A/N: Inspired by a comment made by Beckett in 8x02, XX. Set early season 7 (anywhere post 7x03, Clear and Present Danger).

"Look on the bright side, chicks dig scars."

His body is warm beneath hers, soft and so perfectly pliable, and Beckett nuzzles in closer, presses her lips to his throat and lowers her head to rest her cheek against his clavicle. She could stay like this, dozing with her fiancé in nothing but her engagement ring shimmering in the shards of moonlight spilling across their bed, their skins sealed, still damp with sweat as their heartbeats work to slow. Tomorrow is her day off and while she knows there are likely more productive ways to spend it, errands to run and responsibilities to worry about, she's about to suggest they commit the entire day to remaining in bed.

"Does it bother you?"

Kate tears her eyes up and away from the rise and fall of his ribs beneath her fingers, blinking through the blissful haze still clouding her vision to lift her head, meet his gaze. She's surprised to find him staring down at her with a strange mixture of hesitance and... shame?

"What're you talking about?" she murmurs, twisting on her side to lie flat on her stomach, half of her body still draped across him, her legs twined in the tangle of his and their hipbones still clashing with every movement.

Ever since he had managed to find his way back home to her, ever since qualms about being 'ready' had been crushed and the interruptions had come to a lull, they had been savoring these moments of intimacy, making the most of every opportunity to atone for those lost two months of time. Moments and opportunities she had once feared they may never have again. But this odd look of insecurity has never accompanied them to the bedroom until now and she dusts her hand along his side in question.

Castle covers the splay of her digits, pressing her fingertips to the length of his scar. "That."

Her brow furrows and she spares a glance down to the raised strip of skin beneath her fingers, the evidence of a story he is unable to tell, and grazes her thumb over the edge of the still healing scar.

"Why would it bother me?"

He shrugs, the rise of his shoulders upsetting the pile of pillows propping him up against the headboard. "It's a reminder of everything that's happened," he mumbles, shifting away from her, his arm slipping from around her shoulders and her heart sinks with the loss of his warmth. "Everything I put you through."

"Castle," she sighs, already shaking her head. "I don't view this as a reminder." Kate steals one of his hands, draws his palm to rest between the swells of her breasts. The calloused tips of his fingers drag along her bullet scar as she guides his hand downwards, trailing their twined digits along the incision scar that scales her ribcage. They've faded in the last three years, the raised lines dulling from their angry reds to gentle pinks, paling steadily into white, her marred flesh softening, no longer so harsh and alive with phantom pain. "Do you remember what you called them that first night?"

Rick sucks in a quiet breath, but his eyes are caressing her old wounds, recalling the memories they hold. She had been secretly apprehensive in the beginning to let him see the visibly damaged parts of her, the ugly reminders of the day he had jumped in front of a bullet for her and all of the pain that had followed. Before she had shown up on his door, drenched and drained of every ounce of fight she had left, wanting only to fight for him instead, she had entertained the idea of what it would have been like if he had had her before. When her skin had still been smooth and blank, when her sternum had been void of a bullet hole, before the canvas of her flesh had been stained with trauma.

"Scars tell stories, Beckett," he had smiled at her, his eyes soft with sincerity when she had jokingly confessed to the silly insecurity amidst the hours spent in his bed that first night. He had dusted his fingers over the scar above her heart, the jagged line at her ribs, but then he had drifted, found another near her hip, a fourth beneath her collarbone, a fifth on her knee. By the end of the conversation he had mapped her entire body out, discovering every uneven patch of skin and discolored strip of flesh, reading her scars with reverence. "And I savor every one of yours."

"You know what kind of story this tells me?" she hums, eradicating that inch of space he had attempted to place between them with one of her eyebrows arched high.

"A pretty disappointing one," he mutters, but Beckett shakes her head, returning her eyes to the slash of vibrant pink skin where a bullet had grazed him, ripped through his flesh in what the doctors assumed had been only weeks ago, a month at most.

"No, Castle, this... whatever you had to go through, whatever reason is behind you disappearing for two months, this is a sign of how hard you fought to come home," she insists, draping her palm over the scar, soothing the puckered edges with the heat of her touch. "This tells me a story with a happy ending."

"Kate," he breathes, the emotion in his eyes thick when she raises hers, the blue of his irises so bright and needful. Beckett shifts onto her knees for leverage, eases forward to cradle his face in her hands, to drop her lips to that spot just above his eyebrow, skimming the scar she has memorized there and feeling his cheeks lift into a smile.

"It could never bother me," she finally answers his question, her mouth spreading into a grin as his hands rise to frame the juts of her naked hips, encouraging her to sway into a straddle over him. "It's just another piece of our story."

Castle tips his head upwards, his eyes fluttering closed when her forehead settles against his, his chest rising with a deep breath as his hands span the length of her back, travel up the curved bow of her spine. And even though the guilt is still there, the anguish in his eyes subdued but not extinguished, even though they have yet to find their way back to who they were before his disappearance on their wedding day, she salvages the serenity of this moment, the presence of the man she loves back in their bed with her as if he'd never left.

"Besides," she muses, carding her fingers through his hair and feeling more than hearing his chest rumble with pleasure at the touch. "It's actually kinda hot."

Her fiancé's eyes pop open, seas of cerulean turning to dark pools of indigo. "Rugged?"

"Mm, pretty badass," she indulges him, some of that little boy pride flaring through the flickers of arousal consuming his gaze.

"I knew it," he exhales with triumph. "Chicks dig scars."

"Better be the only one digging your scars," she growls, smearing her smirk to his cheek.

A startled breath of laughter soars from her lunges when he flips them over, pins her to the mattress with the welcome weight of his body and the smile he wears that matches hers, and Kate cranes her neck to taste it, to hum against his upturned lips.

"Just my chick," he amends, nipping at her bottom lip even as she rolls her eyes, but Castle is trailing down her throat, peppering kisses along her neck, laving his tongue at the scar nestled between her breasts.

"Castle," she gasps when his teeth scrape, knotting her fingers in his hair as the stubble along his jaw abrades the sensitive flesh of her chest.

"Shh, Beckett," he rumbles and her legs fold high around his waist at the low vibration of his electricity his voice sends through the bones of her sternum, a fresh wave of heat and anticipation surging through her blood. "I want to reread our story."