Long time no update. Castle just got added to Amazon Prime, and I found my notes for ideas for new chapters when I moved. Hope you like it.

What if Rick had taken Martha's advice.

"You should kiss that girl while you're both young."

He knew his mother had meant it as a joke, after all, she'd been reminiscing at the time, but he couldn't get the thought out of his head.

He wondered how Beckett would react. She might be ok with it, or she might shoot him, he really wasn't sure. But he'd also learnt that she was a bit of a romantic, so he was leaning slightly more towards she'd be ok with it. It didn't have to mean anything, hell he could just kiss her on the cheek and that would cover it.

"Damn it mother," he muttered to himself, "Putting this stupid idea in my head. There is no way this can end well but now I can't stop thinking about it."

He wrung his hands and tossed and turned in bed, trying to get comfortable enough to go to sleep. But his mind just wouldn't stop going over all the possibilities. After thirty more minutes of trying to get to sleep, he gave up and moved to his office. Since he couldn't sleep he might as well try and get some writing done.

He booted up his laptop then went and grabbed a drink from the kitchen before sitting down, opening a new word document, and just writing what came to him. He liked doing this occasionally, just writing what came to him, not having to think about how it would fit in with the plot of his books. Sometimes it would give him something that could be moulded to fit, but usually, it just gave him a nice outlet.

Typing for a few hours tired him out enough that he closed the lid of his laptop and then fell onto the bed, instantly falling asleep.

When he woke up the following morning he wandered back to his laptop and sat down to read what he'd written. He came to the end and shook his head, it was basically a sappy love story. He had written it about Nicki and Jameson but he'd slipped up and, obviously tired, had written Kate a few times.

"Damn it," he muttered.

"What's up dad?" Alexis asked from the doorway.

Rick slammed the lid of the laptop down and tried not to look guilty.

"Porn again dad?" Alexis teased.

"Of course not," Rick replied quickly, "You just startled me was all."

"Mmhmm," Alexis hummed, not believing him.

"So what are you up to today pumpkin?" Rick asked, changing the subject.

Alexis shrugged. "I've got school and then Paige was asking if we could hang out afterwards."

"Sounds like a great idea," Rick said, "Are you coming here or going to hers?"

"Here is that's ok dad," Alexis said, "She wants to get away from her parents for a bit. Sounds like they're being a bit overprotective at the moment."

"Ok," Rick agreed, "But I hope it's nothing serious."

"Just teenage stuff," Alexis assured him. "How about you," she asked, "What have you got planned for today?"

"Thought I might head over to the precinct," Rick said nonchalantly.

"But there isn't a case," Alexis pointed out. "You closed your last one and Kate hasn't called with a new one."

Rick shrugged. "I thought I'd head over anyway."

"Ok dad, but don't make a nuisance of yourself."

"Promise."

Alexis left and Rick debated what to do with the story on his laptop, really he should delete it, it revealed far too much about what was going on in his head, and if anyone else read it they might get the wrong idea. "I'll do it later," he decided as he got up and headed to have a shower.

An hour later he was walking onto the homicide floor with a cup of coffee in each hand. Kate was sat at her desk and he made a beeline for her.

"Detective," he said in greeting, handing over the coffee.

"Castle," Kate replied, taking the drink, "What are you doing here?"

"I was in the neighbourhood," he lied, "Thought you'd appreciate some coffee."

Kate smiled at him as she took a drink and then sighed happily. "Thank you," she said, "I needed that." She looked at him expectantly. "So it was nice to see you, the coffee is even nicer, but I have work to do. Shouldn't you be going?"

"I thought it could help out," Rick offered.

"You never do paperwork," Kate said suspiciously, "What's got into you?"

Rick shifted uncomfortably under her gaze. "Castle," Kate pushed.

"I wanted to talk to you about something," Rick finally broke.

"Ok, shoot," Kate said, leaning back in her seat and cupping the coffee in both hands.

Rick looked around and shook his head. "Not here," he said.

Kate frowned at him, she wondered what the hell had gotten into her partner.

"Ok," she said, "So where do you want to go?"

Rick looked around again and saw that the interrogation room was empty. "Observation," he offered.

Kate got up and headed towards the room, Rick taking a few seconds to get up and follow after her.

"So Castle," Kate said, shutting the door behind them, "What's up?"

"So my mother said something last night that got me thinking," he started.

"That had to hurt," Kate teased.

Rick smiled at her then continued to speak. "She started on Facebook," he said, "And reconnected with an old flame, her high school prom date."

"That's sweet," Kate said, not seeing where this was going but willing to let Rick carry on to find out.

"Anyway, she's been having a few seconds thoughts about what's going on. But that's neither here nor there, my actual point is she said something and I want to run it past you."

"Shoot Castle," Kate invited.

Rick looked at her then looked away, then looked back and opened his mouth to speak before snapping it shut again. Kate stayed quiet, letting him work it out, and becoming curious about what Rick could possibly want to talk to her about.

"So, you don't have to do anything with what I'm about to say," Rick waffled, "But after mom said what she said I couldn't stop thinking about it and wanted to run it past you." Kate frowned slightly but didn't say anything, giving Rick the space to carry on. "I don't want this to affect us," he rambled on, "I really enjoy working with you and I think we've become friends over that time, and I really don't want to ruin that."

He stopped again and looked at Kate. "Actually, never mind, this was stupid." He headed for the door. "I'll leave you to your day detective."

Kate reached past him and put a hand on the door, preventing Rick from opening it. "What's going on with you Castle?" she asked, "I put up with a lot from you and I'm pretty sure there's nothing you can say right now that will change our friendship."

Rick took a breath. "She said I should just kiss the girl and get it over with while we were both young," he said so quickly the words came out all at once.

Kate blinked a few times, computing what he had said. "Ok," she said slowly, "Seems like good advice. So why haven't you kissed the girl? You're not one to shy away from that sort of thing normally."

Rick blinked a few times. "Umm because I don't know how'd she feel about it," he confessed, looking her up and down, "And I don't want to rock the boat."

Kate shrugged. "Sometimes the boat needs rocking." She thought for a moment. "And why would you kissing a girl affect our partnership?" She then shrugged again. "Doesn't matter. I'm not your girlfriend Castle, I'm just your friend. I don't care if you kiss someone."

Rick tilted his head to one side and looked at Kate. He realised that she hadn't realised he was talking about her, and going back over what he had said he realised why, he'd never specifically said that it was Kate he wanted to kiss.

He decided to push his luck. "So you think I should just kiss her?"

"I mean yeah," Kate said, "Well maybe you should check first, you don't want to force anyone into anything, that can get you into a lot of trouble, but you sound like you're friends already so you could just ask and see what happens."

"So you think I should just ask her if I can kiss her and then go from there?" he asked.

"Sure," Kate said, "What's the worst she could say? No?"

Rick chuckled. "So you think I should just go up to them and say, do you mind if I kiss you? Just like that?"

Kate shrugged. "Sure, why not."

Rick debated if what he was about to do was a good idea but then decided to throw caution to the wind. He moved his head closer to Kate's and said, in a soft voice, "Kate, would you mind if I kissed you?"

"Yeah just like that Castle," Kate said. She then looked at Rick and saw the sincerity in his eyes and froze. "Are you actually asking me?" she asked in a whisper.

"Um," Rick said, pulling away, "I didn't mean to make you feel uncomfortable."

"You're avoiding the question," Kate pointed out as Rick moved away from her. She followed him. "Where you asking me if you could kiss me?" she pressed.

Rick avoided her eyes and stayed silent. Kate moved closer, getting right into his personal space. "Do you want to kiss me Castle?" she asked, her voice barely a whisper.

She heard him swallow hard and his breathing deepen. She chewed the inside of her lip for a second before she decided to throw caution to the wind. "No Castle," she said, "I wouldn't mind if you kissed me."

She stayed where she was, she knew if she stepped away her nerve would break.

It took Rick a few seconds to realise what she had said but once he did he wrapped his arms around her waist, pulled her to stand in front of him, and pulled her into a bruising kiss.

The ferocity took Kate by surprise but she responded eagerly.

Rick was the first to pull away, breathing hard. "We need to stop," he muttered, "Anyone could walk in on us."

Kate nodded reluctantly and pulled away. She was also breathing hard, her chest heaving.

"Well that was different," Rick said, "Never done that with you before."

Kate couldn't help it, she laughed. "No we have not," she agreed. "I need to get back to work," she said, "But I want to talk with you about what happened here later, ok?"

Rick nodded then stopped her from leaving with a hand on her shoulder.

"I may have mussed you a little," he admitted, "So unless you want to go out there with your hair messed up which you know the boys will ask you awkward questions about, it might be worth straightening up a bit first."

"Thank you," Kate said as she smoothed her hair back down, using the window through to the integration room as a mirror. "I'll see you later ok," she said once she was done.

"Sure," Rick said, "Dinner, my treat."

"It's a date," Kate said with a laugh.

They left the room and Kate went back to her desk while Rick headed towards the lift, he had a date to plan.