Compared to the speed with which I cranked out the first bunch of chapters, I know there's been a huge delay for this one. Sorry. I did publish a couple of one-shots since the last chapter of this story, "Open Your Eyes" and "How Do I Love Thee", so you can check those out if you haven't already. And I also learned to never publish a chapter on a Castle Monday, especially on a Castle season finale Monday. And thanks to IrrationalObsessions, who kind of put into words what crossed my mind; even though the context was different, chapter 13 could have been the natural unseen extension of what happened after the hand-holding that we saw in the finale (well, maybe with chapter 12 first and then 13).

This chapter contains extremely minor spoilers for a few things from season 2, but really, if you haven't seen season 2 yet, what are you doing reading this fic? ;)

Disclaimer: I have no rights to the characters.

She knew it was early, from the way the barest hint of the morning sun shone into the room. But she was a naturally early riser, and they'd gone to bed the night before at some insanely early hour anyway.

Although they certainly hadn't gone to sleep as soon as they'd gone to bed, now had they? Thinking of what had transpired since the evening before, she couldn't help but smile as she turned her head slightly to look at the still-unconscious man next to her. Oh, the memories of last night...

Even with the scenario of them being locked in a room together against their will, it was perfect. For them, it was perfect.

Her mind flitted back over the last few days, starting with Martha and how they'd both been locked here, with her so stunned to find him handcuffed to the bed.

The handcuffs. 'Next time, without the tiger,' she remembered saying to him all of those months ago. And they did have handcuffs now...

If Rick had been awake, he would have been a little bit intrigued and more than a little bit worried to see the evil grin that bloomed on her face at the thought.

With catlike grace, she slid over to the edge of the bed and silently opened the drawer on the nightstand where they'd stashed the handcuffs. She took care to quietly lift them out so they wouldn't clank against each other. She was counting on the element of surprise, so minimizing extraneous noise was key.

She moved his arms carefully, ever so slowly into position. She knew the cuffs would make noise when she locked them, so she got everything into place and then, thanks to her occupational familiarity with the cuffs, snapped them all closed in a flash.

She was right; the sound did startle Rick, but surprisingly, he didn't wake up fully. But Kate was nothing if not resourceful, so she set out to wake her lover using whatever feminine methods of persuasion that she could. And as she trailed wet kisses over his chest, and lower, she felt him give a slight jerk, which was followed by a sleepy-sounding, "Kate?"

"Were you expecting someone else?" she asked lazily as she raised over him and saw that yes, his eyes were now indeed open, and he looked as though, in his sleep-muddled state, he was still trying to get his brain wrapped around the fact that Kate—a very naked Kate—was wrapped around him, in a bed, torturing him with sensuous kisses in the shadows of the early morning light. He stared at her with a shell-shocked look for two long beats, and then she saw the moment when he remembered the night before. She knew he remembered because there was just no way he could hide that grin of male pride and extreme satisfaction. She leaned down and touched her lips to his, once again enjoying kissing the smirk off of his face. After she pulled away, she gave him a sultry, "Good morning."

"Ah, that it is, my de—" his words stopped abruptly as he went to embrace her, but found that he couldn't. His eyes immediately went to find out what was wrong with his arms, and when he registered the handcuffs around his right wrist, tethering him to the bed for the second time in three days, his jaw dropped in shock. His head whipped around to look at his left wrist, where he found the mirror image of his right wrist dilemma. Then, ever so slowly, he turned his head again to let his gaze fall on the woman who was still poised above him, who was now grinning coyly.

"Well, there's no tiger this time," she told him with a shrug.

And seeing the grin on her face, seeing the lust in her eyes, and knowing he was trapped, by her, he wasn't sure that his chances of survival would be any greater this time. "Oh, my God," was all he could think to say. As she dipped her head to kiss him, and she started running her hands all over his body, and started moving above him, he was wondering if he was going to survive. He thought she was hot before, but that was nothing compared to this. But he didn't really care, because at that point, he realized that if he was going to die, there couldn't possibly be a better way to go.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

He didn't die. But afterwards, he wouldn't have minded a little bit of oxygen.

"Can you get these things...off my wrists now? I need to...relax," he told her amidst still-labored breathing, "and I can't do that when I'm...shackled like this."

"Hey, I did most of the work!"

"No argument there," he agreed, his breathing still labored, "but I'd still like my hands free. And then we're going to talk about that little trick you pulled on me."

"What, you didn't enjoy yourself?" she asked with mock disappointment.

"I think you know the answer to that," he said dryly. "Just uncuff me, okay? I might have to go to the bathroom, you know."

With those words of his, she realized she didn't really want to find out if he was bluffing or not, so she raised up and unlocked the cuffs after grabbing the key from the nightstand. She left the cuffs shackled to the bed frame after she released his wrists, and then she tossed the key back on the nightstand before settling back down by him. With his arms now free, he wasted no time in turning onto his side and throwing an arm over her midsection, gathering her close as he nuzzled his face in her hair. "Much better," he whispered, his hot breath giving her a little shiver. "While I certainly enjoyed your...attention, shall we say, I do like the ability to touch you the way I want."

"Balance?" she inquired, once again feeling sleepy.

"Exactly. Good things are good, but too much of a good thing ceases to be good anymore."

She knew what he meant, but she couldn't help smiling. "You must be tired if that was the best you could do. I mean, that was just so...not Rick Castle."

"Yeah, yeah. I do need some sleep, I guess. Someone woke me up and then I was rather...restrained. And then she made me put out for her! Can you believe it? It was like I was her sex toy or something," he said with a smirk.

She felt like rolling her eyes. "And you loved every minute of it."

She felt the chuckle in his chest where she laid against him as he confirmed, "You got that right."

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

The next time she awoke, the room was considerably brighter, letting her know that it was now later in the day. And along with the room being brighter, as she opened her eyes and moved around she noticed that the bed was also considerably colder, and emptier. Sitting up and looking around, she wondered where Castle had gone to. It couldn't be far, she thought as her eyes took in the still-closed door.

Then her nose registered the aroma of something cooking from their cooking closet. Was that...pancakes? At the smell, she realized how hungry she was. It had been a while since she'd burned that many calories overnight, she thought with a smile as she got out of bed.

As her feet hit the floor, she stepped on the forgotten red nightgown from the night before. She very briefly considered putting it back on, but discarded that thought as she realized that the pancakes would probably become a fire hazard quite quickly once he saw her in that gown again. Scrambling into the bathroom, she grabbed one of Castle's t-shirts that had been hanging on one of the hooks. It was actually the same t-shirt that he'd pulled over her head the morning before when he'd been too tempted by the green nightgown.

She padded softly into the closet, where she found him wearing just a pair of boxers and very happily flipping pancakes while softly whistling some kind of tune. As she recognized it, she smiled as she wrapped her arms around him from behind. "A little Foreigner this morning?"

He was so engrossed in his thoughts and whistling and pancake-flipping that he didn't even have any sense that she was there until he felt her embrace. He looked over his shoulder at her with a surprised look that quickly gave way to a genuine smile. "Morning, beautiful," he told her, leaning back to give her a kiss. He felt like grinning more when she turned her face up and met his lips with no hesitation. Well, that was easy, he thought. A lot more comfortable than yesterday.

Then he remembered her previous question...Foreigner? "Huh?" he asked.

"Foreigner...your whistling? Really, Castle...'Hot Blooded'? That's the song you picked? I personally had you pegged more for a Billy Joel man, myself."

He looked momentarily confused as he thought back to the tune that he'd been unconsciously whistling. Then he shrugged as he turned around to scoop a pancake off the griddle and flip it onto a plate. "After last night, my dear detective, and certainly after this morning, I guess I must have thought it fit." He shot a raised eyebrow and a grin back at her before he turned to flip another pancake, letting her know exactly what he was remembering. "Although I have to say now that I think about it, maybe 'Prisoner of Love' would be a better song for us right now, with us being, you know, locked in this room."

"Prisoner of...you mean, David Bowie?" she asked as she let go of him and reached down to the small refrigerator, grabbing the carton of orange juice.

"No, Perry Como. The really old song; it was written...oh, sometime around the Great Depression, I think."

"I'm not sure I know that one. Can you look...oh, no, you can't."

"Can't what?"

"I was going to say you can look it up on your phone, but we don't have internet." She grabbed a couple of cups and poured the orange juice. "So when do you think we'll be getting out of here, anyway? We're going to have to go back to work sometime."

He nodded, staring off into space for a minute as he thought of something. "And I really want a nice meal. Steak. Maybe a good seafood dish. Something that can't be cooked on an electric griddle in a closet. But I don't know," he answered as he plated the rest of the pancakes, then picked up both plates in his hands. "I suppose we could use Hello Kitty to call Alexis and ask her, but after she trapped me in here, I almost don't want to give her the satisfaction of asking. I bet she's reallllllly wondering why we haven't called her yet." He looked like he was enjoying the thought of Alexis being preoccupied with him not bugging her about being let out, mainly because it was the one form of revenge that he was capable of meting out right then.

She took the cups of orange juice and the syrup and started to walk back to the bedroom. When she reached their usual dining place, she turned around to find him in the doorway, just staring at her with a satisfied smirk on his face. "What?" she asked.

"You. I just really like you in that t-shirt of mine. I mean, I like you out of it better, but I really like you in it a lot more than I like me in it now."

She just rolled her eyes at him and sat down on the floor. Stretching her legs out in front of her, she held out her hands for one of the plates. After he gave her the plate, he continued to stare at her long, bare legs for a few extended moments, before snapping himself out of it and saying 'whew' with a little head-shake.

She caught his appreciative look at her bare legs. Whereas before yesterday she might have glared at him (or worse), now things were different. Now she could fully appreciate those looks that he gave her, or those comments that he made about her. Now it wasn't an annoyance. Now, she realized, she welcomed his appreciation for not only her body, but for her mind or just generally...her. They didn't have to dance around things anymore. It still took some getting used to, though, and while her first inclination was to roll her eyes or call him on it, her second, stronger inclination now was to merely look at him, and wait for him to look at her face. And when he did, she raised her eyebrow at him while giving him a sultry glare, and then bent one of those long legs, teasing him by pointing her toes and trailing that foot up the opposite calf before letting it relax straight again. His gaze was drawn from her face back to her legs when she started to move them, and once she was relaxed again, she saw him swallow thickly.

She decided to take some pity on him. "Sit down, Rick. And let's eat." She looked down at the plate he was handing her, and something jumped out of her subconscious. "Pancakes," she said as she picked up her fork.

He looked at her questioningly from where he was now sitting on the floor side of her. "You just now noticed that I made pancakes? I have to say, you're not very quick this morning, Beckett." And he punctuated that statement by shoving a bite of syrup-covered pancake in his mouth.

She swatted him lightly. "No, I could smell what you made even before I saw them. It was just that I just remembered something Esposito said a while ago."

His brows furrowed. "We just spent the night together—quite an amazing night, I might add—and you're thinking about Esposito?"

"That's sort of my point. Remember right before my place blew up and you stayed on my couch? And you cooked pancakes the next morning when Dunn left us the body? Esposito made a comment about pancakes being an edible way to say 'thanks for last night' or something like that."

He looked from her face, to the pancakes, back to her face again. When he spoke, it was in a calm, serious tone. "Kate, mere pancakes cannot express my gratitude, or my feelings about last night." And then before she could answer, he leaned over and gave her a syrup-flavored kiss. It was just a light one, but once again, it was one of those things that she still hadn't learned to expect quite so soon after this change in their relationship, so it caught her off-guard.

She still responded unconsciously, because she was discovering that it was hard not to respond when he kissed her, whether she was prepared for it or not. And soon, the thought of eating the pancakes was forgotten as they deepened the kiss. It was only supposed to be a little sign of affection, but when outward shows of affection had been stifled as long as theirs had been, even little signs of affection could quickly ignite into full-blown passion very quickly. She turned toward him and blindly raised up on her knees, leaning into him. Then, once again, she felt like she needed to be closer to him, right now. And he evidently thought the same thing. She reached one leg over his lap suddenly, straddling him, but as he tugged her against him, she surged at him, just a bit off-balance, and tried to catch herself against his shoulder. But they both forgot that she was still holding her fork from when she was preparing to eat her breakfast.

The tines on the fork were sharp.

She didn't know how sharp. But Castle did, and he found out when instead of simply catching herself on his shoulder with her hand, the force of his tug ended up driving the tines of the fork into his upper arm near his shoulder as she tried to catch herself against him.

They broke the kiss—or rather, he broke the kiss—when he cried out, "Holy hell, Kate!" He looked quickly at his shoulder as she pulled back. "Ow! My God, woman, look what you did! Are you insane? It's bleeding!" He spoke in a loud, high pitched voice as he looked at the fork sticking out of his shoulder. Then he looked at her in astonishment, finding that her face matched his, and then back at his shoulder again.

"Oh, Rick...God..." she stammered. "I'm sorry...I...I'll get..."

She was about to move off of his lap to see if there were some kind of first-aid supplies in the bathroom when he pinned her with his gaze and made her stop her movements. "You stabbed me with a fork!" he said incredulously.

She was still straddling his lap, and he was taking some deep breaths while looking alternately at her and the fork in his shoulder. And then, despite her shock at hurting him, she was able to take in the big picture of him sitting there, wearing only a pair of boxers, hair mussed from sleep (and other things) the night before, with a fork sticking out of his shoulder. And the scene just hit her all of a sudden, and she couldn't hold back the giggles, even though she tried.

His gaze settled on her. "You're laughing?" he asked.

"Castle, you have a...fork...sticking out of your shoulder," she managed to get out among snickers.

"Should I take it out?" he asked, sounding just a little whiny.

"Castle, really." She raised her eyebrow at him and tried for a stern look, although it was hard when he still had a fork sticking out of his shoulder and she was trying not to laugh. "Of course you should pull it out. Unless you want me to take a picture of it or something first."

A picture of a fork in his shoulder? "No," he answered quickly.

"Okay." Now she did move off his lap, and standing up, told him, "Come on, let's go into the bathroom and try to clean that up. And get you de-forked," she said with another snicker.

"Oh, sure," he told her as he gingerly tried to raise up too. "Stab me with a fork and then laugh at me."

"You did pull me, so it wasn't all my fault."

"Why were you holding a fork anyway?" But as soon as the words were out of his mouth, they both turned back to see the plates of pancakes sitting on the floor, rapidly cooling. They looked at each other, and then he said, "Well, there's always the microwave to warm them up."

She finished leading him into the bathroom as she said, "But I'm getting a different fork. There's no way I'm eating off the fork that was just stuck in your shoulder."

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

The captives had been in the room for a few days, so the conspirators figured that it was time to let them out. They didn't know what had transpired, although they had hopes that they'd been able to get things worked out once and for all. Alexis knew, from the other detectives, that Beckett (and presumably her dad) had to be back to work the next day, so since it was late enough in the morning already, she figured they'd want some of the day out of the room. Everyone was waiting downstairs, having sent her upstairs to knock on the door and alert the two captives to the fact that they were being released. The guys figured that Alexis would be the least likely to be killed on sight when she opened the door, and she got majority vote.

She walked hesitantly up to the door. She reached up to knock but froze just as she heard an exclamation from the inside of the room. Her jaw dropped as she heard her dad's voice: "Ow! My God, woman, look what you did! Are you insane? It's bleeding!"

Bleeding? Her dad was hurt? Beckett hurt him?

She retreated away from the door and quietly ran back down the stairs. The look on her face must have clued in the others that something was wrong. "What's wrong, Little Castle?" Esposito asked.

"Dad...he...I was going to knock on the door, and then I hear Dad shout at Beckett and ask her if she was insane and look what she did and then he said something was bleeding!"

"Bleeding? Maybe..." Ryan said, trying to think of some explanation. He looked at Esposito, and they shared a look that said 'Oh, crap. Has Beckett really lost it this time?' Maybe her breaking point was being locked in the same room with him for a few days. Maybe they were wrong about them working out their differences.

But they didn't want to face that thought, or certainly voice it out loud when the possible victim's daughter was right there.

Lanie, who had been silent up until now, said, "Listen, I'm sure there's nothing wrong. They're probably just going back and forth with each other like they do all the time. Maybe your dad just...oh, stubbed his toe or something, and Kate was telling him not to be a baby." Her voice was calm, but she did shoot a look at the guys, as if to say that she hoped she was right. And she didn't even address the fact that it sounded like Kate intentionally did something to him. "Uh, okay. Let's do this. I don't think any of us want to be around anymore when they get out, right?" She looked around and saw several nods. "Good. Alexis, you go up and unlock the door, and then run back down here and we'll leave. After we're gone, you can send a text to that cute little phone and tell them that the door is unlocked. Then they can calm down before they see us, right?"

"You guys will come back with me later?" Alexis asked worriedly. "I mean, we're all in this together. You can't bail on me now, especially when my dad might be hurt or something."

Lanie saved the day by pointing out the obvious. "Alexis, remember, you haven't gotten one single call from their emergency phone, so you know things can't be that bad. Not one, single call. If Kate were really trying to murder your dad, he would have called by now, right?"

Put like that, Alexis felt better. She thought back to how Kate was during the hostage standoff in the bank, and she knew that the person she saw that day would never do anything to harm her dad. "Okay," she finally admitted, nodding. "Right."

"So go up there and unlock that door, then we'll get out of here," Lanie told her with an encouraging smile.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

"Ow! It stings!"

"Castle, don't be a baby."

"Hey, you stab me, you don't get to call me a baby," he pouted.

"And I have to buy you dinner, right?" He looked at her questioningly, but still grimaced comically because of the slight sting of the peroxide. "Or is that only for vampire bites?" she asked with a smirk.

Ah, he remembered the 'vampire' bite. "I'll take dinner too, but once we get out of here." And then, after raking his eyes down her t-shirt clad body, he added, "And you have to wear something slinky."

"I can do that." She raised up to give him a kiss. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to stab you with a fork." It was still funny, but she really didn't mean to injure him, even a little.

"I'm going to have to get silverware that isn't quite as sharp," he mused.

"At least it wasn't that deep."

"Deep enough!"

"Castle, it was only a millimeter or two."

"It broke my skin! And it was stuck in there!" he argued, his flair for the dramatic showing through.

"A paper cut breaks skin too." She gave him another kiss. "Come on. We've been cleaning it for ten or fifteen minutes by now. I don't even think a hospital would clean it that long. Let's go see if we can salvage your pancakes. I'm hungry." She pushed herself off of the vanity where she'd been leaning, grabbed his hand, and led him back to the bedroom.

And when they left the bathroom and went back into the bedroom, neither of them knew that they were, essentially, free now. The door was now unlocked, and the Hello Kitty phone on the dresser now had a message on it telling them that the door was open.

But they didn't know that.

Neither of them even thought to try the door, or happened to check the phone. It never occurred to them that they would be freed during the time they were in the bathroom.

And they just warmed their pancakes, and ate them amidst stolen kisses and looks and a little bit of chiding about forks in shoulders, never knowing that they could now just very easily walk out the door if they wanted to.

That's it! Long one, my longest yet for this story. If you're still reading it, I hope you enjoyed it. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Have a great day!