Just My Imagination

for bones35, who really wanted it to be a heart

"Castle," she chides.

He yanks his fingers back from the drawer and lifts innocent eyes to her. "Yes?"

"Stop snooping."

"Force of habit."

She lifts an eyebrow and gives him that I'm not through with you look, the one where she works her jaw and slightly shakes her head. He's getting on her nerves; he knows that.

Castle backs off and heads for the open suitcase on her bed, keeps packing the things she's cleared him to pack. A sweater? Why is she going to need a sweater? It's like eighty degrees there. "Hey, if you roll your clothes up in a bundle, it actually saves room. Look, Kate-"

"Castle."

He shuts his mouth. Long day, longer case. She's still decompressing. She hates leaving in the middle of a case, but they've had this planned for ages. He's surprised she hasn't asked to have the flights changed or the reservations altered so she can finish this one up.

He keeps packing her suitcase; his is ready in her foyer, has been for the last five hours, and he's just excited.

She goes back to her bathroom to gather the rest of her stuff, and he grins at her retreating figure. When she's disappeared, he wanders to her bedside table again and fiddles with the decorative handle. He squints at the wooden drawer and sinks down on the bed, tugging a little.

Curiosity killed the cat is not a good way to start vacation.

But he still wants to know what's in this drawer that she keeps shooing him away from. Really really wants to know. It's not the kinky stuff, cause he's seen that already. What could-

"Can you get my laptop ready to go?" she calls out from the bathroom.

He jumps up. "Yeah. On it."

Her laptop case is in the storage trunk, and he shuffles around the bed to open it, tugging the black case out from under a pile of extra blankets. He glances back to the doorway leading to her bathroom and she steps out, carrying a bag of cosmetics.

"Thanks. Laptop's on my desk," she murmurs, chewing on her bottom lip. "I think I'm forgetting something."

"I usually forget underwear. But that's perfectly all right if you've forgotten yours. You can go commando. I approve."

She huffs a little and shakes her head at him. "Of course."

"It's sexy."

"Mm-hmm," she draws out, but she holds up a finger and her eyes lighten. "Oh, I know. Hold on."

He heads out of her room for her laptop, slides it in the case, wraps up the power cord. It comes to him then what else she might be forgetting, and he heads back into her room, sits down on the bed with the laptop across his thighs so he can see her in the bathroom. "You got your passport?"

"Oh, heck yeah," she says throatily, shooting him a look as she saunters into her room. "It's in my bag. Been ready to go for weeks."

He grins back and she comes to him, dropping deodorant into her suitcase and trailing her fingers up his arms to wrap around his neck. She sways a little as she stands before him, nudges between his knees. He puts the laptop aside and places his hands on her hips, grins up at her.

"Weeks, huh?"

"Contrary to public opinion, I can't wait to get out of here."

"Boys have a bet going."

"I heard," she says darkly, dropping her chin to press her forehead against his. He tilts up just enough, long practiced move, and kisses her mouth, feels her humming into him. He loves that sound, her contentment stretching out into the air around them, rich like sunlight in the deepest part of the afternoon.

His fingers stroke under the loose shirt, find her hipbones even as her mouth parts from his. She sighs a little, happy, and her eyes flutter open as he strokes her skin.

"I don't like leaving in the middle of a case," she admits. "But I've been looking forward to this."

"You'll relax by the time we get there," he assures her, grinning into her confession.

She nods. "Okay, I'm going to grab a couple books and my carry-on bag, pack the rest of my stuff. Will you check my suitcase? - make sure I've got everything."

"Yup."

She pats his shoulder and moves away, gathering her laptop and the power cord, heading for her living room.

He stands up and rifles through her clothes, underwear, swimsuit - double-checking her packing job. He adds a couple pairs of underwear that are his favorites, just a suggestion, and then he shuts her dresser drawer on the rest of it. He had no idea she'd need so many outfits - he was thinking t-shirt and shorts - but she's going to look drop dead gorgeous, he can just tell. She always does that to him, pulls out some fantastic thing that looks like it hasn't ever seen the inside of a suitcase while his stuff is wrinkled and worn.

And then there's her bedside table, mocking him with its secrets.

He yanks it open before he even realizes what he's doing.

"Hey. Tell me you need me," he grins at her, teeth and lips and smiling eyes.

Kate shakes her head at him and pushes on his shoulder. "You already know that."

"Can't hurt to hear it again," he shrugs, still grinning. Adorable and pleased with himself.

"I need your fingers-"

He gasps, eyes so wide, and she has to bite her lip to keep from laughing. Hard.

"-to pick up that pen and sign us in, Richy Rich."

He takes a breath in, melodramatic, a hand to his heart as he turns to the resort's front desk. "You nearly. . ."

"Dirty mind," she murmurs into his back, pressing a quick kiss to his neck as she moves away. Kate grabs the handle of her suitcase and follows the bellhop, pushing a hand through her hair to get it off her face, angling her sunglasses on top of her head to keep it there.

She's already sweating, and their little villa will be nice and cool; she wants to collapse in bed and sleep for a day. Castle finally finishes the paperwork and comes after them with the keycards, his hand touching her hip in a moment of guidance and then falling away.

Kate waits for him to match her stride, hooks her finger in the belt loop of his jeans, gives him a smile. "Thanks for getting me out of New York, Castle. Guess I needed you for that."

"Got you out of the paperwork too, you'll notice."

She laughs, looks at him from the corner of her eye. "Hm, best partner ever?"

"Ever," he affirms. He's grinning back, looking so happy that she's happy, and their suitcases bump and tangle, knocking them apart. She chuckles and lets go of his jeans, straightens them out again even as they try to keep up with the bellboy.

When they cross the threshold to the resort's back yard, the vista opens up onto lush tropical growth and black sand beaches, a never-ending line of ocean stretching out to the horizon.

"We're in Indonesia," she chokes out, staring at the landscape of water and mountain and bungalow. "It's breath-taking."

His fingers tangle in hers but he doesn't try to make her move; she can only stand there, unable to take it all in, her feet paused on the stone path. The bellboy has stopped as well and she blinks back the rush of vibrating feeling that swamps her, finds herself squeezing Castle's hand.

She never thought she'd be here. Not just in North Sulawesi, Indonesia, but here. At a place in her life where she has all this - the ability to escape for a couple weeks with a man she loves, the prospect of a future out there on the sun-drenched horizon, and the chance to actually redirect her life into a channel that fills her up like the ocean - overflowing.

Making her more than she was.

She glances down to their tangled hands and studies the way they fit together, then she lifts her head to him.

"Thank you." Best partner ever now kinda goes without saying.

He just smiles, a short shrug of his shoulders, and she leads them down the path towards their villa, every breath a way of releasing the last fifteen years of her life.

She has this now. She is this now.

"Good?" he murmurs, coming up behind her at the open deck and wrapping his arms around her.

Kate hums into his embrace and leans back against him. "Very."

He smiles and buries his nose in her hair, closing his eyes to the view so that he can just feel her, the warm lines of her body and the way she doesn't move, just settles further into him.

"Better late than never," he says softly.

She shrugs like it's nothing, and she skims her palms down his arms to lace their fingers together. The metal from her ring is warm against his skin, a little pinching.

"I told you I didn't need-"

"You did," he interrupts. "You did tell me and you did need it. Both."

She sighs but it's no longer that put out with you sigh he's been hearing lately. Who else gets engaged and spends the next three months working and living apart? Of course, he did it kind of backwards, and in a rush of I'm so glad you're alive, but it doesn't mean he didn't mean it. Maybe she understands that finally. Just like his first I love you, his first Marry me could have used a little more art to it.

"When we get back," she starts, but he grips her tighter and shakes his head.

"We've got two weeks. Let's not."

She relaxes again, and he's glad for that. They both need it - a chance to prove it works, maybe, or the time to not have to prove anything at all.

She releases one of his hands and shifts back to palm his thigh, like she has intentions, and he grins into the top of her head as the sound of the ocean throbs in time with his heart. Her nails skim over his shorts and then she turns in his loose embrace, her arms snaking around his waist.

"Hey there," she murmurs and that little cat-and-canary smile on her lips makes him grin back. "You happy to see me?"

He laughs, but she's darting her hand into his pocket and - too late - he remembers what it is that's been poking her.

"Oh, oops," he gets out, reaching for the folded piece of paper she pulls out.

She narrows her eyes, leans away from him as she curls her fingers around it. "You went through my drawer."

"It was on top," he defends, but it sounds weak even to his own ears.

She doesn't wriggle away from him, which is something, a victory really, and he wraps his fingers around her wrist to hold the paper between them.

"You kept it?" he asks softly.

It's a withdrawal slip from the New Amsterdam Bank and Trust. Still folded in that haphazard way from when he'd passed it to her as a hostage, his hand to hers, that brief and vital clutch of their fingers.

"Why'd you keep it?"

She's not looking at him, just staring at the well-worn paper. The last time he saw it, it was crisp and white. She's saved it but she's also handled it often, kept it clutched in her hand so that the oil from her skin has smoothed its sharp edges.

"Kate-"

"I keep a lot of things," she says on a shrug.

When she doesn't step out of his arms, doesn't resist him, he carefully releases her wrist and moves his fingers to the note, takes it from her once more. She lets it go and he unfolds it, sees his own hurried writing: V C4.

"It was just my imagination, but it looked like a heart," she says in a rush.

"What?" he says, lifting his eyes to hers, startled.

She shrugs again, but he can see she's struggling to move past the always-reactionary defenses she throws up around herself. He waits for it, because she'll get there eventually if he's patient.

"I had it in my hand. My palms were sweating. I left the bank and you were staring at me and I - when I opened it. It looked like, at first, for a second it just looked like a heart."

Oh. The V for vault. The tops curl inward a little bit, he sees now, because his hand wasn't steady and it was rushed and he was jerky with fear when he wrote it. But he can see now why she thought it.

Still. "But we weren't even-"

He stops, closes his mouth. Because even if they weren't even, they still were something. They both knew that.

"You kept my note," he says then. Castle feels his grin stretching his mouth, can't keep it in, and she huffs at him and plucks the note out of his fingers. "Because you imagined it had a heart on it, Kate-"

"Shut up," she mutters, pushing him away now, but it's just too good.

"Should I sign everything with little curled-in Vs now? So that it's-"

"I told you not to mess with my stuff, did I not?"

"But this is awesome stuff." He wrangles her back against his chest and the ease with which that's accomplished and the way she stays lets him know she's mostly just embarrassed. He's happy with that. "This is cute stuff. You kept my note about the C4. That's-"

"Stupid."

"It's like a love note," he says with relish, wrapping his arms around her and holding her tightly. His chest constricts a little, silly as it is, because she's kept it for years in her bedside drawer. She imagined it was a heart.

"It's not a love note," she huffs.

"You thought it was. For a second. You thought it was."

"You have a tendency to make dying declarations," she grits out, but her face is pressed against his neck and her mouth speaks to his collarbone and takes all the sting out of that statement.

"It should've been a heart," he says finally. "I'd have made a heart if I thought of it."

"Not exactly the time or place."

"I'll make you little heart notes from now until the day I do actually die," he promises, still with a little amusement in his voice he can't control.

"Because you're dying before me?" she snorts.

"I'm older."

"I'm a cop."

"Let's die together," he compromises.

"Okay," she murmurs. "But I'd be happier if you found us a place to live before that happens."

He sighs. "You sure the loft-"

"I'm sure."

"Fiiine," he draws out, but it's an old conversation and it's not even an argument anymore. He'd rather talk about setting a date for their wedding, but he knows better.

She wraps her arms around him then and he realizes she's still got the note in her hand. He reaches back and takes it from her, slides it into the back pocket of her jeans, wriggles his fingers.

"You get to keep it," he murmurs softly, brushing a kiss to her ear. "You can keep all my hearts."

"You are too corny for words," she mutters back, but he can feel her smiling.