Beckett let herself into the Brooklyn apartment where her father lived alone, and called ahead as she hung her jacket up. "Hey Dad!"

"In here, Katie." Her father called back. "Did you have a good day?"

Beckett juggled the bags of Chinese food and answered. "The best day you can have in Homicide. Slow and dull." Finally wrestling the take-out into submission, she slipped her heels off and followed her father's voice. "You get the movie?"

"Actually, I picked tonight's feature."

Beckett froze mid-step as her brain registered the new voice. A moment later she was running. She came around the corner into her father's kitchen and felt her heartrate spike.

"Katie, look who agreed to join us for dinner." Her father said jovially.

"How could I resist the kind invitation?" Castle said, dripping with sincerity. Both men were sitting on the couch with a beer each, looking for all the world like old chums.

"Castle, what are you doing here?" Beckett demanded.

"I came by to visit." Rick said. "After all, we've been having such a good time the last few years, but I barely know anything about your dad. After… inflicting my mother on you at regular intervals for three years…"

Her father chuckled. "We've been having such a great chat, I knew you wouldn't mind if I invited him to stick around. You really shouldn't have kept this one to yourself Katie. Did you know that he knows Joe Torre?"

"Speaking of that," Castle put in. "Joey's having a little get-together, and I RSVP'd for two. Jim, I'd be thrilled to have you come along."

"I would love that!"

Beckett half-followed this and returned to the only point that mattered. "Having a 'great chat'?" She pressed. "About what, exactly?"

"You!" Both men smiled broadly. Kate felt her stomach drop down next to her gunbelt.

"Is it true you wet your pants the first time you climbed a ladder all the way to the top?" Castle asked her innocently; as though it was a silly rumor he didn't believe. "That's going in the next book."

Beckett's mouth became a very thin line, her shoulders froze and her eyes blazed, but she said nothing. She did however; choose which two of Castle's fingers she was going to break in the very near future.

"Now Rick, don't go embarrassing my little buttercup." Her father returned, suddenly the picture of proud parenthood. "By the way, what movie did you pick?"

"I got Forbidden Planet on Blu-Ray." Castle said. "I wanted to get something that I knew Katie-Bear would like. Here, let me take those bags. Another beer Jim?"

Kate added another three fingers to the list and took the opportunity to lean ion close to Castle's ear as he came over to get the bags. "Don't call me that." She hissed lethally.

Castle just gave her a Cheshire smile and took the food into the kitchen.

"I like him." Her father smiled broadly.

"Really? After 'Naked Heat' I figured you'd hate his guts." Beckett snarled quietly.

"Oh, we had a great laugh about that. Katie, you gotta have a sense of humour about these things."

Kate stared at him, suddenly worried. "Dad? Are you feeling okay?"

"Feeling great. Why?"

"Well… you're not acting like… Dad, you're supposed to be on my side. Or at least not on his." Kate hissed through grit teeth. "You're the dad. It's your duty."

"Now Kate, you go ambushing a man with parenthood unawares, you gotta expect a little solidarity." Her father said with a gleam in his eye. "You have any idea what would have happened if your mother had tried that?"

"That's what this is about?" Kate hissed. "I played a prank on him, and you're helping him get me back?"

"Kate, I saw the article."

Beckett's stomach left her belt and jumped up between her lungs. "You know that nothing… I mean, I would tell you if…"

"Kate, I'm the last person you'd tell. I never even met Josh; and I can count on one hand the number of your friends you've brought home to meet me since your mother died."

Kate felt her heart stop completely. It was the truth. She ducked her head, suddenly feeling about six years old. "Dad, I didn't… I mean…"

He waved her down next to him, and she sat on the couch. He put an arm around her. "Katie, every father of daughters is terrified of two things. That she'll meet the wrong guy, and worse, that she'll meet the right one. But you… the only people you hang around with are cops. Even your best friend is an ME. Then you get this guy, and you turn him into your partner? I worry about you. That's my duty. So yeah, I was glad to meet him face to face at last. When was the last time you had a prank war with someone? It's good for you."

She ducked her head a little as he tucked her hair behind her ear, the way he did when she was ten. Beckett was hyper-aware of Castle being less than a room away. "Well, you can put that thought out of your head with Castle. For one thing, he's already got a kid, for another, she doesn't like me, and for a third-"

"Whoawhoawhoa!" Castle interrupted, frozen at the door. "What do you mean Alexis doesn't like you?"

Beckett felt her heart start up again, triple time as Castle came in and handed Jim another beer. The writer sat down on the couch, at the other end, leaving Kate sandwiched between him and her father. She froze, trapped, and tried to get control of the room back. Don't lose it Kate! He's playing with you! Win the game! "Well, during the whole 'Alexis Heat' mess…" Beckett explained slowly. "I sort of got the impression…"

Castle waved that off. "Naw, she's just protective. Alexis has been my acid-test when it comes to women since she was ten years old."

"What do you mean?" Jim asked with interest.

"Well, when you've got money and success, you tend to attract some women like a moth to a flame. But trust me, they burn you. So they come over, and see a smiling ten year old in my apartment…"

Jim laughed.

"The ones that didn't have a sudden emergency to take care of, they made it to a first date. Alexis is sort of protective as a result."

"I can relate." Jim said easily, poking his daughter in the ribs.

"One time!" Kate exploded. "I put a woman under surveillance one time!"

Castle laughed hysterically, and she elbowed him, much harder than she needed to. Make that three fingers. She thought. Left to right.

Jim smiled sedately. "Don't take it to heart Katie-Bear, I'm sure Castle Jr just wants her dad to end up with someone as good as her mom."

"Actually, just the opposite." Castle said easily. "I can say this because Alexis agrees with me, and because she's my ex-wife, but Meredith is a flake."

"Really."

"Oh don't get me wrong, she was a good mother when she was there, but she didn't want to be around for the maintenance." Castle explained. "She was there for the first word, the first step, but the second the kid got an ear-ache or needed a diaper change, or we had a parent-teacher conference… She would run for the hills."

"Like you with the paperwork." Kate found an opportunity for the offensive at last and pounced on it. "You're the same way. Any time the precinct has to do anything necessary but boring, you remind us that you're not a cop and tell me to call you for the next dead body."

Castle stared at her, realizing she had scored a point. "Conversations like this are the reason I got divorced. Twice."

"You married Meredith and Gina." Kate shot back. "What'd you expect?"

"I lucked out. I got Joanna." Jim said sincerely. "After that, I could never marry a… what did you call it? A flake?"

"And a deep fried Twinkie." Kate muttered under her breath.

Jim nodded instantly. "Ahh, well that's different. That takes me back. For me the deep fried Twinkie was Isobel Warren."

"Dad!" Kate tried not to shriek.

"What? I was a teenager once young lady. This was long before I met your mother; and believe me I could tell you some stories that make this guy seem like a monk-"

"DAD!" Kate clapped her hands over her ears and Jim traded a sly wink with Castle.

"So, shall we start the movie?" Castle asked brightly.

"You bet. Katie, try not to do the impressions."

"Impressions?" Castle's ears pricked up.

"Katie-Bear went through this phase where she would say all the lines in her favorite movies with the actors, but she would exaggerate the accents so much." Jim explained. "I swear, I almost sent the tape in to funniest home videos, I was laughing so hard."

"Do you still have the tapes?" Castle demanded. "I can pay you. A lot."

"Sure, I think they're somewhere upstairs with Katie's old modelling photos."

Castle looked to Kate with an amazing smile blooming across his face.

"Dad, would you please stop, because you are embarrassing me." Kate hissed. Four fingers. At least.

Beckett strolled into the 12th the next morning, eyes roving like she was seeking prey. Ryan and Esposito came over to brief her on the morning's events and immediately felt her sub-zero gaze sweep past them, weighing them up and judging them to be meaningless in the same moment. They immediately turned around and walked the other way quickly, as Kate cruised toward her desk like a hungry shark.

Castle was at her desk, typing rapidly at her computer, churning out what had to be a few hundred words a minute. She felt her fists bunch as she got closer.

"Good morning Detective." Castle said brightly without turning, as though he wasn't about to die at all. "I'm sorry I don't have your coffee this morning, but I got in early, thought I should get a start."

"A start on what?" Beckett demanded, derailed again. "And what was that about not having my coffee?"

"I took our little conversation to heart last night, and I decided that you were right. We are partners after all, and I owe it to you to do my share of the work. The real work I mean, not just all the fun stuff with the cool dead people."

"You are a ghoul, and you can show a little respect to those victims, and is that espresso?" Kate demanded, picking up Castle's half-empty coffee cup and taking a cautious sip.

Castle continued as though she hadn't spoken. "…So I came in early to get a jump on my share of the paperwork."

Beckett swallowed convulsively, almost gagged. "You what?"

"Well sure, that's what you've been after me to do all this time, isn't it?" Castle asked her sweetly. "I got the weekly and the daily reports out of the way, as well as the-"

"Detective Beckett." An icy voice called.

Beckett turned and saw Gate at the door to her office. "May I have a word with you?"

Beckett rose to follow her into the Captain's office quickly. "Sir?"

"You want to tell me why the daily reports now read like a damn Pulp Novel Thriller?"

"Sir?"

"This is a copy of last week's report about a standard parking ticket. Read it please."

Kate did so.

Red Ford Convertible, License Plate GHI-723, was found parked too far from the curb at the corner of 15th and Broadway…

Gates took the folder off her and handed her another. "Now one written this morning."

Feeling an icy dread climb up her spine, Kate read it.

A hard rain fell on the Big Apple, as the dawn fought futilely to shine through. The rain fell harder with each passing minute, adding more and more to the price against justice; to be paid by the owner of the Oldsmobile, left motionless at the corner of 18th and Lexington. Once a common sight on the streets of America, the rusting monument to yesterday…

Kate set down the report with a groan. "Oh lord in heaven have mercy on us miserable sinners."

Gates was unforgiving. "Keep your pet on a damn leash Detective. What on earth possessed him to write police reports?"

"I may have given him the idea." Kate admitted awkwardly.

"I send this to the DA, and he's gonna laugh half our cases out of court. What am I supposed to tell him? Do I tell him to come down to the 12th and get it autographed? Do I tell him our latest monthly reports will be out in paperback soon?"

"He's a writer, it's what he does…"

"He's not a cop. I'm not kidding Detective, we don't outsource this sort of thing to folks who don't carry a badge."

"I'll take care of it."

Beckett stalked up to him angrily, and he still hacked away at the keyboard with glee. "I can't believe I held off on doing this for so long. You guys have the best material, and it's so much fun-"

"Get out of my chair. Out. Get out! Getout!Getout!Getout!" She pushed the chair aside, and the wheels rolled him across the aisle to Esposito's desk.

"Kate." He observed carefully. "You're upset."

"You can't take it seriously for a second can you?" She snarled. "Gates has made it clear that nobody without a badge is to do the official reports, since the NYPD apparently got Raymond Chandler to volunteer his time this morning…"

"So… now you don't want me to do paperwork?" Castle needled. "Worried about the competition?"

"I want you to let me do my job before Gates throws you out."

Castle took that in, and stood up. "Okay. But tell her if I go, the coffee machine goes with me."

"What? Wait, you can't do that!" Kate hissed, chasing after him.

"Well, since I'm not a cop, I might as well head home." Castle needled. "Your dad gave me a few photos I want to post on my blog. Call me for the next dead body!"

Ryan and Esposito were quietly watching the whole thing from the espresso machine. "Think he's serious about the coffee machine?"

"Nah. Still, that round goes to him. Advantage; Castle. I think that makes it deuce."

"More like stalemate. Just wait Bro. Beckett's gonna kick his ass slow."

"And we get to watch." Ryan said gleefully.

AN: Read and Review