Disclaimer: seriosuly, do we really have to do it? Because, Jeez, if I'd own them, I'd not be here writing it, I'd be the writeer of a TV Shows and, well, we'd have kaskett for real.

a/n- inspired by that (in)famous image that I've takne hold of while surfing the internet, it should be 13X3... but it could hav ehappened any time, really.

It wasn't like they had planned it. Or, at least, Kate hadn't planned it, because there was no way she had planned to… to end the world as she knew it. Not on purpose, at least, of that much she was aware of.

But of her subconscious, she couldn't say the same. That was another fact she knew for sure.

Because, in the last six months, after what had almost happened between them, what she had almost said yes to, what she had almost confessed to the man…. She wasn't sure any longer that her mind wasn't playing games (dirty little games, Castle style little dirty games) on her.

They had been great, recently. Ok, maybe just a little… better, less awkward, at least. After all, Richard knew she knew of his feelings and Kate... Well, she knew he had, sort of, feelings, for her, but wasn't going to act on them.

Why? Well, there were many reasons… first, at the time, she was dating another guy. Then he was dating Gina again (and he was still with Gina). Then she was dating another guy (she was still dating said guy). Then he couldn't break his "engagement" of whatever he had going on with Gina because not only she was his girlfriend, but his publisher as well, and he couldn't even dare to think about the repercussions on him (and his family, mostly- Alexis was dreaming of Princeton since she was a kid, and a work-less father wasn't exactly the best way to put money aside to be able to make it there).

But, maybe, deep, deep, down, the only reason he didn't insisted on her joining him, naked, in his home, on that summer days, was that he was scared, that they were both scared, of losing it, what they had going on between them, what they had fought so hard to build. It had took them a long time to build a trust "relationship", it had took them long enough to overcome their issues. They were each other's best friends, each other's confident, she was the woman Alexis used to go to when she had issues, whatever they were, the one he went to when he had issues with Alexis, whatever they were. She was the one who he went to when he needed inspiration, was stuck on something. He was her fresh point of view on cases, sometimes too fresh even for her own taste and his own good. He was the one that made her smile, even when she didn't feel like to.

They were soul mates, and everybody knew it, them as well. But, they were coworkers as well. And they made a hell of a team.

And Kate didn't want to risk it, so she put every emotion she felt for the annoying shadow aside, doing her best to forget them, to forget of him in that way, living her life, dating, getting serious with other guys…. And, for a while, it worked.

And Rick didn't want to risk losing that friendship, and the amazing way they solved cases together. He didn't want to lose his confident, and his daughter's, so he came back to Gina, he started living as he used to before meeting her , he came back being his old womanizer self, self-centered idiot… and for a while, it worked.

For a while, it worked, until that "little something" that, as Kate said, ended the worked as they knew it, or, as Rick had commented, "merely" rocked their own world.

Neither of them had planned for it to happen, too lost in the land of denial and of emotional masochism (because, how would you call dating someone you aren't in love with, when you could perfectly be with the only person that you love and loves you back?) to even dare to think about making it happen, but, still…

Still, they had been after a man called Robert Storm; still, they were "undercover" looking for him. Still, Storm had seen the, and, still, the only thing Kate could think of in order to avoid being seen was grabbing Rick for the collar of his shirt, pushing him against the wall of the alley, put her hands around his face and kiss him.

She counted on distracting Storm. She didn't count on Rick being turned on by the kiss in an unbelievable way (if it could help her feeling better, he didn't as well) and turning down the tables. She wasn't waiting for him to grab her for the shoulders, and push her against the wall he had had his back against until few moments before. She didn't count on Rick exploring her mouth with his lips and his tongue and her body with his wandering hands. She wasn't counting on giving and receiving something more than a mere peck on the lips.

Mostly, she wasn't counting on parting with erratic (but somehow synchronized) breathings and heartbeats, looking into each other's eyes and see… what was she seeing, exactly? She couldn't say, because he was saying so much with his own eyes. His magnificent blue eyes were telling a story about lust, passion, love, respect, devotion, want and need, about wasted time and want and need to reach a point he felt he had waited to reach for his entire life.

And, if they way he was looking at her, tracing her lips with his right index, with a small smile in his eyes and on his lips was signal of something, it meant that her own orbs were telling pretty much the same story.

There was no turning back now. Now they have a slice of heaven, a taste of what it may have been between them, seen the possibilities, and started to actual dream of thousands of possible scenarios, all in the time of a single, passionate, lust-filled, passion driven kiss.

There was no turning back, and, probably, they didn't even wanted to come back in the first place, not after wasted 3 damn years of their lives in denial, far away from each other…

No, they really didn't want to come back, they both realized as they shyly smiled at each other, Rick putting a brown lock of her hair behind the right ear.

"Don't look, but, Beckett, I think Storm is looking our way…"

As he got closer and closer again, as his lips went again on her owns, this time tenderly and sensually and slowly, Kate knew that, had she looked, she'd not seen Storm.

And she didn't care.