"Are you serious, Castle?" She crossed her arms across her chest, and gave him her most disapproving look, hoping to make his request sound so ridiculous, he would backtrack and play it off as a joke. She knew him well enough to know it was a possibility. Part of her depended on that, the other part, the much bigger part, was insanely curious about what she could learn about the writer. Things that were not general knowledge, things that could not be learned by reading the Daily Ledger.

"Are you scared, Detective Beckett?" He noticed her fidget slightly, and bring her hand up to play with the chain around her neck. She only did this when she was contemplating something, weighing the pros and cons of her actions. She saw him notice, and she crossed her arms in front of her again. He leaned forward a bit. "Are you hiding something? Something juicy?"

She raised her eyebrows at him. "Seriously? Truth or Dare? What are we? Twelve?"

"I've been accused of worse. Come on, it's Prom Night. Channel your inner teenager."

"It's Alexis' prom night. I am going to be working all weekend, so for me, it's just another school night."

"Come on. Where is your sense of adventure?"

"Adventure? You consider adventure hanging around your apartment on a Saturday night playing Truth or Dare?

Her evaluation made him pause for a minute and realize she was right. This was definitely not his usual entertainment for a Saturday night. He was puzzled that he couldn't remember being more intrigued by his Saturday night activities in a long while.

She interrupted his thoughts. "The only people who play Truth or Dare are adolescence who are to insecure to actually ask somebody to kiss them. I'm not going to kiss you, Castle, so there is no need for the pretense." She returned his gesture, leaning even closer to him, looked him in the eyes boldly, and grinned.

He was speechless a moment, and then coughed nervously. "Fair enough." He moved into the living room, leaning back comfortably into the sofa. He put his feet up on the table, and brought his arms up, locking his fingers together behind his head. He gestured to the wide expanse of open sofa near him. "You agreed to come here tonight, and help keep my mind off of things."

She leaned against the arm of the sofa, ignoring his silent invitation. "You need to get over it. If Alexis wants to have sex, she's going to find a way to do it. Prom is not the only opportunity. Girls that age aren't as naive as boys like to think, unless they want to be. Alexis is a smart kid. She's not going to do anything stupid. And what do you mean I agreed? I lost a bet."

"Which I am going to hold you to. I really thought you would be better at this, but this is not helping. Regardless of you not buying into the whole prom night myth, I still need some kind of distraction. Since the premise of Truth or Dare seems to offend you, let's just play Truth, hold the childish dares." She seemed skeptical, but rolled her eyes, and told him to go on. "Just truth. I ask a question. You ask a question. Only truthful answers. Very adult-like. Just conversation. No me tricking you into kissing me, which, by the way, was a wild assumption on your part. I could have suggested Spin The Bottle."

She couldn't help but smile. "It was purely hypothetical."

"Right."

"Whatever, Castle. How do we know the other is being truthful?"

He grinned at her, and raised an eyebrow, tilting his head toward the empty seat again. "It's just a game. What would be the point of not being truthful?"

"Embarrassment, humiliation, . . . " She rolled her eyes.

"Point taken." He drifted off in thought for a moment. "OK. How about this? We each get three 'bullshits'. We think somebody is not being real, we call 'bullshit', and make a phone call for verification."

Kate laughed, genuinely amused by his creativity. "Call whom?"

"Somebody who will verify the story . . . my mother, Alexis, Lanie, your father . . . "

She finally gave in, and took a seat on the opposite end of the sofa, facing him and sitting cross-legged. She pulled a pillow on to her lap, knowing she was going to regret it eventually. She shrugged. "OK."

"Really?" The surprise on his face was evident. "OK. Me first. Ready?"

"As I'll ever be."

"Where did you have your first sexual experience?" He considered starting with some mundane topic that he really didn't care about, but quickly threw out that idea, and went straight for the good stuff, stuff that really didn't come up in everyday conversation.

Already regretting her decision to play along, she just smirked, and shook her head. "I'm not going to answer that."

"What a surprise. I knew you wouldn't do this." He sneaked a look at her, seeing if she would buy into his challenge.

She knew he was baiting her. She could play things his way. "Fine. If you really want to know, it was in the back of an old Chevy Suburban off an old back road out of the city. It was early spring. It was freezing out, and the Suburban was missing the back window. I was a Sophomore and he was a Senior. We slipped out of Prom early so I could be home by curfew." She watched his eyes go wide, and the blood drain from his face. She tried, but she couldn't keep a straight face.

"Bullshit." She couldn't help but laugh at the look of panic that was slowly receding from his features. "That was cruel."

"I'm sorry. I couldn't resist." She looked at him seriously. "I didn't make up the part about the Suburban and the missing window and the wooded road. It was actually January though, New Years Eve, and I was eighteen, a senior."

"Classy guy." He was the one smirking at her with disapproval now. Did she not just tell him that girls didn't always fall for that kind of thing? He was beginning to wonder if this game, and this night, was such a good idea.

"Privacy was not easy to come by with my parents. If you really want to know, it was actually very romantic, until we fell asleep with the truck running, for heat, and ran out of gas. We had to walk a mile to a gas station, and then back to the truck. He finally dropped me off at five in the morning. My father was talking to our doorman when we pulled up in the giant truck with a mattress and blankets practically hanging out of the open back window, wrinkly clothes, morning hair . . ." She smiled to herself at the memory that always made her want to give her father a hug. "I thought he would freak out, but when we went inside, he just asked me three things. Do you love him? Did he treat you with respect? Were you being safe? Here it is more than a dozen years later, and I still think about those questions every time." She realized that she probably gave him more information than he asked for, and looked away shyly.

He couldn't help but feel a wave of respect and emotion wash over him. She lived her life in a way he could only hope Alexis would choose. "Your father sounds like a wise man."

"He doesn't want anything more than what you want for Alexis."

The embarrassment was not lost on him. It was a huge revelation, and he knew that she realized it, and felt awkward because of it. She had set the tone of the game, and he was apprehensive, and impatient, about where things would go from here.

She recognized his expression, the one he wears when he is around Alexis, or thinking about Alexis, and decided it was time for her to hold up her end of the deal, and steer the conversation to something that wouldn't make him think about his sixteen year old daughter coming home from the prom in wrinkled clothes and morning hair. "OK. I guess it's my turn to ask a question."

He shook off the emotions that he knew he always wore on his sleeve, and decided he would need to revisit this subject again soon. "Shoot."

"What were your first thoughts when you found out you were going to be a father?"

She surprised him again with her willingness to participate, but he recovered quickly, and answered the question. "I still felt like a kid myself. I was an immature twenty two . . . I know what you are thinking. Don't say it."

"I wasn't going to." She stifled a grin.

"Anyway, my first reaction was -- 'Oh, shit. No way. We used a condom. Didn't we?'. That is the cleaned up version anyway. It wasn't until several, several weeks later I faced reality. I remember seeing the thing on the screen that actually looked like a real baby, and I felt like I had been hit by a Mac truck. The truly frightening reality came months later, when I realized, out of the two of us, I was the mature one in our situation." A small smile graced her lips, as he finished. "My turn." He paused just long enough for her to look up at him. "How do you feel about having a child of your own some day?"

It was his turn to surprise her this time. It's not like she had never thought about it. It was just something she never discussed, with anyone. "I always pictured myself with kids at some point." She didn't look away, wanting to see his reaction. She always felt guilty about wanting a baby. In her line of work, she should not have someone depending on her. She desperately wanted him to not call her on the selfishness of what she wanted. His face was unreadable, so she went on. "I don't know if it is more selfish that I would consider having a baby, doing what I do, and the risks that come with it, or, if it is more selfish to not have a baby because I don't want to give up my job. Either way, I don't see the issue coming up any time soon." He didn't say anything right away. She looked down, letting her hair fall over her face, hiding the disappointment of not getting the approval she desperately wanted.

"You would be an excellent mother. I've seen you with kids. Being a parent is something you shouldn't miss out on. You have given so much to your work. If you want a baby, it should be one of those non-negotiable splurges, like those killer shoes that really are not in your budget, but would make you feel so much better as a person."

She couldn't help but laugh at him. "Did you just say 'killer shoes'? You spend way too much time with women."

"I did, and I also compared buying shoes to having a baby. I keep telling them that all the feminine products in my house is stunting my production of testosterone." He moved closer, and nudged her with his shoulder. "All kidding aside, you have to follow your heart on that one. If you don't, it could be one of your biggest regrets."

She had to think about her next question. She felt how personal their questions were getting, and she paused before going on. She finally decided it was all just part of the game. What could it hurt? "Have you ever been with a woman that you would have considered starting a family with?"

"I've been married twice. I guess I don't understand the question."

"You seemed to have stumbled into your relationship with Meredith. Have you been with anyone that you would have wanted the whole thing with -- dating, marriage, kids, grand kids?"

"Are you asking if I have ever been in love, Detective Beckett?" She only raised her eyebrows at him. He turned to her, amusement coloring his face, excentuating the laughlines around his eyes. "I have never been inclined to get down on one knee and profess my love to anyone from my past."

"That's odd, considering you have been married twice."

"Like you said, I've kind of stumbled into my previous marriages. I've never had it exactly the way you described."

He looked sincere, but she knew he was not being truthful. "Bullshit."

"What? No. I'm being honest." He looked baffled at her challenge.

"What about Kyra?"

"Kyra was in college. I thought that was it, that I loved her, but I never would have considered marriage and a family at that point. Have you ever been in love?"

She paused again. Asking the questions was so much easier than answering them. "That is such a hard question. There are times I've thought I was in love. I turned out to be wrong. It ended up being something much less. I think if you have invested enough of yourself, it's easy to convince yourself it could be the real thing. It always seems like love, until you look at it in hindsight."

.

A/N:

Yes..... How To Lose A Guy In Ten Days inspired the 'bullshit' idea. They play that movie way too much on Directv.

More to come. There will be a few more questions, a little bit of light smut, and a little drama. This thing is mostly finished, so I will be posting frequently. A while back, I posted a Bones fic with an update-a-day. I got a lot of love for that. Maybe I'll make that my goal. . .