A/N: Greetings again! I finally got my grubby little mitts on a set of Season 5 DVDs, so I've started catching up with the rest of you lucky folks who were actually able to watch them in real time.

The first Crazy Eyes chapter from Season 5 comes from "Cloudy With a Chance of Murder" and everyone's favorite - or least-favorite - entertainment reporter.

I still have other Crazy Eyes stories in progress, but this episode was just too perfect. After watching it this plot bunny just wouldn't leave me alone.

As usual, I don't own Castle, the characters or plots, the Adorable Psycho motif, or anything other than the mistakes below, since I post this without a beta's blessings.

Enjoy!

Crazy Eyes and the Reporter

Detective Kate Beckett sat at her desk in the Homicide bullpen grumbling to herself about the sheer volume of unnecessary paperwork foisted upon detectives for the smallest of reasons. The form staring her in the face needed to be filled out so some bureaucratic troll could justify replacing some of her gear.

EQUIPMENT NEEDING REPLACEMENT

"Every time I lose some issued equipment it's the same damned form to fill out," Kate grumbled as she filled in 'handcuffs' in the empty box next to the statement.

REASON FOR REPLACEMENT

That made her sit back and think, tapping her lips with the pen. Eventually the memory of what happened put a mischievous grin on her face.

Three days previously…

She was on her phone trying to get part of the case lined up when a far too perky voice addressing her boyfriend in the background took 90 percent of her focus off the call. Turning, she saw an artificially attractive brunette wearing a dress that would have gotten her kicked out of some restaurants run up to Rick and kiss both his cheeks. That greeting put her right on Kate's line of acceptable greetings for him to accept in public.

The cocked hips and thrust-out boobs put her over that line. Kate absently told whoever the hell was on the other end of her call that she would call them later and started walking over to join her delightfully oblivious boyfriend, fiery rage radiating from her stride.

All she heard as she approached was the traitorous brunette was her annoyingly high voice squeak out, "I don't have a guest. Tonight, and I'm not taking no for an answer. See you soon, Ricky."

The skank had the audacity to give her an appraising look up and down as she approached Castle. "What the hell was that?"

He tried to explain without telling his admittedly homicidal girlfriend why the brunette wearing an extremely short dress was all over him the moment before. "That's just their entertainment reporter. She's…My agent has been nagging me to promote Frozen Heat, so…"

The derision in her expression told him exactly what she thought of the other woman. "Isn't she the reporter that shows up to cover stories in her bikini?"

It was strange; before he started dating Kate, he used to feel like he was digging himself into a metaphorical hole in these situations. Nowadays when she cornered him about random women she saw him talking to, he realized his explanations were digging the other woman into a hole. Literally. "I don't, you know, I didn't notice that."

She rolled her eyes at his pathetic deflection and started walking away. "You want to try again? Make it sound more convincing?"

"Nope. I'm good," was all he could muster as they moved on to consider the newest aspect of the case.

Kate stared at the TV in front of her in utter disbelief. On the screen, her unofficial official boyfriend was adorably trying to figure a way to gracefully decline the date that skanky brunette entertainment reporter tried to trap him into accepting. She could see in his eyes that he had no idea how to get out of his predicament.

"Say no. It's not hard. Say no!" She growled out, barely suppressing the urge to scream and throw anything within arm's reach at the television.

Then, to her consternation, the adorable lummox actually agreed to the date. Her boyfriend was going to have dinner with an attractive, traitorous brunette. Most of the sluts that had thrown themselves at Rick were blonde (with the occasional redhead) but to be betrayed by a fellow brunette was hitting below the belt. The date had the benefit of keeping them out of the public eye at least as far as the precinct was concerned, but he was still on a date with a slutty brunette entertainment reporter. Asking him out on live television to coerce him into the date was at least a 9.0 on the Slut-o-Meter. The honest part of Kate had a hard time blaming Kristina for wanting to try, but Castle was permanently off the market.

On the ride back to the precinct, after his stammered apologies and excuses, she let him off the hook. He thought he was just going along with their plan to keep the relationship on the down-low as far as Gates was concerned, so his intentions were good even if the execution left much to be desired. She did exact a clothing-free weekend at the loft as compensation, so she was happy.

Kate was sitting at the conference room table eating Chinese with Ryan and Esposito. Neither of them commented on her surreptitious checks of her cell phone to see if Castle had called yet or not. Just before he'd left them to their dinner at the precinct to get ready for his 'date' he told her that he would call for an escape.

"So I spoke with everyone at the station including her boyfriend. No one admits to being the partner, or even knowing what she was working on," Ryan explained from his notes.

"There's nothing in the phone records either," Esposito concurred.

"Yeah, well, there's got to be something that we're missing," Kate said to break the tension after her team members had a near-confrontation over a half-empty box of take-out food.

"I gotta hand it to you, Beckett. You're handling this whole Castle pretending to date some hot reporter so Gates doesn't think you're dating thing really well. Especially someone like Kristina Coterra," Esposito said around a mouthful of pork and noodles.

"Yeah, it takes a big person to allow their significant other to go to dinner with someone else, even if it's just for pretend," Ryan agreed.

Kate's mouth worked open and closed a couple times. "I, uh, that is, I trust him," she looked around for Gates, a frantic expression on her face. Esposito and Ryan knew about her relationship with Castle, but Gates didn't. No one knew how she'd react, and since she was such an adherent to policy in every other area, no one wanted to see how fast she would kick Castle out of the precinct if she found out about the relationship.

"Must be some kind of trust," Esposito grunted, spearing a won ton, "That entertainment reporter was loaded for bear when she asked him out."

"Desperate, too," Ryan smirked, "to ask him out on live TV, rather than dropping hints and waiting for him to take the bait."

"He'll be fine, guys. He's a big boy." She looked anything but certain. Luckily for her, the emotions on her face were enough to get her pseudo-brothers from teasing her any more. They had to give her a little ribbing, but pushing her any more bordered on cruelty. Plus, they remembered that she knew as much or more teasing material about both of them.

In the middle of eating a mouth full of spicy chicken, Kate's phone buzzed. She answered the call in a rush after seeing Rick's face on the screen. "Hey Castle. How's your date?" she asked with false bravado meant to calm her nerves as she clicked the button.

"Woah woah woah. Get back! Get back!" All she heard was shattering glass and Rick protesting as he tried to delay whatever was about to happen. She heard his surprise that someone was in the loft along with crashes, and bumps before the line went dead. Her face paled as all her thoughts of slutty brunette reporters assaulting her boyfriend were joined with horrific images of potential violence. Her only concern his physical safety, she stuttered out a quick goodbye to the boys and not quite ran out of the precinct.

Still surprised at the turn of events, Esposito looked at his partner, chopsticks full of chicken frozen halfway to his mouth. "Castle's on a 'date' with that reporter, right bro?"

Ryan nodded. "Yeah."

"Beckett just got a call, turned white as a ghost, and ran out of here," he continued.

"Uh-huh," Ryan said around the mouth of food, "What are you getting at, Javier?" he asked after swallowing.

"So it's probably not very likely that the reporter will make her next segment," he concluded, connecting the dots for his partner.

Ryan coughed as the realization hit. After a difficult moment catching his breath and taking a drink to steady himself, he looked at the door. "I think for the record we had no idea what the call was about, who it was from, or why Beckett may or may not have left."

Esposito nodded. "I think you're right."

They went back to their meal, willfully unaware of potential mayhem taking place at a SoHo loft.

Kate's heart raced the whole way over to Castle's building. The number of times they'd been in life-threatening situations only gave her more reason to be worried that something had befallen him. Just as bad, her traitorous subconscious kept flashing mental images of a nude woman writing in pleasure on top of him. It was hard to tell which was worse.

When the elevator finally made its way to his floor, she ran down the hall with her weapon drawn and cocked. The sounds of the struggle continued with glass breaking and various thuds. Then everything went quiet.

Not wanting to give warning to any potential criminal or slut inside, she used her key to slowly unlock and open the door. Once inside, she drew her weapon into a low firing stance and started scanning the room. "NYPD, freeze!" she called before her eyes fell on her boyfriend. Laying supine on the couch, he looked up – or rather down – at her. The one looking up was the skank on top of him in nothing but neon pink bikini.

Kate's eye started twitching before she went into what Rick had taken to calling her 'Christmas Vision'. When she saw another woman throwing herself at him, she saw first green and then red.

The smirk that Kristina threw her way was the straw that finally broke her back. Kate stomped over to the couch, grabbed her hair and yanked the reporter bodily off Rick. She reversed her weapon and with a full body twist, smashed the butt of her gun into Kristina's jaw, shattering it instantly and knocking her out cold.

Castle, springing to his feet when Kristina's weight was gone was gone, immediately stepped over the unconscious reporter and wrapped his arms around Kate. "Oh thank God you got here when you did! She changed things up and came here instead of meeting at the restaurant like we decided."

Kate gave him a wry look. "Yeah, I could tell. Shoving her tits in your face was a good first clue that things weren't going exactly according to plan."

"I'm so sorry, Kate. I never intended for this to happen. At the most I thought it would be one dinner where I'd be obnoxious and drive her away. I never thought it would go this far…"

She cut off his rambling apologies with a searing kiss that left his toes curled and his eyes glazed. "I know, Rick. It's not your fault that stupid skanks can't keep their hands off my man."

Rick grinned the same way he always did when she got so possessive. "So what happens now?" He asked as they looked down Kristina's sprawled body.

"Oh I have an idea or two," she demurred, "but first, you need to go take a shower. When you're done, head down to the precinct. Ryan and Esposito were working on the case and they could probably use your help. After that, we'll work on erasing any memory of stupid skanks in pink bikinis from your memory."

"What are you going to do?" Castle asked tentatively, afraid to know the answer.

Kate glanced down at the unconscious reporter. "Oh don't worry. I'll drop her off before I join you guys back at the 12th."

"Are you sure?" he asked.

Her lascivious smirk riveted his attention. "Absolutely. Ms. Coterra is in a bikini, so we might go for a swim. After that, you can start making up for even accepting a date with this skank in the first place. I have a few ideas, and none of them involve clothes."

Castle's eyes glazed over and it was several moments before he was able to shake himself free. Kate walked over to him and crushed her lips to his. "Go shower, then down to the precinct. I'll be along in a bit."

He looked around before deciding that discretion was the better part of valor in this instance. Casting one final worried look over his shoulder, he left for his bathroom and a change of clothes.

Kate turned her full attention to Kristina. She reached down and grabbed under the other woman's arms, being careful to avoid accidentally grabbing the front. Using that grip, she hauled Kristina up to a chair and handcuffed her arms behind her.

Back to present...

The case was solved and Kate had reaped her compensation for the non-date disaster. The team was at their desks taking care of paperwork and waiting on the next body drop when the TV in the background flickered from whatever daytime soap opera was on for a distraction to WHNY's news team, with its new replacement actor leading the way. Kate looked up from her 'Replacement Equipment Requisition' form.

"And we interrupt the program you were just watching for some breaking news. WHNY's run of tragedy continues to plague the station. Our missing entertainment reporter, Kristina Coterra, has been found dead," the camera cut to a canned shot of NYPD and Port Authority officers standing on a dock watching a ship nearby, "Port Authority officials called in the NYPD this morning to confirm that the body of a woman found handcuffed to the anchor chain of a container ship in the Port of New York was indeed Ms. Coterra. She had been missing for a week, having disappeared during the investigation into the murder of our former meteorologist Mandy Michaels. Our entire news team and station are saddened to learn of Ms. Coterra's death, and our condolences go out to her family."

The program cut back to the soap opera, but the homicide bullpen, at least the area around Kate Beckett's desk, had gone eerily silent.

"Well I'll be damned," Esposito breathed.

"That's…crazy," Ryan said.

"Yeah…" Castle trailed off as a worried undertone entered his voice.

All three sets of eyes turned to Kate, who suddenly found the pens and pencils on her desk in dire need of rearranging. "It's pretty surprising those fake boobs couldn't act as flotation devices," she snarked.

Ryan and Esposito looked at her like she'd lost her mind before shaking their heads and walking into the break room for some coffee.

Alone, Castle turned to his girlfriend with the suspicion of her involvement in Kristina's death in the forefront of his mind. "Kate?" he asked

"She always did want to be an anchor…" Kate remarked, keeping her tone as nonchalant as possible.

A/N: Thus Ms. Coterra. Hope you enjoyed! Feedback is always appreciated.