By the twenty-fourth of January, he and Alexis had their phone-schedule down to a fine science, and they spent most of their phone-dates catching up on the days' events and each time, there was news of someone else finding out about their relationship back in New York City. Since it was his luck of the draw on a bitter winter morning, Shane was tagged for a Homicide on Grovner Street in the West Village and the Homicide detectives assigned were none other than Ryan and Esposito. He was still a little irritated with them over their comments from the poker night when they found out and while he hadn't been unfriendly towards them, they definitely knew they had some work to do to get back in his good graces.

'Victim is Francois Robataille and looks like someone beat his ass to death and dumped him down the fire-escape,' he said as they approached. 'Body's too cold to get an accurate reading so you'll have to let me get him checked in and warmed up before I can give you a time of death. What I can tell you is only half these bruises are from his tumble down so it looks like cause of death is blunt force trauma.'

'Who found him?' Ryan asked, kicking his mental ass as he heard the distance in Shane's voice. He knew they'd fucked up royally at the card-game that night, and didn't blame Shane in the slightest for the tinge of frostiness in his voice.

'Busboy coming out for his morning smoke from the restaurant across the alley, recognized him from his daily huevos rancheros and grapefruit juice.'

'He touch him?'

'Took a pulse and couldn't find one so he dialed nine-one-one. Best thing is to let me get this guy thawed to give you more conclusive results for the case file.'

Ryan nodded, making notes. 'Alright, give us a shout when you've got something.'

Shane nodded curtly, but when he turned to pack up his field kit, he saw Esposito had manoeuvred behind him so the detectives were essentially sandwiching him in. 'Something can I help you with?'

'Look, dude, we're sorry, really.' It had occurred to Esposito that they were trying to earn Shane's forgiveness for being utter assholes about his new girlfriend and they had yet to actually give him an apology. 'It just took us a little by surprise, that's all.'

'We've worked with Castle for the last eight years, bro, we've watched Alexis grow up, it's sometimes hard to think of her as...' Ryan swallowed tightly. 'A woman like our wives, you know?'

'That couldn't have been mentioned a few weeks ago?' Shane laughed. 'Apology accepted, guys. You can grill me while you wait for your corpse-sicle to thaw back at the morgue.'

'Victim is confirmed through fingerprints as Francois Robataille, street-name Frankie Feelgood, age forty-six at time of death. Due to exposure, on-scene liver-temperature could not be taken with an accurate reading.'

Shane spoke into his Audiovox as he adjusted the heat-lamps thawing the dead miscreant on his slab as he measured the liver temp and fed a time of death into his notes. He continued his external visual exam, recording his observations and concluding the preliminary exam and scheduling his autopsy for after lunch after blood tests and other tissue tests were run. He'd just turned off his recording device when the two-headed monster swung into the room.

'Shane, what can you tell us about Mr Freeze?' Esposito asked.

'Nice bro,' Ryan complimented him, feeding the birds.

'He died sometime between nine and ten last night, and wasn't disturbed until the busboy found him this morning. I got him under the scope and I can confirm the cause of death was blunt-force trauma. He was struck with something like a baseball bat or a long pipe of some kind to the back, shoulders and chest and judging from the size of the bruises I found with the scopes his heart wouldn't have held up under that kind of strain. Toxicology and tissue biopsies are still being run, I'll have them when I finish the autopsy this afternoon.'

'So our boy gets into some rough stuff, maybe he's got a customer with a big brother telling him to back off?' Ryan theorized.

'Could be. I can tell you as well it took at least three different people to make that many bruises, so could be you're looking for couple of dudes or chicks.'

'While we're on the subject of chicks...' Esposito trailed off with a devilish grin. 'You and Lexis, man, that's just right out of left field.'

'How's it been with her back in England?' Ryan asked.

'Not as much fun as when she was here, that's for damn sure.' Shane peeled off his gloves, went to his work-bench for a bottle of water. 'It's the time difference that's the killer. Not so bad when I'm on days but swing and night shift is a pain in the ass.'

His cellphone rang and he saw it was Alexis calling on Skype, making him grin. 'Hold on a minute.' He answered the call and grinned. 'Hey, Lex, you just caught me with the two-headed monster and their fresh body.'

'Let me say hi.'

Shane moved his phone over so she could see the men and saw them left their hands in a friendly wave. 'You're calling early,' he commented.

'We have a classroom in-service on my usual lunch break, I'm on my lunch now. Who's the body?'

'Downtown drug-dealer. Call me later, alright?'

'Okay. See you later, Detectives.'

By the time Alexis returned home, she was ready to fall into bed and sleep the rest of the night, but she had to prepare for the next day when they were in the group counseling practicums. She warmed the soup Jacqui had put into a Mason jar and neatly labeled 'Alexis Dinner, mangez-mangez' and remembered that she would be tucking into bed just when Shane was getting off work, which cheered her immensely.

Once her notes were prepared and she had her clothes ready for in the clinic, she slipped into a warm bath to soak away the headache of a long day, then decided since it was almost midnight, it was time to call him.

He answered and was just as fatigued looking as she felt but the twinkle in his eyes was just for her. 'Hey, sweetie, how was the rest of your day?'

'Long, I'm tucked into bed and saying goodnight.'

'Shame I'm not there to keep you warm. What kind of pjs you wearing?'

Alexis flung back the covers to show off the warm flannel top and pants that she'd received from Poppy Jim at Christmas. 'Sexy, huh?'

'Yeah, because I get to fantasize about what's underneath. I miss you.'

'I miss you too. You would have loved working the case today, it was fantastic. Drug-dealer gets what's coming to him.'

'That does sound fun.'

'Don't let me keep you up, sweetie, you need sleep too.' Shane yawned. 'I'm getting a bite to eat and calling it a night, I'm on-call tonight. I'll talk to you tomorrow on your lunch-time, okay?'

'Sounds great. Bye.'

Alexis ended the call and because she wanted to say good-night to her family too, she dialed the loft's Skype line. When Beckett answered, she could hear the murmur of voices in the background. 'Hi, Alexis, what's going on?'

'Not much, just got off the phone with...are you alone or are there people there?'

'Too late, Lexie-kins.' Lanie sauntered into frame with a beverage in hand, Meredeth and Honey-Milk on either side of her. 'We all know about your new man, emphasis on the word man.'

'I know, I know,' Alexis started; Beckett could tell right away that her girl was braced for a battle, so she did the instinctive thing and jumped in.

'Hey, Lex, no one here is going to judge.'

'We're just in the mood for a little girl talk,' Meredeth piped up.

'Yeah, one lucky lady to another,' Lanie added with a warm smile. 'So how about it, girlfriend, you ready to be one of us now and share all the dirty details about Shane?'

'Oh, I don't know, I think there's a few details that might make Mom's head blow up.'

As if he could sense the possibility of awkwardness, RJ began to fuss for a snack through his baby monitor and Beckett grinned at Alexis on the webcam. 'Look at that, Lex, RJ's not even two months old and he has your back.'

'Okay, now that your mama's gone up to the nursery, spill it,' Lanie said, sipping her drink with relish once Beckett had disappeared upstairs.

'What do you want to know?'

'First date, like first real date, not just some kind-of accidental coffee thing,' Meredeth said. 'Dinner, a movie, what?'

Alexis filled them in on the details, eliciting salacious 'ooohs' from the other women when she let slip a few comments on how good a kisser Shane was. 'Anyways, I better run, I-' she tried to fob off, but was cut off by all the women shaking their heads.

'Oh, no, no, sweetness.' Lanie shook her head. 'You just admitted to all of us you're lovin' up Shane Weaver and he's quite the dreamboat, so you're going to fill us in with a lot more important details. One mos-def springs to mind.'

'Lanie! You're married! And you work with him!'

'Doesn't stop us all from being nosy,' Meredeth pointed out, 'especially considering some of the things that have happened in our love-lives.'

'As much fun as it would be, it's almost midnight here and I have to be up early tomorrow so I do have to bid you goodnight.'

The women made pouty faces but relented and when Alexis ended the call, powered down her laptop for the night, she couldn't help but laugh. She knew the women liked to share gossip about their men, but up until tonight, she had no idea just how many details they actually did share. It made her wonder how the men worked together without permanent blushes.

R&R&Enjoy