Author's note :

I was overwhelmed by the response for the heart beats per minute. I asked if you guys wanted a sequel and got some mixed opinions on it and then this idea was formed in my mind.

Side note I do not own Castle or the wonderful works of pleasefindme.

The point of contact

And then my soul saw you and it kind of went

"Oh there you are. I've been looking for you."

-pleasefindthis 'I wrote this for you'

1.

Three hours.

She's been waiting in line for three hours. Or, as Will would say, she's been rolling her eyes at the cougars in front of her in line who've been gossiping non-stop.

For three hours.

It's-it's absolutely terrible. The three of them are dressed like they belong on those trashy reality tv shows that are all too unreal for her taste. One is wearing little animal print dress that shows off so much cleavage, Kate swears it she can see the top of her nipple when the lady takes a deeper breath than usual.

"Heard he just got divorced."

The women cackle. "Now's our chance, girls"

The oldest (she must be in her late 40s) makes a show of adjusting her skirt, hoisting it up a little on her hips, exposing legs that have seen far too many tanning salons for their own good. They go on and on about how rumor says he's one of New York most eligible bachelors, how salacious they had heard his divorce was.

She plugs her earphones on the moment the conversation starts veering into dangerously inappropriate territory like his… size.

The worst part is, they haven't even read his books. They hold their brand new copy of the Derrick Storm novel like they've never seen a book before. While she's desperately clinging to her own worn and tattered copy of In a Hail of Bullets.

And now, three hours in, they still won't stay quiet. Their gossiping has turned into giggling like 15 years old schoolgirls trying to get the attention of the star quarterback as soon as they reach the front of the line, while the writer shamelessly flirts with them and signs their chest.

Kate's mildly disgusted.

Scratch that. Absolutely repulsed would be better suited to the occasion.

But then it's her turn and he lifts up his beautiful blue eyes at her and her stomach does flips that make her think it should try out for tumbling in the next Olympics.

"Who do I make this out-"

"Daddy!"

A flurry of long red hair jumping on the author's lap is all Kate sees before her brain has time to process the child Richard Castle is now holding in his arms.

"Daddy! Mommy got a call for a last minute audition and she's flying back to California, so she dropped me off here."

The writer closes his eyes and when they open again, more than anger, its disappointment that dulls his irises into a stormy gray.

"Oh." He cradles the child into his arms, softly combs through the long silky strands of fiercely red hair.

"I'm sorry pumpkin. I know you were looking forward to spending the week with her. We'll call her later. In the meantime, wanna sign autographs with me?"

When he turns back to her, he's a different man. The smouldering looks and deliberate charm give way to clear blue eyes, so soft and tender it makes her heart ache. And suddenly, the way his hair flops onto his forehead is boyish more than hot and this stripped down version of him is infinitely more attractive.

Her entire world stutters and halts for a second and if she didn't have a boyfriend waiting for her at her apartment and if she wasn't so broken in places that could never heal, she'd maybe consider that earth-shattering moment as a sign. Instead, she croaks out her mother's name and wordlessly takes back the book when he's done signing it.

She leaves without allowing herself a glance back.

2.

"I'm through."

Dread sinks into her stomach, panic rises, making her chest tight with another kind of grief. She just shot her mother's killer, her only real and solid lead in years and the tears that had come flowing down her face are more desperation than regret. The life of her partner or the truth about her mother. There's no hesitation. Castle. It's his life because she doesn't think she could bear losing him too.

"I've gotten used to you pulling my pigtails." The words tumble out of her mouth like a confession, but she doesn't mind. Anything to keep him with her. "I have a hard job, Castle, and having you around makes it a little more fun."

She waits, her tentative new feelings for him out in the open, on the table so to speak.

"Your secret's safe with me."

She allows herself to smile, grabs for the chopsticks and offers a pair to the writer. A peace offering. He's so serious, but there's a lightness in his eyes that she's glad to see. He's a sweet and generous and patient man, and if she can't give him anything else, at least she can give him the reassurance that she wants him around.

Because she can't remember her life without the word Castle in it.

It terrifies her.

It thrills her.

3.

He left. He left and she's angry at him, angry at herself.

She can't get the memory of Castle walking away from her, arms linked with his beautiful blonde publisher ex-wife. With the vague promise of seeing him again come the new season.

She wasn't quick enough. To accept his offer of a weekend trip to the Hamptons, as friends of course, but with the undercurrent of something more.

Tom was fun, undemanding and sweet. But Tom isn't who she imagines when she wakes up hot and bothered and panting from another fantasy-induced dream. It's not him she pictures in between her sheets, between her legs, making her toes curl and her throat sore from screaming.

Of course she's angry. He's in her head and in her dreams when she only ever wanted him with her and in his wake, he left a hollowness in her days that she could never hope to fill.

Then, just as the heat of the summer draws to a lazy end and the leaves of the tree start gathering in heaps on the street, he keeps showing up at her crime scenes, acting like the summer he spent away never happened. It's infuriating and unbelievable and...oh. It makes her feel alive for the first time in months. Since her last case with him, really.

And despite how hard she was on him when she interrogated him, the moment she sees him, her heart seizes and she throws the stupid bet they make, because damn it, she wants him back and she's already forgiven him.

4.

"Hey there, Chuck Norris," she says, voice low with amusement and something else she can't find the courage to name right now.

She just finished giving her report, reaches the ambulance just in time to see the EMT wrap Castle's injured hand in a way that makes him wince in discomfort.

"How's the hand?" She reaches for him, slowly unwraps the gauze around his hand to loosen it. Her gestures are deliberately light, knows from experience the pain he's in.

"Ah. Excruciating. How are Ryan and Esposito?"

"Mild hypothermia. Wounded pride. Guess which one'll heal first?"

He watches her as she stretches the tape around the space between his thumb and his fingers, entranced by her tenderness. It hits her then, that it's not something they usually do, touching. They tease and poke fun at each other but she wonders how little affection she must show for him on a daily basis that he's enchanted by the fact that she's in front of him, taking care of him.

She smoothes the white piece of fabric with both thumbs when she's done, lets herself prolong the physical contact for a moment too long. He smiles and under the artificial light of the ambulance, his eyes are so blue she could lose herself in them. His hair, usually impeccably styled is a little bit messy, falls down on his forehead and her hands itch with the need to tangle her fingers in his brown locks, put them back in place.

"Thank you. For having my back in there."

"Always."

The moment is soft in the darkness of the evening, ethereal. Her partner, her pacifist writer, beat up a man so dangerous he managed to kidnap two of the best detectives in the city. To save her. He did it to save her. She catches his gaze, naked and gleaming with all the things she feels (that scare her so much she barely manages to refrain from running as far as she can) and she's right back in that parking lot, hands roaming over the nape of his neck over the soft hair, moaning into a kiss that sends electricity current down her spine and ignites every last nerve ending in her body until she thrums with it, needing release.

But there's reality and there's Josh. Rick just promised her Always, but he's barely out of a relationship that she knows was, if half-hearted, a sincere attempt at rekindling a love he had once felt. And they won't talk about it. Whatever happened, they won't talk about it. They'll see each other tomorrow at the precinct, playfully exchange theories and carefully skirt around the elephant in the room that sits heavily between them, both of them avoiding the topic for entirely different reasons.

She wishes he would confront her. Because lately, he's been so careful around her, so respectful of her relationship with the doctor in spite of the teasing and the name-calling (Dr. Motorcycle Boy, Castle? Really?). It's strange and she's not used to this restrained version of Castle, the mature one, that doesn't push her boundaries and gives her space.

She wishes he wouldn't confront her. Because lately, her chest flutters whenever he's close and his smile, that lopsided grin, sends her pulse soaring in excitement. It makes the heavy disappointment whenever Josh touches her even worse, the staleness of their encounters a contrast to the way her whole body buzzes in awareness when she's with Castle.

It was the best kiss of my life.

The thought comes and passes so fast, she barely has time to process it. She finds she doesn't want to. Doesn't need too.

It really was.

5.

She was shot.

It's a reality she faces everyday while her body fails her, makes the simplest, most mundane tasks send ripples down her body that leave her crying out in pain and and with eyes that water against her own will.

She can't move. Barely think on the worst days.

I love you, Kate.

It haunts her. Against the stark and vivid memories of the sky and the green of the grass when she falls, a bullet burning it's path through her chest, she sees Castle, sees his tears, the panic staining his eyes, hears the desperation in his voice as he cries out for her.

It's too much. She promised she'd call, and everyday, her thumb hovers over his contact until she chickens out and puts it back down. At first, it's because she can't face him and his feelings with the knowledge that she can't give him anything in return. She was a mess, still is and there was Josh (she took care of that shortly after her hospital discharge, at least) and there's the bullet hole. Days turned into weeks that turned into months and she still hasn't called and it reminds her too much of last summer when he left.

She's broken, but she looks for him. In the shadows of the small cabins, in the scent of the trees outside. In the peace and quiet of the lake under the sun. She misses him. She's not whole enough yet to face him.

But there's one truth to which she wakes up every morning, scar pulling and chest heaving from the ever present nightmares.

She's a little bit (a lot) in love with him too.

6.

It's beautiful.

The vows, the reception, the married couple's first dance. It's all beautiful and makes something flutter in her chest.

Hope.

She's not used to longing for things like this. For the convention of marriage, the normalcy of family. But today, Ryan is getting married to the woman of his dreams and Esposito just reconnected with Lanie and Castle's broad frame invades her personal space as he sits besides her in a way that she finds she doesn't mind at all.

He touches her. A lot. Whether it's the love permeating the atmosphere or the newfound easiness between them since- well everything-he's emboldened. She doesn't complain. Not when the warmth of his palm sends a shiver down her spine as he puts it in the small of her back.

She can't her eyes off of him. If her friends notice, she's glad they don't comment on it. But she really can't, feels the overwhelming urge to seek him out when he's not beside her, to track his movements across the room from the corner of her eye.

She knows he noticed it too, in the way his eyes catch hers when she stares too blatantly, lips tugging in a lopsided smile that sends her pulse racing at a speed that should be illegal.

Then they dance and they are so close she feels surrounded by the familiarity of his scent until her entire world is reduced to it, to him and the moment they are sharing.

She doesn't want it to end. Tomorrow, under the harsh light of the bullpen, she'll be Detective Beckett again, haunted by her shooting and her mother's murder, and he'll be Castle, her partner. Tonight… tonight, they are just Kate and Rick, a man and a woman in love with each other but not quite ready to be together. Yet.

Yet.

She allows herself a tender kiss to his cheek when he drops her off at her door, hands shoved in his pocket, a little awkward, a little adorable. She smoothes the lapel of his dark suit with her finger, letting them trail on his chest. She feels the sharp breath he inhales and the slight tremble of his exhale. She's glad she isn't the only one who's body is betraying her.

"Thank you, Castle. For being my plus one. For the lovely evening."

"Always"

Soon. Soon, she promises him and herself.

Soon, she'll be able to give him the love he deserves.

7.

"Do you believe in soulmates?"

"No."

"Oh." The disappointment in his voice has her seeking his fingers, her long ones intertwining with his thicker digits. The gold diamond bands they'd bought together after her proposal meet in the loveliest of sounds, a light ting that feels like music in the quiet of the loft.

"Babe, look at me," she whispers.

There's something beautiful about her husband in the moonlight. There's something beautiful about her husband any time of the day, but at night, as the sun sets and the sky becomes midnight blue, his eyes darken as well and he's sweeter, a bit more serious and there's something almost reverent about the way he loves her.

"Forget it, Kate. It's not important."

"No, it is. Please, just look me?" The plea effectively makes his eyes snap back in place from where they were avoiding hers. "I don't believe in soulmates because it implies that one doesn't get to choose who they fall in love with. That it's set in stone, from the moment you were born, you are destined to someone and no matter what you do, you can't change it."

"Isn't that beautiful in a way? Being destined to one another? Don't you like the idea that there's someone out there that has the ability to connect to you in a way no one else can?" He sounds defensive, always one to believe in magic and the universe.

He doesn't understand. But he needs to-she needs to make him understand.

"I want you to know that I choose you. That my love for you isn't because of some cosmic thing. It's a choice that I made because you are an exceptional person, because you make me happy. And I'd like to think that no matter the universe in which versions of us exist, I would always choose to love you."

Quiet. He's quiet and she can almost hear the sound of their heart beating to the same rhythm, to a music only they know. It's deafening.

"Is this you declaring your love for me?" he says, a little cheeky. Oh. He liked that. Then again, it seems there's not much she does that he doesn't like.

"Shut up." She presses her mouth against his to do just that, seeks the opening of his mouth with her tongue. "Besides. I already did when I proposed to you."

He grins, forming lines at his eyes and it's breathtaking. She wants to trace to the crease of them, feel the heat of his skin against the pad of her thumb.

"Can I ask you something else then?"

She hums in agreement.

"When did you fall in love with me?"

A joyful laugh spills from her lips before she can puts her hands on her mouth to suppress it. He freezes, caught between wonder at her openness and indignation, because he's serious, so serious and this time, he's not trying to distract her from the fact that she's standing on a bomb that could explode at any given moment.

"Sorry, babe. Not making fun of you," she reassures him and, as if to prove her point, she brings her leg around to straddle him, presses her cheek against his shoulder and meets his skin with her lips in a sloppy kiss. "I don't know, Castle. One day I woke up and you were there and I realized I had found what was missing in my life."

"Just like that?" he asks.

"Yeah, just like that."

As always, reviews are always lovely and appreciated.

Coffee Cup