Thoughts

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Kate Beckett was one of the best cops in the city. Everyone knew it and respected her.

But not even with her superior detective skills, did she ever think that the best thing that ever happened to her would enter her life with the words, "Where would you like it?"

As she stood there in a room filled with people that she would never hope to hold a conversation with, she pulled out her badge in the usual formal protocol and asked Rick Castle for a few words about a murder that was a copy of his work. He looked between her and the badge, the pen now limp in his hand. He quickly got a cab for his mother and daughter making sure they were going to get home ok and tried to leave the room without alerting his publisher, which Kate had heard was his ex-wife.

Well, she could help but think as the two of them walked outside to the car, this was certain going to be an interesting interview. All she had to do was get through it with asking for an actual autograph.

Preferably on her pre-ordered copy of Storm Fall.

She's heard a lot of excuses over the years in the interrogation room but Castle's ones were at the top of the list.

Borrowing a police horse while naked because it was spring didn't really sit well with her. Especially when he offered for her to spank him.

She put it on the table for him. He was either the guy who made her life easier or the guy who made her life harder. He chose the first one and, neither of them knew it at the time but the advantage of this was that she never has to get her own coffee ever again.

Then he complemented her eyes.

This wasn't the first time that has happened but it's certainly the first time she's hesitated before continuing on.

When they started the copy-cat case Ryan and Esposito had to pore over Castle's books to find patterns. She teased them for not reading, they teased her for being a fan.

These days, more often than not, she has to yank Castle's latest book from their hands to get their attention.

Suddenly she's stuck with him.

The captain lets him help with the case and when Castle says it's to help the city he loves with that smug smile on his face, she wants to punch him.

Then they're sitting there looking over his fan mail and she calls him out on his there's always a story line.

He nailed her story in a matter of seconds. Disarmed her and looked over her walls like they were nothing.

But...he wasn't smug about it. When he saw he hit a nerve, he looked apologetic and didn't brag.

She remembers that part well.

Beckett suspected that Ryan and Esposito-and maybe the entire 12th precinct- is having way to much fun with all this then they should.

As Esposito said she was a control freak with something she couldn't control. More fun than Shark Week.

She told Castle that they had procedure, protocol. Well that went out the window the second he was aloud in the police station.

Even Lanie likes him.

She learned pretty quickly not to trust him when he said "Scout's Honour."

The man was never a scout.

She thought he was finished with the case.

That's why it was such a shock when she saw him sitting at her desk the next day, going through her files.

First he gave her an advanced copy of Storm Fall and signed it (her inner self was freaking out and preparing the bath and wine as they were speaking) and then he kissed her cheek (again her inner self was freaking out... and a little bit of her outer self).

Then she realised exactly what he had done and she took great pleasure in watching him be cuffed...even if he was right. When she met his mother and daughter, it scared her a little how much she liked them and watching the three of them walk away distracted her for a moment from her case.

Beckett wasn't sure what it was that made her invited Castle to the interrogation but she really didn't want to listen to it again because he kept interrupting her. Over and over.

And then the smug idiot noticed things that she herself had missed. But then later she caught a suspect lying so it balanced things out.

Castle was back on the case...except this time it was her that let him.

This time she handcuffed him to the car. Handcuffed him and he still got out.

Then he got a gun pointed at him and she was caught in a standoff.

The sight, of him in danger, she didn't like it. Images of his family, his friends and his smug slightly charming grin flashed through her mind and before she knew it, he had disarmed the suspect and asked her if she had seen it and would she put it in her report.

She pushed him, surprisingly angry at him but she blamed it on the adrenaline.

She didn't find out until later that he went home that night and started writing about Nikki Heat.

The next day, he was working with her. And nearly every day after that. He became part of the team, a part of the family.

And on late evenings, years later, when she's sitting on his sofa with a glass of wine and his new yet to be released book in her hands, she can see him in the kitchen preparing dinner for her. Martha is out at rehearsal, Alexis just called from college and she had the night off. She peaks over the top of the book to watch him add ingredients to the pot.

He's humming to himself and he catches her eye. And he smiles at her that same smile he gave her when she turned around and saw him standing in the doorway just after the captain told her she was his new muse.

She had walls around her for years and he had found a way through them. But then, if anything, Castle's personality just had 'bulldozer' stamped all over it.

Yet if you had told her that day that he would change everything in her life, from her heart to job, she would have laugh. So would anyone at her work place. Really though, when she thought about it, the 12th didn't stand a chance.

He told her that they would be great but in reality, they were indescribable.