Epilogue

Beckett hadn't necessarily been surprised to learn that the safe house Castle had spoken of before their capture at his loft had been a massive house in the Hamptons, wasn't necessarily taken aback by the fact that throughout their three month stay in the beach home he had trained medical professionals on call at all times, a physical therapist he knew from "back in the day" who stopped by every week to work with them both until their bodies learned how to function without the constant assistance again.

It didn't surprise her when her dad took to Rick almost instantly after an awkward meeting that bloomed into a two-hour conversation on the deck of the lake a mere week after they return. She had been comfortable to let the two men talk without much of her input, lounging with her head on Rick's thigh and legs hanging off the edge of the dock, her toes in the cool water and the sun warming her skin.

Castle had told her dad the truth only three days into their week long stay at the cabin, a place she had wanted him to know, to experience, before she allowed him to sweep her away on this mystery vacation he's been planning since they had been released from the hospital. Rick had told him about his original profession, about the initial reason for meeting Kate, for working at the Twelfth, about LokSat and its conclusion – all information she had refrained from sharing with her father for the sake of his own safety.

"Katie told me you were both kidnapped and shot running down a lead for a simple case gone wrong," Jim had commented at the end of Castle's lengthy explanation, glaring at her for a long moment with that same expression he had always used on her when she was a child, after she'd done something to disappoint him.

"I couldn't risk you knowing, Dad. Couldn't risk you getting hurt," Kate had sighed, but Jim had only pursed his lips, shifted his gaze back to Castle.

"And what do you plan to do now, Rick?" Her father had questioned him like a lawyer in the courtroom, assessing him from across the kitchen table where they sat, the lunch on each of their plates hardly touched and going cold.

"I won't go back," Castle had stated with conviction, holding her father's eyes with his head held high. "I already put in my resignation."

"You did what?" Kate had whispered, her head turning a little too quickly, the still forming scar beneath her collarbone flickering with sparks of warning.

"I'm not sure what comes next for me, sir," Castle had continued, covering her knee with his palm beneath the table. "Not professionally, but I know for certain that my time as the agent that I was has come to a close."

Jim Beckett had leaned back in his chair, assessing Castle critically, but Kate had already been able to catch the telltale embers of approval in his eyes, tugging at the corners of his mouth. Her dad was pleased with the spy she had brought home, the man who had taken a literal bullet to the heart because of her.

And yet somehow, it surprised her when they had arrived at JFK just two days after parting ways with her dad and Castle led her to the waiting area for a flight that would be leaving to Pisa, Italy.

"Tuscany," Rick had stated before she could ask, nerves alive like flames in his eyes, trepidation consuming his entire face. "I rented us a place there that I really think you'll like, but if you don't like it, if you'd rather have Rome or Paris or-"

"Castle," she had sighed, lifting her left arm, the limb that still possessed more freedom than her right, and coiling her fingers in the collar of his shirt, arching on her toes to reach his mouth as she tugged him towards her. He had breathed a sigh of relief into her kiss, a hum of approval at the languid stroke of her tongue. "I don't care where we go. I've never been to Tuscany, but I know I'll like it."

His lips had broken into a smile against hers and she'd closed her eyes, nudged her nose to brush with his.

"Like anywhere as long as you're there," she'd mumbled, her own smile blossoming as his arms had wound around her waist, his forehead knocking into hers before he had spoken.

"That is equally the most cheesiest and wonderful thing you have ever said to me."

Her eyes had fluttered open to find him trying not to laugh, but she did, burying her amusement against his jaw while she'd descended back to the soles of her feet. She'd never been one to dive so deeply into love with someone, to leave all of her doubts and reservations on the shore, but after LokSat, after the hospital and the Hamptons, her dad's cabin, she couldn't find many reasons to tread lightly with Castle anymore.

He made her happy, made her feel as if she had finally found something she's been lacking for so long; she'd found a home in him.

"Only for you, babe," Kate had chuckled, nipping at his chin when he lit up over the endearment, before drawing back, grateful for the lack of human traffic as she'd tugged him to a pair of chairs in the corner of the lounge to await their flight.

And now, after two weeks of lounging in the Italian paradise of their Tuscan Villa, Kate stretches in the empty bed, able to smell the rich blend of coffee he's preparing from the kitchen, and tries not to listen to the end of his phone call with the director.

Their time in Tuscany had been a vacation of sorts, yes, but she hadn't been able to completely avoid her work as Captain of the Twelfth and despite his talk of resignation, Castle had been unable to cut his ties to the CIA so easily. She returns to the precinct to resume her role in just a week, but she has no idea what Rick's future looks like, and it has doubts that she has spent the last four months smothering threatening to bloom once more.

"Hey, you're awake."

Kate averts her eyes from the window that overlooks the sprawling green hills below the one their villa is perched upon, the vineyard in the distance that they'd visited last week, the glittering turquoise of the infinity pool outside that offers a brilliant view of the stunning scenery. She's no longer surprised that he manages to enter the room without her notice; he may have taken a break from being a spy, but he had yet to lose the stealth factor. Not even close.

Beckett's lips quirk upwards at the sight of him standing in the bedroom doorway, the two cups of coffee in his hands emitting swirls of steam that spiral skywards to caress his jaw like the golden rays of sunlight spilling in from the window.

"Hey," she murmurs, pushing up on her elbows and running a hand through the tousled waves of her hair as he approaches. "How long have you been up?"

"Phone woke me an hour ago," he explains, offering up one of the brightly colored mugs to her and Kate curls her knees up to her chest, rests her back against the headboard while Castle takes a seat near her feet.

She tucks her toes under his thigh, watches his hand slip beneath the edge of the sheet to encircle her bare ankle in his fingers.

"Give me the verdict," she prompts, wiggling her toes and bracing her heart. There's no reason to be nervous, to feel as if their relationship could hinge on whatever decision he's come to, and even if it did, it wasn't like she needed him around 24/7 to make them work. She just… she's happy. She's so happy. And she doesn't want that to change. "The anticipation's killing me."

Rick sighs, but the corners of his mouth are curling ever so slightly. "I worked out a deal with the director."

She bites her bottom lip, the sear of the ceramic cup burning through the sheet across her chest as she leans forward, silently encourages him to continue.

"I'm not leaving the agency, but I'll no longer be working under my father," he starts and Kate nods along, liking this deal so far, but he isn't done yet and she holds her breath. "And instead of accepting missions, I'll be overseeing them. From the office in New York."

She lifts one set of her fingers to the tentative smile claiming her lips, mimicking the one spreading across his.

"You're going to be full time in New York?" she clarifies, placing her coffee mug on the bedside table, watching him do the same while her heart flutters in her chest, the repaired wings of it beating hard against the cage of her ribs.

"I'll probably occasionally have to go abroad, but ultimately, I'll be in New York full time. You okay with that, Beckett?" he smirks, holding his coffee out to the side when she rises on her knees, crawls towards him until she can cup his face in her hands, smudge her smile to his mouth.

Castle huffs a laugh into her kiss, his unrestrained hand gliding up the naked line of her back, his palm curving at her nape, fingers curling in her hair. She's a little too okay with it, if she's being honest with herself.

"I can live with it," she mumbles, teasing his bottom lip between her teeth, chuckling low in her throat when he bends sideways to deposit his coffee to the floor, band both of his arms around her.

Castle skates his hands along the expanding branches of her ribs, caresses the curves of her waist before he brackets her bare hips in his palms, squeezes the naked skin of her lower back beneath his fingers. "Not sick of me yet?"

She should be, she thinks. So much time spent with any other man, any other human being really, and she'd have lost her mind by now, she's sure of it, but with Castle… he's different. No secret there. He's been unique from the start, and all of her rules, her precautions and doubts when it came to letting people in, had all fallen by the wayside in favor of embracing this foreign thing between them that had bloomed into something beautiful.

He is the one exception to her every rule and arguably, the most reassuring thing about that is how she knows she meets the same criteria for him. Her relationship with Rick, the connection they had developed early on, varied fiercely from any other she's ever known, had been strong enough to survive secrets and betrayals, a near death experience that had only strengthened the bond between them.

"No," she murmurs, one of her hands trickling down the side of his throat, straying to her fingers' favorite spot atop his chest, the raised flesh of a bullet scar, still puckered and red but smooth beneath the whorls of her fingertips.

She wasn't sick of him, no. Not when it still felt as if they were only in the early chapters of what would be a lifelong story.

Damn, Castle's sappiness had really rubbed off on her in the last few months.

Rick brushes his thumb to the matching scar beneath her collarbone, reminding her to stop babying his bullet wound, and Kate sighs, drops her hand with one last swipe of her thumb to the healed injury that tugs at her own scars, like a phantom cord of connection between them.

"Have you thought more about my proposition?" he quips, gliding the hand rubbing her scar upwards, dipping his thumb into the hollow of her throat.

Beckett hums, sits back on her heels in the bed and stretches for her coffee before it goes completely cold. "The apartment on Broome?"

"Brownstone," he corrects, watching with pleased delight as she takes a sip of the dark, rich liquid still hot in her mug, savors the rush of the coffee down her throat, spreading warmth through her chest. "The one near Greenwich is my favorite, but we can keep looking if you want, find one you prefer."

"No, I agree. The one you picked out is gorgeous," she murmurs around the rim of her mug, trying not to meet the expectant eyes resting on her, the nervous smile he valiantly tries to pass off as casual.

"And I mean - we don't have to put down an offer right away if you don't want to. If you're even interested, that is. We can just - well, no, I can get a place. A studio or something and when you're ready we can-"

"Castle."

Rick lifts a supplicating hand between them and she purses her lips, mostly in amusement, because he's so obviously distraught over an answer she has yet to even give. "Look, I know we've spent the last three and a half months living together and I can drive you crazy in the not so great ways-"

Kate snorts a laugh into her cup and rolls her eyes, because yeah, he could get on her nerves, spike her irritation at times, but overall? Living with him had been… nice, a natural and easy adjustment, as if they'd been doing it far longer than the few weeks she'd spent with him in the loft, those three months in the Hamptons.

"And I get if you want your space back, at least for a little while, but I just - I don't want space from you."

She doesn't speak yet. He's wearing that thoughtful expression that often claims his face when his emotions are working to untangle, revealing realizations that rise to his mouth before he can stop them, and she wants to hear the one currently brewing on the tip of his tongue.

"We can do this however you want, all I know is - you're my home, Beckett. And I'll take you however I can get you."

She expects her heart to stop, startle with the kind of anxiety that often invades her system when she feels unprepared, overwhelmed, but her chest doesn't seize, doesn't flush with panic. Her heart doesn't stumble, it swells, settles in a warmth that wraps around the muscle, embraces it with certainty.

Kate returns her cup to the bedside table, replaces the heat of her mug with the warmth of his hand in hers, her thumb absentmindedly stroking the naked length of his fourth finger.

She's certain of him, of what she wants. More than ever before.

"Put down an offer," she murmurs, watching hand flip in hers, his palm colliding with hers and his fingers twining through, his thumb mimicking and grazing her ring finger.

"You know what this means, don't you?"

"That I'm going to have to get used to you driving me crazy in non-sexual ways on a daily basis?" she muses, finally lifting her gaze to find the bright blue eyes sparkling back at her, promising her things before his lips can speak them.

"Yes, but - I'm going to marry you, Kate Beckett," he states with more confidence than she thinks she's ever heard from him, and she curves one of her eyebrows in response, waits for him to continue, because he always has more to say these days. "And I'm going to do everything in my power to make you happy, give you everything you deserve."

"You already do," she mumbles, pinning her bottom lip between her teeth and tugging gently on his hand until he's shifting closer, close enough for her to dust her fingers at his nape, toy with the fine hairs at the base of his skull. "Make me happy. Happier than I've been in a long time, Castle," she admits, the glimpse of her mother's smile flashing behind her eyes. The last time she was truly happy.

Her mom would absolutely love him, adore the idea of having him for a son-in-law.

"Are you proposing, Rick?"

"No," he replies, brushing a kiss to her forehead, where she can feel his lips curl into a smile against her skin. "But I'm going to."

Kate grins and dislodges the pressure of his mouth to nudge her nose along the plane of his cheek, inhale the comforting scent of him, of coffee beans and sun kissed skin, of mint and wood and refuge, and fit her body deeper into his side.

Never has she been so effortlessly in sync with another person, so easily aligned. They were the same in certain aspects, but as different as night and day in others, puzzle pieces with jagged edges and odd angles that somehow managed to slot into place perfectly. She wants it all with this man, the spy sent to lead her to the slaughter, led her to a home she hadn't known she'd been searching for instead.

"I'll say yes."

A/N: I owe an infinite amount of gratitude to Alex, for being my second pair of eyes on this story and offering so much fantastic input, and to Nadia, for creating the striking cover art to accompany this fic. And to all who took the time to read and offer feedback - I sincerely thank you. I hope you enjoyed this little adventure of a story as much as I enjoyed sharing it with you.