As an appetizer for this winter's Castle ficathon (and possibly inspiration for some contestants), I've taken a few AU prompts from tumblr and am making one-shots out of them. Happy writing everyone :)

Prompt 1: Partners in Crime

It apparently was one of those nights again. One of those nights where bad luck followed him wherever he went. First, the lockpick broke. Then, the alarm had only been seconds away when he finally disabled it. At least the owners were away so no one heard him curse in pain when he stubbed his toe at the table in the dark.

"Why am I doing this again?" he half-heartedly thought as he rifled through the nightstand. "Right. Greedy ex-wife." Why he ever thought marrying Gina was a good idea escaped his thoughts every time he dared to think about.

Now, Rick Castle was back from retirement, and quite grumpy about it. He wasn't old per say, but with the years, it became clear that the stage didn't belong to the gentlemanly thieves of the old school anymore. He had had a nice retirement fund and a spotless reputation among his colleagues, so he was more happy to take his hat and settle down with his daughter, away from the violence his business was known for nowadays.

All that hard-earned money was gone now, courtesy of one caustic con woman known to him as Gina Cowell. Which surely wasn't her real name.

Before he could gripe any further about his 'ex-wife' however, a shadow slipped through the milky moonlight. Great, now he had to add meeting another thief to the list of things gone badly today. He whipped his head around, but whoever was in here with him had already melted into the darkness again. A fleeting smile slid over his face. Oh, they were good. And they didn't bother to pull a pipe over his head, for which he was already indefinitely grateful. Maybe things would turn out not to be as bad as he thought.

He stood up to his full height and slowly turned to where he believed the other intruder. "I assume you're here for the same thing as I am. So, why don't you come out of the shadows, and we can work things out like gentlemen, which I hope you are too?"

A hot breath at his neck made him jump. "I don't think I'm the gentleman you're looking for, but I'm sure we can work something out, anyway," a very feminine voice whispered in his ear.

He snapped around and found himself face to face with… a shadow. His face that had been scrunched up in anticipation fell a little at that. Her silhouette only revealed a slender build and short hair, but little more. She laughed softly at his facial expression, "and what a beautiful laugh," he thought, and turned on a dim lamp on the nightstand. Castle drank in her features; her eyes, her nose… her lips… and back to the eyes. Had she been wearing heels, they would stand eye to eye; as she was wearing flat shoes, all it would take for him was to dip his head and…

"Bad brain!" he chastised himself as soon as his brain went there, but to no avail. He felt the heat rise up his neck, stopping just above his ears. She knew exactly what had been going on in his head, but to his surprise, she seemed more amused than anything else about it.

"I think it's a little early for these kinds of thoughts, Mr. Castle," she told him with a smirk.

"I assure you, that's not... wait, how do you know my name?" he asked her with his mouth hanging agape.

The mysterious woman rolled her eyes at his blatant try to cover up what had really gone on in his head. "Do you think Caine talks about anything other than his former star pupil retiring before him? It's really nagging the old man. He says, for all the trouble you've brought, you could have at least set up another date with your mother before vanishing," she told him with raised eyebrows.

A fond smile creeped up on Castle when he remembered the old man who had taken him under his wings all those years ago. "Puh-lease. As if I were ever crazy enough to do that. Do you know how weird it would be for my mother and my mentor to be together?" That elicited a laugh out of the woman in front of him, and for whatever reason, he wanted to do it again. "But say, I'm at a disadvantage here. I don't know your name."

Barely concealed mirth played around her eyes when she answered. "You can call me Kate."

Sooo... what do you think? :)