Path to Paradise

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Castle seemed to wake from surgery all at once, and Beckett lifted to her feet and leaned in over him, watching the awareness come to life in his eyes. He smiled at her, groggy, goofy, and she couldn't help smiling back, her fingers on his shoulder and stroking lightly.

"They've got you on your stomach, keeping pressure off the incision site," she murmured. Certain he wouldn't remember, but maybe he'd hold it for a moment and feel like everything was fine. "It went well, Rick. Dr. Wayte said he got everything."

Castle hummed, eyes falling closed again, like his lids were weighted. She didn't mind. It would be a while, she knew that much.

Beckett placed a soft kiss against his temple, brushing back the limp hair that hung over his eyes. He needed a haircut. And his nails trimmed. And the scruff, though that was a little cute. He was a big bear, muzzy from hibernation.

"You can sleep. I'll be here," she told him.

But he made a valiant effort to open his eyes and one of his fingers curled into his palm, so she took his hand. Squeezed to let him know she had him. Castle traced her motion with his gaze, as if he was trying to comprehend her.

She sank back to the chair beside his hospital bed, but she propped her elbows on his mattress and came in close. Her fingers combed through his hair, over and over, and yet Castle worked his throat like he was trying to say something, stay with her.

His arm was bent, his hand up near his shoulder - the surgeon had been so careful about the nerves and muscles in his back, the places where they connected to his shoulders, his arms. She squeezed that hand and his chin nudged on top of her knuckles.

"I bought you a ring," he mumbled.

"I know." She rubbed her thumb against his chin, his jaw. "You left the Tiffany's box hiding in plain sight, babe."

He stirred and opened his eyes, but she didn't think he was with her. Not really. Sleepy blinks, his face slack. "Not a latchkey anymore."

"I don't know what that means," she whispered.

"S'okay. I do."

She laughed softly, rubbed her thumb against his bottom lip. "So long as you do," she promised. "All that really matters."

"Cabin?"

"When you've been cleared," she reminded him. "Anesthesia wears off, then we're good to go."

"Is that a yes?"

She supposed that she knew exactly what he was asking. "You're supposed to do it right, Rick Castle."

He whined something in his throat and she leaned in and kissed the corner of his eye where the crow's feet made little happy creases.

"You know what the answer will be," she murmured. "You just need to wait and make it a good story."

When she pulled back, she thought maybe he'd already fallen back to sleep.

X

Castle carefully rolled his head on his neck, lifted his shoulders up and down to test them out. Not too bad. He was still shying away from the medication, but she had made him take one every night since the surgery and the pain was managed. Being managed.

He saw the sun angling through the cabin's picture window. The burnished gold and red of near sunset in the winter. Time to find Beckett.

He shifted forward on the edge of the couch and stood slowly, pleased when his limbs obeyed and his strength didn't fail him. He'd had the gift box under the pillow on the couch with him, and now he stooped to withdraw it, rubbing his thumb over the box. He'd meant to give it to her after lunch, but he'd fallen asleep.

No time like the present. (Pun intended).

Castle shoved the box into the pocket of his loose sweatpants and started forward. He shuffled through the living room, still wrapped in some of that post-nap gauze, muffled, but he attained the hall that led to the back sunroom and stepped over the threshold.

Kate turned her head on the chaise lounge and saw him, smiled that fleeting but real smile she had for him these days. "Good nap, babe?"

"Didn't mean to, but yeah. Feel better now."

She lifted one lazy arm from the chaise and held out her hand to him, wriggled her fingers in invitation. Castle came as gracefully as he could manage, wanting to show her he wasn't in an altered state. Drugs or pain, neither one.

She scooted to one side for him, and he sat at her hip, stroking the rise of her pelvis under the thin t-shirt. "Is this mine?"

"Was yours."

Emphasis on was, and he heard it. He shook his head. "Losing t-shirts faster than I can buy them, and that's saying something, considering my online shopping expenses."

She chuckled, but she sounded uninterested, or distracted, and he knew she liked this time of afternoon best, half-asleep on the lounge with a book and the sun coming through the glass overhead. The snow had begun in earnest yesterday, but inside the sunroom, it was warm and cozy, and the view was a perfect landscape of glittering frost. He glanced up through the thick glass, watching the clouds that morphed into shapes - a dragon, a dog, now a seahorse - as the wind played, unseen, unfelt from here.

"Never mind the shirt," he said. "Got something else for you."

Kate came alive then, turning into him and cuddling at his hip, her arm wound around his thigh. "You do, huh?"

"You know I do."

"You better not be making some kind of crude joke about having something for me."

He chuckled and combed his fingers through her hair, displeased with the fumble, the faint tingling. Hadn't quite regained the feeling in this hand, but she hadn't complained. Only traced her fingers over his knuckles until the sensation made him shiver. She did it now, dragging his hand down around her neck to play with his fingers.

"Not a joke," he said finally. "But maybe more than you're expecting."

"You know you spilled the beans after surgery," she murmured, as if to soften the blow. A brush of a kiss on his knuckles. "Post-op haze."

"I did?"

"Mm-hm." Kate lifted, leaning against his side now, sitting upright though still twined like a cat around him. "You said you got me a ring."

He startled, a moment's panic flickering through him, and Kate sat up straight, hearing it in his pounding heart maybe, or his ragged breath, and she stared at him, just as speechless.

Castle opened his mouth, closed it, tried to think.

"You didn't get me a ring?" she blurted out.

"I..."

Her cheeks flushed but she frowned, coming up on her knees and readjusting her position, sitting across from him now. "You didn't buy me a ring, but you said you did?"

"Well, I did... in a manner of speaking."

"In a manner of speaking?" she echoed, something sharp in her voice.

Was he in trouble? He might be in trouble. "I thought it would be - cute. I - um - let me just give you your present and then we'll see where we are." Castle pulled the box from his pocket, but the corner caught the edge of material and it made him fumble. He was all thumbs these days and his fingers were botching the job.

But she caught it, a fast look up at him until he nodded, and then she tugged apart the white (only a little crumpled) bow. When she thumbed off the lid of the Tiffany's blue box, Kate actually laughed.

He let out a breath. It couldn't be that bad if she thought this was amusing.

"A keyring," she said, nodding her head. Her cheeks were pink but her lips were turning up. "That makes a lot more sense, actually."

"It does?" he asked. He realized he felt a little crestfallen at the way she had said it made sense. Made sense that it was a keyring and not a diamond ring.

"You said I wouldn't be latchkey any longer. I guess you're tired of the loft key hanging around my neck like an albatross, right beside my mother's ring."

A ring. Damn. "I'll buy you a diamond solitaire next, not just a diamond keyring."

"Not the point, Castle," she said softly. "I love this. Besides. First things first."

"Well, the point is that we haven't done first things first," he muttered. He reached out and brushed back her hair. "Have we? You've moved in, Kate. And it's only right that I get the chance to actually ask you to."

"You don't have to ask," she said, shoulders shrugging. Her finger pushed through the ring of the simple titanium band, the diamond charm flopping back and forth over her knuckle. It could have been a ring. It cost enough to have been a ring.

Maybe it should have been a ring.

But he'd thought a permanent will you move in with me was taking a pretty big step for them.

"This is my way of asking anyway," he said quietly. "Telling you I want you there, in my loft, and not just because I need someone to keep me away from the pain pills. If you'll stay, that is."

She lifted her head and touched her lips to his, a brief and almost chaste kiss. "You know I want to stay. Just a matter of packing boxes. And you haven't needed a jail keeper, Castle. Just a partner."

He tilted his head forward, their foreheads bumping, a strange relief spilling through him. "A partner, then," he echoed.

"You know," she murmured. Her fingers came up and touched his cheek, and the metal from the keyring was warm where she'd been holding it. "I've been gearing myself up for this box from Tiffany's since you started dropping clues all around the loft. Asking myself what I'd do, say, what my answer would be. Just in case you're wondering."

"Wondering?" he croaked. His heart beat a little fast at the idea of Kate herself wondering.

"In case you need a little... nudge."

He let out a noise somewhere between a war cry and a groan, and he wrapped his arms around her, dragged her into his lap. He might be crushing her, but his joy was crushing him. "I'm warning you now, Beckett, I won't be able to wait until Valentine's Day. Might not even be able to wait until we get back to the city."

She was grinning against his smile, and her kiss was no longer chaste or sweet. Intense. Hot. Somehow desperate.

He was getting her a ring yesterday.

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