Sophia.

At the time, sometime after Meredith and before Gina - he could remember Alexis coming up to about few inches below his hip, so, maybe four years oldish? - at the time, he had been mystified by her. Entranced, too, of course. He was easily entranced by a beautiful woman who acted like an adult. Rick was pretending to be one himself in those days, so when they talked about themselves - not very much, he realized now - he minimized the chaotic childhood and dwelt on the responsible parent. An impression easily reinforced by his need to get home in time for Alexis's bedtime most nights.

Most nights.

Rick raised his eyes from the glass in front of him. Not the first glass of the evening. The team, as Rick thought of them, were debriefing as much as they could under the circumstances. Beckett had shown them her car, which now had a few tasty gadgets the NYPD would never have paid for. Rick had asked if it had rockets or a cloaking device, but she said he'd have to wait and see. Ryan had left for home. Javi and Lanie sat across from him (it was a round table in a quiet corner). Beckett was powdering her nose, and in her momentary absence, Esposito asked the difficult question. "What was with you and the spy?"

That was something not classified, anyway. When Rick had time alone with the ex-Marine he knew he would spill the whole story, but both Lanie and Beckett had a distressing by-the-book tendency that inhibited reasonable need-to-know gossip. And it was a bar, not a secure location one bit.

"I wanted to write that kind of thriller, and I needed something more recent than rereading LeCarr . So I decided to ask at the agency, like a normal person. I'd had a couple books published already, so they took me seriously, and they wanted people to like them, so they gave me... this beautiful woman. I shadowed her for a couple of days while she did unclassified stuff. Computer work, like you do. Following the money."

"That can't have been very interesting," Lanie commented.

"It wasn't, but that was the point. I mean, you guys have spoiled me, bodies around every corner -"

"Hey, New York is safer now than it's been in years -" Javi loved his city; Rick nodded at him.

"This was way before 911, you know, and it wasn't all that safe. But CIA has always been quieter, checking out the credentials of businessmen, the trainers on international basketball teams..." Rick shook his head. "It was dull, but that was okay. I write fiction, and I think the general air of... implausibility some critics found in Derrick Storm - stop laughing - reassured them."

"So how did you become an item?" Lanie asked.

"I don't know if we were ever an item, Page 6 wasn't interested in me then and she was-"

"You know that's not what I meant."

"Well. After the first book came out, and her office was okay with it, I took her to dinner a couple of times, and we kept in touch. I'd known her about a year, well into the next book -"

"Is that how you keep count?" Beckett asked, sitting down at the table. The atmosphere changed. Rick could see his current muse was still not happy.

"Yes, actually. I can remember what was going on in my life when I look at certain scenes. Anyway, she was having setbacks at work, arguments with colleagues - now I wonder whether she was with us or against us. She never seemed like an enemy national."

"That was the point," Lanie said. "I know you're feeling surprised -"

"UNDERSTATEMENT-"

"But the people she worked with must be in worse shape."

"Very true," Rick agreed. "The Spy Who Loved Me, she never was. I never was, either, but we had a few wonderful weekends. Don't look at me like that," he said to Beckett.

"I was not looking at you Like That."

All three of them forbore to tell Kate she certainly was.

'Let's say, for the record, we know you were both consenting adults," said Lanie.

"We were. Once she used me for an undercover mission - SHUT UP! I meant she wanted to be at a resort watching a guy, and she invited me along for camouflage. It was fun. "
"I can't imagine you helping anyone maintain a low profile," Beckett said.

"I was a lot poorer then. And besides, being with a buffoon made her harder to suspect . She spent most of the night there on the phone." He shrugged. "And the rest of night was very pleasant. I liked her a lot, but she was always clear that was as far as it was going. Don't blame me for being attracted to competent women." Rick batted his eyelids at Lanie, who smiled.

"That's not what she told me," Beckett said. It sounded like it took her some effort. "She said things about 'longing.' And how after a lot of longing, you - did something about it, and then it was never the same."

Rick blinked. "News to me," he said. "'Longing,' on her part?"

Beckett shrugged. "She just said 'longing.' As though it had been mutual."

Rick looked her full in the face, and she looked back. Big improvement over earlier, when either the excitement after the takedown or her irritation over not being able to talk about it had left him feeling uneasy. "Beckett, I am... familiar with longing, and it's not a word I'd ever use about her and me."

"Really."

"Really, yes." She knew his tells. He hoped she could recognize his truth.

After a moment Beckett sipped at her drink. "Then I guess she lied to me."

"She was lying to everyone else, why not?" asked Lanie.

"Nice chance to mess with the good guys' heads," agreed Javier. "She already had your case, why not your-"

"My what?"

"Your goat," Javi said quickly. "She could get it. You muses are all about competition, everyone knows that."

Lanie regarded him dubiously. "And you'd know that how?"

"I read Muse Weekly at the gym all the time. The down'n'dirty on everybody's inspiration, who's up, who's off, who's dating a vampire. I'm not just a Guns and Ammo guy."

They laughed. "You have to show me that sometime," Rick said.

"Why, are you in the market?"

"Only if Beckett fires me," Rick answered.

"Not today," Kate told them. "I should go home, things to do tomorrow."

"You could take a day off," Lanie said. "As your medical advisor -"

"I am taking the day off," Kate said. "But I have non-work things to do."

Like going to visit Dr. Kovalic, her remarkably handsome almost certainly gay therapist. Not that it mattered, therapists being off-limits and Kate not being in the market. It was relaxing not to have to flirt or be flirted with.

"You nearly drowned?"

"Somebody pushed my car into the Hudson River, while Castle and I were in it."

"Kate, I see a lot of cops, and you're not anywhere near the stupidest, but you've had more near-death experiences in the last year or so than the rest of them put together."

"I know. And from now on, I'm keeping a crowbar in the front seat." And maybe a razor blade.

"It's damned hard to try to help you with old trauma when you keep making new ones."

"I got out!"

"And Castle?"

"Of course. He got the window broken and helped me with the seat belt. And held my hair while we threw up river water."

"It sounds like a close call."

"It was."

"And you're just fine with that?"

Kate thought about the other close call, the moment when she thought Sophia would shoot them both. Thought about Sophia falling to the floor instead. Jumping the would-be assassin was nothing in comparison.

"You have to talk about what you're thinking, Kate."

"Some of it's classified."

"Tell me what you can."

So she told him. "He wanted to kill that cute little kid. I can't believe it," she said when she was done. "I don't think Castle's dealt with that yet, or he'd have tried to strangle the shooter."

"Maybe Castle was dealing with his old lover trying to kill him and getting killed herself."

"He seems okay."

"To speak unprofessionally, you're all nuts," said her usually very staid therapist. "Or maybe professionally. You didn't like her. You feel guilty about being glad she's dead?'

Kate was used to this. Part of the process, it seemed, was the therapist saying the things that were absolutely unsayable. "I'm not actually glad; I'd have liked to see her interrogated. She was a bitch and she used me and my department to try to carry out her assassination, and I'm glad she won't be doing that anymore."

"And she's out of Castle's picture."

They had discussed Castle until Kate could hardly stand it, more than once. She wanted Kovalic to treat him the way she did: a quirky but useful member of her team. Kovalic wanted her to treat Castle the way her heart wanted to, or areas lower than that. "Esposito says muses are very jealous. "

"What do you say?"

"I think everyone's very jealous, actually. Remember how Castle was about that other writer?"

"So it's all about writers and their muses, not men and women?"

Kate decided not to answer that for awhile.

"So, what would you miss if you had died this time?" It was becoming a familiar question. Both of them laughed a little because Kate refused to scream. She knew Kovalic wished she would cry a little more often when he asked that.

"Spring in Central Park. The Nikki Heat movie, if it ever gets made."

"And what if you lived and Castle had drowned?"

Knife in her guts.

"I thought these sessions were about me."

"What would YOU miss if Castle had died, in same car?"

Alexis. And Castle's mother. Facing them.

"Not, 'who would you have to deal with if he died?' What would you miss?"

"A lot," Kate said finally.

"It's interesting. I'm seeing a lot of emotion about that, but nothing when you think about dying yourself."

"Well, I'd be dead, and believe me, that's got to be easier than surviving someone else."

"People die all the time. At least four people on this case alone. "

"And there's a lot of paperwork?"

"That's cold."

"They weren't people I worked with. If I care about people as a cop, I can't look at all of them the same way. No matter how much they are all children of God or whatever."

"No one, probably not even God, would expect you to. So how do you feel about Castle nearly dying this time? Were there things you wished you had said?" Silence.

"We were in the middle of a case," Kate said at last. "And now..."

"And now you have time." More silence. "Do you have reason to think he won't want to hear that you care about him so very much?"

Now, now, she tearing up. "No. Last week - the Tuesday -"

"Valentine's Day?"

"There was a heart in my espresso foam. He watched me look at it. I didn't say anything." She stopped talking.

Kovalic pushed the box of Kleenex across to her.

"I hate Valentine's Day," she said when she could talk again.

"It's a plot. We in the mental health field made it up to increase business. Do you want some water?"

Kate shook her head. "Is our time up for today yet?"

"Almost. Can you admit you wish you could say thank you for the 'clouds in your coffee'?"

"'I'm so vain'... Maybe. Yes. I could buy him a fancy latte, I guess."

"Kate, it's okay, it's perfectly normal to love someone you nearly die with. On a regular basis."

"I don't want it to just be 'We're alive, let's celebrate.'" It would be a start, she thought. If it wasn't right, we could both back out pretty gently. After a minute she came back to seeing her therapist watching her think. Annoying, but his job. She shrugged.

"Someone in a different line of work from you might not think that was such a small thing to celebrate."

Kate rolled her eyes at him and kovalic continued. "Think about what you do want. And try not to get almost killed again before our next appointment, please? It interferes with the therapeutic process and gives me agita."