a/n: I just found this little nugget on my hard drive. Wrote it in grad school, never posted. It was inspired by my own linguistics class in college. And yes, what I'm mentioning here is something Stana sometimes does.

I think I wrote this during season 3.

Castle stared at her with an unusual fixation. Unusual for him. Which was saying something. After signing off on her after-action report and approving a few purchase orders with her usual steady resolve to ignore him, Kate finally sighed. "Castle, what is it?"

"You pronounce the letter G."

She stopped, eyes flicking to her computer screen, before she seemed to give up and swiveled her chair towards him. He smiled. Beckett had finally learned that when he felt like prying, it was best to simply accept that she would not be getting work done for the next few minutes.

"Castle, everyone pronounces the letter G. That's why it's there."

"No, I mean you say the letter G when we don't. You say it at the end of words with –ing."

"I do not."

"Uh, yes you do."

"I beg to differ."

"I refuse to allow you to."

She let out an exasperated sigh. "Why do you bring this up?"

"It just occurred to me. Here, I'll show you." He snagged her sticky notes before she could stop him, clicking his pen several more times than was necessary. "This is called the International Phonetic Alphabet. Take the word 'running.' Here's what it looks like when I say it." He scribbled something. "This is how you say it."

She peered at the symbols, which sort of looked like letters. "Mine has a G on it. Yours doesn't."

"Exactly. I say 'running.' You say 'runnin-guh.'" She shot him a look. "Okay, I was slightly exaggerating. But only slightly."

"So I pronounce the word phonetically."

"I know!" He was delighted she had conceded the point. "That's so cool."

"Remind me again why you felt the need to point it out?"

"I was trying to figure out why you do it." He pursed his lips, staring at her openly. "Barring a childhood spent in a Slavic nation, I'm not sure."

"Speaking Russian?"

He nodded. "I'll bet that's where you get it from."

"Uh huh." She sighed. "Was there a reason you felt this was more important than my purchase orders?"

Castle beamed at her, his eyes sparkling. "No real reason. I was just thinkin-guh."

Kate tried to scowl, but had to settle for swatting him on the arm. He just grinned, because obviously, he had achieved his aim: amuse her. Or irritate her. Thin line, really.

"So are you going to go refill my coffee or what, Castle?"

"Livin-guh to be servin-guh you, darlin-guh."

She set a hand on his wrist as he stood and picked up her cup. "If you don't stop talking like that, Castle? I will be twistin-guh your nose off of your face and not puttin-guh it back."

He blinked. "Understood. Coffee comin' right up."