"Then let's start talking about the big things, yes? You up for that?" He waited for her nod before he continued. "Where do you see yourself, see us, in five years, ten years time? Where do you want us to be?"
Kate eyes gently fluttered closed.
She had dreamed of their future, of course she had, but saying it aloud, to the one person who's opinion really mattered, the one person that could shatter her brain's perfect imagined picture of their future? That took courage she wasn't sure she had.
She took a deep breath and tried, for his sake as much as her own. "I want, I want to marry you. And I want my dad to be sober enough to give me away." She started haltingly. "I wanna go back to school. I don't know what for yet, but I want to go back. To study something important, but something that I enjoy, that interests me. But not law and not Stanford. Something local. Maybe something to do with law, but maybe not. Maybe I'll be a teacher, I don't know, but I wanna go back. And I wanna enrol as your wife." She granted him a shy smile that made his heart flutter.
"And I want to have this baby. I want a beautiful baby boy with your eyes and smile and my hair and your playfulness. I want to adopt Alexis. I want her to be mine, officially. And I want to move in together. Properly. To help you pay rent and the bills. I don't know how yet, but we'll work that out.
"I want to spend Saturday mornings taking our kids swimming, together, as a family. And then you spend the afternoon with our son, playing all the things you never had the chance to with your dad, that were cut short with Mathew. And I'll spend the time with our daughter. Playing dress up and letting her mess around with my makeup and my hair and taking pictures that, in any other circumstance, I'd have shredded, but we'll frame them, and put them on the fireplace. Because they're 'Mommy and Alexis day' pictures and they're special.
"I want to take family vacations to Disney, Florida or Paris, I don't mind. And we'll lose them in a crowd and our hearts will beat so fast that I won't think they'll stand it, but I'll know that we'll get them back, because you're beside me. And then we'll find them, safe and sound, and you'll buy us all ice cream and I'll insist we daisy chain for the rest of the day and you'll insist you hold my hand because you'll know I need it.
"I want to stay with you. I wanna grow old with you, Rick. I want to spend my life being in yours. I want to laugh when you cry when you hold our first grandchild. To cry alongside you when you give Alexis away. I want our lives to be each other. For always."
Rick swallowed roughly, cupping her cheeks to kiss her hard before resting his forehead against hers.
"Oh Kate I want that so much. I want you to have this baby Kate. I want him to have your eyes, and your smile. I want to marry you, and I'll help in any way I can for you to have your dad give you away. I want you to adopt Alexis; we'll be a proper family. And she'll call you mommy and Meredith will still disappoint her, but she'll be okay, because you'll take her out, or read with her or play dress up and she'll know that she has a mother who loves her. She'll have two parents who adore her despite the fact neither of them are blood related. You are moved in Kate, have been for months, but you wanna make it official? We'll put you on the deed. It'll be yours too. You wanna help pay for things, well, we'll discuss that."
Kate chuckled.
"But Saturday morning swims with our kids, afternoons spent with one kid each, making them feel special and loved within their own right. Sounds awesome. And on Sundays, we'll have lazy breakfasts, all of us in the big bed, and you'll complain about getting crumbs in the sheets, and we'll all know you don't mean it because you love it just as much as us. You adore waking up to the sticky hands and smiling faces of our children.
"And the kids will never question how much you love them, how much they're loved by us both, because we'll never let them. And loads of pictures, too many to count, whole walls full. We never had enough when Mathew and I were kids; I have like two of him. The kids will have thousands of us as a family. So many they'll hate the sight of a camera by the time they're teenagers, but it won't matter, because we'll have so many captured memories for them to look back on. Not to mention the embarrassing baby pictures for future blackmail material."
Kate chuckled thickly.
"You wanna go back to school Kate? Wherever, whenever. You pick a school Kate, no matter where, and we'll do it. I'll follow you across the world if that's what you want Kate, Alexis loves travelling. And money isn't a problem. Never will be when it comes to you or our kids okay? You wanna be a cop? Or a teacher? Or hell Kate, you wanna train to be an astronaut? You go do that. I will support you and love you, no matter what you decide. And when you enrol, when you graduate, they'll be calling Katherine Castle to the stage."
"Who says I'm taking your name?" She teased breathlessly, the images they were painting stealing the oxygen from her lungs.
"I do." He murmured possessively, making Kate shiver.
She nodded, swallowing before she could form words again. "Sounds good." She murmured back before kissing him soundly. "Oh Rick, that sounds so good."
"Kate you can have it all, every word. Lazy weekends and holidays to Disney and our happy playful baby boy, hell a whole army of them if you want."
Kate chuckled. "How about we see how I do with this one first, yeah? Before you start planning your Castle Children Rebellion?"
Rick smiled. "We can do that."
"Just make me one promise. Please, for now, for tonight, just make me one promise?"
"Anything." He murmured fervently, meeting her eye seriously, all the love he felt for her shining through them in the street light.
"Don't let me fuck this up. Please, I can't lose you. I was gone less than an hour and it felt like my world was caving in. I never want to feel like that again so please..."
He cut her off with a swift and devastating kiss, before wrapping her up in his arms. "I won't. I won't let you fuck up. I won't let you feel like that again. So long as you promise the same. You can't let me mess this up either. This has to be a team effort or it'll never work."
"Family effort." Kate murmured shyly, eliciting a beautiful, stunning smile from her partner.
"Family effort." He agreed more than happily.
"Can we go home now?" Kate asked softly. "I think I owe Alexis an apology and your mother an explanation and it's cold. And Alexis still has no idea what's going on, poor girl probably still thinks we're fighting."
Rick kissed her again deeply. "Home sounds perfect, Kate. Let's go home. All four of us."
Author's Note-Epilogue to follow NYLF xx