Disclaimer: I do not own these characters-if I did I would have my own house in the Hamptons (you can find writing I do get paid for on Amazon, beginning with Wearing the Cape). The Hamptons-verse, Intermission 1., continues the AU story begun in The Long Holiday and continued in Summer Heat.

It was getting ridiculous how much she wanted to kiss Castle all the time. The least smile popped the dimple at the corner of his mouth, and her eyes would glue themselves to it until she had to scramble for her thoughts.

And he knew, which made her want to smack him. And kiss him and drag him into the janitorial closet for workplace lovin.' The lack of AC would make it an oven in this lingering summer heat, but it would be worth it to get under his button-down and…

"Beckett?"

"What?" She blinked.

"About the case!" Castle waved his hands, excited as a twelve-year old geeking over a new sci-fi show while she tried to focus on the paperwork. He and Alexis hadn't gone back to the Hamptons to finish the summer; they were both back in the loft, Castle back in his chair after sending off the finished draft of Naked Heat to Black Pawn. Kate was having fun giving him hell over the title—he carefully referred to it as "the book" where she could hear him. Alexis was filling the rest of her summer with an "informal internship" at the precinct.

"What about the case, Castle?" She was just unutterably glad it was done. Their real-estate mogul had had so many enemies that, with half a dozen leaky alibis and so little materiel evidence, she'd been afraid the case would remain unsolved. And the guy might have been an amoral bastard in his business, but he'd left a surprisingly devoted widow and an eleven-year old boy who thought he'd hung the Moon.

It was the boy's coming forward with a story, about his dad yelling on the phone the day before he'd died, that had clued them in that he'd had a second phone and gave them the lead that broke the case.

"It was like that movie, Clue!" Castle enthused. "Everybody wanted him dead, it was just a matter of who got to him first!" His eyes shown with whatever scene he was picturing, probably a line of suspects holding various instruments of murder standing over a body.

"I think it's sad, Dad." Castle straightened in his chair, looking chagrined; Alexis could move quietly, and now she stood by the board with a stack of case files in her hands.

Alexis spent her morning hours down in filing working on inputting old cases into the new crime-database, but she came upstairs periodically to talk to everyone and peek at the murder board. Her eyes shone with sympathy. "It's like he was two different people—the great husband and father and, and Gordon Gekko! Why did he have to be like that?"

"It's an inversion of situation ethics, Alexis," Kate said. "If getting rich is your Highest Good, then whatever you do to get there is morally permissible. But he didn't just want it for himself, he wanted it for his family. They mattered, even if he saw everyone else as an obstacle or opportunity. He might have even thought he was doing it for them."

"Oh." The girl still frowned but she nodded. "I guess that makes sense. I brought these cases for Ryan to classify."

"He just stepped out to bring us lunch. For you, too."

"Okay, I'll bring up another stack before he gets here." She dropped the pile on Kevin's desk and darted off. Kate smiled to watch her go, turned to find Castle staring at her in awe.

"An 'inversion of situation ethics?' 'Highest Good?' Beckett that is so hot."

She flushed but managed to scowl instead of laugh. "Shut up, Castle. Just because I paid attention in class instead of doodling stories…"

"I so want to kiss you by your locker right now."

"Castle!" The laugh burst forth with his name and she scanned the bullpen. Esposito was on the phone and nobody else looked close enough to have heard. "Stop it! You know the rules—"

"Right, no fraternization in-house." He actually looked smug about that.

After their near shootout in the alley last month—when she'd given him her backup gun again—Captain Montgomery had sat down and had a talk with them and with legal.

Having a civilian shadow a cop, even on the streets, wasn't unheard of; Jamison Rook wasn't a silly fabrication—"imbedded" reporters did it from time to time, and camera crews. But Castle had been shot at and nearly shot at too many times, and giving him her backup gun? Twice? Any IA review of their situation would conclude that Castle had gone far beyond the agreement he'd made; even with all the waivers he'd signed the department would be open to justifiable accusations of reckless endangerment if anything happened to him—and even more justifiable accusations if he shot somebody he shouldn't.

So Montgomery had grounded Castle to the precinct until they fixed the problem. First Kate had carried out her half-joking threat to get him certified to use a firearm. The department would not issue Castle a gun, but the whole team had done training sessions that focused on judging entries and surprises and moving him around as the "designated bystander." Castle had surprised everyone but Beckett by racking up an official shooting score higher than Ryan's, and he'd gotten good at following orders—especially "Stay here, Castle!", "Get down, Castle!", and "The car, Castle!"

Then they'd registered Richard E. Castle as an official Civilian Consultant. (A review of the already all-star homicide team's recent closing rates justified the hell out of it.)

Just thinking about it, Kate had to hide her smile. Castle had been proud enough to burst the day Montgomery gave him his own "badge." He'd gotten a little flip-front leather case for the NYPD ID card, and if Kate didn't introduce him as Richard Castle, Civilian Consultant, he had a coughing fit. But she remembered to say it most of the time; it was like he was living his dream and she enjoyed giving him that. And that it all made him safer was her own bonus; she'd had a few nightmares about that alley, where their back-to-back standoff didn't end as well.

Now her fingers itched to reach over and straighten his button-down's collar. She curled them around her still-warm coffee mug; the thought of jumping Castle made her hum, but appearances had to be maintained. "We can fraternize later, writer-boy," she teased. "After school." His eyes lit up and her own matching smile stretched her lips. Shit, she had it bad.

"Yeah?"

"Yeeeah. In fact—" Her phone rang. A body drop. "Espo, pick up Ryan and meet us there. Let's go, Castle."

Alexis came back to an empty bullpen. Nonplussed, she jumped when her cell vibrated and, quickly dumping the second stack on Detective Ryan's desk, she checked to see it was from Dad. Body-drop, you'll need to get your own lunch. Sorry pumpkin, xxxx.

She sighed, texted OK LVU, and put it away. Remy's sounded good—Dad would be jealous.

"Hello?" The tall thin man standing by the elevator was looking around in just the way Alexis had moments before. She gave him a smile when his eyes settled on her.

"Everyone got called away. Can I…" She stuttered to a stop. "You're Detective Beckett's father."

He smiled back. Stepping into the bullpen, he shifted the blazer he carried to free his hand. "I'm sure we haven't met."

Alexis accepted his handshake. "You look just like her—I mean—you look like her father."

He laughed, showing a smile that did nice things to a lean face only a little flushed from the heat of the baking streets. "Katie got my cheekbones and eyes. All the rest is her mother's. And you are? New York's Youngest?"

"Sorry! I'm Alexis Castle. I'm just interning here."

The older man's eyes sharpened. "Alexis? Richard Castle's little girl?"

"Yes, sir. Nepotism at its finest, right?"

"Only because of a hiring freeze," Captain Montgomery joked, appearing behind her. "How are you doing, Mister Beckett?"

"Jim, Roy, it's always Jim." They shook hands. "How are you?"

"Can't complain. I see you've met our newest recruit. We can't do without her."

Alexis blushed and Mr. Beckett smiled at her, a gentle twist of the lips mirroring Kate's. "I glad I have, Katie has told me a lot about you. She won't be back? I got out of a deposition early, thought I'd surprise my daughter for lunch."

"Sorry, Jim." Montgomery shook his head. "They got a call, a crime scene in the park."

Mr. Beckett's eyes darkened. "Ah, well I'll call her tonight then. Could you—"

"I'm going to lunch—" Alexis blurted, flushing when he raised an eyebrow like a councilor about to cross-examine. "I mean, I'm just going down the street to Remy's. Would you like to come?

She had to be insane. Certifiable. One second Mr. Beckett had been looking disappointed and the next she was asking if he'd like to share lunch. But lunch meant talking and now she was biting her tongue till it ached, trying not to blurt out My dad is dating your daughter!

And he was Asking Questions. So far she'd managed to spill that she was "interning" to keep her busy because she'd bailed on the Princeton summer-program and her dad still wasn't letting her out of his sight—or at least out of his zip-code. (Mr. Beckett had given her a fatherly frown that made her feel guilty all over again despite how her "running away" had turned out.) She was not telling him that she and Detective Ryan were using her work inputting the case files into the new crime database to quietly go over all the cases from Washington Heights that Johanna Beckett might have become involved in with her pro-bono work. Even Kate didn't want to hear about it until and unless they found something.

"How well do you know Captain Montgomery?" she asked in self-defense.

His eyes twinkled, but he let her get away with it. "Katie's always been with the 12th, even as a uniform. Roy made her something of a project. Pushed her." He stirred a fry in his ketchup, his smile turning a little sad. "In the years when I wasn't there for her… He stepped up. Became something of a father-figure. She needed one."

The twinkle didn't leave, but the shadow of regret made Alexis put down her burger and reach across the table without thinking. "I'm sure Kate— Detective Beckett—"

He put his hand over hers, gave it a light squeeze.

"Katie and I are good now. But I do worry. My little girl is so private—she was even when her mother was alive. Determined to be strong, independent, to work things out on her own. But that means she doesn't let others in very often. I'm glad she has you."

"Me?" It came out a squeak.

"You. She admires you tremendously. She talks about you all the time and says you keep your father in line."

"That's not— Okay, maybe a little. But only the little stuff, Dad's not a—"

Mr. Beckett was chuckling. "I'm teasing, Alexis. Katie speaks highly of Richard, too. Although last year she ranted a good deal about how her favorite author could be such a… Well, your father appears to have grown on her. Can you tell me how long he intends to continue shadowing my daughter?"

"Oh. I don't know?"

"I was just wondering. I've helped writers and journalists with details of civil law and court procedure before, and wondered just how much background detail a writer like your father needs to write his books. He seemed to have the details down in the first one."

He'd read Heat Wave.

Kate's dad had read Heat Wave. Of course he had, and Alexis flushed so hot she had to be as red as her hair. Oh god, he'd read Heat Wave. She'd been editing her dad's stuff for a while now and Derick Storm hadn't been a monk, but knowing that Rook was an author-insert of her dad she'd still been red-faced reading more than a few scenes. What it had been like for Mr. Beckett reading about Rook and Nikki?

"Mister Beckett, really…"

"I'm just a little concerned, I suppose. As I said, Kate's private but a few months back she did tell me she was seeing another detective. He sounded nice but she hasn't mentioned him lately and she does talk about Richard."

All she could do was nod helplessly.

Mr. Beckett's eyes wandered to his almost cleaned plate."Kate doesn't attach easily, either, but I know she likes Richard a great deal these days and so I'm a little concerned that, if he isn't staying around…"

"Dad and Kate are dating!" Alexis blurted.

"Are they now?" His look of fatherly worry slid back into sharp-eyed twinkling in a flash. "And for purposes of this deposition, you would define 'dating' as what, young lady?"

Busted. He'd gone fishing, and she'd so fallen for it. Alexis sank down in the booth, appetite gone. Dad and Kate are going to kill me.

Just a quick visit to the Hamptons-verse, a few weeks after the events of Summer Heat but before our next episode begins. Comments always welcome, hope everyone has been having a good summer.

M.