The next day after Kate had agreed to move in with Castle, things moved quickly. They went over to Kate apartment to pack everything into boxes, which would be taken to his loft as soon as possible. They really didn't waste much time when it came to their relationship; they both agreed that they had already wasted so much time in not getting together. Kate only had to take all of her clothes and her books that would be added to his already massive collection. The only other items she took were little items that had great value to her. Most of these items were stuff that her mother had given her while she was still alive. So after 6 boxes of clothes, 5 full and heavy boxes of books and 2 boxes full of other stuff that she wanted to take. They agreed that the rest of her furniture would be put into storage; they probably would use any of it again. Some of it might be given to Alexis to furnish her college dorm, but other than that they would collect dust in a dark and musty unit across town.
They were able to take all of Kate's stuff back to the loft in two trips. Kate's apartment was only about 10 blocks away, so it didn't take long to transport it all. Their home; it had a much better ring to it then Castle's loft. Kate had her own key from when he had given it to her just after they had started dating. Now she could use this key on her own free will; it was her home as well. Kate hoped it would stay that way for a very long time.
When they got back to the apartment building Rick let Kate open it with her key for the first time as their home. They went straight into the kitchen to get something to eat, as it was already 9. After about 5 minutes of searching for something to eat, they gave up. Today was normally the day when they went to the supermarket. Today they had been busy, so he did not mind if they had take out. "Hey Kate, what would you like for takeout? We could have Chinese or pizza? They choice is yours." Rick asked as the went to get the menus out of the right draw. It's not like he needed the menus, they both already knew what was on their and both had all the numbers saved onto their phones.
It took Kate awhile to answer but it was always the same "Chinese". Kate got out her phone and placed their orders at their usual place. Rick was the only one that knew what Kate liked to order and only Alexis, Martha and now Kate knew his. After placing the order, they both went to the couch and settled down to find something until the food arrived. Kate snuggled into the side of Rick, when he found a rerun of Firefly. At the end of the episode they were currently watching the doorbell rang.
"Stay Kate, I will get it." Rick got up from the couch and when to answer the door. He paid the teenage delivery boy that had their order. He took their orders back to the couch after getting forks. He placed the dinner the table in front of the couch and sat down next to Kate again. Kate turned the TV off and settled back onto the couch. After finishing their dinner, they sat back together on the couch, Kate had her back on Rick's chest. Their legs were in twine at the others end of the couch, with both of their hands linked on top of Kate's stomach. Once the movie that was on TV was finished, that neither of them were actually watching it; they moved towards the bedroom door.
This Monday morning was a special morning for both Rick and Kate. This week would be the first full week of them living under the same room. Well officially anyway. They both awoke as usual to the sound of Kate's phone going off. This morning it wasn't because she was getting a call saying they had to go to some part of town that was full of criminals. This day it was the sound of her alarm going off. She only set this alarm on days when she was only on call. It was set at 11 just in case she over slept. This had become a regular thing when she and Rick started dating.
"Kate, Please. Please. Just turn that off. You are only on call. We can just stay in bed." He pleaded with her. Kate got up and turned the alarm off. She fell back into to bed and turned onto her side and just stared at him. It was amazing how quickly he could go back asleep. She tried to go back to sleep; she really did, but that was no use. After about 20 minutes she gave up. Waking Rick up was another story, but she had a plan.
"Rick, come on wake up" After about 5 attempts Kate put her plan into action. She went into the bathroom and got one of the cups that was near the basin and filled it up. She went back into the bedroom and carefully tipped the cool water on top of him, making sure she didn't get it all over the mattress. Castle wasn't expecting it.
He jumped up from the bed with amazing speed and also with a girly scream. "AHHHH Kate what was that for?" He asked as she slowly stepped away from him.
"Well you wouldn't get up, so I had to use other methods."
"Well I'm sure you could have come up with something other than that." He said as he got off the bed and was inching towards her. "You realise I'm going to get you back for that now right?" Sadly Kate did know that was true, she really hadn't thought of that when she was pouring the water on his face. Castle ran straight towards Kate but of course she was faster, her being NYPD and all. Kate moved quickly down the stairs and into the kitchen, she hide under the kitchen island. Castle didn't notice her for a full 5 minutes. He looked in his study, laundry and anywhere else he could think of. By the time he was on his second look through of the bottom half of the loft Kate couldn't help but burst out laughing. Her laughing was uncontrollable, so much so that she doubled over. This gave her position away to Rick and by the time he got her, he didn't even bother trying to get her back. He just stood there watching her. She was so beautiful when she laughed, she didn't laugh enough and he was grateful that he was one of the only people that got to see her truly laugh.
When she stopped, he looked up at him with one of the biggest smiles he had ever seen on her face. She slowly got to her feet and made her way to Rick. Rick wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her towards him. Kate put her arms around his neck and the both towards a kiss but Kate couldn't she just burst out laughing again.
"How could you not see me, it was such an obvious place?"
"Well you have ninja skills of hiding." He replied, "You know you have a really beautiful smile? Right." Kate really didn't know, she blushed and smiled at the floor. He lifted her chin up with one of his fingers, "You're beautiful and I love you for that and everything else that you do."
"And I love you too." This time they were able to kiss without Kate bursting out into laughter, but it only lasted for a full 5 minutes. Alexis choose this time to walk through the front door.
Alexis walked in and was immediately greeted with the sight of her dad and Kate making out in the kitchen. "I…Um… will go back out the door" Alexis spoke quickly and went to move back out the door.
"Alexis, you don't need to. It's fine, you can come back. I'm sorry." Kate said, trying to get her to come back into the loft. This worked and she moved back in through the door and towards the kitchen.
"I'm sorry, I should have knocked." She moved closer towards the pair, she stood in front of them. Kate could tell she was nervous, she was moving from one foot to the other and playing with her hands in front of her.
"No Alexis, its fine. It's your house too." She replied slowly because she wanted her to get the point. She never wanted her to feel like she wasn't welcome in her own home. Rick however in all this discussion managed to slip away in all this, leaving Kate with Alexis. "However you dad isn't." Kate was only a little bit angry with him for going, but she probably would of if she had the chance. "Have you had lunch?"
"Nope"
"Well okay neither have we, so just let me find your dad and then I can make us something." Kate went to go find Rick, the first place she looked was in the study. If you knew Rick that was probably the place he went when he escaped. She found him at his computer typing. Kate liked it when he was writing; he got a different look on his face, one only reserved for this. Kate got a little distracted and forgot what she was in there for, and then she heard Alexis. Kate decided that she would just leave Rick to his writing. Kate walked back out to the kitchen and found Alexis sitting on one of the stools, "I thought I would leave your dad to write, because evidently that's what he went away to do."
"Yeah, I noticed he hasn't really been writing that much." She got of the stool she was sitting on and went to go look in the fridge to see if there was anything they could eat. "There is some left over pizza, is that okay?" There was other food in the fried but for some reason Alexis had the sudden urge for pizza.
"Yeah, that's fine with me." Kate came over to her, got the pizza and put it in the microwave to heat up. After the 3 minutes, the pizza was done. Kate got it out and put in in front of Alexis; they both sat on the stools and shared lunch. "So how is school going?"
"Well it's pretty boring right now, nearing the end of school. Just lots of study until final exams."
"So have you chosen which university you are going to?"
"I got my acceptance letters a while ago now, and I got in everywhere so my choices aren't limited."
"Where do you want to go?"
"My first choice was always Princeton but after last summer when I got the rejection letter, I don't think I want to go there anymore. I also want to be some want to be somewhere close to you and dad but I also don't want to be too close that dad we come and distract me or I come here. Do you know what I mean?"
"Yeah, I do. Before my mum died I didn't want to be close, I just wanted to start my life, but I didn't want to be extremely far away."
"I'm thinking Harvard, Columbia is just a little bit too close. I would come back here all the time. Now that I think about it Princeton is on the other side of the country, so I don't want to go there anymore. So my choice now is Harvard, I hope dad is okay with it. I think it will be because it's closer than Princeton, so now I just have to send my acceptance."
"It's good you have made up your mind now. All you have to do now is tell your dad, speaking of him we should probably get him." Kate got up and Alexis followed her into his office. Kate went up to Rick and tapped him on the shoulder "You going to stop writing and come get something to eat?"
"Yeah sure, just let me save what I have done and I will meet you two in the kitchen." Rick quickly saved the pages that he had written and walked into the kitchen to going the others.
"There is a slice of pizza for you." Kate explained when he sat down on the kitchen stool. "Alexis has something to tell you."
"Well… I have chosen to go to Harvard." Alexis waited for her dad's reaction
"Oh sweetie, that's wonderful." Rick got up and hugged her. "I'm so glad you didn't choose to go to Princeton."
"Rick, that's not a very nice thing to say." Kate pretended to be mad but really she was glad that Alexis was staying closer to home, she felt like the daughter she never had. Hopefully one day she would feel the same way, Kate knew that Rick was going to ask to marry her someday. She hoped that wouldn't be too far away as well. For now she just had to wait it out.
Rick looked over to Kate; she had a smile on her face. Rick knew that Kate cared for Alexis as if she was her own. He was going to ask her to marry him someday; he knew that she knew that he was going to. Little did she know it was going to be very soon.