Title is from Zombie Tag by Hannah Moskowitz

Quietly Forever

Richard Castle is cautiously optimistic.

Lately, she's been smiling at him. All the time. He assumes she doesn't know that he sees it, because honestly. . .how is he supposed to not kiss her when she looks at him like that. Her face open with something the braver part of him wants to call love.

And it isn't just the smiling, either. She's been touching him. A palm low down at the base of his spine, the bump of her shoulder against his bicep. Her fingers curling into his. It gives him strength, courage. The fortification of knowledge. At the very least, she cares about him.

Enough to sit through his mother's entirely fanciful recount of his childhood. Enough to cry out in something close to desperation when Sophia had a gun pointed at his head. So yes, he's brave with it.

And he's going to tell her again. He's still entirely unconvinced that she doesn't remember what he said to her that day. Not with the way she couldn't meet his eyes when he asked her about it. But then, he can hardly blame her for not bringing it up.

This is Kate Beckett he's talking about. He likes to think that he understands her. So when he waited until she was dying in his arms with the sharp scattering of grass surrounding them to tell her that he loved her, he can see why she might have written it off. Might think he was saying it as a friend, offering it to her as a plea to keep her here without really meaning it.

So this time, when he says it again, she won't be dying. He'll take her hand and he'll meet her eyes and there will be no fear, no sticky spill of her lifeblood between his fingers. Just Kate, I'm in love with you. Adrenaline kicks hard in his chest just thinking the words and he must give off some kind of tell because she's frowning at him, peeling her eyes away from the computer monitor to watch him wriggle in his chair.

"You okay?"

Somehow, he arranges his face into an approximation of a smile, nodding vigorously at her. "Yes, yeah. Great. You?"

She startles at that, but her mouth quirks upwards at the corners and a pretty flush fills her cheeks. Oh. Oh. Huh. Kate Beckett is blushing because he asked how she is. Because he cares about her. Interesting. "Yeah. Good. Uh. . .you want coffee?"

"I'll get it." He says, maybe a little too eager. Okay, tone it down Rick. Honestly, he hasn't even asked her to have dinner with him yet.

That's the first step in his absolutely fool proof, brilliant plan to tell her he loves her again. He'll take her out to dinner, woo her as much as he can get away with and then-

Well. He's trying not to plan it out too much. Ever hopeful that she'll surprise him.

Castle stands from his chair and is just about to turn and head for the break room when the touch of Kate's fingers in his, slender and cool, makes him startle and stare down at her. Her smile is wide and gorgeous and a little self-conscious, her thumb circling at the back of his hand now. "Thank you, Castle."

A really, really stupid part of him wants to lean down and kiss the top of her head, reel her in with a palm curled at the back of her neck. Only, Ryan and Esposito are right there and already looking at them strangely, and it's not something they do. No, he and Kate have been touching more and more often lately, but no kissing.

Not cheeks. Not heads. Most definitely not mouths. And great, now he's thinking about his mouth on hers and whether he can get her to moan again the way she did the last time. He untangles himself from her grip and smiles right back at her, stuffs his hands in his pockets to stop himself from tugging her up out of her chair and somewhere private with him.

"You're welcome."

Making coffee is an art, now. A skill at which he is finely honed. He can do it quickly, but nonetheless delicious every time. And he's grateful for that, especially today. It means that he doesn't have much time to dwell on this thing with Beckett. Whatever it is that has always been between them has a new lease of life, now. He imagines it like the brand new shoots that poke up from the ground in springtime. Huddled low down and vulnerable, in need of nurturing, but with all the potential for something beautiful.

Rick finishes up with Beckett's latte, his own cappuccino and pushes the break room door open with his hip, a mug cradled in each hand. In the beginning, way back when Beckett terrified and enthralled him in equal measure, he drank vanilla lattes too. So that if he dropped one on the way to her, she would at least still get her coffee.

And then she found out, had teased him mercilessly over it and he had reverted back to cappuccinos again, his pride more than a little wounded. He was only trying to do something good for her, keep her caffeinated, and she had been entirely unappreciative.

Shaking his head, Castle watches her at her desk and lets the sight of her ease the sudden tension the memory has laced through his shoulders. It's different now. She's different.

She's grateful. When he gets to her desk and sets her coffee down in front of her she wraps both hands around it and cradles it to her chest, grinning at him before she takes a sip. He will never understand why she feels the need to drink while her coffee is still scalding, why she likes to burn herself on the first mouthful every time.

"Good?"

"Always is." She lifts an eyebrow at him, tilting her head and studying him carefully. Right, of course she can tell that something's going on with him. She is, after all, a detective. A damn good one, best in the city as he told the mayor, and so it's difficult to hide his stupid, tender heart from her at the best of times.

Not that he really wants to. No, his heart is all hers. "Uh, Kate. I was thinking. . ."

Kate sets her coffee down and clasps her hands, traps them between her knees. She looks expectant, but not at all scared. Almost hopeful, in fact. "Yeah?"

"Would you like to get dinner with me?"

"Oh." She gasps, a hand coming up to cover her mouth as if to hold back any more involuntary reactions. And then she smiles at him, the closed-mouth one that makes her eyes crease at the corners and shine with delight. "I would love to."

Castle takes a deep breath, steels himself. "It's a date."

"Tonight?" She hums, her face still ripe with that nascent expectation and he realises, belatedly, she doesn't want to wait. Kate Beckett is ready for this, for him. She wants to go on a date, with him, tonight.

Grinning wide, Rick takes her hand in his and circles his thumb over the back of it, half expecting to find a massive golden retriever staring up at them. Her face is just the same as that night. A little panicked, but all the same bright with the birth of something new between them.

"Tonight is great. I'll pick you up?"

"You don't want to head straight from the precinct?"

It's so silly, so juvenile, but he wants to get cleaned up for her. Wants to spend hours deliberating over which tie to wear and whether he should shave or leave his jaw scattered with the stubble that always makes her eyes widen in appreciation. There's something adolescent about the terrifying newness of it all, and he wants to revel in it.

"I want us to dress up, Kate. Do it properly." He says quietly, her hand suddenly a little clammy in his. Good. So he's not the only one completely ruined by this.

She flushes again, chews at her bottom lip and dips her head to avoid his gaze. She's so ridiculously adorable that he doesn't quite know what to do with himself. Wants so desperately to hold her close. For forever, but even just five minutes will do.

"You want me to wear a dress for you?"

He shrugs, lets himself leer just a little. "Doesn't have to be a dress. Just wear something sexy."

That gets a laugh out of her and she eases her hand free from his grip, turns back to her computer monitor. Conversation over, apparently, but that's good too. They're going on a date. He can't believe she actually said yes.

And now he needs to get out of here, really, because otherwise he will spend the entirety of the afternoon just staring at her and constructing a hundred thousand different scenarios of how tonight will go and he'd really rather she didn't backtrack before they've even had their first official date.

"I'm gonna head home." He stands up from his chair, hesitates at the edge of her desk. And yes, he doesn't miss the wash of confusion and hurt over her face, just a moment before she schools herself back into something neutral. "I have to make reservations. I'll pick you up at eight?"

"Okay." She hums, tucking the spill of her curls back behind her ear and smiling softly up at him again. It only solidifies his desperate need to get out of here, because if she keeps smiling at him like that he absolutely will not be able to stop himself from kissing her. "See you at eight."

He makes it all the way to the elevator before he realises, like an idiot, that he left his cell phone in his drawer in Kate's desk. This morning, he was trying to beat his Angry Birds score and getting increasingly frustrated when he couldn't, so much so that eventually Kate snapped and snatched his phone away from him, shoved it into his drawer and told him he wasn't allowed to touch it again unless it rang.

When he makes it back to Kate's desk she's just answering her phone, facing away so she doesn't see him approaching. "Beckett."

Castle crosses his fingers and prays to every deity that it's not a case, that they won't have to take a raincheck on their date. It all feels so tentative; he's pretty sure that if they don't do this tonight, now, while they're both a little giddy with it, then there'll never be another chance.

He's just about to sit down in his chair when Kate speaks again. "Will! Oh my god, hi! Are you back in town?"

Just like that, his whole world crumbles. Sure, she just said yes to a date with him. She smiled. She held his hand. But now she's got god damn Agent smug-stupid-jawline Sorenson on the phone and she looks happier than he can remember ever having seen her.

She still hasn't noticed him hovering, her whole attention span sucked up by the man on the other end of the phone. "Yeah of course, I'd love to. I have plans tonight, but I should be able to reshuffle them. Okay. I'll see you then."

Gritting his teeth, Castle yanks open his drawer and snatches up his cell phone, shoving it into his pocket and stalking away from Beckett's desk before she can do so much as call his name. He doesn't need to hear her platitudes.

Really, Beckett. He gets it. A better offer came along. He'll just. . .go. Before he embarrasses himself any further. Leave her to it.

Even if walking away from her does feel like a fist tightening in his gut.

Tumblr: katiehoughton

Twitter: seilleanmor