Prompt: On their 30th marriage anniversary, Caskett give an interview to a young journalist, who is instantly impressed by their love story.

Few bestselling authors can boast lives that rival their literary counterparts.

Yet for Richard Castle, truth was often more exciting – and stranger – than fiction. The man behind the world-renowned Derrick Storm and Nikki Heat series once thought he would never write again… until a chance meeting at a launch party almost 40 years ago.

"Never saw it coming," he said during a sit-down interview conducted at his house in the Hamptons. Then the wrinkles around his blue eyes deepened when his smile grew. "But I guess you never do."

"It," in this instance, was the moment he met Kate Beckett. At the time, Beckett was a homicide detective with the NYPD's 12th Precinct. She had flashed her badge at the launch party for Storm Fall, Derrick Storm's final voyage, to question Castle about a murder committed that called back to a murder he had written in one of his older books.

(How old, you ask? The book was Flowers for Your Grave. We'll give you a few moments to Google it.)

A whirlwind ensued. Castle was interrogated. Castle offered guidance. Beckett arrested Castle at the New York Public Library. But by the time Beckett slapped the cuffs on Harrison Tisdale, something magical had happened.

"That night, I went home and wrote five chapters," Castle said, his fingers intertwined with his wife's. "I went from not knowing if I would ever write again after killing off Derrick Storm to… thinking the words would never stop."

As he recalled their first meeting, Beckett – who as of the printing of this issue will have been married to Black Pawn's all-time best-selling author for 30 years – ducked her head and tried to hide a smile. He was insufferable in those days, she said, far too engrossed in the playboy persona that had made him a fixture on Page Six.

Which was why, when Castle got permission to shadow Beckett under the pretense of "research," she was less than thrilled.

"I think I threatened to shoot him once or twice," she said, tongue firmly planted in cheek (we think).

But, she would admit, Castle proved himself. He offered psychological insight and had a far better grasp of investigative technique than she had expected. Still, as the release of Heat Wave drew near, Beckett admitted she was relieved that the end was in sight.

"Don't buy that for a second," Castle teased, grinning as wide as he could as she elbowed him in his side. "You were drawn to me from day one."

Heat Wave was a rousing success – so much so that Black Pawn asked for three more books, even as Castle mulled an offer to write three novels in another series. One featuring a "certain British secret agent."

Even today, Castle can't bring himself to say the name.

"I almost took that offer," he said, his smile disappearing. "That series was what made me want to become a writer. But… I had grown so used to being at the station every day, I was so used to having Kate in my life… I hated to think of ending that."

But there were other close calls along the way. Most of them were near-death experiences. The Triple Killer had been a constant thorn in both Castle and Beckett's sides, they had stared down a dirty bomb in the heart of Manhattan, and at one point, Castle had disappeared without a trace for two months.

Yet the Nikki Heat books kept coming. And kept selling.

Ten books in all. By that point, the couple had three children – which made four total for Castle, in addition to his first daughter Alexis, whom he had from a previous marriage (Editor's note: Castle was adamant that the correct form of "who/whom" be used in this article.) By that point, he had moved on to writing what Black Pawn called "serious literature."

Castle bristled at that, but offered no formal rebuttal. "Truth was," he said, "it was time to send Nikki and Rook to the proverbial sunset. They had told their story. They had their time in the spotlight."

Beckett's smile had brightened then, and she blinked back tears.

"It's funny," she admitted. "When he first shadowed me, I hated the idea of having a character based on me. And when I heard the name… I mean, Nikki Heat? That's a stripper name!"

"It's a cop name," Castle interjected.

"But," she added, "it's been an honor. It really has. To have someone think that highly of me to immortalize me in fiction like that, and for people to read those books and identify with them…"

She lost her words at that point, turning to stare at her husband with a love so deep and true in her hazel eyes. It was a look this writer saw often throughout the interview, which lasted almost three hours. Time clearly had not dulled the fire between these two; if anything, their shared experiences had only strengthened that bond.

"Meeting Kate was the best thing that ever happened to me," Castle said. "And I say that knowing full well that on several occasions, we probably should've died."

One in particular came after the murder of then-NYPD Captain Roy Montgomery (the same Montgomery to whom Castle dedicated Heat Rises). Montgomery had been Beckett's mentor, and while eulogizing him, Beckett was shot in the chest by a sniper. It was like a scene out of one of Castle's books, but it was all too real.

Castle said he had seen something shimmering in the sunlight seconds before the shot. He had tackled Beckett in an attempt to save her life, but by the time they had both crashed to the ground, he realized he had been too late.

"I've written my share of scenes where a character has someone else's blood on their hands," Castle said, his eyes dimming. "But to actually experience that? To look down and see the person I love fighting for her life, bleeding out?"

He then lost his words, staring down at his half-empty coffee mug.

They weren't together at that time, but feelings had been building for a while, and in the heat of the moment, Castle did the one thing that the writer in him hated the most.

"It was the cliched 'I love you'," he admitted. "You read these stories where one character doesn't tell the other they love them until one of them's about to die, and you're always like 'Oh, come on!' But that was me in that moment, because…"

He had to pause to collect himself at this point, Beckett squeezing his hand.

"It was the only thing I knew to do."

Remarkably, Beckett survived. As it turned out, her shooting was but a small part of a massive conspiracy that linked all the way back to the 1999 murder of Johanna Beckett. The case – the elder Beckett had been stabbed to death in an alley in Washington Heights – was a constant in Castle and Beckett's life for several years.

Between death threats, scares, and increasingly unbelievable leads, they eventually discovered that her mother's murder had been ordered by William Bracken, the disgraced Senator who at the time had been an assistant district attorney in New York City.

Bracken had grown desperate to tie up loose ends prior to his run for president, to the point where he had framed Beckett for the murder of a New York City drug lord, and when Beckett finally latched the cuffs on Bracken during a televised press conference, it was the release of everything she had been through since that fateful night in 1999.

"I owe a lot to Castle," she said, even though she had been hesitant the first time he had mentioned solving Johanna's murder. "Without his help and support, I don't arrest Bracken. Hell, I'm probably not sitting here with a family of my own if it wasn't for him."

The warm smile had returned to Castle's face at this point. "I couldn't believe it. Every time we discovered a new lead, or we found another clue… it was like, am I writing another Derrick Storm novel? I mean, it was that kind of out there. Which, for me, is saying something."

But through it all, the couple endured. Even as Beckett was promoted to captain and then later became state senator. Even as Castle started up his own PI firm (which daughter Alexis now runs). Even as the LokSat scandal threatened to kill Beckett and put her marriage on the rocks not even a year after it had started.

"For all the times both of us have almost died," Beckett said, "LokSat was the worst. I thought I was doing the right thing keeping Rick in the dark, but all it did was hurt us both and almost get me killed."

Eventually, LokSat was dismantled – ruining the careers of three CIA agents, a high-ranking Department of Defense official, and the Vice President in the process.

"I almost turned it all into another Derrick Storm book," Castle joked. "But really, what could I have done to add to all that?"

Now grandparents, Castle and Beckett are enjoying a slower-paced – and safer – life. Castle has started his own publishing company, which exclusively serves younger writers who have struggled to find their audience, while also doing his part to keep the New York Public Library system thriving.

Beckett, meanwhile, is enjoying retirement. The once self-proclaimed workaholic has learned to love her downtime – one of the many lessons, she said, her husband has taught her.

So while the days are much calmer now, and Castle's name no longer graces the New Releases section, the couple is as happy as they've ever been: the result of two lives lived well, two lives so perfectly intertwined at a time and in a way neither of them knew they needed until it had already happened.

One of the world's greatest love stories, told in real life.

Even now, over 30 years after exchanging their vows, they look at each other as if they each are gods. In a world that has grown largely cynical and prone to doubt, seeing Castle and Beckett as in love now as they were before this writer was even born was a sight to behold.

But what was their secret?

"I'll say the same thing I said the night they gave me the Poe's Pen (Career Achievement Award)," Castle said, lifting his wife's hand to kiss her knuckles. "Because of you, because of us.

"Always."