Chapter Seven

It seemed that every time she glanced at the clock time was passing more quickly, racing towards the inevitable conclusion of the day. Those last couple of seconds hovering over him as the anger dissipated were the last moments of the day that seemed to drag as she waited for her racing heart to settle.

Just as she thought she had it under control, he sent it hammering in her chest again as, with a single quick move, he reversed their positions. Castle used his hold on either side of her head and his legs to roll over, pulling her with him as he threw her off balance. A moment later he was the one hovering over her on her bed and the heavy thumping in her chest rose until she felt each beat thrum through her.

Those seconds dragged on as his intense eyes seemed to look straight through her. Her body started to hum in anticipation for what seemed to be just on the horizon. Despite the thick emotion blanketing them, or more likely, because of it, she felt a chill race down her neck. Goose bumps raised on her arms that were now pinned between them as his breath washed across her cheek.

Determination screamed from his eyes as he planted a quick hard kiss against her mouth before rolling out of bed and starting to pace. She could see he was concerned, but he was also brimming with a level of excitement she could tell was barely restrained. "So, we should hit his place early, maybe he won't have the bomb set." He spoke absently.

It took her a moment to catch up as her pulse raced and her mind spun with that simple gesture before he had stood up. It was a simple kiss, neither heated nor particularly passionate as they had been only a few short minutes before. Instead, it was almost an automatic reaction and for a moment she wondered if that's how things would be if they woke up together every day.

Finally coming back to the conversation, she shook it off to focus on getting through today. Kate sat up and slowly inched back to the edge of the bed, but wasn't ready to stand just yet. "He may have been wearing it for days, ready to arm in the event it's needed. No, we need a plan and no matter what you think, I'm telling you that you're sitting this one out."

Castle gave a bark of laughter that was somewhere between sarcasm and disbelief as he stopped pacing to look at her, "I'm so far from arguing with you on this one." Then he shook his head as he began his slow procession across her floor again. "I don't like the idea of you in there either."

Kate shrugged; she didn't like the idea of anyone going in there, but the alternative seemed too great a risk. "We can't just ignore this and hope it goes away. He could take out a lot of people with that bomb if we don't stop him."

Castle stopped pacing to consider her for a long moment before he cocked his head to the side, "Would it really be so bad for him to walk into one of that gang's drug houses and light it up? It's certainly preferable to dying myself. I'm just saying."

She shook her head, though the merits of his suggestion were decidedly appealing after what happened last time she'd tried to change something. "We can't just ignore this and hope it goes away."

"Why not?" he asked. His tone seemed to come across the same as if they had been discussing the merits of white or wheat bread and she wanted to shake him so that he'd feel the same sense of urgency she felt. At the same time she recognized the distance he was forcing himself to take from the situation. "It would solve a lot of problems. He blows himself up with whoever he's after next and we close our case."

"What happens if he spots his next 'target' on a crowded subway platform?" she defended the merits of sticking to their original take down of the man in his apartment. "We can't risk it and you know it. If I'm not crazy, then whoever dies today is taking your place. Can you honestly say that you'd you be comfortable with even the possibility of who could be hit by that bomb going off in some crowded location?"

He hung his head for a moment, roughly running his hand over the back of his neck before squeezing for a moment, defeat in the set of his shoulders as he rolled his head from side to side. He looked exhausted, but his mind was obviously firing quickly if the shifting expressions on his face were anything to go by. After a long moment he shook his head.

Silence surrounded them for a long moment as they shared a look and waited for inspiration to strike one of them. It was not forthcoming. "I need caffeine." Beckett decided as she dragged her fingers through her hair in frustration. She realized for the first time how much of a mess she was as her fingers caught in some tangles.

"You'd probably already have some running through your veins if your coffee pot wasn't smashed against the kitchen floor." Castle responded, his tone a forced casual, but she could hear the question in her voice.

She managed to dodge delving back into that dark bit of imagery or the reasons behind her destructive actions. Kate shooed him out to fetch replacements for the coffee he had thrown out on his way to find a cab earlier in the morning while she attempted to make herself even semi-presentable after the morning she'd had. He was back and knocking just as she slipped into her pants after a quick shower.

Kate swiped the coffee from his hands without a word and turned back to her room to throw on some shoes and try to work magic with some make-up. She wasn't surprised when she couldn't fully hide the evidence of her morning spent crying. She never understood why the body's method of working through grief had to leave indications for everyone to see long after the tears had been washed away.

She'd seen Castle take up residence in her doorway as she'd begun to carefully apply concealer around her eyes. Kate had managed to mostly ignore him as she completed the task at hand. After a last look to make sure there was nothing else she could do, she finally turned her head to meet his eyes. "Are you watching me put on makeup?" she asked, only to be greeted with a shrug and a slight smile from the writer. "It's creepy." she stated simply, feeling warmth in the familiarity of it after so much that had been far from the norm.

"I don't think you're creepy." he teased lightly garnering the expected eye roll from her.

It was strange to feel so nostalgic for something she did practically every day, but these little things were what she would probably never be able to do again without feeling that twinge in her gut that was so near painful she found it almost unbearable. Brushing off the thoughts, because they were far from productive, she addressed him in a tone that was so level and almost normal that she was momentarily proud of herself. "We need a game plan."

11:08am

By the time they rolled into the precinct, she had managed to tone down his teasing and his excitement. Castle was still visibly shaken, but he appeared to be letting his intrigue over the phenomenon to win out at the moment and that was the side of him she could work with as they play acted their way through this day.

It hadn't been difficult to agree on the game plan of keeping all this craziness under their hats. It had been a little more difficult to pin down exactly how they could get the idea that their new suspect could potentially be armed with explosives to be taken seriously. When they'd left a coffee shop down the street from the precinct with her second cup of the day he'd told her not to worry about that part and he'd come up with something.

As much as she was worried that the dark expression behind his joviality would give them away, he seemed to pass it off as excitement for his theory on the case. She almost envied the way he was able to tap right into the almost youthful excitement of the prospect that she was in what he called a 'temporal loop' instead of focusing on the negativity. Of course, he had the benefit of not having lived through it twice already.

She was also certain that he didn't fully believe her and with her not being in the precinct earlier they may have already drastically altered things enough that events would not unfold in the same way they had previously. There was the chance that any opportunity she had to prove it to him, aside from apparently reading his mind from the night before, would be lost to their late morning.

"Well, well, well," Esposito greeted them as they finally arrived and she found herself barely avoiding a blush at the suggestive tone in his voice, "Look who decided to roll out of bed and join us this morning."

"Late night, huh?" Ryan joined in the teasing and Beckett rolled her eyes for Castle's benefit as much as theirs before shooting them both a withering glare.

"Some of us were out running down leads this morning." she responded in her best authoritative tone and watched as both detectives dropped their teasing and perked up at the prospect of a lead on this case that had been driving them all more than a little crazy.

"What've you got?" Esposito was the first to jump to her ploy and Castle was quick to inform both of them of his theory and that they were looking into a couple of things to flesh it out. With that she banished Esposito to the task he had been focused on the previous morning, running down financials on the latest victim. She needed to get things back to a point that she was familiar with; even if she already knew his efforts would be fruitless.

It was only a couple of minutes later as Ryan was just finishing writing something on the white board from the most recent victim's file, that she caught sight of a silent conversation between Castle and Esposito. Kate almost laughed in relief as she saw the setup of the coming events unfolding just as they had two days in a row.

She pulled out her notepad and scribbled a quick synopsis of events about to occur so that afterwards she could present it to Castle. She had just finished and closed her notebook, sliding it towards him slightly, but not making a show of him needing to take it. She was content to wait this out. His eyes flicked to her with a question, but she just shook her head and gestured towards Ryan as she sent him down to records to grab the old case files for recent gang activity.

She turned to perch on her desk as she watched the detective walk away from her. This was a new angle to see him deftly avoid Esposito's attempt to trip him up and she had to admit the man was light on his feet. Kate made a mental note to find out if he took some kind of dance in his younger years, but then she remembered that he had been in lessons with Jenny for the past couple of months in preparation for his wedding. If dance did that much to his ability to move and react, she may recommend it as required training for Esposito as well. In addition to possibly improving his balance and large muscle memory, she could see it providing hours of entertainment for her as he first tried to get out of it and then complained daily about how humiliating it was.

According to Lanie, Esposito already knew how to move on the dance floor, but she knew her friend wouldn't complain if the detective picked up a few new tricks. Beckett didn't realize she had completely zoned out as she contemplated the potential of laying down that mandate, but when Castle informed the detective that he'd be keeping the video for 'insurance', Kate stepped in, "Get back to work." It wasn't the same authoritative tone that she usually had, but it had the same effect on both of them.

She almost smiled at her ability to kick them both into gear so easily, but only almost. She still didn't quite feel like smiling because the plan they'd laid out was too dependent on unknowns and chock full of more risk than she was willing to put faith in at the moment.

Once Esposito walked away and she found herself alone with Castle for what she knew would only be a couple of minutes before Ryan returned, she nudged her notebook towards him. The gesture was subtle, but with only a small quirk of his eyebrow in question, he reached out and grabbed the little book, flipping it open to the first page and reading through what she had just jotted down a couple minutes prior.

He could have decided just then that she must have been in cahoots with Ryan and Esposito and were using them to trick Castle into something so completely ridiculous. It was what she would likely have thought if their roles were to have been reversed. Instead, when his eyes lifted from the small notepad, they met her with a fierce intensity and she saw for the first time, there behind the fear and excitement, something that had been a lot more subdued a few minutes before. She saw his faith in her and acceptance of all she had told him.

Wide, honestly candid eyes met her own and she almost broke again under the intensity of his apparent concern as everything continued to fall into place. It was as if he was accepting the apparent melt down she'd had earlier and actually processing what it all meant for the first time since he'd shown up at her door. She should have been worried about him having seen this side of her, but instead, she was more than a little relieved that if something happened to him at least he would know beforehand that he had an impact in more than just the lives of his daughter or his fans. He had definitely had an impact on her, but she found herself less and less willing to hide exactly what he meant to her.

Castle shook his head in wonder and then closed the book, sliding it back over to her before meeting her eyes for a long intense look that they shared until Ryan came back in to drop a box heavily against Kate's desk.

x.x.x

A/N: Sorry for the long delay. Turns out writing the same day over and over is a little harder than I had anticipated, especially in the summer when my attention is stolen in so many different directions already. And it's short too, so that's a bummer. I have a little more written, but it was better to cut it here than to make you wait a couple more days for me to get my act together and type the rest of the next scene.

Review that made my day: Peachy-x, for sending me to Google and teaching me something I didn't know. I bet you're either in psychology or studying it because that answer was entirely more specific than my layman take on this. I'll let you know what super basic psychological principal I'm borrowing for this fic when I'm past the point where it would spoil things that are coming later.

Thanks for reading.