A/N: Sorry I've been gone for so long! Also, some of you guys reviewed or PMed me your confusion with the previous chapter and I've replied you guys, but just to clear things up for the other readers, I'm trying to write from alternate POVs in each chapter. The previous chapter was from Castle's POV, so this one's from Kate's. Thanks Trish for the beta :)

Disclaimer: Not Mine.


Castle had just offered to give Kate a ride into town when Gina interrupted.

"And whose choice was it to ride a bike up here all alone?!"

Kate stared down at her feet.

Gina's outburst surprised her - she hadn't known the blonde could be so rude - but there was the ring of truth in her words. Riding her bike up to the Hamptons and heading straight for Castle's place felt a little too on-a-whim even though she was technically here on official NYPD business.

Silence had descended after Gina stormed off.

She really should apologize to Castle for spoiling his evening.

"Castle, I swear, I had no idea she was still going to be up here with you. I wouldn't have come over if I had known."

He rubbed his face tiredly. He begins to speak however; the hum from his Ferrari interrupted before he could barely get a word out. Kate watched his eyes widen comically before he started rambling. He managed to get a few sentences out, asking her to stay for at least one night while he went to deal with Gina.

Kate didn't know how he did this. If she were in his shoes, she would have screamed bloody murder and ran straight for the hills a long time ago.

He turned to go after Gina, but lingered long enough to see her to nod and agree to stay the night before he ran off, leaving her alone in the dining room.

Kate sighed as her posture deflated, feeling bone weary. The long ride, coupled with getting caught in the rain was taking its toll on her body. Wrapping the towel tighter against her body, she started making her way back to the front door. Her travel bag was still out on her Softail. She made quick work of the straps and removed the bag from the back of her bike.

Reentering the front hall, she quickly checked the contents, thankful the insides remained dry. Kate then headed for the stairs they had passed earlier on, climbing it to get to the second floor.

The hallway boasted many doors, but remembering Castle's earlier words, she randomly picked one of the rooms on the right side of the hall. The door swung open noiselessly. She glanced both ways down the hallway, and not seeing or hearing anyone approaching, entered the bedroom.

Kate flipped the light on, illuminating the room. It had an earthy brown tone and a few framed white seashells adorned the walls. A queen sized bed, wardrobe, and dressing table made up the furniture in the room. The lack of photographs indicated it was indeed a guest room, probably designed and furbished by the interior designer he had hired. It lacked the personal touch that Kate detected whenever she went over to Castle's New York loft.

Crossing the room, she opened the door located on the far side of the room. It was the en-suite bathroom. Kate checked for the basics, satisfied that she could easily locate everything from within the bathroom cabinets.

Kate's first order of business was to get out of her wet clothes and take a hot shower. Grabbing what she needed from her travel bag, Kate returned to the bathroom. Time to restore some blood flow to her extremities!

I sure hope Castle is able to find me in this mansion of his, was Kate's final, fleeting thought before stepping into the warm spray of water that was practically beckoning her cold body.


Kate paced the length of the bedroom, chewing her nail absentmindedly. Should I just stay put and hope Castle comes looking for me, or should I try to find him?

He hadn't exactly said much to her beyond asking her to stay the night. She would venture out to look for him, but chances are, she'd just end up hopelessly lost.

On the other hand, doing nothing but waiting in the bedroom was really boring. Mind numbingly boring. What if Castle was waiting for her to join him when she was done? She reached for the doorknob, thinking, What's the worst that could happen?

Well, you could always bump into Gina.

Kate grimaced. Maybe she could try to wait a little longer.

Luckily a knock sounded, saving her from further errant thoughts. She opened the door, revealing Castle, alone. She breathed out a small sigh of relief. She'd had enough of Gina for one day.

"Hey, Castle, do you want to come in?" Technically she was at his house, so inviting him into one of his rooms felt weird, but he was hovering out in the hallway and that felt even weirder.

The tips of his ears reddened and he looked flustered.

Oh.

Belatedly, Kate realized just how her question must have come across. Now it was her turn to feel the heat creep up her face.

"Why don't we go to the kitchen instead? I'll fix you a coffee or a cup of hot cocoa, since it's already pretty late," he offered.

Kate nodded, stepping out of the room before shutting the door behind her. She gestured for Castle to lead the way.

Would it be rude to ask about Gina? She wasn't terribly keen on meeting his publisher-slash-girlfriend again, but she didn't want to come off as prying either.

"Don't worry, she's not around," Castle said, out of the blue.

"Hmm?" Kate hummed in confusion. She hadn't actually said anything out loud, had she?

"Your, uh, face. The question was written all over it. You're worried about bumping into Gina, right? I mean, your eyes kept darting around so I assumed…" he trailed off, shrugging.

"She, uh, she's not in?" Kate asked, since he already broached the topic.

"Nope." He popped the 'P', gesturing for her to take one of the high chairs along the kitchen island. He crossed over to the other side of the counter and began preparing their cups. As she silently took to the empty chair, he added, "She's gone back to New York. So, would you prefer coffee or cocoa?"

He finally looked up from his task to regard her with eyes that remained a stormy shade of blue, the sudden change in topic a clear indicator that that topic was closed.

"Cocoa," she replied. Her system would not be able to handle caffeine at the moment. Gina went back to New York?

He nodded, opening cupboards and taking out the necessary ingredients. "Marshmallows?"

"Of course."

They remained in relative silence for a few minutes, the only sounds coming from Castle's tinkering as he prepared their drinks.

He slid her cup of cocoa over the kitchen island before taking the seat across her. "So, what are you doing here?"

Kate wrapped her hands around the cup, nestling it as the heat immediately began to warm her fingertips. She kept her eyes trained on the swirling vapors rising from the surface of the beverage, as she answered hesitantly. "Well, I had no idea that you already had company, see, and I meant to come up sooner, I… I guess I thought your offer was still on the table, but there was this case in New York with a terrorist threat, so I was tied up for a while. But I didn't know how things were between the two of us, I mean, after Demming and uh, well, Gina just showing up last week, I guess we had a lot of mixed signals-"

"So you came all the way up here to what? See if I was really with Gina?" he interrupted, looking at her incredulously.

Well, when he put it like that…

She brought up her cup to take a sip, buying time while trying to hide her face and mask her embarrassment. "No," she stalled, "Actually, after we wrapped up the terrorist case, I met a detective who said she could use my- well, your help with a case. Our help, actually, but I understand if you want to spend your summer free from cases, I should've asked your opinion before coming up here but I guess I thought you would enjoy the undercover aspect. I understand if you're busy with writing your book, I'll just tell the detectives who are in charge to work the case from another angle."

To be honest she didn't know if he would be interested in the case even though it involved undercover work - his behavior towards her since her arrival in the Hamptons had been less than welcoming.

She went back to sipping her drink, this time chewing on the semi-melted marshmallows as she waited him out.

Castle finally cleared his throat. "So, uh, tell me about this case, Beckett. Undercover work, you say?"

She bit back a smile. She knew that part would hook him instantly – now to reel him in.

"Okay, so here's what's going on. Vice has been hearing rumors about a small gang who's looking to expand. Word on the street is that they specialize in cocaine, tweaking the recipe to give a faster and longer high, and the money they make is being used to expand their empire, so to speak."

"Money from crack?" He asked, sounding a little doubtful.

"No, not crack but cocaine itself. The good stuff," she corrected him. He sported a confused expression on his face, so she quickly elaborated to clear things up for him. "Cocaine is the good stuff from the plant, the expensive one. It's normally snorted or injected. Crack however, is made from cocaine. They normally cook it with baking soda, so it's less pure, and hence, cheaper. Don't worry, a lot of people don't know there's a difference between the two."

He nodded and she took it as a sign to continue with the case.

"Anyway, this gang, B-38, has been making serious progress in the last few months using cocaine money. It's still a relatively new and small gang, so Vice wants to cut off its head before they grow too powerful."

"Okay, but where do we come in?" he asked, gesturing at the space between them.

"I'm getting there. The clients are mainly rich teenagers-"

"-And they've all come to the Hamptons for the summer?"

She raised her cup to salute him, taking a long sip of her drink. All that talking was making her throat dry, but it was nice to know that they were still in sync.

"So this undercover work, we're going to, what, pretend to be dealers and then sentence all these teens to prison? Is vice trying to stop the flow of this gang's money source? If the teens have pockets deep enough to fund this habit, you can bet your ass they have the money to hire lawyers who can get them off with only a slap to the wrist."

Kate slowly put down her cup. "Um, no. With homicide, our cases are pretty straightforward. Get a case, catch the killer and throw them behind bars. With vice, it's always about the bigger picture. They don't want to just cut off the money source, they're looking to take down the organization, nip it in the bud while they still can."

She could see the thoughts turning in her partner's mind; his author's brain sketching out different stories, all the ways this could play out. She cleared her throat to get his attention before explaining.

"The leader of B-38 is Blake Noles, but they call him Blake the Snake. His base is in New York and he stays there almost all the time. But now that his money sources have mostly come out here, he's got to send a dealer over to take care of his clients. We've narrowed it down to two possibilities: James Fray a.k.a. Little Jimmy, or Jonathan Slade the Fifth, a.k.a. John-V. Hamptons PD can print out mug shots for us if necessary."

She paused to let him process the information, observing how he took in all the details. His cup of cocoa had been abandoned as he kept his focus solely on her. Trying to remain unaffected by his gaze, she pushed onward with the briefing.

"Blake will probably send only one muscle man with the dealer since he isn't expecting competition for his long term clients out here in the Hamptons. That will be Big Mike. All brawn, no brains." Kate mentally checked off each item on her list as she told them to Castle.

Now for their part.

"Here's where we come in. Vice is hoping to make contact with these teenagers through your connections and get to their dealer and subsequently, Big Mike. If we can get enough dirt on Big Mike, we should be able to trick him into turning on the dealer, who's bound to know more about the workings of the gang. Once we have enough against the dealer, Vice will work out a deal to take down Blake in exchange for a lighter sentence or something. I don't have jurisdiction here, so we'll leave the actual arrests to Hamptons PD. You and I, are tasked with recon work: basically we need to go undercover, make contact, and get close enough to the dealer or Big Mike and find a way to get dirt on them."

She looked at him apprehensively, her heart fluttering within her chest. His face was an impenetrable wall and she couldn't get a read on him. He had seemed interested in the case but he was showing a much lower level of enthusiasm than she had expected. After all, they got to go undercover. Wasn't that something he used to look forward to?

She licked her lips and picked up her cup of cocoa once more, if only to have something to do while awaiting his reaction. The cup was no longer warm to her touch and the beverage had turned lukewarm by then, but Kate silently finished her drink without complaint.

To her dismay, Castle picked up his cup and mirrored her actions, gulping down the last of his lukewarm cocoa. Kate tried not to huff in frustration. She had really hoped he would be interested in the case but she had to tamp down on that hope. Right now, he could go either way and she honestly had no idea what her partner was thinking.

Her tone was carefully neutral and controlled when she finally asked him, "So, are you interested in helping out with the case?"