Author's note: A brief hiatus from 'Thaw' and 'Vacation', each of which I'll return to, for a Christmas tale.

There's something magic about this time of year. I thought it might have an effect on Beckett, as she made Castle wait before admitting her feelings for him.

The city was a different place in Winter.

There was still the traffic, and the people, and the grime and the bustle. The street names were the same, and all too often she'd get a call in the early morning because a life had ended. Those things were all still the same.

But the setting had changed.

Windows bore frost around the edges, and breath plumed in the chill air. Noise was muffled slightly, t-shirts and bright colours vanished in favour of dark sweaters, coats and scarves, and lights twinkled everywhere. Once in a while, it even snowed.

There was a stillness, somehow - and in New York City, stillness was magical.

Detective Kate Beckett tapped a pen rhythmically against the scarred wooden surface of her desk as she gave the report a final read-through.

She finished a few minutes later, and put the file folder into her Out pile with small sigh of satisfaction. She took a swallow of coffee, easing back in her chair for a moment.

"Two weeks," Castle said loudly, making her glance over in his direction with a weary expression on her face.

He wasn't looking at her, still busy clearing the board from the case they'd just solved. It had been straightforward, which made a nice change, but that had just given him more time to be annoying.

"And one day," she replied, seeing him smirk as he pulled another photo from the board.

"Close enough," he said, briefly glancing around at her.

He had been doing this since the beginning of the month: his countdown to Christmas. She wondered for the twentieth time how his family dealt with it.

He pulled the last mugshot from the board and packed it into the case file, then carefully erased the timeline before stepping back to consider his work, arms smugly folded.

She watched him, still clasping her mug of coffee.

Big kid, she thought, and a smirk curled the corners of her mouth.

He turned around suddenly, and caught her looking at him. He raised a salacious eyebrow as he walked over to her desk, and she shook her head.

"So what does Alexis want this year?" she asked, and she saw his grin falter.

"A scooter," he replied, in a tone that couldn't have been more grim if the girl had asked for a firearm instead.

Beckett laughed, and he wrinkled his nose at her.

"Have you seen how dangerous it is to even drive in this city, Beckett? And that's when you're in a steel cage. With airbags and a seatbelt!"

He had been about to sit down in his chair, but now he folded his arms again and started pacing back and forth.

She shifted in her seat slightly, recrossing her legs, content to watch him fussing.

"… but at least she said she'd wear a helmet. I could get her motorbike leathers. Can you wear those on a scooter? I guess you can. I should LoJack the damned thing too. Oh, and she wants it to be green."

He stopped abruptly and turned to look at her, clearly expecting some kind of response.

"Uh… that'll… go well with her hair?" she said, keeping a straight face only with some effort.

His eyes narrowed slightly as he scrutinised her, trying to work out if she was being sarcastic, but after a moment he just shrugged and dropped into his chair with a sigh.

"I remember when the thing she wanted most in the whole world was an astronaut costume."

His face softened at the memory, eyes sparkling. "Man, that was the coolest. The backpack had lights and everything, and the visor was tinted gold like the real ones - it filters out radiation."

He glanced towards her, and she nodded solemnly.

"We played moon landing for a straight week. I put grey sheets over the furniture to make moon rocks. Sometimes I was an alien."

This revelation proved to be too much, and she snorted with laughter, drawing a surprised but delighted look from him.

"What?" he asked, an easy smile on his face, and she just shook her head.

"She's the most sensible kid I've ever met, Castle. She'll be careful."

"It's the other drivers I'm worried about," he said, and she tilted her head to acknowledge the point.

"If you want, I can talk to her about road safety on a bike. Give her some pointers, and let her know what to look out for."

He beamed at her, leaning slightly forward in his chair. The gratitude and affection in his eyes was plain to see, and her pulse quickened. Her grip tightened on the coffee cup.

"Thanks," he said. "Yeah, that would be really great."

He lifted his hand and her gaze flicked down to it as he looked at her and hesitated, but then he just patted the surface of the desk and cleared his throat, looking away.

She felt the usual procession of emotions. Anxiety, anticipation, relief, disappointment.

Boundaries, she thought. Mine.

"No problem," she said, and he nodded gratefully, looking at her briefly again before picking at an imaginary piece of lint on his shirt sleeve.

He had been waiting for her for a long time now.

When she really thought about it, she supposed he'd been waiting for years, but the past few months had been different. He'd been different.

On the surface, his behaviour hadn't changed, but she knew him better than most people did. He was more tentative now. The flirting was a little less cheeky, and had an edge of approaching and retreating. Testing and assessing. The looks were all earnest, and that made them poignant.

There were days where she found it stifling, constantly ignoring the truth she saw in his eyes, and in his gestures, and in the care he took when he was with her. The truth she'd heard as she lay on the grass, vision fading, at a funeral. The truth she'd told him she'd forgotten.

There were weeks when it was less intense. He'd get distracted by a case, or he'd really get into the zone with his writing, or sometimes he'd disappear for a few days on a publicity tour. She'd get some breathing room, and she'd tell herself that she needed it. Then she'd feel the usual procession of emotions. Relief and disappointment.

He was in love with her. It was true when he said it that day, just before everything went dark, and - in the occasional moments, mostly late at night, when she was honest with herself - she knew it was still true now. Maybe more true than ever.

Her eyes fell to the parade of elephants on her desk, and the familiar dart of mixed nostalgia and loss twisted through her chest.

I'm waiting too, she thought.

She reached out and ran a fingertip around the curve of the lead elephant's trunk, feeling the cool smoothness of the porcelain. She saw Castle's head move in her peripheral vision, and when she glanced up, he was looking down at the figurines too.

The expression on his face made her eyes widen. There was compassion there, and pity. Anger. Determination. But there was also fatigue, and frustration, and a deep sadness.

The line of brightly painted elephants, in procession from trunk to tail, biggest to smallest, formed a low barrier along the rear edge of her desk, nearest where he sat. A wall.

A moment later, he carefully schooled his features into a look of quiet contemplation, but his eyes were still stormy as he glanced away again and then idly took out his phone.

I'm waiting to live my life, she thought.

Her mother's face swam into her mind, and the image was so vivid it was almost like she sat on the other side of the desk. A memory surfaced, from long ago, and suddenly she was fourteen years old again, sitting cross-legged on her bed, with tear-tracks on her cheeks.

Johanna sat on the bed beside her, holding both her hands, listening quietly to the tale of the girls at high school whose words had been cruel.

She hadn't thought about this moment in years, and she couldn't even recall what the incident had been about. The wrong shoes? Beating the boys at their own games? Probably something like that. But she did remember her mother's quiet, patient listening - and how she'd gently squeezed her hands once the story had been told.

"Live your own life, Katie," her mother had said that night. "Don't let other people hold you back."

Beckett closed her eyes, and took a cleansing breath before opening them again.

She risked a glance towards Castle, and saw that he was swiping at the screen of his phone with his thumb, a small smile playing across his lips. He'd clearly found something new to distract him, for a few minutes at least.

Still there.

Being patient, for her, like her mother had been. Waiting.

He seemed to sense her eyes on him, and he looked up. Curiosity. Caution. Quiet warmth.

"It got cold," she said after a moment, grasping the coffee cup again. "You want another?"

He smiled and sprang up before she could push her chair back.

"I'll get it," he said brightly, gesturing that she should stay in her seat. He reached over and snagged her mug, and also his own empty one.

"Castle, I don't mind–" she began, but he quirked an eyebrow at her and shook his head.

"Hey, what else do you keep me around for?" he replied with a grin, then strode off in the direction of the break room.

She watched him go, his words hanging heavily in the air. Her gaze fell again to the elephants, and she traced the band of light made by the overhead fluorescents against the glaze.

The lead elephant's head was thrown back, and one painted eye looked up at her unblinkingly.

Live your own life, Katie, it seemed to say.

She shivered, and drew her arms around herself.