Hello Caskett lovers! So we're doing a little time traveling with this story, as it takes place simultaneously to 'Angel Undercover' ! Hope you guys like the twists that lie ahead! Enjoy!

It had been a hell of a day, Beckett thought, unfastening her earrings and dropping them into the glass dish shaped like a palm tree on the bureau. She'd expected a break or a link, even a nudge on the choke-and-stab murder cases but all of that had been overshadowed by the gigantic roundhouse kick Lanie had delivered to them at the morgue. And wasn't she a crafty little fox, shuffling her sonogram pictures in with the evidence they were looking at and then admitting the development foetus' home was her body.

She hadn't known what to think at first. She'd suspected it when her friend had blown her wad on scene - in the years they'd worked together, Beckett had never seen her so much as cough or gag when they had a body dump; Lanie was well known for her cast-iron stomach. Ryan, of course, had known; after all he was the first one of their circle of friends to go through the baby thing like this and had probably recognized the signs similar to when his own sweet Honey-Milk had been unknowingly knocked up. Though Beckett felt a slight twinge of jealousy her best friend hadn't come to her, she understood why Ryan had been Lanie's confidante. His baby had been a surprise too, and now it was impossible to imagine him without his snaps of his little boy on his desk, already fifteen months old and jabbering away like Castle on a sugar high.

Looking over her shoulder, she watched as Castle came in from the ensuite bathroom, patting his mouth dry on the morning's shower towel. He'd already changed out of his suit from the impromptu baby-celebration dinner he'd thrown together in a few hours for Lanie, making Beckett bite her lip. Though he always looked sharp when he was duded-out in one of his expensive Italian numbers, she loved him most like this - barefoot in his sleep-pants and a loose-fitting t-shirt. Maybe it was because when he was on the job with her in his Armani or Tessori day-wear he was Castle, adversary annoyance and undercover sage, but here at home together, pillow-talk and maybe more imminent, in his cheap sweats and tees he was her boyfriend Rich. Never Rick or Ricky, always Rich, right from the first time they'd been together two years before.

'Quite the day we've, had, huh?' she asked, him, watching him flop face first into their bed.

'And then some. Perhaps Ryan's just always gotten really bad hands.'

'The who now?' she asked, pulling a Mets shirt over her head before joining him.

'He's the last person I'd have expected to sit on an egg this big for the last how many weeks without so much as a blink.' He reached out his hand, squeezed her calf as she stretched out her long legs. 'Remember when we had the double down bet? He was gloating like a snotty little kid who got the best toys in the sandbox.'

'That's different, Rich. That's work, and him and his other half wanting to beat your ass at your own game.'

'They are a matching set, aren't they? Kinda like salt and pepper.'

'Peanut butter and jam.'

'Nachos and salsa.'

'Sex and candy. I could go for some right now, even.'

Beckett's hands paused midway through her hair. 'Seriously? That's your move to get me in the mood?'

'I meant candy but sex is good too.'

Grabbing her around the waist, Castle twisted so she was pinned beneath him. It still amazed him, even after two years together, that they'd stuck with each other. He was so certain and so scared she'd try to shake him loose, and here they were, living together with Alexis calling them Caskett. Beckett had originally thought that a little twisted and dark, until she remembered she made her living standing for the dead and he made his living writing for the bloodthirsty hoards who relished a good murder when it wasn't real.

It had taken some cajoling and multiple attempts but he'd finally gotten her to move in with her, which Alexis had been both thrilled and a little embarrassed by, because she knew what would happen beyond their bedroom door. But like any teenager going off to college, tuned it out with her headphones and acted like nothing happened the next morning. Beckett and Alexis had even begun to have their own girls' nights when Castle had to work late, dinner or a movie or even one time, renting motorbikes for an afternoon on a day at the race-track. That one had given Castle pause but when he'd seen how happy they were spending that female quality time together, he'd bitterly swallowed all those instinctive daddy-things to say and just let her enjoy the moment without his cloudiness.

And when they'd seen Alexis off at the end of summer back to England for school, he'd watched as both had sniffled a little when the redhead had passed through the security gate, then dab her eyes with a tissue in the cab home. Any woman who treated his princess like that wasn't just in it for the fun.

He kissed her cheek and as she turned her head so her throat was exposed to him, his for the taking, Castle studied her profile in the low light. Strong bones and he was certain there had to be some Eastern European in her blood, possibly her mother's side. Strong bones for a strong woman, he thought. His woman.

'Kate,' he said, tracing the tip of his index finger over her collar-bone. 'I want you to marry me.'

There was little that surprised homicide veteran cop Katherine Louise Beckett, but this one fairly did it.

'Excuse me?'

'I want you to marry me,' he repeated.

'Rich, isn't that a little sudden?'

'I don't think so. I knew the first night we spent together I'd ask you, it was just a matter of time.' Hoping he could seal the deal by proving he wasn't kidding around, he reached into his bedside table, the one where he knew she wouldn't look because she assumed he kept his dirty magazines there, he pulled out the little blue leather jeweler's box. He opened it, showed it to her. 'This was my grandmother's, my mother's mother's ring. She wanted my mother to have it but my mother didn't want to use it and I never asked for it because I want it to be for the right one.'

Stunned, overwhelmed, Beckett propped herself to her elbows. 'I'm not wearing some cupcake snow-beast dress, and I'm sure as hell not going to be called Detective Castle.'

'Is that a yes?' Castle's heart knocked against his chest in excitement. His throat slammed shut when she held out her hand and nodded.

'Yes.'

Beckett bit her lip to hold back the tears that had sprung to her eyes as she felt the band slide over her finger, admired the gold band fitting loosely around it. 'We'll need to get it sized.'

'Oh yeah, my gran had hands like Christmas hams.' Castle slipped it off, put it in the box for safe-keeping. 'Or if you like, we can hold onto it until the wedding itself.'

'No, no. I'll wear your ring, Castle.'

She didn't have time to get sniffly, for the moment he'd set the little box aside, he'd tackled her back to the bed.

'Now,' he said, 'we get to the good stuff to celebrate.'

R&R&Enjoy.