A/N: Warning, fluff ahead, turn away if its not your thing. Also, if you're a reader of "Returning Us To Life" know that I am still working on it. In fact there is a chapter that is almost finished. I had to do a bit of research on it so it's taken me a bit to get it together. I hope you enjoy this in the meantime.

"Tell me a story," she asks him, her voice low and full of exhaustion.

He hasn't left her side in the time they have been here; sure he's gone to get things for her, anything she's needed. He's been at her beck and call. He let her and her dad have time together, he didn't ask what they had talked about, her eyes had been swollen upon his return and so had Jim's. He wasn't going to intrude on their visit. No, no that was private and if Kate wanted to tell him about it she would, in her own time, much like she did with everything else.

He moves from his position at the window, coming closer to where she lay in the bed, taking one of her hands in his.

"You want a story? What story?" he asks.

She lets out a gasp; he can see the pain she's in wash over her face.

"Ah, Castle…Oh, damn…" she's breathing harder, her chest rising and falling quicker than before.

He's with her through it all. Holding her hand with one hand and wiping her face with a cool cloth with the other. He waits until her breathing has slowed, until her muscles have relaxed from the spasm they had been in.

Slowly she comes back to herself, "You're the story-teller, writer-man, make one up."

There's a fine sheen of sweat covering her body, beads of it gathering on her lip and she's picking on him.

He loves her so.

"No preference? Alright, I hope you know what you're getting yourself into," he tells her, moving to sit on the edge of the bed, right by her hip.

"Are you going to get on with it or are you suffering from writers block?" She throws back, a smile barely breaking out on her lips.

"You're hurtful, but I love you, so I'll over look that."

"I love you, too," she returns the sentiment.

He brings the hand he's holding to his mouth and kisses it softly. He notices the grimace on her face when he lowers it. He should have insisted more when she refused any pain medication today. She didn't want to lose the day to the fog of the medicine.

"I've loved you always. Always. Even in the beginning when you couldn't stand me being anywhere near you. The moment I looked into your eyes on that rooftop all those years ago, I knew. I knew you were going to be her. I knew you were going to be you," he stops to take a breath, to get all of his words together. "I looked into your eyes and saw it all in a matter of seconds. I saw everything that was going to be…I saw everything that had been."

She looks at him in confusion. The small smile on his lips tells her he's going to surprise her, he always does.

"It was fall, it was freezing outside, it had rained that morning but slowly it had turned into a drizzle as the day and gone on. I had sat there for hours, hours, I was ready to leave after the first one. But there I was still signing and the line didn't seem to be getting any smaller..."

"Poor you," she says interrupting him. Small smile on her lips, her head lying back against the pillow under it.

"Hey, they all wanted me baby," he says answering back with a smile. "Anyway, I didn't know if I was ever getting out of there. I had taken a break and just as I was sitting down I caught a glimpse of a girl, she…she stood out. I watched as she came closer, with every signature she got closer. I didn't want to make it obvious that I was watching this woman…couldn't take my eyes off of her."

"Why did she stand out?" Kate asked him.

"She just did, she was that kind of girl…I could tell she was there alone. I never saw her speak to another person in line. She kept pulling her phone from her pocket, checking every few minutes or so."

"She must have had somewhere to be," she tells him eyes downcast to their clasped hands.

"Must have, but finally she was there, right in front of me. I didn't speak at first. I just took her in. Book in hand, hair still a bit damp from the rain outside, drying in a loose curl resting against the top of her shoulders. I finally made it to her face, her eyes dark. Something in them I didn't think I would ever know. Haunted, you would say. But I finally found my voice, 'Hi' I had said, she answered the same. 'Who, who should I make it out to?' I asked and when she told me her name I signed it…may have written something else. Something I wouldn't normally do, but for her? I had to. I returned the book to her and shook her hand…I didn't want to let it go. Paula was already motioning for the next person to come up so I knew I had to. I watched as she walked away, watched as she walked out the door I could see through the windows at the front of the store, I watched the wind immediately catch her hair and coat as soon as she reached the street. She held the book close to her chest…I just, I wanted to run after her. I could tell that it meant something to her…I wanted to know what."

She wants to cry. Wants to sit up from where she lays and claim those lips like she's done a million times.

"Plus, when the wind picked up I saw the holster and badge on her hip and it was quite possibly the hottest thing I had ever seen. Until that point at least."

She rolls her eyes; she wants to hit him a little too.

"'From the ashes a fire shall be woken, Richard Castle. P.S. You've got this'. That's what you wrote."

He never takes his eyes from her, never breaks the eye contact.

He knows she never had a clue he remembered. But the first time he turned around at that party and came face to face with her, one look in those deep pools of green, he knew.

"After that day, I looked for you everywhere, at every signing I had in the city. Any time I passed an officer or a police cruiser, I looked for you. Then suddenly, there you were. And you hated me."

She graces him with a soft smile.

"I didn't hate you. I never…Never hated you. Couldn't, you were cute."

"Finally! The truth comes out after all this time."

"Castle, I…I had this image of you, I had built you up…You have no idea what you meant to me when we met…either time. You didn't know how you saved me with your words, you still don't. But you gave me so much with your books. You gave me hope that good conquers evil, you showed me that in the end the truth would always win."

She stops, sucking in a breath; the monitor tracking her heartbeat begins to beep faster than before.

"Shhh, shhhh, it's okay Kate. Breathe through it," he says to her, watching her eyes close shutting out everything that's happening.

She's breathing, in through her nose, out through her mouth. Just like she's been taught to do, she breathes through it. Her body is only barely cooperating.

He's there with her through it all, helping her as the pain washes over her, his presence calming her.

"I had built you up in my head…Oh god! I had built you up into something that you couldn't have lived up to…Ahhh. But you showed me…mmmmmm; you showed me how wrong I was. You were everything I had imagined and more… when I finally let you. OH GOD! Get the doctor! NOW," her voice louder than he's heard all day, practically screaming.

He doesn't even have to leave her, because as the words leave her mouth the nurse swings the door open and after that it's a blur.

"Okay, Mrs. Castle, are you ready? It seems like the little one there is," Nurse Calloway says to her after a quick check.

The nurse had been with her since the moment they came in this morning, when Kate's water had broken shortly after she had woken up this morning. They knew labor could be long with a first pregnancy, but it's been nearly twelve hours and he knows Kate is more than exhausted.

"Yes! Yes, I'm ready."

Exhausted, but she's so ready to hold their baby. She's wants the weight of their child in her arms. Wants to look into their baby's eyes and see both she and Castle reflected back at her. She's never been in love with something she's never seen or touched.

Thirty minutes after the doctor arrives she's still pushing.

"I can't anymore. I can't," she says to him and the tears that had pooled in her eyes have finally started falling.

"Kate, baby, yes you can. I know you can," he tells her; she's using one of his hands to squeeze while his other hooked behind her knee.

"I really can't, Castle," she says letting her body fall back to the bed.

He leans down to her, forehead against forehead.

"Kate, listen to me. You can do this. You're the bravest, strongest person I've ever known…If anyone can do this, you can. You got this," he tells her, lifting his forehead from hers, replacing it with his lips.

She lets out a gasp, "I got this."

"Yeah, you do."

"Plus, I need to prove you wrong, show you we are having a boy and not a girl," she says to him.

"Or you're going to prove me right, you're having our baby girl, Kate," he answers her back, continuing the argument they've had since the positive pregnancy test came back.

They had decided that they wouldn't find out the gender, leave it all a surprise until this moment.

He helps her sit up from where she lay, practically climbing in the bed behind her, letting her push back against him.

Minutes later their child is laying on her chest, she's crying for an entirely different reason than she was before. She turns to look at him, their lips finding each other.

"Thank you," she tells him, their lips brushing. "Thank you for your words, thank you for being you."

"I love you, Kate."

He kisses her again, reaching over her to help cradle their child against her.

"I love you," she says, "Castle, I'm not naming him Cosmo."

He lets out a bark of laughter.

He knew she would win, after all, he saw it all in her eyes so many years ago.