Take Me Home

God, she's breath-taking.

Castle stands struck dumb at the end of the dock, the lake water lapping quietly at the wooden pilings, the minister at his shoulder. Vaguely he recognizes that Alexis has now cleared the aisle formed by the navy runner, and that she's taken up her spot opposite his two ushers at the lake's edge, but all he sees is Kate.

Standing at the back, starting forward.

Kate.

On her father's arm, a smooth and purposeful walk down the aisle towards him, her eyes on his with a little wistful and tremulous smile.

It's gotten to her too, then.

His throat is closing up and he makes a fist, takes in a slow breath to keep from tearing up. He won't cry; he won't. He waited a year - more - for this, and he's going to be dry-eyed and completely clear about every second of it. He wants to see it all.

Her father lets her go with a kiss on the cheek at the beginning of the dock, and then Kate makes the last of it on her own, treading the wooden boards, coming straight for him with that overwhelming look in her eyes.

She reaches out and takes his hand in hers, their fingers lacing, and they stand before the minister.

He has no idea what the man says. None. All he can do is take sidelong glances at Kate, catching her looks back at him, their pulses beating in time against each other's wrists.

After a long, blood-rushing moment, he realizes that she's amused by something, that she's trying to keep from laughing, and then he hears it too.

Their son.

His smile stretches a little wider, his attention flying back to the lake's edge where Esposito - of all people - is trying to juggle a rambunctious, curious, and bored sixteen month old.

Dashiell is insistent, grunting to get down, babbling fiercely to be heard and obeyed, but Javier is talking stridently, quietly, back to him. Probably threatening all kinds of bodily harm to their son.

Kate breaks first, smothering a laugh that makes the minister stumble, and Castle grins back at her, smirking. She rolls her eyes at him and he can tell she wants to make a face - maybe even stick out her tongue - but she seems to suppress it.

Dashiell's chattiness increases in volume, echoing out over the lake and scaring a group of wild geese coming home for the spring. Their honking flight makes Dash pause, and then he's jabbering excitedly about those as well. Castle hears bird over and over, and pretty, and a host of other words. He's a talkative guy.

Kate's fingers squeeze in his and he shrugs at her. Doesn't bother him. And the people they've invited for their kidnap wedding are close friends and family - they won't mind a little wild man either.

Castle catches his mother's eye in the front row, but she's waving it off, smiling too, and then he notices that Jim is as well, that almost everyone is focused on Dashiell, giving him indulgent looks. The kid has stolen the show.

The minister goes on, gets to the part about love being kind and patient and keeping no record of wrongs, how love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres -

And he knows it to be true. Protecting them - since the moment they knew she was pregnant and he fought for it, since the moment Dash was put in his arms and he traced those little fingers and showed him off to Kate. Protecting what they have - two people, independent and struggling and proud, but also a family, strong together.

And hope. He was hoping all year that they could be enough, that she would decide for them, for their family, trusting that she would take his hand and hold it and never let go.

And through it all, persevering in the surety that she would - in her own time. Because he knew when she said yes to his proposal that Christmas, that she meant it, that she's exactly where she wants to be, and nowhere else will be ever be enough. Just as he feels the same.

Love never fails.

He feels her fingers squeezing around his and the warmth of her body at his side and the bright sun against his face and then-

Dashiell. Calling out for him.

"Da-da-da-da-" the boys yells, so eager to be part of things, and Castle glances down the dock to the lake's edge where Esposito has the kid in a bear of an embrace.

"Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known," the minister is quoting.

"Wait a second," Castle interrupts, squeezing Kate's fingers. "Hold on. Be right back."

He releases her and strides back down the dock, nods his head to Esposito as he comes. Javier seems to get it, because he breaks the ranks of ushers to meet him at the end of the long wooden pier, hands Dashiell over to him.

"Hey there, wild man," Castle murmurs, cupping the back of his son's head and kissing his forehead. "Feeling left out, huh?"

"Dadda," he says happily, squirming down into his father's arms and babbling more nonsense words. There's something about water and maybe birds, but Castle can't make out the rest.

He holds his son close, a hand at his back to keep him from arching out of his arms and diving headfirst into the lake - which he would totally manage, today of all days. He's an entirely too active sixteen month old, and sometimes it can be a little much.

Castle gets back to Kate and her eyes are soft and tender; she lifts a hand and lays it over Dashiell's back, but her smile is all for Castle. He gives her a hesitant smile back, and she leans in to brush a kiss first to Dash's cheek and then to his.

"Thank you," she murmurs.

He has to keep both arms clamped around the wild man, but she comes in closer and tucks her other hand at his elbow, nods to the minister as they stand side by side. A family.

"Okay," she says firmly. "Now you can marry us."

The handful of guests - only about thirty or so - migrate to the back of her father's property along the lakeline, heading inside the wide gazebo that Jim built years ago when he was taking on woodworking projects to find something to do with his life.

It's a deep and wide construction of simple wood and paint, but the archways are beautiful, and the lattice work along the sides makes it interesting. Castle figured it would work well enough for their impromptu wedding and the quick reception afterwards. Kate still has a hold of his hand, her mother's ring on her finger and warm against the skin of his palm.

The wild thing won't let go of them for long, but Castle manages to pass Dash over to Alexis and Lanie to entertain while they get pictures taken. It's not the professional photographer he wanted, just a guy her father knows from town who could do it last minute.

Following the photographer's instructions, Castle stands behind Kate and wraps his arms around her waist loosely; she puts her hands over his and they pose like they're at an awkward prom. He expects to turn around in the gazebo and find an arch of blue and white balloons over their heads, some idiot spiking the punch.

But actually, the decorations aren't that bad. He and Jim did most of it with Kate's help, tying simple, white-satin bows to the posts of the gazebo and stringing white lights around it. Nothing too much, too overdone, and he can see that it's exactly what Kate needed.

What she wanted. Which he'll never understand - her resistance to living it up, her preference for simplicity when everyone he's known has always wanted an overdone and sparkling and intimidating style.

He likes this better, actually, now that they're here. He likes how very beautiful she is against the weathered, white-painted wood of her father's lakeside gazebo, and the intimate atmosphere of their small wedding.

He even likes the nervous photographer and his clumsy photos.

Castle leans in over Kate's shoulder and kisses her cheek, his thumb sliding over the material of her dress along her stomach. She hums a little and lifts a hand to his jaw, keeps him there.

He vaguely sees the flash going off, and at least that's one picture he'll want.

She doesn't stand for the photos for long; Kate sends the man away to get pictures of their guests, be creative, she tells him, and then she's dragging Castle towards the cake.

Lots of little cakes, actually. He bought out a cupcake store in New York before they came upstate, carried the confections in the backseat, piled high in white boxes and just out of Dashiell's reach, more in the trunk. There are plenty, and he has to admit that it looks amazing - the antique dining room table pulled outside with the rows and rows of different cakes: strawberry pink and vanilla white and mocha ivory and velvet red and chocolate brown frosting, a kind of starfield of sugar.

Kate gives him a flashing grin and reaches for a chocolate, rich and dark, and she slowly peels the paper away, something dangerous in her eyes.

He should've seen it coming.

She crams the whole thing into his mouth, smearing frosting along his lips and cheek, her laughter bright and evil and seductive.

He licks frosting from the corner of his lips, wipes it off his chin with a thumb to suck it clean.

But Kate gets there first, drags his hand down to her mouth.

His heart pounds as she cleans him off, blood throbbing and pulsing, his other hand reaching out for her in that amazing dress.

And then Kate releases his thumb with a smacking of her lips, and his knees are going to give out on him, they really are.

He realizes their friends are laughing, Kevin Ryan is trying to show him the video he got of the whole encounter (that will never see the light of day), and Dashiell is making a run for his parents.

Or the table of cupcakes.

Kate holds him off, keeping her dress out of the range of his sticky fingers; it looks like he's already had a cupcake today. "Castle, get him, will you? I don't want to ruin my dress."

"I got him," Alexis says breathlessly, rushing up to them. She's wearing a prom dress, he thinks, one she had at the back of her closet. No one had time to find anything beforehand because Kate woke up yesterday - literally just yesterday - and turned over in bed to say to him, Let's get married at the lake. Today. Or, well, that's probably impossible. So tomorrow.

And he made it happen.

Castle wipes his mouth with a cloth napkin someone hands him, oh, Ryan - how helpful he's being, and then he moves to take Dashiell back from his daughter. She dances away from him with a laugh.

"No, no. It's still a little chilly out here and Dash is keeping me warm. You and Kate are supposed to be having pictures-"

"We're done," he says.

Alexis nods and he glances over to the front of the gazebo, realizes the photographer is still trained on him and Kate. Huh, maybe the guy knows what he's doing. Maybe.

He turns back to his wife - his wife, wow, it took no time at all to slip right into, did it? She's licking her thumb free of strawberry icing, the cupcake in her other hand. He reaches out for it and she darts back, laughing at him.

"Oh, no. Not-uh. Don't get me messy. I want to eat this one. I'm starving."

Castle grins, but he doesn't try for it. She married him; she can do whatever she wants today and he's letting it go. She can do whatever she wants for the rest of their lives - she finally married him.

"Here," she says, reaching down and snagging another chocolate. "Your first kinda - got all over you, Castle. Try again."

He narrows his eyes at her, snags his fingers around her wrist to take the cupcake with his other hand, just to be sure. She laughs and looks so innocent, but he's not taking chances.

They stand side by side, devouring their cupcakes, sipping champagne that Lanie hands over, while wedding guests congratulate them in an informal receiving line. Gina kisses Kate's cheek and there's really such amicable vibes between them that it leaves him choking on cupcake. It's good - it's really good - because he's managed to regain his publisher's friendship these last few years, and that makes his writing life so much easier.

And now he's starting to think that might be Kate's doing.

He watches them laugh together and Kate's slim, arched eyebrow, and he realizes-

Yeah. That's Kate's doing. Whatever she's said to Gina, whatever his relationship with Kate has meant to his ex-wife, whatever it is Gina sees in him and Kate, it's softened her towards him. And Castle, in return, has stopped feeling so guilty about her - and thus stopped being so mean to her.

Wow. Kate.

Okay.

Alexis comes back with Dashiell, but the boy just wants a quick kiss on the cheek and the chance to lunge for another cupcake. Lanie has goldfish crackers and his lunch, and she hand-feeds him while they stand in a loose circle, talking and laughing.

There's no music; there was no time to put that together, plus Kate said she has plenty of slow dances planned for him in private. Still, dancing has broken out among the guests, someone has set up their ipod to play a strange mix of hip-hop and old soul, and Alexis lets Dashiell down to dance.

Thankfully, the photographer is still taking pictures. He wants that one too.

Kate drags him over and they dance with Dashiell as he does his funny hop-step thing, not quite able to do it, his head bobbing in time. He's not so bad, but Kate teases Castle about his son having his terrible dance moves.

The party is loud and fun and easy, but as the sun starts to set, the air chills and he knows it's time that everyone started to leave. He and Kate will have to be first, start the exodus, but he's glad that the boys and Lanie have agreed to stay and help clean-up.

Castle catches Jim's eye and the older man nods, claps his hands for attention. Esposito turns the music way down and then finally off.

Jim Beckett gives a short speech thanking everyone for coming last minute, for sharing this love with family, and all of them here today really are family, and then tells the crowd that, as they leave, there are pale blue cards laid out on the tables near the entrance.

Kate stiffens beside him, and he reaches down to wrap his fingers around her hand.

"What did you do?" she whispers, turning her head to him.

He grins and shrugs at her. "Listen to your dad explain."

"This was Rick's idea," her father is saying, totally busting him. "And I love it. Write a message or prayer or thought for them on the card, and then put those cards in the mason jars set up at the table. As many messages as you like, just something for them to take and read later. A kind of time capsule. I think we're doing the cards instead of you guys all getting party favors."

A good-natured laugh. "Castle's so cheap!" Esposito calls out, and everyone laughs harder. "Can't even hire a DJ. Or rent a ballroom. Gotta get married outside."

"It's Kate's fault," he yells back, chuckling with them.

"Castle," she hisses, but he knows it's not about the cheap comment. It's about the cards.

"If you'll just write on the cards as you leave," Jim finishes. "Then we can all go get warm. Take a beer, take a glass of wine - the cups are plastic anyway - drive safely, or we'll call a cab company. It's all on Castle. How's that for cheap, Javier?"

They all laugh and faces turn to look at them; Kate has a grip on his jacket that means, we need to talk, and Alexis is gathering up Dashiell. They'll stay with Jim tonight at the cabin while he and Kate have a night in the city alone.

Castle turns his head and kisses her cheek softly, just a brush of his lips. "They're not my words, this time; they're our friends' instead."

The crowd is moving around them to get to those tables, the cards laid out, leaving them in a circle of quiet space in the middle of the gazebo. He can see twilight approaching, the sharp burn of stars in an indigo sky. Her hand touches his cheek, fingers gentle in a way he rarely feels from her. She's never hesitant.

He kisses her palm. "This was all too last minute to plan something really great. But I thought the cards would help make today special for you."

"Rick," she sighs, her eyes so textured in the half-light. "You. You already make today special. Marrying you makes it special."

He wraps his arm around her shoulders and pulls her against him, his heart fluttering hard and overwhelmed.

"I couldn't - you said no honeymoon and simple, keep it simple, and we're not even staying at a hotel tonight, just-"

"Because I want to go home with my husband," she murmurs into his ear. A soft kiss, a little tug of her teeth at his earlobe that makes him shiver. "Rick, take me home."