Waking before the alarm on his phone went off was something of a novelty nowadays for him. On this particular morning, feeling rested from a full night's sleep and waking naturally was, as they say, the best thing since sliced bread. It was time to head straight into the storm and negotiate the divorce settlement, and he'd needed all the rest he could get. He yawned, stretching his lean muscles out across the mattress, before he got up and made his way into the bathroom, once again determined not to look too shabby in front of his soon-to-be ex-wife.
As he looked in the mirror, he rubbed his hand over the stubble dusted over his chin and cheeks. It already had a couple of days growth and with a shrug of his shoulders he decided to leave it another day or two more. After all, if George Clooney could pull off designer stubble, so could Richard Castle.
The wardrobe decision took longer than the shower, and he was still wrapped in a towel in his closet when he heard Alexis calling him from his office.
"Good morning, Pumpkin!"
She'd found him and stuck her head around the door, "Dad? Why are you still in the closet?"
"What d'you mean, still?" He frowned.
"I heard the shower turn off ages ago. Having trouble deciding what to wear again?" He hummed in reply, ignoring the subtle dig at how long it took him to pick his outfits. "Look, wear the suit with the subtle blue pinstripe, and this light blue shirt. Do you need a tie?"
"Maybe. I could put one in my pocket," he suggested, reaching for a particularly hideous green and yellow abomination.
"This one." Alexis handed him a plain navy silk tie, and pointed to the black shoes she knew he was favouring at the moment. "Do you want me to shine your shoes?" She gave him a small smile.
"No thank you, they're okay, shouldn't you be going to school?"
"Yes, I should. But I couldn't leave without making sure my poor old dad was properly dressed!" She patted his shoulder and turned to leave.
"Hey!" He sounded affronted and put on his best pout as she looked over her shoulder at him. "Where's my kiss?" He pointed at his cheek.
"If you think I'm giving you a kiss with that much spiky stubble, you can think again, buster." She grinned, "Bye Dad!"
"Look, Rick, I know it's not really an ideal situation but the fact is it's you who is filing for divorce, not her, and the pre-nup was very clear on the outcome if that happened." Rick sighed and bowed his head. Much as he hated to admit it, his lawyer was right.
He pulled his tie from his jacket pocket and began to slip it through his collar as he continued, "Didn't we put something in there about Alexis? Like a 'don't mess with my daughter' clause?" His lawyer chuckled, the light bouncing off his balding head as it shook.
"The fact is, you're going to have to pay out a lot of money for this. Thankfully not fifty per cent, but it's going to hurt."
"Guess I'd better get another bestseller written then!" Rick's sarcasm wasn't fooling the lawyer in the slightest, especially since his client had said almost exactly the same thing during the previous divorce.
"Or, in the meantime, ask Black Pawn for an advance on the next book."
"Huh. That's not a bad idea, Charlie!" Rick's smile fell almost as quickly as it had appeared. "Except it's Gina I'll have to ask for it."
"How about I ask for you in the meeting? Soften the blow for you a bit." Rick simply nodded, not looking up. "Alright then. Are you ready? It's time to go."
"Ready as I'll ever be." He twiddled the knot of his tie, ran his hand through his hair and stood tall as he followed Charlie from the lawyer's suite into the conference room. Gina and her lawyer, one of the senior lawyers from the Black Pawn office he noted, were already there, both looking immaculate as they stood by the side table where a few cups and a carafe of coffee had been laid on.
Charlie took a seat and gestured with a business-like smile to the chairs on the opposite side of the table, "Shall we begin?"
He's tired. No, wait, rewind. He's beyond tired, so exhausted that there is surely only one cure.
Ice cream.
He serendipitously finds himself outside Sundaes & Cones on East Tenth Street, not entirely sure how he got there, but glad nonetheless when he looks through the window and sees her waving to him. A little flick of her fingers and a tiny smile, but she's there and that makes all the difference.
He joins her in the middle of the queue, greeting her with a breathless, "Hey..." that leaves him wondering if he really is a successful author of more bestselling books than he can hold in one go. But she smiles and replies in kind and it's like the clouds have moved on from right above his head and he can almost feel the weight of his worries beginning to lift off his shoulders.
Suddenly he wishes she were real, that the floaty blue dress that barely grazes her knees were real, that the sunglasses that are perched on top of her head holding her hair back were real. She reaches out to him and touches his forearm with her slim hand. Even through his jacket and shirt he can feel her fingertips branding him, leaving marks he'll never want to wash away. "Hey, don't start doubting me. I might disappear like Tinkerbell if you say you don't believe..."
"I do believe in fairies! I do! I do!" She laughs, appreciating his quick mind calling up Peter Pan as if from nowhere, and squeezing his arm gently before letting go.
"That's alright then."
They reach the front of the queue and he realises he has no idea what to order. She requests a chocolate cone with multi-coloured sprinkles, while his eye picks out a flavour he's never even considered could be an ice cream.
"Wasabi?"
"Yes sir, one wasabi cone coming right up!"
Rick's eyes widen and he starts to protest but she's laughing, bent over with a hand on her knee while she clutches her cone, and it's all he ever wants to hear for the rest of his life.
"Alright, I'll take one for the team..." he says as he glares at the guy behind the counter, who has generously covered his wasabi cone with chocolate sprinkles. She's already made her way to sit outside on one of the wooden benches and he follows her after handing over a couple of bills and telling them to keep the change.
The sunlight is dappled through the trees of the leafy street, casting golden spots all over the sidewalk, and making her dress look like it has pale yellow polka dots. He sits down next to her, trying to keep a respectable distance between them, as if they're on their first date and he's been ordered by her father to keep his hands off her. But she's having none of it, shifting closer to eradicate all trace of air between the sides of their bodies. She swaps her ice cream to her other hand and loops her arm through his.
"You gonna eat that ice cream or what?"
He jolts out of his reverie and takes a massive chunk off the cone. It's almost minty and the chocolate sprinkles make it taste decadently sweet. And then the wasabi kicks in and his eyes nearly bulge right out of their sockets.
"What the hell?!" he exclaims, around his mouthful of fiery frozen death. He flaps his free hand around, jostling her arm as she grips his bicep. She's still giggling when he's finally calmed down, or at least enough to form coherent thoughts again.
"Maybe it's the sort of ice cream you should lick..." she suggests, her face turned towards him with a lascivious grin plastered all over it.
And there goes all hope of ever forming coherent thoughts ever.
Or, maybe not.
"I can think of something else I'd rather lick..." he whispers as he leans towards her, closing the distance to the stray sprinkle on her top lip until he darts his tongue out and catches the tip of her nose. She startles, going still as he retreats to a safe distance, anticipating a counter-attack with the scrunch of his face.
A few seconds later he hears a distinctly squelchy thud, and his eyes startle open as retribution is dealt, meted out in a rush by her sudden movement towards him, or as he rather belatedly realises, towards his lips.
His reaction to the onslaught is instinctive. The first thing to go is the ice cream, which makes a familiar squelchy thud as it hits the sidewalk. His arms wind around her, pulling her closer to him as she grips his neck to keep him there with one hand and runs the other hand through his soft hair. His tongue darts out again and finds the sprinkle he wasn't aiming for earlier and he can't help but grin because he's kissing her. She is kissing him, the woman of his dreams is making out with him on a bench outside an ice cream shop and if this isn't the best way of being cheered up ever he doesn't want to hear about it.
"What's so funny, Rick?" she whispers onto his grinning lips.
"You make me so happy." She runs her hands through his hair and they kiss again and again and again, and he almost wishes to never wake up from this beautiful, glorious dream.
"This is a nightmare."
The hiss of her voice through the hidden microphone made Ryan's headphones squawk and he swore as he rubbed at his ears. Esposito gave him a sympathetic shrug, knowing there was nothing to be said that would improve their situation. There wasn't a whole lot they could do from the observation van anyway.
This undercover operation was not going well, and Beckett was becoming irate. It was only a matter of time before she officially went crazy, and because her partners knew it they were electing to stay in the van, out of her way. She was tired, it was too hot and noisy in the club, and her mind was beginning to drift to where she'd rather be – in bed with a good book.
Preferably one of his books. Any of them would do, she loved them all. Anything that wasn't spending the night dancing, sweating, pretending to drink beer, and being eyed up by almost every male and at least half the females in the club, because of course she'd had to wear a scandalously tiny red dress with stupidly high heels that made her legs go on forever. She felt dirty from having so many eyes on her, never mind the occasional stray hand that had gone a-wandering.
"Do you wanna call it, Beckett?" Esposito's voice came through her earbud. She knew he was right, they should just stop, come back another night. And, God, it was so tempting to just say yes. Detective Beckett knew she shouldn't, but Kate had reached the end of her tether. The affirmative was on the tip of her tongue when there was a commotion at a booth near the back that caught her eye.
"No, he's here," Beckett replied, and she began to dance her way across the room to get a better look. "I've got a visual. Be ready to move in 2 minutes."
Within ninety seconds, the boys were ready and moving past the bouncers into the club to back Beckett up as she made a beeline for the perp, completely ignoring his security detail. There would be no more dicking around, no more time wasted. This guy had ordered the deaths of two innocent people and she had had enough of following him around, waiting for the right moment to arrest him.
When she got him into the box this smug bastard would rue the day he came between Detective Kate Beckett and Richard Castle.
A/N: I started a new job this week, so writing kind of went out the window, sorry. But, this chapter tips me over 20,000 words! Yay!