A/N - Hello Dear Readers!

Long time, no see - I know. I miss this community and after a Twitter poll, I decided to publish this new story. As for the others, first - let me say that I've been writing, both Fan Fiction and other projects. I've about 20 thousand words for my in progress stories, but none that I am happy about publishing yet. Second - this was begun as a project for the 2016 Castle Tumblr Secret Santa. My recipient was beckettcastlealways41319 on Tumblr and she asked for a story.

I hope you all enjoy this and I promise to post on my others as soon as I can.

~GeekMom

Should Old Acquaintance be forgot,
and never thought upon;
The flames of Love extinguished,
and fully past and gone:
Is thy sweet Heart now grown so cold,
that loving Breast of thine;
That thou canst never once reflect
On old long syne.

CHORUS:

On old long syne my Jo,
On old long syne,
That thou canst never once reflect,
On old long syne.

Robert Burns 1788

Another Auld Lang Syne

Chapter 1

Should Old Acquaintance Be Forgot

Detective Kate Beckett sat at her desk and stared at the small slip of paper in her hands, mindlessly and repeatedly sticking and unsticking her forefinger to the thin strip at the top of the back of the square. Ryan had stuck the sticky note to her computer screen while she had been in the ladies' room. They hadn't caught a body all day so naturally the call came just after Beckett had excused herself, twenty minutes before the shift end to freshen up before making the trek home.

"Beckett? You still here?"

She startled at her captain's deep voice booming throughout the mostly deserted room.

Licking her lips and inhaling the strength she knew she'd need, she stood. "Sir? Have you heard anything about this?" She waved the lime green square in front of her.

"Other than there's been a murder at that bar?" He shook his head. "Nope, just prelims." Narrowing his eyes, he asked, "Why're you still here? Are you feeling okay?"

Finally exhaling, she shook no, but contradictorily confirmed, "I'm all right." She turned back to her desk and busied herself getting ready to go, gathering her bag, and securing her gun to her hip. She knew he was still watching her as she inhaled again, hoping for that one steadying breath that would convince her that she could go, the one that would give her strength if it turned out to be him.

"Do you know anything about the victim?" Carefully, she kept her eyes on her preparations.

She heard Montgomery walk away, but then return, rustling some paper in his notebook. Her captain was old school, always wanting to write everything down. "Male, cauc, about forty. Says he might work at the bar…or worked there, maybe, but no ID yet. Initial responding unis figure a robbery, but it might not be," he paused, tilting his head, assessing her, "you know how it goes."

She'd stopped listening. 'Male, Caucasian, forty,' kept running through her mind. Over and over tracks like a runaway train, noisy, fast and out of control.

"Beckett." All of a sudden Montgomery was holding her elbow. She didn't know how long he'd been trying to get her attention, but at that point, he wore his concern on his face. "What's going on?"

"I…" she swallowed, "I may have known the victim."

"We don't have a name. Don't jump to any conclusions," he warned, raising a knowing eyebrow. "Get down there and work the case. If it turns out you do…or did know him, then you can recuse, if not, do your job." Montgomery spun on his heel and retreated to his office, shutting his door, literally leaving her no opening for argument.

Kate grabbed her coat and headed to the elevator outwardly optimistic, but her inner doubts and fears churned.

"Beckett?" Ryan called as she entered the door, shaking the snow from her hat and coat. She inhaled and closed her eyes. The main room had always smelled the same way: of beer, slightly musty and something else she could never identify, but always gave her a blossom of warmth inside her chest. The room's owner theatrically called it the aroma of history. History and memories. They say that a smell can bring you right back to the moment. She almost grinned as she recalled his indignant and proud defense of the old place that had worn so many façades over the years, but the thought of the owner sobered her immediately. She made eye contact with one of her partners, acknowledging his initial question.

"Ryan, what do we have?"

"I was afraid you hadn't seen my note."

"No, I did," she confirmed while glancing around the familiar bar, looking for the victim. "Fill me in."

"Sure," Ryan began as he turned and headed toward the back. "White, male, forty-ish – our best guess - found in the freezer…"

"The freezer…" Kate mused as she stepped up to the walk-in. The last time she was there was right after the run-down place was purchased. The new owner had obviously made improvements and upgrades. The freezer was newer along with the rest of the kitchen and she had noticed the remodeling and redecorating out front as well. New bar, new seating, and lighting, but maybe they weren't that new. It had been several years since she'd seen it.

"Yep," Lanie Parrish said, standing from the corpse and rubbing her blue-gloved hands together. "Which means it will take a while for an ID. She walked away from the open door, shivering slightly.

"The, uh owner? Is…"

Lanie considered her ordinarily articulate friend. "Is it the owner? Is that your question?" She glanced back to the open door where technicians from CSI were photographing the crime scene. "I guess it could be."

"Nah Chica," Esposito said as he shrugged his head to the bar. "He just got here."

Kate swung her head so fast that she might have suffered whiplash, had it not been for the relief that overwhelmed her. She exhaled, loudly, garnering concern from her two partners and the medical examiner. There he was, healthy - alive, speaking to uniforms. She stared at him and somewhere between relief and belief, she swayed.

"Kate?"

She shook her head. "I'm…oh God…"

At that point Lanie escorted her to a chair. "Spill it."

Beckett scowled and then glanced at the bar, confirming his continued existence yet again; she searched the three pairs of concerned eyes surrounding her. "I just…I thought that the victim might have been the owner."

"So?" Espo questioned.

"So…shit." She placed her head in her hands and then looked up at them. "Do you remember that I used to work vice?" At three head nods, she continued. "I worked undercover around this neighborhood and I got to know some of the locals…that's all."

"That's all?" Lanie asked, doubtfully.

"Yeah…that's..."

A voice called from across the room. "Detectives?"

Kate closed her eyes. The familiar pattern of his footsteps across the worn floorboards still incited the riot of giddiness she'd always felt in anticipation of seeing him, as if no time had passed at all.

"I'm Richard Castle. I own..." He stopped dead in his tracks. "It can't…" A look of confusion darkened his expression. "Charlotte?" he whispered?

Kate stood up and looked into the blue eyes, daring to dive back in to where she should never have fallen in the first place, so many years ago. The same blue eyes she fought to protect and then, ultimately, however unenthusiastically, forget.

"Oh my God! Charlie…God, they told me you were…I looked…I searched…I didn't believe them."

She took a breath to steady and remind herself that that was then. "Rick," she acknowledged.

"Jesus," he said as he took a halting step closer. "Is it…is it really you?" He squinted as he catalogued and inspected her face and body, marking off a mental checklist. He blinked and swallowed as he convinced his skeptical eyes that he'd authenticated the ghostly vision in front of him.

Before she knew it he had grabbed her wrist and roughly pulled her into his arms and kissed her soundly on her mouth. The world around them evaporated. Noises, smells, sights ceased just as they had always done every time he had kissed her before. Charlotte, his Charlie – every time he kissed the woman he knew as Charlotte, but she wasn't his Charlie, not anymore, she was Detective Kate Beckett. She pushed back on his chest, separating them enough, but not far enough that she failed to notice that he hadn't changed his cologne, that his eyes still became even more luminous by the threat of unshed tears, and that she'd hurt him, truly, whether it was her fault or not. Beckett felt the hands of her partners on her arms, trying to put more distance between them, protecting her. All she could think was that of the two of them, he was the one who needed distance from her.

She cleared her throat. "Rick, I'm…"

"God, please don't say you're sorry," he pled. She looked up to see the temper flare that she knew he could summon, in his expression. He held it at bay, but it simmered in his eyes.

"I'm not Charlotte," she said. He narrowed his eyes, his jaw muscles worked to keep a retort escaping his lips, but he waited without a sound for her to continue along with her three coworkers. "I am sorry that I could never tell you the truth." She paused before she continued, because it was only polite to do so when disproving something that someone knew to be fact, so completely. It was only polite to take it easy when destroying a person's perception especially when he had already seen a ghost that day. "My name is Detective Kate Beckett, I'm a cop, now with the twelfth precinct, homicide, but when you knew me, I was working vice. I'm so sorry, Rick."

He stared at her, searched her face, her eyes for some tell that it was all some elaborate joke. Like the poker player he was, he scrutinized the three people around her for a tell. They were all staring at her. Apparently he wasn't the only one in the dark. He'd thought she was dead. He'd believed she'd been murdered by her pimp.

"But you were dead. There was an investigation." He raised his eyes and his voice, "I was a suspect. There was a fucking funeral." He came back to her so quickly the action alarmed her partners. Swallowing, he raised his hands from her upper arms, but he whispered, "God, Charlie…Kate, I guess, I loved you. I…I mourned you. How? How could you …Why didn't…?"

He dropped his jaw to his chest and shook his head. He raised his eyes to look at her again for what seemed like hours, but then unexpectedly, he spun and strode to the back of the room. "Brian!" he hollered for his bartender over his shoulder.

Brian and the cocktail waitresses craned their necks forward, gawkily trying to appear as if they hadn't been eavesdropping, but hearing everything regardless.

"Yeah, Boss," the young man, answered.

"I'll be in the office if any of New York's finest needs any more information." He reached down and clicked a switch, revealing a staircase. He looked directly at Kate. "I trust you'll let me get on with my business as soon as possible?" Without waiting for an answer, he nodded to Brian. "We'll need an inventory as soon as you can. We don't know who the dead guy is in our freezer, so I can only surmise that he was here to rob the place." He descended the staircase without a backward glance toward the murder victim, his employees, the detectives or her.