A/N: Hey howdy hey! I know, I know. I'm back! It's my Christmas break again and I really wanted to write. Some people on tumblr were talking about a Caskett AU using the Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan movie "You've Got Mail". That got my juices flowing, and now here we are! This is going to loosely follow the last half of the movie – at this point Joe/Castle and Kathleen/Kate are both single again – so I don't anticipate it being very long – I think we're looking at about 5 chapters. This is my first Castle fanfic, so don't hate too much! Any and all help in terms of characterization would be welcomed and appreciated!

Disclaimer: Quite unfortunately, neither Castle nor You've Got Mail are mine.

StormWriter: Hey. Figured you'd be on now.

Beckett smiled at her computer, her heart rate speeding up and butterflies taking flight in her stomach all at once. How could he know? She glanced around the precinct, hoping nobody was watching her. She wasn't supposed to be on here right now, strictly speaking. But this guy – StormRider – intrigued her. He intrigued her more than any man she'd ever met. She barely knew anything about him, other than he lived in New York, but they had fun. It was light flirting, easy banter back and forth, but she couldn't remember the last time she had this much fun. She hadn't told anyone about him, not even Lanie. It was no big deal, really. They had only been talking like this for a couple of months; 3 months, 9 days, 16 hours, and 44 minutes, her subconscious piped up. Shaking her head and realizing she hadn't responded yet, Beckett's hands hovered over the keyboard as she pondered what to write.

KB6: Hey stranger. How'd you know? I'm at work.

StormRider: Gut feeling.

Kate smiled, seeing a brown haired, handsome man smirking to himself in her mind. She returned to the screen.

KB6: You're good.

StormRider: Thank you, madam.

KB6: Anytime, my good man.

This was so unlike herself. What was she doing? But it came so easily. Hearing the elevator open behind her, Beckett minimized the screen and pulled up the internet search she was supposed to be doing on the lone witness they had so far on this case.

"Yo, Beckett."

Pushing back from her desk, Beckett swiveled in her chair to face the detective, noting his partner standing behind him, a knowing smile on his face. "Get anything, Espo?"

"Not a lot, but unis at the canvas site did find some partial prints they were hoping Lanie could use. I'm gonna go let her know." He left without an answer.

"Yeah, you go do that, Javi." Kate smirked. Beckett shared a grin with Ryan as he made his way to his desk. The medical examiner and the detective still had a thing for each other and everybody knew it – you'd have to be blind not to see it. Returning to her conversation, her smile fell as she read:

StormWriter: Hey sorry, got to go, something came up.

StormWriter: Do you think we could meet some time?

StormWriter: You don't have to respond right now, just think about it.

StormWriter: Okay, now I really have to go. Just think about it.

Beckett stared at her screen, unsure of what to do. Instinctually she wanted to say yes. Of course she wanted to meet this man! But then her cop instincts took over and she silently admonished herself for even entertaining the idea. Trying to shake off the feelings of giddiness and anxiety, she turned to get lost in her work. She hadn't finished more than setting up the murder board with what little info they had before Castle came bounding into the room.

"Sorry I'm late, got a little…sidetracked."

Beckett glanced over her shoulder at him, before continuing to work. "Everything alright, Castle? It's not like you to miss a body drop…and you would've loved this one." Well, no, he wouldn't have, no more than normal, but she couldn't resist teasing him just a little.

"Really?"

Ha, she's got him hooked already. Too. Easy. "Yeah. Blonde female, 30-35 years old. Remember the contorted body in the safe from a few years ago? We found her kind of like that."

Castle was hanging on to her every word, and looked nearly ready to fall over in anticipation.

"And you know what she said when I got to her?"

"What? What did she say?"

Beckett tried hard not to smirk at him, but she couldn't hide the gleam in her eye.

"Hey…" he said slowly.

"Castle is too gullible for his own good," she deadpanned. Grinning, she turned back to the murder board, leaving Castle to make a face at her back before joining her in her work. A few minutes later, he piped up.

"I might have a date in a couple of nights."

Beckett raised her eyebrow and tried to hide the increase in her heart rate and the mild blush that fell over her cheeks. "And you felt the need to share with the class?"

He shrugged. "I just…figured you should know."

"Well. Thanks. I think." After a slightly awkward pause she added, "anybody I know?"

He smiled at her, his adorable excited smile that appeared often because of something she said or did. She loved that smile. "I don't even know her!"

Beckett looked startled at that. "Castle. You're going to go on a date with someone you don't even know? Do you know how dangerous that is? She could be part of the mob. Or a felon on the loose. Or…any number of things! What?"

Castle crossed his arms, his smile shifting from excited to smug. "Is that concern for my well-being I detect, detective? Or maybe a little jealousy?"

"What? No. Definitely not. I just – "

"You just what?"

"I just don't want my partner to get hurt." She refused to meet his eyes.

"Uh huh. Well in any case, it might not happen. She hasn't said yes yet."

Beckett looked the tiniest bit relieved at that. Turning to her desk she picked up a file, preparing to move on. "Well, let me know what happens. Now come on. The sooner we figure this out, the sooner we can go home."

Crawling into bed that night, Beckett grabbed her phone and checked her messages one last time. She wasn't checking to see if there was one from him – no, she just wanted to make sure she hadn't missed anything important. And no, her stomach didn't swoop and her heart didn't jump to her throat when she saw a new message from him.

StormWriter: So, what about that date?

A/N: Thoughts? Let me know! The next chapter should be up tomorrow/later today (December 29), or by December 30 at the latest. In the meantime, follow me on tumblr! I'm captaincaskett, and I blog a majority Caskett, but I also blog a fair amount of Captain Swan, and, of course, Tiva (I used to be tivafanintheusa if any of you followed me then).