Disclaimer: I don't own Castle. I write fan fiction. I am not Captain Obvious.

The rest of the day had been pretty quiet. There was an open and shut case that had taken a little under two days to solve. They'd booked the perp earlier and considering that they had been pretty quick about it, the paperwork was easily dealt with as well. Just as she was wrapping up for the day, smiling once at how easy it was to get back into the routine so quickly, she noticed that she had just received a text message.

'Are we meeting?' Castle's text read.

She replied quickly. 'Yes. My place in 20.-K'

The reply came in almost immediately. 'Okay. Are you hungry?'

'Sure, I'll order on the way home. –K'

Another ping. 'Oh. I thought you just want me. ;)'

She rolled her eyes and didn't bother with a reply. She was never going to hear the end of that. Then again, maybe she didn't want to. Not that she would let him know.


Almost exactly 20 minutes later, she got off the elevator and headed to the apartment to see Castle standing there with a pizza box in his hand and a smirk on his face.

"Hey. How long have you been waiting out here?", Kate asked as she searched for her keys in her pockets.

"Hey.", he answered and paused to steal a chaste kiss from her before saying more. "I like being able to do that."

She smiled at him shyly.

"Not long.", he said.

"Good. I was afraid the pizza might've gotten cold.", she smirked, not even bothering to look at his face as she led him inside.

"Your concern is positively touching."

She put her things on the table, took off her jacket and turned to him while he was still standing just inside the door with the pizza box. She took that from him too, placed it on the table close to the door and leaned in glancing fleetingly at his lips before looking right into his eyes. She leaned in even more, completely into his personal space but not even touch a hair on his skin, till she could feel his ragged breath on her face. She bit her lip to stop from smiling when she saw his eyes were closed. "No. It's not. This –", she whispered, "is positively touching.", and she pinched him hard on his shoulder.

"OW! HEY! That was mean!", he said with an adorable pout, while rubbing at the now tender spot. When he realized that she was laughing, he added, "Jeez. I come here on time, early in fact, and pay for dinner, and this is what I get in return."

She took a deep breath to control her laughter – she didn't really pinch him quite that hard either. He could have quit with the drama by now. "That is exactly what you will get if you try to pay for dinner when it's my turn again. Got it?"

"Oh."

"Yeah. Oh."

"You could've just paid me back. No need to abuse my ruggedly handsome body."

She rolled her eyes. He'd missed that recently and loved it, always. "So you could sneak the money back into my wallet when you think I'm not looking?" She made her way into the kitchen with the pizza box and was taking down plates and glasses for them.

He had the decency to look sheepish.

"Detective, remember?"

He smiled at that, and she could see that it was genuine, and full of love and – and pride? He confirmed as much by saying, "Yeah. Recently reinstated Detective Kate Beckett of the NYPD, 12th precinct."

She smiled back at him, secretly very happy that he cared so much. "Are you going to repeat that every day?"

"Mhmm. At least once every day. I am really, really happy for you.", he said as he made his way behind her while she poured each of them some soda, and wrapped his arms around her waist.

"Thank you, Rick.", she said softly. "And, I have good news about that.", she said while turning in his arms and handing him his plate and glass.

"Yeah?", he asked enthusiastically, "Are you off probation already?" They made their way to the couch and placed their food and drinks on the table in front of it.

"Nope.", she said with an audible pop.

"And?"

"Aren't you supposed to be good at guessing?", she smiled and bit into her first slice.

"Oooh. Yes. Yes, I am. Hmmmm….", he hummed and stroked his non-bearded chin as if solving some great scientific mystery. "Ah! You went down to the morgue to meet Lanie…"

He'd started weaving a story. Oh brother. This ought to be good.

"…to see her about the latest victim. It was easy, an open and shut case, as you told me. But you had to go collect records anyway, and you thought that you might as well meet your best friend for a bit. On your way down, you called her. Surprisingly she tried to get you to go back, for once, she didn't want to see you. She said she would come to you with the files as soon as she was done. You, however, dismissed the notion and told her that it was no trouble, and that you were almost there anyway. She hurriedly cut the call. A few minutes later you settled your beautiful behind onto one of the clean autopsy tables and took in her slightly disheveled appearance and nervous manner."

By this time, Kate had already finished her first slice and picked up her second. She was enjoying this, so might as well let him continue.

"So you asked her if everything was okay. And she replied promptly. Yes. Yes, of course she was okay. Why wouldn't she be okay? Why she bothered is beyond me. I mean, as you so very recently pointed out, you're a trained detective and her best friend. That was a little too prompt. Of course you knew something was up. And just as you're about to ask, the body that was covered with a crisp white sheet, next to the table that had the body of your victim, … "

"Yes?", she said, not caring too much for the dramatic pause.

"… SNEEZED!", he punctuated with a mock gasp.

Kate snorted, and quietly thanked the powers that be that she had been drinking the soda right at that moment. Before she could say anything, Rick interrupted her.

"Wait, I'm not done.", he waited for her nod to continue. "So, obviously shocked at the occurrence and even more baffled by the fact that Lanie had just facepalmed herself, you shouted, demanding to know what the hell was going on. Lanie told the 'corpse' something among the lines of, 'You can come out, you big oaf.' And to your horror, you saw a semi-naked Javier – only semi-naked cause he was hanging on to the white sheet', sitting up on the table, when he shouldn't even be there cause there's still a few days of suspension left – FINALLY confirming that we were right all along.", he took a deep breath of satisfaction and added so quickly that she almost couldn't make out the sentence, "And then you left to leave them alone, besides the dead guy of course."

Well. Wow. She was looking at him like he'd finally lost it. Or so she gathered from the look on his face. Her pizza was hanging almost limply off her hand, midway in the space between the plate and her face.

"What? Come on! That was brilliant!"

"First of all,", she started as she put her pizza back on the plate and narrowed her eyes at him, "I said guess, not give me a whole weird Castle theory. Second, it scares me a little that you even thought about such a detailed theory about Lanie and Espo – a very naked Espo. Third of all, that's not what happened. Just to be clear…"

"Meh. Too bad.", he said before shutting up at the sight of her glare.

"And fourth, Thanks a lot for the images, Castle."

He almost finished his slice of pizza all the while that she was talking, and she wasn't sure whether to be appalled or impressed. After he swallowed the last bite, he said, "I bet you've been dying to tell me point number four ever since you read page number 105."

He received a well aimed shot of a pillow to his face.


A while later as they were watching a movie that both of them had already seen – they picked it again just cause – and Kate's eyes were beginning to droop. She was obviously fighting to stay awake a little longer, to continue the night a little longer. Castle obviously noticed and wanted the same because he muted the movie and started talking again, while still tracing patterns on Kate's arm as she was cuddled into him.

"Hmm. Okay, next guess. Ryan and Jenny are having a baby."

She laughed. "No. That would be great news, though that's not it either. I'm surprised that you jumped from that elaborate concocted tale about Lanie and Javi to this. Next guess?"

"Oh! I didn't know you were quite so fond of my elaborate concocted tales. One Castle story coming right up –"

"What? That's not what I – "

" – for the beautiful cop with the bedroom voice. A very, very hot bedroom voice."

She swatted him on the chest with the back of her hand.

"Wow! You're so excited. Okay. SO. Hmm. Let's see. It has something to do with your reinstatement. Ah. Got it. Gates called you into her office."

Kate's eyes widened just a fraction.

"You were worried that this was going to be another lecture about something new you would have to do. Something like reporting in to her every five minutes and telling her every time you had coffee. She might as well spike your coffee with tracer nanobots. Actually, come to think of it, that's really brilliant isn't it? But.. Oh wait, no. I mean. She'd have New York's sewer system on the maps cause you'd obviously need to pe- "

"Castle!", she snapped.

"Wha? Oh yeah, getting off track. Sorry. Where was I? Yeah, so she'd called you in, and you think that she's going to enforce some new protocol. But, in fact, she's called you in to talk about us."

Kate suddenly pulled away and looked at him; her entire face etched with surprise.

"Oh my God! I'm close, aren't I?"

She didn't reply. He smirked and continued.

"Hmm. But why would you be so afraid that I guessed that. No – No. Not afraid. Embarrassed?"

"I'm not – "

"Oh yes you are. You're all blushy, and cute."

She raised her eyebrow. "Blushy?"

"Shush, don't interrupt. I'm on a roll.", he said and deftly held her hand that he'd anticipated would reach out for his ear.

She folded her arms and glared at him.

"She was calling you to … to … to tell you that she wanted me back working at the precinct because of my obvious brilliant mind, that occasionally borders on genius."

Kate smirked.

"Hmm. But you thought she was talking about something else."

He saw her look away and blush furiously.

OMG. OMG.

"OH! This is gooood. You thought she found out about us being together."

Her gaze snapped back to his so fast that he was sure she must've gotten whiplash. Her eyes were wide; eyebrows raised in surprise and her jaw dropped, almost comically. Or it would have been comical on him. Even this look looked graceful on her.

"What? How did you – How?"

"OH MY GOD! That actually happened?", he knew he was grinning like a fool but he couldn't help it. "I was just spinning another wild theory. HAH! Wow. I'm better than even I think."

She drew her lips in a thin line then.

"What? Kidding. Okay, okay. I'll try to be serious. Um. So, does she know about us now? Are we in trouble?"

He asked so sincerely, the abrupt change in him making her smile.

"No. Actually, she wants you to come back to work. She wasn't quite so – openly praising you – as much as you just were. But yeah – "

"That's great.", he smiled and leaned in to kiss her.

It took only a moment for the kiss to get passionate, but she suddenly started smiling, so he pulled away, slightly dazed. "What?", he asked her.

She started laughing and clutching at her sides.

"Come on, share the joke. What's so funny?"

"She asked me –", she could barely even breathe, let alone talk. But the day's events were finally catching up to her.

Castle started laughing too. He looked so happy to see her so free; so – elated that his eyes crinkled and he laughed till he was starting to get breathless too. "What? What did she ask you?"

Through tears, and gasping for breath, she finally said, "She asked me if 'the big explosion' solved our issues."

Castle barked out his laughter. Both of them laughed, and laughed till it hurt too much and finally fell asleep on the couch in each others arms. If anyone saw them the next morning as they woke up, they would still see the joy, peace, and obvious love. Finally also having become obvious to them.


A/N: Okay, the end is sort of cheesy, but I'm always bad at ending chapters. And this was meant to be a one shot, but it's obviously not anymore. I have a few ideas about continuing it too, but I'm still not so sure about that. Hope you liked it. Thanks for reading. (Oh, and this is un-beta'd sorry if there are any mistakes)