Author's Note: No, nope, you're not hallucinating. I really did update this story. Finally.

I know that it's been a long time since I updated this, but I just looked at the actual date of the last update... August 19. August. It's October. I suck. But anyway, finally, at long last, a new chapter! And another one is coming some time in the not-too-distant future, I promise. Really. Stop looking at me like that.

Since it HAS been so long, I'll give you a quick recap of what's happened lately. If it weren't for my outlines I wouldn't remember, so I don't know how I could possibly expect you to.

Basic information that you should probably remember: Castle and Beckett are together now. He managed to convince her to start writing in a notebook to help her to remember her mother, and he's been helping her with that, but she's beginning to get pretty good at it now. More specific/recent details: at the end of chapter 7, Castle and Beckett spent the night together (take that in every possible way you can imagine). Kate was very intent that no one at work find out about it, considering they don't even know that she and Castle are dating. At this point they are still keeping their relationship private, and no one knows about it except for Lanie, Alexis and Martha. Beckett started pulling away from Castle a little, afraid that their relationship was moving too far too fast, and the writing project hit a bit of a speed bump when she remembered that she'd been far from a perfect daughter, and she briefly considered ending everything: her writing project and her relationship with Castle. Fortunately Martha managed to talk some sense into her, and Kate made the decision to go forward instead of backward. She agreed that it was time to let at least Ryan and Esposito know that she and Castle are in a relationship. And that's pretty much where this chapter picks up. :)

I hope you like it! And that my complete and utter lack of updating hasn't made everyone completely give up on this story... I'll try to be better, I swear.

Chapter 10

Friends

Rick could've done a happy dance on the way into the precinct that morning. In fact, at one point he almost did, but pride got the better of him when he realized that if he gave into his compulsion, the other people in the building would probably never take him seriously as an almost-cop.

Today was the day he could finally tell his partners, his friends, that he had achieved his ultimate goal—the one he'd been striving toward for three years now, and the one that, somehow, had seemed more difficult and more important than anything else he'd ever attempted. He was in a relationship with Katherine Beckett.

He realized that Beckett would probably be the one to do the telling, and that she would likely do it with as little flourish as possible—not his usual style—but that was fine. They would know, and that was enough. Regardless of how it was told, it would be a big deal, and he couldn't wait to see their faces.

He took the elevator up to the bullpen with two officers from another division who he didn't know. When he noticed them eyeing the four lattes in the cup carrier he was holding, he smiled and said, "Sorry fellas, they're for my team. But we've got a cappuccino machine in the homicide break room, and you're welcome to stop by. Bring your own cup."

They looked at each other, confused, and nodded before getting off at their floor. Castle chuckled to himself. Normally he didn't invite outsiders to drink their coffee, but at the moment he was in such a good mood that he'd probably be willing to buy fancy coffee machines for every break room in the precinct if they asked. Some new cruisers, a few police horses… he wondered if it would be too extravagant to buy a whole new precinct, with Jacuzzis in all the bathrooms and a chocolate fountain in the lobby. Maybe a bar in the basement…

Fortunately the elevator stopped at his floor before he was able to do a whole lot more fantasizing. As he got out, he tried not to have an unusual amount of spring in his step, but he could feel himself bouncing a little as he approached Esposito's desk, apparently the chosen hangout for the detective duo this morning. "For my boys," he said, setting two of the coffees in front of them.

"Thanks, Castle," Ryan said, beaming.

"Yeah, thanks bro," Esposito added.

But Rick was already bouncing to Beckett's desk.

"And for my girl." He raised one eyebrow suggestively as he handed her the cup.

She blushed and admonished, "Castle!" in a loud whisper, but she was smiling.

"Whoa, whoa, wait," Ryan said, coming over. "If I didn't know better, I'd say the two of you…" He looked at Beckett. She was still smiling. "I do know better, don't I?"

"I don't know what you know," she said. Still smiling.

By this point, Esposito had joined them. "What's going on over here?"

"Beckett was just about to tell me that," Ryan informed his friend. "So are you two…?"

"Are we what, Ryan?" She was obviously playing with him, and Castle loved her for it.

"Ah." Esposito nodded and smacked his squirming partner's arm lightly. "Are you together?"

"Right now?" Castle asked, jumping right into the let's-annoy-Ryan-and-Esposito game. "As a matter of fact, we are. But um… did you really have to ask that? You're standing right there."

Esposito rolled his eyes and Ryan groaned.

"No, for real," Esposito tried again. "There's been a weird vibe with you two for awhile now. We're your friends. You'd tell us if there was something going on, right?"

Beckett nodded. "Yeah, we would." They seemed to accept this, and then she added, "And we are."

"You are… what?" Ryan asked, still clearly confused.

"Together." She took Castle's hand and held it up as visual proof.

"You—" Ryan stopped, speechless, but his partner smiled.

"Congratulations. It's been a long time coming."

Beckett couldn't seem to stop smiling, but she put a finger to her lips to tell her friends to keep quiet. "This stays between us though, okay? I don't want to be in the press just yet."

Esposito nodded. "Sure thing." Ryan was still unresponsive, but Esposito gave him a shove in the direction of his desk, which seemed to do the trick. He nodded at Castle and Beckett and went back to work.

Esposito hung back a little. "Hey, Lanie and I were gonna go to dinner after work tonight if we get out of here early enough. You guys should come. We'll celebrate."

Castle started to nod, but turned to Kate for his cue. She smiled. "Yeah, that would be fun," she said. "Castle?"

He nodded, for real this time. "Definitely." A real double date with Esposito and Lanie. Could his life get any better?

Castle managed to hang back at the precinct with Esposito while Ryan went with Beckett to do a couple of interviews. He wasn't fooling himself that she didn't realize he had ulterior motives for doing this, but that was okay. She was allowed to realize what he was doing as long as she didn't hear the actual discussion. As soon as they were gone, he went straight to Esposito's desk.

"So, what are we doing tonight?" he asked the detective, diverting completely from any discussion of the case. His mind was already buzzing with hundreds of date possibilities, most of which were admittedly unrealistic.

Esposito raised an eyebrow. "Nothing too fancy," he said, reading Castle's face. "We're just gonna go somewhere and grab dinner."

Castle made a face. "We can't just 'grab dinner'. This is my first official date with Beckett. It can't just be an ordinary evening, it has to be special. Perfect. Magical. Something to remember."

"It's gonna be after work. We're all gonna be tired, and we all have to get up early again tomorrow. Trust me, Beckett will be perfectly happy with a simple, relaxing night with her friends."

"But that's so boring!" Castle protested.

Esposito gave him a look.

"I don't mean you're boring, I just mean… the whole plan, it's not memorable."

"It's the first time you two are going out as a couple, right? And it's the first time the four of us are going out together. How's that not memorable?"

Castle sighed, dejected, but giving in. Esposito was right, unfortunately. It would be difficult to construct an elaborate date for four people with no notice and very little time in the middle of the week. "Fine," he conceded. "But I'll pick the restaurant, and don't think I'm not gonna give it some flair."

The detective rolled his eyes. "Flair away."

Castle showed up at Beckett's apartment to pick her up about half an hour before they actually had to leave to meet Esposito and Lanie, as per her request. He knocked an odd little rhythm on the door. She had a bell; the knock was more about expelling nervous energy. Not that he was nervous. Just excited, mostly.

"What's with the knock?" she asked as she opened the door, the words out of her mouth before he could even see her.

"I don't know," he said as the door swung open. "Just…" But at this point he saw her, and completely lost his train of thought.

She was more done-up than she normally was at work, which he'd expected. Her hair fell in loose ringlets over the purple sweater she wore on top of a plain black dress. It was tight-fitting but not overly so. The hem was cut above the knee, not short but not long, and the neckline in a smooth V, just high enough to leave something to the imagination. Her spiky black heels showed off her perfectly sculpted legs.

After a moment of him gaping, she cleared her throat. "Castle. I'm up here."

"You're down there too," he murmured, bringing his gaze up to meet her eyes in a deliberately slow fashion. His mind filled in the curves that the dress didn't allow him to see.

She gave him a look that plainly and sarcastically said, "Really?"

"I've seen everything under the dress now," he reminded her. "I'm still not allowed to look?"

She rolled her eyes and ushered him inside. "If you ever want to see what's under the dress again, never look at me like that in public."

"But it's okay in private?"

She ignored that question, which he took as an absolute non-no. "So, did you just bring those to carry around with you?" she asked instead, nodding to the bouquet of flowers he was holding.

He raised an eyebrow. "Why? Would you find that attractive?"

"I'd find it more attractive if you gave them to me."

"Well, in that case…" He handed them to her. "But I'm a little embarrassed about them now. They're not nearly as beautiful as you."

She smiled and shook her head. "You know, once you get the girl you can stop with the lame pick up lines."

"Oh, you know you love it. And by the way, it wasn't an exaggeration."

"Thanks. You don't clean up too bad yourself." She set the bouquet on her kitchen counter.

"So why did you want me here early? Not that I object."

"Right." She led him back into the living room and took her notebook from the coffee table, handing it to him. "I wrote another one," she said. "Tell me what you think."

"Really?" He was surprised that she'd managed to write again so soon after the moderate disaster that her last piece had caused, but he was glad that she had. "Great." He sat down on the couch and opened to the bookmark.

During my senior year in high school, I had kind of a falling out with a girl who until that point had been my best friend. We didn't really fight, but there was a disagreement over a boy, and at the same time we both stopped talking to each other. We were friends with the same people, so I'd still see her, but we both fell into the pattern of pretending the other wasn't there.

I didn't talk about it. I didn't really even think about it. Since there was no exact moment when we stopped being friends, it didn't hit me all at once. Instead, it kind of snuck up on me. But my mom figured out what was going on, maybe even before I did.

She noticed that Maddie had stopped coming to our house, and that I'd stopped mentioning her in conversations. When she asked me about it I carefully evaded her questions. But one day it all seemed to catch up with me. It was the day that I'd broken up with my latest boyfriend. I wanted to call her, to tell her what had happened, explain to her why it wouldn't have gone anywhere, and for her to tell me that I'd made the right choice. I just wanted to talk to my best friend. But I realized that I couldn't. We weren't friends anymore.

I was still trying to wrap my mind around that when my mom came home. She saw that I was upset and sat down beside me. "Maddie?" she asked, using that motherly sixth sense of hers.

I nodded.

She wrapped her arm around me. "I know it hurts," she told me gently, "losing a friend. Sometimes I think it's harder than losing a boyfriend."

She was right, of course. I was more upset about Maddie than I was about my boyfriend. Maddie was the one person I'd been sure would always be there for me, and now she wasn't.

"Sometimes people grow apart," she continued. "But I think you'll find that as you get older, it's less about having best friends, and more about surrounding yourself with people you care about, and people you can have a good time with."

I nodded. I still had that. I still had my group of friends, minus one notable member.

She gave my shoulders a squeeze and assured me that I was going to be okay. And she was right.

He put the notebook down and smiled. "It's great."

"It is?"

"Definitely. I've told you this before, you're beyond my help."

She smiled tentatively. "Really?"

"Well, let's think about it this way," he said. "Did it help you remember that moment?" He thought maybe if she let him be her own judge, she'd be more inclined to believe that it was good.

She nodded.

"Then it's perfect. It does exactly what it's supposed to do."

"Yeah," she said slowly. "I guess it does."

He nodded, and consulted his phone for the time. "Ready to go have a good time with some people you care about?" he asked.

She smiled, amused at his paraphrasing. "Absolutely."

Through some lucky coincidence, Castle and Esposito pulled into the restaurant parking lot at almost exactly the same time. As soon as they were out of the car, Lanie and Beckett hugged smilingly. "Oh my God, girl, you look gorgeous!" Lanie gushed.

"So do you!" Kate agreed. "I love your dress!"

Castle hung back a little with Esposito, enjoying seeing Kate act like a girl for once. Not a cop, and not a woman, but a girl.

"God, I never thought this would happen," she told Lanie, also bordering on gushing, yet another mannerism that was refreshingly and adorably un-Beckett.

"I always knew it would," Lanie said. "It was just a matter of whether you two got your heads on straight before we were all in retirement homes."

Castle laughed and started leading the group toward the restaurant.

"Never been here before," Lanie noted.

"It's brand new," Castle explained. "Supposed to be amazing."

"And crowded!" Lanie said as they fought their way through the mob at the front doors and were immediately immersed in elegant Chinese décor. "We gonna have to wait a long time?"

Castle grinned. "Just who do you think you're with?"

"Riight. Mr. Famous Writer Man's got connections."

He sauntered up to the hostess importantly, pushing past a couple of irritated customers on the way. "We have a reservation for eight o'clock. It's under Castle."

"Oh, I'm sorry," she told him, "we don't take reservations."

He frowned. "Yes you do. I called earlier. Spoke with the manager. He said he'd make sure we got a table."

Now the hostess frowned. "I'm the manager. Who did you speak with?"

"Uh…" he flipped back through his memory, trying to remember the name. "He said his name was Paul, I think?"

She rolled her eyes. "Of course. I'll fire him tomorrow."

He couldn't believe what he was hearing. "So… what? It was some kind of joke?"

"Paul is a twelve-year-old trapped in a thirty-year-old's body. I never would've hired him in the first place if he wasn't engaged to my sister. How many did you say are in your party?"

"Four." This Paul would ordinarily have seemed like the kind of person Castle could get along with, but right now he was coming between his growling stomach and food, which smelled delicious. "Can't you just get us a table? As a kind of apology for the mix-up?"

"I'm sorry Mr. Castle, but there are people waiting who've been here a lot longer than you have."

He sighed. "Fine. How long will it be?"

"Two hours. Minimum."

His eyes widened. He couldn't wait that long, and he knew the others wouldn't want to wait either. Okay, he thought, let's try this another way. He looked behind him and checked that Beckett wasn't paying attention. She was still deep in conversation with Lanie, not even facing him. "Your hair is absolutely gorgeous," he told the manager. "So… black. And shiny. Very shiny." Wow, since when was he so horrible at complimenting women?

"Flattery is not going to help, Mr. Castle."

Fine. New tactic. Again. "Okay… Well, I don't know if you realize this, but I'm Richard Castle, the writer, and if you get us a table I promise I will tweet about how amazing your food is to all of my fans… even if it sucks."

"Look around," she said coldly. "I believe that message has already been received. And our food does not suck."

"No," he said quickly, "I'm sure it doesn't. It smells amazing, if that's any indication…" She was still staring at him coldly, and he was running out of ideas. "Look," he said, his final attempt, a Hail Mary. "This is my first official date with my girlfriend, and Chinese food is her favorite…"

The manager raised her eyebrows. "Don't take this the wrong way Mr. Castle, but I couldn't care less. People are waiting. Should I put in your name or not?"

He sighed. "Don't bother. We're not waiting two hours." He turned on his heel and started to walk away from the hostess station. On a whim, he turned back to the manager one last time. "And her hair is a lot prettier than yours!"

Apparently Kate had been paying attention that time, because she was laughing as he re-approached the group. "I'm glad you like my hair," she said, "but why do I get the feeling something went wrong there?"

He was fuming now. "There was a mix-up with our reservation."

There was a collective sigh. "How long?" Esposito asked.

"Two hours minimum."

"Not happening," Lanie said immediately.

"No way we can wait that long," Beckett agreed. "We have work tomorrow."

He nodded. "I know. Dammit. I guess we have to go with Plan B."

Kate nodded, smiling. "Okay. What's Plan B?"

"No frickin' idea." He pushed through the crowd to the door. He needed out of this restaurant now.

"Okay, Plan B," he heard Esposito say as the rest of the group caught up to him in the parking lot. "We'll just do what we were gonna do originally. Go to Remy's for burgers, and then grab drinks at the Old Haunt."

"What the hell's special about that?" Castle snapped. "We all do that at least once a week anyway."

"The four of us are together," Beckett put in. "We're all dressed up. It's plenty special."

"Alright," Castle agreed, hating the idea but not seeing any alternatives. "We'll see you at Remy's."

"I'm sorry," Castle told Kate as they sat at a traffic light after the long, heavy silence that had hung in the car. "This has got to be the worst first date you've ever had."

She lowered her eyebrows like she was frowning, but the corner of her lip quirked up in a smile. "This isn't our first date."

"Well, it's the first time we've gone out somewhere together."

"You don't have to go out for it to be a date. We've had lots of dates."

"Well, regardless, this is a pretty lame one."

She shook her head. "No it isn't."

He rolled his eyes. "Why are you being nice? You're usually at least honest with me."

"I am being honest." She reached over to his side of the car and squeezed his shoulder. "This date doesn't suck. It hasn't really started yet, but it'll be fun. It'll be fun to go out with just Esposito and Lanie, without the whole precinct, and with you and I really together, as a couple. A good time with some people we care about." She smiled. "What more do we need?"

He felt himself starting to soften a little. He had to admit, he loved hearing Kate say "we" like that, meaning the two of them. We. Couple. Words that now described them. Words he'd never found especially beautiful before, but now? Her hand stroked his shoulder, moving up and down slowly, gently, comfortingly. It's fine, she was nonverbally telling him. I'm not mad. Everything's okay. And eventually, he began to believe it.

"So…" he asked after a long moment, "when was our first date?"

She thought for a minute. "A couple weeks ago now, I think. When you spent the day with me."

He immediately rebuffed her. "That was not a date."

"Not at the beginning," she agreed, "but at the end? On the steps? In front of that library?" She bit her lip. "Remember?"

He nodded. The sunset. Their first kiss. Of course he remembered. "You really think that was it?"

She shrugged. "Felt like it to me. In that moment."

He frowned. "Really? Because that would mean that the day we started dating was…" he let his voice peter off, because she knew what he meant and he didn't really want to vocalize it.

"The same day my mom died," she finished for him. "I know."

"And you're okay with that?" It seemed weird, maybe even wrong. A day to celebrate and a day to mourn rolled together like that.

She nodded. "It might be good… to associate something happy with that day."

"Okay." If that was how she felt, then it was fine with him. "Then that was it. Our first date."

"And ending…" she said slowly, "and a beginning."

A/N: So, as Beckett so astutely noted, the date hasn't really started yet. Which means I have every intention of continuing it in the next chapter. And I'll try not to make you wait another eternity for it. I haven't actually started writing it yet, but I do have the beginning of it in my head, which is promising. I really do love this story, I just need to remember that... my muse has been a lot more driven by angst than fluff lately, and this story is definitely leaning toward the fluffy. Which is a little strange, because fluff used to be my main Thing. I did have fun tormenting Castle a little bit in this chapter. Apparently I can't just be nice to my characters. But anyway. I'm not so sure about Esposito. I love him as a character, I just have trouble getting into his head enough to write him well. Lanie, however, I love writing. So hopefully it balances out.

Reviews are nice. :)