Epilogue

It'd been painted over in the year they'd been gone, its metal edges once chipped and raw with rust now feigning smooth thanks to a makeover of but modest improvement, and what was once a whir had been replaced by a definitive rattle, yet the old air conditioner stuck there in the wall seemed to suit the place even more somehow, like it was precisely where it belonged in time and space, much like the two of them, back there at the Lake Heaven Motel where they'd begun.

"Do you ever think about whether or not all of this would've happened if we hadn't had to share this room the last time we were here?"

Kate pushed her fingers between his, drew his hand to her lips and gave it a peck. Midday that Saturday found them still entwined in bed, and with little planned otherwise, after a string of book-signing events on Rick's calendar had them separated for the entirety of the previous week.

"I can't believe it's been a year," she said in sidestep. "This place is still a dump."

"Excuse me, Detective, but that's no way to refer to our place. I mean, it might hear you and swallow us whole." Rick gave her bare shoulder a playful nip. "I'm sorry. I thought this would be a romantic surprise. Next anniversary, you get to pick the spot."

The corners of her mouth curled with the unintended softball he'd lobbed. Stretching her legs beneath the sheets, she came over onto her back so she could see his eyes. "It is romantic," she assured him with a kiss to punctuate it. "And you already know all the spots I like."

"Oh, you're naughty. That's one of the things I like most in a detective, by the way." He pushed up onto his elbow. "So, you haven't answered."

She pushed out a wee huff, but only because he never let anything go by.

"I don't know if I can answer, Castle, or if either of us really could. Being in love with you and not being with you was really hard, but I was terrified of it, too. Without what happened to Royce and without us ending up here together that weekend because of it, I'm not sure when or if I could've found a way to jump into this."

Rick let his forehead come to rest above her heart. "I hate for you that you don't have him, but I'm going to be grateful for him every day for the rest of my life because he helped bring you to me."

The air conditioner coughed suddenly as though someone had run up and kicked it in the gut, and the sound turned both of their heads with a snap.

"God, Castle, can we please put that thing out of its misery for a few hours and turn it off? I'm pretty sure we're out of prime creepy-noises hours, at this point."

Rather than tend to her wish, he scrunched up the pillows against the scarred wood that was the headboard and leaned back into them. "You want it off? Go right ahead. I'd prefer to stay here and enjoy the view, get a good look at some of those spots I know you like."

Kate gave him a shake of the head, but she wasn't immune to the power of his gaze, and she knew exactly where it would lead. Wearing only a smile he couldn't see, she crossed the room, fiddled with the unit until it seemed to sigh with relief, and then turned to come back to him.

Halfway to the bed she stopped, gave the room and him in it a once-over. "I love it here," she said, quiet like it was some treasured secret. "I wouldn't want to be anywhere else with you at this minute than in this room."

"Get back over here," Rick said after a moment spent indulging in the vision of her, and she came, nuzzled into his waiting body. "Loving you is the greatest decision I never had to make." He pressed his lips to the top of her head and lingered there, and though he hadn't planned what would come next, he knew asking his heart to wait any longer would've been as futile as asking the morning sun not to rise.

There in that beat-up motel room in the woods, with its cracked this and rickety that, he wrote on the air the three most important words he'd written in all his life.

"Marry me, Kate."

xxx