"Still?"
"I guess so."
She nods, narrows her eyes at the thin band on her finger and wiggles the neighboring digits until it slips into place. It irritates. Not in a bad way, just in an it's been a while kind of way that makes her a little fidgety. She fiddles with it, adjusts it, plays in a way that seems to delight the man sprawled at her side.
"Stop it," she says quietly, not even having to tell him she's talking about the staring at her every move. He's already shaking his head, no intention of giving it up now. "Castle -"
He laughs.
"- I mean it."
His lips press into the warm skin of her shoulder before he sits up, "No, Kate. You really don't."
She rolls and really wants to glare at him, to contradict, but his hair is all chickened on his head from the ruffling of her fingers. She smirks instead, reaches a hand out and pushes back the flop of bed-headed-hair with a huff.
"You're a mess."
He owns it, smiles and pushes himself into the hand at his face, grin already bursting wide. He doesn't say it's all her fault, or that she shouldn't be surprised given what they just did. He doesn't have to. She can read every word of it in his eyes as clearly as if he'd spoken it aloud.
"Yeah, yeah," she mumbles before pulling away.
The engagement ring is back in place now and she can't help the sigh that slips between her lips. The contentment that comes from having him by her side. All of it distracting her away from the inviting leer spreading over his face.
Kate rolls onto her stomach, not caring about the sheet that slips from her body with the sudden movement. Her heels bob, cross just above her ass in a carefree way that has Castle laughing. Her eyes drift, finally, from the ring, meander over his face as lazily as her own smile blossoms. Kate crosses her arms and watches him back, slow blinking and made soft suddenly by the peace they find in each other. They fall back into this way of being together so easily.
Castle lifts the chain from where it's fallen on the bed, pulling the skin-warmed metal between his fingers slowly. He loops it around his thumb and forefingers, settling it in hopes it won't tangle before placing it on the nightstand. It will anyway, somehow they always do.
Kate watches him and wonders if he knows he presses a finger to it, almost reverently, when he lays it down. It seems to come so naturally she's sure if she asked him he wouldn't even be aware of doing it. Without knowing he shows the necklace that bears the weight of her mom's ring such a kindness of touch that it never ceases to catch her unawares.
There's a love there. A softness.
A softness to each of them, this time around, that makes moments like the one they shared in the bathroom - and the kitchen - seem almost insignificant compared to moments like this. Almost.
They've been apart a while now, longer than either of them wanted and his surprise visit has left her feeling lighter than she has in weeks. Things that have worried her and played on her mind fall away in his presence. Now he's here Kate can see for herself that she was worrying over nothing. He places no more significance of his ring joining her mom's than he does on the fact she's had to remove it from her finger for work.
Why she ever thought otherwise, why she allowed those whispered doubts to creep in suddenly make her feel a little silly.
Castle's finger drifts along her cheek as he calls her attention back to him and Kate rises up, shakes off the feeling of unneeded melancholy and grins.
"I've missed you," she tells him again, not just for his benefit but for her own. She likes being able to tell him. Not just to see the way the truth of the words brings a happiness to his eyes. Makes the skin crinkle at the edges in a way she can tease him about. She tells him again to unleash the words she's kept to herself in his absence. The ones that have settled on her lips in sleep and stayed with her in the early hours, in the hardest parts of cases when his jovial nudge would have spun her in the right direction.
She will tease him about those happy little wrinkles that are holding her attention. Later. Not now. Now she feels soft and sentimental.
Loose and loving.
Kate tells him again, this time in a hushed whisper at the edge of his ear, the lobe glancing her teeth before she kisses his cheek. She rolls into him, enjoying the way the light catches her ring, the sparkle that lands on his face as she cups his jaw, pulling him closer.
"Missed you too, Beckett."
She hears an edge to the tone, knows the warmth of her body is distracting him away from words and sentimentality. She laughs, bites it back when Castle rolls over her, his weight pressing her flat to the bed.
"Missed this."
They move, hands sliding together, fingers tangling into an ever familiar knot. Kate hums when his thumb swipes across her ring, thoroughly intent on making up for lost time.
"Me too."