I apologise to any Americans I've offended with my coloUrful language. I can't write any other way any more, I'm afraid. I also apologise to LittleMissCastle if she recognises any of her ideas in here. She's brilliant.

And I apologise to you, dear reader, that this chapter wasn't up last week. I've been involved in a musical production which finished on Saturday; up until then I'd been flat out for about ten days.

They sat on the sofa, beside each other, savouring the coffee of Kate's childhood memories. Small gestures between Kate and Rick belied the quality and nature their relationship, and Jim didn't ignore them, but smiled slightly to himself as they listened to Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald.

"This reminds me so much of when you'd pick me up from school on your way home from work, then we'd sit here, listening to music. You'd have coffee, and I'd have a cup of cocoa," Kate reminisced, and Jim smiled at the memory. "Then mum would quietly slip into the house, and start singing quietly along... that was fun. I used to wish that'd never end."

Jim nodded, his expression tightening at the mention of his late wife, and Kate's expression and body language showed that the memory of her mother was affecting her, too. Rick slid a comforting arm around Kate, pulling her close, and she lay her head on his shoulder, slipping an arm around him, too.

"After she died, I used to imagine her walking in that door, wearing her huge, radiant smile, and just hugging me again, one more time. Those days were my better days. I wouldn't have anything to drink because I knew that she didn't want me to. But after a few months, I finally realised that I'd never feel my wife's arms around me, and it hurt to know that she'd never be able to do it again."

Kate and Rick both watched Jim as he remembered his days of pain and his battle with alcohol.

"It was hard, in the end, trying to turn myself around. When Katie made detective, I cleaned up my act, and I pulled myself together. I finally accepted that I'd never be with my Johanna again. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done."

There was a pause, then Jim stood and collected their now-empty coffee cups, and excused himself to clean them. Kate also stood and excused herself to the bathroom, so Rick stood and followed Jim into the comfortable kitchen.

"Rick..."

"Yes, Jim?"

"Do you care for Katie?"

The unexpected question brought Rick up short. "I do, with all my heart. I'll never stop caring about her."

"Because the last time she started to look into Johanna's murder, I couldn't ... I couldn't take seeing her throwing her life away. And I didn't think to stop her doing it. I didn't think to stop her doing that. I cared too much, and not enough, Rick."

Jim's expression was sad in profile as Rick watched him putting the coffee cups into the sink, carefully, precisely.

"I need someone to be there this time. I can't stand beside her any more; I'm too old, too grey to keep up with her."

"You want me to stand with her?"

"She cares about you, too, and I don't think either of you could let what happened to her all those years ago happen to either of you. Promise me that, Rick," said Jim, his voice low and sharp.

"I've tried, Jim. I've tried many times. But she doesn't want anyone to help her. She barely trusts me —"

"And yet you are her partner, and her closest confidante, and from what I've seen of the both of you today, her lover," said Jim Beckett, insight penetrating like a knife. As Rick stood there, momentarily dumbfounded, Jim continued, "You need to protect her from herself if you care about her that much."

A phone rang. Rick's hand jumped to his jacket pocket, where he found the offending device, slid it free, and answered it.

"Castle."

"Uhh... did I get the wrong number?" asked a very confused Javier Esposito.

"I don't think so," said Castle, then froze, noting another quick hum from his supposedly empty jacket pocket, originating from, he found, another phone: _his_ phone. His writer's brain did the math, and came to the conclusion that he must be holding Kate's phone, and Esposito confirmed his suspicion when he continued.

"I'm fairly certain I dialled Beckett's number. I'll try again, then," said Esposito, then hung up.

Rick shook his head and turned, still holding both phones, to see Kate stepping through the doorframe, her slight smile illuminating the room, and contrasting the underlying tension between the two men.

"So that's where my phone went!" Kate said, looking relieved. "I was holding it when I came in, and I thought I'd dropped it, and apparently I did."

"Yeah. Into my pocket," said Rick, just as it rang again, and he handed it to her.

"Beckett," she said, answering it.

"Yo, Beckett, we've got something on this whole Operation Eclectics thing. And it's big."

"What did you find?"

"That it's big. It's really big."

"So how did it take this long to find it?"

"Because it's also invisible. Military invisible."

Kate was silent for a few seconds, thinking.

"We've got a lead on who your mystery man is, too, so you better get back here ASAP."

"Okay, I'll be there in about an hour," said Kate.

"Copy that, boss," said Esposito, and rung off.

They made their excuses to Jim, about ten minutes later, and headed out. Kate's arm rested comfortably around Rick as they left, although Rick did manage to have the quick chat with Jim that he had been meaning to get in for a long while.

Kate gently stroked the back of Rick's neck as he drove back into Manhattan, back to his loft. Almost the entire time, he wore a satisfied smile.

"What's the face for?" asked Kate.

"Just what your dad told me."

"What did he say?"

"Nothing of interest."

"Then why are you grinning like a lunatic?" Kate's eyes narrowed.

"Oh, my dear detective, you'll find out eventually," said Rick, as they turned down into the basement carpark under Rick's loft.

"You want to play that game, eh?" asked Kate, as they pulled into a parking space, and as soon as Rick stopped the engine, she pressed her lips to his, curling her hands around him, holding him tightly. When they broke apart, their breathing was ragged, discordant.

"What was that for?" asked Rick, breathless.

"Because you're a horrible tease. And … I love you."

"And I love you. Always."

"Always," whispered Kate, then kissed him again.

This time, Rick pulled away.

"If you want to be back at the precinct in about half an hour, you'd better not start this yet."

"Oh, but what if I don't want to be back at the precinct yet?" purred Kate, seductively, and that was the last straw for Rick, who threw his door open, picked her up bodily, closed the car, and carried her to the lift, all the while, kissing her passionately.

What little of Rick's mind was not yet distracted mused that it was going to be a long day.

An hour later, freshly showered and changed, both of them stepped through the doors of the 12th precinct, both of them barely suppressing huge grins. Their fingers twined together as they rode the lift up to the homicide squadroom, and they stepped out together, into the momentary calm of the lunch hour.

Rick made a beeline for the break room, where he started the coffee machine, while Kate slowly walked back to her desk, to find out what had popped while she had been out.

"Yo, Beckett, what happened back there?" asked Esposito, first to the scene as usual, followed by Ryan, who was jotting a few notes down on his notepad.

"Nothing. Why?"

"Because you two have a shouting match to wake the dead, then you guys storm out of here? And you show up —" Ryan glanced at his watch "— four hours later, both looking well-rested and happy?"

"We just had a little disagreement," began Kate, before Esposito cut her off, his tone cutting and sarcastic.

"A little disagreement?"

"Yes. A little disagreement. Now what's so important that you drag me away from reconciling with Castle?"

Ryan quirked an eyebrow, as Esposito began. "We ran your boy as far back as we could. We got no hits. Then Ryan, here, gets the bright idea to do a quick look over the military codename databases, and the name Eclectics is allocated to a high-security political section. No other details."

Kate sighed.

"No hits on your dragon. We also did gang and narc searches for dealers or gangs that have anything to do with dragons; both came back negative, although gang squad has a lot of stuff to search through so they're doing a deep search now," said Esposito, leafing through some files.

Kate jotted a few things onto the sticky-note pad on her desk, admiring the way that the cheap ripoffs flaked off the stack.

Ryan picked up the story. "But your Smith guy, well, he's a real piece of work."

"Let me guess. Doesn't exist, face doesn't match."

"Correct. But as soon as we found this was military, we sent what information we had to one of my pals at Homeland Security, who turned up a few leads on him. Tech back-aged his face and ran it through old DMV pictures from cross-country, and we got twenty-two hits, which we filtered down to about four."

Castle, who had slid up to the group by this point holding two coffees, chimed in, "Why don't you do track his phone?"

He offered one of the mugs to Beckett, who accepted it, took a sip, and smiled appreciatively.

"Because we can't. The calls were untraceable."

"That's impossible. There's got to be routing somewhere."

"Sure. Doesn't mean it was logged, and by the look of it, it was deliberately erased. Tech went and had a look, and the best they could get is that it's not interstate; it didn't switch in from the interstate lines."

"Voice recognition?"

"We have idea what your man's voice sounds like," said Esposito, sounding as if he were speaking to the hard-of-thinking. Castle persisted.

"But I do. I've spoken to him. I could identify his voice."

Ryan and Esposito exchanged glances, then both ran back to their desks, eager to get onto their task.

"Thank you for the coffee, Castle ... Rick."

"Always, Beckett ... Kate," Rick said, mimicking Kate's momentary hesitation, and somehow, he managed to say the name with a huskiness in his voice that made her lust after him again.

With a frustrated sigh, she swept her hair back, and went to work, reading the files that had piled up on her desk over the last few hours.