A/N: thank you. That is all.

"Because otherwise Castle and I are both dead."

Kate could tell her words had had the desired effect. Esposito and Ryan might be angry at her, but they'd never want her dead.

"Okay. Fine. What do you need?" Esposito said.

Kate looked at him in shock, she hadn't expected him to fold that easily. "Really? You'll..you'll help us?" She asked.

"Yeah. Look, after what we said to you on the phone earlier, here was probably the last place you'd want to be, but given that you're here anyway, it must be important."

"It is." Kate said as Castle nodded.

"Then shoot. What do you need?"

Kate took a deep breath and sunk into the chair at her desk. Castle found a spare chair and dragged it over to sit next to her. "How far have you got on Montgomery's case?" She asked, tears springing to her eyes as she remembered how he'd died in her arms.

"Not very far." Ryan said. "It was too well planned out, no evidence left, no abnormal phone records..wait, I thought you said you know who killed him?"

Castle could tell Kate was struggling to keep it together so he spoke this time. "We do..just not the name of the person. We know roughly what they do and if I spoke to my boss I could probably find out who they work for but that's all we have."

"And you're here why, exactly?" Esposito asked, shooting Castle a glare that would have made lesser men quake in their boots.

"Cut it out, Espo." Kate said, "Castle is here because we're in this together and honestly, if it was for him I wouldn't have got through the last few days."

"And what exactly is it that you're in together?" Ryan questioned.

Kate smiled apologetically at him. "Right, you can't say."

"I'm sorry guys, I really am. But this was never meant to happen, this was meant to be over days ago."

"Well if you won't tell us how come you told writer-boy over here?" Ryan said. Kate looked at him. How did he know Castle was a writer? "What? Jenny loves his books." He said defensively. His relationship with Jenny was still fairly new and he got enough of a ribbing from Esposito about it.

"Well tell Jenny I said thank you very much." Castle said with his best page six smile. Kate rolled her eyes.

"Yes yes, we all love his books. Now, can we -" she broke off when she noticed Castle staring at her. "What? What did I say?"

"You uh, you said 'we all love his books.' Didn't know you were such a fan Beckett."

Crap. "I'm..um, I..ah.." She really hadn't meant to say that, the last thing she needed was to inflate the guys ego anymore.

Castle smirked at her discomfort. "Oh we'll talk about this later." Brilliant. Kate couldn't wait.

"Anyway, the reason Castle knows is because it involves him too. We met accidentally and things sort of unfolded from there." Kate said, avoiding eye contact with Castle.

"Okay, so obviously you're not going to tell us anything and we don't really have any information to go on in the case so you might as well go now." Esposito said, heading into the break room, closely followed by Ryan.

Castle could see how upset Kate was, despite the fact she was trying desperately to hide it. "Hey," he whispered, pulling her into a tight hug, "they'll come around. They're just angry what with everything that happened to Montgomery and now you're not telling them what they want to know-" he broke off as she tried to speak, "I know you can't tell them but they don't know why and that's why they're angry, they'll get over it, I promise."

"I can tell them." She said. "I mean, I know I'm not supposed to but who's going to stop me now that Montgomery is dead? Even if he was here and this situation was reversed, he'd tell me I could tell Espo and Ryan what I wanted."

"Kate, look at me." She pulled away slightly to look at him, their faces inches apart. "If you want to tell them then fine. I'll be here with you when you do it, if you want."

"Seriously! You'd help me tell them even though it's breaking every single rule we promised not to break when we signed up?"

"Yes." He said simply and Kate kissed him. "What was that for?" He laughed.

"What, I'm not allowed to kiss my boyfri-" she broke off and her eyes widened.

Unfortunately for her, Castle had caught her little slip up. "Oh, so I'm your boyfriend now am I?" He asked, a slight teasing tone to his voice.

"I..um...no I just-"

"Kate, I'm joking. If you call me your boyfriend then I'm your boyfriend. Okay?"

"'Kay." She mumbled settling back into her previous position of being wrapped in his arms, it made her feel safe. She wasn't really sure if he was her boyfriend, everything had happened ridiculously fast over the past few days, but although they hadn't known each other very long, this kind of situation meant it felt like forever. And if Richard Castle was her boyfriend? Well, she could think of worse things to happen. She'd go with it for now and they could talk about it properly when this was all over.

"So, do you wanna tell Esposito and Ryan?" He asked.

"Yeah, I guess." She sighed. "I feel bad about not telling them what we know, they want this guy just as much as we do. And I know we can trust them, they won't tell anyone."

"I guess it's sorted then." Castle said, liking how much she'd used 'we' in that last sentence. She was one in a million and there was no way her go letting her go, even once this was all over. "Come on, we'll do it in the break room. Less chance of being overheard." He said, taking her hand and pulling her up with him.

"Yeah, and you want coffee." She grumbled.

"Oh you know me so well." He said.

That got Kate thinking. How did she know him so well already? She didn't know, but one thing she did know was that she, the woman famous for her commitment issues, wasn't even bothered by that fact. Hmm, maybe Roy knew something when he gave her this case. She thought, thinking back to the conversation she'd had with him about giving all this up when she found 'the one'. If that even existed. Ah, there was the Kate Beckett she knew.

Okay guys, we'll tell you what we know." Kate said as her and Castle entered the break room.

"Finally decided we can handle it have you?" Espo said.

"Drop the attitude, Javi, I'm not in the mood." Kate replied in her usual 'in charge Detective' voice. It worked.

"Sorry. Okay, well we're ready when you are." He said.

"I need coffee first." Castle reminded her and she laughed.

"Yes okay, we'll make coffee first." She stopped on her way to make it, sensing Esposito and Ryan staring at her. "Okay, what now?"

"Nothing it's just..did you just laugh?" Ryan asked.

Beckett looked at him. "Yeah. So?"

"So, the Kate Beckett we know is as serious as a heart attack. You don't laugh." Espo added.

"Oh. Right." Kate was at a loss for words. Now that they'd pointed it out, she realised they were right. Jesus, Castle was a good influence.

Castle was confused. The Kate Beckett he knew had laughed quite a lot when they were together. But then Esposito and Ryan were saying this was out of the ordinary for her? Strange.

"Yeah, anyway, coffee." Beckett said, not wanting to dwell on their comments any longer. She was already worried about how fast things were moving with Castle and now even her colleagues were noticing the change in her.

Five minutes later and the four of them we're sat around the the table, steaming mugs of coffee in front of them. Kate sat next to Rick with Espo and Ryan opposite them.

"Okay, well where do you want us to start?" Beckett asked.

"How about how you know who killed Montgomery?" Esposito said and Ryan nodded his agreement.

Kate looked at Castle. "Right, well we can tell you that but we might have to start a little earlier..you won't understand otherwise."

"Okay fine, tell us what you want and then we'll ask any questions."

"Same story as Alexis?" Castle whispered in Kate's ear and she nodded. Well, it went okay with Alexis..

Twenty minute later and they'd explained what they could to Esposito and Ryan. Both of them had remained silent throughout the story and had refrained from interrupting with questions. Not like them, Kate thought to herself.

After Castle and Beckett had finished, the room was silent for a few minutes.

"So..you're telling us that Montgomery was running a secret organisation of undercover agents out of this precinct?" Ryan said, breaking the silence. Kate nodded. "And you're one of them?" She nodded again. "Wow."

"Right, well as much as that is a huge shock to us both, I think we can leave it for now and deal with it later. What we wanna know is how much you can tell us on Momtgomery."

Kate took a deep breath. "Right, well we think Montgomery got into contact with the chief, trying to find another way out of this. He wasn't happy with it and neither were we, but we had explicit instructions on what was supposed to happen and what the consequences would be if we failed." Castle squeezed her hand in encouragement. "However the chief wasn't happy with this, and had Montgomery killed. We got there - separately - just before he died and he told me this case was over and I wasn't to kill Castle." Not that I could have done anyway, she added silently. "However I was angry. I went over to see Castle and um..we er, fought." She said as a pink tinge rose on her cheeks. What was she supposed to say next? 'But we gave in and had mind blowing sex in his living room?' Awkward.

Ryan and Esposito took her sudden silence and the blush on her cheeks as information enough. "Ah, you can uh, skip the rest of that night if you like. We don't want details."

Kate's cheeks flamed with embarrassment. She wasn't going to even look at Castle. "Yeah, well skip to the next morning and the chief sends forces after us." God, was that only this morning? Had her and Castle only happened last night? How was that even possible?

Castle decided to continue the story from there. "Four men stormed into my apartment, ready to fight. I took one out and another knocked me out. Kate here saved us and took out the remaining three, keeping my daughter safe too." Beckett's cheeks flamed again.

Esposito and Ryan looked impressed. "So um, what are you doing here?" They asked.

"Well Castle's boss told us leaving his place wouldn't be safe but given what happened, staying wasn't safe either. It won't be long before the chief finds out we're still alive and sends people after us again. We came here because we wanted to see if you were any closer than us to finding out who's behind all this. If we find him, we might be able to stop him." She did add that they needed to stop him if either of them were going to survive for much longer.

So for the next two hours, the four of them worked as a team to piece together all the information they had. Castle had tried calling Gina to see what she knew about the chief, but she wasn't answering so they had to do without that for now.

"Well, we don't have much but it's better than nothing." Kate said, standing back to look at their murder board. They had all the outlines, they just needed to fill in the middle - names, places, organisations..

Just then, Castle's phone rang. Pulling it out to answer it, he mouthed 'Gina' to the rest of them.

"About time, why aren't you answering my calls?" He asked.

"Probably the same reason you're not at your apartment, where I asked you to stay."

"Gina, you had people remove the bodies - you didn't really think we were going to stay there when it quite clearly isn't safe, did you?"

"Oh I suppose not. Where are you, anyway?" She asked.

"Over at the twelfth precinct with Kate and her team, we've been going over the case, putting our information together to try and figure out who's behind this."

"Oh come on, Richard. You know how dangerous he is, you need to be care-" she broke off. "Was that clicking sound you?"

"No, I thought it was you?"

"Richard - hang up the phone. Ditch it first chance you get, go somewhere safe. Take Kate with you!" She shouted cutting off the call.

"What's wrong?" Beckett asked, seeing his panicked expression.

"I told Gina where we were and I think the call was being listened into." He said. "They know where we are, Kate, and they're going to come after us."

A/N: your thoughts would be greatly appreciated :)