Glorious

There is one girl in my life
That makes me love again
As pretty as a girl could be
So beautiful.

Every morning she makes me a cup of coffee
with a smile on her face
I'm a man in love
and she's glorious

-Basshunter, 'Every Morning'

"Castle?"

He grunts, curls his arm around the pillow. Smells like her.

"Caaastle."

At the feel of her hair on his back, his arm, he cracks open an eye, finds her grinning at him, mischief in her eyes.

"Kaaaate," he groans back, blinking at her.

"Come on. Time to get up."

"Why you waking me up?" he slurs, has to swallow hard past the dry-sock feeling in his throat.

"It's Easter. Get up."

"Easter isn't Christmas. Let me sleep." He closes his eyes again and hums as he buries his face in the pillow.

He hears something clink against the bedside table, feels her body drape over his back, the long line of her thigh, the ridge of her knee at his lower back, her arm along his shoulder, curling at his neck.

"Not Christmas but there are gifts."

He lifts his head. "There are gifts?"

"Easter basket."

"You got me an Easter basket?" Holy crap.

She grins a little wider, darts in to kiss his cheek, nibbling at his jaw. Castle contorts his body to trap her beside him, hand at her neck, a leg between hers.

"Not a whole basket. But I got you something." She's still grinning, so pleased with herself, and he grins back. This is a good side to her, happy and teasing and practically squirming with pride. She thinks she's done so good.

She has, she already has, and he doesn't even know what it is she's done yet.

"If you're gonna drag me out of bed at this ungodly hour-"

"Nine o'clock is hardly ungodly. And it can't be all that ungodly on Easter Sunday, surely?"

"Hush. Don't ruin my complaining with your logic."

She grins again and lifts her head from his pillow to kiss him, lingering this time, a little sigh of her breath against his cheek that sounds like relief, sounds like contentment too.

"I need coffee," he mutters, wanting to keep things silly for a little while yet.

"I brought you some," she whispers, her mouth at his ear now, a soft kiss there, another along his jaw, trailing down his neck. Feels good. She feels so good, and he's so damn grateful.

Easter miracle. Do they have those? Oh, right, yeah, Easter is all about a miracle, right? Risen from the dead. That's them. They are their very own Easter miracle.

"You brought me some coffee?"

"I made it. It's on the bedside table."

He turns his head and notices the huge, navy blue NYPD mug, lifts up on his elbows to snatch it. Smells heavenly, rich and decadent and sharp, and over that the heavy layer of flavored creamer.

"You got new stuff?" he murmurs, bringing it carefully to his lips. It would be kinda terrible to spill coffee in her bed, wouldn't it? At least he bought her these sheets. So they're his too, right?

As he slurps at the hot liquid, she traces her fingers around his back, nodding. "You like it?"

He groans as the taste hits his tongue, fills his mouth, takes a longer gulp even though it's really too hot. She's grinning at him again.

"White Chocolate Caramel Latte. I also got Peppermint Mocha, cause you like those horrendous Starbucks seasonal things-"

"This is amazing coffee. Did you try this? This is so very good."

She laughs again, nods her head. "I liked it, thought you'd like it better though. I also got Creme Brulee and Belgian Chocolate Truffle and Brown Sugar Maple Latte-"

"Holy crap. Why did you get so many?"

She grins, licks her lips. "Sounded good. We could try a new one every morning."

Every morning. Because she wants to be together every morning. "Yeah," he murmurs, holding his mug in both hands but staring at his partner. Whom he loves. Who loves him back. And now that the loft is so empty, Alexis at school and his mother in her own place, there's no reason why he can't wake up with her here every morning.

"Come on, get up. I got you something. And you have to find it."

She wraps her fingers around his coffee and takes it from him even as she sits up - so adept at that maneuver, so skilled, that it stuns him for a moment and he just watches her, staring. Kate leans in and kisses him, humming at the taste left on his lips, on his tongue, before scooting away from him and standing up.

He puts his feet on the floor, remembers her words as he tugs on his shorts from last night, a tshirt from the foot of her bed. "I have to find it?"

"Easter egg hunt, Castle. Come on. You know how this goes."

He laughs, delighted with her, and she beams across the bed, all bright eyes and wide smile, and such childish, wonderful, amazing joy.

Oh God, their kids are going to knock him out.

Castle blinks slowly, feels himself gaping, stunned by that, and she's already coming around the bed with her hand out for his, fingers wriggling, his coffee mug in her other hand.

He reaches for the coffee instead, taking it back from her, pressing the mug against his chest as he then laces his fingers through hers, bringing her in close. She's just at his shoulder without her heels, but she's constantly up on her toes around him, as if trying to get at him, as if she's so used to being in the heels she can't help but naturally rise up.

She leads him out into her open living room, bypassing the couch to head for the kitchen.

"You made breakfast?"

She laughs, shakes her head. "Not this time. Went down the block and got us pastries, the creamer. That okay?"

"No, yeah. Totally fine. I just - you're full of surprises this morning. Wait. When did you go get pastries and creamer?"

"Around seven. I figured you wouldn't appreciate be woken up that early."

"You figured right."

He grins over at her and she smirks, then dislodges his hand to open up the white bag on the kitchen counter. He takes the orange-icing cinnamon roll from her, wolfs it down before she can even pull another out for herself. He reaches past her, gets another one, takes his time to really taste it, sipping his coffee as she shakes her head at him.

"Don't choke on it, Castle. Need you alive to do this."

"Try my best," he says around another mouthful, leaning his hip against her counter and surveying the place with his eyes.

"I hid it really well," she says finally. "It'll take you awhile."

"Oh yeah? What is it?"

"Easter egg, duh."

She's smirking around her own pastry, but she keeps stealing his coffee mug and drinking from it whenever he lets go long enough. Fine. He'll share. But only because she made it for him in the first place.

Doesn't keep him from shooting her dirty looks - which she steadfastly ignores.

When he's finished with breakfast and the coffee is practically gone, she's nursing a bottle of water and still smiling that beautiful, excited grin. She turns him around to face the living room.

"It's somewhere in here. Plastic egg."

"What color?"

"You figure that out for yourself."

"It's not like, camo colored is it? Or one of those Darth Vader heads? Because those don't look like eggs, and I might just think you really like collecting Star Wars-"

"Too many questions. Sounds like you're not skilled enough to compete in a child's game, Castle-"

"I got this. You hush. Sit over there and stop distracting me." He glares back at her, pointing at the kitchen stool. She lifts an eyebrow, but it's not a dangerous one, it's just that I love you but you're on thin ice, buddy.

No, wait, that's not it either. Less exasperation, more humor. Looks good on her, whatever she means by it.

Castle turns back to her living room and laces his fingers together, cracks his knuckles. He can hear her laughing softly, but he's ignoring her.

Okay. So. Egg.

Where did she hide this thing?

She's laughing so much because she's nervous. She'd say she's nervous as hell, but it's Easter Sunday, and even if she's not going to church this morning, it still feels too sacred to be nervous as hell.

But she is.

Oh, jeez, if he doesn't find this stupid plastic egg in the next ten minutes, she is going to come out of her chair.

He lifts the couch cushion again, giving her these sultry looks as he does, and yes, Castle, she remembers very clearly what they did on that couch last week. She rolls her eyes but she's still grinning at him, because this is just too good. It's so good. He laid back and let her do all the work, but it was so very good.

To keep from blushing, she focuses on the hunt. She nearly did get those Darth Vader head easter eggs. And then she went with the usual bright plastic, neons in blue and pink and yellow and orange. She put his gift in the orange one, because she's noticed that he tends to gravitate towards that color.

She's ready to get up off the bar stool and nudge him in the right direction, or start calling out hot and cold, when he finally starts getting creative.

He pulls down a picture frame from her bookcase and she feels her heart stop, but he's just close, close, and he puts it back, glances around the room again. He's looked under the couch, in the couch, through the stuff on her coffee table, in the little decorative boxes, in the chair, behind the three windows' panelled curtains, the side tables, the lamps (good idea, if she'd thought of it), and finally the pillows resting in the floor by the couch. He looks stumped.

"Failure of imagination, Castle?" she teases, drinking coffee from his mug again. She refilled it while he was taking apart her couch for the second time.

"Stop looking so sexy over there, and maybe I could actually think clearly."

She laughs, her chest filling with it - the laughter and the way he makes her feel when says stuff like that - and she buries her mouth in his coffee again, sipping at it slowly, closing her eyes to regain her center. Focus, Kate.

He stays at the bookcase, runs his fingers over the shelves, not really looking at it, looking at the rest of the room actually, but then something must nudge at him, because his head swivels around to the books.

He tilts his head, shoots her a mild look that turns triumphant - her face must have given her away - and then he runs his fingers over the shelves.

Oh, darn. She hasn't dusted in ages, and that's what he's noticed. Score one for Castle. She didn't think of that.

He inspects the shelves until he discovers that the second one from the bottom is dust free. Yeah, she remembers now, swiping her fingers along the shelf as she put the books back in place.

He runs the tip of his finger along the spines, then gives her another look, this one less teasing, more serious. They're his books, all his, the ones he gave her to replace what she lost in the explosion. A couple she couldn't bear to trash, despite how terrible they smelled, how fragile they are now, and he's reverent as his fingers stop at them.

He knows it's there, somewhere, because of the lack of dust, and because she probably has this terribly anxious expression plastered all over her face. She can't help it. Her heart is trembling like a bird in a trap, all fruitless fluttering and flying feathers.

"Ahh," he murmurs, sliding Naked Heat out of its spot and glancing behind the book. He slides out a couple more so he can reach back there, his lips pulled up into a soft grin.

She leaves the coffee on the counter and stands up, heading for the couch as she watches him.

"Ah, found it," he says with relish, pulling out the neon orange egg from its hiding spot behind the books. "Behind my own books."

"Surprised you didn't go straight for them," she teases, sinking down into the couch, one leg up under her, adjusting the cushions he's left a little displaced.

"I know, right? With my ego." He laughs and it rolls right off him, his own self-deprecation, but she shakes her head because it just - it doesn't fit him anymore. He isn't that guy now, and maybe he never was. Maybe that ego and that image were just that - an image.

"Come here," she says softly, holds her hand out for him. He shuffles over to the couch with the egg in his hand - it's one of the bigger ones - and he sinks down beside her with a content little sigh.

All is right with the world.

She pulls her other knee up onto the cushion and curls in next to him, watches him rotate the plastic egg around and around.

"You only hid one?"

She grins. "All you need. Maybe later we can hide more."

He grins back, then resumes fiddling with it. He saw her face then, saw behind the teasing to the nervousness she hasn't been able to let go of all morning. It's getting to him now too.

"Open it, Castle."

He gives her a swift look and breaks open the egg with his thumbnail.

A folded up sheet of white paper scrapes against the inside of the egg; he lifts his eyebrow and tugs it out, begins to unfold it.

She holds her breath, tries not to look too intense, tries to keep it together. It's fine. She knows how this goes, or well, she has a good idea.

"What is this?" he asks.

She bites her bottom lip and glances at the page.

It's her notice of intent, which she will hand over to her landlord tomorrow morning. Her intent to not renew her lease.

"You gonna be homeless, Beckett?" he laughs, confusion on his face.

She gives him a small smile, shakes her head. "Hope not."

"You're giving up your-" His face clears, shock slapping him. "Oh. Oh, yes. You - with me?"

She lets out a little nervous breath and smiles wider. "With you. If you-"

"Yes," he says again, quick and breathless and blinking at her. "Please."

"Shouldn't I be asking you?" she laughs.

"No? No. Course you don't need to ask. You want to move in with me?"

She nods.

"Yeah," he says, grinning again. Before she can move, his arms are wrapping around her, tugging her over, her legs tangling with his knees, her face pressed into his shoulder as he kisses her temple, cheek, jaw, neck. "You're gonna move in with me. When?"

She lifts from his shirt and presses her fingers against his neck, sliding up to his jaw. Still rough with morning stubble. She can feel the letter of intent at her back, still in his hand. "I have the rest of this month and next. And then I'll have to have everything out."

"Awesome."

She smiles slowly, feels stupidly shy. But this is Castle. "Yeah?"

"Best Easter ever."

She laughs at that, relief pouring through her, dizzying and overwhelming. "Pretty good for me too."

He wraps his arms around her back and shifts her so that she's in his lap, knees on either side of his hips, taller than him. She leans in and kisses him softly, lips to lips, and he lets it stay that way, lets her caress and nudge and feather over him, so lightly.

It's agonizing, how much she loves this man. She wants him to feel that too.

He slides his lips along her jaw, fingers in her hair, angles her away to get at her neck. "It's been too empty at my place. We gotta fill it up," he murmurs, mouth working at the tendons of her neck.

She gasps, the tongue yes, but the words - the intent - and her heavy eyelids startle open to stare at him.

He stares back, mouth open, breathless. "I didn't mean - I - I did. Sort of. But not right now. I just. Just with you and me. And - and then-"

"And then?" she gasps, startled by the need that swamps her, drowning. "And then what?"

He blinks, a hand still in her hair, the other at her back with that letter, keeping her close. Not that she'd go anywhere now. Not after he said he wanted them to fill it up.

"Castle?"

"Do you want and then?"

Her mouth drops open.

He leans forward, puts the letter on the coffee table, brushes his hands up and down her thighs as he settles back, as if soothing her. "Okay, we'll put that on hold. Let's talk about when you're moving in. We could start packing you up this week and see how-"

She presses her fingers over his lips, her heart fluttering so hard it might shake apart. "Castle."

"Forget it, Kate. Just - it was just my mouth getting me in trouble. I-"

"I want whatever happens next. The and then you didn't finish talking about. Filling - filling up your place."

"Our place."

She nods, can't quite get that out of her mouth. But she will. She's learned that she's got to go ahead and agree to the wild and crazy future he's got planned out in his head if she wants to keep him here, keep him confident in this. In them. She keeps saying yes, yes, yes, and he keeps staying.

Because yeah, she's not there now. Not by a long shot. But some day.

She's just got to keep promising him these some days today, now. And that's easy enough. He's the only man she's ever been able to see some day with. See it so very clearly.

"You - you don't need to do that, Kate," he says softly. "I'm jumping ahead in the story. I do that when I get excited. Just-"

"Its okay. You get all the rest of it, Castle. The rest of the story. It's yours."

"Ours," he insists.

She smiles and frames his face with her hands, because of course that's what she meant. She just doesn't have the words for it he does. "Yes. Ours." She leans in and kisses him, long and lean, short swipes of her tongue, until he's pressing up against her, searching for more, trying to bring her back down to him.

"Kate."

"Don't worry, Castle. I may not be on the same page, but we're reading the same book. I'll get there. You know I will."

He sighs and slides his arms around her again, presses her into him, hand at the back of her head. She goes, lets him cradle her against his body, her cheek to his shoulder.

"I know you will," he murmurs, and she's grateful that all the sadness is gone, completely gone, unlike a few months ago. No sorrow when he says it, just love. Certainty.

"So, partner. Packing me up better not be like paperwork."

He huffs out a surprised laugh. "What?"

"You gonna disappear on me when it comes time to pack everything?"

She can practically feel him grinning against the top of her head. "No. But that's what movers are for, Beckett."

"Movers are not packing up my breakable dishes, my clothes."

"They will if you - if I - pay them enough."

She rubs her lips against his neck, makes him shiver. "I'm not letting them near my underwear drawer, Castle."

"Oh, I volunteer. I volunteer to pack your underwear. Not a problem. See how easy that was?"

"Uh-huh," she laughs. "I see. So this is going to be a lot like paperwork. You're gonna show up just for the fun stuff. Probably gonna parent like that too, right?"

He growls in her ear and she grins, knows she's knocked him off course with that. Filling it up, huh, Castle?

"Not on your life, Kate Beckett. When I get you pregnant, I'm there for all of it. Good, bad, and ugly."

She presses her closed eyes into his neck and curls her arms around him, breathless with the vision. Scared of it. Scared how much she wants it too.

He gives as good as he gets.

"Back to packing," she croaks out.

And damn him, he's laughing at her.

His mouth in her hair, teeth finding the edge of her ear. "Actually, let's hide more Easter eggs. You can get some practice."

"Practice?" she says, her heart finally finding its rhythm again.

"For when we have kids."

And she's come undone again.