Disclaimer: Marlowe doesn't have to spend weeks job hunting.

Chapter Nine

"It's such a shame for us to part"

Kate took longer than usual to shower, and even longer to do her hair and makeup. It had been a long time since Kate had been this nervous to go into work. Her meeting with Captain Montgomery of the twelfth precinct had gone extremely well and not only was she now an officer for the NYPD again, she was an officer in homicide. She couldn't imagine a better scenario; she was one step closer to her goal of being a homicide detective.

She got her usual coffee on the way to work, out of habit more than anything since her adrenaline was replacing the need for caffeine. Getting coffee also stopped her from showing up at the precinct ridiculously early.

There was a detective waiting there for her when she showed up. He introduced himself as Detective O'Brien and his partner was Detective Grayson. O'Brien was cocky and arrogant—he should be "fun" to work with—but Grayson seemed nice enough. Grayson informed her she would be meeting the two officers that she would be working with soon.

"Where ya from Beckett?" O'Brien asked with a smirk. Something about him just screamed "jackass" to Beckett.

"I grew up here in New York City but I was an officer in Boston for a while," she told him politely.

"Boston huh? What was in Boston?" the nosey detective asked.

"Just wanted to get away for a while, I guess," Kate replied, leaving out that she had moved to Boston for a guy.

"Yet you came back?"

Before Kate could reply, Grayson jumped in and said to O'Brien, "I think we've interrogated Officer Beckett enough for one day. How about I go introduce her to Officers Esposito and Karpowski now?"

"Fine, fine," O'Brien said absentmindedly as Grayson and Beckett walked off.

"You'll have to ignore him," Grayson told Beckett, "he seems to think manners and tact are optional."

Beckett let out a small laugh. Hopefully the two officers she was going to be working with were more like Grayson than O'Brien.

When they stopped walking, Grayson motioned to a Hispanic man and a curly haired woman. "Esposito, Karpowski, this is Officer Beckett. She will be working with you. Beckett, these are Officers Esposito and Karpowski."

Both said their greetings, showed Beckett what they were doing, and continued on with their work. Maybe jumping right into the job and belonging here wouldn't be so hard after all.

~O.o.O.o.O~

The day flew by to both Beckett's surprise and chagrin. She didn't really want to go home. If she went home she would be alone with too many thoughts and that was never a good thing. At least when she was busy with work her mind was kept occupied.

Sighing, Beckett headed out the front door of the precinct, almost running into someone on the way out. "Sorry," she said automatically, not even noticing who it was.

"Miss Beckett. We keep meeting like this," came a familiar cocky tone. Kate groaned; this was exactly what she didn't need right now: to run face first into Richard Castle.

"Castle," she greeted curtly. Now she just wanted to go home.

"Ooo, using my last name again—I like it."

"I'm tired Rick," she lied, "what do you want?"

His voice softened as he lost some of the cocky attitude. "A chance." She gaped at him, not quite sure what to say. She didn't have to say anything because he was more than happy to o all the talking. "I'm just saying it would be nice if you would stop running Kate. It doesn't have to mean anything. We don't have to start this big romantic relationship. Just stop running from me and from the friendship that we could have." Kate looked down at the ground, suddenly finding her shoes interesting to stare at. "I'll let you think about it," he said before turning and leaving.

Kate didn't even have a chance to say anything before he was gone. It wasn't until he was completely out of sight that she realized that she really didn't want him to leave. She dint know what she wanted; all she knew was that she was going to stop running.

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