Disclaimer: Math homework? What math homework? Pfft I don't have work I should be doing...

A/N: Thank you to straightexcept4stana on Tumblr for the idea!

This is so unlike anything I've ever written before and I'm actually pretty nervous about posting it.

~Rose

It started with a book party. I was there with my mother and daughter but it wasn't the greatest of book parties. I had just killed off Derrick Storm and my publisher was far from happy with me. I put on my best "I'm a famous author and everybody loves me" face that the public loved to see and signed the chest of woman after woman, none of them with anything new to say. I was complaining to my daughter about this very issue when she came up to me.

I was my normal cocky self and asked her where she would like me to sign. That's when she said something that changed my life forever.

"Detective Kate Beckett NYPD. We have to ask you a couple questions about a murder that took place earlier tonight."

Detective Beckett could be hard to read. Eventually she showed small signs of acceptance but I can vividly remember the first time I knew for certain that she had accepted me. It was after she found out who killed her mother. He was only a hired hand and I screwed up her chances of forcing who had hired him out of him. He was going to kill me and she shot him before he got the chance. I knew how much catching her mother's killer meant to her and I felt awful about being the reason she killed Dick Coonan.

I was going to stop shadowing her that day but she talked me out of it. The moment she said, "I've gotten used to you pulling my pigtails" I knew I couldn't leave.

I was already in too deep.

We were dancing around each other, neither making a move. In fact, we were both with other people. She was with some doctor and I with my publisher. I knew I didn't love Gina but I felt like I really had no choice but to get back together with her when Kate started dating Detective Tom Demming.

I was starting to get the picture. She had dated an FBI agent years ago, then there was that detective, and now a doctor—clearly I wasn't her type.

I had lost all hope until we caught a case where a male nurse broke his girlfriend out of jail. My mother told me that, that is a sign of true love.

Kate's words at the end of the case still haunt me...

"Don't worry Castle. I'd get you out."

I can pinpoint the exact moment I realized I was in love with Kate Beckett. A serial killer had fooled us into thinking his "buddy" in jail was the triple killer when it was actually him. Ryan and I were caught off guard and I thought we were going to be killed.

When she burst through the door I had never seen anything so beautiful. She whispered that she was glad that I was okay and I just wanted to kiss her then and there. I didn't. I couldn't. Not then.

It took a case where a magician was killed to make me realize how badly I wanted my relationship to be magical. It never would be with Gina. I broke up with her but I still couldn't have Kate.

Just about a year after Coonan was killed Kate's mother's case came up again. All I could do was desperately try to help her solve it. When I suggested we act drunk to distract the guard so we could rescue Ryan and Esposito. I never expected what happened next.

The guard wasn't buying it. She reached for her gun but before she could grab it I knocked her hand off it and kissed her.

I knew I never wanted to kiss anyone else but her until the day I die.

We had gotten ourselves into yet another near death situation. There was a bomb somewhere in NYC and here Beckett and I were stuck in a freezer. My only comfort was that if I was going to die here at least it was going to be holding onto Kate Beckett.

After I told her "always"—which was starting to become my way of telling her I love her without really telling her—she started to say something back but passed out from the cold before she could finish.

"I just want you to know how much I lo—"

She got shot. I tried to stop her; tried to get her to back down from her mother's case. She wouldn't listen to me. Captain Montgomery got killed and then Kate was shot at his funeral. I was so scared I was going to lose her and never get the opportunity to tell her I love her. My timing wasn't the best but as she lay on the grass I begged her to stay with me and said, "Kate, I love you. I love you Kate."

When I saw her in the hospital she told me she didn't remember. I gave her the benefit of the doubt. She told me she'd call.

She didn't call. I was so angry when she finally showed up at a book signing three months later.

I forgave her. She had broken up with Josh and gave me hope that we could be together after her wall was broken down.

I finally got her off her mother's case—she didn't know that I was still investigating.

My first near death experience without Kate by my side was when I was being held hostage with my mother in a bank. I never lost faith that Kate would get us out of there.

I thought she was going to kiss me when she found me until my mother interrupted.

She had told me she didn't remember anything about her shooting. It was all a lie. During a case involving a bombing at a protest rally she let it slip to the suspect that she had been "shot in the chest" and that she "remembered every second of it".

I had my heart broken that day. I can't say I'm proud of how I acted; I was childish but I was hurt. I admit I tried to date a blonde named Jacinda to get my mind off Kate. It didn't work; I still wanted Kate.

I thought things were getting better for Kate and I. She made me see (through subtext of course) why she lied and I had hope for us again.

That changed when her mother's case came up yet again. She was quickly spiralling downwards and was going to get herself killed. She wouldn't back down; even after I told her I love her again. I did the only thing I could: I walked away.

She came to my door soaking wet but I was still angry.

"Beckett what do you want?"

"You," she replied, reaching for my face and kissing me. "I'm so sorry Castle. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry."

When she tried to kiss me again I had to push her away and ask, "What happened?"

"He got away and I didn't care. I almost died and all I could think about was you. I just want you."

It may have been our first night together but it certainly wouldn't be our last.

It didn't take long for the case to come up again. We found out who was behind Johanna Beckett's murder. It was Senator Bracken. Now all we needed to do was wait for proof.

The triple killer came back. He came back and tried to frame me for murder. Luckily we were able to find proof that he was behind it not me. Kate was convinced that he was dead after I shot him and he fell into the water. I knew he wasn't.

I did learn something through that experience: Kate Beckett really would have gotten me out of jail.

Months after that we finally caught our break in her mother's case. We found yet another copy of the file against Bracken not to mention video footage of Bracken blackmailing Montgomery, MacAllister, and Raglan.

After Kate slapped the cuffs on him and he was taken away, she turned to me and grabbed my face.

"I love you," she told me for the first time. I kissed her right there, in front of everyone. Even Gates cheered.

It was a year to the day after that, that I took her out to a fancy restaurant and asked her to be my wife. She said yes.

We didn't even get to celebrate before her phone rang signalling that we had a body drop.

We both paled when we got to the scene and saw the victim. She was an attractive blonde woman who had been strangled with a rope.

I knew that bastard wasn't dead and I knew he wouldn't be able to resist messing with us again.

Kate went missing over the duration of the case. I knew it was Tyson trying to get to me. I wouldn't let him win.

Ryan, Esposito, and I located where he had her and we rushed to the abandoned building as quick as possible.

I had never been so relieved to see Kate as I was that day. She was barely hanging on, but she was still alive. This time I made sure Tyson was dead.

There were too many complications. Tyson hadn't just tried to strangle her, there was also internal damage.

She died in the hospital several hours later, my name on her lips.

Richard Castle was holding back tears as he read the final page. When he looked up at his captive audience he noticed there wasn't a dry eye in the room. This was his last book reading. He hadn't been able to write any Nikki Heat since Kate died the previous year but instead he had written their story so the world could truly know what an amazing woman Kate Beckett was. So they could know how much he loved her.

To Kate, always was cut short but I'll never stop loving you.

End

A/N: The post this was based on was:

"Okay, so I saw this post on here a while ago and I haven't stopped thinking about it since.

It was about the series finale of Castle (hopefully we don't have to worry about this for a while) and the last scene was Castle doing a book reading and it ending up that Beckett was killed and the whole show was him reading the book he wrote of their story"

~Rose