A/N: Hi all! Happy Premiere Day! In honor of this momentous occasion, I've decided to post some short, random pieces I've written recently. Some are responses to challenges, mostly on Livejournal, and some are for a project called the Awesome Ladies Ficathon, where a prompt was suggested and the fic was written from that.

This collection will be my hodgepodge of sorts. Fics will have varying lengths and characters and are not necessarily tied in with each other. I hope you enjoy.

For the Awesome Ladies Ficathon; prompt was "Kate Beckett/Rick Castle; she's so much stronger than before/you can't ignore her tonight"

In a turn no one sees coming, she kisses him first.

It is neither impetuous nor instinctual, rather a mixture of the two; a natural progression of events. There are no words to be said (because, honestly, what haven't they said to each other by now?), merely a sigh of breathless fingertips and the gentle understanding that this is not years' worth of pent-up sexual frustration, but rather a partnership that extends beyond the bounds of trust and the hem of her little black dress.

The miles that have been between them - the storms that have raged - make the deliciousness of the mere millimeters between their mouths all the more heady and exhilarating. The fact that she has always been able to stand on her own two feet but chooses to let him cup her waist and trail his hands up and down the curved muscles of her frame is an honor she knows he understands.

There is safety in the punctuated silence of memorization, of the sweet smile associated with finally. The depth of what they have been separately and what they shall be together is found in walking fingers searing tenderness alongside the brush of inevitability he's touted since day one - and she since he walked away one May afternoon.

(The fact that it happens in the same interrogation room where they first met- abandoned while the rest of the precinct protects New Year's revelers in Times Square - just makes it that much better.)