AN- Yesterday I had the most readers yet! I adore you guys. This web site is so seductive. I've published my poetry and nonfiction, but I never know how many people read my work or what they think. Here, a computer counts the visitors, and some of you kindly take time from your lives to click a button and tell me what you think. Bless you all!

"I would like to renegotiate our terms."

Beckett and Castle were driving down Sixth Avenue on their way to a crime scene.

"What? Castle, we just set the terms five days ago."

"Well, five days ago the terms seemed reasonable. Now they seem distinctly…unreasonable."

"Which ones? Having trouble getting rid of enough clothes to clear out my drawer?"

"No. The let's-keep-it-secret rule. That rule."

'That's the most important one, Castle! I had to fight tooth and nail to get respect as a female detective. I can't have the entire NYPD—the whole city, for that matter—thinking I'm some bimbo who's sleeping her way to fame and fortune!"

"Crap. I was afraid you were going to say that," he replied, guiltily.

"Why," she replied warily, "what did you do?"

"Nothing…except…"

"What, Castle? Spill it!"

"My book agent kind of knows about us."

"WHAT?"

"You guys should hire her, Kate. Paula would have criminals confessing in no time flat."

"Castle…"

"Okay, okay. She asked if I was seeing anyone. I said I wasn't. She wanted to set me up with some women who would get my face in the papers. I said no. In the past, she'd always been pushing me to take you everywhere, so I asked whether I should just take you. She said, 'I got the impression from Donna at The Ledger that you don't want the press to think you're dating Detective Beckett. It's hard to convince them otherwise when you keep taking her places as your date.'"

Kate laughed. "Seems to me I said something like that."

"Don't remind me. I said, 'Let them think what they want. If anyone asks Detective Beckett or me about it, we'll tell them on the record that we're just colleagues. Off the record, we'll tell them it's a publicity stunt."

"Putting all the blame on Paula?"

"You know, she didn't like that idea, either."

"I'm shocked," she sarcastically replied. "How did this lead to you telling her about us?"

"Well, technically, I didn't."

"You didn't," she skeptically repeated. 'Out with it, already. We're almost to the crime scene."

"Well, just then, you called to tell me about the latest break in the case."

***

Rick smiled just before he answered the phone, picking up before the second ring. Rick was careful, calling her Beckett. His instinct had originally been to act entirely professional with Kate when others were watching, but Kate had reminded him that would be just as suspicious as affection, as they'd been bantering for more than a year. As such, he threw some mild teasing into the conversation, told Kate he was on his way to the station and hung up.

Rick had chosen his words carefully, and even monitored the tone of his voice. What had given him away, however, was the speed with which he answered Detective Beckett's call and the look on his face as he did so. Paula Haas knew how to read a facial expression. A key element of her job was choosing (and sometimes leaking) the right pictures to sell a story to the press. The look on his face in that moment screamed "MAN IN LOVE!" It was, in fact, more than she'd hoped for. Paula would have been willing to settle for "guy with a hot date," or "man in lust!"

"Do you even know?" she asked with a thick New York accent.

"Know what?"

"You're in love with her."

"With whom?"

"With whom?" Paula scoffed, raising one impossibly-perfect, arched brow. "With Detective Katherine Beckett, that's with whom!"

"What? You're stuck on this idea again?"

"No, this is a new idea. Before, I thought you had a thing for her. Now, I think you're in love with her. There's a difference."

"I'm not in…in love with Kate."

"So it's Kate now?"

"That—that's her name," he stammered, blushing.

"How far has this gone?"

Rick continued to play dumb. Paula's ice-blue eyes fixed on her client. Then, she reached out with impeccably-manicured fingers, snatched the cell phone from Rick's hand and pushed a few buttons. Castle exhaled in relief. He and Beckett knew better than to text or leave compromising voice mail. In fact, they'd been together so much that they had barely called each other in days.

"So, you two have been together since Friday," she smugly announced.

"What? How did you…" Shit. Busted. Man, it's so much more fun when Beckett and I trick the bad guy than when it's me getting tricked.

"Simple. You went from daily calls back and forth to no calls. Now, don't you have a murder to get to?" Paula asked, returning the cell phone to a shell-shocked Rick Castle.

****

"After I hung up, she stole my phone!"

"So? It's not like there are any messages or a ton of logged calls."

"Exactly! That's the problem. We suddenly stopped calling each other."

"Maybe we should hire her. Is she going to out us to the press?"

"Only if leaking the story is best for business. I had to leave before I had a chance to convince her it's not."

"So you're telling me we might already be Page-Six-fodder?"

"That's if we're lucky. Well, no. Lucky would be if Paula decides to keep our secret. Lucky-ish would be if she just tips off Page Six."

Kate turned to him, horrified. "What's unlucky, Castle?" she gritted before returning her eyes to the road.

"Unlucky involves…paparazzi?" He shrank into a defensive position in anticipation of getting walloped.

Kate had to stop herself from slamming on the brakes. Murder scene, she reminded herself. I am a police detective on her way to a murder scene. I have a job to do. I have a crime to solve. Killing Castle would just result in a ton of paperwork.

"You know, the press doesn't usually care about writers' personal lives! I read a lot, and the most you hear is when a new book is coming out or they win an award. Maybe it makes the papers if they sign a huge new contract or get married or divorced, but no one cares about an author's dating life!"

"Okay, that's partly not my fault, because my mom was already famous in New York. The press loves it when the kid of a famous person makes good. Or better yet makes good then makes bad."

"You said it's partly not your fault; which part is your fault?"

"I hired Paula Haas. She's really good at her job. She convinced the press that readers do care about my dating life. It was good for their circulation and my sales."

"What about your actual relationships? Was it good for those?"

"The women I had relationships with didn't exactly mind having their pictures in the paper."

"Of course they didn't. So how do we undo it? How do we convince the papers your dating habits aren't interesting?"

"I don't think we can."

"I'm mad, Castle," she gritted through clenched teeth. "You said to tell you when I'm mad, so I'm telling you: I'M MAD." They had reached the scene, so Kate parked the car, exited and slammed the door shut before Rick even managed to unfasten his seatbelt.

AN- First, I wasn't going to write fanfic at all. I was just going to read it. Then, I came up with a few little fluff pieces I wanted to try--cute little what-if-they-got-together scenarios-- but all your encouragement is tempting me to turn this into an actual story...with plot and conflict and such. Maybe even a case fic. What do you think: draw the current fluff to a close and start a new story, or evolve this story?