Evening Falls So Hard

Kate tilts her head on her neck as the elevator ascends to his floor. Her shoulders are tight from sitting at the computer doing paperwork - alone, of course. The bite of winter has gotten deep into her bones and the walk from the subway has left her aching, her fingers cut through with cold. When the elevator door slides back, she steps off and shrugs deeper into her coat, still trying to thaw out.

She finds herself humming something she can't quite remember, the tune insinuating itself through her head even though she's not sure what it is. Only when she gets closer to his loft does she realize the music is coming from his place.

She nudges the key into the lock and opens the door, the wall of noise washing over her so loudly at first that she can't assemble the pieces. And then the melody knits together, the harmony of two voices, and she laughs: it's the song she was half-remembering. She must have heard it and recognized it before she even was conscious there was music.

I am a rock; I am an island. A rock feels no pain, and an island never cries.

She slides of her leather gloves and tucks them into the pockets of her coat, unfolds the complicated straps that hold it together.

"Castle?" she calls over the music.

He pokes his head around the bookshelf wall, still in his dress shirt and crisp pants, but the sleeves are rolled up and he has a pen in his mouth that he takes out to grin at her, throwing it somewhere beyond her view.

"What are you doing?" she laughs. He back-steps into the living room, pointing a remote at the Bose speakers for his ipod and the volume cascades down into listenable range.

"Oh, hey, Beckett. Hi." His grin is infectious as he meets her near the couch.

She lifts an eyebrow. "What's with the music?"

"Mood music." He wriggles his eyebrows and palms the back of her head to bring her in for a kiss. His tongue is soft along her lips and slides inside; he's swaying almost and his contentment makes her smile.

"Mood music?" she says, softer now that the music has faded to a pleasant thread in the background. "Don't need music to seduce me, Castle. You're doing just fine."

He chuckles and hooks his finger into the pocket of her coat, nudging like it's a suggestion. She slides out of it but he's heading for his office and leaving her in the living room.

"Where're you going?"

"Come on and see what I've done."

She tosses her coat to the couch and follows him into his office. Castle has picked up his other remote; he points it towards the back wall and his smart board flares to life, a brilliant white background that burns her eyes.

"Whoa. Okay. What's this?"

"Our wedding. I was thinking about how happy I made you-"

She chokes on a laugh but he ignores her and plows right ahead.

"-by picking a date for our wedding, and I know I've been dragging my feet but it's so cold outside that it makes me less than enthusiastic and entirely unable to even fathom warmth again, and all those venues outside seemed ridiculous when it's so bitterly cold. And, truly, I didn't think it was up to me, not really, since this is your first - and only - but-"

"Of course it's up to you. To both of us. We pick it out together," she says quickly, coming forward even though she's blinded by the glare of his white board. "But what is this?"

"Wedding stuff. Because you like to have it planned out and decide things. So it's all mapped out, like one of my books. Ceremony, reception, caterer, band, flowers."

He scrolls through so fast that she barely has time to recognize all his lists and pros and cons, the names and dates and accumulation of possibilities. "Whoa."

"Okay, the ceremony for example." He stops on a screen that holds a miniature replica of some generic chapel-type setting. There are stick figures inserted for people who will compose their wedding party. "Look, there's me, and there's you. And then there's our friends and family. I was trying to decide who would stand up with us and if you get all the girls and I get all the boys-"

"Uh."

"-but I thought that was kind of not fair because Alexis would be on my side-"

"Not unless I bring her to the dark side," Kate interrupts, lowering her voice and wriggling her eyebrows back at him.

He barely spares her a look for her Star Wars joke. "And then I figured Esposito would want to be on your side, so that makes it one for one and we could maybe just switch-"

"Hey. What about Ryan?"

"Ryan's on my side. You know I get him in the divorce."

"Good thing there's not going to be a divorce."

"Right," he says hastily, both eyes wide. "But so - okay - you've got Espo and Lanie with you and I've got Alexis and Ryan with me, but then there's Jenny - I don't want to not include her, but she'd be on my side with Ryan, right? Of course. And so your maid of honor and my best man - who are we supposed to pick from those? And then I realized there's your friend Madison and even though that was high school, I got the impression she'd-"

"Are you seriously inviting my bridesmaids for me?"

"I'm... you were... no?" He pauses, halts in the middle of his stream of consciousness word vomit. "Yes. I might have possibly emailed her to ask if she'd keep open weekends in September."

Kate steps in closer, glancing at his digital paper dolls, the fat Espo head and the Ryan with a vest over his gingerbreadman body. She presses her lips together to keep from laughing, and she slowly draws her arms around his neck. "Castle."

"Uh. Yes?"

"Rick."

"That can't be good."

"Babe."

He grins.

She hooks her arms behind his neck and lifts up on her toes to kiss him softly, the music still spinning around in her head. "So Lanie and Espo on my side, Ryan and Jenny and Alexis on yours?"

"And you get Madison. But only if you want her."

"Are their bridesmaids' dresses going to match the guys' cummerbunds?"

"I hadn't gotten that far," he whispers back. His mouth brushes against hers and he's seemed to have lost interest in his smart board, found her lips to be more appealing. His hands skim her spine.

She tilts back to look at him, her fiance and his crazy bout of wedding planning. "Sounds like you have the ceremony all figured out. What about the reception?"

"Yeah that too," he mumbles, painting a line of kisses down her throat.

She grins; she really likes it when he gets in the zone. Her zone. "Is this our music then?" She strokes her fingers at his hipbones, inching his shirt out of his pants. "You said you were getting in the mood."

"Our music," he echoes, half-question and half-agreement.

"Simon and Garfunkel?" she hums, nipping at his jaw as he tries to glide down to her collarbones. "I think it's kind of perfect for us. They were good partners too."

"Yeah, yeah, of course," he breathes, his hands roaming her curves and trying to draw her closer. "Partners, Kate."

"I've built walls," she murmurs, lifting up to his ear and easing the words of the song out across his jaw. "A fortress deep and mighty."

Castle's hands clutch at her and his chest rumbles with either laughter or a groan.

"That none may penetrate," she goes on. "I am a rock. I am an-"

"If you sing island for me, you will never live it down." Castle laughs, his eyes meeting hers and his amusement shining out of them. "I see what you did there."

Kate grins back, draws her fingers up his arms to stroke at the nape of his neck, going for faux serious. "It'll be our first dance as a married couple. We can change the words so the wedding band sings, I have your books and..." She falters trying to come up with an alternate word for my poetry to protect me.

"And my gun to protect me?" Castle groans and shakes his head. "No. No way."

"Oh, come on. You were in the mood, Castle. Simon and Garfunkel made you create a smart board dollhouse for our wedding ceremony and pick out our colors."

"I picked out colors?" he yelps, turning around quickly to look at the board. "Where? I don't remember that but I was thinking navy and-"

"Kidding," she interrupts, putting her palm to his cheek and drawing his attention back to her. "You just got a lot done in the last - oh, two? hours. More than I've managed to get you to do in the last six months. So Simon and Garfunkel stay."

He sighs. "If we're going with Simon and Garfunkel for our first dance, then it has to 'Bridge Over Troubled Water' - just to keep in with the geographic theme."

"Oh, so I'm the island and you're - what?"

His smile is so wide, and full of such leer that she narrows her eyes. His next comment is going to be-

"Why, I'm the bridge, of course. Getting laid."

Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down.