Voila!

A story for Kate's birthday, which was, YES, IN NOVEMBER, inspired by the tweets of WriteRCastle_ (affectionately known as "Fake WriteRCastle") on November 17th. If you are not following him/her/them, go find the account on Twitter. Part one of two. Photos referenced in the tweets in this chapter can be found by link at the end of the chapter.

The sweet scent of flowers was the first thing she noticed as she rose to consciousness. Roses, in fact, her subconscious registered.

The next thing she noticed was the decided lack of a Castle-sized bed-warmer behind her under the covers. Odd. He was never the first one out of bed on a Saturday off. It usually took at least half an hour of prodding, or the smell of bacon, to get him moving on weekends.

When her eyes blinked hazily open, they took in the single tight red bud against her pillowcase.

No Castle.

Rose on her pillow.

And then she heard the sound of something scraping, and then sizzling, through the crack of the bedroom door in the direction of her kitchen.

Castle was cooking her bacon.

Out of bed and into her robe and Uggs in under a minute, she grabbed the rose from her pillow before scuffing out to her kitchen.

Castle was at her island in his pajamas, extracting crisped slices from a skillet and laying them on paper towels when he heard her approach, lifting his head with wide, panicked eyes.

"What are you doing out here?"

"Last time I checked, I didn't need permission to walk into my kitchen, Castle."

Abandoning his tongs and oven mitt, he circled the island, shooing her with both arms.

"Go back to bed. Right now. Turn around, take off the slippers and the robe, do not pass go, go directly to bed."

When she hadn't budged with his words, he grabbed her around the shoulders, turned her around, and marched her back toward her bedroom. Mid-circuit, she caught sight of her largest vase sitting on her coffee table, full of what must be three dozen more red roses.

"What are you doing, Castle? Let go of me."

Halfheartedly attempting to hold her ground, she locked her knees and grabbed for one of his hands. Leaning into her from behind, his voice was warm and insistent in her ear.

"You're ruining my surprise birthday breakfast in bed, Beckett."

Heart clenching a bit, her indignation deflated slightly and she took a few steps in the direction he was shoving.

"I hate to break it to you, but it's not going to be a surprise anymore."

"But it will still be breakfast in bed on your birthday. And that's the absolute requirement. The element of surprise was just an added bonus."

His hands gripped the edges of her robe and peeled it off as they passed through the bedroom door.

The last person, well the only person who had made her breakfast in bed on her birthday had been her mom. And she had done it every single year.

Lifting the covers, he tucked her snugly back in, fluffing and stuffing pillows behind her so she was sitting comfortably. Touching the tip of the rose she still clutched in one hand to the tip of his nose, she smirked and sassed.

"So what if my birthday had been on a Monday?"

He leaned over and planted a tiny kiss on her nose, then planted a slightly sloppier one on her lips, smacking as he withdrew a bit, focusing smiling eyes on hers.

"Then I'd have been up at 4:30 instead of 7:30. You'd have gotten yogurt and granola, though. I love you, but my pancakes require measuring skill that I just don't have before sunrise."

With that he climbed off the bed and disappeared to the kitchen, words trailing from his retreating form.

"Everything is ready. I just have to pour your coffee, and I'll be right back."

That sounded suspiciously one-sided. Being served breakfast in bed, even on her birthday, made her feel a little… indulgent? Selfish, maybe? It had just been the norm when she was a kid, and her mom had always sat with her and stolen her bacon.

"You're eating with me, right?" she called through the open door.

"If you insist," he answered back, voice slightly muffled as if he were digging in her fridge.

When he re-entered with an enormous, and unfamiliar, footed tray full of food, her mouth dropped open. By the time he was settling it across her lap, she managed to collect her surprise into a sentence, tapping the smooth dark surface of the rectangular tray.

"Where did this come from?"

He was already halfway back out the door.

"Consider it part of your birthday present. I looked for trays in your kitchen last weekend and couldn't find one, so I went to Crate and Barrel. I figured we'd use them again."

"Them?"

The object of his plurality entered the room just ahead of him, covered in a matching set of dishes and food. As he settled in on his side of the bed, she looked over her breakfast, unfolded her napkin over her lap.

The spread was impressive: coffee, orange juice, pancakes with what looked suspiciously like chocolate chip smiley faces in them, bacon, and fresh strawberries. She picked up a small bottle of syrup shaped like a maple leaf and inspected it.

"That's the real stuff. Canadian."

Tucking his napkin into the v-neck of his t-shirt, he poured syrup over his own pile of pancakes.

"You brought over Canadian maple syrup, bought me breakfast trays, oh, and three dozen roses, and got up at seven thirty on a Saturday just to make me breakfast in bed for my birthday?"

Her tone was… incredulous, certainly not sentimental, and the moisture in her eyes would not betray her—she blinked as she continued to stare at the pancakes, smiling cheerily up at her. Castle seemed to notice her decided lack of food intake and paused in cutting up his pancakes to answer.

"Yes... Is there a… problem?" She turned to him then, watched his eyebrows rise, eyes widen, fork return to his plate. "Is it the pancakes? I can make you an omelet instead."

This man made things well up inside her that she was not ready to feel yet. And those things had a way of spilling over when she got taken unawares. Her voice was mostly steady, at least.

"No, Castle, the pancakes are perfect. It's all perfect."

One damn tear made it past her lashes and blazed down her cheek. His thumb was there to catch it before it went far, gently sliding over her cheek and spreading the moisture, cooling that patch of flaring skin.

"Hey. What's wrong?"

His eyes were soft, his palm gentle against her cheek, and she turned into his touch, shut her eyes to just feel for a moment. Sniffing inelegantly, she opened them again, smiled up at him.

"Nothing's wrong. My mom used to make me breakfast in bed on my birthday."

A small twitch at the corners of his mouth let her know that he understood her tears weren't for him, and weren't entirely sad.

"Oh."

It wasn't surprise, just understanding she heard in his low, soft syllable. The "oh" she always thought he saved for only her. It took effort to pull herself together in that tiny, freefalling, soul-bearing moment, as she realized that once again, he was exactly what she needed. But in the end, she found a smile, graced him with it, saw it reflected back in spades.

"It's really sweet, Castle. Thank you."

His lids lowered along with his voice, and a rare flush pinked his cheeks.

"You're welcome. I've always done it for Alexis, too. Just seemed like the right thing, somehow."

Covering his hand with her own, she gripped his fingers, nudged her lips into his palm to kiss the soft hollow.

"It was." He could see her while she remembered. He deserved to see how he affected her—how much knowing just how much he loved her meant. And she had no reason to cry today. Her partner had made her pancakes, and she wasn't about to waste them. "Now let's eat before your fancy pancakes get cold."

Letting go of his hand in favor of her fork, she dug in to her stack of fluffy flapjacks as he balked at her choice of adjective.

"My pancakes are not fancy. They are homemade. There were no foofy ingredients involved, and there was no folding or frothing or egg separating."

Leaning over her tray, he doused her pancakes with authentic Canadian maple syrup before she could take a bite. Lowering one eyebrow, she gave him the bedroom version of the Beckett glare.

"Whatever you need to tell yourself, Castle."

# *# * # * #

Lunch with her father had been, well it had been her birthday lunch with her father. They went to the same diner, sat at the same booth in the corner, ordered the same hamburgers and fries. They talked about her cases. They talked about his cases. He needled her about dating Castle. She needled him about not dating anyone. He bragged that he had finally gotten on Twitter. She harassed him about the fact that it had taken Castle guilting him into it to finally convert him to social media.

She opened her gift, always a book. At least that had been a bit of a surprise this year—fiction, and the latest in her favorite Spanish author's series. Kate hadn't realized he had been paying attention when she told him about the first two books over the summer. But apparently he had not only heard her, but read them and enjoyed them enough to buy this third one immediately for both of them.

The copy of The Prisoner of Heaven was tucked at her elbow as she unlocked her apartment, stepped inside.

Again, the scent hit her first—roses, and not just the single vase he had left on her coffee table a few hours before.

No. Her keys hit the floor, forgotten in her limp fingers.

They were everywhere. Bunches upon bunches of garnet blossoms, some still tightly closed, some full and open and dripping with velvety petals. Layered leafy bundles crowding her chairs, filling vases in her kitchen, covering every horizontal surface with their ruby red declaration.

When her back hit the door, weight shutting it a tad louder than her neighbors probably would appreciate, she came out of her haze.

Red roses meant love. A quick guesstimate put this at around thirty dozen, which added to the three from this morning made a tidy sum numbering her years on the planet. Thirty-three dozen red roses was a fairly unmistakable sentiment.

Half-expecting him to jump out at any moment, she did a quick sweep of her apartment to make sure she was alone.

No card.

The bastard was pretty sure of himself, using the key she'd just given him a few weeks ago to sneak back in with a florist shop worth of long-stems without feeling the need to leave a note.

When she checked her room, she found the bed made with a red-papered box lying on top. This did at least have a card attached.

"Kate, Roses are red, my eyes are blue. Be ready at seven, and no high-heeled shoes!"

Tearing off the paper, she was surprised to find a red leather jacket, soft and supple and probably worth a fortune, but decidedly not formal attire for their date night. A gift like this was going to require a long discussion about what did and did not qualify as "too much" for a birthday gift. And Christmas was coming up, so maybe she should reserve an entire afternoon.

Pulling the coat out and shrugging it on, she stuck her hands into the pockets and found one of Castle's business cards. On the back was scrawled one word in red ink: "Pants."

Hmm. Flats. Leather jacket. Pants. So maybe he wasn't taking her to some exclusive restaurant as she had first assumed. Probably not the theatre either.

At five past seven, she was sitting on her sofa surrounded by roses stuffed into every object in her apartment that would hold water. Three dozen had fit in her pasta pot.

Her phone buzzed, which she assumed was Castle texting to apologize for being late, but on closer inspection, it just said "Check your twitter feed."

Following all of half a dozen people, she didn't have her phone set to alert her, and he knew that. So when she clicked on the app, she was surprised to see several "Happy Birthday" tweets directed at her. And then there was the most recent one, not even directed at her.

"Wishing a very Happy Birthday to Whats-Her-Name! p.s. are you going to stop turning more gorgeous every year before I pass out?"

Shooting a quick photo of her rose-covered living room with her phone, she responded.

"WriteRCastle_ you have no idea ;) And thanks everyone! This kinda sums up my day"

Barely a minute later, another tweet appeared this one with a photo.

"MuseKBeckett And this kinda sums up my night ;-)"

As the photo loaded she stood up, one hand gripping her iPhone like a vise, the other clenched at her side. A rosy red hue invaded her vision, and her heart kicked into sprinting pace. She was going to kill him. She would kill him, and Lanie would cover it up in the autopsy.

That was a picture of a gift bag of naughty lingerie. And it was laying on what appeared to be his guestroom bedspread.

Just then, there was a crisp, measured knock at her door. Perfect. She could get the killing him part out of the way, and still have a chance to enjoy the rest of her birthday.

Stalking across hardwood was just not as satisfying in these damn no-heeled boots. There was no ominous clack, and she wasn't constantly propelled forward by gravity to higher speed, better for swooping in for a rapid kill.

When she flung the door open, tirade already prepared to launch from her lips, she stopped short at the image before her. He was dressed in her favorite black leather jacket, ruby-toned button-down, and jeans, with one errant curl of chestnut hair haphazardly askew over one eyebrow. And though he had his phone clutched firmly in one hand, in the other, he had a single blazingly orange rose.

Kate Beckett was no student of flower arranging, but she remembered an occasion on which Lanie had received a large bouquet of orange roses from a certain detective and explained that orange meant enthusiasm and desire.

Her hand wrapped around his wrist, yanking him and his rose over the threshold and into her body.

"Get in here, and get off that damn phone."

Ever presumptuous, he wrapped his phone arm around her and lit into her lips with an overpowering kiss, tongue and teeth and breath all invading.

When she finally separated, realizing her door was still open, allowing her nosy eighty-four-year-old neighbor an unobstructed view of their unabashed snogging, he came away with a pop and a smirk on his red and slightly swollen lips. The words that would wipe it off his face lay in wait, and she decided there was no time like the present for deflating his ego. Tilting her head at 45 degrees, she gave him her best pissed off half-grin.

"Remember how you convinced my dad to join Twitter? Guess what—he started following you this morning."

# * # * # * #

Joy, as always, thanks for the word-search and the unending patience therewith.

Twitter: Kate_Christie_

Tumblr: KathrynChristie dot tumblr dot com

Pic dot twitter dot com slash q1JKBw5X

Pic dot twitter dot com slash 2FBc6djJ