Chapter 1

They walk out of the theatre arm in arm, and Beckett turns them down the sidewalk instead of across the street to her car.

"It's nice out, you mind getting a little air?" She asks.

"Not at all. A light stroll is just what the doctor ordered to walk off some of those calories from all that popcorn I ate." Castle replies, rubbing his stomach. "I'm pretty sure I'm going to die in the very near future, so you should probably sayyour last goodbyes now."

"Quit your whining Castle. I could eat more popcorn than that when I was eight." She gives him a little push and laughs out loud when he falls off the curb and stumbles a few steps before catching himself on a parked cab.

He cringes and waits for the tirade to start, but is happy to notice that the 'off duty' sign is lit, and the cabbie is absent for the moment. About the same time he realizes that he's not going to get berated by a crazy cab driver, he notices Beckett standing on the sidewalk looking at him with one side of her mouth turned up in a half smile at him.

"You want to share your humor with the class Detective?" He asks as he crosses his arms and tries to put on his best stern look.

"Just you." Beckett replies and starts walking down the sidewalk again.

"Hey! What does that mean?" He calls out, and then rushes to catch up with her again.

"You're like a giant five year old Castle!" She tells him, but there's a smile on her face, so it's obvious she may not think his antics are all bad.

When he catches up to her, Castle starts to continue the teasing, but he sees that Beckett has a slightly serious on her face, so he just puts his hands in his pockets and walks quietly beside her. After a couple of blocks, Beckett looks over at him, and seems surprised to see him walking beside her.

"Penny for your thoughts Detective?" He asks.

She started to give him the standard brush off, but after seeing the look on his face, she shuts her mouth without giving him the usual line. They walked another half of a block in silence before she spoke. "Thanks for coming with me tonight Rick."

Castle stopped mid-step and just stared at Beckett with his mouth open. She had just called him by his first name, which she very rarely did, at least not in that soft tone. Most of the other times she'd called him Rick, it had been because he'd not stayed in the car, or because she'd caught him daydreaming instead of paying attention at a crucial moment. He figured it was because by addressing him by his last name, she was grouping him in with the rest of the cops, and that doing that kept it less personal for her. He knew she was fiercely protective of her thoughts and feelings, and though he felt something much more than work-related comradery towards her, he wasn't sure how she felt about him.

So instead of making a big deal out of it, because he didn't want to scare her away, he simply said, "You're welcome. I had a great time."

"Me too." Beckett told him with a smile on her face, and he could see the relief in her eyes when she realized that he wasn't going to comment on her using his first name.

"Hey, look where we are." He said, pointing across the street.

Kate followed the direction Rick was pointing and saw the awning for The Old Haunt. The dark green fabric stood out in the twilight, and she turned back to him, raising one eyebrow. "So?"

"So? What do you mean, so? This is a sign detective." Rick said, and held out his hand as he stepped off the curb. "Will you please allow me to buy you a drink?"

Again, Kate started to say no, but she couldn't seem to resist the pleading look in Castle's eyes and his outstretched hand. Instead of replying, she just nodded and took his hand, allowing him to pull her across the street and in to the bar that he'd bought after one of their recent cases.

As they stepped through the door, Castle still held onto her hand as he greeted the bartender. "Hey there Justin. How's it going tonight?"

"Hi, Mr. Castle! All's well as usual."

"Justin, please. I've told you a hundred times to call me Rick."

The younger bartender beamed at Castle. "I know, sir. I just can't bring myself to do it though."

Castle smiled back at him, and led Beckett to a booth in the corner, away from the other people in the bar. He took pride in the fact that finding a spot at this time of night would normally be a bit dicey, but it was a weeknight, and the bar wasn't as full as it would have been closer to the weekend. A pretty brunette waitress met them at the table a few seconds after they'd sat down.

"What can I get you two to drink tonight?"

"I'll have my usual Marissa." Castle told her, and turned to Beckett.

"I'll have a vodka cherry sour please." Kate said, and tried to hide her curiosity about Castle's 'usual' drink as she looked around the bar.

She could see that the place was much the same as she remembered it, but she could see Castle's influence in the new blinds at the windows and the lights that weren't quite as dim as before. She was glad to see that the small changes hadn't done anything to take away from the character of the bar though. She turned back to face Castle after her short perusal of her surroundings and found him watching her with a small smirk on his face.

"What?" She asked, a little more defensively than she intended to. He'd caught her off guard as usual.

"Oh nothing Detective." He replied, and his smirk turned into a shy smile. "I take it you approve of the little bit of redecorating I've done?"

Beckett bit her bottom lip, embarrassed that he'd known what she was doing. "Yes, I do."

"Good. I did want to make a few changes, but I didn't want the place to be unrecognizable to everyone that had been coming here on a regular basis."

"You did a good job Castle. The changes are there, but they're subtle enough that only those regulars will probably notice them."

Their exchange had been fairly short, but the waitress was already back with their drinks. "Your vodka cherry sour," She sat Beckett's drink in front of her. "And yourGlenfiddich, neat, Mr. Castle."

"Thank you Marissa." Rick told her, and looked back to Beckett to see that her eyebrow was up again. "Yes, Detective?"

Kate bit her bottom lip. Again. Why was he getting to her so much tonight? She felt something had shifted between them, but she wasn't sure what it was. "Nuh… Nothing." She stuttered a little.

It was Castle's turn to be embarrassed now. He had sensed that he had her off her guard a little tonight, but wasn't completely sure until just now. There was something different about her this evening, but he couldn't put his finger on it. Instead of pushing the situation into an awkward one, he steered them away from the uncomfortable with a safe conversation topic.

"That was one heck of a case, wasn't it? I really wasn't expecting it to end that way."

"Castle, I hardly ever expect them to end the way that they do." Beckett admitted, shaking her head. "I've been a cop for quite a while now, but almost every case surprises me when I go back and think about them. Some of the things that people do to each other…."

Proud of himself for leading Beckett back to something he knew she would be comfortable talking about, he let her take the reins, and just enjoyed the light shop talk with her.