En mi cielo al crepúsculo eres como una nube

Y tu color y forma son como yo los quiero.

Eres mía, eres mía, mujer de labios dulces

Y viven en tu vida mis infinitos sueños

xxx

In my sky at twilight you are like a cloud

and your form and colour are the way I love them.

You are mine, mine, woman with sweet lips

and in your life my infinite dreams live.

In My Sky at Twilight, Pablo Neruda

At Twilight

"Marry me."

It's the first thing out of his mouth of course, of course. Hasn't that always been the way? Just let whatever the hell sentiment or half-truth or uncertainty wants to come spilling out splash onto the floor at Kate's feet, ugly and staining where she stands. He waits for the claws of regret to twist in his gut, a desperate drag at the words to take them back inside of himself. Only this time, there's no regret. Just a desperate certainty.

Kate's thumb still circles at the arc of flesh between his own and his forefinger. So much tenderness in her touch, and this is how she bridges the gap of her silence, lets him taste the tart edge of fear. The careful mask of her face thins out at the edges so he knows if he brushed his mouth there he could send fissures right across, take the whole thing to pieces. A hot surge of pride courses through him because he knows her well enough to understand why. Why the mask, why the facade.

If she starts to let it show now, she won't be able to stop. And she won't do that in front of her new colleagues. A pillar of amazing, beautiful strength, so much so that he's not even scared. He has this absolute trust in her, a blind faith that she'll fix it. And Kate, gorgeous Kate for whom he would string up the birds in a soft mist of sky if she needed it, has never failed him.

"Castle, I already said yes." She's frowning at him, but he sees it in a sort of abstract way, the same as when he watches her through the frosted glass of the shower as he brushes his teeth. A need to touch trammelled by the certainty that he mustn't.

"No." He finds his gaze somehow caught in the chasms between the floor tiles and lifts his head to look at her. "Now. Today."

"What?"

"If I'm going to die, I want to do it as your husband." He says, watches the slackening of her jaw. Okay, so that's a surprise to her.

Their marriage is still a mostly theoretical concept. He likes to mention it wherever possible; throwing around words like wedding and rings and vows, but even in spite of his incessant need to drop it into absolutely every conversation he has with basically everyone in his life, Kate is reluctant to commit to a date.

And he means it. He means it so desperately that just the sight of her almost brings him to his knees every time.

For the first time in his life, he asked because he wants her to be his wife. No kidney-shaped little life that needs him to provide, no little girl at home growing up too fast and yearning for a mother. He just. . .likes the idea of it. Loves the idea, really. Can't help imagining the frissons of pleasure that would zip down his spine every time he got to introduce her to someone as Mrs Castle.

At this point, he doesn't know whether she'll take his name. Doesn't know if she's looking at dresses, thinking about bridesmaids. He's hardly seen her, hardly even spoken with her, and the hurried phone calls they have shared have focused more on now.

His immediate and pressing need to have her and the silk of her voice settling around him as she tries to offer him some relief. And when it's not that, it's been quiet declarations. Not as difficult to draw out of her as he'd assumed.

She misses him, she loves him, every day apart makes her more certain she doesn't want to do any of it without him anymore. All he has to offer is an echo, an agreement, but she basks in it. Asks him to tell her, even when all he's doing is reflecting her own words back at her over the crackle of a phone line and the span of a country between them.

The first time he called, from LA, she'd laughed and said well at least I'm nearer in DC than I would be in the city. It worries him that she has yet to unpack. That any time to herself she spends at home, in the bath or reading or both. She hasn't even tried to explore DC, and that scares him.

"Castle, no. You're not going to die. We'll figure this out."

Rick shifts his chair closer until he can trap her knees between the cradle of his own, curl a palm at her neck and not care about the bulging, rotten eye of the camera that follows their every move. "I know you will. But just in case."

"I've already ripped out a couple of dresses." Kate offers, her eyes wide and imploring and darker than he's ever seen.

A grin crawls its way across his face at that and he touches his thumb to the ripeness of her bottom lip, traces his way to the corner of her mouth until he can pluck at the silk threads of her smile.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I know I'm not. . .girly. Not really. But when I marry you, I want to get it right. I want to do the white dress and the flowers and bets about which of our friends will cry first."

He laughs, almost can't believe the richness of the sound, all things considered. How is it that even the threat of imminent death ceases to matter when he has Kate's hand safely ensconced in his own? There's no time to dwell on it right now, but later he might dissect the healing balm of her touch, hunt for the pieces of divinity that hum just under her skin.

"Totally gonna be Sito." There's a fractured moment of quiet like shards of glass and then she blinks at him, her jaw a hard edge he wants to paint with his mouth. "We can do that as a renewal of our vows."

"Castle if I say yes, if I marry you right now, it feels like giving up. I'm going to figure this out, you're going to be fine, and when we get married it's going to be surrounded by the people we love."

He opens his mouth to beg and then she's leaning in to press hers against him, curling her fingers over the rise of his shoulders. Clutching at him so hard it tastes like drowning at the back of his throat, the thick tug of Kate's despair drawing him down.

"Okay. Yeah. Okay. So what, uh- what do we do?"

Later, much later, naked on her back in the bed he promises to share as often as he can, Kate watches the play of shadow across the ceiling as she speaks. A web of night in a city that feels entirely foreign to her.

"Do you want to set a date?"

Castle rolls over to draw her in close to his chest, the effort of it making him grunt. And as great as thank God you're alive sex is, Kate sort of wishes they didn't have to keep reminding themselves. This is what, the eighth time now? She much prefers I love you or even I missed you as the quiet truth in between the planes of their bodies.

"Date?"

Oh, huh. So he was closer to sleep than she realised. Somehow, she doesn't think he'll mind that she woke him for this.

"The wedding. Because I was thinking May seventh. It's a Wednesday, but I'm sure everyone will be able to get the day off."

"Anniversary wedding." He nuzzles his grin into her neck, tongue coming out in a hot slick against her pulse. "Perfect."

"Yeah? You can say no, you know that right? I don't want to be all crazy Bridezilla about this." She murmurs, shifting to settle her head against his shoulder. The ring sits proud, nestled next to her knuckle, and when she sets her palm at his chest he brings his hand up to smooth over the skin next to it.

The extra weight of it on the chain at her neck took a little getting used to, but now she relishes the thud of it against her heart when she shifts. Even so, she wears it (on her finger where it belongs) at every given opportunity. If only for the look on his face.

So much pride to have put it there. Pride in them, that they made it to this place. A place where she can say she loves him and it's not a surprise, not an effort, just the most basic truth of what they are.

"I can't imagine you ever going Bridezilla. But I want this to be perfect for you, okay? Whatever you want."

She hums into the wall of his chest, draws her knee up to rest at his thigh. "I know you've already done this twice before, but I want it to be about you too."

"Kate, love, I've never done this before. Not like this. I'm right there with you."

And even if it's not strictly true, even if sometimes she does worry about being the third Mrs Castle, she knows he means it. It doesn't even matter that it's not the first time for him, because she knows- she knows. . .it will be the last.

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