nothing compared to the heat that was torturing her insides. A need rested low in her belly and she told herself that she was hungry.

The sooner they went to sit down, the sooner she could make the hungry feeling go away.

"Fine. Come with me."

"So," said Castle, relaxing now as he escorted Beckett to a seat before taking his own. "Six times a bridesmaid. How many times catching the bouquet?"

Her nose scrunched at his playful prodding, but she set the bridal bouquet on the table and unfolded the napkin for her lap. "Once," she said, deciding that humoring him took less energy than avoiding what was really such a simple question.

"Really," he said in singsong, a twinge of excitement and curiosity. Beckett's first bouquet—and he was there to see it. And laugh mercilessly.

Then she added, "Well, twice now," and took a sip of water.

"Really." Less singsongy. Less excited. Moderately curious.

"That one was all kinds of awkward, though." She saw his brows quirk in question and explained: "Well, the groom tossed the garter for the men. Then they plopped me in a chair in the middle of the ballroom and told the bride's brother to put his sister's garter on me."

"That's—not so bad," said Castle, trying to pull off unaffected.

"With only his teeth."

Castle reached for the champagne near the center of the table and announced to the few guests who'd been talking amongst themselves: "So how 'bout that bubbly?"

He knew Kyra well enough to know that a garter toss—along with its public retrieval from the bride—was not her style, but if he didn't distract his tastebuds and his nerves with something intoxicating soon, he was going to spend an entire evening at Beckett's side with unrestrained thoughts about his mouth charting a course along her leg. Garter and public coercion optional.

Meanwhile, Beckett thought that his apparent discomfiture with this anecdote was strictly on her behalf, and it made her chuckle. Normally she might have teased a story and left him hanging, but this time she reassured him. "It was fine, Castle. He was super sweet about the whole thing, definitely a million times more embarrassed than I was, and he used his hands."

Castle poured himself a tall, tall glass.

Whether he was daydreaming or not, Beckett was a pretty good distraction, but even Castle's attraction to her did not make him forget entirely about the mixed bag of emotions he'd lugged to the wedding with him. He felt like he was still sitting on it, just trying to keep it from bursting open.

And without even meaning to do so, Beckett had brought her own baggage along, too.

Not a woman alive who doesn't think about her wedding day, Castle had teased. Not even Kate Beckett.

The truth was that thoughts of her hypothetical wedding day were wrapped up in thoughts of her mother. There was the fact that Johanna wouldn't be there for it, of course, but then there was also a ticking clock even more harrowing than any biological drive to procreate in time—the ticking clock that counted out her life in juxtaposition to her mother's.

She knew that she wasn't quite ready yet, but that didn't stop her from thinking about how her mother had reached certain milestones by this age, like so many of her own friends now.

Johanna and Kyra had both pursued long paths of education and careers and only decided to marry when they were good and ready, but seeing that Kyra was doing so a little later in her life gave Beckett a strange new sense that the path she was on was all right.

It marked a decisive end to the past year's preoccupation with being of The Age that Johanna Began a Family.

Closure.

Maybe it existed after all.