It's time for a date... I still don't own the characters :)

Castle was thankful for the lack of traffic on the roads and made it to Beckett's apartment in record time after making a quick stop on the way. He lifted his hand to knock on the door but then put it down and looked at his phone. He wanted to check one last time that he was at the correct address. So he found the message the detective had sent with her address and once he was happy and sure that he was at the right place, he knocked lightly 3 times.

On the other side of the door, Kate looked at the clock when she heard the knocks. Castle was right on time. She took one deep breath in and opened the door.

Castle stood there with a nervous looking smile on his face. He really did look quite adorable with that expression on his face. Dressed in a blue shirt that made his eyes stand out, he looked great. She couldn't help but wonder how he looked under his shirt. Did he work out much? Was he muscular or was he one of those guys that just let themselves go? It wasn't like writing involved him to keep fit did it? She had to quickly shake those thoughts from her mind before the silence became awkward.

"Hi, Castle. Right on time," she said with a smile.

"Of course, did you expect any different," he said, taking in the sight before him. The detective looked amazing. He wasn't sure how she did it, but she looked not only beautiful but sizzling hot and classy all at the same time. Most women he had met before couldn't pull off all of the looks off at once, but detective Beckett seemed to have perfected it. He let his eyes wander down her body and at her long slender legs. Castle couldn't believe his luck. How was it that this detective was still single, and what made her say yes to having dinner with him. Yeah, he knew he wasn't bad to look at but he hadn't really done much other than get in the way over the past couple of days. He figured he must have done something right to get her to like him just a little bit.

"Well, I've known men that have been almost an hour late. I'm glad you're not one of them, I'll just go get my things," Beckett said. She had not yet noticed the bag of Chinese that Castle had in his hand.

"Oh," Castle held up the bag carrying the food. "I thought we could…" He saw Beckett's eyes open wider as he saw the bag, and the smile left her face. "Um… eat in?" he finished.

"Are you serious? You think I'm going to invite you in here? Castle! I'm not going to be another one of your conquests!" she said.

Castle could definitely hear the slightly angry tone to her voice but thought he'd try and lighten the mood with a joke.

"Well, you don't have to be, but maybe I can be one of yours," he said wiggling his eyebrows.

Kate's face changed from slightly angry to extremely angry and she went to close the door in Castle's face, but just before it closed, he put his foot in the way to stop it, realising that maybe the joke was not the best choice given Beckett's reaction. He wasn't exactly sure what made him think Beckett would even find it funny, but it was too late to take it back.

Kate opened the door again.

"Castle!" she said glaring at him.

"Look, I'm sorry. That was an extremely stupid thing to say."

"You think?" Beckett said continuing her glare in his direction.

"I guess I'm nervous. You're different to other women I've had dinner with. I don't know what I'm doing."

"Wow, that must have been difficult for you to admit," Kate said letting some of the anger fall from her face. The poor guy standing in front of her did seem unusually nervous for a guy who is normally too confident for his own good.

"Let me explain this," he said holding up the Chinese again. "I know people don't usually eat in on a first… date," he said the word 'date' nervously, almost questioning it, like he wasn't sure if this dinner was a date, but when she saw Beckett smile again, he knew it was the right word to use. "With the reputation that I have, I'm really not surprised you're angry and don't want to invite me in right away. I know I'm no movie star but, I still sometimes get the cameras following me, particularly when I'm with a woman. And one as beautiful as you, is only going to attract more attention. I didn't want pictures of us plastered in the newspapers and magazines with those horrible headlines they print. You just don't seem to be the kind of person who would want that. I'm happy for us to eat somewhere if you want and we'll do our best to stay away from cameras. I'll eat out here in the hall with you if you don't want me to come in. If I have to I'll pass some food through the door while you stay inside and we can talk through the door."

Beckett laughed a little at that suggestion.

"But, I'm hoping that you'll let me come in," Castle continued and finished with a wide grin and held the bag of food out in front of him allowing Beckett to smell the food inside.

Beckett shook her head a little while smiling. She could not believe that Castle had just won her over again. How could she not let the guy in after that speech? Not only that, but the food smelt great, and she was starting to feel very hungry.

"Fine," she said. "You can come in, but we're having dinner… that's it!"

Castle pulled out a movie from the bag. "And maybe a movie?"

Beckett looked at the movie, then back at her date who was standing there with a completely innocent look on his face. He really was making it difficult to say no.

"We'll have dinner, and then we shall see about the movie." Kate said moving aside to allow Castle to enter her apartment. "Do we need anything to go with the food? Plates, forks…?" she asked.

"If you're happy to eat from the containers, and are skillful with chopsticks then no. We'll save on washing up."

"Sounds good to me," Beckett said finally able to close the door.

"Do you have anything to drink?" Castle asked, remembering that he had forgotten to bring something to drink.

"I'm sure I've got something. I can't believe you didn't bring that along with you too."

"Um yeah, I kinda… forgot. I'll bring two drinks next time."

"Oh, don't get too far ahead of yourself Castle. Who said there was even going to be a next time?"

"That was mean, Detective. Let's just say, I hope that there'll be a next time."

The two started making their way to the sofa where they could sit comfortably.

"You haven't even made it through this time yet. Wait until after dinner, then I may think about a next time," Kate said leaving Castle alone to go into the kitchen to find something to drink.

She looked around her kitchen unsure of exactly what Castle expected. She wasn't sure if she should take water, soda or wine. After a moment thinking about it, she decided she would take the red wine. It would hopefully help take away the nerves that she knew both of them were feeling. The wine probably wasn't as good as wines that Castle was used to but, it was better than nothing. She opened the bottle and poured two glasses leaving the bottle in the kitchen. The last thing she wanted was to drink too much and find herself getting drunk because she knew that would lead to something she would probably regret. Although, she did have quite the tolerance for alcohol so sharing one bottle wouldn't affect her. With one last thought, she decided to turn around and pick up the bottle. She placed the glasses back down on the bench so she could rearrange the things in her hands to carry it all back to where Castle was waiting, but when she looked up Castle had come to find her in the kitchen. He had finished emptying the bag of food onto the coffee table and came to see if he could be useful somewhere else.

"I thought I'd see if I could help, and it looks like you might need it," he said looking down at her hands while she tried to figure out how to carry 2 glasses of wine and the bottle. "Most people would move the bottle and glasses before pouring them. It makes things a lot easier to carry," he said with a slight laugh.

"Oh shut up Castle and come help me," she said with a laugh in return.

Castle went over and picked up the glasses, leaving Kate with just the wine bottle.

When they made their way back to the sofa Castle sat on one side and Beckett made herself comfortable on the other, keeping the distance between herself and Castle so as not to give him any ideas. From what she had seen so far, she wasn't sure how much of the tabloids to even consider true. Sure, at times he had said some crazy things that went along with the image the media gave him, but it was also like there was this whole other side to him that probably nobody knew. She didn't want to get to know the Castle she could read about in the paper or magazines, she wanted to get to know the real Castle, and in order to do that, she had to watch that she didn't make any inappropriate moves herself.

"Got enough food there Castle?" Kate said noticing the large assortment of food in the containers in front of her.

"Yeah," Castle said as he picked up a container of sweet and sour pork. "I didn't know what you would like, so I got a few different choices. I wanted to get a bit of everything, but I thought that would be going slightly overboard. Hopefully there's something that you like here."

"I'm sure there is," she said picking up some honey chicken. "This looks great!"

So the date does continue... it went a little long so I split it into 2 chapters :)