A/N: I haven't posted anything in a really long time. I hope you still enjoy my story, it's been floating through my head for a while now.

cold lasagna

She always thought she liked it, wanted it exactly that way. Coming home to an quiet apartment after work, soak in the stillness, being on her own after spending hours in the noisy bullpen, interrogating suspect, chasing after criminals.

Seems like she was wrong.

Or maybe it's not the fact that she secretly wants to come home to a loud apartment, to dinner waiting for her. Maybe she just wants him and his family - the people who are providing her all those things since her apartment blew up just two weeks ago and she was forced to move in with Rick Castle. She was forced at first, after being up for too many hours to count, exhausted and thrown off the case and he took her in – after she rejected his offer at first, of course – and now she has to admit that she actually enjoys it. Enjoys it a lot. Likes it even.

He's being great, not at all what she expected in him when he helped her carry two duffel bags into his loft, allowing her to use his laundry machine to get at least rid of the dust and smell of smoke for some of her clothes. Most things, like dresses, work clothes and jackets she brought into dry cleaning. But when she woke up after the first night she found that he didn't just provide her a bed and the opportunity to wash her clothes – no he even washed them for her so she had something to wear in the morning.

Sweet man. That thought has been running through her mind a lot more lately and that scares her a little. He always had a way to weasel his way into her life, to see beneath the layers that protect her wounded heart, look deeper than most people. She finds that she minds less day by day, that she wants to tell him things, wants him to know things no one else knows.

She thought he'd be the super annoying roommate who wouldn't leave her alone and always crosses the line. Because he usually is just that person at work, invading her space, annoying the crap out of her most of the time. In his home thought, the one he so deliberately opened up to her without a heartbeat, he's not. Well, he is a little, because that is just who he is, but he also gives her space, doesn't hold it against her when she departs to what he claims as her room early in the evening, gives her the opportunity to spend time with him and his family but never demanding, never holding a grudge if she declines.

It's not that she declines often anyway, because she got used to having him, his crazy and loud mother and his calm and smart daughter around pretty fast. She never thought she'd like it but she's kind of dreading the day she has to move out.

She doesn't want to stay too long because even though it is fun, she needs her own apartment and he needs his loft back. They changed, they got so much closer over those past fourteen days, over all those hours spent together outside of work – laughing together over wine at dinner and coffee at breakfast. But she needs her own apartment. Even if she doesn't really want to leave.

That is why she enters the loft late on a Thursday with the key he gave her the first night over a cup of cocoa. (Just so you can come and go whenever you want, Beckett.) She had to spend a few extra hours at the precinct to do paperwork after her shift ended, because she spent all noon looking for apartments. They were all horrible. Horrible expensive or just horrible. Mostly the latter. Even in College she had a better apartment. Urgh, she hates apartment hunting. She got so lucky with the last one but well, that one is off the market now.

The loft still smells like the lasagna he cooked earlier that night and she realizes that she's almost disappointed that she had to work late and wasn't able to eat with him and his family. It's so easy to forget all the horrible things she sees every day with three people around her who keep on making her laugh whether she wants to or not.

She missed having a family around. It's been too long.

After she changes out of her work clothes and into something more comfortable – leggings and that old Stanford sweater that has holes on the shoulder – she goes back downstairs into the kitchen. She finds a piece of paper on the counter and even standing a few steps away she identifies his handwriting, her name written on top in neat letters.

Kate,

Dinner is in the microwave.

I'm writing, feel free to join me :)

Rick

PS: Seriously, I need some distraction.

She smiles at that. He is sweet and she likes that he keeps calling her Kate more often. She hears Beckett all the time, every day she's just Beckett to everyone, or Detective. But here at the loft she's Kate. He barely calls her Beckett in here and after three days his daughter finally stopped calling her Detective Beckett. She's Katherine to his mother and while she never particularly liked being called by her full name (she always associates it with trouble – Katherine Houghton Beckett, I know you've been seeing that boy I told you not to, again), but she doesn't mind that either.

She carries the plate with cold lasagna in one hand – she's too hungry to wait the three minutes it takes to heat up in the microwave – and a bottle of water in the other hand when she somehow manages to knock on his office door.

"Come in," she hears him say and his face lights up when she opens the door with her elbow just to shut it again with her foot.

He sits in front of his laptop, a text document open but she can't see any words, just a white paper-like screen.

"Nikki giving you trouble?" She asks with a smirks when she sits down in one of the leather chairs and he closes the laptop and gets up to sit next to her.

"Yeah, she always does," he jokes and she laughs quietly as she finally digs into her food. It's 9 pm and she hasn't had any food since lunch and even then she just had a sandwich to go in between two of the most horrible apartments she ever stepped a foot into. (And she's a cop, she has seen a lot of gruesome places.)

"Mmh, that's really good, Castle," she almost moans on the first bite and he chuckles at her, slightly shakes his head at the obviously cold food. She knows that he knows, it's not the first time in those past two weeks that she eats the food he left for her cold in his office or in the kitchen with him hovering close.

The first time it happened, barely two days after she moved in, he took the plate of rice with spicy red chicken curry out of her hands (after she had a couple of bites) and disposed it into the microwave for her. He tried again with spaghetti and his homemade tomato sauce a few days later but she kept on holding onto the plate. (Castle, I'm hungry, let me eat, I like it that way.)

"You want a glass of wine with that? Mother opened this nice red for dinner?" he asks and she just shakes her head, doesn't want to cause him any more trouble.

"You don't have to-," she starts but he already gets up, brushes her shoulder on his way past her. They do this now, innocent touches in between. Never lingering, never failing to make her heart skip a beat. His fingers are warm and they're gone before they're even really there.

"I want one, I'll get you one, too."

The wine is really good, just like he promised. Martha really has a good taste in alcohol and she needs to stock up her future apartment with a few bottles of that particular brand. The rest of the dinner is spend comfortable between them. She tells him about her frustrating hunt for apartments earlier that day. (I'm not a college kid, I'm not gonna share a bathroom with my neighbors.) He tells her about the trouble the plot to his newest book is giving him and she tries to help as good as she can while they finish the bottle of red.

They fall silent after a while but it's not uncomfortable – quite the opposite. It's easy and the wine and the food make her warm inside. It's not him ot his aftershave or his breath she feels on her face when he laughs. No, it's not him.

"What are you thinking about?" He asks and she realizes that she has a small smile on her lips. She turns to him, tries to read his face. His eyes are a little bluer than usual and she thinks it's the wine. He looks good like that, dressed down and domestic in washed out jeans and a dark crimson sweater.

"Just," she chuckles, "thank you for feeding me."

"You're welcome." He keeps watching her and her heart rate quickens and it's not the first time. The air around them thickens. It's late and she has to be at work early tomorrow and usually she looks away, retrieves back to her room, ignores this gnawing feeling deep in her chest and the want to turn back around to his office and give into her feelings that are growing daily.

She's not backing off today, not sure why because she is tired and she should sleep but she doesn't want to go upstairs just yet. "You wanna watch a movie?"

/

She wakes to gentle fingers on her cheek and it takes her a minute to realize that it's Castles fingers and that she's still in the leather chair in his office – that explains the stiffness in her neck. When her eyes blink open his hand moves from her face to cradle her shoulder in his hand.

"Hey," she mumbles and sinks deeper into the leather and into his touch.

"Hey, you fell asleep not even halfway through the movie." He isn't making fun of her, his smile sympathetic and his eyes as gentle as his fingers on her. She wants to stay like that for the rest of the night (or maybe her life), even thought she doesn't have a blanked and she is starting to get cold.

"Sorry for being bad company," she says on a yawn.

"Hm no, not bad company, Kate, but you should go upstairs, to bed, you're tired."

"You're probably right."

He helps her up and she doesn't know if it's him or the sleep still lingering in her limbs but she's a little uncoordinated and clumsy and falls forward. Not headfirst into his arms but he has to steady her by the elbows before she crashes into him.

"Sorry," she chuckles but when she looks up into his eyes he's not laughing along with her. He just looks at her, his blue eyes on her hazel ones, like he's searching for something in them, an answer to a question she doesn't know yet. Her teeth sink into her bottom lip, involuntarily, and his eyes fall away for just a moment, drift to her mouth and her throat runs dry as she gulps. What is happening and why is she not already running away, hiding in her room, acting like there's nothing between them, like they're just friends, people who work together? Like he's just this annoying guy who lets her sleep as his place because hers just blew up into a million pieces.

My father's watch. Thank you.

You're welcome. I found it in the wreckage, had it fixed.

Oh, that man. She knows that he'd never break her heart on purpose, but he could. Yes, he could.

It's her hand that lifts between them, cold fingers touch his jaw, feeling his stubble on the tips of her fingers and his eyes widen and she steps in closer, her other hand finding rest on his chest. She feels his heartbeat through his sweater.

He doesn't get the chance to chant more than her name, Kate, before she's on the tip of her toes and her mouth on his. It's a chaste brush of her lips at first, just the shadow of a kiss. His hands migrate to her face without hesitation, large fingers cradling her jaw, like she's breakable porcelain but his mouth is hot and needy and exploring on hers now, his tongue pushing past the barrier of her lips and she has to dig her hands into his back because she's pretty sure her legs are about to give out underneath her.

Heat grows in the depths of her stomach and when they part her chest is heaving, breath heavy and his hands are still on her cheeks, his mouth dusting soft kisses to her forehead, such a contrast to the kiss just seconds ago. He looks at her when she opens her eyes and he smiles and she can't help but smile along with him.

She always thought that it'd be awkward when they finally crossed that line. She knew it would happen eventually, lately she knew it would happen sooner rather than later but she never thought that she'd be able to look at him afterwards and feel calm.

Of course, she feels this excruciating want for him, sees it in his eyes too, but otherwise she feels calm, and most of all, happy.

"Wow," he breathes and she can't help but laugh, because it is ridicules, they both are and god, she is falling hard for this man.

"Yeah," she breathes and then she leans in close again, brushes her lips over his cheek, her teeth scrapes the shell of his ear before she whispers, "Still want me to go upstairs?"

His arm moves around her waist as he pulls her close, his other hand still cradles her jaw, turns her face to his so his mouth is just a brush over her lips.

"No, Kate, never."

End