Written for #Castlethemeday fluffy fluff made of fluff.

Set during Valkyrie s6

When it appears, moments after he's turned the shower on, it takes him a few seconds to move beyond surprise to the grinning stage of his enjoyment. He's not been here for six weeks, knows without a doubt that during that absence she must have stood in front of this mirror near a thousand times and yet the words he drew in steam, almost as an afterthought last time he left, remain.

He can see the faded edge where the message has been redrawn and the droplets of water that have made a break for it past the confines of each hastily scrawled letter give away the fact fingers far more slender than his are responsible for their upkeep.

The evidence is right before his eyes and yet he finds himself grinning wide in disbelief.

I love you.

Six weeks apart and it's still there.

It's a heart rather than the word itself because he was in a rush to catch his flight. It holds no less meaning though, a fact she clearly understood as she retraced it. And he wants to reach out and touch the space their shared fingers have traversed, but he doesn't, staring instead at the hastily drawn message that now holds more meaning than he could have ever imagined.

The U is a little looser than his usual script, rushed lettering, hurried spacing because she'd gone out for their morning coffee, returning just as he finished writing. He hadn't wanted her to see. To catch him at it. Wanted instead to picture her walking in late from a case, turning on the light and finding it, a surprise.

Now instead he imagines her here, every morning (or evening) after her shower, touching at the places where his fingers had been. Touching at the places he longs to put his fingers once again.

"I couldn't wipe it away."

Her voice barely lifts above the thunder of the shower but he turns when he hears her, finds her pink cheeked yet not at all ashamed of her confession. She looks tired, but the longer he's with her the more the color seems to settle over her skin, the more the light remains bright in her eyes and less he feels guilty about keeping her up late when he knows she could get called away at any second. They're good for each other, exhausted or not.

She's wearing his shirt and watching him, looking warm and content, her arms across her chest, body a wilted, sated thing that remains with ease in the doorway. She must have stolen it from the bedroom floor, that poor abused, nearly ripped from his limbs cotton shirt, because, though he very nearly had her here, on the floor of her bathroom, they somehow made it to the bed. Tossing items of clothing in their wake, stripping away the layers until they could be bare with one another. Whole.

He's glad they did make it to the bed in the end, it allowed them to take their time, peruse and linger. Prolonging what would have been short and dirty and amazing until it became something more, something intense and tender, a much more fitting reunion.

Now undone, unwound, shirt open, and her eyes never leaving the words in the mirror, Castle finds himself unable tease her sentimental heart. Doesn't want to. Not even when she pushes away and comes to his side, knowing grin already expecting it.

"Every time it started to run I rewrote it," she loops her arms around his waist, chin at his shoulder and bare feet meaning their reflection shows her eyes just peeking over the top of his arm. They sparkle, childlike, innocent and devilish all at once. "I could never get the U right though." She huffs and lifts her face as he turns in her embrace.

"The U?" His arms slip under the shirt, stroke softly at her back and knot low on her spine, interlinking fingers spreading out over the curve of her backside, tugging her in inch by inch as she smiles.

"It was wrong, not like yours," she shifts her fingers through his hair and strokes the back of his ears, grinning when he shivers into her touch. "I don't know why, but it helped me miss you a little less."

He smiles, makes to interrupt but something in her gaze holds him silent. She sounds wistful as she talks, almost far away, a different person on a different day now she has him back in her arms.

"I suppose I could pretend you'd just left," her head tilts, eyes wide and hands warm where they touch him, "that I was running out the door after you, or I'd be seeing you later that night -" she shrugs herself further into his arms "- it all helped me miss you a little bit less."

His breath stutters, their unbroken gaze penetrating deep and full of everything they don't need to say.

She says it anyway, offers up the words as often as she can now.

"Because, I do, you know, when you're not here," she leans up, into him, holds his face between both hands, "I miss you so much, Castle."

"Me too," he breathes out, tasting the truth in her kiss as their lips touch, the I love you's silent and unrestrained. She pulls back smiling and he traces her lips, touching at the happiness that lingers there. He sighs, "So much in fact I think you need to leave me one of these romantic mirror messages next time you're back in New York."

She laughs, nods, pushing him back into the roaring water, bare toes dragging up his calf. It's the smirk that gives her away. That, and where she squeezes.

"Or you could help me make butt prints in the shower?"

They laugh as they kiss, her hands hitting the glass either side of his head, leaving marks he will help her refresh for as long as he's here.