Kate is bundled up in her warmest coat, her favorite scarf, and a beanie that covers her ears, swaying back and forth on the cabin's porch swing when his fancy Mercedes pulls into her driveway. Her heart palpitates, nerves and excitement alive in her chest, making room beside the residual pain of her scars. She takes a deep breath and stands from the swing to meet him.
"Nice place," Castle calls to her as he emerges from the vehicle, buttoning his coat as he approaches the porch steps. His gaze roams the cabin appreciatively before falling to her, eyes lit like sapphires whether he realizes it or not.
"Yeah, my dad renovated it a couple of years back. He's always making additions," she chuckles, rocking back on the heels of her snow boots as he climbs the last step to reach her. "Neverending project."
"Does he ever come stay with you?" Castle asks, but Kate shakes her head.
"Not often. He'll likely come for Christmas, but ultimately, he stays at his place in the city most months, especially now since I'm here to keep things up and running," she explains, bending to tug a thermos from under the swing. "You ready?"
He eyes her quizzically, but the corners of his mouth are upturned. "I guess so? Where are you taking me?"
"Just on a walk," she grins, stepping past him for the steps and descending carefully. She's gone down them too fast before and felt the repercussions like a drum through her sternum. "If you're up for it."
He follows her, snow crunching beneath his boots when he hustles to reach her side as she starts toward a barely discernible path through the woods.
"So a tour," he muses, tucking his hands into his coat pockets.
"Of sorts. See, there's the lake," she points out, directing her hand to the frozen body of water behind the cabin, the ice encrusted dock. "I was thinking we could try ice skating in the next couple of weeks. Should be sturdy enough by then."
His lips quirk. "You'll have fun watching me fall."
"Don't worry, Castle. I won't let you go down."
"You have not seen me in the rink," he chuckles as they descend deeper into the embrace of the naked trees. "Alexis loved ice skating as a kid, so I took her to Rockefeller every single year and every single year, my ass was perpetually bruised."
She smothers a laugh behind her hand and nudges his shoulder with her own.
"Well, we'll go slow and I'll keep you upright," she promises, but he scoffs, bumping her back.
"You can try."
"I'll hold your hand the entire time," she teases, patting his arm, but he snags her gloved fingers now.
She looks over at him, but he merely drags their tangled hands into his warm pocket and continues observing their surroundings.
"It really is beautiful," he says, gaze trained overhead on the grey sky, the army of pine trees with frost-covered limbs.
"Yeah," she agrees, letting her own gaze roam the profile of his face - the gorgeous cut of his jaw, the cerulean set of his eyes, and the strong slope of his nose. She tightens her grip on his hand.
They stroll through the woods for a while longer. She asks him about Alexis, about her college career, and his time in California. He gushes about Alexis's accomplishments at Stanford, how she's a natural at the advanced classes and already on track to graduate with honors. He tells her about Bakersfield and L.A. with a wrinkled nose, admits that he still prefers New York, and how he never imagined himself in California and he's thinking of moving back once Alexis graduates.
"Maybe sooner," he shrugs. "Who knows?"
"I wouldn't be opposed to that. Otherwise, I guess I'll finally be utilizing the Facetime feature on my phone," she chuckles, earning a surprised glance that sets her nerves alight. "I mean, if - if you'd want to keep in touch, that is."
He circles the top of her hand with his thumb. "Yeah, I definitely would."
She tucks her smile into her scarf, feeling like a teenager on a first date. She's always known she and Castle were more than friends, despite what she told everyone else, including herself, but she's never let herself lean into the feelings. She's never let herself like him back, never felt so tentatively in love with someone.
They trek upwards for a bit until she can see the tops of the Adirondack mountains coming into view.
"Whoa," Castle breathes, slowing to a stop at a cluster of boulders that allows a perfect visual of the distant mountains only mere miles away. "This is such a great view."
"Yeah, I used to love it as a kid," she says, withdrawing her hand to unscrew the thermos and take a seat on one of the large black boulders perfect for picnics. "I'd come up here and pretend I was a knight on a quest, protecting the land from the dragon that inhabited the mountains."
Castle smiles brightly as he settles down next to her. "That's adorable. And kind of ironic."
She chuckles and pours them both a cup of the hot cocoa. Castle takes a long sip of his, closing his eyes in delight.
"Oh, this is so good. Wait, is this…"
"Alexis's secret recipe?"
His eyes flash open. "Double chocolate, double marshmallow?"
"Yep," she hums, savoring her own swallow. "She shared it with me a few years back, when I stayed with you after my apartment blew up."
Warmth fills his cheeks, his eyes, and he smiles back at her unguarded.
"I hated that case, all the damage it caused, but having you at the loft was fun. Coffee and breakfast together every morning, carpooling to work, dinner and wine afterwards," he reminisces. "I think we were all bummed the day you finally found a new place."
"Yeah, I kinda was too," she confesses, cradling the steel mug in her hands. "It was interesting, experiencing you outside of work so consecutively."
"Made you want me, right?" he winks, but even as she rolls her eyes, she leans her shoulder against his.
"It laid the groundwork for that," she lets out, feeling him still and suck in a slow breath beside her.
They sit in companionable silence, sipping cocoa and admiring the mountains, the shocking blue of a river running in the distance between themselves and the Adirondacks.
"Oh, Castle, look," she whispers, tilting her chin toward a herd of deer emerging from the woods.
He holds his breath, but manages a whisper. "Will we scare them?"
"No, just stay still."
An impressive buck leads the small group, traipsing gracefully through the trees to lead farther north. A doe near the back of the herd pauses, ears twitching before she turns to glance their way. Both Kate and Rick freeze completely, but the doe doesn't startle, merely assessing them for a handful of seconds before losing interest and trotting to catch up to her pack.
"She didn't even seem scared of us," Castle exhales in awe, his eyes alight with excitement as he checks over his shoulder to find her gaze.
Kate nods, smiling softly at the childlike wonder brimming through his features. "The hunters don't usually come this way since it's private property, so she must know that no one will hurt her here. She feels safe."
"And she has the herd. I'm sure they protect her, that they protect each other," he murmurs, some of the reverence fading into something else, something deeper. "She'd likely be more fearful if she was alone, even in the safety of the woods."
"I'm sure she would," Kate concurs, lowering her attention to the empty mug in the cradle of her palms. "She definitely wouldn't be happy, all alone."
"No, but she's not alone. Never going to be alone," he says rather resolutely, and she knows for certain now that they are no longer talking about deer.
Castle presses the heat of his side to hers and she exhales a breath she didn't realize she was holding, leaning into him.
"I'm sorry," she whispers. "For never calling."
One of his arms loops through hers, stealing a set of fingers from her mug.
He squeezes her hand. "It's okay."
"And we're not over." She lifts her head to see him. He's watching her intently and her eyes beg to dip to his mouth, to the lips she remembers so well. "We never got to talk about it, but anything I said that night, before Montgomery's shooting-"
"Hey, no." He shakes his head, automatically flexing his fingers to fit between the spaces of hers. "I shouldn't have brought that up yesterday. Wasn't fair."
"But we're not over," she states with as much confidence as she can muster, because she isn't sure what they are right now. All she knows is that she isn't finished finding out.
Castle's chest rises with a deep breath and for a moment, she fears he's going to tell her she's wrong, but all he does is squeeze her hand once more.
"No, we aren't." His thumb skims up the length of her palm, grazing the bare skin covering her pulse. "I'm not sure we ever were."
She ducks her head, lets the shield of her hair hide the relief bleeding across her lips.
"Let's head back," he murmurs, snagging the cup from her loose grip and sealing it to the top of the thermos with his own. "I want to defrost a bit before I have to go."
Kate nods and tries to retrieve the thermos back from him, but he holds it out of reach and holds tighter to her hand, tucking it back into his pocket as they trudge through the snow, back into the woods.
"So," she begins, shrugging off her coat. She's slow with it, but it keeps her from wincing. Castle merely watches from his place in her kitchen, hip propped against the counter like he belongs there. She inhales a deep breath for courage. "When can I see you again?"
She swears his cheeks flush from something more than the cold.
"Well, my schedule is admittedly pretty open," he muses, unwinding the scarf from around his neck. "I'm just here for my mother, her appointments."
Kate nods, attempting to gauge how to proceed. This thing between them, so new and tentative, terrifies her. She's never been so afraid of saying the wrong thing, of scaring him away. She begins to wonder if this was what it was like for him, when he realized he loved her.
"Then fit me in where you can," she offers, hanging her coat next to his on the rack near the front door. He shoots her a quizzical look, as if he can sense her apprehension. She sighs and approaches his spot by the tea kettle, resisting the urge to tangle her frozen fingers.
"Listen, Rick, I just want to see you as much as I can before you have to go."
He softens at that. "Hey, even once I go back to California, we'll still see each other."
She cocks an eyebrow up at that.
"Come on, I'll buy a private jet and fly back and forth every single week if I have to."
"Don't do that," she huffs, pausing to a stop in front of him. He lowers his gaze, assessing the lack of distance between them now. "Bad for the environment."
His lips quirk. "Then maybe I'll just need to be in New York more often."
She considers making a quip about Nikki Heat, about how perhaps he'll need to return to the Twelfth to shadow her again for the sake of authenticity. But she doesn't want to make this into a joke, doesn't want to hide in the subtext. It leads to too much trouble, and it feels as though they no longer have the time for codes and indirect promises.
"I'd like that," she admits, watching the smile on his lips spread slow and genuine. "Gives me another reason to get my ass back to the city."
"Yes, but even if you stayed here forever," he murmurs, flicking his eyes around the cabin for a moment. "I can write from anywhere. Maybe turn Nikki into a game warden or something."
She shoves at his shoulder, smiles at the rise of his laughter. "Don't you dare."
"Fine, fine, but that means I may have to go back to the Twelfth then. But… not without my partner."
"How are you going to go back if Gates kicked you out?"
He quirks an eyebrow and she bites her bottom lip at the show of her hand. "Talked to the boys, did you?'"
"They texted me to let me know," she concludes, wincing a little.
"For the record, I only let her kick me out because there was no reason to stay," he reveals, his voice a teasing lilt, but the words still make her heart flutter, her cheeks heat.
She reaches for one of the hands resting at his side. "Oh?"
Castle doesn't just accept the slide of her fingers into his, he draws her in by the tangle of their touch, pulling gently until she's close enough to smell the musk of his cologne, feel the heat of his body and the subtle exhale of his breath along her cheek.
"I don't want to go back to the Twelfth, let alone Manhattan, without you."
The confession rattles her a little, but she forces herself to breathe past the acceleration of her heart, the rush of surprise through her stomach.
"I feel the same way," she manages, watching a ripple of disbelief color his eyes her favorite shade of blue. But she doesn't want shock, she wants assurance there. "Castle, I know that things between us are never easy, but I kind of want to do more than just make up for the past year."
His throat bobs. "You – you do?"
"I do," she says firmly, squeezing his hand in hers. He squeezes back. "I want to be more than who I've been since my mother died, for both of us."
"You and me?" he clarifies, a little bit awestruck, and if it wasn't too soon, she would kiss him right then. Make it abundantly clear.
"Yeah, you and me," she grins. "Castle, you are a great friend and partner, but I - you're more than that. I know I still need to put in a lot of work to be ready for that, but I-"
Her words are muffled against his chest as he wraps his arms around her in a tight hug, an embrace that seals them together so perfectly, a rush of contentment and need battle for her attention.
"Take as much time as you need," he murmurs into her hair.
She curls her fingers in the back of his shirt, nestling her cheek against the heavy rise and fall of his chest, listening to the drumming beat of his heart.
"I'll wait," he adds, swears.
She hugs him back as tight as she can. "With me this time."
A relieved breath of laughter heats her neck.
"With you this time," he confirms.