A/N - Hope you are all still enjoying this. Once again thanks to zentamaus for helping me out as a beta. And thanks again to all those still following.
Disclaimer - I don't own anything to do with Castle.
Back at the precinct Ryan was just exiting the break room with a fresh coffee in his hand as he noticed Kate and Rick heading in his direction.
"Hey guys. If I'd known you were gonna be back so soon I'd have made you both one as well." He used his free hand to gesture to the cup of steaming liquid he was holding.
"That's ok, we'll make one in a moment anyway," Kate replied, appreciating the offer.
"Ok. Just let it be noted that I offered. Unlike certain people around here who just make one for themselves." Ryan raised his voice deliberately so Esposito could hear him, at the same time he shot a glare in the direction of the detective who was simply raising his own coffee mug with a smug grin on his face. Kate and Rick glanced at each as they walked with Ryan back to his desk, both having a feeling that they were about to join in on another one of the duo's little arguments.
"For the last time, bro: you weren't around to ask!" Esposito defended as the three approached him.
"You knew I'd only gone to get some files, you could have come and found me or waited till I got back." Ryan sulked as he took his seat.
"Ok, so you're saying that from now on every single time that I want a coffee, I have to check in with you first?" Esposito's voice was laced with sarcasm as he spun in his chair to see what reply his partner would come back with.
Ryan turned in his own seat to meet Esposito's stare. "Not every time, but it would be nice if you offered to make the coffees every now and then."
"Now, now, children, settle down." Rick joked as he tried to interrupt the bickering detectives.
"I swear you two got married at some point and didn't tell us." Kate smiled to herself as she knew her words would stop their squabbling. And true enough they both united to defend her accusation.
"Hey, if anyone's the married couple around here it's you guys!" Esposito pointed to Rick and Kate. Ryan also jumped in to back his partner up. "Exactly! So was it a nice ceremony? Or have you still to set a date?" With that they celebrated with a fist bump, their previous coffee argument all but forgotten between them.
Without thinking Rick threw in his own comeback. "Just for that, when we do set a date, neither of you are invited." The second the words left his mouth he could feel all three sets of eyes upon him; he started to mentally kick himself once he realized what he'd just said. Kate turned to him with her mouth hanging open in shock, though as she spent more time thinking about the idea of being married to Rick she found herself having to bite her bottom lip in order to try and prevent the huge smile that was starting to form across her face. Rick nervously looked at Kate in an attempt to gauge her reaction, he was expecting to either see her standing there glaring at him, or to see a Kate Beckett shaped hole in the wall as she bolted out of the precinct. Seeing her looking back at him seemingly happy about the idea was something that pleasantly surprised him. The couple soon found themselves locked into each others eyes once more, the words of their love and need for each other being conveyed in their own silent language.
In the meantime Ryan and Esposito leant in and clinked their coffee mugs together as if to celebrate that they were getting closer to the truth (and winning the bet). The sound of the mugs pinging together also seemed to help break Kate and Rick out of their gaze. As Kate noticed her two colleagues grinning at her, she decided it would be best to move the conversation on before they could get any comments in.
"So, any luck with the security footage?" She tried to act as professional as possible, but couldn't help herself from sneaking one last look at Castle.
"Actually there are a few things of interest." Esposito smirked as he replied; he knew Kate was trying to move the conversation on to avoid any further teasing from him and Ryan.
"You got the killer leaving?" Rick asked, sounding hopeful.
"Not quite that lucky, the footage still doesn't show anyone entering or leaving around the time our vic was murdered," Ryan added.
"So what've you got then?" Kate asked intrigued as to what her boys had found.
"Well first there's this guy," Esposito spun his monitor around for all to see. On the screen was a black and white still image of a man with dark hair in his late thirties wearing jeans and a t-shirt, a rucksack slung over his shoulder. "According to the sign in book that the doorman gave us, this guy signed in to visit our vic a few days ago."
"And not for long either, he arrives at 9.33am, leaves ten minutes later, then returns at 2.07pm, then again he's seen exiting about ten minutes later," Ryan added as he looked up from his notepad which he'd jotted down the times on.
"And check this out." Esposito tapped a few buttons on his keyboard which brought up four pictures on his screen; each was a close up of the backpack that the suspect was carrying. "See when he arrives the backpack looks empty and scrunched up, when he leaves the sides are pushed out as if it's suddenly full. When he comes back the second time it looks full going in, then empty coming out." He pointed to each picture as he showed them.
"And that's not even the suspicious part yet," Ryan spoke up.
"Then what is?" Kate asked.
"Well the name this guy used to sign in with was John Smith, sounded fake to me, so I checked our vic's diary to see if he wrote down this guys real name in his appointment schedule."
"And?" Kate prompted.
"His schedule had him representing a client in court at the time of these visits, I phoned the court house and confirmed it too." Ryan concluded.
"So let me get this straight, our mystery man arrives, breaks into the apartment, steels something, then has a change of heart a few hours later so brings it back and leaves again?" Rick scrunched his eyebrows together as he gave it some thought.
"What? No CIA conspiracy theory yet?" Kate teased.
"It's still early, give me time," Rick grinned back.
"Before we go chasing after the CIA, there's one more thing that we picked up on the camera footage." This time it was Ryan who spent a few seconds tapping away at his keyboard before pointing to his monitor. "This guy here is seen leaving at 2.40am the night before our vic was murdered. As you can see his cap makes it hard to see any of his face on camera."
"2.40am? That's odd. So do we have an ID on this guy? Another Mr. Smith?" Kate knew expecting a murderer to sign in using a real name was a bit of a long shot. But one of these days they might just get someone stupid enough to do it.
"Well actually that's why I flagged this guy as suspicious. I've gone back through the sign in log and the camera footage. But this person never entered the building!" Explained the Irish detective. Kate looked at him as if he'd gone mad.
"How is that possible? If he came out, then he must have gone in at some point." She was cut off by a rather excited Rick.
"Unless he parachuted onto the roof from a plane, killed our guy then just walked out the front door! Or maybe he's a ninja and he jumped through the window! Maybe he's a time traveler that entered the building years ago, but caught in a dimensional rift and only just found his way ou..."This time Kate cut him off.
"Castle!" Kate secretly enjoyed his crazy theories, but she knew if she didn't stop him now then he'd be there all day reeling them off. "Firstly I'm sure someone would notice someone parachuting onto the roof. Secondly I doubt it's a ninja, and all the windows were intact anyway. Don't even get me started on your time travel idea." She rolled her eyes at the last one, before turning to Ryan and Esposito. "Why don't you two take pictures of our two suspects back to the crime scene and see if any neighbors recognize them. We'll follow up on the shop our vic bought a hidden camera from."
"You got it, we just need to finish cleaning up this footage to get a better still shot, and then we'll head out," Esposito replied as he turned his attention back to the monitor, and started clicking away with the mouse.
"No problem, we're gonna grab a coffee before we head out anyway." Kate knew she didn't need to chase her boys up; they'd always get the job done. "Come on Castle, though I'm not sure more caffeine is a good idea for you." She playfully hit his arm as she joked with him.
"Right behind you." There was no witty return this time as he smiled back at her. Subconsciously he put his hand on the small of her back and guided her toward the break room.
The two detectives, who were supposed to be paying attention to their monitors, had both stopped working as they once again found themselves more interested in the relationship development between their friends.
"Did you see that?" Ryan asked his partner quietly.
"Castle just put his hand on Beckett's back and guided her to the break room," Esposito confirmed what his partner had seen.
"And she didn't shoot him," Ryan added.
After a brief pause Ryan looked toward the break room, then back at his partner. "Come on. I've got a plan," he said as he stood up and gestured for Esposito to do the same.
Esposito just looked blankly at his fellow detective for a few moments, before standing up and mumbling, "why do I get the impression this isn't going to be good?"
Moments later the break room was filled with the sound of laughter as Kate and Rick sat on the sofa joking with each other while drinking their coffees. Unbeknown to them, two homicide detectives were crouched on the floor outside peering inside, the tops of their heads just about visible above the bottom of the window next to the coffee machine.
"This was your plan? For the record it's stupid!" Esposito quietly muttered to Ryan.
"Look, I didn't see you coming up with a better idea!" Ryan argued back, though again quietly in order not to blow their cover.
"We're trained detectives for god's sake. If Lanie and Alexis saw us now they'd never let us live it down!" He tried to shake the thought from his mind. "And if Gates catches us, you're explaining things!"
"Relax. Gates isn't in at the moment. And Lanie and Alexis won't know about this." Ryan hushed his partner as he tried to listen in to Kate and Rick's conversation to see if they let anything slip.
"We are getting some strange looks from everyone else that walks past though." Esposito whispered back as he gave an embarrassed wave to an officer that was walking out the elevator looking very confused.
"Just go with it, this could be our best chance of finding if they are together yet." Ryan pleaded.
"Fine." Esposito wasn't convinced but he wanted to find out the truth as much as Ryan did.
Back inside the break room Kate and Rick continued to discuss nothing in particular for a few more minutes, until Rick's stomach sent out a rumble. Kate just looked at him for a second before she burst out laughing.
"I can't believe you're hungry already," Kate chuckled.
"It's been a long morning," Rick pouted.
"Are you saying that the pancakes I made this morning weren't good enough?" She crossed her arms as she acted hurt.
"Not at all, they were truly wonderful, I could get used to them everyday." He teased back, causing Kate to giggle at the thought.
"I don't know, even though you made the coffee, I think we'd have to take turns making the pancakes," she said suggestively, causing Rick to gulp down the mouth full of coffee he had.
Back outside Ryan and Esposito dropped back down out of sight before turning to each other in shock.
"Did you hear that?" Esposito doubted his ears.
"Yeah, Castle made his partner coffee, rather than just making one for himself!" Ryan still hadn't let their earlier incident go completely. "Oww!" He muttered as Esposito's hand smacked him on the back of the head.
"Seriously bro? After what we've just heard and you're brining that up again? Let it go! There are bigger things going on here." He made a mental note to make Ryan a coffee later just to stop him going on about it.
"Ok, fine. But was hitting me really necessary?" Ryan sulked while he rubbed the back of his head.
"Do you think this means we win the bet?" Esposito decided to ignore Ryan's question and ask one of his own instead.
"I don't think so. We haven't got anything to say they're together yet, only that they had breakfast this morning. Even if it was pancakes."
"True. At least it's something the girls don't know about though. I'd say it puts us in the lead!" Esposito said as he tried to picture how annoyed Lanie would be when she found out he knew something she didn't.
"Plus it gives us something to tease them about!" Ryan added with an evil grin as they quietly fist bumped. Celebrations were short lived however, as a few seconds later they saw two shoes appear next to them.
As Rick walked out of the break room he caught something out the corner of his eye that made him stop in his tracks. Turning to his right he had to look twice to make sure his eyes weren't deceiving him, the sight of Ryan and Esposito crouched on the floor whispering to each other was perplexing to say the least. He made his way over to them, knowing that he wouldn't get any answers unless he asked.
"Hey guys." Ricks voice startled the dynamic duo, and they practically fell back on the floor against the wall in shock.
"Jesus Castle! Did you have to sneak up like that?" Ryan moaned.
"Yeah bro, way to give someone a heart attack!" Esposito said as he glared at him.
"Sorry." He held his hands up in apology while looking down at the two on the floor. "But what exactly are you guys doing down there anyway?" Rick asked still having no clue what was going on, though for some reason he also found himself now crouching down with them.
Ryan and Esposito both looked at each other, silently trying to communicate what lie to go with.
"I dropped my car keys," Ryan said sounding a little unsure of weather that was the best excuse he could come up with.
"And it took both of you to find them?" Rick sensed something didn't add up, but couldn't put his finger on what.
"Well, I just figured after the way Ryan complained about me not getting him a coffee, he might complain if I didn't help him find his keys." Rick nodded at Esposito in agreement with his logic. Ryan used the time to slip his keys out of his pocket and place them next to his foot, not before shooting Esposito a glare.
"I thought you were getting a coffee anyway?" Esposito tried to move the conversation on, to make sure Rick didn't end up thinking about the situation to much.
"I did, just finished it, but Beckett got a phone call, so I said I'd head out and meet her by the car," replied Rick.
Ryan made use of this second distraction to pick his keys up, and jingle them in front of Castle, so as to help verify their story. "Found them!"
"I'm not even going to ask what you guys are doing." This time it was Kate's voice that made all three fall back in surprise.
"Found my keys!" Ryan once again waved them in the air, while Esposito just laughed nervously.
"Uhhh, ok" Kate just gave a strange look at the three grown men who were on the floor in the middle of the precinct. Eventually she just shook her head, deciding it best not to ask anything further. "You coming, Castle?" she said as she passed him on her way out.
"Right behind you." He smiled as he stood up and followed her out, waving to Ryan and Esposito as he left.
"Man, that was too close!" Ryan sighed in relief once they were out of sight.
"Tell me about it." Esposito agreed. As the pair sat on the floor feeling thankful that Rick didn't seem to have heard anything, they were interrupted once more by another voice.
"What on earth do you two think you are doing?" Gates voice boomed out as she towered over them. Ryan and Esposito both gulped as they looked up to see their captain standing there with her arms crossed, one eyebrow raised as she sent them a piercing glare, clearly expecting a damn good explanation.
The two of them looked at each other then back at Gates. "Keys," they replied simultaneously with sheepish grins on their faces while Ryan just waved them in the air; again.
