"Okay," she says, whispering that acceptance against him enough times until a bigger part of her starts to believe it. Maybe that's all she needs, the reassurance, but it also might have something to do with the heartbeat she can feel underneath her fingertips - or how warm he is, how alive. It's the physical assurance of his presence that's as important as the words he tells her, and that's when she realizes.

Even if he ran out of stories to tell about Nikki Heat, even if he moved on to bigger projects that took him elsewhere, there's a part of Beckett that knows Castle would never leave her life. Not really. In some ways, he's been more of a constant for her than Lanie, or her father, even. She can't pinpoint the moment when he managed to weasel his way in like this, to mean more to her, to bring her to the realization that he matters - something she couldn't even begin to anticipate the first time they met.

He's seen her at her best and her worst. Very few people can say they've witnessed both.

When she draws back, blinking through wet lashes in the dimmer light, he's just looking at her - with earnest, maybe, or compassion, or worry, or all of the above and then some, and she doesn't dwell, doesn't even think - just reacts, moving in slowly, resting her forehead against his for a while, her eyes closed, and she pushes her lips, warm and tentative, to his.