Epilogue

"It's wonderful to be back and to see so many of the people who impacted my life while I was here," Rick spoke to the crowd. "While my family and I may no longer live here full-time, the town of Hawthorne will always feel like home because my daughter and I were welcomed and treated like family the moment we moved here. Hawthorne is where I wrote most of my first novel. Hawthorne, specifically the old Hawthorne Library, is where I met and fell in love with my wife." Rick looked out toward the back of the room, where his wife stood. "This town has treated us well so it seemed most appropriate for the first pubic reading of my newest series, inspired by my wife, be held in the Johanna Beckett Memorial Reading Room, named in memory of my mother-in-law."

Rick wrapped up reading the first chapter of Heat Wave, fielded questions from the audience, and signed books when people asked. Kate mingled with the crowd, enjoying the time away from her hectic life in New York, and caught up with old friends, some she hadn't seen since she and Rick decided to move back to the city after Alexis's freshman year of college.

Rick and Kate got married six months after the new library opened and Alexis graduated from high school two months after that. A year later and after three more bestsellers, they settled into their new loft in New York and Kate started her new job as an archivist for the New York Public Libraries. It was hard for their family to say goodbye to Hawthorne, but with Rick's growing success it became more necessary that they live closer to the city, especially when it was discovered that Kate was expecting their first child. Since Hawthorne was so remote, the times when Rick was needed in person at Black Pawn turned into, essentially, a 2-day-long meeting that, if they were living in New York, would only have been a couple of hours. It was then decided that their growing family would move back to New York.

Their little girl, Lily Johanna Castle, was the light of her parents' eyes and at the age of three, kept them on their toes. Kate adored her life, her job, her daughter, but with Martha watching Lily back in New York, she embraced the slow-moving pace of Hawthorne and considered it a respite from her everyday chaos.

Watching her husband visit with their former neighbors, a soft smile graced her lips as she imagined how differently her life would have been if she hadn't decided to move to Hawthorne. Would she still have met Rick somehow? Were they as destined as Rick claims they were? Maybe it was chance, maybe it was fate, all Kate cared about was that it happened. Hawthorne happened. The library happened. Rick happened. They happened. Lily happened. Because of Hawthorne, Kate had a life she loved.

A/N: I have thoroughly enjoyed writing this the last year or however long I have been working on it. I hope to continue writing more Castle fics if there are ideas that spark my interest, but in the meantime, I'll just continue to read everyone else's awesome stuff.

Thanks for reading!

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