"You surprise me. I didn't think you would take this seriously." He got up and got a bottle of wine and glasses.

She looked at him incredulously. "You are accusing me of not taking things seriously?" She laughed.

"You are not generally a sharer of feelings."

"Maybe not, but I am curious, so that balances things out for me." She watched him until he noticed, and then he put their glasses down, and sat down just a little closer than before. He turned to face her.

"What?" She fidgeted nervously, but he could see that she was more serious. He could feel that the climate of the game had changed. Suddenly, it no longer seemed like they were playing. It seemed like she was really paying attention to his answers.

"Nothing. I'm just trying to figure this out, figure you out. If you want a distraction for the evening, surely you don't have to resort to rigging a bet?"

"Is that my question? Do you really want me to answer that?" He leaned forward, combing his fingers through his hair. He finally turned to face her again, to find her still watching him intently.

Finally, she broke eye contact. "No. It was just an observation. It's still my turn, right?" She swallowed hard, willing the giant lump that had formed in her throat to go away. "Do you believe that every person has one person out there that they are meant to be with?"

"One person, in the whole world? I don't know. I like the idea of it. It explains the out of control divorce rate. People don't like waiting for the right one. They get impatient, settle for the next best thing, or the next to the next best thing, or the thing that seems ok for now."

"They?" She raised an eyebrow at him.

"Thank you for pointing that out."

"Just keeping it real."

"Actually, I've never really thought about it, but I love the concept. As long as I am one of the lucky ones who actually cross paths with my 'one', and not one of the ones that stumble along, not really sure what they are looking for. Or, worse yet, one of those people who cross paths with the one everyday, but are too blind or scared to do anything about it. I guess I can also make an argument for the other side, though."

"Which would be . . . if you look hard enough, you can always find somebody better, somebody smarter, hotter, prettier, somebody you could possibly love more?"

He thought to himself that it didn't seem to be going well. "No . . . I was actually thinking of a good buddy of mine. He was married to the woman of his dreams. They were disgustingly 'right' for each other, and it was obscenely obvious that they were each others worlds. They were married for ten years. A few years ago, she and their son were killed in a car accident. He was lost, suicidal, but he pulled out of it. He wasn't looking, but he found somebody to love again. I just went to his second wedding last year."

She leaned closer to him, rested her hand on his arm, and looked at him with sympathetic eyes. "Oh my God, Castle. That is so . . . " She then noticed the sparkle in his eyes, and realized he had done it again. ". . . bullshit."

He looked at her with outrage, but there was a sparkle in his eyes. "What? Go ahead. Call my buddy."

"Sure Castle, if that's the way you want to play it."

He laughed, and swirled the wine around in his glass. "I must be losing my touch. I thought I had you with that one." He leaned closer, his eyes turning serious. "To answer your question, honestly this time, yes, I do believe there is only one person out there for everyone. However, I also believe that if that person is lost to you, the stars realign, and you are provided a second chance at love, if you are willing to take that chance again."

She looked down, breaking eye contact, and realized she still had her hand resting on his forearm. She pulled it back into her lap, and caught her lower lip between her teeth, thinking about what he proposed. "OK, so now, according to your theory, there is this person 'out there' who's only chance at love is this person who just tragically lost their one true love, and may or not be receptive to another relationship. That hardly seems fair in the grand scheme of things."

"Love's a bitch."

She laughed at that, realizing that he confirmed what she already suspected, that deep down, he was a romantic at heart. He would have to be to write the books that have women falling all over themselves for him. "I don't remember who's turn it is."

"You asked me if I believed in true love. Now, it's my turn. Why does the concept of there being only one person out there that you are meant to be with scare you?"

"Because I am a realist, not a romantic. I believe there are variables that make things more complicated than you paint it."

"Bullshit." He watched her eyes go wide when he called her out.

"What? You don't like looking at things realistically?" She hated it when he looked at her that way. It made her feel like he could see right through her, and read all her thoughts.

"That's not really what I get paid to do. What fun would books be if they were nothing but reality?" He sipped his wine patiently, waiting anxiously to see how she would try to backpedal away from the original question.

"The genre is called non-fiction, and there are libraries half full of it. In fact, reality is so popular, it's even spreading to television."

He looked at her distastefully, as he nearly choked on his red wine. "You are calling reality TV 'non-fiction'? Nikki Heat is more reality driven than those shows."

"Agreed." She followed his lead, and picked up her glass of wine, sipping nonchalantly, as he waited patiently for her answer.

He cleared his throat to get her attention, raising an eyebrow at her. "Just for the record, you are sooo a romantic. Are you going to answer my question, or are you going to keep trying to lead me off the trail?"

"What? I already answered your question."

"Fine. I will leave it at that for now. Your turn."

She put her empty glass down on the table in front of them, and turned so her body was angled toward his, not too close, but enough to let him know that she was going to pay attention to his answer. "How many women have you been with?"

He swallowed hard. "What? You mean . . . like a number?" She smiled and nodded. He cleared his throat. "Ever? I really don't keep track that way."

"Just a ballpark . . . and not ever . . . just the last year."

"You're serious? You want a number?" He glanced at her empty glass. "How many of those have you had?"

"My question first." She was still smiling daringly. He could tell that she didn't think he would answer her.

He turned his body to match the angle of hers. "Ok. Just to clarify . . . You want to know how many women I've 'been with' in the last year. Can you define 'been with'?"

"Use your imagination, writer boy."

"It was your question. I just want to make sure I understand the context."

"By 'been with', I mean 'had sex with', regardless of whether one of you tiptoed out before morning, or if you've forgotten her name."

He leaned in a bit closer. " I would just like to say two things first. One. I am writing down which wine you are drinking, because it's a really good one. Second. I don't do that . . . and by that, I mean 'be with' somebody that I don't want to wake up with the next morning."

She noticed he was suddenly very serious, which flustered her a bit. She was ready for gloating and boasting, not sincerity and honesty. "Ok. Common misconception noted. And your answer is . . . ?"

"In the past year . . . one." She looked up out of surprise, just in time to meet his eyes.

"That's . . . surprising. I would say bullshit, but if you were lying, you would at least throw out a number that is somewhat believable. Five maybe, even three . . ."

"Is it so hard to believe that I am particular?" He grinned his crooked smile at her, and she noticed, alarmingly, that she was a little out of breath. If he would just not look at her that way. "And you? How particular are you these days?"

She mentally kicked herself for not thinking through her question enough. Of course he would turn it around on her. "Very." She mumbled her answer, as she put some distance between them, suddenly realizing how physically close he was. She picked up her glass and walked into the kitchen for a refill, and to catch her breath.

He didn't follow her, but his question lingered heavily in the air. She was having fun, enjoying the dangerous game they were playing. She was learning intriguing things about him, without having to worry about crossing any lines. She thought it would be uncomfortable opening up to him, and revealing things she normally would not discuss. She was wrong. It was just as exciting seeing how he accepted the information she was giving him, as it was to learn his secrets. She picked up the bottle, and her newly filled glass, and sat them on the sofa table, before she reclaimed her postion on the sofa.

"That was very vague. I'm looking for a number."

"That wasn't your question. You asked how particular I was, and my answer was 'very particular'. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the most particular, I would say I am an eleven. Is that a detailed enough answer?" She refilled his glass, and left hers untouched on the table.

"Now you're a wordsmith? Sounds to me like you have something to hide? Maybe you're not as particular as you would like to think?" He raised his eyebrows dramatically, and made a show of draining half his glass of wine, then settling back into the sofa.

"Sorry. It's my turn. You can ask me anything you want, when it's your turn."

"Fair enough."

"You could be doing research for a new novel anywhere in the world, all expenses paid. Why would you want to hang around the underbelly of our city, and deal with the disgusting things people do to each other every day?"

He could see that she was trying to steer the conversation back to safer, neutral territory. She knew how to handle herself when it came to her work. She seemed to be struggling with her other side, the side he wanted to understand better. "Writing does not save the world, or the day, or the damsel in distress. Maybe, under the best of circumstances, maybe something I write may help somebody escape the real world for a period of time, but the real world doesn't go away. The bad things are still there. How many writers get to make the kind of difference that you are giving me the chance to? And that is rhetorical, I still get a question."

"That was a great answer. You've questioned your own motivation before."

"Of course I have. I can't be that guy who is just there to follow the pretty girl." He caught her blush slightly before she leaned away from him to pick up her wine glass. He decided it would probably be in his best interest to keep that discovery to himself. He waggled his eyebrows at her. "So, how long has it been since one of the guys who are there just to follow the pretty girl, actually got the girl?"

"Very smooth."

"Thank you. Occupational hazard. So? How long?"

"It's a really, really long time." She looked up at him, and suddenly he could see her insecurity, even though she was trying to pass it off as a joke.

"Ok. To me, a long time is, say, 6 weeks. A year would be a really long time. What do you consider a really, really long time?"

"Six weeks is a long time. Really?" She took a deep breath. "Because that makes this much harder to say." She looked down into her glass, any trace of humor gone from her eyes, as he watched her swirl her drink around in it. She was absolutely not ready to lay everything out on the table, but she felt more certain about her feelings than she had ever been able to quantify. "Can I be truthful with you?" She didn't wait for his answer. She knew that's what he wanted. "If I told you how long it's been, you would definitely have more questions. Let's just say for now that it has been more than a year, and leave it at that for tonight." She tilted her head, and looked into his eyes. "Maybe you can find some more of this wine, and if you want to, we can go into it another time."

There. She did it. She put it out there. Kind of.

.

A/N:

For the purpose of this story, we are just going to pretend Ellie Monroe didn't happen. OK? Same goes for Detective Deming. Everybody says we need them to make them realize their feelings for each other. I say....who needs them?