Author's Note: This is the first of three chapters dealing with 2x6 "Vampire Weekend," which is one of my favorite episodes so I enjoyed getting to play with it and hope you all enjoy reading the result.

Then Came Love

Chapter 26

It was Halloween week so Kate had expected it to be a busy one but even so, she could not say she was happy to receive a call from Dispatch about a body found in the cemetery, of all places, on Wednesday evening after she'd had dinner and when she'd just started to contemplate changing into pajamas.

At least, she thought with a little twitch of her lips, Castle would no doubt appreciate the cemetery setting. As she'd expected, so it proved as Castle met her at the entrance to the cemetery already enthusing over the fall season with all its pleasures.

She hid a smile. She didn't think she'd ever met anyone–no, scratch that–she was sure she'd never met anyone who still retained so much of that childish sense of wonder and enthusiasm for everything, at least no one over the age of 10. It was kind of ridiculous in a grown man but oddly somehow endearing too.

She hoped the Sprout would inherit Castle's sense of wonder.

The thought made her blink. Except, yes, it was true. She might have become jaded and lost her own sense of wonder and possibility too many years ago and for her, it was the only way she could live, but for the Sprout, she wanted more than that. She wanted the Sprout to retain his or her innocence for as long as possible, wanted the Sprout to believe in happy endings and, yes, magic.

And luckily, she thought, with Castle around, there was little doubt he would do all he could to encourage such a thing.

"What?"

"Huh?" She was pulled back to reality by Castle's voice.

"You were looking at me a little oddly."

She felt herself flush. "Oh, uh, are you wearing suspenders?" she asked, grasping for the distraction. That wasn't usually part of his wardrobe.

He glanced down at himself. "Oh, yeah, I was trying on Halloween costumes."

She stopped. "Wait, you told me costumes were optional at this dinner." Castle had invited her to the loft for dinner on Sunday, Halloween night, of all days, because it was his mother's only available night now that she was in the middle of her show. He'd explained that now that he'd met her dad, he couldn't put off his mother's insistence that he invite Beckett over for a family dinner at the loft any longer and she'd agreed, not quite able to refuse after Castle had been so good about meeting her dad this past weekend. But she had made sure that he wasn't expecting her to show up in costume because that was something she didn't do.

"No," he contradicted airily, "I said costumes are optional for you but you are the exception."

"So you're actually going to sit down to dinner on Sunday wearing a costume."

He gave her a look of wide-eyed surprise as if eating a family dinner in costume was a perfectly normal adult thing to do. "What am I, a barbarian? Of course I am. I might not be throwing a party for Halloween this year like I usually do but I do have some standards."

She snorted a small laugh. Only Castle. "Of course. Why'd I even ask?" she wondered rhetorically.

He clicked his tongue against his cheek in mock disappointment. "I know, I thought you knew me better than that by now, Detective."

"Silly me, to keep expecting you might actually grow up," she retorted dryly.

"Growing up is over-rated," was his characteristic response but she nudged him, sobering, as Lanie–and the body–was coming into view.

"What's the story?" she asked.

Lanie gestured. "Take a look."

The instruction was unnecessary as Kate gaped for a moment at the body, that of a boy with what looked like an honest-to-god wooden stake impaling his chest.

Beside her, she heard Castle comment, "Ouch."

"Are you kidding me?" she demanded rhetorically. "Is that a stake in his heart?" And she thought she'd seen it all.

"Looks like Buffy's visiting the Big Apple," was Castle's helpful comment.

She rolled her eyes at him. "Except in Buffy, actual vampires become dust when she stakes them," she tossed back before going on, "Someone thought he was a vampire."

"Good one," Castle murmured but she ignored him.

"So did he," Lanie responded, pushing up his lip to reveal fangs. Because this case wasn't strange enough already. "And they're not plastic pop-ins either."

"Are you telling me those are real?"

"Or high-end veneers," was Lanie's pragmatic response.

"Or he's a vampire," was Castle's characteristic contribution.

She rolled her eyes again as the boys came up.

"No ID, no phone. We have our guys sweeping the area for anything they can find but so far, nada," Espo shrugged a little.

"No witnesses, either," Ryan chimed in.

"Looks like he struggled. I'm thinking he hit his head on this stone or someone knocked him in the head before he was stabbed," Lanie speculated.

"Who would go to the trouble of killing someone that way?" she wondered aloud. Especially because she was reasonably sure it could not be easy to drive a stake through someone's chest, no matter how it looked on Buffy.

"Lycans," Castle answered going on to explain the origins of the feud between Lycans and vampires with as much earnestness as if he were expounding on the origins of World War I, that is, until the quality of her and the boys' gazes registered and he trailed off.

Why had she thought he could be helpful again? But fortunately for her sanity, Castle (mostly) dropped the otherworldly explanations, proving that he could be helpful (at least a little oddly) when his contact, Dr. Barry Frank, the "Fang-master" (of all titles), was at least able to give them the victim's name and his home address. And then a visit to his apartment revealed that he was at the Barker School which was a potential lead to next-of-kin but first, the victim's landlady identified (well, sort of) someone they would definitely need to talk to.

But the moment it became clear that in order to find this mysterious girlfriend of the victim's, they were going to need to go to the coven's meeting that evening, Kate resigned herself to being benched, again, because there was no chance Montgomery would approve of her going to such a place, even with the boys.

"Looks like you're going on a field trip," she told the boys.

"Yeah, a little reminiscing with your ex," Espo jibed Ryan (who wasn't going to hear the end of the teasing about this ex of his for a long while.)

Ryan shot Espo a dirty look but only nodded. "See you tomorrow, Beckett."

In his usual chair, Castle was conspicuously silent but just one look at him and she could see that he was practically vibrating and she pursed her lips. Some part of her could not quite believe she was doing this, indulging Castle like this, but she couldn't seem to help it either. "Fine, Castle, you can go too," and then raised her voice slightly, "Hey, guys, wait up."

Castle emitted what could only be described as a squeal, clasping his fists to his mouth, as he leaped up out of his chair and she half-expected him to spin around in his glee. "You are the best partner ever," he declared exuberantly and he looked so grateful and so thrilled that for a crazy moment, she had the insane thought that he might actually kiss her, a little jolt of heat sizzling through her.

But then he was rushing off to join the boys. (It was a good thing that he hadn't kissed her, really, because she'd already decided she was not going to be kissing Castle again and they were in the middle of the bullpen and everything.)

Espo shot her an odd look. "Really, Beckett?"

"You know I'd never hear the end of it if he didn't get to go," she managed to reason, which was true enough but also not her real reason. Castle was just… cute when he got so excited and, well, she kind of liked seeing it. What, she was being a good friend. She turned to Castle. "Behave, Castle."

Predictably, the admonishment had no effect on Castle whatsoever. "This is going to be awesome."

"I got shotgun," Ryan inserted before glancing back at her. "We'll let you know what we find out in the morning, Beckett."

"Yeah, see you," she responded but hid a little smile at Ryan's naiveté. Ryan might expect that she would first hear about whatever they found out from the victim's girlfriend tomorrow when they reported to her but she fully expected that Castle would be so giddy over the visit to the coven's meeting that he would call her tonight to exclaim.

Well over an hour later, when Kate was at home and finally getting ready for bed, she glanced at her ringing phone and hid a smile. Yeah, she'd called it.

She made a point of removing all traces of amusement from her voice as she answered, "Hey, Castle."

"You should have seen this place!" came Castle's excited voice over the phone, foregoing a greeting in his own excitement. Like the man-child that he was.

She briefly pressed a hand to her mouth to hold back a laugh, managing to sound blandly curious, "Did you catch the killer?"

"Oh, well, no, but–" he stopped and belatedly seemed to remember that it was after 10 p.m.. "Wait, it's late and you should be getting your rest. I didn't wake you up or anything, did I? Sorry, I didn't even think–I just got excited."

"No, really? I would never have guessed," she said dryly.

He had the grace to give a sheepish laugh and she could picture the look on his face. "Touché. I'll let you go, this can wait–"

"You might as well tell me now, Castle," she interrupted. "I'm clearly still awake and we're already talking so just tell me what you guys learned."

"Oh, well, the girlfriend, Vixen-whatever-her-name-is, didn't do it; she was pretty clearly shocked at the news that Crow–Matthew–is dead, although the boys are going to run her alibi anyway. But she did point us to another suspect, Morgan Lockerby, who's–oh, but wait, I should tell you from the beginning, help me keep the whole thing straight."

"I'd appreciate that," she responded mildly and leaned back against her pillow.

"So we got to the address, a private club held in a basement," he began, "and it was wild. When Crow told the landlady that Vixen was famous, he wasn't kidding because the place was packed. I had no idea there were so many sanguinarians around."

"Sanguinarians?" she repeated the odd word.

"Yeah, those who like to drink blood. It comes from the Latin word–"

"I recognize the root word," she told him. "I did go to school, remember?"

She heard his smile in his voice. "Right, my bad. Anyway, there were a lot of them there…" And so he went on, telling the story in the fashion of a true raconteur, his voice slipping into his storytelling tone.

She settled back on her bed and if she found her eyes drifting closed here and there, not because she was sleepy but simply to better visualize the picture his words were painting and, fine, to better enjoy the sound of his voice–he really was a natural at telling stories–well, he didn't need to know that. (Although she did wonder if he'd ever considered recording audiobooks, say, of his own books because she would listen to those.)

"So, that's all we learned. The boys are going to start looking into Daemon and Morgan Lockerby in the morning," he finished the story and as he'd said, the upshot–what she should really be paying attention to, she reminded herself, was that they had a couple new leads.

"Okay, thanks. Although, wait, I don't suppose Vixen mentioned this Daemon's last name?"

"She said she didn't know it."

"Oh, the boys are going to be thrilled about trying to find him then," she commented dryly.

"They're detectives, let them detect," she could hear his shrug in his voice. "Besides, might as well test them to see if they're up to the job for whenever you start maternity leave, right?"

She flushed, stupidly, at his mention of maternity leave but managed to tease, "I'll be sure to tell the boys you thought it was a great idea that they be the ones to try to find Daemon using what might be an invented alias and nothing else."

"Beckett!" he whined. "Are you trying to get me shot?"

She bit her lip to keep from laughing. "I can't be held responsible for what the boys do," she responded with faux innocence.

"You're mean."

"I thought you knew that about me by now."

"I guess I did but somehow, I stick around anyway."

"Well, you are a little crazy," she quipped. "And on that note, it's late. We'll go back to work on the case in the morning."

"Bright and early," he agreed. "I wouldn't miss this case for anything."

She opened her mouth to remind him that a boy was actually dead, but then stopped. For all Castle's outward silliness, she knew him well enough by now to know that deep down, he had just as much respect for the victims as she did. It was one of the things she liked about his books too, after all, not that he knew that. "Well, good night, Castle."

"Til tomorrow. Oh, and Beckett?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks."

"For what?"

"For…" she could almost hear his small shrug in his voice, "picking up the phone, I guess, letting me talk."

She felt herself flush. "Yeah, well, if you exploded from sheer excitement, that would mean a lot of paperwork for me," she demurred.

He rewarded the rather lame quip with a generous laugh. "Thanks anyway. See you tomorrow."

"Night, Castle."

She ended the call with a smile, a smile that lingered even as she finished her nightly ablutions and then slid into bed.

The next day, she had to face the hardest part of her job and talk to the victim's family, his devastated parents and his younger sister, for once glad that Castle had the tact to busy himself elsewhere.

She sighed as she left the Freemans and thought, not for the first time, that she really wished she could drink coffee, less for the energy boost and more for the sheer comfort of it.

She pushed the thought aside as Espo came up to give her the rundown on what he'd managed to find out about Morgan Lockerby so far, which wasn't much unfortunately, but she used it as an excuse to interrupt Castle in his… work. Or what was supposed to be work, since he was leaning back at his leisure in one of the conference rooms, his feet propped up on the table, as he read the victim's graphic novel.

She felt a little spurt of amusement break through her little cloud of depression after talking to the family. Trust Castle to find a way to help with the case in a way that was the most like fun.

She headed to the break room, deliberately perching on the table so as to knock his legs off it. "Hot on the case, Castle?"

"On the case of a good read," he answered enthusiastically. "It's actually not bad."

"Esposito found Morgan Lockerby," she told him and showed him the file they'd started on him, making Castle straighten up.

"You mean Morlock," he exclaimed and flipped to a page in the graphic novel to show her what he meant.

It was her turn to come to attention, standing and bending over his shoulder to look at the two images, the actual photograph and the victim's striking sketch. "Vixen was right."

For once, she was focused on the case but then heard Castle's voice almost in her ear. "You smell like cherries."

She jolted a little and turned her head, realizing belatedly how close they were, their mouths just inches apart. Oh. Closer than they'd been in weeks–she swore she could feel their breaths mingling and she could certainly detect his familiar scent–before she forgot how to breathe. Of their own volition, her eyes darted down to his lips, the lips she remembered kissing and–

"Hey, we got a hit on–"

She jerked upright at the (unwelcome) sound of Ryan's voice, so fast that she felt momentarily light-headed and had to grasp the closest thing–which turned out to be Castle's shoulder–for a moment in order to steady herself. Both the boys entered the conference room and she felt color creep into her cheeks as she met their interested gazes, belatedly realizing her hand was still on Castle's shoulder and almost snatched it back as if she'd been burned. Damn it.

"Are we interrupting something?" Espo asked rather pointedly.

"Yes," Castle muttered at the same moment as she blurted out, "No. I don't know." And then could have kicked herself. She hadn't meant to say that, had only intended a denial, not… that. (She tried, again, to tell herself it was only hormones messing with her but it seemed with every time, the excuse became less convincing–not that it had ever been very convincing–because the mere fact that she was pregnant in order to send her hormones into overdrive was proof that her physical attraction to Castle wasn't new. So, fine, maybe it wasn't only hormones. But she couldn't think about this now.)

"Okay," Espo drew the word out with teasing skepticism and she narrowed her eyes at him before she straightened up. "What have you got?" she asked with forced briskness.

Espo gave her a look while Ryan answered, "The prints on the stake in Crow's heart came back," and passed over the file with the results.

She glanced at the sheet and then passed it to Castle, sternly not looking at him. "Vixen was right. Morgan Lockerby." So they had the probable killer's identity, except…

"Only thing is, he's one of the great un-findables," Espo interjected. "No address, no phone, no hits."

"Maybe not," Castle denied. "Here." He flipped to another page in the graphic novel, laying it out on the table. "Recognize that corner?"

She looked and yes, she did. She'd been a cop in the city for long enough to be able to recognize a lot of the more noticeable parts of town (especially those that were on the shady side).

"I think Crow may have drawn us a road map to Morlock," Castle speculated.

"It can't hurt to check it out at least," she turned to leave the conference room.

"Wait, Beckett, you're not allowed to go."

Not allowed?! She stopped and shot Castle a look that should have flayed the paint off the walls.

Castle didn't so much as blink, let alone flinch, only added in hurried explanation (or expiation), "Montgomery's orders, remember."

"Castle's right," Espo corroborated and she directed a look at him and was marginally comforted, or something, at the way Espo visibly squared his shoulders and braced himself to face her. At least, she still had some of her usual intimidating manner. (She couldn't decide if she found it irritating or admirable that Castle, apparently, wasn't intimidated by her.) "You don't have to come; we've got this."

Damn it, now was when Espo decided to take Castle's side and against her? Fine, yes, she knew Montgomery had said she couldn't go out into the field to pursue a suspect but this time, in this case– "We don't even know that Morgan Lockerby's actually there," she reasoned. "It's just a guess based on having no other leads and you'll be there too. And really, in all likelihood, the only living things we're likely to encounter are rats."

"Well, if Morlock's an actual vampire, he's not a living thing," Castle spoke up oh-so-helpfully. She shot him a look. That was his contribution now? He had the sense to shut his mouth.

She looked back at the boys and saw that, ridiculous as it sounded, Castle's absurd comment might have somehow helped tip the balance, if only because it had emphasized to Espo the fact that they were going off of a graphic novel about a vampire so obviously not exactly what any cop would consider a solid lead. It was speculation.

Espo nodded after a long moment and she hid her flare of triumph. It helped too that when they glanced at the Captain's office, it was to find that Montgomery had stepped out, was likely caught up in some meeting. And really, in all probability, if they found nothing, that would be that and there'd be no reason for Montgomery to quibble.

Later, Kate thought that she really ought to have learned better than to tempt fate or something like that by thinking such a thing (she might have been spending too much time with Castle) because they did find Lockerby and there was a crazy scene and she had to draw her gun as they arrested Lockerby, with Ryan being the one to cuff Lockerby. Who might be an actual vampire.

And did she mention that Castle got bitten by Lockerby? She tamped down the little niggle of… concern, not worry, with the thought that if Castle was well enough to whine, which he certainly was, then he couldn't be in any real danger. Although she did direct Espo to call Lanie and have her meet them at the precinct–to look over Castle (and Lockerby too) and hid her relief when Lanie tartly informed Castle he would be fine and had nothing to worry about, from porphyria or otherwise.

Castle wasn't quite done pouting. "You wanna bite me, you buy me dinner."

Put that way… she wouldn't mind taking a nibble of Castle and then… She opened her lips to make a quip about keeping that in mind for future reference but then stopped–no, she couldn't say that. Their banter might often have a flirtatious undertone to it but there was a line they generally didn't cross in their teasing and anyway, they weren't even alone right now. She cleared her throat instead.

"Detective Beckett!"

The Captain's authoritative tone cut straight across the room and effectively wiped her brain from any thought of teasing or flirtation or anything else.

Oh, right, Montgomery. She steeled herself as she turned and walked towards Montgomery's office. "Yes, sir?"

Montgomery nodded for her to close his office door behind her, which she did, before staying standing. The Captain eyed her pointedly for a long moment and she tried not to squirm or fidget or worse, blurt out an apology or explanation or excuse.

"So, Beckett," he finally began, "I hear there's been an arrest in the Matthew Freeman case–and that you were at the scene when it happened."

"I was, sir," she tried to sound calmly matter-of-fact only to rather ruin it by adding, "But I'm fine, not a scratch on me."

"I see." He paused for another excruciating moment before going on with a deliberately measured tone, "And yet I seem to recall telling you that you were not permitted to go out into the field for the final collar."

"You did, sir, but we didn't know there was going to be an arrest made." She paused but Montgomery only studied her in silence so she went on, trying not to sound defensive, "We were only acting on a hunch, sir. It was a long shot and it just happened to pan out in this case but we had no actual reason to think Morgan Lockerby would be there."

There was another pause that went on long enough that she was about a centimeter away from blurting out a continued litany of reasons, not to say excuses, about the improbability of using a graphic novel as evidence but–thankfully–before she actually did so, Montgomery spoke.

"So I've already been told."

She relaxed fractionally.

He shook his head a little. "Beckett, what am I going to do with you?" he murmured mostly under his breath.

She didn't respond to the rhetorical question and he looked up to meet her eyes, his expression easing into that of the more easygoing Captain she was more familiar with. "I'll let it go this time, Beckett, because I get that it was a long shot but consider this a warning. I don't want to bench you completely any earlier than I have to, got that?"

"Yes, sir, understood."

His expression softened a little. "Just think about that baby you're carrying."

He meant it to be comforting or something, she knew that, but instead she felt a sharp pang of guilt. Because of course he was right; she should be thinking more about the baby rather than her ability to do her job and oh god, what kind of mother would that make her if she was so bad at keeping the Sprout in mind now? What kind of mother cared more about her job than her baby?

"Yes, sir," was all she managed to say.

He nodded and waved a dismissive hand. "Get back to work, Beckett."

She nodded and turned to leave his office, battling back the waves of self-doubt and worry. It was still early, right? She hadn't actually done anything to harm the Sprout. Her eyes fell on Castle, once again sitting in his usual chair, and abruptly remembered what he'd said in her doctor's appointment for the first ultrasound, his assurance that she could do this, that she was–how had he put it?–frighteningly competent. He, at least, didn't seem to have any doubt in her ability to do this and somehow, the thought helped, maybe because she knew how good a dad he already was. And anyway, she tried to push the thought aside, she was at work now; this wasn't the time to freak out about her impending motherhood.

He glanced up at her as she neared, his eyes scanning her expression, but he only commented, "If you're going to be calling the public defender to let them know they have a new client, maybe mention that the insanity plea might be appropriate."

She sat down in her chair, understanding that what he meant by his speculation about her calling the public defender was an oblique way of questioning if she was still working on this case or if Montgomery had benched her for real. He did know her by now, knew her too well to outright express concern. And she answered his unspoken question. "It's fine, Montgomery said he'd let it go this time. I will have to call up the PD's office but first, I think I'll call up the state psychiatrist, see if he can make any sense of Morlock's ramblings."

He eyed her for a moment. "Are you not sure he did it?"

Until that moment, she hadn't been but at his question, putting it into words, she realized, "You know, I'm not sure I am," she answered slowly. She wasn't quite sure why since the evidence was there but… "Contrary to what books and movies might say, a true homicidal maniac who kills because he thinks the victim is the devil or whatever doesn't actually happen much in real life. It's not impossible but statistically speaking…"

Her words were interrupted as her phone rang and she answered it to the news about the results of the stains on the stake.

And Castle proved himself to be helpful again with his familiarity with India ink and the guess that Daemon had been the letterer on the victim's graphic novel.

Which also added to her doubts about Morgan Lockerby's guilt because where would Lockerby have gotten his hands on India ink?

Castle excused himself to go carve pumpkins.

"See you tomorrow."

"Tomorrow," he confirmed, "even if I have been wounded in the line of duty," he added, puffing up his chest as he struck a pose of exaggerated heroism, like George Washington crossing the Delaware or something, although the pose was belied by his also clapping a hand to his neck.

She hid a smile. Yeah, Castle had to be fine if he was striking poses and generally being his usual dramatic self. "Such a hero," she drawled.

"I'm glad you think so," he pretended to preen. "I really am quite something."

"You're something, all right," she responded dryly.

He nodded. "I'll take that as a compliment. Night, Beckett."

"Night, Castle." She bent her head over her paperwork to hide a smile. He was irrepressible. And she really was glad to have him around, not only because of how helpful he could be but because he made her work, her life, more fun. And how could she risk losing that, this ease with him, by pursuing anything more than the friendship, partnership, they already had?

~To be continued…~

A/N 2: Thank you, as always, to all readers and reviewers.