Written by AlwaysCastle and Kimmiesjoy

Beckett and Castle or Kate and Rick or whoever the two of them actually are in that moment... stare at each other in silence. Her eyes rotate in mild confusion and his mouth flaps in a way that should be comical but isn't because, yeah, they're both here, together, alone, and when the realization finally hits them, they speak at the same time.

"You're here?"

"You're going out?" Kate asks confused, suddenly feeling ridiculous standing on his doorstep with coffee for him and he's going out. He actually looks like he barely got in and she just turned up like an idiot. She shakes her head "You have plans," she turns "I'll just…" Her hands fall to her sides, gripping both coffees.

"I was coming to see you." Castle states and his smile appears as he interrupts her. Kate lifts her head to look at him, she's far too unsure for his liking, he waits for a second but she doesn't speak.

"You brought me coffee?" He looks at the cup, it's from the same place he buys Kate's every morning and he knows for a fact she must have walked twenty minutes out of her way to get it. He looks at it and he can't help the grin that spreads across his face.

"It's a bribe actually," she says scrunching her nose, ignoring the somewhat smug look that has taken up residence on his face as she steps around him, thrusting the cup into his chest and making him grab it. She's more Beckett than Kate as she walks past him quickly. "I need a favor." She then says offhandedly

"Really?" He shuts the front door following her, watching as she sets her cup down on his dining table and sheds her coat. Her hands fall on the cup again, clutching at it like she needs something normal, something grounding before she speaks.

"Yes I need…"

"A nap buddy?" He asks with a smirk.

She rolls her eyes, putting her coffee down again, her hands falling to her hips. "Not this time, I actually was hoping I could…borrow a book." She bites her lip, hearing how feeble it sounds as she says it.

"A book?"

"Yeah." Oh it sounds so fake and she can see he's not buying it, but she can't look away from the adorable and really annoying way his eyes have started dancing.

"You want a book?" He asks again, sipping his coffee and looking over the rim with a raised eyebrow.

"I haven't got anything to…read and I thought you being…"

"A writer," he prompts, his cup falls from his lips to reveal that smile that suggests the paper thin excuse is wearing away faster and faster as he stares at her.

"Well yeah, you would be able to lend me something to…"

"Read." He finishes for her.

She nods.

He nods with her, pursing his lips. "Mmm hmmm I get how I would be your first option, not one of the…" He does some mental math and she smiles as his lips smoosh to one side in concentration "Twenty-seven book shops between your place and mine."

Busted, she is just so thoroughly busted.

"Yours are free." She states her hands not falling, she seems to be gaining confidence because she taps the toe of her shoe like he should be moving, complying faster. She made up the lie and she's going with it.

He considers deducing the number of libraries she could have gone to, but sticks with their usual. "Touché." And then puts the cup back to his lips as he looks to his study and back at her. His eyes linger on hers for a long time, before he finally turns and narrowly avoids walking into the wall.

Kate watches him go, thoroughly checking out his backside as he disappears around the open door. She smirks at herself, and then at him and his near miss before she pushes away from the counter, with her coffee. She can hear him at his bookshelf as she walks by and decides to just…stay away for the time being, keep up the banter. Ease into it all.

"Anything in particular you are looking for?" His voice calls out.

She purses her lips, pretty certain she's found what she has been looking for, but that is a bit too much of a dramatic statement to just blurt out and she finds herself at his grand piano by the window. "Not sure." She says, letting her free hand smooth over the shiny black surface. This is safer, slower, more…

"Well you have all my works… so those are out." He mumbles loud enough for her to hear, all smug. She rolls her eyes, sipping her coffee.

Kate walks around the whole piano. Feeling a sense of nostalgia, and then lifts the lid from the keys, setting her coffee down on a coaster Martha must have there for her wine glasses. Castle still hasn't said anything... and she doesn't think he'll be out anytime soon, so she sits on the bench, twirling her body until she's facing the white and black keys.

"Have you read, The girl with the dragon Tattoo?" He asks loudly just as she caresses the keys softly.

Light enough not to press them down, there is no tonal echo just shiny almost music beneath her fingers. "I haven't." She replies, watching for him nervously.

The sound of a book thudding onto his desk startles her just enough that she presses down on one of the keys and the note plinks around the room. "You might like that one." He then says, rummaging further about his collection.

She may have made up this little excuse, but it doesn't mean he won't look anyway, Kate smiles because he hasn't emerged to question the noise and he hasn't called her on the whole book thing, but that echoing note has made her fingers feel funny, tingly, and she settles more comfortably on the bench. The stretch of black and white keys before her.

He skims over a few she might laugh at him for, and pulls more from the series he placed on his desk, throwing one so it lands with a loud-ish bang. He hears a sharp ping almost immediately after, straightening up with a Tess Gerritsen book in his hand and listens. Maybe it was one of their phones.

He shrugs.

Castle doesn't want to answer it even if it was his phone... he would rather have this time with Kate uninterrupted, like that morning in the break room (until the boys came in), and then the elevator (when the door slid back and she nearly fell out).

He sighs, bending back down to search some more.

Passing his finger over another book, he hears it again. Only this time, it's accompanied by a string of notes, playing perfectly together. His brow creases, a pang entering and exiting his chest when he realizes that it's not the radio, or anyone's phone.

It's the piano.

His heart races, and his feet carry him out of his study, and out into the loft. He follows the music and till he sees something too unexpected for words.

Kate sits at the instrument, her eyes half closed as her long fingers press each key masterfully, Castle watches in awed fascination as her body moves back and forth softly. Her eyes are cast downwards, a small smile on her lips even though her brow is creased in that way Castle thinks is incredibly adorable.

He doesn't move, just watches, and listens to the music flowing from her body. Not the piano, no, but from her inner heart strings. There is a relaxed ease and fluidity to her movements that suggests habit and ritual, like it might be something she loves but doesn't get a lot of opportunity to indulge.

God, he is more than happy to indulge anything that makes her look like that.

"Name that tune." Kate says without stopping. Her lips quirk, and her eyes flash to him briefly, he was perfectly silent and still as he watched her but she knew he was there.

Castle smiles and now that she has invited him into her peaceful moment, her joyous interlude. He happily steps up to the piano, walking the distance until he is at her side and turning her warm coffee cup on the coaster. He wants to touch something, her mainly, but the cup will suffice for the moment because she is still playing and there is no way he is stopping her.

He ponders the music, closing his eyes.

When he comes up with nothing, slightly crestfallen he watches as she shakes her head and offers him encouragement by pressing a bit harder at one part of the song, emphasizing the phrase, the change in tone and emotion.

His eyes light up. "Casper's Lullaby." He says softly, watching her eyes sparkle with enthusiasm when he guesses correctly. He moves until he is standing just behind her, fascinated by the way her fingers move, gracefully with so little effort, over the keys "You play beautifully."

Having tipped forward in time to the music, he watches as her hair falls slowly away from her neck to settle in a curtain either side of her face. A vast expanse of white skin is now lying exposed across the tops of her shoulders and he stands, feet leaden, weighted down, watching it ripple with gentle muscle as she continues to hit the notes of the sad sounding song.

He knows the story behind the notes well, the unrequited longing of a girl who falls for a love that isn't tangible, but real none the less. There is something mesmerizing behind each key strike, something about the way the music echoes softly and almost timidly that leaves him aching and unable to resist, as the she hits note after note. He lifts his hand and runs a finger, light but heated, across the nape of her neck.

She jumps and misses the next note, spinning to look at him with a mixture of amusement and annoyance ."You made me mess up." She huffs watching as he moves, shoving her sideways a little to sit on the seat with her. He faces away, with his back to keys. It's intimate and...

"Label," he murmurs daring her, with her 'I came over to borrow a book' lie, to contradict his words.

She doesn't, but he can see Kate, as close as she is, half smile and all, trying not to roll her eyes. She can hardly outright say anything and he loves how much it annoys her. He loves, well…everything.

"What else can you play?" He asks ignoring her indignation, enjoying it, rolling it around him and settling in to enjoy her, and the odd atmosphere they have going.

"Only this." She says as she strikes the keys.

He starts to laugh as the melody floats around, lithe and bouncy and not at all what he was expecting given the other piece she played. She gets to the chorus and elbows him clearly in need of audience participation. His eyes dart to her face as he finds her watching him, her gaze having drifted sideways, her tongue behind her teeth as she smiles.

"Doodah," he groans laughing as she plays Camp Town races. He turns on the stool. Spinning his legs to slip them under the piano next her hers, pressing close to her deliberately as she carries on "Oh the doodar day."

He's amazed that her fingers have kept steady with the time and beat, as she adjusts himself on the bench.

He watches her swallow, feels the small twitch in her leg as his thigh comes to rest against her and he hums along with the music she's provided. There is a hot strip of skin burning through the cotton of her pants, or his, or both, he can feel the static. Every time she moves to hit the keys, each little muscle flex adds to the crackle between them.

He's taking the power back he reminds himself. Dropping his left hand across his right thigh, he hovers the tips of his fingers over her leg deliberately, before he moves them to just lightly skim at her hip and then withdraws.

That does it.

That makes her falter, and she misses a note just as he had planned.

Castle shifts closer, the static frizz between their touching legs shift into something more heated, more undefined. He lifts his right arm to drop it around her shoulder, feels her start, a small jump as the current turn's live wire, and he smiles as he sees her eyes close. Her teeth settle over her lip, a very pink and inviting lip that seems to be calling his name. In one long drag of agonizingly slow movement he runs his fingers down her arm, trailing flames as he goes. Stopping at her wrist he fights to pull his eyes from that tiny piece of tantalizing flesh at the edge of her mouth.

He has never really taken time to admire her fingers before. He plans to rectify this as each of his own burn to the touch. Castle brushes the pad of his thumb across the back of her hand in a slow and calculating circle before he covers her hand completely with his. He makes them one. His digits and hers are touching, completely twinned and he moves her fingers as if they are his own, striking at the keys and hitting the notes she had missed.

If it wasn't for the sound of the key's pressing down with his soft coaxing, surely he would have heard her gasp. Or maybe he did, with his arm around her, his chin nearly brushing the side of her head. She can feel him breathing, pressed into her, the hot exhale ticking her hair. It's steady, somehow, and yet his body quivers slightly against her.

Her whole body is humming with awareness, tingling, and burning where his skin rests on hers. It's like nothing she's ever felt before. She sometimes thinks she can taste the edge of this when he is near, hovering, but when they touch, it's like a magnificent explosion of senses.

Whilst being so absorbed in the tinkling of keys and the insanity of softness that is her skin, Castle has almost forgotten he has his arm around her shoulder, her body pressed into his side. And yet she hasn't moved away from him. If anything, he can feel her press herself further into his embrace as they play. Some tune, he's not really listening to. He's forgotten everything else.

Almost

Because Kate chooses this moment, the moment when their joint fingers hit the A, to open her eyes and turn to him. They are less than a breath apart as she looks at him, her eyes flicking down to slide over his lips before moving back up to his eyes.

and here we go ;)